Original subtitles

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Tonight on "Unsolved Mysteries."

ROBERT STACK: A 14-year-old girl awakens hog

tied in her own bedroom with her entire home

viciously ransacked.

She tells police she has no memory of an attack or even

of her own identity.

What happened to Sarah Powell?

[music playing]

For Harvey McCloud's, life as a cab driver

was routine and uneventful until the day he

was hijacked by one of his fares,

turned into a human time bomb, and ordered to rob a bank.

[music playing]

And we'll take you to Egypt, an ancient land

of mystery and intrigue.

For centuries, the immense treasures of the pharaohs

lay buried in the Valley of the Kings.

But when the tomb of King Tut was opened in 1922,

was a deadly curse unleashed on those

who trespassed upon his grave.

Join me for this intriguing and compelling addition

of "Unsolved Mysteries."

[music playing]

Egypt, the cradle of long-lost civilizations,

home to the magnificent pyramids,

the inscrutable Great Sphinx, giant statues

of once-powerful pharaohs, truly,

a land of intrigue and mystery.

Buried beneath the shifting sands

in the Valley of the Kings lay secrets, the hidden tombs

of ancient rulers, their bodies mummified and surrounded

by the golden treasures meant to accompany

them to the afterlife, treasures that have proven irresistible.

[music playing]

By the end of the 19th century, nearly every tomb in the Valley

of the Kings had been picked clean,

riches carried away by both archeologists and thieves.

Nevertheless, Howard Carter, a self-taught British

Egyptologist, was sure there was one

more tomb, that of a little-known pharaoh named

Tutankhamen.

He had no idea of the discovery of King Tut's

final resting place would unleash one of the most

sensational legends of the 20th century, the legend

of the mummy's curse.

[music playing]

By the fall of 1922, Howard Carter

had been searching for the tomb of King

Tutankhamen for five years.

His financial backer was George Herbert,

the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, an avid amateur archeologist.

Lord Carnarvon had already spent the modern equivalent

of half a million dollars and was about to give up.

Carter begged him to give it one last chance.

You and the workers are digging furiously.

ROBERT STACK: Carnarvon, a longtime devotee of the occult,

sought the advice of a noted psychic.

On the concourse.

You are deeply disturbed.

I see a hurricane of lightning.

And you, Lord Carnarvon, are standing alone.

Given what I have seen, I suggest

you make your excuses to the public and cancel the dig.

But that's impossible.

I must--

ROBERT STACK: Despite the warning,

the dig continued with spectacular results.

On November 26th, 1922, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon and Lady

Evelyn Herbert, Carnarvon's daughter,

descended an excavated staircase and stepped into history.

They came to a doorway sealed by the priests of the dead

long before Christ was born or Rome was built.

[hammering]

THOMAS HOVING: The first thing is this unbelievable feeling

of smelling and feeling.

In a whoosh, out comes this air of, what?

How many thousands of years, right?

And then he puts up this-- the light.

Can you see anything?

My God, marvelous!

Well, let me have a look.

Move over.

Move over.

THOMAS HOVING: Who could possibly describe what he sees,

you know, this helter skelter, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold.

Fantastic!

THOMAS HOVING: And one after the other look in.

And everybody's trying.

And there's no longer, your lordship.

And you know, let me have a look!

I paid for this! You know, get me in there.

And then, of course, they go in.

They went-- it was probably bananas.

They're suddenly in a place where

the last person had been in there was 3,600

whatever years before, right?

And spooky things went on.

They began to feel that--

I mean, they were no different than thieves.

ROBERT STACK: It who is the ultimate treasure trove,

a jumble of King Tut's favorite and most precious possessions,

the toys he had played with as a baby, the throne he had

ruled from as a king, the golden jars that

held his heart and lungs.

Such fine workmanship.

BOB BRIER: The Egyptians literally believed

you could take it with you.

Since the next world was going to be

a continuation of this world, you

would want your possessions.

You would want a bed.

You would want your utensils.

You would want your game board, so that you could play

your games that you enjoyed.

So the priest, upon death--

and your family would prepare.

It would be a group activity-- would

put whatever they thought you would need for the big journey.

ROBERT STACK: Word of the incredible

find flew around the world.

Crowds watched in astonishment as Howard Carter brought

each prize into the light.

Dignitaries and reporters from dozens of countries

converged on the Valley of the Kings, hungry for every detail.

Carter and Carnarvon became household names,

international celebrities.

Then slowly, a shadow began to eclipse their limelight.

It began with Howard Carter's pet bird.

[bird chirping]

In the days after the tomb was opened,

a cobra, the royal symbol of the Pharaohs,

attacked and killed a bird.

To some, the meaning was clear.

The king's serpent had struck a blow of vengeance

against the man who had desecrated Tutankhamen's grave.

The natives said, before winter was out, someone would die.

That someone was Lord Carnarvon.

Five months after the opening of the tomb,

Carnarvon died of blood poisoning in Cairo.

[dog howling]

Legend has it that, at that very moment in England,

Carnarvon's dog howled in anguish [thunder rumbling]

and fell dead.

In Cairo, all the lights went out,

plunging the city into blackness as dark

as a tomb of Tutankhamen.

Then a newspaper broke word of a curse written in hieroglyphs

in King Tut's tomb.

"They who enter this sacred tomb shall swift

be visited by wings of death."

BOB BRIER: They didn't have a concept of hell.

So you didn't go to a bad place if you die.

But if you went out of existence,

that was the worst thing that could happen.

And that's why the tomb was so crucial to assure that you

wouldn't go out of existence, that all the necessary parts

would be there, intact, ready to go again in the next world.

And this is why we see sometimes what you

call the curses inscriptions.

I discovered here at Giza at tomb

where the first curse inscription ever happened.

And listen what the man is saying in this tomb.

If anyone will disturb my tomb, he

will be eaten by a crocodile, lion and the hippo.

His wife lifted the same inscription.

And she added more--

and the scorpions and the snakes will eat you.

ROBERT STACK: Fear of the mummy's curse created a panic.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of "Sherlock Holmes,"

fueled the hysteria when he stated

it was probable that Lord Carnarvon had been

killed by a malevolent spirit.

Hundreds of tourists who had bought Egyptian antiquities

as souvenirs rushed to ship them back, including, in one

case, a mummy's severed arm.

The United States Congress even debated

passing a law banning Egyptian antiquities

from American museums.

Nevertheless, Howard Carter continued

clearing out the tomb of Tutankhamen, one

exquisite piece after another.

Even the Boy King's mummified body was carried out,

his wrappings removed, his bones laid bare.

Some say King Tut took his revenge.

Carnarvon's death was only the beginning.

Over the next two decades, the mummy's curse

was blamed for more than 20 deaths, including

that of Howard Carter himself.

Most Egyptologists, however, don't buy it.

THOMAS HOVING: This whole curse thing is total bunkum.

Lord Carnarvon gets this infection.

He goes to the hospital.

He dies.

All the lights go out in Cairo.

Now today, in your modern hotels,

there's a candle in every bathroom.

The lights go out in Cairo all the time, sporadically, right?

And the fact that the dog howls at the moment,

you know, distant in England the death, give me a break.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Historians scoff.

But the legend of the mummy's curse refuses to go away.

Believe it or not, modern science

has revealed that, in fact, a curse may be

real, though not supernatural.

In his diary, Howard Carter noted

that the tomb walls were covered with an odd pink film, perhaps

a fungus.

Though the ancient Egyptians probably didn't know it,

their sealed tombs may have harbored

a variety of bacteria and fungi, toxic killers

more deadly than any curse.

History records of circumstances made

Lord Carnarvon the perfect target

for these mysterious mycotoxins.

[music playing]

[insect buzzing]

Not long after the tomb was opened,

Carnarvon was bitten by a mosquito.

The bite became infected, perhaps by the mycotoxins.

When Carnarvon nicked himself shaving,

the infection became worse.

Carnarvon's fate was sealed.

DR. ZAHI HAWASS: This is why I advise my assistants

in my excavations.

I tell them, do not to shave while we are excavating.

Because if you shave, you have an open--

your beard is ready to take any germ.

And this is what happened, in my opinion,

to most of the cases that's happened during the excavations

and people said the curse of the Pharaohs.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: The treasures of Tutankhamen

had been exhibited and studied all over the world.

To say Egypt is to think King Tut.

If the Egyptians did, in fact, place a curse on their tombs,

perhaps they were wrong in doing so.

For King Tut, at least, being discovered

may have been the greatest possible blessing,

a guarantee of eternal life.

BOB BRIER: The Egyptians had a phrase,

to say the name of the dead is to make him live again.

And through the discovery of his tomb, he is the most famous

of all pharaohs.

And everybody is saying his name.

So in a sense, the discovery by Carter and Carnarvon

assures Tutankhamen's immortality

even in the Egyptian sense-- in the ancient Egyptian sense of,

to say his name is to make him live again.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Coming up, when her home is ransacked

by intruders, a young girl is stricken

by a bizarre case of amnesia.

But first, a cab driver is wired with explosives

and forced to participate in a wild robbery scheme.

[music playing]

65-year-old Harvey McCloud has been driving a cab in Modesto,

California for some 10 years.

He's seen just about everything there is to see.

So last January, Harvey wasn't the least bit surprised when

a man in a turban with a phony-looking beard

and mustache flagged him down.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: It just a normal fare.

He did have a turban.

But we have several of those in Modesto,

so I never thought anything about it.

I'm going up to Jamestown.

Hey, that's a 50-minute ride.

Oh, that'll run you $90.

I'll have to get that up front.

ROBERT STACK: The passenger spoke

in a coarse stage whisper.

He only had about half the fare.

But he said he could pick up the rest at his brother's

house, which was along the way.

We have to stop by my father's place and pick up the rest.

Stop by your brother's house?

All right.

Just keep driving east.

Take a left right up here.

Lit Road?

That's right.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: He said his brother lived on Lit Road.

So I didn't think too much about it until he told me to stop

after a couple of blocks.

And so I stopped the car and turned around.

And here that gun was staring me right in the nose.

Do exactly what I tell you.

Cut the wires to the radio transmitter

and get out that door.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: So I just basically thought

it was-- it was a robbery.

ROBERT STACK: But this was no ordinary robbery.

Harvey McCloud was about to be turned into a human time bomb.

The gunman chained a black metal box with a numeric keypad

on to Harvey's body.

He ran a wire lead around Harvey's neck

and clipped it shut.

Then he activated the black box.

[bomb beeps]

Now you do exactly as what i say and you'll be all right.

If you screw up at all, you'll die.

The bomb is remote-controlled.

Told All I have to do is dial a number on my cell phone

and you're gone.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: So I was terrified.

Oh, my mind was going 100 miles an hour.

And I was trying to figure out, how

am I going to get out of this?

ROBERT STACK: 10 minutes later, Harvey was on his way

back to Modesto.

You're going to rob a bank.

I want you to listen to me very carefully.

There's a second bomb in this box.

I want you to take his briefcase and the bomb into the bank.

I want you to leave the bomb in the bank when you're done.

Do you understand me?

Yup.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: The gunman got out of the cab across the street

from his intended target, Glendale Federal Bank.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: Well, he kept reminding

me that he could set this bomb off by his cellular telephone.

And me, I don't know that much about electronics.

But what you see, you know, in the papers and TV,

you could do about anything with electronics nowadays.

So I believed him.

I need to see the bank manager!

Oh, I'm sorry, sir. She's unavailable.

Please have a seat.

I need to see the bank manager now!

It's important. - Sir, excuse me.

Please, just have a seat.

I need to see the manager.

And it cannot wait.

I understand that, of course.

Is there a problem?

I need to see the manager. I need the manager!

I am.

May I help you?

DENISE HUTCHINSON: And I thought I

was dealing with an irate customer,

because he was agitated.

I proceeded to read the letter.

And about midway through, it-- it shocked me.

And it upset me.

Did you read this?

Look what he did to me.

I'm just a poor cab driver.

DENISE HUTCHINSON: I looked around the lobby,

saw how busy we were, saw how many customers were

in the bank, and saw my staff just doing what

they're supposed to be doing.

And it was very scary that, if I didn't

do the right thing, that all of us

could be blown up as a result of that.

ROBERT STACK: Denise Hutchinson decided to comply

with the gunman's orders.

She and another bank employee filled

the briefcase with the exact amount of money

demanded in the letter.

10.

ROBERT STACK: The robbery had gone according to plan,

with one exception.

Harvey performed a quiet act of heroism.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: Now I didn't want to see

innocent people get killed.

Well, I couldn't do much about me.

But I could at least take the bomb with me,

and to protect the other people in the bank, and--

and the bank itself too.

So I walked out the door with it.

ROBERT STACK: In the back of the cab,

Harvey found a neatly typed set of instructions.

First, he drove to a hardware store 15 minutes away.

He parked the cab, leaving behind the cash

and the car keys.

Then Harvey walked half a mile to a payphone.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: I was terrified, because the notes

on the instruction was that, don't try to flag

down an office or anything.

Because we've got people watching you all the time.

You know, every step you make, we've got people watching you.

ROBERT STACK: The instructions had specified

that the gunman would phone with directions

for dismantling the bomb.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: And I waited about five, 10 minutes.

And no call came in.

So I went over and happened to look at the telephone.

And it said, no incoming calls.

So then I knew something was up.

So then that's when I called my dispatcher

and told her what happened.

[sirens wailing]

ROBERT STACK: Within minutes, the police were on the scene

and the area was being evacuated.

Harvey McCloud sat alone in the eye of the storm.

HARVEY MCCLOUD: And they say I looked Calm

But I wasn't very calm inside.

I was shaking.

And my stomach was rolling.

And then I had all these things going through my mind.

And I just wondered how long that, uh, I was going

to be there in this old world.

[police radio chatter]

ROBERT STACK: Eventually, a county bomb squad

arrived and released Harvey from the device.

X-rays later determined that it was

a fake, as was the second bomb.

There's a package back here.

Let's get this roped off.

ROBERT STACK: The robbery had been perfectly executed.

The gunman got away undetected--

almost.

TODD IRINAGA: When the gunman was dropped off

across the street from the bank, there

were two witnesses that observed a male adult

that was unusually dressed.

They thought, at first, that since there

was a bank in close proximity that, possibly, someone

was having a birthday party and they

hired this person to do some type of gig

for the inside of the bank.

And the secondary thought that the male witness had was,

maybe this person had just robbed a bank.

When this person reached the van,

he took off a turban, as well as dark sunglasses,

and a fake beard and mustache, as well as his sweater,

which contained padding to make this person

look 25 to 30 pounds heavier.

[music playing]

Next, a teenage girl is found hog tied and hysterical

in her bedroom, the apparent victim

of a horrifying home invasion.

But the police wonder, how much is truth

and how much is fiction?

[music playing]

November 16th, 1993, a middle class home in Clearlake,

Texas, a suburb of Houston, approximately 9:30 AM.

[music playing]

SARAH POWELL: I remember this little dog was licking my face.

And that's what woke me up.

I tried to move.

And I realized that I was tied up.

I had no recollection of who I was or why I was tied up.

I tried to remember things.

But as soon as I started asking myself who I was

and what I was doing there, it upset me more.

I grabbed the phone cord with my teeth

and pulled it off the bed.

And that knocked the phone off the hook.

[phone dings]

And then I thought, who am I going to call?

I don't know anybody.

I don't even know where I'm at.

And then I looked down.

And I saw that there's a redial button.

Hello?

I need some help.

ROBERT STACK: When she hit to redial button with her tongue,

the girl reached the local post office.

One of the employees was a woman named Deborah Powell.

DEBORAH POWELL: They had a child on the phone.

The child said that everything in the room was pink

and there were teddy bears everywhere.

And I knew, at that point, that there-- there was no doubt

in my mind, it was Sarah.

ROBERT STACK: Sarah was Deborah's 14-year-old daughter.

She had stayed home sick from school.

By that time Deborah got to her house,

police were already on the scene.

What's going on? Is she all right?

We don't know.

We haven't gotten into the house yet.

[music playing]

Sarah?

DEBORAH POWELL: When we went into the house

and I saw it was ransacked, I knew she was in big trouble.

Sarah?

DEBORAH POWELL: I was scared.

I was frightened.

I didn't know what I was going to find.

Sarah! POLICE OFFICER: Ma'am.

Sarah!

[sighs]

Sarah?

Don't hurt me!

Sarah, honey, it's mommy.

It's-- what's wrong, honey?

It's mommy.

Don't hurt me.

Sarah, it's mommy.

It's mommy. - Don't hurt me.

I don't know you.

Don't hurt me.

DEBORAH POWELL: I didn't know what to think, what to do.

The more I tried to go toward her and help her,

she began to panic.

Get out of the room.

I'll take care of her.

Calm her down.

Sarah, honey, I'm going to be right here.

[crying]

It's all right, Sarah.

I'm a policeman.

Just let me get you out of this.

It'll just take a minute or two.

You know where you are?

I don't.

Where am I?

You're at home.

And you're safe now.

Can you give me a description of the people who did this to you?

Were they friends of yours?

I don't know.

You can't remember anything?

No.

WADE L. SMALLEY: My first impression

was, she was a teenager that was up to something

and probably did not want her parents to find

out what had happened that day.

[camera clicks]

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: The police had good reason to be suspicious.

Crime scene experts combed every inch of the house

and found no evidence of forced entry and no fingerprints.

Get the couch here.

ROBERT STACK: Most puzzling of all, it was a rainy day

and there was not a single wet or muddy footprint.

Did you get anything?

GARY GLADDEN: And we later learned that nothing was taken.

So these sort of things make us think that she's going to be

able to tell us what went on.

And, um, she will know who it is.

And we'll solve this as soon as Sarah is ready to deal with it.

What about before you were tied up?

Do you remember anything that happened earlier?

No.

Sarah, did you get yourself into some trouble here?

Is that why you're afraid to say anything to me?

I can't remember anything that happened.

I just know that I woke up all tied up.

SARAH POWELL: I could tell that they thought

I was holding something back.

I was trying as hard as I could.

They were showing me pictures and asked

me if I remembered my parents.

And, um, I couldn't remember anything.

My first impression was that she,

perhaps, had been threatened and she was afraid to say anything.

We had always been very close.

And I felt assured that, when the police

left, that this child was going to tell

me what really happened.

ROBERT STACK: However, even after the police left,

Sarah's story did not change.

DEBORAH POWELL: I even tried to trick Sarah to prove

that she really could remember.

And after three days of watching her--

a mother knows her child, her movements, her characteristics,

everything about her.

After three days, I knew something was wrong.

How about this, your first portrait?

Do you remember that green dress?

[music playing] - No.

ROBERT STACK: Deborah and her other daughter,

Helen, tried to jog Sarah's memory with family photos.

That's you and me in front of the house.

That's me and you?

Mm-hmm. It was after church.

We had changed clothes.

And we were gardening.

DEBORAH POWELL: I was extremely hurt

that my child didn't remember me and didn't connect with me.

And I tried very hard not to take it personally.

Good night, Sarah.

[music playing]

You know, honey, it's OK if you don't feel like hugging me.

You're obviously my mother.

You have all my baby stuff.

I mean, you've got to be my mother.

But I have no feelings for you.

It was like someone kidnapped my child.

Her body was there.

But she was not.

Her mind was not there.

I want you to write Sarah Powell for me.

I'll spell it for you, S-A-R-A-H. A

ROBERT STACK: At first, Sarah couldn't

remember how to write her name, tie her shoes,

or even brush her teeth.

After two months, however, she had

relearned most basic skills.

Sarah's school agreed to help set up a home study program.

You know, if we have any trouble

with the math, what I don't know, Hallie can help you with.

[music playing]

Sarah, honey, what is it?

[sarah struggling]

Sarah?

[sarah moaning]

Tell me.

What is it?

[sarah moaning]

Sarah, honey, what is it?

I need some help!

Somebody help!

DEBORAH POWELL: I was scared to death.

I didn't know what was happening.

I thought, what in the world?

This looks like a seizure.

Go get the school nurse!

[sarah moaning]

Won't you help me hold her down?

Just hold her arm.

Tell me, what is it?

[sarah moaning]

It's OK.

It's OK.

[sarah crying]

I didn't let them in.

I didn't let them in.

DEBORAH POWELL: And the only words out of her mouth

was, I didn't let them in.

And I remember thinking, maybe this is the memory coming back.

But I couldn't be sure.

ROBERT STACK: In fact, the memories had

returned in a terrifying rush.

It was 8:30 on the morning of the attack.

Sarah had just taken her medicine

and put her dog in the laundry room.

SARAH POWELL: I remembered walking up the stairs

when I heard a loud noise.

[banging]

So I started running up the stairs.

And I heard a second loud boom.

I had rounded the corner.

And I could see straight into my room.

That's when I saw people trying to break in the window.

[banging]

I saw the phone sitting on the bed.

So I just dove onto my bed and called my mom at work.

[banging]

[dial tone]

[heart beating]

ROBERT STACK: The front door was locked with a double dead bolt.

And Sarah couldn't find her keys.

[banging]

Then suddenly, it was quiet.

SARAH POWELL: I started sneaking up the stairs

and stood up slowly.

And I looked in my room.

And nobody was there.

[music playing]

[birds chirping]

[screaming]

Don't look up!

Stay right here.

Don't look up!

I promise. I won't.

Shut up!

OK, go downstairs and get the job done.

Someone help!

Shut up!

SARAH POWELL: He just pushed my head down on the bed

and put a pillow on my head.

I believe he is trying to kill me.

Now that's enough.

This ain't funny no more.

Shut up!

SARAH POWELL: I was at the point where I just couldn't

hold my breath anymore.

So I just went limp and pretended like I

was either passed out or dead.

[panting]

[panting]

When he realized that I had seen them, he got mad.

You just had to get a look, didn't you?

[crying]

What are you doing?

SARAH POWELL: And that's the last thing I remembered.

I remembered passing out.

And that's what I remembered in my first seizure.

And I thought that was all at the time.

But it turned out it wasn't.

I was angry.

I was shocked.

I couldn't believe that she had suffered such an ordeal.

And I had no idea at that time that I hadn't

even heard the worst of it.

ROBERT STACK: Those memories broke through

during a second flashback.

[door unlocking]

SARAH POWELL: I remembered waking up.

And nobody was in the room except for the smaller guy.

Why are you doing this to me?

Look, you just got to be quiet, OK?

And I'm going to tie you up.

But you'll be all right.

[knocking]

SARAH POWELL: The bigger guy, that's when he

walked in and saw us talking.

Oh, we're friends now?

You're not going to get that gun.

SARAH POWELL: The bigger guy, he had the gun.

We're such good friends now.

I'm sure you're going to love this.

He held it to my head.

[gun clicks]

Please dont!

Shut up!

Just shut up!

Calm down!

You shut up.

I know what I'm doing.

You tie her up.

You do a good job, because I'll be back to check on it.

SARAH POWELL: I know that they were downstairs

ransacking the house.

Because I could hear things falling to the floor.

I knew that there were girls, because they

were talking to each other.

The smaller guy unraveled the phone

cord once and plugged the phone back in and set it on the bed.

I think he felt sorry for me.

ROBERT STACK: Sarah was literally

in a life-threatening situation.

And then two things happened that probably

insulted her brain.

One was that she got hit in the head.

And the other one was that she was suffocated.

So that the combination of terror

and a psychological amnesia component and then the physical

insults, I think, combined to result in this unique amnesia

presentation.

We're all here for you.

We're all here.

And we're not going to leave.

ROBERT STACK: To date, Sarah has had nine apparent seizures,

including this one documented on videotape

at her grandparents' house.

With each episode, she appeared to recover more

shards of her shattered memory. - It's OK, Sarah.

We're all here for you.

[sarah struggling]

Can you describe those people to me?

ROBERT STACK: The police, however, were still skeptical.

The ones you see on the screen.

ROBERT STACK: They put Sarah under hypnosis to see

if her story would hold up.

There's a big guy with muscles.

DEBORAH POWELL: She told the same story

that she had always told.

And at that time, the hypnotist told me, in his opinion,

she was being truthful.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: But the police are still not sure.

Too many questions remain.

Who were the intruders?

Why did they ransack the house, yet steal nothing?

Why did they leave no evidence behind, not even

a fingerprint or a footprint?

And finally, does Sarah have any of the crucial answers?

GARY GLADDEN: We're not saying that,

uh, she's being untruthful.

We're saying we believe that she believes

she's telling the truth.

But we're searching for more facts.

We want to verify details.

And we want to see if she's still repressing something.

I believe that I've remembered the attack accurately.

I don't think there's anything else to remember.

It's always possible.

But, um, I really feel like everything is here.

And, um, I'm ready to, uh, maybe see if I can get some answers

and find out why this all happened.

ROBERT STACK: Over the last three years,

Sarah has gradually recovered the precious memories

that connect her to her family.

Once again, Sarah knows and loves her mother,

her father and her sister.

But she will never be the same.

SARAH POWELL: I think I'm completely recovered.

But there are still a few things,

just like having nightmares.

I still have nightmares.

And, um, you know, there's a few things like that.

But I think I'm--

I'm to where I can at least handle it now.

ROBERT STACK: Based on Sarah's description,

a police sketch artist created a composite

of the taller male intruder as he might appear

without the stocking mask.

As Sarah remembers, he was Caucasian,

approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and very muscular.

He had a tattoo of a cobra inked in blue

on his right bicep or shoulder.

[music playing]

In a moment, the sabotage of an Amtrak passenger train

last October evokes haunting memories

of a similar tragedy that occurred nearly 60 years ago.

[music playing]

October 9th, 1995, by now the disturbing images are familiar,

the twisted wreckage of Amtrak's Sunset Limited passenger

train strewn across the Arizona desert.

The train had jumped the tracks 60 miles southwest of Phoenix.

Four cars plunged more than 30 feet off a trestle

into a dry riverbed.

One person was killed.

Scores were injured.

The cause of the tragedy, sabotage.

BRUCE J. GEBBARDT: When we arrived at the scene,

it was apparent that someone had tampered with the rails.

The investigation determined that 29 spikes were removed--

purposely removed.

And not only were the spikes removed,

but someone had pushed the rail inside, so that the two

rails were not connected.

ROBERT STACK: The tampering was simple but deadly.

In a typical section of track, the rails

are connected at a joint.

With the spikes removed, one rail

was shifted a mere 4 inches, just enough to cause the crash.

Another piece of evidence convinced authorities

that the saboteur or saboteurs had a working

knowledge of railroads.

Despite the break in the rail, the signal circuits,

electrical wires that run through the track,

remained intact.

Consequently, the train crew had no warning.

BRUCE J. GEBBARDT: The FBI believes that they picked

that particular spot in order to create

the most damage and, possibly, the most injuries or deaths.

Uh, the train was going about 50 miles an hour.

It's on a curve.

And it occurred right before a trestle.

ROBERT STACK: Who derailed the Sunset Limited?

Was it a violent political statement

by domestic terrorists or an isolated act of revenge

by a disgruntled railroad employee?

Investigators soon discovered frightening parallels

to another act of sabotage more than a half century ago.

In 1939, 24 people were killed and 117

injured in a suspicious train wreck in the Nevada desert.

KEVIN BUNKER: The most mysterious connection

between both accidents, the 1939 wreck and the Sunset Limited

wreck of last year, is the fact that the sabotage

was done ahead of a bridge in a desert

country of a remote location.

Um, there was definitely care in advance,

you know, that the wires were intact at all times.

Merely moving one piece of metal--

in this case, one rail--

a matter of less than 4 inches allowed

both trains to careen off on the curve

as they crossed the river.

And the damage occurred.

ROBERT STACK: Curiously, the 1939 crash

had been profiled in a journal for railroad buffs

shortly before the Amtrak accident.

The author, John Signor, rejects the notion

that his article may have inspired the would-be saboteur.

JOHN SIGNOR: I see absolutely no connection.

There were-- uh, my magazine was released only

the week of the derailment.

It was still being distributed.

I didn't even receive mine until five days

after the derailment in the mail.

Uh, there's been a whole book published on it.

There's been numerous articles on it over the years.

It's widely known.

ROBERT STACK: "The Railroad Journal"

has a short subscriber list.

Federal authorities have questioned many of the readers

and come up empty handed, leaving investigators with just

one other concrete clue.

In the immediate vicinity of the accident site,

FBI agents found four copies of a computer-written diatribe

against the United States government.

It was signed, Sons of the Gestapo.

BRUCE J. GEBBARDT: We have not been able to determine

the existence of such a group.

But we're still trying to investigate to determine

whether or not that is a red herring to try to throw us

off the investigation or whether or not

that particular group exists.

ROBERT STACK: The note was entitled, Indictment of the ATF

and the FBI, and seemed to espouse

an extreme right-wing view point.

It denounced the federal sieges at Waco,

Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho.

It also posed the question, who is

policing the ATF, FBI, state troopers, county

sheriffs and local police?

But the note's specific reference

to the shooting of a police officer's wife, who, quote,

"knows too much about drug kickbacks,"

may, ultimately, hold the key to the author's identity.

BRUCE J. GEBBARDT: Based upon that particular statement,

if we can pinpoint that police officer or that police

department, that might give us an investigative lead

to help us solve this sabotage in Arizona.

People have to feel safe when they

take public transportation.

Uh, and it's important to solve this case,

so that we can show the motive behind this particular

sabotage, that this person is going

to jail as a result of this sabotage

for an extremely long time.

And that'll send a message to anybody

who might think about committing sabotage in our rail system.

The one person killed in the crash of the Sunset Limited

was a sleeping car attendant named Mitchell Bates.

Because of his death, the individual or individuals

responsible will be charged with murder as well as sabotage.

[music playing]

Join me next Friday for the dramatic season

finale of "Unsolved Mysteries."

[music playing]