Original subtitles

WOMAN: The problem with the people that run tech companies

is that they become fanatics,

end up thinking they're messiahs.

[theme music plays]

♪

GARY STEWART: I've had the fear of abandonment

as far as I can remember.

There is a primal wound that adoptees have.

If you weren't loved enough to be kept,

how can you...

expect someone else to love you,

if you can't love yourself?

LEONA STEWART: We told Gary he was adopted early in life.

We had him since he was three-and-a-half months old,

so he was ours.

GARY: My parents, my adopted family,

they were my biggest supporters.

But feelings of insecurity

were there from as early as I can remember.

CINDY STEWART: When we were teenagers,

I noticed Gary really starting to struggle with his identity.

Even though we've had a fairy tale childhood,

there's still a wound that

I don't think heals until you know where you came from.

♪

GARY: Your self-confidence and self-esteem

tells you that you weren't loved enough to be kept.

And part of that is what's

driven me to be successful

at almost everything I've done.

What contributed to my business success

certainly didn't help me with personal relationships.

I've been married five times.

I wasn't gonna let somebody leave me again and hurt me.

I would always leave first.

I have had trust issues all of my life,

and the only time that I didn't feel that,

for the first time in my life,

was the day Zach was born.

Maybe he wouldn't see the flaws,

and maybe he would love me...

just because I was Dad.

♪

Zach has a son now, so I'm a grandfather.

What'd you do?

But, I still have this continual need...

for that reassurance that you really are loved.

So, thank God I have Kristy.

She is my rock.

She is my support

because as hard as I try,

that fear of abandonment never goes away.

[indistinct chatter]

And then, you know, I think about my birth parents,

and who they might be today,

and what led them to give me up.

Prior to the '70s,

all adoptions in the state ofLouisiana were closed adoptions.

So, I'd given up trying to find my biological parents.

And then one day, after 39 years,

it happened.

And I never could've imagined

what I was about to uncover.

[birds chirping]

GARY: I'd remember Dad saying,

"a lady from San Francisco

"contacted your mother,

claiming to be your real mother."

I'll never forget how

he said "real mother."

It's like, wait, I have a real mother,

-and she's right here. -[laughs]

I was kinda scared to tell you,

and we knew that you wanted to know.

And we never kept secrets with y'all.

GARY: When they told me, Mom...

put her arm around my waist,

and she squeezed me...

and said, "I will always be your mom."

This was 2002, the eve of Mother's Day.

And because it's Mother's Day, I'm feeling guilty.

But, I knew I had to speak to her.

[answering machine beep]

ANSWERING MACHINE: This is Gary Stewart,

and I think you may be my mother.

♪

And, if so,

I would like to wish you,

for the first time in 39 years,

a Happy Mother's Day.

JUDE GILFORD: It was like a thousand prayers answered,

or maybe a million prayers answered.

And I said to Gary a number of times

in the initial conversation about,

"I'm not try-- I don't need anything.

"I don't want anything.

I really only wanted to know that you were okay."

GARY: And I got on a plane and flew to San Francisco

to meet her for the first time.

Seeing him walking towards me and...

It was a memory I will never forget.

GARY: That first hug. It just came so natural,

and we spent the entire next week together.

It was almost time to go home,

and I just felt the time was right to ask my mother...

who-who was my father.

And she said, "Well, honey.

"It's been a long time,

"and I've spent my life

"trying to forget that time.

But, I think his name was Van."

♪

"I was young,

"underage,

and we were on the run."

Hearing this, I couldn't imagine how

she couldn't remember who my father's name was.

The desire to know who my father was overcame me,

and that's when I decided I had to find him.

I never could've predicted what I would ultimately discover,

and over the next 12 years,

the desire to find my father would totally consume me.

After I met my mother,

we talked quite often over the next year.

But the more questions I asked her about my father,

the more she said she didn't remember.

I didn't wanna hear, "I don't remember."

I had too many questions, andthere were not enough answers.

And he would ask me the same question

over and over again,

and I really couldn't convince him that

I wasn't able, and maybe didn't even want,

to remember a lot of it.

LYN OVERTON: I think that Judy

remembers everything.

She claims she doesn't remember,

so that she doesn't have to face what she did.

GARY: And then I received a letter that indicated

that Jude knew much more than she had let on.

♪

She had contacted some people in Louisiana

that were in the business of helping

birth parents find their children.

My mother had written a letter and stated specifically,

"My husband's name

was Earl Van Best Jr."

But the most disturbing thing was she said,

"Gary's story...

would be newsworthy."

That makes your heart stop.

What was newsworthy?

So, at that point,

it was very clear to me that my mother

wasn't being completely truthful with me.

JUDE: He didn't believe that I didn't remember,

but I definitely wanted to help Gary.

And so, I called my friend,

Harold Butler in

the San Francisco Police Department.

Harold Butler gave me my father's name,

date of birth, place of birth,social security number.

So, I took that information to the social security office,

and they informed me that no death benefits

had been paid on behalf of my father.

So, that gave me hope

that my father was still alive.

Harold Butler also gave me what he said

was an old DMV photo of my father.

♪

When I first saw the photo of my father,

I was shocked.

My father was still and lifeless.

I felt the most...

indescribable sense of

fear.

But, I just had to find my father,

and nothing was gonna stop me from finding him.

At my request,

my mother went back to Harold Butler,

asking for more information.

Harold Butler told my mother,

"Just tell Gary to drop it.

"What Gary's father

"went on to do later in life

"would make what his father did to you and Gary

seem inconsequential."

♪

JUDE: Gary is not getting the answers

that he wanted from the police.

So, I suggested that we go

to the San Francisco Library

and look for newspaper articles.

There must be something.

GARY: I began searching the contents of every newspaper

from 1961 to 1963.

The articles detailing Van and Judy's illicit romance

and life on the run appeared one after the other.

EARL VAN BEST:

[click]

[car idling]

♪

[air brake hiss]

GARY: My father met my mother for the first time

as she was getting off of a school bus.

He was 27, and she was just 14.

Some people have said that my mother looked older.

She could've passed for 19 or 20.

But she was getting off of a school bus.

[rumbling]

JUDE: I remember there was a man standing there,

and he spoke to me,

and I spoke to him, I guess.

And then I was walking away to go home,

and he was behind me.

And the next day, he was there again.

I don't think I was interested at the beginning,

but the guy just kept showing up.

♪

GARY: He invited her into an ice cream shop,

and that's where the romance began.

[inaudible]

JUDE: He was intelligent,

well-spoken.

I was impressed with all he knew.

I remember going to Grace Cathedral,

and he had a connection

to that beautiful place.

GARY: She described him as being cosmopolitan.

He was quite an accomplished musician,

and had a love of classical music.

[inaudible playing]

JUDE: He talked about

the possibilities for us.

Traveling, seeing things

that I had not seen before.

So, what he was offering was attractive to me.

♪

My father had seen so much of the world,

and she had only seen San Francisco.

And she was probably looking for an out

from her less-than-perfect home life.

LYN: Our father was very quick-tempered.

He'd beat us with a leather belt.

Um, and as we got older,

that changed to the buckle end of the leather belt.

And we wiped the blood off of each other

in the bathroom, crying.

It was just a terrible situation to live in.

-[car starts] -And so, when this guy showed up,

then I thought, you know,

what have I got to lose?

But, it was really jumping out of the frying pan,

into the fire, and I had no idea.

♪

We ran away together in January of 1962.

GARY: So, they run off to Reno,

and just three months after they met,

they're married.

JUDE: I thought at the time that I loved him.

I didn't know he was a con man.

LYN: The only thing we knew was that

she was gone, and we spent...

several days...

wondering where she was.

GARY: So, after they're married,

they return to San Francisco.

And on Valentine's Day,

my grandmother actually had their marriage annulled.

And just a week later,

she had my father arrested.

[flashing]

Soon after, he posted bail,

and my mother was sent to juvenile hall.

♪

[phone ringing]

And because she was on the second floor,

my father told my mother to make a rope

out of her bed sheets,

and shimmy on down the wall.

And they took off.

[microfiche clicking]

VAN BEST:

[microfiche clicking]

[clicking]

[clicking, whirring]

It's not a romance.

It's portrayed in the newspaper articles as this romance,

when, in fact, he was a pedophile,

and he was grooming her.

I was very hurt by

what was happening to Judy.

She started to change.

♪

GARY: At this point, my mother contracts hepatitis.

So, he takes her to the hospital,

and she finds out that she's pregnant.

I talked to my mother,

and she wanted me to come for dinner,

and maybe come and get my things.

I don't-- I don't remember what exactly,

and to bring Van.

And that's when the police were waiting.

[distant siren]

GARY: It's becoming a repeatable story.

Judy's sent to juvie again,

and my father is arrested.

Later that night,

a young reporter named Paul Avery

from the San Francisco Chronicle interviews my father.

And on August 1st,

the Ice Cream Romance would make

its first appearance on the front page

of the San Francisco Chronicle.

It painted my father in a very humiliating light.

VAN BEST:

GARY: And soon, the story spread to other newspapers as well.

LISA HOBBS BIRNIE: This fellow called Van Best.

He seemed very studious,

and well-spoken,

until he started obsessing about Judy.

Bursting into tears and sobbing

and becoming almost incoherent

when he spoke about her, how much he loved her.

I've interviewed a lot of people,

even in San Quentin,

and you can sometimes sense evil,

and he was so taken with Judy

that the warnings from the police

didn't really touch him.

♪

GARY: During my search, I contacted

the San Francisco City Archives,

and they provided me with a video

of my father in court.

My father was charged with conspiracy,

child-stealing, and rape.

VAN BEST:

GARY: He posted bail, and he does it again.

I remember I was in...

the hospital, in a quarantine unit.

[machines beeping]

I just have this image of Van

in the long white coat, standing at the side of my bed,

and he had posed as a doctor,

and came and took me out of the hospital.

♪

Later that night,

we were driving south on highway 101,

and he fell asleep,

and I woke up as we went careening off of the road.

[tires screech]

[crash]

[hissing]

GARY: The next day,

the police found their abandoned rental car

with blood stains in it.

My mother says, "We got out of that wreckage,

"like nothing had ever happened,

and started hitchhiking."

They were fugitives,

and, at this point,

it wasn't just front page news

for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Every newspaper was carrying the story

of the Ice Cream Romance.

[raining]

JUDE: We traveled across country.

One day, we'd be in a hotel,

and the next day, we'd be at the Jesus Saves Mission.

During that time, he was writing bad checks.

♪

He would tell me that

he loved me and cared for me,

but, at the same time, he always held over my head

that I was a runaway,

and would be in big trouble if he would turn me in.

[inaudible]

GARY: At this point, Judy was seven months pregnant.

They're out of money,

they're getting more and more desperate,

and by the time they got to New Orleans,

it was simply a matter of survival.

In fact, my father asked my mother

to go to this seedy hotel

-and turn tricks for money. -[muffled yelling, chatter]

JUDE: I was pregnant.

Not that I would... consider being a prostitute,

but I was pregnant.

The love of his life, right?

He's asking the love of his life to prostitute

because he's out of money.

♪

[inaudible]

JUDE: I remember being in the hospital.

[inaudible]

I remember having the baby.

[baby crying]

I don't think Van was there.

I was 15 when Gary was born.

He was named after his father, so Earl Van Best.

[muffled crying]

I don't remember going home.

I have a vague recollection of an apartment,

but mainly...

I just see an image of Van sitting in a chair,

as if it was one time when I came home,

and he was there.

I knew that Van was having a hard time with the baby.

I'm assuming because it took my attention away from him.

♪

GARY: My mother told me her version of the story,

but it wasn't until I started doing my own research

that I actually found out the whole truth.

[typing]

The police reports stated

that my father was cruel to me

and that he would close me up in a footlocker.

I don't know where the locker idea came from.

Statement of Judith Ellen Chandler, age 15.

"There was no food in the house,and the baby needed formula,

"so I went to work as a barmaid.

"When I came home from work,

"the baby would usually be in the footlocker

"with the top closed.

"I asked Earl why he closed the locker,

and he said he was tired of hearing the baby cry."

JUDE: I remember when

Van proposed to take the baby,

but I fought him the whole way.

I told him that we had to find a way

to make it work for all of us.

♪

But one day, I came home,

and the baby was gone.

♪

GARY: Statement of Judith Ellen Chandler, age 15.

"He told me that he was going

"to take the baby to Baton Rouge.

He told me that the baby would be given a good home."

[rattling]

Gary: When I found out how I arrived to Baton Rouge,

I went to the Baton Rouge Public Library.

I was born February 12,

and I started at my birth date,

looking through the two editions

of the Baton Rouge newspaper.

[clicking]

And I made it all the way until March 16th.

[click]

And there I was.

♪

I just assumed that I was legally...

made available for adoption.

[sniffle]

How could any human being with a heart

take their blood,

and lay it down and walk away and never look back?

So, you see, that's the most difficult thing for me to talk about.

After my father abandoned me in the stairwell

of that apartment building in Baton Rouge,

he took the train back to New Orleans,

and my mother tells me,

"The minute he walked in the door without you,

"I left him.

I left him immediately."

But as it turns out,

that was March 15th,

and according to the police reports

and newspaper articles,

she actually stayed with him

all the way up until April 18th.

♪

JUDE: I honestly believed that I left that same day

that he came back without the baby.

But it turned out that I did not,

but I didn't know that until Gary did his...

uh, investigation.

GARY: By this point,

my mother had had enough of Earl Van Best Jr.

And when my father found out that she had flown the coop,

he called the authorities and turned her in.

JUDE: When the authorities contacted my mother,

she said, "She can come home,

but the baby can't."

♪

JUDE: I was taken to Baton Rouge to sign the papers.

I just remember sitting in this...

basalt block gray room,

in a little...

piece of sun.

I moved my chair over there,

and I remember holding him

and just crying.

I was just completely heartbroken.

I was sure I would never see him again

because they told me I was never going to see him again.

[inaudible]

[gate rattling]

GARY: So they were both extradited back

to San Francisco,

and my father was once again

placed in county jail.

And my mother was sent to

a correctional home for wayward girls.

♪

By the time the Ice Cream Romance

had reached its bitter end,

they had been on the run for 15 months.

LYN: I asked her one night what happened to the baby,

and she told me that Van had taken the baby

and left it in a church.

And that was the endof the story.

We never talked about it again.

All you hear from those official people

is to forget what's happened

and go on with your life.

The baby was never spoken of.

Nothing about my running away

was ever spoken of in my family.

♪

GARY: My father was sentenced to 90 days

in Atascadero State Mental Hospital.

Atascadero is a maximum security facility

for sexually deviant, criminally insane males.

[restraints clicking]

While in Atascadero,

my father was subject to...

medical, chemical treatment for his disorder,

as well as electroconvulsive therapy,

which, back in the early '60s,

was still considered a very effective way

to shock the evil right out of someone.

After my father spent his time in Atascadero,

he was transferred directly to San Quentin

to serve a four-year sentence.

And people who knew my father after prison

said that his eyes looked completely empty.

♪

[engine revving]

When my father was released,

he was probably still whole-heartedly obsessed

with my mother.

[inaudible]

[raining]

JUDE: One day, I was at my mother's house

and the phone rang, and it was Van.

He was less than a block away,

and he asked me to come see him.

I was fearful,

-[thunder] -but I said

I would not see him.

As a matter of fact, I never wanted to see him again.

I hung up the phone,

and that was the last time I ever talked to him.

[hangs up]

GARY: And I think at this point,

my father was devastated with the fact

that he had lost her.

My father lost his soul in this whole thing.

♪

GARY: I had no idea

what I would find when I went searching for my father.

Most of my desire to find him

had to do with me constructing

what was the other half of my DNA.

Knowing that some of my behaviors can't be explained

by being raised in the Stewart household,

my biggest fear was what that meant for my legacy,

and my kid's future,

and-- and how that would propagate

throughout the Stewart lineage.

I needed to see and know...

who he was.

I was going to find him, no matter what.

[typing]

My father's family was from South Carolina,

so I began searching for anyone named "Best" in South Carolina.

And I called up this one number,

and with that, I hit a gold mine.

♪

HATTIE BEST POLK: Earl Van Best Jr.

This is Gary's father.

GARY: Hattie is the best family historian and genealogist.

HATTIE: This is Gary's grandfather,

um, when he was much younger.

This is a picture of him when he was in the navy.

Earl Van Dorn Best

enlisted in the Second World War

as a missionary to Japan.

While he was away in the service,

he had the problem with his marriage.

Gertrude was unfaithful.

She had many boyfriends.

GARY: Hattie tells me

when my grandfather returned from the war,

they divorced, and he moved to Chicago.

So, my father was basically abandoned by his father

and was raised by his promiscuous mother in San Francisco.

HATTIE: It was not a very good atmosphere

for a young child to grow up in,

and I think that it had a profound effect on Van.

It affected his whole personality.

♪

GARY: During my search,

I would also find my father's best friend,

and, as he tells it,

likely his only friend.

William Lohmus was

the single most valuable source of information

in learning things about my father

that I otherwise would've never known.

William Lohmus and my father attended Lowell High School together,

and they were in the ROTC together,

and they walked to a different beat.

They loved Bach and Mozart and Puccini.

And William recalls

a very uncomfortable home life for Van.

He shared firsthand

of hearing the headboard banging against the wall upstairs

while my grandmother was entertaining her male suitors.

♪

After high school,

my father enrolled in San Francisco City College,

and studied forensics.

It was at City College wheremy father met his first wife.

In 1957,

my father married Mary Annette Player.

That marriage lasted a year.

She was granted a divorce from my father

on the grounds of extreme cruelty

and inhuman treatment.

HATTIE: This is the only picture that I have

of Gary's father,

and it's his mugshot.

And you can tell

that it's a different kind of personality.

Something's not right with this guy.

♪

GARY: When Harold Butler gave me this photo of my father,

the first thing out of Zach's mouth was, like,

"He looks like a serial killer, Dad." -[Leona laughs]

You know, Zach's 10 years old,and you're thinking,

"What does he know about a serial killer?"

I mean...

that's scary.

LEONA: See... Do you see the resemblance?

["Cold Case Files" music]

GARY: Shortly after receiving the photo of my father

from Butler in 2003,

I was home watching TV,

when an oldCold Case Files show came on.

♪

They flashed a wanted sketch of the Zodiac Killer,

and my heart stopped.

It's like if someone

had taken a snapshot of my father

and put it on that wanted poster.

I let out some sort of

extraterrestrial noise or something

that Zach heard in the next room.

ZACH STEWART: He was very, very emotional,

and it was a chaotic series

of moments after that where,

you know, my dad's running back and forth,

between his office and the living room,

trying to find justthe right picture to compare.

♪

GARY: That was the epiphany for me.

That my father may have been the Zodiac Killer,

and this was the secret Butler was keeping from me.

[TV chatter]

JUDE: It was so preposterous to me, and so I said,

"Let's call my friends in the police department.

"Let's let them tell you that

this couldn't possibly be true."

GARY: Harold Butler reassured my mother that,

"Oh no, Judy.

"Tell Gary that we know who the Zodiac Killer was.

"He's been dead for 10 years.

We know who he was because of his DNA. We got his DNA."

But I had done my research,

and I knew that the SFPD had never solved the Zodiac case.

And that's when I learned

why Judy had friends in the SFPD.

♪

I found out that my mother's second husband

was Rotea Gilford,

a homicide inspector

with the San Francisco Police Department.

Rotea was a hero in the SFPD.

He was also one of the inspectors on the Zodiac case.

That's when I begin to wonder if the SFPD

might've been trying to cover up for Rotea.

I don't believe Harold Butler

was doing anything to try to protect me.

I believe he was trying to protect Rotea's legacy

and the reputation of the San Francisco Police Department.

Of all people that my mother could've married,

what is the likelihood

that one day, my mother tells me,

"Honey, my second husband

was an inspector in the Zodiac Killer case?"

♪

Do I just knock, or what? What do you think?

I feel like they're not ever gonna...

Why are you wearing your sunglasses inside?

Bro, you know I gotta drip, bro.We're goin' to the studioright now.

Snack Time. I didn't--

Okay. You're welcome.

I feel like that did nothing for my career.

♪ Hi, I'm Dave ♪

-Mom. -Yes?

-Okay. I want a big party this year. -Serious?

-I want a quinceañera. -Quinceañera?

We can't do that. We're too white for that. We're not allowed.

Do me a favor?Never look me in the eye again.

Okay? 'Cause your stare is way too intense.

It's starting to make my hair fall out.

-[operatic singing] -[chattering]

MAN: Check!

Check.