down the law. but republicans in washington are hoping they fail because then they will really have to do something when it comes to health care. >> under the radar thing to pay close attention to. i'm watching how things go for house democrats this week. that will do it tonight. we'll be back with you next week from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. eastern. for now, good night from washington. >> hopelessness. you know, 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 would turn to something you probably use every day -- facebook. >> why don't you establish a facebook account? i thought, that could actually 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 heart-pounding moment. >> that's okay. this is a horrible crime. i'm glad we know the truth. secrets in the mist. hello and welcome to dateline extra. karl lubon was a loving 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. police opened a missing person file, but with no evidence, the case sat cold for decades until a smart detective noticed something suspicious. his hunch would lead

investigators to the truth and test the loyalty of a devoted son. here's keith morrison. >> 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 the slamming doors,

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 study architecture. >> sure her husband was a nice kid, and she loved him once with all the intensity of first love, the handsome high school football player who'd hang around on her front porch. mike stepped up and married her

after the baby was born. >> he was a really good father. he seemed to really enjoy his kids. >> enjoyed carol's family, too, especially her dad, milt. milt brought young mike into the family housepainting business. >> just took to him immediately. 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 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 my 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. >> because they just didn't? >> not that i 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 was just gone. >> we just assumed she needed to get away for a few days. as the days went on, we got extremely worried. >> 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 was gone, and i didn't know where she went. >> they drove around looking for her, went to bars. carol's picture in hand. the torrance police department 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 somewhere else, or had 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 -- something very strange. could it be that carol unbeknownst to anyone sneaked back in when nobody else was around? imagine what it 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 they returned, he 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.

just like carol, said her sister, gail. >> she would have not taken all of it. that was in carol's personality to be fair. >> made sense then. >> uh-huh. >> and 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 you do? >> we would say, "carol, we love 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 carol vanished, the detective handling her case put it in the 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. decades after her appearance, detectives turned to a surprising source to help solve the mystery. coming up -- >> why don't you establish a facebook account for carol? let's get down to business.

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in march of 1981, carol 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 police department 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 scanned 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 >> i never even heard of it before. and i go, this is interesting. wonder if this lady's still

.

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mike was about to share a chilling new tale that would send the case into overdrive. here's keith morrison. 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 driing away. >> lights -- >> taillights? 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. >> that 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"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. 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 exist when carol luban fought her husband on a march night in

1981. coming up, a dramatic turn in the case, and fresh heartbreak for carol's family. >> another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. ahh... brain freeze! no, it's my teeth. new crest gum and sensitivity starts treating sensitivity immediately, at the gum line, for relief within days and wraps your teeth in sensitivity protection. ohh. your teeth? no, it's brain freeze! crest.

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overall win for the american women. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. detecttives were convinced carol lubahn was murdered. 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. but time proved to be their ally. facebook was about to play a crucial role in the case. here's keith morrison. >> deputy d.a. john lewen and the torrence police department 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 my 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, wallace thought, 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 very significant said the

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. 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? when secrets in the mist continues. in the mist continues. flings odors onto your soft surfaces? then they get released back into the air so you smell them later. ew. right? that's why febreze created new small spaces. [clicking sound] press firmly and watch it get to work... [popping sounds] unlike the leading cone,

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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 doubted him, something he 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 asagree that would be 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 murdered 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 "secrets in the mist" continues.

welcome back. mike lubahn's murder trial tested the love and loyalty of his family. his son, mike, jr. told jurors he did not want to believe that his dad killed hig m eed his mo doubts about his innocence. then mike, sr. took the stand and once again shifted his story about his wife's disappearance. now he was about to learn his fate in this decades old case and there were still more surprises ahead. here with the conclusion of our story is keith morris. >> there are few things in american life as dramatic as weighted with consequences 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 collective breath. so did the prosecutor and the police. >> you know, you don't know what to expect. >> and now, here was mike's fate. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant, michael clark lubahn, sr., guilty. >> guilty of second degree murder. mike lubahn was going to prison. a long-time detective jim wallace found surrounded by a very unfamiliar reaction. >> i've had cases before where you get down and you walk out and the family throws their arms around you and they're so grateful. that's not this case. >> i was just very surprised 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 gale and the rest of the

family wanted most were some answers. >> not so much that i want mike to pay for what he did. i just want to know what happened to my sister. >> and in the sentencing hearing in december of 2012, mike's own son echoed those sentences. >> guilt or innocence, i never wanted my faither to go to prison. i just want to know if he knows anything. >> and then he made a heartbreaking plea to court. >> he's been a good father and good person. if he is sent to prison today, i want him to know i'm going to miss my time with him. 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 him the sentence. thank you for the opportunity to speak. >> 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. prosecutor lewin. >> i'm asking right now as we sit here, mr. lubahn is going to have a chance, please, for your family, for your kids, just let it go. tell us what happened. >> can i just have a moment? >> 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. >> we're asking to continue the sentencing. >> time to think? 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 would be honest about both. >> for almost four weeks they waited until january 7th, 2013. all eyes were on mike lubahn as he entered the courtroom. >> and then shifted to prosecutor lewin, who told the

court mike revealed to him the secret he had been keeping almost 32 years. now lewin did the talking. and mike for once said not a word. >> all of the information about them fighting about the selling of the house, he says 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 terry's upcoming wedding. he said he was very upset. >> she tried to comfort him, he said. >> and she was telling him, don't worry, you'll find somebody else, et cetera. >> and that was the last thing carol lubahn ever said. >> he didn't want to hear it, and he said 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 that she was dead. >> detectives hooked lubahn up to a polygraph machine. how much of this was true? >> after the polygraph test was done, they tell him he didn't pass. now the defendant changes his story, and he says, okay, i punched her in the head and i punched her hard, but he said only one time. >> then he told lewin 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 uonion parking lot, dumped it there, and then placed in the trunk of mr. lubahn's vehicle. >> then he said he took her to the ocean, put her on a raft, paddled out to sea, dropped her

down with a sender block tied to her body. it was a shock, of course, a big shock. for so long, the family believed mike. and now in 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? and so on that cold and foggy january day, mike, surrounded by cops and lawyers, floated out in the mist to find carol, or whatever was left. >> did they find the cinder block, that will give me half 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 passed a polygraph and led investigators to the place

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

i don't know yet. i kind of thought a perfect punishment for my father was, i was going to ask him to write one sentence about my mother every week in prison, so he has to think about her and i can remember her again. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm here. asking for help. >> it was like hearing a ghost, a voice from beyond the grave. >> there's no way i can go back. >> can she help solve her own murder? >> so surreal. this is something that happens to other people, not to you.