Original subtitles

Tonight on "Unsolved Mysteries."

[music playing]

HOST: Brooke Baker was a reporter

for her campus newspaper, a small town

girl with big-time ambitions.

What was it about her life that led to this brutal attack?

It is one of the strangest stories we've encountered--

people who call themselves walk-ins and claim their bodies

have been inhabited-- in fact, taken

over-- by invading spirits.

Could it be that walk-ins are walking among us?

It had all the signs of a tragic accident

until police found evidence of an elaborate setup--

cold-blooded murder.

Now this man stands accused of killing his own wife,

but he insists that he is innocent.

When a terrifying accident left Wilma

Drew unconscious and trapped in her car,

death seemed inevitable.

Then salvation arrived in the form

of an unknown good Samaritan.

Now Wilma needs your help to thank

the man who saved her life.

20 years ago, a young Korean woman

said goodbye to her GI husband and her daughter,

then boarded a train and for some unknown reason

never came back.

Since then, her daughter has grown up,

married, and hopes that someone watching tonight

can reunite her with her long-lost mother.

Join me.

Perhaps you may be able to help solve a mystery,

or perhaps you may encounter one that

simply cannot be explained.

[theme music]

Every autumn, thousands of parents

send their sons and daughters off to college,

assuming they'll be safe and on their way to a bright future.

The parents of a young woman named Brooke

Baker thought exactly that.

They were wrong.

Her campus experience proved fatal.

[music playing]

Brooke Baker, a college sophomore,

stabbed to death in her own bed just half a block off campus--

[police dispatcher over radio]

Police in Vincennes, Indiana, started their investigation

certain the case would be solved easily,

but more than a year later, Brooke's killer

remains unidentified.

OK.

How about the right shoulder?

JANET BAKER: I'm obsessed with it.

I can't live without justice for Brooke.

I can't go on with my life.

That's all I can think.

I want justice.

HOST: Who killed Brooke Baker?

Of the many theories police are pursuing,

several point to a direct link between Brooke's

life and her brutal murder.

Was it angry fraternity brothers out

for revenge, a psychopath posing as a potential roommate,

or perhaps Brooke's landlord?

He allegedly watched her closely.

Then there's a puzzle of Brooke's cousin.

Does she know something she hasn't told police?

[chuckling]

To me, the real key in solving this case

is going to be when we answer the question, who was Brooke

Baker, and what was there about her life

in the last few years of her life

that led up to this extraordinary conclusion?

HOST: Brooke Baker was a small town

girl with big city ambitions.

She planned to be somebody-- a top flight journalist.

I need the photographs.

HOST: At Vincennes University, Brooke

became very active on the school paper,

and she made sure everyone knew it.

Can you call me back, please?

Because I'm waiting, and I need them.

MICHAEL MULLEN: I think one of the things Brooke really

enjoyed was the power that came from being

a reporter on the paper.

It gave her, certainly, recognition,

visibility on campus.

And I think she enjoyed the attention.

HOST: Few 19-year-olds make deadly enemies.

Brooke may have been an exception.

In the spring of 1997, she heard rumors of a date rape

at a fraternity party and went after the story aggressively.

Are you in a sorority?

Right.

So would you describe some of the incidents

as if it happened to you?

MICHAEL MULLEN: It would have been very

easy to work on the story and have nobody know about it

but members of the staff, but the word was out everywhere,

and I think the word was generated from Brooke.

I think she wanted people to know what she was doing.

[chatter]

HOST: At the fraternity where the alleged

rape had taken place, Brooke's investigation was not welcome.

You better not write anything about us.

Look, I can write whatever I want about you.

I'm serious.

And you better watch your back.

You better watch your back!

JANET BAKER: She didn't worry about who she offended

or whose toes she stepped on.

If it was the truth, it was the truth.

HOST: Fraternity members allegedly

started sending Brooke email threatening

her if she ran the rape story.

Brooke was unfazed, but her mother was very concerned.

JANET BAKER: I feared for Brooke's safety all the time,

and I'd question her on it.

And she'd say if it could save one girl

from being raped or abused, she was

willing to write the story--

investigate the fraternity.

[yelling]

HOST: The harassment allegedly climaxed one night,

when a truckload of fraternity brothers

confronted Brooke at a friend's house.

I'm not afraid of you guys!

HOST: They reportedly called her names and shouted more threats.

Get out of here!

[yelling]

HOST: Did a conflict between Brooke Baker and the fraternity

ultimately lead to murder?

[music playing]

A few months later, Brooke moved into a new house

where she thought she'd be safer.

The landlord was a campus police officer.

LANDLORD: Do you need any help with the boxes?

Oh, no, I got it.

Thank you.

You sure?

HOST: Within weeks, however, Brooke allegedly started having

trouble with the landlord.

What are you doing in my house?

LANDLORD: Just looking for all my bug spray.

HOST: Brooke told her parents she discovered him prowling

around her house at all hours.

You have to--

you need to come in here.

You would have to call.

You can't come into my house.

HOST: According to her parents, the landlord once shined

a light through the windows.

On another occasion, Brooke said he came

in while she was in the shower.

MICHAEL MULLEN: She felt uncomfortable enough

that she told a number of people that she

just was just generally uncomfortable

about the whole situation.

HOST: What happened the night Brooke died?

Did her landlord let himself in?

Did an angry confrontation escalate to murder?

Vincennes police also identified a third theory of murder.

Only days before her death, Brooke

placed an ad for a roommate in the campus newspaper.

Someone who wants to come over to Brooke's house

and knock on the door and say, hey, I'm here about your room.

I want to be a roommate.

What's Brooke's natural reaction going to be in that?

[knocking on door]

Open the door and let them in.

HOST: Brooke's ad may have become an invitation to murder.

Police found no evidence of forced entry

and no signs of a struggle.

Their most vital clues are several samples of DNA.

To date, they have interviewed 400 people

and tested 52 against those samples.

[music playing]

They say parents who bury a child never

really stop grieving.

It goes too hard against the heart.

For Brooke's parents, however, answers would

at least be a great comfort.

[music playing]

Update-- two years after Brooke Baker's death,

police got their first break in the case.

Tragically, it came at the cost of another life.

On July 5, 1999, investigators searched

the apartment of missing Vincennes college

student Erica Elaine Norman.

There, they find a crime scene eerily similar to Brooke

Baker's, including the identical odd

characteristic in the bathroom.

There was water running in the bathtub,

and I knew right then that it was

the same person who had committed

the murder of Brooke Baker.

HOST: Erika had last been seen leaving

a local restaurant with a man by the name of Brian Jones.

He was immediately brought in for questioning.

ROBERT DUNHAM: When we interviewed Brian Jones,

it turned out that he was a roommate of an individual that

was seeing Brooke Baker within the last couple

weeks of her death.

HOST: Brian Jones consented to give a sample of his DNA.

It linked him conclusively to the murder of Brooke Baker,

and Jones was arrested.

When Erica Norman's body was found two weeks later,

Jones struck a plea bargain.

He admitted to killing Erica, and in exchange,

prosecutors did not seek the death penalty

in the Brooke Baker trial.

On December 14, Brian Jones was sentenced to life in prison

without the possibility of parole.

ROBERT DUNHAM: Brian presented himself to me as someone

that would have not stopped.

That case stop a serial killer, in my opinion.

[music playing]

HOST: Next, meet some people who claim

their bodies have been taken over by someone else's soul.

[music playing]

Paris.

A brooding artist and teacher nearly dies in a hospital.

During a near-death experience, he

has a nightmare vision of Hell.

[yelling]

He survives and becomes a minister in his church.

The experience forever changes his life.

During a thunderstorm, a self-centered bully

is struck by lightning.

--be on the phone when there's lightning flashing.

[sizzling noise]

HOST: The 180,000 volts nearly killed him.

When he recovered, he began having psychic experiences,

and he's changed his violent ways,

becoming a hospice volunteer.

Glad to see you again.

HOST: These individuals say near-death experiences

made them behave like different people.

Tonight, we'll tell you about a group who say they

really are different people.

They call themselves walk-ins.

They say their bodies have been taken over by other spirits.

It sounds unbelievable, but at a recent convention in England,

500 people claiming to be walk-ins showed up.

Is there any truth to their strange tales?

I began to feel that I had to change my name, and this

happens very often to walk-ins.

And I didn't know why.

I felt like a stranger in a strange land.

I didn't fit here.

I didn't understand this world.

I didn't understand how it worked.

The doctor patted me and he said, young lady,

you gave us quite a scare.

And I said, oh, I'm not who you think I am.

HOST: Those who believe say it's not possession.

It's an even trade of one soul for another,

and they say it could happen to anyone of us.

[music playing]

Oh, I'm just feeling a little bit of--

HOST: For Carol Parrish, the routine life of a housewife

in the South would lead to the extraordinary experience

of being a walk-in.

Carol had five children, with a sixth on the way.

[groaning]

It hurts!

HOST: During childbirth in 1958, doctors

gave Carol a shot of sodium pentothal to ease her pain.

DOCTOR: All right.

We're going to give you something to make

you a little more comfortable.

Nurse, 2 cc's of sodium pentathal.

HOST: But Carol had an allergic reaction to the drug,

and her lungs collapsed.

DOCTOR: All right.

We've gotten an anaphalactic shock.

Nurse, let's get some oxygen going.

HOST: She was on the edge of death.

DOCTOR: Let's do an IV.

Bring in an IV, STAT.

CAROL PARRISH: Suddenly, I wasn't there.

It was just like I had been totally engaged

in that struggle, and the next thing, it's cool

and I'm floating.

And I looked down, and you hardly know that that's you.

HOST: Carol watched her baby being born.

Then she says her soul entered a tunnel of light, where

she felt she wasn't alone.

She described it as a near-death experience.

But then, something even stranger happened.

CAROL PARRISH: I stood there, and in that light,

it began to tell me things.

It was like a whole flow of information

just came into my mind, and this love and this wisdom

just permeated.

Wave after wave of understanding, wisdom,

richness just flowed into me.

HOST: Carol wasn't expected to live,

but she says her body was given new life with a different soul.

The old Carol was gone, and a new identity had taken over.

--lucky to be alive.

CAROL PARRISH: And I saw young Carol move off into the care

of some other beings.

I'm not who you think that I am.

DOCTOR: It's OK.

CAROL PARRISH: As I look at each person, their eyes just--

the veil comes over their eyes.

And I turned my head toward the wall,

and big tears started coming in my eyes and down my cheeks.

And I thought, how will I ever get anybody to believe me?

Who's going to listen?

HOST: From then on, Carol says everything

about her life changed.

She began having out-of-body experiences.

CAROL PARRISH: One day I was nursing the baby,

and I found myself standing in the door looking at myself

and immediately thought, oh, that's happening to me again.

When I thought that, I popped back together, and it passed.

And I tried to talk about that to my family.

HOST: Her husband said she was insane.

Where's your medicine?

HOST: Her doctor tried to put her on valium.

I'm not taking it anymore.

Why not?

It's not good for the baby.

Carol, the doctor said you've got to take that medicine.

HOST: The new Carol made radical changes in her life.

Bill, I am not taking the medicine anymore.

HOST: She started school to study bookkeeping.

She got a job and eventually became

a manager at a local bank.

Carol believes her new identity was a threat

to her husband, a firefighter.

He left her in 1967.

CAROL PARRISH: The years after the experience

and before I was really doing what

I consider to be my spiritual life

and my life work were very lonely.

I was lonely for other people that valued the things

that were so meaningful to me.

HOST: In 1965, Carol began to study metaphysical religion.

It led to her becoming a minister at the Light

of Christ Community Church.

She remarried.

A timid southern girl had blossomed

into an outspoken leader.

There was no way she could be the same person.

Carol realized she was a walk-in.

CAROL PARRISH: I believe young Carol went as all souls do

into tender hands to care for her and help her reorient

herself to the world of spirit.

The idea that life is ongoing and if you are,

you always will be--

that's the piece that I think is so important.

Partly it's important because we would

live life more courageously if we really believed that.

HOST: An exchange of souls?

Is it really possible?

A woman named Sherry claims it happened to her.

She was a high school principal.

While visiting a friend in Wyoming,

Sherry says her old soul was exchanged for another.

Sherry began to feel disoriented.

She asked her friend, who was a metaphysical healer,

to lay her hands on her.

Suddenly, the room began to change.

[music playing]

JUELLE: There was a glow of golden, pulsating energy.

The core of the energy just punched right

into the base of my spine.

I raised up on my knees and sat immersed in this colorful light

and found myself wanting to just flow with it

and dance with it with my hands and my arms.

[music playing]

HOST: Later, Sherry's friend said she had changed.

Her husband knew something was very

different, especially when she explained

that she had a new name.

I'm Juelle.

DONOVAN: I think some of my most difficult moments

were when I would have a certain something come up

and I needed some help, for instance.

And usually, in the past, I could

give a little shout or something and somebody

would come and help me.

And with Juelle, I'd say, OK, let's go.

And it was kind of like I'm waiting to hear nothing.

There's a different response.

That was something to get used to.

I don't know.

What's wrong?

JUELLE: I'm afraid.

Oh, there's nothing to be afraid of.

It's over.

It's like things are changing.

It's-- - What?

HOST: Besides helping her husband come

to terms with her new identity, there

were other problems as well.

Mundane tasks became nearly impossible.

JUELLE: There was a hypersensitivity

to energy fields around people, energy fields around things.

So to go into a supermarket, see the energy fields,

hear all the thoughts--

it was so difficult to stay focused on what my task was.

I tried to narrow my task down to 5 to 10 items

so I could get through that express

line as quick as possible.

HOST: Over time, Juelle says she managed

to accept her new identity, as did her husband and daughter.

It's as though there are two chapters

in our lives as a family.

There's the before, and there's the after.

And in many ways, our life as a family

started after my mother experienced the walk-in.

A lot of the healing that wasn't able to take place

before did after.

We are so much stronger as a family unit.

HOST: Juelle now dedicates herself to educating others

about her walk-in experience.

I travel the country, I travel the world speaking

to different groups of people, doing private counseling

sessions with people.

I'm an author.

One of the beautiful memories that

came from Sherry was her ability to teach,

was her ability to speak to people.

I've taken that aspect, and I've just

taken it to the next phase.

HOST: Are the stories of walk-ins valid?

Can one soul truly enter the body

and replace another that is ready to move on?

The people we have met tonight, and many others,

do claim a new spirit, a positive spirit,

resides inside them, a spirit that has changed

their lives for the better.

When it comes to walk-ins, perhaps that

is all we need to know.

Next, judging by the family photos,

Steve and Kathy Page had a storybook marriage.

But when Kathy turned up dead, a grieving husband

became the prime suspect.

[music playing]

It was early dawn on May 14, 1991,

when police in Vidor, Texas, discovered the wreck.

The woman behind the wheel was dead,

her skin cool to the touch.

At first glance, a tragic accident--

but within seconds, anomalies began to emerge.

The dead woman had no obvious wounds,

and the car was barely damaged.

Soft drinks in the front seat hadn't even spilled.

The list grew longer.

The woman's feet were pushed back against the seat

rather than stretched out toward the pedals.

She wasn't wearing a seat belt, yet she

had not pitched forward.

Being no damage to the interior of the vehicle

and very little, if not any, damage

to the exterior of the vehicle and the deepness of the ditch--

plain to see this was a staged incident

instead of an accident.

So at that point, they thought they had

probably a questionable death.

HOST: The woman was identified as 34-year-old Kathy Page.

She was a wife and mother.

She lived at 450 Green Street, curiously just

100 yards from the crash site.

Kathy's husband, Steve, answered the door.

Who is it?

OFFICER: Vidor Police.

I'm Sergeant Moseley of the Vidor Police Department.

Are you Mr. Page?

Yes.

Mr. Page, do you know where your wife's at?

My wife--

RAY MOSELEY: He said, well, his wife was not home,

and directly looked straight down the street

towards where the car was.

This about my wife?

Yes, it is, sir.

I'm sorry to advise you, sir, we found her deceased

in her vehicle this morning.

Can we step inside the residence and discuss this matter?

RAY MOSELEY: Steve seemed to be quite upset.

He began to cry at times, and at times threw

himself on the couch crying.

But yet he would jump right back up and we would talk,

and there would be no signs of tears in his eyes.

This seemed strange to me.

Was she in a car accident?

RAY MOSELEY: Sir, we don't know all the details.

We're still investigating--

HOST: From that moment on, police concentrated

their attention on Steve Page.

Six years later, he is still the prime suspect.

For Page, those years have been an ordeal.

Barely a day passes that he doesn't fend off

accusations that he killed his wife,

the mother of his children.

Of course I did not kill my wife.

The evidence clearly shows that the perpetrator was

someone other than Steve Page.

HOST: Is this the face of a killer?

Many people in the small town of Vidor, Texas,

are convinced it is.

They are certain only Steve Page had

both the opportunity and motive to murder his wife, Kathy.

Her family claims he would be in prison today

if his personal relationships with police officials

had not dirtied the investigation.

Steve Page insists he is innocent.

Tonight, we'll examine both sides

of this controversial case.

Kathy and Steve Page had been married for almost 13 years.

They had two daughters--

12-year-old Erin and 7-year-old Monica.

They seemed like a perfect family, but according to Steve,

he and Kathy had drifted apart, and she

was no longer happy with her role as Steve's wife.

STEVE PAGE: Mainly, she was uncomfortable with who she was,

or at least that was what she explained to me, that she

didn't know who she was.

She wanted to try to find out who Kathy was.

Because of that, we talked about separating

for a short period of time and allowing

her to hopefully find herself.

HOST: Kathy's sister Sherry disagrees.

She says the marriage was beyond repair.

Kathy was definitely moving on in her life at that point

because a decision was made for the divorce,

and that, in itself, having a decision like that

finally be resolved, in itself, was a real relief off her back.

And she was making plans for that.

HOST: Steve moved out of the house,

but he says his relationship with Kathy remained friendly.

The next day, Kathy asked him to babysit

their daughters while she went out with a friend.

Kathy was getting ready when Steve arrived.

STEVE PAGE: She said she was going

to meet one of her girlfriends after work,

and so I went over there.

She left at proximately 11:15 to 11:30 to head

to Beaumont to meet her friend.

Charlotte was the friend's name.

HOST: By 4:15 AM, Kathy Page was dead.

When her body was found, she wasn't

wearing makeup or jewelry.

The autopsy showed she had been strangled,

her nose broken, her eye blackened.

There were blood stains on Cathy's underwear and skin,

but strangely, not on her outer clothing.

RAY MOSELEY: Kathy Page was not killed in her vehicle.

She was killed at another location,

cleaned up, redressed, and placed back in her vehicle,

and after the vehicle had been rolled into the ditch.

HOST: And there was more.

Sometime shortly before Kathy Page died,

she had engaged in sexual activity.

Was that mysterious someone Kathy's killer?

Police soon learned that Kathy had not

gone to meet her friend Charlotte

but had instead spent the evening

with a boyfriend in a motel in Beaumont, Texas,

about 10 minutes from Vidor.

Goodbye.

HOST: The boyfriend acknowledged that he

and Kathy made love that night.

RAY MOSELEY: He came to the police station.

He gave us a statement and also voluntarily gave us

a polygraph examination, which he passed with flying colors.

HOST: However, the autopsy report included

one more critical detail.

Kathy's sex partner had had a vasectomy.

The boyfriend had not.

That meant Kathy must have had sex

that night with someone else.

Could that man have been Steve Page?

He had had a vasectomy several months earlier.

When police questioned him, he admitted having sex with Kathy

but claimed it was before she went out that night.

She's expecting me, Steve.

Come on.

STEVE PAGE: She was getting ready.

She'd just got out the shower.

I approached her about sex, and we had sex before she left--

before she got dressed, even.

SHERRY VALENTINE: I personally don't

believe that that happened.

She wouldn't have been with Steve

before being with another man.

She hadn't been with Steve in a long time.

He was already sleeping on the couch.

Him coming over to take care of the kids

was more of a kindness gesture for him to be around his kids,

not for him to be around Kathy.

HOST: For Kathy's family, there is only one possible scenario,

a deadly scenario, sparked when Steve

discovered two phone numbers.

One belonged to Kathy's friend Charlotte, the other

to the motel in Beaumont.

I was talking to a sister-in-law

of Steve's, and she said that she knew for a fact that

Steve made two phone calls.

Steve called this one number and the girl answered,

and he hung up.

And then the second phone number was called

and they said the name of the hotel, and he hung up.

And so he already knew where she might be or was.

I feel like she came in that night and come in the back door

after she done parked the car. and he was asleep, sitting

in a chair in the front room.

And when she went on in the bathroom and changed clothes,

took her makeup, took her jewelry and all off,

and he heard her probably in the bathroom.

And he got up and demanded sex with her

or whatever and got in a fight.

HOST: Kathy's family believes the fight escalated.

Steve Page raped Kathy.

In the process, he strangled her.

SHERRY VALENTINE: Then Steve, realizing what had happened--

he wants to redress her.

If you look at the violent crime profile,

if fits him to a T. The remorse-- you wants to redress.

You don't want them to be found naked or bloody.

So there was an attempt to clean her up and redress her,

but things were forgotten-- for instance,

her jewelry and her socks.

The reason it comes down on me is because I'm the husband.

I'm the estranged husband, to make it even worse.

And because of her actions, I am being blamed for her actions.

She was out seeing another guy, so therefore, it

could only have been me.

I must have found out somehow, according to the police,

and became enraged and committed murder.

HOST: Steve Page has his own theory on the identity

of Kathy's killer.

STEVE PAGE: I received threats on the phone

that the same thing that happened to my wife

could happen to me.

There is a name of a certain person here in Beaumont

that was bandied about as a person

who may have been involved.

It's a very prominent family--

an Italian family, even--

to let you know that they are considered

part of the Beaumont mafia.

[music playing]

HOST: Next, a frightening accident-- a woman

on the brink of death but timely rescue

by an unknown good Samaritan.

[music playing]

September 7, 1995, dusk on a four-lane highway

near Ocala, Florida.

48-year-old Wilma Drew was just a mile from home.

She had driven up this hill hundreds of times,

but this night, disaster was lurking.

A few miles away, a car had entered the highway

going the wrong way.

Now it was headed straight for Wilma at 55 miles an hour.

[music playing]

David Vittitow was driving right behind Wilma.

DAVID VITTITOW: As we were approaching the crest,

I saw headlights approaching us, and the minute the lights came

into view, I immediately tried to get

over on the right-hand lane to avoid the collision.

[tires screeching]

[cars crashing]

I automatically, just in my gut, knew that somebody

was going to be dead.

[music playing]

HOST: David raced to help the victims.

The driver and passenger in the wrong way car

seemed to be moving.

Wilma was not.

She was pinned in her car, the steering column

wedged up against her chest.

The driver's window was open, but the other windows

and all the doors were jammed.

[grunting]

A saw's in my truck. I'll get a tool.

I'll be right back.

I decided to run back to the truck to grab a tire tool,

try to pry the door open or whatever

I could do to try to get in to assist her possibly better.

HOST: Another good Samaritan, Matthew White,

also stopped to help.

Ma'am, can you hear me?

HOST: The two men didn't know it,

but Wilma's neck had been broken,

cutting off her air passage.

Wilma was suffocating.

All the doors are jammed from the impact.

Her driver's side window was busted

out on the driver's side door.

So that's all we could do, is reach through there.

And we couldn't break the windows out,

so we were trying to get someone who had something

that could break the window.

Hey, we need some help!

Stop!

Stop!

HOST: David tried flagging down help.

A tanker truck stopped.

Remarkably, the driver seemed to know exactly what to do

and how to do it.

[music playing]

Did you get it open?

No, it's locked.

Stand back.

[glass shattering]

DAVID VITTITOW: After I busted the window,

he climbed into the back seat and reached over and lifted

and held Wilma's head up.

[groaning]

HOST: Wilma took a breath.

MATTHEW WHITE: Is she breathing?

Yeah.

Let's get this thing off her and give her some room.

[grunt]

You got it?

HOST: Matthew and David struggled to lift the steering

column off Wilma's chest.

[inaudible]

Come on!

HOST: The trucker, meanwhile, kept her neck motionless.

It seemed like hours, but the ambulance

arrived 10 minutes later.

[siren blaring]

DISPATCHER: --7 roger, 18637 correct [inaudible] 701.

OK, Sir, I need you to let go and come out of the car, OK?

I'm not letting go until you put a brace around her neck.

You need to get out of the car--

And the paramedic was just insistent

that he let go of her head and got out of the car.

And the man would not let go of her head

until I held it while he got out and the paramedic got in.

No, I can hold her. MAN: You got her?

Yeah. MAN: You got her gently?

MAN: Yeah, I got her.

PARAMEDIC: OK, I need a C-collar bottom [inaudible]..

HOST: Wilma was stabilized.

In the midst of the commotion, no one

saw the truck driver leave.

No one had a chance to get more than a

glimpse of what he looked like.

Wilma's husband came upon the crash scene a short time later.

When I saw the vehicle, in my mind,

nobody could have lived through it.

I remember a lady asked me if that was my car, and I said,

yes and my wife's dead.

And she says, no, she isn't.

They just left here with her in the helicopter.

HOST: It would take 11 operations and nearly a year

to begin to repair the damage.

Wilma's right leg had nearly been torn in half.

Her left ankle was shattered.

Her brain stem was so damaged that it

caused permanent double vision.

And the C2 vertebra and Wilma's neck was completely severed.

BILL DREW: The neurosurgeon told us

that the break that she sustained

is called the hangman's break.

And it's typically what would happen in the old days

in the West when somebody would drop from a gallows,

the way the body would pull and jerk at the end.

And what he told us was he's never

seen anybody survive that injury,

that she's the only one he's ever seen survive it.

And he can't understand why she is still alive.

And that was kind of eerie.

I consider myself extremely fortunate.

And I've never really questioned why me.

I mean I don't know why it happened to me.

But I know that there is a purpose for it.

And it's even peculiar that I've never experienced any anger.

I'm just very thankful to be alive.

BILL DREW: The neurosurgeon said it was a miracle

that he didn't actually kill her in the process

of lifting her head. - She breathing?

Yeah.

BILL DREW: But that he just-- he did it exactly right.

Had he done it any different, it wouldn't have worked.

He gave the doctor something to work with.

And he just saved her life and gave her back to us.

She is not the same person physically that she was.

She has limitations.

There's very little that she can do.

She tires easy.

And she has different sensations in her hands,

like she can't tell heat and cold.

And-- but no, I consider myself the most fortunate person

in the world to have her back.

Thank you just really seem so insignificant as far as the way

we feel about the gratitude we have,

that someone would take the time to get involved

and to do all he did for me and then just disappear.

[music playing]

HOST: Next, a young woman would like

your help to find her mother, who disappeared 20 years ago.

A beautiful bride, a handsome groom, a fairytale wedding,

except for one sad detail--

the mother of the bride is missing.

She vanished from her daughter's life 23 years ago

and never returned.

STELLA HUTT: She's still my mother,

and I still love her as a mother--

just to see her, just to know that she's OK.

HOST: But the father of the bride, Robert Wortman,

has always been there for his daughter, Stella Wortman Hutt.

He has raised her since she was three.

And he believes that his former wife

would have cherished her daughter's

special day and more.

She's miss so much of Stella's life--

you know, slumber parties, chicken pox, graduation,

and stuff like that there.

There's no need for her to miss anymore.

Stella is now in her late 20s.

Her mother disappeared in 1975.

Stella often lies awake at night and wonders,

why did her mother walk out of her family's life?

In 1972, Stella's father, Robert Wortman,

was a 22-year-old serving in the Air

Force in Seoul, South Korea.

He fell in love with a 20-year-old Korean woman

named [inaudible].

Robert nicknamed her Sunny.

ROBERT WORTMAN: I realize now, we're both from two

different cultures.

And both of us were very young at the time.

HOST: Despite the odds against them, the couple married.

They welcomed their new baby a year later.

She was named Stella after Robert's mother.

The new family relocated to Tokyo, Japan.

Robert was to be stationed there for the next four years.

STELLA HUTT: I remember my mom.

She worked at a ice cream parlor.

And This was when I was about three.

That's basically that all I remember.

Thank you. OK.

HOST: Sunny worked on the base to help support them.

Life was good, at least for the moment.

SUNNY WORTMAN: Hi.

You want some ice cream?

OK.

[music playing]

HOST: Her mother took on a second job

working nights as a waitress.

Sunny seemed to live a double life.

She was rarely home.

STELLA HUTT: My dad said that she hung around people who

were kind of into the wrong things,

weren't really family oriented.

And he believes that, you know, she just

wanted to be around those people all the time, that that

basically came first for her.

HOST: Tensions between husband and wife

continued to drive them apart.

Finally, they agreed that Stella should spend time with Robert's

relatives in New Jersey.

ROBERT WORTMAN: Well, like most people,

we had some family problems and stuff

and tried to work them out.

I thought it'd would be best to get her

into a more stable family, so which

I brought her back to the United States

to my mother's, to her grandma.

How ya doing, honey?

Oh, it's so good to see you.

Give me a kiss.

Give your grandma a ki--

[smack] Oh, girl, you're looking so good.

Hi.

Hi, Robert.

Come on inside.

Oh, it's so good to see you.

HOST: Robert returned to Japan hoping to patch up his marriage

and bring Sunny back with him to America.

Robert and Sunny worked out their differences,

or so it seemed.

They were granted a transfer to New Jersey to be with Stella,

but there was one hitch.

So you'll be back on the 19th?

Yes.

I just need a couple of weeks.

HOST: Sunny said she wanted to see her family

in South Korea one last time.

ROBERT WORTMAN: Bye.

Goodbye.

HOST: But Robert had no idea that his wife

had other plans in mind.

She was about to walk out of his life and Stella's.

What would motivate a mother to leave her child

without even saying goodbye?

Why would she keep this terrible secret from her husband?

Those very questions haunt Stella to this day.

STELLA HUTT: I want to be able to ask her why she didn't show

up for the day when she was supposed to come with my father

to New Jersey.

HOST: Why Sunny disappeared remains a mystery.

Robert eventually remarried and had another daughter.

Stella adored her stepmother but often struggled

with her own identity.

STELLA HUTT: I know being oriental, you know,

that I had a mom who was oriental.

I knew back-- in the back of my mind

that I had a real mother somewhere, just didn't know

who she was or where she was.

I thought about her, and I did miss her.

Like on Mother's Day, I would think about her.

On my birthday, I would think about her.

And it would cross my mind like, did she ever think about me.

HOST: But in 1985, Stella received

a surprise in the mail.

Out of the blue, Sunny had sent her daughter four

dresses and a stuffed animal.

STELLA'S STEPMOTHER: Wow!

Wow.

Oh, look at that.

Oh, that's going to look nice on you.

[laughs]

STELLA HUTT: It made me feel really, really good.

It felt good to know that she still thought about me,

that I crossed her mind.

I remember, I cried.

Every I held the stuffed animal, I would just cry and hold it

and go to sleep with it and just snuggle it and just

take it everywhere I went.

HOST: Now, there's an extra incentive for Sunny

to reunite with Stella.

She could meet her grandson, six-year-old Darius.

ROBERT WORTMAN: It's time to forgive and forget.

She probably has a new life.

I do too.

But Stella is part of our life.

So you know, life's too short, let's enjoy

the time that we have left.

[theme music playing]

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Perhaps you may help us solve a mystery.