times we had together. and they're not going to take that away from me. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin thank you for watching . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> hopelessness. you know, where did she go? who did she see? i just wantsh to know what happened to my sister. >> a young mother is missing in a case gone cold. >> it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. b >> then detectives had an aha moment moment. to solve the case, they would attorney something you probably use every day -- facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i athought, that could actuall

accomplish a great deal. >> and that's when everything started to change. >> something happened to her. >> in court, you'll see it all come pouring out. a hidden crime and a son's he t heart-pounding moment. >> that's okay. this is a horrible crime. i'm gladho we know the truth. carol lubon was a restless young mom with two kids when she vanished from her southern california home. heartbroken, her loved ones assumed she'd left to start a new life. as years passed with no word from carol, a nagging suspension took hold -- suspicion took hold. was it something more stiiniste? her son would have to face a dark family secret, but would it

lead themet to carol? here's keith morrison with "secrets in the mist." >> january, 2013, point vicente, california. the wet, gray morning cold has settled in to stay. at noon a police boat sets off in the pea soup fog. a hail mary pass apparently, a slim chance to find the truth at last. but why there? why after all those lost 30 years? maybe some cases are destined to stay cold, easier that way. before came along with their wild ideas about murder and facebook of all things. and now this -- their doomed errand- into the fog. her name was carol jean meyer, though she was carol lubon when all this happened in march,

1981. the night of thene slamming doo, the harsh words, the car roaring away. and it's an old story anyway -- pretty girl gets pregnant at 15, marries the guy. pretty soon she's a 20-something with two kids and a hankering to live, really live, for a change. and this particular pretty girl -- >> she was fun. she was outgoing. she had a lot of friends. >> she had two sisters -- terri was the younger one. gail the older. >> we were very close and made each other laugh all the time. >> but carol lubon wasn't laughing the end of march, '81. for one thing, she wanted to be somebody -- her own somebody. >> i know that carol wanted to complete school system and further her career, and that's when she went back to studyle architecture. >> sure her husband was a nice kid, andd she loved him once wh all the intensity of first love, the handsome high school football player who'd hang aroundho on her front porch.

mike stepped up and married her after the baby was born. >> he was a really good mifathe. he seemed to really enjoy his kids. >> enjoyed carol's family, too, especially her dad, milt. milt brought young mike into the family bhousepainting business. >> just took to him immediately. he was always a very likeable person. >> friendly, loyal, but not exactly ambitious. he didn't seem to mind at all settling down to a modest existence, them and the two kids all cramped up in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in torrance, but carol did mind it very much. she'd had a secret affair by then, maybe more than one. she got herself a cute little red car, an audi fox, ordered personalized plates, cjsfox. the car long gone now, so we did this up to look like it. quite often she'd get in her little car and go roaring off to

school or to meat markets like the local red onion was back then. >> i know she was going to the red onion. i t never went with her, so i don't know what she was like. >> and then that night in march, kids off to bed. their son, mike jr., was just a boy, 10 years old. >> i was in bed. i had just got a new stereo for myju 10th birthday and was listening to the headphones. ♪ >> from his bed, he could see something happening out in the hallway. >> i remember them getting into an argument which was unusual. >>wh because they just didn't? >> not that ist knew of. i remember her marching past and going out the front door and slamming the door. >> you heard the slam? >> i heard the slam of the front door, i know that. >> the next morning -- >> we got up, and she wasn't there. >> mike sr. told carol's dad that carol demanded he sign papers to sell their house, and he didn't want to, and she got mad, and they argued. he went to bed. when he woke up in the morning,

she washe just gone. >> we just assumed she needed to get away for a few days. as the days went on, we got extremely o worried. >>rr nearly a week after carol departed, her red audi fox showed up in the parking lot of the red onion, dusty, as if it had been there a while. >> i remember being upset. she wasem gone, and i didn't kn where she went., looking fore around her, went to bars. carol's pictureen in hand. thee torrance police departmen opened a file, but they couldn't answer any of the questions like had she just finally gotten fed up with mike and this little place and gone off to start a new life o somewhere else, or h she been in an accident or something worse? more than a week after carol disparks peered, there was -- disappeared, there was still absolutely no sign of her. and then something strange happened here at the house o -- something very strange. could it- be that carol

unbeknownst to anyone sneaked back in when nobody else was around? imagine what it w was like back then in that little house. mike thinking things over. on a hunch he said he placed tape on carol's dresser drawers, a little trap. one day he took the kids to universal studios, and sure enough, when theyst returned, h noticed the tape was broken. and some mail on the counter was moved, as well. a few weeks later, it happened again. some of carol's clothes went missing. along with some money from a place no burglar would know to look -- under the butter dish in the refrigerator where mike said he and carol kept $100 in emergency cash. and now $60 was missing. justice like carol, said her sister, , gail. >> she would have not taken all of it. that wasn in carol's personali to be fair. >> made sense l'then. >> m uh-huh. then there were those mysterious phone calls. >> we'd get the calls on special

days, her birthday, my birthday. my grandmother would get calls. >> and just silence on the other end? >> yeah. >> what did younc do? >> we would t say, "carol, we le you. we hope you come back." we felt like she was finding a happier life somewhere. >> and understood that to make that successful she might have to make a complete and total break. >> yeah. >> almost three months after carollm vanished, the detective handling her case put itva in t inactive file. in his report he wrote, "no foul play involved." >> i remember thinking about her all the time. i used to play records over and over that she liked. just think, where is she, when's she coming back. >> eventually mike started dating a 19-year-old named carrie. brought her into the fold. >> we were happy that mike was going on with life. >> and so they did all go on with life. and many years went by.

until the morning in a whole new millennium when a torrance detective happened on the case of the missing young mother, and somewhere in the back of his brain, a little light turned on. >> i had a hunch that this didn't sound right to me. >> as doubts about carol's disappearance grew, detectives turned to a surprising source to help solve the mystery. coming up -- >> why don't you establish a facebook account for carol? ol 90% of women

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in march of 1981, carol l a luban, a lonely mother of two, vanished, leaving for parts unknown, leaving not just her husband mike but her son, mike jr., just 10-years-old. >> i never felt that my mother abandoned mean. i never was upset with her never. i never thought she did. i don't know why. i was upset she wasn't there. i thought she would be there to show up at a graduation or something. >> but she didn't. and at family gatherings as the years went by, thanksgiving, christmases, that awful question why would she leave them remained the unmentionable elephant in the room. >> when it came to my family, i think they didn't talk about it

because they figured it would upset me or my sister. >> my family is pretty closed to talking about heavy things, so something like that rarely talked about. >> it was an ultimate heavy thing. >> yeah. >> could you see it in your mother's eyes or your father's? >> in my father's for sure. >> what would you see there? >> a lot of emotion. a lot of sadness. i'm going to cry thinking about it. >> in 1987, almost six years after carol vanished, the torrance plpd revisolice depart revisited the case. time seemed to have altered mike's mind a little. details came back to them. remember before she vanished, mike said they argued, he went to bed alone, woke up early, and she was gone? in 1987, he remembered they argued, went to bed together, she got up at 5:30 to go to the

bathroom. he woke up, drifted to sleep, and woke up to the sound of a car engine starting and driving away. odd. but memories do play tricks. anyway it didn't seem terribly significant. so the case went back into the file and got colder. mike took over the house-painting business from carol's dad and went on to marry carrie and have two more sons. gail and teri raised their own families, and it was having babies that started to change terri's way of looking at her sister's disappearance. >> as unhappy as you might be in your life, you might leave your husband, you'd take your kids with you. >> and so when you began to suspect that she wouldn't leave her children, what did that mean to you? >> that something happened to her. >> in 1996, 15 years since they heard from carol, the police

came around again. this time they standed the lubans' back yard with ground penetrating radar, even dug up the ground. didn't find a thing. funny thing, though, about four months later, the local paper, "the daily breeze," did a story. they interviewed mike. this time his memory was slightly different. he remembered that on that terrible morning when carol left, he heard the garage door go up before she drove away. just one more little detail, though nothing profoundly different. of course no evidence whatsoever of any crime. the case went away again. and then one day in 2002, a detective named walt delseen was rummaging through cabinets behind his sergeant's desk. >> i was just being nosey. i thought, what is this? >> it was the carol luban case folder. at that point, more than 20 years old and cold as they come. >> i never even heard of it before. and i go, this is interesting. wonder if this lady's still

missing. >> of course she was. so again he read through the police reports. couldn't help but notice the subtle changes in mike's story. >> and i thought that was kind of strange because i wouldn't think you would forget the last time you saw your wife. >> so he went to see carol's parents, her mom, melba, her dad, milt. >> and he looked up at me. he was starting to cry. i'm like, milt, are you okay some and he said, he goes, i just -- so happy, i can't believe you guys are still interested in this case. >> how much did that have to do with you driving ahead on this case, that conversation? >> a lot. i'm the father of three daughters, as well. and i thought, what if this was my middle daughter. >> milt died one month later never knowing what happened to his beautiful middle daughter. what terri went to her father's funeral and saw mike there, a private thought ate at her -- mike must know something. >> i didn't say anything.

i tried to keep away. he was, of course, paying his respects to my family. but i couldn't carry on a conversation with him. >> meanwhile, walt delseen had become a little obsessed. he had many other pressing cases, but something kept pulling him back to carol luban. >> i would shuffle some work away. i got in trouble for that sometimes. >> for years, the detective chipped away until final nuclear weapon 20-- finally eight years after finding that dusty old file, he decided to pay a visit to mike luban. his colleagues thought he was a bit nuts. >> yeah, you think he's going to admit it to you? i go, well, i played enough sports in my time, i know you're not going to get anywhere if you don't try. you never know. hi, detective delseen. we want to talk about carol. >> what story would mike tell this time? l this time?

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for eight years, torrance police detective walt delcine looked at the carol luban file drawn by a hunch that this young mother did not disappear voluntarily. but actual evidence of a crime? just wasn't any. finally in 2010, 29 years after carol supposedly walked out on

her family and never came back, delcine decided it was time for a surprise visit to michael luban. he went over with a sergeant. >> he invited us in. we did catch him unexpectedly, but that was the plan. >> but was mike upset or thrown off? not at all. >> very nice like i anticipated he would be because i'd now heard from everybody in the family how mike's a good guy. >> so together they went over again the details of that last night back in march, '81. and right away, mike remembered a little more about the night carol presented him with a real estate contract and a demand they sell their tiny house. >> she came here and -- no, did she say walk away -- >> she said "you make my skin crawl." >> "you make my skin crawl"? >> yeah. i thought being -- i bet she did say that. i pushed him for some more

details. >> and the details were once again a little different about when and where he last saw her, for example. it wasn't when he went to bed around 10:00 p.m. as he said on one occasion or 5:30 the next morning as he also said. no, this time mike said he last saw carol about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. in the bathtub. >> how long was she in the tub? >> i used the bathroom. >> then he said maybe around midnight or 1:00 or 2:00, he heard the garage door went up and went to the door and saw carol's car driving away. >> lights -- >> hataillights? you're sure it was her car? >> yeah. >> also, remember the story about putting tape on the dresser drawers after carol left and later he found it broken? didn't remember that now. >> the tape -- >> i don't know. >> you don't know what that is? >> no. >> as he sat here in 2010, he did remember some other traps

he'd set, even more elaborate. >> like i would take like baby powder and put it inside the door so if you stepped in, i'd see -- >> baby powder? okay. and what else? anything else? >> i think i did that james bond thing with the paper on the door. >> paper on the door? >> if the paper falls. >> okay. >> that's about it. >> by now, detective delcine was working with his colleague, jim wallace, and deputy d.a. john luwen. luwen specializes in tackling the most difficult of cold cases. do you remember when you saw the results of that interview what you thought? >> yeah. i thought that his memory had grown in areas where it shouldn't and in areas where he should be saying the same story was different. and that's the hallmark of deception. >> sure. but the mind plays tricks. the mind invents things. and -- and inserts them into your memory, and you believe them as strenuously as if they actually happened. >> that's an interesting theory. i don't think it's really

supported. memories can be lost. but memories don't increase in details over the years, and they don't increase in different details. that's a sign of what we call a lie. i had version of what happened from the start made no sense to any of us. >> this is what makes the case -- >> and why would mike lie? to the cold-case team it seemed obvious -- >> he killed her that night. she stopped living that night. and everything else that's going -- it doesn't make sense. it's all because you know it's a lie. if you know it's a lie it all lines up. >> remarkably mike luban continued to talk to them three more times of his own free will, very friendly. without an attorney. he even let the prosecutor take a crack at him. >> if you were me, if you were in my position tell me what you're thinking. >> what i did it. >> mike, i can tell you -- sometimes you know the kind of murder cases we get, we get

cases where the husband finds out that his wife is cheating on him and kills her. so -- >> it had nothing to do with that. >> did you catch what mike said? "it had nothing to do with that"? lewen did. >> when you look at sentence structure and how people talk and communicate, "it wasn't about that," what is the kw"it"? the. >> you gave that great significance, didn't you? >> absolutely. >> they kept at mike. at one point it seemed to them he was on the verge of confessing. >> listening, watching the last few days or something to think about all of that -- i'll come back. >> when he came back, he didn't give them anything, and they were back where they started. spoig suspicion, sure, but no evidence of a crime, no way to even prove carol was dead. jim wallace was a detective who finally hit on an idea. to use a tool that didn't even

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here's what's happening. christine blasey ford's allegations of sexual misconduct against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh will now be investigated by the fbi. president trump approved the additional background check at the request of senate republicans. as a result, the full senate confirmation vote has been delayed by at least one week. thursday's dramatic day-long senate hearing to a massive -- drew a massive audience. nielsen says more than 20 million people watched the testimony. now back to "dateline."

welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. detectives believed mike lubahn was on the verge of confessing to the murder of his wife carol, but then he refused to talk, and the investigation hit a wall. website without a body, how could they prove there was a murder at all? the answer would sent the investigators into an unexpected direction. could facebook help them find out what really happen tod carrel? here again is keith mower -- carol? here again is keith morrison with "secrets in the mist." >> deputy d.a. john lewen and the cold-case team believed mike lubahn killed his wife carol back in 1981. but they had one big problem. they couldn't prove carol was dead. >> the biggest assumption is going to be how do you know she gent across the country or changed her identity? >> kind of an important question

with no answer. and then in january, 2011, jim wallace got the flu. lucky break -- no, really. >> and i was laying in bed, and high wife came in. unfortunately, when you work these cases, all you talk about is we are a dedicated cold-case team. you talk about the case you're working on. i'm sure she was tired of hearing about it. she said, why don't you establish a facebook account for carol. i thought, that could accomplish a great deal. >> of course back in 1981 when carol disappeared, facebook creator mark zuckerberg wasn't even born yet. but 30 years later, detective wallace knew social media and its potential to connect to millions around the globe instantly. it could determine once and for all, he thought, whether carol was alive or dead. >> because all of us know from using facebook that it's, number one, a kind of a place where we say "here i am." it's also a place you can find people. >> surely if carol was alive, someone on facebook or twitter would know something.

of course, wallace also knew carol would look vastly different 30 years after her disappearance. he found an age progression artist to create an image of what she might look like today. and then he placed that photo and others like it on facebook and other sites. >> it turned out it was a great point of contact for me to contact 350 friends and family of carol. and right away, we said, has anybody seen carol? we discovered immediately that nobody had seen carol since the night she disappeared. >> and if carol merely googled her own name, she'd find herself at wallace's website, caroljeannemeyerlubahn.com. but that never happened. which meant something significant, detective. >> she's not looking for herself. she's dead. >> or a farmer's wife in uruguay who doesn't go on the computer much? >> maybe. >> lots of people are not on facebook. >> right -- >> don't check or google things -- it doesn't mean that she is dead for sure. >> absolutely. >> it just means you have a fair good case for it.

>> in this large, cumulative thing we're looking at, it's another piece that points to the same conclusion. >> reporter: if carol was dead, if mike killed her, taking the accusation to court would be risky. totally circumstantial, of course, no body, an unclear motive, a sympathetic defendant. but prosecutor lewen decided to roll the dice. 30 years after carol lubahn vanished from her family's life on, april 13th, 2011, mike was arrested for carol's murder. when you went to the family and said "we're going to charge him," what was their reaction? >> mixed at best. >> mixed? that's a mild word. h how about upset, horrified, mystified? most of carol's family members believed the idea that mike could have murdered carol was ludicrous. >> well, he was a member of our family, you know. and nobody wanted to see him be arrested or him be the reason or

-- or any of that. it's like another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. >> this was a case where i think the family would have been more than happy to believe that carol is still out there somewhere. she's not dead. and their beloved son-in-law is not a killer. >> but of all mike sr.'s family members, perhaps no one was as torn as his namesake first-born son, mike jr., who loved his father unreservedly. followed him into the family painting business, worked side by side with him for decades, and who had confessed to detectives that like his aunt terri, he, too, had doubts about his father. doubts that had taken root shortly after mike sr.'s second wife left him. >> he talked about my stepmother constantly for years. was nonstop. >> and why was that so significant to you? >> because he never talked about my mother.

>> at all? >> never. >> but mike never confronted his father. >> i just knew in the back of my mind that this could be a possibility, and i really honestly at that time, i never wanted my father to go to jail. i just wanted to know. it was so important to me the truth behind that evening. >> to get the truth and avoid a trial, prosecutor john lewen was willing to make a deal. >> we had offered him voluntary manslaughter if he gave us carol's body. >> and he turned you down flat? >> he did, repeatedly. >> mike pleaded not guilty. the case was going to trial. and if members of carol's own family didn't believe mike did it, what would a jury think? coming up, the accused on the stand. >> isn't it true, mr. lubahn, that carol lived her last breath in that bathtub when you murdered her?

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it was september 11th of all day, september 11th, 2012, 31 years, five months, 12 days after the last-known sighting of carol lubahn. an inauspicious day to begin the prosecution of a popular man? could be.

deputy d.a. john lewin went ahead anyway. >> what i'm going to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, is that despite the fact that mike lubahn is a decent man, he murdered his wife. >> of course, lewin knew that to prove a murder occurred he had to show the victim was, in fact, no longer alive. for that he turned to detective wallace who explained to the jury the facebook and social media presence he created for carol had turned up a whole lot of nothing. >> have you been contacted by anybody, either by phone, e-mail, in writing, who says, you know what, i've seen carol lubahn after the day she disappeared? >> no. >> reporter: though as lewin and the team also let the jury hear, family members like carol's sister, gail, believed what mike told them -- that carol had run

off. >> has it been hard for you to accept the possibility that she may be dead? >> well, yes. >> is it made even more difficult by the fact that you cared deeply for the defendant? >> yes. >> and younger sister, terri, even though she had suspected mike for years -- >> do you still think of mike lubahn sr. as a part of your family? >> yes. >> but most anguished of all -- mike and carol's son, mike jr. >> is there anything about the way that you remember your mom that would make you think or made you feel that she would leave you and never come back and never say good-bye? >> no. >> he loved his dad, but also secretly dowded him. something he -- doubted him. something he'd never revealed until now. >> i was sweating so profusely during that whole trial. he never knew i had these feelings.

so on the stand publicly, i had to basically say, yeah, i'm thinking maybe there's some weird things about your story. and it was the first time that my father really would have known i felt that way. so i was really, really stressed out about that. >> how hard is it for you to be here today? >> very. >> do you want to believe that your dad is responsible for your mother's disappearance? >> do i want to believe it? >> yes. >> no. >> let's assume that your dad, in fact, did kill your mom, would you want to see him punished for it? >> no. not particularly. >> prosecutor lewin knew the ambivalence of the family members did not help his case. but -- >> in the end, my job isn't to make sure that the family members get what they want. my job is to make sure that, you know, carol's killer is held responsible. >> but was mike a killer? his attorney, kevin donahue.

>> i think the police are just wrong. >> no forensics, no witnesses, not even a body. the defense might have stopped right there. instead, they decided to gamble. mike was a nice guy. the jury should see that. >> do you solemnly swear -- >> if the details had been a little different each time he was asked to tell the story, here was his chance to straighten it out for the jury. how odd then that mike, under oath now, amended his story just a little again. like when he added the detail that carol was in the bathtub when she said something mean to him. >> she said, "you make my skin crawl." >> also slightly different, the way he discovered she was gone. >> i opened the front door and went out, and the garage door was open, and the car was gone. >> in earlier versions, didn't mike say he heard the garage door go up and saw taillights as carol drove away? why had his story changed again?

>> what's the deal with that? did you hear the garage door? >> i don't think so. >> why do you think that now? what has jogged your memory? >> because i think over the years, i thought about this night so many times. i had seen that car back out of the driveway many, many times when she was leaving. i think i thought repeatedly in my mind that's what i thought -- i saw the car. i can see it right now. >> he never thought for a moment, he said, it would be the last time he'd see his wife. >> i thought maybe she had gone out dancing and stayed the night with a friend. >> what did happen to her? mike insisted he simply didn't know. >> did you have anything to do with killing her? >> no. >> did you have anything to do with her disappearance? >> no. other than i didn't sign the papers that made her upset, but that's it. >> successful testimony?

maybe. but now the downside. he'd have to answer questions from john lewin. >> do you lie sometimes? >> no. >> you never lie? >> i wouldn't say never. i mean, a white lie, who knows? >> have you ever lie good something serious in your life? >> no. >> in your entire life you've never lied once about anything that wasn't a white lie? >> i'll just say not that i can remember. >> in fact, mike had a hard time remembering a lot of things prosecutor lewin asked about. >> i don't remember. i don't remember going to bed. i don't remember saying that. i don't know. >> but how on earth, asked lewin, could he not remember the last time he saw his wife? >> would you gras agree that woe one of the most significant details of your entire life? >> yes. but i -- doesn't mean i had to remember it. >> lewin wasn't buying it. >> isn't it true, mr. lubahn, that the last place that carol

lived, her last breath, was taken in that bathtub when you murdered her? what are you looking at the judge -- >> because i'm waiting for him to correct you. no. i didn't murder her. i'm sorry. in the bathtub? >> and mr. lubahn, if you had murder her, you would tell us today if i asked? >> i would have admitted it. >> you would admit it on the stand today? >> yes. >> do you think that statement's believable? >> i think so. >> i'm done. >> of course, believeability was a question for the jury to decide. and decide they did. though as you'll see, that wasn't the end of the story. not by a mile. coming up, a final push for the truth. >> please, for your family, for

your kids, tell us what happened. >> when "dateline" continues. ins

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okay. let's call the jurors out. >> there are few things in american life as dramatic, as weighted with consequence as the moment a jury, verdict in hand, files into a courtroom. had they been persuaded that mike killed carol or even that

she was dead? mike's family held its breath. so did the prosecutor and the police. and now here was mike's fate. >> we the juror in the above entitled action find the defendant michael clark guilty. >> guilty of second degree murder. mike was going to prison. >> i've had cases before where you get done and you walk out of the courtroom and the family throws their arms around you. they're so grateful. that's not this case. >> i was surprised the jury would convict him on such little evidence. i don't think any of us are happy to see mike go to jail. >> and you still believe mike is a nice guy, believable guy? >> yes. >> what gale and the rest of the

family wanted most were some answers. >> it's not so much that i want mike to pay for what he did. i just want to know what happened to my sister. >> at the sentencing hearing in december 2012, mike's own son echoed those sentiments. >> guilty or innocence aside, i've never wanted my father to go to prison. i've only asked if he knows anything, to please let me know. he's been a good father and a good person. if he's sent to prison today, i want him to know i'm going to miss our time together. it's going to be hard to see the world change without him. i humbly stand before the court today to request leniency for my father when giving his sentence. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> after that, the spratrange t took a remarkable turn that very day in court.

>> i'm asking right now as we sit here, mr. lubonn's going to have a chance. please for your family, for your kids, just let it go. tell us what happened. >> the judge granted a recess so mike could speak with his attorney privately. did he actually have something to confess? they returned a few minutes later. >> we're asking time to continue the sentencing. >> time to think? the judge pushed back sentencing for a month. >> my hope was he would tell us what happened, that he would tell us what he did with carol and he would be honest about both. >> for almost four weeks they waited until january 7th, 2013. all eyes were on mike lubonn as he entered the courtroom and then shifted to the prosecutor who told the court that very morning mike finally revealed to

him the secret he'd been keeping almost 32 years. >> all of the information about them fighting about the selling of the house, he said that was truthful. that occurred. >> then carol stormed out and it might have blown over as arguments do, but she came back 1:30 a.m. and said the one thing that would not blow over, not ever. >> she told him that she was going to be taking somebody else, another man to her sister terri's upcoming wedding. he said he was very upset. >> she tried to comfort him then, he said. >> and she was telling him, don't worry, you'll find somebody else, et cetera. >> and that was the last thing carol lubonn ever said. >> he didn't want to hear it and he said that he pushed her.

she fell and hit her head on a heavy end table in the living room. he said she didn't bleed, but he knew instantly she was dead. >> detectives hooked lubonn up to a polygraph machine. >> after the polygraph, the test was done. he dprosays he didn't pass. now the defendant changes his story and says, okay, i punched her in the head and i punched her hard but he said only one time. >> then he told what he did with carol's body. >> after he killed her, he put her in the garage behind some carpet. he took her car the next morning to the red onion parking lot, dumped it there. at some point she was placed in the trunk of mr. lubonn's vehicle. >> then he said he took her to the ocean, put her on a raft, paddled out to sea and dropped her down, a cinder block tied to

her body. it was a shock, of course, a big shock. for so long the family or most of it believed mike. now in a very public way they finally knew that carol was dead and he, their sweet mike, killed her. but the whole truth, was it actually out there somewhere? so on that cold and foggy january day, mike surrounded by a retinue of cops and lawyers floated out into the mist to find carol, find whatever was left. >> if they find the cinder block in the ocean, that will give me half of the closure i need. >> she didn't get it because after the boat ride, mike admitted his ocean tale was one more lie. and perhaps it was finally for the sake of his son, the son who never abandoned him that he finally led investigators to the

place he said mike's mother had actually been all these many years. police searched the area but once again were oh unable to locate carol's remains and give the family what they hoped for most, the chance to say good-bye. >> i don't know why getting her back is the ultimate bookend for me. i want to know that she's properly buried or cremated or whatever we would choose to do with her. >> why is that so important? >> i think it just is the ultimate answer. this is it. there's no more wondering. >> no, not about that. but his father in prison 15 years. when we last spoke to mike, it was clear he had a good deal of wondering left to do about that man and what he took away. do you still love him? >> yeah, do i. i always will. i've got to figure out how i'm going to process these facts i

know. i don't know yet. i kind of thought a perfect punishment for my father is i was going to ask him to write one sentence to me about my mother every week he's in prison so he has to think about her and i can remember her again. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> horrible knowing the person you love is dead and you're being looked at for it. >> imagine you're shaken in the dead of night. >> my ears were ringing. i thought i was dreaming. >> in bed right next to you, your husband murdered. >> hard to get that one out of your head, isn't it? >> yes. >> here's the twist, you're the suspect.