A 13-year-old girl vanishes in 1981. Detectives believe she was murdered. Years later, a woman appears and claims to be the missing girl. Is she an impostor? "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher reports.
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If your seat, psychological, thriller visit, audible, dot com, slash the gift to listen now really reach, there was a girl that lived in seaside about later
the one she disappeared, you mean she disappeared. She disappeared off the face of the earth. I just knew something was wrong in house:
mary days, my sister one day, Mary was in california and then
It was gone,
laying in bed one night was catholic. I asked her. I was like what happened with Mary, you know and she was like she don't say anything we're not allowed to talk about mary and
when I was eighteen like I can. You know, going
try to find her the very hard case to deal with other than the family. Nobody knew she was, god didn't seem to really concern them. To start right away, they turn around. She was gone
in a case like this. My mother told me that there are a lot of places in California that you could bury a body and they'd never be found. I start to believe issues
where did the dogs went into the back yard? We just had an indication from the cadaver dogs. Are human remains there and our guys started digging in and my heart was pounding. We were looking for a little girl's body and we found a little girl's shoe. The william told me that he didn't kill Mary day, but his wife told him that he was possessed that night, the demon inside of him I've never heard any.
They say that before why this is a crazy case. The mary disappeared no trace of her for twenty two years and then what happens and then I got a phone call. He told me a cabin. He says you sit down, he said going to let you know that they say that they they found Mary day and I'm like. Oh
This this case just gets weirder and weirder
The the the
cs. I California,
effective gilbert. China first turn the name Mary Louise day, back in two thousand to he'd been asked to lead the way
delegation into her disappearance. The case was paternal. Arrears went all different directions. Mary was thirteen years old when she vanished in nineteen eighty, one seemingly without
trains. There is no evidence that she was alive. Jos bars at the time. We steal your com, not a trace of her is an adult, no social security record of her having a job getting well.
benefits. We had nothing on this person's. I just didn't exist, he didn't exist. Marries existence came close to being completely e waste
no record that her stepfather, william who'll or from other charlotte, had ever reported her missing it's hard to believe allowing a child.
to walk away or child go missing and it's not reported. I can't remember a time when a child was not reported by the parents.
I could
understand how a mother could not go
to the ends of the earth to find her child. It was this woman.
eureka goro mary sister who, finally,
authorities on the case.
I wanted to know what happened to my sister Mary, sherry,
Was ten when Mary would missing as an adult she filed a missing persons report?
and told the police about marries, trouble childhood
The information we have through the sisters is that it was a very dysfunctional household
in the early days Mary day, middle sister, Cathy and cherry were in and out of a foster home.
their mother could not take care of them. Sherry was adopted by the foster family. We were separated when I was six years old
marrying. Cathy were returned to their mother charlotte. By this
I'm charlotte had married. William who'll couple had two kids of their own
who always a soldier
the family moved around a lot from base to base. At one point detective say: Mary stepfather had been reportedly physically abusing her shoulders. Protective services had taken custody of mary
eventually turned back over to the family. In my opinion, the system failed at the time Mary disappeared, who was assigned to fort or, on the california, closed north of monterrey. They were living inside which it was kind of a military town at that time, and that's where she was lashing sharing
who kept in touch with her birth family later visited them. When I went to visit my family, I asked them what had happened to my sister Mary Kathy. It was like she don't say anything we're not allowed to talk about Mary.
He did say her mother, charlotte told them Mary had run away at the time.
I wasn't sure what I thought, except that
it did make sense to me what
sherry grew up. She filed that missing persons report by the time seaside police launched its investigation in two thousand and two there was little to go on being neighbours, barely recall the family living there. Nobody really knew this family and they sure didn't know me
day Mary had never been enrolled in school in california and her parents never told anyone. She was gone. Martinez says they had at least one reason to keep quiet.
Mary had been getting government checks because her birth father had died in an accident
taking our marries social security checks, cashing taken
Retainer its march thirty, two thousand three camera bird china went to the sea side. Home marries last known whereabouts. He right cappy with him.
Did you just was just eleven when she last saw her sister that day,
In my head alone, it feels like you're opening must Gabby opening up in it hurts.
Maybe
married life
Mary was at home, along with Cathy, when the rest of family went out
came home later that evening and while they were gone, the dog became sick. It was dying in the kitchen area
when william saw that he immediately accused mary poisoning the dog
he's our yellin addison. I got scared all hell broke.
The opponent was taking the fact here. I can hear yelling something we we do. He hit her.
What's this,
love cappy said after Mary disappeared repair
ordered the kids to stay away from one particular area of the back yard,
Who told you that recurs, adding a detective smell, they could be
dealing with something much more sinister. The runaway teenage girl
they run in a team of cadaver dogs dogs train to fund.
human remains.
as the dogs, went into the back yard, the each head on one particular spot near a tree. We started today as a father and my heart was pounding
and, as we dug, I saw
a little girl shoe. My heart started about even more, and I thought
we found her. This podcast is supported by private.
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in two thousand and three. The missing persons case of mary day was quickly becoming a homicide investigation.
police facing the grim tasked with digging in the dirt with cadaver dogs alerted, and we kept it
and there was no body- I soil and must be here then- and they kept digging
They were sure that a body had been there. They were positive, they said our dogs don't lie and for them independently, getting on the same spot. Before we dug the dog handler said it's been moved at this time. There was no question that
If the parents were the suspects in the possible homicide of a little girl from nineteen eighty one, we knew that we had to find the parents they found. Then in Kansas it was more than twenty years after mary disappeared. Her stepmother will, you rule, had left the army and was now what a kansas prison working as a corrections officer.
he and charlotte we're still together. She agreed to talk with local detectives about the daughter who vanished so long.
Go change
the last movie. I remember watching the interview had realizing that she had something to tell us in our life is full of regrets. If you go back and say you don't find anything, just nice,
her body language and then her sinking down in your chair and saying words to the effect of you know. Sometimes you do things in your past and that comes back. I knew that there was something there twice
Charlotte said mary running away was no big deal. She did it all the time.
Trying to get
I was gone very high towers. Did she went away all these questions
when news, California,
I guess they can test us the phone we should listen to. My husband said we file a police report with the police department
There is no record of a report. I couldn't understand apparent
Never one not reporting their child is run away, but never to treating this case. They status of their missing daughter. As
basically no big deal. It didn't seem to really concern them. They were not.
Really really surprised us being there to take to retain only to question mary stepfather, william. I just asked him tell me about the last time you saw me
He told me that while he was gone, rimmed aroun checking eyes in the kitchen he discover mary was in their bedroom. He till charlotte. She panics, he panics call the police.
and he knew I was buying, that she runs away all the time. Why did you panic? I never got a good response, the detective press tool and brought up the story of the sick dog any said five or six times. You know she did she poison my dog and really angry. She tried to run out of the house. I don't want
It goes so I caught her before she got out of the front door. She was kicking me punch me, so I pushed her.
And when he's doing this is making a choking?
your gesture he's with his hand- and it's like a hand, strike that I've seen before to martial art technique. So as where did you hit her with that? He said well in the upper chest, it said: could it have been the throat he said? Well, it may have slipped off,
It Mary, the throat I wanted to know on a scale of one to ten his anger when he had done this when it struck Mary.
He should have won a scale of one to ten. I was fifteen. I said you're this angry. I think you may have killed her and he looked at me and said: no, I didn't kill her
The next day, my wife charlotte told me that that night she saw satan in my eyes and she said I was possessed by do and then it dawned on me.
His admitting, but not admitting that he killed her, and I spoke here William. I believe it- you didn't, kill her, but what about the demon inside of you? Could that demon of kill Mary
We looked at me. Yes, the demon could have killed her when he walked out. Did you think you were letting a killer? Go yeah, yeah Joe said yeah. We don't have a body, but he said this. This guy came so close to confessing that it was as close as
I prepare anybody cum. Is that enough to go to a prosecutor and say I dunno if we're ever going to get the body, but we we have a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. Yup the da wasn't ready to file at that time. Did you think there was enough? I thought that was probably enough. I was not worried.
Really because I thought we are building the case here and then, just as the detectives confidence was growing. The case took an unexpected turn. Remember, police said
no record of Mary Louise day as an adult, there were no credit cards, no driver
licence or I d recorded anywhere. There hasn't been a train.
Of mary in more than two decades until police in Phoenix arizona made a traffic star,
I got a phone call. I was at home, I left work and he told me
a cabin. He says you sitting down and I said what happened said now. He says it's just going to let you know that a phoenix police department in arizona pulled over a car,
and they say that they they found Mary day.
What do you make of william insurance stories here?
Well, it's unusual response to please searching for her missing daughter on facebook that forty eight hours.
November, two thousand
ray phoenix arizona, it was a routine traffic stuff, a pickup truck with stolen
eight when police, when the idea of the passengers, one of them hit
a woman named Mary day, he said Joe guess what murders days been found, and I I was stunned investigators
What Mary day into a missing persons database long ago, shared notified herself at her phoenix identification card or arizona state identification court that in california detective gilbert tiny felt like
Those two just appeared in his mind Mary day, had been murdered more than twenty years earlier. At the home of her parents, you talk to william and charlotte in April of two thousand and then seven months later or so, a woman named Mary
Louise day just falls out of the sky. I was stunned. His boss, Steve ser Koon, could not believe it Joe went down there and he met her and he sent a picture of her and wait what wait a minute? No, alright, it looked like. It could be her that I said so:
all these other bits of circumstantial evidence, the father on those to almost confessing to the murder of a little girl and now
was this woman seven hundred miles away with a valid arizona state idee? Strangely,
I d have been issued only three weeks earlier, while the homicide investigate
and was under way. We must have found the timing awfully suspicious. Yes, it was very suspicious
when did tend to return a winter phoenix, the woman. He wished
had been murdered, told him. She had run away from her mother, charlotte and stepfather William, when she was a teenager. She'd basically lived under the radar and by her wits ever since, but she seemed hesitant and her story seemed sketchy.
later in a phone call Mary told her Tyner. She had some awful memories. Did you are?
about what happened last night,
I'm sure it does happen that last night,
I know it's real or not, or if anybody hit it again
When you start bleeding-
a common global guidelines.
like the other guy, but she didn't remember anything about the sick dawn was that troublesome to that was she'll. Investigator say he was hard to pin down much of anything about her past two decades,
They began to wonder if the woman with a freshly minted, I D, was really who she claimed to be.
He used to call her mary, Louise dank older, phoenix, bearing inform conversations phoenix
mary, was sounding increasingly frustrated.
around the hell. Have I been a lot of y'all can't prove who I am there's no record of you ever being anywhere this night? Do you have an existing up until now, then? I said alright, let's get a dna test on this woman. Let's let her prove that she's, the daughter of charlotte, we're going to disprove that she's marry of course, because there's no way that her dna is going to match except it did match, fell on the floor and couldn't believe it. The dna came back positive to being a daughter of charlotte
the case was closed. The sherry invited her long lost sister to move in with her. In most cases, that would be the end of the story, but not in this case. So now dna matches case closed yeah. Well, if it were that simple right,
once Phoenix Mary moved in sherry started to have her own doubts.
First thing I noticed was sheep. It sounded like she had some weird midwestern southern accent. Weird to me, the detectives had noticed that too, the viola grew up very poor, your body, I don't know if I've ever quite heard, that particular manner of speaking they gotta go gotta go girl. I am yes.
We are phoenix Mary also said she never used her real name
I let what they know you by its name. She said she made up. I did notice that she had
magazines in the name of Monica Devereaux, sherry sister camp,
He was also one nerved. That's the merry why? What makes you so sure something's off
You're telling me that you're got is saying it's not my gut. She says the world
in claiming to be merry, didn't even remember that their birth father left them and inheritance they could collect at age eighteen, it was their shared escape plan and they had a code word for it was
A code word or some sort of secret.
Tween you and Mary ere it was. It was called mohawk. Mohawk was your secret word here.
and mary did something else strange. She wrote a no to detective routine. She emil Joe and hurry meal said something to the us
Does I've been lying to you about who I am, and that was new information? Oh my god, I said whoa. This is a whole new ballgame still the case remained closed, but then in two thousand and eight steve, sir Cohn now seaside police chief, not a phone.
Call from investigators at the army base in fort award. Another set of cadaver dogs had been working on an unrelated matter and had found something forward was a huge place and he said, look we brought the cadaver dogs out here and they went over one hundreds of homes and he said we got a hit on one of the homes. You'll, never believe who was living in this house. He said william hull and his family lived in this house.
The
in two thousand in cadaver: dorms alerted near a second. However, the rules had lived house. They had moved to shortly after Mary disappear. So what are you thinking?
he has been moved by this family from one location to another. Once again, police dog, and once again they came up short, was Mary moved twice. Was this little girl who may have been killed back in eighteen? Eighty one was her body move twice, although the case had been closed circuit felt something we seriously wrong. I don't know I don't know, but we have to investigate this. He hired more clause.
a retired homicide, detective from nearby salinas, California, absolutely the most bizarre case ever come up against
reviewing the evidence collected over the years clerk was convinced there.
Was a murder and missed opportunities. Are so many parts about this thing that could have solved case back then that is really frustrating. He believes they. Let the parents off the hook too soon, mom and say she ran away. Don't ever talk about her again, they tore up her pictures through aware
It was, and that was it most damning. He says- are williams' own words. His comment was, I couldn't have killed mary. My body would have done it, but it wouldn't have been me. It would have been that demonic personality cause. I blacked out clarke says he would have
william, who you just admitted tantamount to homicide, and the clerk also focused on that shoe detectives found. Another detective asked kathy about it. First, as he drives everywhere, canvas tennis shoes and got the kids, and she said yes, I pulled out to shoot it's free to go, but you can tell that it's a tennis shoe with a canvas body to it, and you said exactly that, and he consulted with the body farm a renowned research facility that studies what happens when bodies decompose. He says they found soil samples consistent with a body being buried,
And what do you think happened to movies that she was killed in nineteen? Eighty one and probably around July clark believes the woman now claiming to be Mary day is an impostor.
there's just do any thing is going to do in its mary day,
somebody else. But what about that dna test showing she's shoreland, whose daughter well more clark, has a theory that he says explains at all, even if it is a little far fetched. He says charlotte who had
Another daughter, a secret daughter, born before mary and given up at birth court, believes Phoenix Mary. Is that secret daughter? Are you think Phoenix Mary is the actual sister of Mary Louise day who goes missing back and nineteen eighty one guess he looked into charlotte's background nurse circumstantial evidence that charlotte get a couple of marriages worse, you would be involved in a commercial fares and become pregnant from those affairs corpses. The
we could have reached down to charlotte secret daughter when they felt they were in trouble. I believe she was somehow sought out by charlotte william, to pose ass Mary day to avoid prosecution. It was an elaborate part
says the rules knew that police were investigating, marries disappearance and they asked her sacred says
to assume her identity circumvent, says the fool said the way
with all to do with what if they took the birth certificate of Mary, was they probably had and the social security card for married? What if they gave those cards to the other sister and said you know Mary?
since the scheme put an end to the investigation and also put money in phoenix marries put it. There was an inheritance. We thought the motivation would be the inheritance because she could collect that inheritance with accrued interest.
in heritage was now worth roughly sixty thousand dollars. Cherry helped Mary get her cut. We reach out to william and charlotte who, through a relative, they said they had no comment. Mark says the impostor theory accounts for a loan.
The inconsistency is, for example, marries odd. Southern accent. Reaction was really there sure in gaol from both said that Mary
never had an accent. She has a southern axa. He said
Now southern acts it go ahead.
If you know how you can be approved.
Mary did claim that she had spent some time in the south as an adult, but was only there,
briefly, as a child, when experts say it would have given her that accept my lad for separate southern dialect. Experts
listen to the interview and they are concluded that it were taken living, hurt her
what of yours up to nine or ten in the south to wire this action, and there was that emu that Phoenix Mary said saying she wasn t she claimed to be.
After about a year of living, with Sherry Mary moved out on her own, but the mystery just wouldn ta
another detective was about to take a crack. At the case, we have to be very careful all of us and law enforcement not to make our story
fit our ideas or what we believed happened.
The
in two thousand and seventeen sherry called goro still wanted answers about the woman claiming to be her sister. Basically, everyone, that's ever mare has a lot of doubts. I have my own doubts
we took sherry to visit phoenix marine missouri where she'd been living for a few years. I'm hoping that she will admit you confess to us how she really is
Luck, I very was living here and suffering from late stage cancer. She wasn't up or anymore visit,
That day,
help was failing. New acting chief of seaside police was determined to solve the case once and for all Judy the laws chipped away at the idea that Mary day was murdered. Personal,
there's additional tests showed marries dna matched not only charlotte but also the birth father.
And there was that little girls shoe. I put it in the palm of my hand, and I mean it fit in the palm of my hand,
It was very small at hard time believing
Thirteen year old would have to be,
I mean I saw her stature in the picture. She wasn't that short laws.
So travelled to marries home. She says
erie herself building the gaps she. Why
and to convince us she was merry and it seems sincere mary said she began
calling herself monica when she ran away because she didn't want police to take her back home mary.
Also mentioned a new name, mooring, a woman. She knew in those early
days on her own in California. The laws tractor
marie kimmel. I got
once you have fifteen, very naive in essence about her almost like a child
at the time we had two young daughters of her own. She just one, my heart and my girls loved her. You know that that mail
the only in the best family life she ever had. No time realising that now I wanted to nurture her I'll
but after about a year one day mary was gone. I was heartbroken,
the laws discovered that Mary had moved around a lot city to city.
Living on the margins. Honestly, when I talk to her, she just seem like a survivor. She also solve the mystery of
why Mary suddenly got that arizona idee, she needed state aid to pay for surgery. She had her all bladder taken out that led her to obtain her proper driver's license or idea in the name of Mary Louise day, a local non profit. It helped me retract down who
the birth certificate, the last chumps of mary's, foggy memory to trauma and a lifelong battle with alcohol. Those gaps and memory to me can be legitimate, especially if someone's are Eben an alcoholic from the time they are
then a teenager asked me that emu will marry centre detective. Her tiny saying she'd been lying about who she was the losses Mary sent a follow up. A male writing quote, I'm not sure myself what I was trying to say in that a male.
Again from someone who is still a severe alcoholic and using
and then the laws came up with this smoking gun one
his relatives had a photograph
The picture really did it, it's mary. She says, and it was taken at least
here. After the alleged murder, we took the photo to true face. Yet I see this
the art facial recognition, company, ceo shown more so when we look at the results of our face, matching algorithms, on the images that you all sent us. Ok and it's it's trying to
What is trying to see the probability that were matching a young picture with one of the older pictures? So if this is the same person correct the probability that is to say person, the top photo is mary before she disappeared, the other
What is the one that duty the laws dug up? What are they
telling and the numbers are telling us that is the same powers. He says that
Ninety nine percent probability with that photo judy belies submitted her report.
And closed the merry day investigation this time for good. After all, these years, the woman, if this centre,
This case finally agreed to meet with me. This is the merry that I met fragile but not feeble. It was clear from seeing her in person that this was a woman who had not had an easy life. Still, she didn't seem to be trying to hide anything. In fact, she said it's very frustrating trying to prove who you are when there is no proof
the sherry is finally at peace, with all of a sudden, it felt like I had a weight lifted off my shoulders. That was just like it's done this this hurt, but that's pretty much the end of that story.
not that simple for more clerk or seen the report I'd be lying. If it didn't make me second guess my investigation, even though he can't prove his theory, he can't quite shake his old hunch that Mary is an impostor.
Believe that william hull murdered Mary Louise day, visual evidence. I have found yes as more steve com. I will admit that, once I read your report and I saw that picture, I definitely leans towards the
density of Mary as big mary Louise day, the little girl that we were looking for steel. He says he is certain of one thing:
those cadaver dogs were on to something they were positive, positive positive. They said our dogs, don't why they don't lie who was buried in those grave sites.
Mary day died nine days after judy, the laws interviewed her. There was no sooner
You believe in claiming to be merry day was really her. Here.
We're about investigator Julie, valises meeting with Mary.
What he had always done, an aspiring Toby catch him studious death biographic, thereby got blood anyway. His girlfriend and friends- and I found it please ruled out foul play, but there are trouble includes it's a stage, see somebody get away with martyred forty hours next on city s,
The.
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Transcript generated on 2023-06-02.