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tv   Dateline  MSNBC  May 4, 2019 2:00am-3:00am PDT

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i am deeply, deeply sorry. . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." a hopelessness. where did she go. who did she see? i just want 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. >> then detectives had an aha moment to solve the case they returned to something you probably use every day. facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i thought that could accomplish a great deal. >> that's when everything started to change. >> something happened to her.
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>> you will see it all come pouring out. a hidden crime and a son's heart pounding moment. >> this is a horrible crime. >> i'm glad we know the truth. carol was a restless young mom with two kids when she vanished from her southern california home. heartbroken, her family assumed she left to start a new life. with no word from carol, a nagging suspicion took hold. was her disappearance the result of something more sinister? before it could be solved, her son would have to face a secret. here's keith morrison with secrets in the mist.
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>> january, 2013. the wet gray morning celted in to stay. at noon a police boat sets off in the pea soup fog. a hail mary pass, a slim chance to find the truth at last. why out there? why after all those last 30 years. some cases are destined to stay cold. easier that way. before they 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. the night of the slamming doors, the harsh words, the car roaring away. it's an old story anyway.
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pretty girl gets pregnant at 15 and marries the guy and pretty soon she's a 20 something with two kids with a hankering to really live. this particular pretty girl -- >> she was fun and out going and had a lot of friends. >> she two sisters, terry was the younger one. gale, the older. >> we were very close and made each other laugh all the time. >> carol wasn't laughing at theent of march '81. she wanted to be somebody. >> carol wanted to complete school and further her career and that's when she went back to study architecture. >> sure, her husband was a nice kid and she loved him with all the intensity of first love. the handsome football player who would hang around on her front porch. mike stepped up and married her after the baby was born. >> he was a good father.
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he seemed to enjoy his kids. >> enjoyed carol's family, too, especially her dad, milt. milt brought young mike into the family house painting business. >> he took to him immediately. he was a likeable person. >> friendly, loyal, but not exactly ambitious. he didn't mind a modest existence, them cramped up in a two bedroom, one bathhouse in torrance. carol did mind it. she got herself a cute red car, an audi fox, ordered personalized plates. the car is long gone now so we did this one up just like it. she would get in her car alone and go roaring off to school or to meat markets like the local red onion back then.
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>> i never went there with her so i don't know what she was like. >> then in march, kids off to bed. her son, mike, jr. was just a boy, 10 years old. >> i was in bed and got a new stereo for my 10th birthday and was listening to head phones. >> from his bed, he could see something happening in the hallway. >> remember then getting into an argument, which was unusual. >> you just didn't? >> not that i knew of. i remember her going out the front door. i heard the slam. i know that. >> the next morning -- >> we got up and she wasn't there. >> mike senior said carol signed papers to sell the house and he didn't want to and he got mad and when he woke up in the morning, she was just gone. >> so we just assumed she needed to get away.
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as the days went on, we got extremely worried. nearly a week after, the red audi fox showed up in the parking lot of the red onion, dusty as if it had been there a while. >> remember being upset about it. she was gone and i didn't know where she went. >> they drove around and went to bars. carol's picture in hand. >> the torrance picture opened a file, but couldn't answer questions like had she finally gotten fed up with mike and ran off to start a new life somewhere else or had she been in an accident or something worse? more than a week after, there was absolutely no sign of her. then something strange happened here at the house. very strange. could it be that carol, unbenounced to anyone, sneaked back in when no one else was
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around? imagine what it was like in that little house. mike thinking things over. on a hunch he placed tape on the dresser drawer, a trap. one day he took the kids to universal studios and when they returned, he noticed the tape was broken and mail on the counter was moved as well. two weeks later, it happened again. some of carol's clothes went missing along with money from a place no burglar would know to look. under the butter dish where they kept $100 in emergency cash and now $60 was missing. >> she would not have taken all of it. that was in her personality to be fair. >> it made sense then. >> uh-huh. >> then mysterious phone calls. >> we would get calls on her birthday, my birthday. my grandmother would get calls.
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>> silence on the other end? >> yeah. >> what would you do? >> say carol, we hope you come back. we hoped she was finding a happier life somewhere. >> to make that successful, she might have to make a complete and total break. >> yeah. >> almost three months later, the detective put it in the inactive file. in his report he wrote no foul play involved. >> i remember thinking about her all the time and used to play records over and over she liked. i was thinking where is she and when is she coming back? >> mike started dating a 19-year-old named carrie. brought her into the fold. >> we were happy that mike was going on with life. >> 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
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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? >> when dateline continues. telis my mom washes the dishes... ...before she puts them in the dishwasher. so what does the dishwasher do? cascade platinum does the work for you, prewashing and removing stuck-on foods, the first time. wow, that's clean! cascade platinum.
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in march of 1981, carol fwa a lovely young mother of two and known to be unhappy in her marriage. leaving not just her husband, mike, and her son, mike, jr. at 10 years old. >> i was never upset with her, ever. i never thought she did. i don't know why. i was just upset she was not there. i thought she would show up at a graduation or something. >> but she didn't. at family gatherings, thanksgiving, christmases, that awful question, why would she leave them, remained the unmentional elephant in the room. >> when it came to my family, they didn't talk about it because they figured it would upset me. >> our family is pretty closed to talking about heavy things.
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something like that was rarely talked about. >> that was a 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 and sadness. i'm going to cry thinking about it. >> in 1987, almost six years after carol vanished, the torrance police department revisited the case. remember soon after carol vanished, mike said they argued and he went to sleep alone and woke up early and she was gone? in 1987, he remembered they argued, went to bed together, she got up at 5:30 in the morning to go to the bathroom and he drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of a car
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imagine starting and driving away. memory dos play tricks and it didn't seem significant and the case went back into the file and got colder. mike took over the house participating business from carol's dad and went on to carry carrie and have two more sons. gale and terry raised their own family and it was having babies that started to change terry's way of looking at her sister's disappearance. >> as unhappy as you might be in your life, you might leave your husband, you would take your kids with you. >> 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 and scanned the back yard with ground penetrating radar, even dug up the ground.
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didn't find a thing. funny thing though, about four months later the local paper, the daily breeze, did a little story and interviewed mike and this time his memory was different. he remembered on that terrible morning when carol left, he heard the garage door go up before she drove away. one more little detail, but nothing profoundly different. no evidence whatsoever of any crime. the police went away again. day in 2002, a dkd wetective wa rummaging through cabinets. >> i was being nosey. i said what is? ? >> it was the case folder and cold as they come. >> i never heard of it before. i said this is interesting. i wonder if this lady is still missing. >> she was. again he read through the police reports and couldn't help but
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notice the subtle changes in mike's story. >> i thought it was strange. i wouldn't think you would forget the last time you saw your wife. >> here went to see carol's parents. >> he looked up at me and started to cry. i said milt, are you okay? he said i just am so happy and i can't believe you guys are still interested. >> how much did that have to do with you driving ahead on this case? >> a lot. i'm the father of three daughters as well. what if this was my middle daughter. >> milt died a month later, not knowing what happened to his daughter. >> when terry went to her father's funeral, a private thought ate at her. mike must know something. >> i didn't say anything. i tried to keep away. he was paying respects to my family. but i couldn't carry on a
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conversation with him. >> meanwhile, walt had been obsessed. he had many pressing cases, but something kept pulling him back to carol. >> i would put some of my work away and i got in trouble for that sometimes. >> for years he chipped away until finally in 2010, eight years after he found the musty old file, he decided to pay a surprise visit to mike. >> what do you think he is going to admit it to you? >> i played enough sports in my time, i know you are not going to get anywhere if you don't try. you never know. >> hi, i want to talk about carol. >> what story would mike tell this time? >> dateline returns after the break.
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for eight years, torrance police detective walt worried away at the file drawn by an irresistabilii irresistible hunch that this young mother did not disappear voluntarily. actual evidence of a crime? there wasn't any. in 2010, 29 years after carol walked out on her family and never came back, he decided it was time for a surprise visit to
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michael. he went over with his sergeant. >> he invited us in. we did catch him unexpectedly. >> was mike upset or thrown off? not at all. >> very nice like i anticipated. i heard from everybody in the family how mike is a good guy. >> so together they went over the details of that last night back in march of '81. right away mike remembered a little more about the night carol presented him with a real estate contract and demand they sell their typy house. . >> what happened? >> she said you make my skin crawl. >> you make my skin crawl. >> i thought bing. i bet she did say that. i pushed him some more for more details. >> and the details were once again a little different. about when and where he last saw
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her, for example. it wasn't when he went to bed around 10:00 p.m. or around 5:30 the next morning. he last saw carol around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. in the bathtub. >> she was in the tub? >> i used the bathroom. >> maybe around midnight or 1:00 or 2:00, he heard the garage door and he saw carol's car driving away. you sure it was her car? >> yeah. >> also remember the story about putting tape on the dresser drawers and later he found it broken? he didn't remember that now. >> you don't know? >> no. >> as he sat here, he did remember other traps he set even more elaborate. >> i would take baby powder and put it inside the door so
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somebody stepped in it, i would see. >> anything else? >> think i did that james bond thing with the paper on the door. >> okay. >> that's about it. >> by now, the detective was working with jim wallace and the deputy da john lieu ewin. >> do you remember when you saw the results of the interview? >> i thought his memories had grown in areas where it should and in areas where he should be saying the same, it's different. that's the hallmark of deception. >> the mind invents things and you believe them as if they 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
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don't increase in different details. that's a sign of a lie. >> his version of what happened from the start made no sense to any of us. >> this is what makes the case. >> why would mike lie? it seemed obvious. >> he killed her and she stopped living and everything else that doesn't make sense is because it's a lie. if you know it's a lie, it lines up. >> mike continued to talk to them three more times of his own free will. friendly. without an attorney. he even let the prosecutor take a crack at him. >> if you were in my position, me what you would think. >> what you are thinking. >> which is? >> that i did it. >> mike, sometimes you know the murder cases we get. we get cases where the husband finds out his wife is cheating on him and he kills her.
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>> for has nothing to do with that. >> did you catch what he did? it had nothing to do with that? >> if you look at sentence structure, it wasn't about that. what is the it? >> you gave that great significance? >> absolutely. >> they kept at mike. at one point it seemed to them he was on the verge of confessing. >> listen, a few days or something, i will think about it. cooperate. >> when he came back, he didn't give them anything and they were right back where they started. suspicion, sure. no evidence of a crime. no way to even prove carol was dead. jim wallace was a detective who hit on it. to use a tool that didn't exist when carol found her husband on a march night in 1981.
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>> coming up, a dramatic turn in the case and fresh heart break for carol's family. when dateline continues.
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here's what's happening. president trump spoke with vladimir putin on the phone for over an hour on friday. he said they spoke about a nuclear deal that could include china and also the mueller report. north korea fired short range missiles off the east coast saturday morning according to a military official. they are analyzing the details of that launch. now back to dateline. >> welcome back to dateline. i'm craig melvin.
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detectives believe mike was on the verge of confessing to the murder of his wife. then the investigation hit a wall. without a body, how could they prove there was a murder at all? the answer would accepted investigators in an unexpected direction. could facebook help them find out what really happened to carol? here's keith with secrets in the mist. >> the deputy da believe mike killed his wife, carol in 1981. they had a big problem. they couldn't prove carol was dead. >> the biggest assumption is how do you know she's not out of the country or across the country. >> an important question with no for. then jim wallace got the flu.
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lucky break? no, really. >> my wife came in and when you work these cases, this is all you talk about. the case you are working on. she was tired of hearing it. she mentioned why don't you establish a facebook account for carol? i thought that would accomplish a great deal. >> in 1981, facebook creator mark zuckerberg was not even born. 30 years later, the detective knew social media and the potential to connect to millions instantly could determine once and for all whether carol was alive or dead. >> all of us know from using facebook, it's a place where we say here i am and you can find people. >> for carol was still alive, someone on facebook or twitter would know something. of course carol would look vastly different.
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he fountain age progression artist of what she might look like and placed those photos on facebook. >> it was a great point of contact to contact 350 friends and family of carol. has anyone seen carol? we discovered that nobody seen carol since the night she disappeared. if carol googled her own name, she would find her website. that never happened. that meant something significant. >> she is not looking for herself. she's dead. >> or a farmer's wife in uruguay. >> maybe. >> lots of people are not on facebook or don't google things. it just means you have a case for it. >> in this large cumulative
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thing, it's another piece that points to the same conclusion. >> for carol was dead and if mike killed her, taking the accusation to court is risky. no body and an unclear motive and sympathetic defendant. the prosecutor decided to roll the dice. 30 years after carol 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 are going to charge him, what was her reaction? >> mixed at best. >> mixed? that's a mild word. how about upset, horrified, mystified? most of the family members believed the idea was ludicrous. >> he was a member of our family and nobody wanted to see him be arrested or him be the reason or any of that.
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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. their beloved son-in-law is not a killer. >> of all mike senior's family members, no one was as torn as his firstborn son, mike, jr. who loved his father, unreservedly. followed him into the family painting business and worked side by side with him and confessed to detectives that he too had doubts about his father. doubts that had taken root after mike senior's second wife left him. >> he would talk about my stepmother constantly. for years. nonstop. >> why was that significant to you? >> he never talked about my mother. >> at all? >> never. >> but mike never confronted his
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father. >> i knew that this could be a possibility and i honestly at that time never wanted my father to go to jail. i just wanted to know. it was so important for me to know the truth. >> to get the truth and avoid a trial, prosecutor john was willing to make a deal. >> we offered him voluntary manslaughter if he gave us carol's body. >> here turned you down? >> he did. repeatedly. >> mike pleaded not guilty. the case was going to trial. 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 that carol lived her last breath in that bathtub when you murdered her? >> when are dateline continues. >> when are dateline continues
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it was september 11th, of all days. september 11th, 2012. after the last known sighting of carol. much a day to begin the prosecution of a popular man. could be. the deputy da went ahead anyway. >> what i am going to be able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt is despite the fact that
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sm mike is a decent man, he murdered his wife. >> of course he knew to prove a murder had occurred, he had to show the victim was no longer alive. for that he turned to detective wallace who explained the facebook and social media presence had turned up a lot of nothing. >> have you been contacted by anybody either by phone, e-mail, in writing who said you know what, i have seen carol after the day she disappeared? >> no. >> as he and his team let the jury, carol's sister, gale, believed what mike told them. that carol it had run off. >> has it been hard for you to accept the possibility that she may be dead? >> well, yes. >> is it more difficult by the
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fact that you care deeply for the defendant? >> yes. >> and younger sister, terry, even though see this suspected mike for years -- >> do you think of mike as part of your family? >> yes. >> most anguished of all? mike and carol's son, mike, jr. >> sorry there anything about the way 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 goodbye? >> no. >> he loved his dad, but also secretly doubted him. something he never revealed until now. >> i was sweating so profusely during that whole trial. he never knew i had these feelings. i had to basically say yeah, i'm thinking maybe there is weird things about your story and was
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the first time that my father knew i felt that way. i was really, really stressed out about that. >> how hard is it to be here today? >> very. >> do you want to believe your father is responsible for your mother's disappearance? >> do i want to believe it? no. >> let's assume your dad did kill your mom. would you want to see him punished? >> not particularly. >> he knew the a.m. bitch lens of the family members did not help his case. >> my job is not to make sure that the family members get what they want. my job is to make sure that carol's killer is held responsible. >> but was mike a killer? his attorney, kevin donahue. >> think the police are wrong. >> no witnesses and not even a body. the defense might have stopped
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right there. instead they decided to gamble. mike was a nice guy. the jury should see that. if the details had been different each time he was asked to tell the story, here was the chance to straighten it all out. how odd 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. >> she said you make my skin crawl. >> slightly different, the way he discovered she was gone. >> i opened the front door and the car was gone. >> in earlier versions he said he heard the garage door go up and saw tail lights as she drove away. why had his story changed again. >> did you hear the garage door? >> i don't think so. >> why do you think that now?
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what jogg ege eged your memory. >> i thought about this night so many times and i had seen that car back out that was driveway many, many times when she was leaving. i think i just thought repeatedly that that's what i thought happened. i saw the car. i can see it right now. >> here never thought for a moment that it would be the last time he had seen his wife. >> i thought she went out and went dancing and stayed the night with a friend. >> what are did happen? mike insisted he didn't know. >> did you have going do with killing her? >> no. >> did you have anything to do with her disappearance? >> no, other than i didn't sign the papers and made her upset, but that's it. >> successful testimony? maybe. but now the downside. he would have to answer questions from john. >> do you lie sometimes?
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>> no. >> you never lie? >> i don't want to say never. a white lie. who knows. >> have you ever lied about something serious that was not a white lie? >> no. >> in your entire life you never lied once about anything that was not a white lie. >> not that i can remember. >> mike had a hard time remembering a lot of things. >> i don't remember. i don't remember, i don't remember saying that. i don't know. >> how on earth could he not remember the last time he saw his wife? >> would you agree that would be one of the most significant events details of your entire life. >> yes, but that doesn't mean i remember it. >> he was not buying it. >> isn't it true that the last place that carol lived her last breath was taken in that bathtub when you murdered her?
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why are you looking at the judge? >> i'm waiting for him to correct you. no. i didn't murder her. i'm sorry. in the bathtub? >> if you had murdered her, you would tell us today thaw did. >> i would have admitted it. >> you would admit it on the stand today. >> yes. >> do you think that statement is believable? >> i think so. >> i'm done. >> of course believability was a question for the jury to decide. and decide they did. though as you 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 and for your kids, tell us what happened. >> when are dateline continues. >> when are dateline continues
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let's call the jurors out. >> there are few things in american life as dramatic as weighted with consequence as a jury with verdict in hand files into the courtroom. had she been persuaded mike killed carol or that she was even dead. mike's family held their collective breath. so did the prosecutor and the police. >> you don't know what to
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expect. >> now here was mike's fate. >> we the jury find the defendant michael clark lieu bone sr. guilty of the crime. >> guilty of second-degree murder. mike lubon was going to prison. and the detective felt surrounded by an unfamiliar reaction. >> i had cases before where you get done and you walk out of the courtroom and the family throws their arms around you. that's not this case. >> i was very surprised that the jury would convict him on such little evidence. and 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 gail and the rest of the family wanted most was some answers. >> not so much i want mike to pay for what he did, i just want to know what happened to my
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sister. >> the at the sentencing hearing in december of 2012 mike's own son echoed those sentiments. >> guilt or innocence aside i nerve wanted my father to go to prison. i just asked if he knows anything to please let me know. >> then mike jr. made a heartbreaking plea to the court. >> he's been a good father and a good person. if he's sent to prison today i want him to know i'll miss our time together. it will be hard to see the world change without him. i humbly stand before the court to request leniency for my father when you give him the sentence. >> after that, well then the strange tale of the much loved convicted killer took quite a remarkable turn. it happened that very day in court. >> i'm asking right now as we sit here mr. lubon will have a chance please for your family, for your kids, just let it go.
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tell us what happened. >> the judge granted a recess so mike could speak with his attorney privately. did he actually have something to confess? he returned a few minutes later and -- >> we're asking to continue the sentencing. >> the judge pushed back sentencing by a month. >> my hope was that he would tell us what happened, that he would tell us what he did with carol and that he would be honest about both. >> for almost four weeks they waited until january 7th, 2013. all eyes were on mike lubon 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 had been keeping almost 32 years and so now he did all the talking.
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>> all the information about them fighting about the selling of the house he says that was truthful, that occurred. >> then carol stormed out. 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 terry's upcoming wedding. he was very upset. >> she tried to comfort him then he said. >> she was telling him don't worry you'll find be somebody else. et cetera. >> that was the last thing carol lubon ever said. >> he didn't want to hear it. he said he pushed her. she fell and hit her head on a heavy end table in the living room. he said that she didn't bleed but he knew instantly that she was dead.
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>> detectives hooked lub onto a polygraph machine. how much of this was true? >> after the polygraph the test was done he's confronted you didn't pass. he changes his story. he said okay i punched her in the head. i punched her hard. but he said only one time. >> then he told lubon 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. lubon's vehicle. >> and 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 and now in
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this very public way they finally knew that carol was dead and he, their sweet mike killed her. but the whole truth, was it actually not there somewhere? so on that cold and foggy january day mike surrounded by cops and lawyers floated out into the mist to find carol. find whatever was left. >> if they find the cinder block in the owing after the search, they fine that, 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 finally for the sake of his son, the son who never abandoned him that he finally passed a polygraph and led investigators to the place that mike's mother had been all these many years. police searched the area but once again were unable to locate carol's remain and give the
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family what they hoped for most, a chance to say good-bye. >> i don't know why getting her back is the ultimate book end for me. i want to know that she's properly buried or cremated or whatever we choose to do with her. >> why is that important? >> i think this is the ultimate answer. this is it. no more wondering. >> not about that. about but his father in prison 15 to life p.m. mike had a good deal of wondering to do about that man. >> do you still love him? >> yeah, i do. i always will. i got to figure out how i'll process these facts. i don't know yet. i thought perfect punishment for my father to write one sentence about my mother every week so he
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has to think about her and i have to, i can remember her again. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline". i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. so good to be with you on this saturday morning. i'm frances rivera. it's 6:00 in the east. 3:00 out west. here's what's happening. close call, terrifying video showing the moments a plane slid off a runway and into a river in jacksonville. surprise test. a possible overnight weapons launch from north korea could be the first one in almost a year and a half. raising new questions about the north's strategy. head-to-head. the first match-up showing which democratic candidate could have the best shot of beating the president next fall. alexa is watching, listening. new privacy concerns about what kind of d

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