Hi,

I think one of the reasons I like this show so much is because it often brings back memories of childhood. A lot of times I see episodes on Lifetime and can still remember the fear and my initial reaction to them when they originally aired over fifteen years ago. So, at the expense of creating a thread that just screams out "cheese", does anyone have any special stories they would like to share? :crazy:

I can think of a few offhand.

After hurricane Frances last year, my girlfriend was staying overnight because I was fortunate enough to have power. We watched an old tape of special 4. Mostly because my cable was out, and it was the only tape I had laying around that wasn't in storage with the rest of my stuff. Plus, I really wanted her to experience the "greatness" that is Jule Caylor.

Another cool moment was catching an episode with a babysitter who I had the hugest crush on. I was probably 7 or 8. I don't remember the episode but it had to be first or second season original broadcast. She insisted on watching it. I tried my best not to be scared.

Finally, I remember eating an entire bag of red licorice whips and getting absolutely sick while watching the original airing of the Alcatraz special. It was all I could think about that night.

Later,
Justin

My earliest recolection of watching Unsolved Mysteries was when I was 7 I believe and the first segment I ever saw was the "Boys On The Tracks" my brother was watching the show in the dark and doing a good job creeping me out. Ever since then everytime I thought about that segment I would always remember that, I laugh about it now but oh the memories of U.M. when you were a kid..

for the "Echoes of Fear" site but here goes - I remember seeing "The Boys On The Tracks" in a health education class. Yep they would always show us "educational tv" or what they termed as "educational television" and they would show us stuff ranging from "CBS Schoolbreak Specials" and "ABC Afterschool Specials" and one day they showed us this little gem - I don't know really what the point of it was though - we were studying a lot of stuff on the ill effects of drugs and since it was alleged that Kevin and Don smoked a ton of dope before laying down on the tracks - maybe that was it - but it is a definite recollection.

Later.

we were studying a lot of stuff on the ill effects of drugs and since it was alleged that Kevin and Don smoked a ton of dope before laying down on the tracks - maybe that was it - but it is a definite recollection.


Strange, as the UM segment made it seem that it was everything but the "dope" which led to their demise.

Just an observation.

Yeah, but the fact that they mentioned that they might have been smoking dope and the word "death" wound send chills long before it was said that there is little to prove they were.

The first times I can remember watching UM were when I used to make myself a Kid Cuisine and sit down, watching it on Lifetime. I'm not old enough to have cause any original NBC broadcasts. I remember seeing the Amy Bradley case while eating some taco Kid Cuisines, and I remember watching it late at night.

My fondest UM memory is when my mom and I watched the episode about the burglar who broke into houses while the families were eating. We had a good time being scared and cheering when they were updated with an arrest, or with sadness when a missing person was found dead.

that frozen food meal that always had some weird penguin or something on the cover? - Do they still make those? - I have kids so I should know but I'm not embarassed to say I don't. Um the thing with the health class we got shown some stupid stuff on all topics: for example their thing about committing suicide was to show a movie about a boy who loved to fly his kite with his buddy and then one day he didn't show up to fly his kite and they found out that he had shot himself.

The end scene was of the friend on the beach flying his dead friend's kite yelling "You could have talked to me" or something. Now if UM got their hands on this I'm sure there would have been a full investigation as to whether the kid shot himself or was a victim of foul play but being that this was just a stupid "ABC Afterschool Special" none of that happened you see :D

Watching the woman getting shot in the face on a road in New Hampshire is probably the earliest memory I have of first watching UM. I just remember being scared and shocked that stuff like this happened, I still am. My family would watch UM every Wednesday when it was shown on NBC and my mom would always admonish me for staying up and watching it, but I just couldn't help but watch it.

When we later got cable, I could finally watch Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime, and catch up on all the old ones I had missed. Its hard to believe that Unsolved Mysteries has been on Lifetime this long, just about as long as it was on NBC!

that frozen food meal that always had some weird penguin or something on the cover? - Do they still make those? -

Don't know if they are still made, but damn, that takes me back. I think the penguin's name was "BJ" and he wore a Hawaiian shirt. There used to be a game card that came with the Cuisine.

Woah, y'all are taking me back with this whole "Kid Cuisine" thing. The penguin!! :p My mom used to buy those for my little brother and I when they went out on Saturday nights. I remember the mini-cheeseburger to be especially weird-tasting. I associate them with watching Nickelodeon on Saturday nights (i.e., Ren and Stimpy, Are you Afraid of the Dark, etc). But I digress....

ANYWAY, my first UM memory was watching on my bedroom tv which was a black & white 13" model where you had to turn the dial to change the channel. Pretty state of the art. I was one of those kids who loved to be scared (I would read scary book's by Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine at night under my covers with a flashlight) so I was immediately hooked. I don't remember which story it was, but I remember a guy taking a woman out to the woods and killing her. Thus my sick fascination with murder mysteries began.

I really like this topic. It reminds me of a morning radio bit that that I heard (Kid Kraddick in case any of you are from Dallas) where they named the 300 most significant moments of their lives. So you can imagine how banal the 300-100 truly are :)

Well aside from the whole "boys on the tracks" episode when I was younger I already shared, I have a few.

I may have already mentioned this so forgive me but I was in bed late at night and the UM segments starts with it being pitch dark outside and there is a man lurking outside some women's bedroom. He walks in and shoots her in the head (Jeanne Tovary) and I couldn't help getting a little freaked out as I was laying in my bed in the pitch dark and of course there was a window a few feet away.

Another one is when I was in my early teens. My parents were gone and we lived in a big house out in the country. I'm completely enthralled in a UM when at the front door I hear "bang, bang, bang!!" Well I was terrified there for a split second and my sister was upstairs so I called for her to come down. Of course it was just the usual, some drunk had run his car off in one of our deep ditches and wanted to use our phone to call a friend before the police discovered it and arrested them, and not an axe murderer. :)

Another thing so you guys will be able to sleep tonight, I have small children and they do still make Kid Cuisine and the penguin is still on the box. :lol:

You guys crack me up. :lol: Love the whole Kid Cuisine talk.

Anyway, back on the topic. My earliest memory of the show was 1988 when I was in third grade and I saw the original broadcast of the woman driving down the country road in Connecticut who pulled up behind the man in the black pick up truck who stopped, got out and shot the woman in the face through her drivers side window. (Psycho! :mad: )

Anyway, being the innocent 8 year old I was, and not knowing any better, the whole week after that segment aired, whether I was walking home from school or riding with my mom somewhere, I got freaked out every time I saw a black pick up truck because I thought it might be the same man. I think that was when my mom first got the sense that it might not be a good idea for me to watch this show but we all know how that ended up. ;)

I know what you're talking about- I love UM so much because it reminds me of my childhood. I was only 3 when I started watching it, I saw my first episode at my grandmother's house. The earliest episodes I can recall are- one about a lady missing her twin sister, Tammy Leppert, and the abductions. The aliens one had me scared so much as a child that I would sleep completely under my blankets at night and I refused to open windows, thinking that I would abducted by aliens myself.

It was 1990, I was in 8th grade. A teacher was asking what everyone's fave show was. A lot of "Married With Childrens" or "Mtv this that and the other", or "Simpsons", or "Beverly Hills 90210".

I said Unsolved Mysteries, and got more than a few crinkles of the eyes from the other kids.

I said Unsolved Mysteries, and got more than a few crinkles of the eyes from the other kids.

Well, I was in Elementary school at that time period and I can still remember talking with other kids at recess about what we had seen on Unsolved Mysteries the previous Wednesday. I never got the crinkles of the eyes. ;)

bumping this thread cuz it's cool, and might get a whole new batch of reponses.

I'd have to say the most significant moment in my history is finding the show, and subsequently this forum.

As far as being scared, the show scared the crap out of me when I was little every single week it was on - yet I kept coming back and finding myself strangely drawn to the series.

p.s. Yes, I remember those Kid Cuisines quite well. Tv dinners for kids. I think the one I had most often was the fishsticks one. Pretty sure there's a macaroni and cheese one as well.

I started watching UM when I was in fourth grade (9). It had been on for a season or two before that (1989). I don't remember what the very first segment I ever saw was but some of the earlier ones are Dennis walker, The son of sam (scared me when I first saw it. especially the picture of berkowitz), kenneth Robert Stanton (freaked me out and UM aired it VERY LAST in the show). I remember I use dto hate Lost Loves segments because I thought they dragged down the show. I loved unexplained death, wanted, mysterious legends, and frauds.

This thread rocks!!!

I love Kid Cuisines--the pizza one was always the best, although it was a guess whether the crust would turn out soggy or hard everytime you cooked it! I always had my Kid Cuisine on UM Wednesdays--sat in front of the tv and watched it. The segment I remember most is the Queen Mary haunting, you know with the wet footprints by the pool and the creepy black and white granny jumping in the pool!
And at the commercial break, my dad would walk me to the bathroom and wait outside the door while I went. The door would be cracked, because hell, you never knew what was behind that shower curtain ;)

ps-I loved "Are You Afraid of the Dark"!!!!!

I always used to get the fried chicken Kid Cuisine. My brother would get the Mac & Cheese one. Come to think of it, they probably were loaded in sodium and fat, but at the time they were so awesome!

The first segment I remember seeing as a kid was the Alcatraz episode. I was not a regular watcher at this point because I was only in first or second grade at the time. The next episode I remember seeing was the DB Cooper one.

I didn't start regularly watching until I was a little older because they scared the bejesus out of me :rolleyes:

The first Unsolved Mysteries I saw was the one with Eileen Mangold in it. I was about 10 years old at the time. I would hold a tape recorder up to the TV and tape it since my parents wouldn't let me actually record it.
Also when I was 13 my sister and I were watching Unsolved Mysteries and two drunk guys tried to get into our apartment thinking it was theirs. Well of course we were scared and it made it all the more scary cause we were watching Unsolved Mysteries!

I have a few memories from childhood when I first got into UM. The music used to always creep me out in general and I had the only bedroom downstairs by myself. After watching UM and going to bed, I'd wait till my parents were asleep then sneek upstairs to the couch. I was too scared to sleep downstairs. I don't know if that fear was from UM (I think alot of it was) or just a general fear of being alone in the dark.

But, I remember after watching the ghost segment of the haunted house in Nevada (Kelsays and Robinson's, I believe), I was afraid 'Samuel', the man on one of their pictures on their television set would show up on my little black and white TV. I had a little black and white TV at that time, I think and I was always afriad 'Samuel' would either show up in my room or on my TV.

Ahh, memories.........

The first time I saw UM I was in 5th grade (spring 1988). I remember that first episode I saw included the Unibomber and people looking for gold in Virginia. One memory I have is during the spring when I was 11 and 12 sometimes I'd get home from baseball practice and I'd be home alone watching the show and at 8PM it was just starting to get dark. I can remember getting easily creeped out watching the show in the dusk home alone. One story that scared the crap out of me as a kid were the ghost story with the bunkbed. I wouldn't go upstairs until my parents went up there first and turned on the lights after that episode. The other one that really stuck in head was Kurt Sova. I'm getting chills just writing his name. One funny memory is that I had to do homework so I taped the 1990/91 season premiere to watch later. I was in 8th grade. That one had the infamous arson story with the arsonist taping the fire and making disturbing commentary. Anyway that tape made the rounds throughout the entire 8th grade as everyone had to see the arson segment. LOOK AT THE FLAMES!

There was one episode that freaked me out besides the obvious other ones that happened in my home town. I remember very few details of it. I think it was a UM episode. This woman was in her home while someone was breaking in....she threw herself under the bed and called 911 while the killer was in the room. That's about all I remember. Maybe it was an AMW episode. The halloween ghost special really freaked me out when it first aired---big time.

Also, there was one UM episode where some old man disappeared. They thought it was foul play rather than his own disappearance because he had a double carport in which he always parked in the center. On the night in question, his car was parked to one side and that led many to think he was kidnapped or killed. I know...a random tidbit of memory but it came to me and I don't remember much else about the case.

There was one episode that freaked me out besides the obvious other ones that happened in my home town. I remember very few details of it. I think it was a UM episode. This woman was in her home while someone was breaking in....she threw herself under the bed and called 911 while the killer was in the room. That's about all I remember. Maybe it was an AMW episode. The halloween ghost special really freaked me out when it first aired---big time.



I believe this was a segment on "Rescue 911" hosted by William Shatner. Right behind UM is this show for really making it hard for me to sleep as a child. I always remember trying to listen at night for anyone trying to break in to the house.

Well, I grew up not far from where Johnny Gosh was kidnapped and another boy named Eugene Martin around the same time. So, I was raised by a somewhat cautious mother. Anyway, I remember being scared to my wit's end the first time I saw the Michaela Garrecht segment. The first time I saw Kurt McFall late night on Lifetime was also pretty frightening. The Alcatraz special and the Anastasia segment were two that I truly enjoyed watching because they were both things that my parents were very into even before UM came on the air. I've always loved UM because no matter how unsettling that scared feeling can be I've always been addicted to it.

LOL about the Kid Cuisines! :lol: I've got two kids and they love them. My older daughter is especially fond of the taquitos and the fish sticks.

The one that really sticks out for me would have to be Rachael Runyan. I'm originally from the Sunset, Utah area and even attended Doxey Elementary school for a while. I remember when she was kidnapped, I was about 8 years old at the time. It really shocked the community. :( When they profiled her on UM it made me cry for days!!

I also remember watching the Son of Sam segment and how the sketch of the killer really freaked me out. It gave me nightmares for years!! :eek:

Some of my greatest UM memories are of back in like 88, 89, 90...back when I was in my early teens and my big sister, 5 years older than me, would watch with me. We were then at the ages when we weren't really seeing much of each other, she being in the years of her late teens with a car and a budding social life. It was rare for her to sit down and watch TV with me or really for her to be in the house before I went to bed. So I really like those memories of me and my sister on Wednesday nights watching NBC, me just finishing my homework and in my peejays fresh out the shower, she all gussed up and about to go out and meet her friends to hang out, and we'd just get the bajeebus bells scared out of us.

I can specifically remember watching, and being mortified, by the Radio Show call-in murder confession. Her and I just being creeped the hell out knowing we were hearing a killer talk and then both agreeing that it HAD to be real because it sounded so real.

I can also specifically remember seeing the UPDATE when the Stackmeister General denounced them as liars all by myself, then giddily relaying the news to my sister who listened with her mouth agape, thoroughly gobsmacked and silent, while curling her hair the next morning.

I can remember curling up on my living room couch with all the lights off in the house, making sure my back was towards the wall so no silent ninja assassin or home invasion serial killer could creep up behind me and murder me after watching the scenes of the killer stalking the Swains from outside the church. The scene that REALLY got me in that segment was watching the killers gloved hands snip the phone lines...knowing he was going in to murder folks.

I can remember being chilled to the bone during the Son of Sam segment when the cops come up to Berkowitz' car and the actor, who has this maniacal smile on his face, replies "What took you guys so long"....oooooogggeeeyyyyoooooogggggeeeyyyyyoooooogggeeeyyyyoooooogggggeeeyyyyyoooooogggeeeyyyyoooooogggggeeeyyyyy

Lastly, I can remember talking with my buddy Scott at school one Thursday morning about the show the night before and just how much it must have completely sucked for that one guy to be shot in the scrotum. He was laughing about it and its horrible to contemplate but we were 13 and everybody does ******** stuff at 13.

Wow. What an ideal thread!

Me and my brother were HUGE fans of UM...still are. One that scared us to death was the one where the guy tried to board a plane and ended up attempting to hold onto the wing of it as if took off. Needless to say he didnt last long. I have no idea what happened to that case.

Others that left us speechless: the case of Anastasia Romanov (kamy I saw you avatar....I love you already), Bigfoot, and the face on Mars.

This board is amazing! loves it.

Just thought of another one: had a fourth grade teacher give the class a lecture on trust one day. I can't remember why he brought it up exactly or what the wording was but he brought up the fact that he had just watched an episode of UM the night before about a young guy who had swindled a retired and wealthy woman out of her savings. Turns out he was talking about the Dan Tondevold segment. I was a fan of the show back then and had seen the episode the night before so I thought it was funny knowing that he had watched that episode too.

Woah, y'all are taking me back with this whole "Kid Cuisine" thing. The penguin!! :p My mom used to buy those for my little brother and I when they went out on Saturday nights. I remember the mini-cheeseburger to be especially weird-tasting. I associate them with watching Nickelodeon on Saturday nights (i.e., Ren and Stimpy, Are you Afraid of the Dark, etc). But I digress....

ANYWAY, my first UM memory was watching on my bedroom tv which was a black & white 13" model where you had to turn the dial to change the channel. Pretty state of the art. I was one of those kids who loved to be scared (I would read scary book's by Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine at night under my covers with a flashlight) so I was immediately hooked. I don't remember which story it was, but I remember a guy taking a woman out to the woods and killing her. Thus my sick fascination with murder mysteries began.

I really like this topic. It reminds me of a morning radio bit that that I heard (Kid Kraddick in case any of you are from Dallas) where they named the 300 most significant moments of their lives. So you can imagine how banal the 300-100 truly are :)
my wife loves kid kraddick.
anyway my memories always go back to the first season that I watched in 1989 when I was six. As I said in another post I lived with my grandmother in Houston. I was scared senseless when UM came on....in fact I often thought about the show when it wasn't on. and this started an obsession that I had for the show and other crime similiar shows. not CSI types, but reality types. My most vivid memories are of the roswell segment, civil war ghost, and turin shroud segments respectively. I really loved the turin shroud segment. I also was scared anytime Houston was featured on the show...especially the WANTED segments. As I got older and UM went to cable, I quit watching the show. I never had cable at my house as a kid. When I moved out on my own my wife and I started watching it on lifetime and I fell back in love with the show. I saw so many new segments and old original ones...and those still freaked me out even as an adult to the point where I had nightmares and couldn't watch the show alone at night.

Wow. What an ideal thread!

Me and my brother were HUGE fans of UM...still are. One that scared us to death was the one where the guy tried to board a plane and ended up attempting to hold onto the wing of it as if took off. Needless to say he didnt last long. I have no idea what happened to that case.

Others that left us speechless: the case of Anastasia Romanov (kamy I saw you avatar....I love you already), Bigfoot, and the face on Mars.

This board is amazing! loves it.

Thanks LaToyaBoy :) I love the Romanov case too, one of my favs. As for the guy on the plane segment, it took quite a few years to id him and they finally did. I believe he was from Tennessee and was schizo. His name was Brian something, I think. It's discussed somewhere on this board, maybe someone can help me out.

Thanks again :) You'll enjoy it, this is a great board!

The 'woman hiding under the bed from intruders and calling 911' is most definitely from Rescue 911. I remember that case, in fact there were a few cases that had that similar situation. At least one of them is on YouTube.

Until 1992 my cheapo parents would not spring for cable and we had to rely on our TV's antenna which only picked up two channels, one of which was our CBC affiliate. Well luckily enough in UM was part of their programming in its first season (it was dropped after that). Watching the Horicon, WI bunk bed segment made me a fan. I also remember Son of Sam, Harold & Thelma Swain, Missing Time, Joyce McClain, Kathy Power, Julie Cross, Jean-Marie Gagnon/Louis Bourgeois and Lisa Marie Kimmel from that year. But the weird thing is I only remember bits and pieces of each segment. For Son of Sam it was when Berkowitz (or one of the Carr brothers as UM alleges) came up to the two girls sitting on the porch and as he shoots they flash to pictures of the victims, and later the black and white pictures of Berkowitz in his jail cell. For Missing Time it was when the soldier saw the lights in the sky moving closer; for Joyce McClain it was her running in her pink jogging suit by the school, then the candelight vigil near the end of the segment; for Julie Cross it was her and her partner noting the same car passing them multiple times during a sunset, and for Lisa Kimmel it was the map outlining her movements the night of her death, the second witness sighting of her driving the CRX, and how the witnesses saw Lisa wearing different colored sweaters.

The one segment that stands out to me the most, and it happens to be the one where I can't recall alot of details:

It is about a woman who took pictures of two robbers who were getting away, the UM segment made it seem very brave of her to do so.

TB24

It is about a woman who took pictures of two robbers who were getting away, the UM segment made it seem very brave of her to do so.
The Trenchcoat Bandits! That's one of my favorite segments too. I about peed my pants when the reporter took the photo of them. If you do a search on the UM Forum, you'll find some discussion. They have since been caught, and several other television shows ("The Investigators," etc) have covered the case.

ETA: I haven't thought about the Missing Time segment in forever, Composite Sketch! It was one of my favorite segments back when I was a kid. I remember at the time, my mom was reading Communion by Whitley Schreiber...which is really weird now that I think about it. Remember when alien abductions were all the rage? Good times.....

Although you wouldn't think it, the cases profiled on UM were great conversation starters around the dinner table. I remember the 3 dudes who set sail from Hawaii, whose wreckage was discovered a long time later, etc. etc. (sorry it's been awhile since my last post and I'm blanking on the name). My mom was fascinated by that one.

Also, if I recall correctly, UM was on NBC Friday nights, so watching it almost became the official start to the weekend.

I'm 22. I basically grew up watching the show with my parents, though I don't have a really clear memory of watching the show until around the time Lifetime started showing reruns. When my mom's work schedule meant that she had to work evenings, I would tape episodes for her and we would watch them together the next day. Oh, how I wish I still had those tapes. :P

ETA: I haven't thought about the Missing Time segment in forever, Composite Sketch! It was one of my favorite segments back when I was a kid. I remember at the time, my mom was reading Communion by Whitley Schreiber...which is really weird now that I think about it. Remember when alien abductions were all the rage? Good times.....
Yeah, UFOs were definitely a popular topic back then. Not so much these days. I remember my brother taking out a book from the school library that was about UFOs and it had pictures of aliens that looked like the drawings of aliens shown in the Missing Time segment. They freaked me out.

It's funny how just after my post, someone mentioned the Henderson, NV bank robbery. It was from one of the first episodes I saw when I started watching again in 1992. I started to become terrified of the composites by then, and this segment had a scary one. It wasn't the one of the driver of the getaway car that was drawn up from the picture that reporter took as she drove by. I swear this is true but haven't had it corroborated by anyone here, but when the segment originally aired, at the very end they flashed composites of suspects from another robbery that they thought were the same suspects from the Henderson robbery. The one on the right scared the crap out of me and I couldn't sleep that night. If my memory serves me right and that part did exist, it was dropped for the update on the case in the Lifetime reruns.

\I started to become terrified of the composites by then, and this segment had a scary one. It wasn't the one of the driver of the getaway car that was drawn up from the picture that reporter took as she drove by. I swear this is true but haven't had it corroborated by anyone here, but when the segment originally aired, at the very end they flashed composites of suspects from another robbery that they thought were the same suspects from the Henderson robbery. The one on the right scared the crap out of me and I couldn't sleep that night. If my memory serves me right and that part did exist, it was dropped for the update on the case in the Lifetime reruns.

I have the NBC version so I'll check but I think you might be right. It seems like they did show a bank surveillance photo of the second robber (who wore the mask the whole time), but he had the mask on so you could not see his face. Not sure why they showed this photo :confused:

Yeah, they put the sketch of the first robber (the driver who took off his mask before leaving the bank and was photographed later) on the left, and the surveillance picture of the second robber (who almost looked like he was posing for it) on the right. Then *BAM*, they switched to two sketch drawings of robbers from another bank heist, without warning. I'm almost certain Stack said "It's them". IIRC, the one on the right that kept me up that night had glasses and really scary eyes.

The first UM I ever saw was when I was 10 years old. I was home sick with my mom, and she had been watching lifetime earlier. I had gone into the living room to watch TV and Unsolved was on lifetime. It was the Civil War Ghosts episode. I was immediatley hooked. I still love the ghost segments.

The 'woman hiding under the bed from intruders and calling 911' is most definitely from Rescue 911. I remember that case, in fact there were a few cases that had that similar situation. At least one of them is on YouTube.



You are correct. I stumbed upon it today. It's episode 627 "Teen hides from intruders".

I think alot of us on here are around the same age (mid 20s) and watched this as a kid. Other than the specific stories that involved my area, I remember most of the ghost segments as those were some of my favorites. It was hard to go to sleep after those. I do remember the Dan Wilson segment and the white car ending up on the side of the road. For some reason I got it mixed up with the Bocks case. I thought Dan Wilson was Bocks. I found I was wrong once I watched the UM Vols. The Horicon bunk bed deal really scared me bad. It was in the top 5 of being the scariest for me. The company I work for has a plant in Horicon and I'm hoping that if I get sent there I can find the Tallman house and drive by it. I wonder whatever happened to them.

The first one I saw was the "Music Row" murder in 1989 with the corrupt records guy in Nashville. I think I was about five and UM was still on NBC, so that was 1991. I remember finding it very frightening because it happened in Tennessee, although I live nearly three hours east of Nashville. About ten years later, when I was around 13, I saw a rerun of that episode when I was up late one night not able to sleep. Watching the segment really, really did not help.

Another distinct UM memory I have is the segment they did on Flight 19. This was about five years ago and for about about three days straight I could not stop jumping at little noises and looking over my shoulder. Usually, any stories of the Bermuda triangle/UFO/conspiracy theory stock don't frighten me nearly as much as Unexplained Deaths, Wanted, and Missing Persons---but wow, that got me.

And the best of them all: the haunted bunkbed. My sister and I watched this one afternoon well over a decade ago and it's still burned into my memory. When that radio turned on by itself and the dial started going crazy, I about jumped out of my skin.


Man, I love this site. :)

The show did freak me out at times in the late 80s and I always slept better if I knew my father wasnt working overtime on the night of UM. The early cases that stick out that I was drawn to were DB Cooper, Son of Sam and Alcatraz. Other cases that just plain come to mind when I think of UM are the Wackers, Joe Owens, Kurt Sova and Blair Adams and there are countless others but the Wackers and Owens always top the list.

I was around 13 or 14, watching a segment about some door to door mass murderer or something on UM one night, when one of my friends decided it would be funny to randomly sneak under my bedroom window and knock on it.

Needless to say it freaked me the hell out and my heart about jumped out of my throat.

I dont really remember the first episode of UM that Ive seen after all it was the 80s and I was just 5 but I remember watching the show for The Paranormal and Legend segments which were just creepy.

One of my favorite segment is "The Devils Backbone" when the monk peers through the window and they added a Wilhelm scream in there. :eek: :eek: :eek:

One case that really struck me is the Bill Day case where he was looking for his son Kristophe, and it was later updated that he had died and the mother had not even notified the father. That just sickened me for some reason. Does anyone have any info on this case?

Also, another case that I have not been able to forget is the murders at the Blind River Rest Stop. I felt so bad for that man having his wife shot right in front of him and then was shot himself and he didn't know it. And I don't think this case was solved either.

Those are the two cases that have had the most impact on me other than the case of the missing Baskin children who were kidnapped by their grandparents.:wave:

One mugshot that creeped me out back in the day was Edward Harold Bell (Pretty sure thats the right name) kind of shocked me as the actor that played him in the renactment didnt look like him at all. I'll never forget that face.

The first epidode I saw was when I was 10 or 11. The stories featured were Unabomber and a buried treasure in Virginia. This was my favorite show and appointment viewing for me every Wednesday at 8 PM. I have memories of coming home from little league and being home alone when the show started just as it was starting to get dark. The Tallsman ghost story freaked me out so much at the age of 12 that I waited until somebody else went upstairs and turned on the lights before I did. I also slept in a bunk bed which made that story even worse. In 8th grade I taped the season premiere with the Arson video story and after hearing about it all my friends had to borrow the tape and see it for themselves.

There was this one episode that i will always rember was the one where the woman with the bad case of agoraphobia - the fear of going outside .. And she was last seen when her husband took her too the bart station in californa and she was never seen again .. Loooved that episode ..

I remember seeing a woman in fear, pulling out her hair.............and that creeped me out for the rest of the night. Was about 9 or 10 or 11.

Oh man, this thread is bringing back fond memories!

Kid Cuisine was awesome, remember how they came with little desserts? those were the best.

I probably started watching Unsolved Mysteries around 1992, so I was about eight. I don't recall the first one that I saw, but there was one that really spooked me and stuck with me till today. I can't recall much about it, and so searching the forums is difficult. Basically, there was this car parked in a wooded area, and I believe there were tree branches or other foliage on top of it, as if to hide it. I think it was a police officer that came across it, and at some point, the car was turned on and sped away! SO FREAKING CREEPY.

Can someone fill me in on more details about this segment?

I also remember being nervous for my mom whenever she would be out driving at night, thanks to this show. I can't remember specific segments, but we all know how many they have profiled where something horrible happens to a woman.

Yup, good ole childhood memories :D

...One of my favorite segment is "The Devils Backbone" when the monk peers through the window and they added a Wilhelm scream in there. :eek: :eek: :eek:
That reminds me that I went horseback riding through the Devil's Backbone area (which is beautiful, by the way) with my dad once. There was illegal hunting going on somewhere nearby and a gunshot spooked my dad's horse and it threw him. He injured his shoulder, but nothing serious. I always think of that when I watch the Devil's Backbone segment.

BTW, every time this thread pops up, I think to myself, "Yay! The Kid Cuisine thread!"

I'd have to say most memorable/horrifying would be the case of Angela Hammond. The fish design on the back of the truck window always stuck in my memory. I thought for sure someone would recognize it and call in.

The other most memorable/creepy would be Resurrection Mary. I remember my neighbor and I talking about it right before it aired and then calling each other right after (kinda silly since we could've watched it together!). Having grown up in Chicagoland, its always been one of my favorite ghost stories.

And I remember being in shock when I heard Robert Stack had passed away. To me he'll always be the ultimate UM host and it'll never be the same without him :(

I was 15 in 1987 and I was babysitting for the first time. I was on the phone with a friend who lived in Boston and was telling him about the show. He said "do you ever think they might be outside your window watching you?" I said "no, but thanks because now I will!" I'll never forget that conversation because I definately got creeped out.

The first time I saw the NH Serial Killer segment. It made a definite impression on me. To this day, that's still the one I tend to skip over, and still the one I really, really, really have to think twice about before watching. I think I slept maybe a total of seven hours that entire week after initially seeing it.

When I moved last year I took a ton of boxes from my parents house of my stuff. I was going through it earlier this summer and I found a letter my brother had written to me at camp in 1988, telling me not to worry because he taped UM for me! I actually went and looked up the episode to see which segments were on there....I think they're currently available for online viewing you know where. I was kind of excited - like, if I ever found the tape it would be a rare NBC broadcast, you know?

I remember many cases, but the ones that stuck with me were Son of Sam, Kathy Hobbs, Tara Calico, Baskin kids, Audrey Moate, Tim McClure, and Dennis DePue. I KNOW I saw the original DePue broadcast, and if I could ever find a tape of that episode, it would be like the holy grail.

I think William Bradford Bishop is probably my favorite episode, because I clearly remember thinking the segment was too short, and wishing they had made it a half hour instead of the 15 minute.

Hi, I'm actually a new member on this board so this is my first post..I've been a fan of UM since I was about 7 years old.. I'm only 20 so my first memories of UM were probably when the show was airing on CBS.. My family use to watch it alot and I just remember seeing it when I was younger and being so scared of it that I couldn't watch it. Then, a few years later when the show aired on Lifetime, I became addicted to it! While I was in elementary school, my mom would record the episodes on Lifetime for me. I probably have about 10 different VHS tapes filled with episodes that I will still watch when I need my UM fix. The cases that really scared me when I was younger were the Dorothy Donovan & Tom Johnson case.. The composite sketches of the hitchhiker and "tom johnson" bothered me to the point that I'd have nightmares. Even though the show still gives me nightmares, I'll keep coming back to watch old cases because UM provides that same kind of rush you'd experience from a horror movie. Weird but true. It's awesome to find a board dedicated to UM and to see how many people still reminisce about classic UM cases. I'm definitely disappointed with Spike's version of UM and I'd love it if ID channel could bring back UM in a proper way. Anyways, I've been a lurker on this board for a year or two now and I'm glad I finally became a member!

Ooooh, I'd love to know what episodes you have! I wonder if you have some that CD doesn't.

My memories are basically of me watching UM over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.... Everyone in my house's lives revolved around the show even though my dad and I were the ones that watched it and my mom and brother didn't. There were a few stories where I would look around and get scared and think someone on the show was watching me watch the show.... and my dad stopped me one time from calling and "turning in" our neighbor down the street... lol

Recently, my brother and I were driving to my parents house about 7 hours away. We were driving at night and there is about a 4 hour stretch where the only thing on the road is trees, cars and you. I have the theme song on my ipod and we were playing a game where I would pick a song and he had to guess what it was. It was pitch black, almost midnight and I picked that song and he flipped out.... pretty funny....

I've been reading way too many posts and watching too many epis lately. :D

The show was a staple of my teen years when it aired on Lifetime. I would always watch if after school. or if I was home from college. just recently I found this messageboard and became addicted to reading through the posts.

Just recently I pulled into the parking lot where I work. it was a little early for me to go in so I sat there listening to my car's cd player for a few minutes. out of the blue a car pulled behind mine. at first I thought it might be a Police car. but I hadn't done anything wrong. I turned and looked and saw that it was a Taxi cab. I couldn't see anyone in it though.

I hesitated to get out because I was a little scared. I debated for a few minutes and decided to make a Z line for the front doors. as I put my hands on my door handle someone came up and banged on my window! I nearly jumped out of my skin. it was only my Coworker wanting to chat before I went in. it turns out the Cab was for someone already inside. they had gotten there early and were just waiting. :rolleyes: Why they didn't pull the cab to the front doors I dunno.

The whole time the incident was occuring I kept thinking of UM. and heard Robert Stack's voice in my head saying "He was in his mid 20's... he parked his car at a parking lot before going into work. and was never seen again." :eek:

I can remember the first segment that sent me on a "research" hunt for more information--something that I and a lot of others here do quite commonly now.

It was my first semester of college in 2004. I'd just started getting back into the show because I had a block of time between classes in the morning and was able to catch it then on Lifetime. One day the Dick Hansen segment aired and I found it terribly interesting, so I went online to see if I could gather more information. All I got that day were his hometown, college major, height/weight, position, and jersey number from Santa Clara University's archived football rosters. Nothing about the actual case whatsoever.

I've got a lot of distinct memories from that fall semester about the cases shown for some reason. I definitely remember seeing Chad Lankford, Kathy Bonderson, Sherry Eyerly, the "healing UFO" :lol: , Chaim Weiss, Lauren Jackson, David Gordon Smith, and the Son of Sam segments.


I also have a definite recollection of being over at one of my ROTC friend's apartments and watching the "Mystery Hum" segment with him between classes. :lol:

I love this thread!

Sometime in the early nineties, I remember having sleepovers with my BFF, making that microwave popcorn with the pour-over butter (a new and glorious invention at the time), and seeing the totally awesome ghosts of Gettysburg segment. Snack attack + Stack attack = best sleepovers ever!!

There's a (now hilarious) scene where these dorkily-attired women are on an elevator and see several "ghosts" when the elevator doors open...I distinctly remember throwing my sleeping bag over my head and just cowering in total fear. Still love that segment!

The other significant moment in my own UM history was getting laid-off of my job last year...needless to say, I didn't find a job for quite some time, and filled some of my "funemployment" with long, snowy afternoons of UM episodes online:)

I had become a bit of an amateur true crime enthusiast over the years, so I was beyond thrilled to find this board. Yay for UM!

Hi,

I think one of the reasons I like this show so much is because it often brings back memories of childhood. A lot of times I see episodes on Lifetime and can still remember the fear and my initial reaction to them when they originally aired over fifteen years ago. So, at the expense of creating a thread that just screams out "cheese", does anyone have any special stories they would like to share? :crazy:

I can think of a few offhand.

After hurricane Frances last year, my girlfriend was staying overnight because I was fortunate enough to have power. We watched an old tape of special 4. Mostly because my cable was out, and it was the only tape I had laying around that wasn't in storage with the rest of my stuff. Plus, I really wanted her to experience the "greatness" that is Jule Caylor.

Another cool moment was catching an episode with a babysitter who I had the hugest crush on. I was probably 7 or 8. I don't remember the episode but it had to be first or second season original broadcast. She insisted on watching it. I tried my best not to be scared.

Finally, I remember eating an entire bag of red licorice whips and getting absolutely sick while watching the original airing of the Alcatraz special. It was all I could think about that night.

Later,
Justin

I know my mom watched the show plenty of times when I was very little, but I couldn't remember any clear segments until I was reintroduced to the show when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

I can remember the gold buried in the mountain which was claimed by someone, but apparently stolen by the Army later on.

I can also remember the Redwood City Arsonist as an early case I watched. It has stuck with me for a while.

Oh wow...this is such a cool thread! What great memories! Where do I begin with my own?
Well for one, to this day my best friend (who is just as much a UM die hard as I am) call each other every January 13th, on Robert Stack's birthday, to reminisce. I think I first turned her onto UM. I also turned my grandmother onto it. The very first episode we watched together was when we were on a family vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC, in August of 1992 (shortly before Hurricane Andrew hit) and i remember it was the episode featuring George Owens and Chaim Weiss. I also remember writing about how much I loved UM in my 5th grade journal. Every day in class, we had an hour in which we could write in our journals about anything we wanted to, and I wrote about UM, and I wrote with such a passion even then that even my teacher said that she was interested in watching the show!
I remember when UM was on NBC on Thursday in the early 90's, right before Seinfeld. I remember how watching Seinfeld sort of helped me to relax after particularly scary episodes. I also remember how thrilled I was when I discovered the lifetime reruns in the evenings. This was back in the day before Fios or Direct TV or anything like that...my family only had one cable TV and that was in the basement and you had to be really aggressive to get down there first to watch whatever you wanted to watch. And then I remember how pissed I always got when Lifetime kept pulling UM reruns off the air.
I also remember back in the summer of 2002 when Robert Stack hosted the only live UM chat. i was away at a school summer program that summer. I remember thinking, "Well, I wno't be able to make the chat tonight, but maybe there will be other times." This was June or July 2002, and then 11 months later RS passed away :(

I remember the first segment I saw was Charles Boomer(the satchel bandit). Well he would rob banks in ridiculous disguises and take lollipops and I was at the hospital when I was like 8 and I suddenly fainted thinking oh **** that looks like him but thankfully it wasn't. I still faint every time I go to the hospital to this day

ANYWAY, my first UM memory was watching on my bedroom tv which was a black & white 13" model where you had to turn the dial to change the channel...I don't remember which story it was, but I remember a guy taking a woman out to the woods and killing her.


I can't believe it, but I'm resurrecting this old thread (aka The Kid Cuisine Thread) b/c I FINALLY figured out the first segment I ever saw on Unsolved Mysteries! I was watching some old segments last night and there was one I must have accidentally skipped over previously because I've had the video for years.
It was the Joe Shepard/Roxanne Woodson episode. He chases her out in the woods and kills her, then buries her in a pile of old car parts at his parents house. There's a super creepy scene where they show 2 hands from a dead body sticking out of the pile of junk. I was instantly transported back to my childhood. That's when I realized it was the first UM segment I had ever seen.

According to the episode guide, the segment is from Season 1 Episode 1. It's somehow comforting to know that I was hooked from the very first episode (though I probably missed the pre-season specials).

Anytime I hear the music, I am instantly back to when I was a kid and living in an apartment. Anytime I watched the show I had to turn on every light because it spooked me out. Creepiest theme music ever.

Hey, my earliest memory ever, was when i was 8 or 9 years old, i was staying at my cousin's housem for a few weeks, and his mom and him were watching some show called it's a miracle, but right after it finished, i saw UM for the first time and i was afraid it was nearly dark and the segment was a UFO segment, the one where the women get burned, then one where the people are gunned down in their front yard.

Another one was when i was maybe 10 or 11, UM was on lifetime by this time and i was watching it but was also looking in the mirror looking at a pimple, the segment was a home invasion, so there is a scene where the robber goes in the house, and since im watching through a mirror i thought it was a real robber, i turned around so fast my heart skipped a beat :eek:

I saw my first segment ever when I was nine. It was the episode about the home invasion robbers who wore scary masks and bashed the woman's head against a microwave because she didn't know a safe combination. There was this scary zoom in on one robber as he yelled to the poor woman and her grandson that they would die if they got up before counting to 200. Thankfully that one was solved, however, it scared the hell out of me! I was terrified that someone would break into the house.

I think it was shown the same night as the spontaneous human combustion ep, which of course made me think I would randomly catch on fire! :eek: I was traumatized by the guy finding the body of his dad (very little left of him) after such an occurence. The beginning of that segment still terrifies me with the lady in the kitchen. For a while, I also harbored a fear that Resurrection Mary was in my closet. After that, I think I withstood it really well. My mother would tape it for me on VHS while I was at school (middle school days) when lifetime would show 2 hours back to back every weekday. Good times.

I was probably about 10 when I started watching UM. It was definitely in the late 80's. Only reason I watched it was because I had read the weekly tv guide that came in the local paper and the title popped up.

I was probably about 10 when I started watching UM. It was definitely in the late 80's. Only reason I watched it was because I had read the weekly tv guide that came in the local paper and the title popped up.

I remember watching in from '87 onwards but one night sticks out in my mind. UM was on Halloween night in 1990, (I think it was a special about ghosts). I remember trick or treating around my neighbourhood with a friend, then going home to watch UM and being in scary stuff heaven!

I remember watching the ghost special the first season and being hooked. Wednesdays at 8 on NBC I never missed a show. I was in 9th grade that first year.

My significant UM history moments span the years, and I could probably go on longer than just this list:

October 1988: Watching the Queen Mary/bunk bed/General Wayne Inn segment with my parents and being petrified by the ghost footprints on the Queen Mary and even the rotating TV picture at the GW Inn. That scared me for a long time, and was still potent when I'd watch it in my 20s (I was 8 years old in 1988).

June 1999: Watching the Casie Nicole/Alaskan Hitchhiker hour off the 1 a.m. Unsolved Mysteries, thinking both stories were really creepy, especially because it was late at night. Those are definitely two of my favorite stories.

Spring 2001: I was taking a TV Theory and Criticism class in college and someone in the class had to discuss Unsolved Mysteries. The segment used was the one of the girl murdered or kidnapped from the clothing store, and when the mother says "look, the cops are here," the whole class erupted in laughter. The teacher was aghast at their response, but I guess it was an "unintentionally funny UM moment" for the class and I've never forgotten that.

January 2003: Meeting Danny Gordon at WYVE radio. I figured he'd heard enough of UFOs and probably had UFO enthusiasts visiting for years, so I just discussed radio with him (I work in radio), but that whole trip I felt like I'd met a celebrity because I'd met someone who'd been on UM!

September 7, 2008: Visiting Silver Plume, CO for the first time, and realizing that by coincidence, I visited town on the 21st anniversary of Tom Young's disappearance. I've been back to the town multiple times since, but that first visit was a big deal.

BUMP!

I have distinct memories of me and my family watching the second special. We were all gathered in the living room and the first segment was Wanda Jean Mays, and the broken glass and the canoe were things that stuck with me and never left. The next segment was John Burns, and I remember my dad saying he had heard about it because it was a semi-local case. The next was Kyra Cook and I recall I was on the floor by this point because I was not feeling well and/or tired. I was 7 or 8 at this time. I think I must have fallen completely asleep by the time the final segment aired.

I also recall around 1991 or so being terrified of UFO's after the segment about the girls who were in the car one hot afternoon when their mother went somewhere, and they had an encounter. My brother told me that UFO's don't visit Michigan so that I could get some sleep that night.

I have fond memories of the 2 hour special in late May 1994, around the time of my 14th birthday. I was allowed to choose what restaurant we went to for my birthday, and I chose Papa Dick's in Williamston, which was always a favorite of mine. As it turns out, it was one of our last, if not, last visit there as the place had a fire not long after that and the owner opted to retire to Florida instead of rebuilding. There aren't too many good local restaurants these days as chains have pretty much taken over. It was a large restaurant with a lot of cool ambience and a jukebox with a dance floor! They had the best breadsticks, and all-you-can-eat Fish Fridays. And oddly enough, one of the segments on that special episode was Craig "I gotta get back to the fishes" Williamson, and that one had stuck with me. The Tina Resch one was also on that night and I found it so bizarre I had to mention it at school the next day, and I remember being kind of thrilled that someone else watched it besides me.

Ah, good times.

Nice thread. :)

I remember watching as teenager in junior & senior high school (the first case I vividly remember was the Unabomber segment).

I also remember one night accompanying my then-boyfriend to his dorm room one night when I was a freshman in college (this would have been around Winter 1993). We walked in (it was probably around midnight), and his roommate was watching UM and I was like -- OMG u mean we can watch this show? How cool. I had a TV in my dorm room too, but it wasn't high-tech enough to get cable channels -- so needless to say we spent a lot of time in my then-boyfriend's dorm room.

Does anyone remember when the voiceover, over the closing credits of UM on Lifetime would encourage you to "use your woman's instinct to help solve a crime"? Though I like to think of myself as an independent person, I'm not a feminist and always thought that voiceover verbiage was kinda lame. FWIW, I think Lifetime has moved away from billing itself as the network for women.

I loved the background music on lots of episodes. Most notably, the music playing when Dottie Caylor is boarding & on the BART train; the music playing when you see the gate closing on the impound lot where the car that Michael Rosenblum was last seen driving was later located; and the music playing as RS explains over pictures of John Dozier, John Russell & Suzanne in happier times how the three of them came to be "partners."

Wish there was still a way to watch the "oldie but goodie" episodes of this show.

Love this thread. No specific memory, but it's incredible how the creepy moments are still so vividly remembered. Patricia Meehan staring at the car accident in a field, Megadeth "clerk" in the Deborah Poe case, Angela Hammond fading away in the abductor's truck and the 2 kids bound and gagged in a van photo. And the music...whoever composed the music was a genius!

Did someone call my name? ;)

Well when I first saw the show as a kid it was kind of cool aside from scaring the crap out of me I also became aware of usa geography due to how the show went to different parts.

But when I saw it on lifetime in 2003 that was big and again in 2008 when I found this forum that was big too. Now I can stay updated with people like me that love the show.

You want to know what the first case was that I ever saw? I remember it quite well. I believe it was 2002. The year before Stack died. The first case I ever saw (much less knowing what Unsolved Mysteries was) was the case about the husband and father businessman, real young kinda handsome with dark hair who was found dead in thr parking lot of his company. I specifically remember security camera footage showing him pulling in or walking I think and a white car circles around in the cameras view. It stuck with me ever since and its what got me hooked on the show.

Something more important in my UM history is as of right now, is kane7474's discovery of a picture of their grandfather helping escort Sharon Kinne as she was being arrested.

Bumping this old thread. I remember watching Unsolved Mysteries as a kid/teen and being fascinated by the criminals. My earliest memory of UM is one of the Bigfoot episodes set in Washington State. I remember the cold winter night on that episode when the Bigfoot encounter happened. I remember the footprints in the snow, and also the mysterious hair found around the house. The house looked fairly similar to places near where I lived (in a state that has snow), so my childish thought was that it could be my house too.

I have many UM memories, but one of the ones happened after the first time I saw the original Beverly McGowan segment.

On that first watch, I was sad for Beverly...but then the episode ended with the infamous composite drawings of "Alice" and "Sam". I think I did jump when I saw those, especially Sam. That was scarier to me than the Bigfoot segment. Everyone says that real people are more terrifying than the paranormal. Based! I can never get that final image of the two drawings with the ominous theme music out of my head with RS intoning, "If you have any information..."

I've posted this on another thread, but the case haunted me, and I even wrote and workshopped a play loosely based on it in one of my writing classes. Also, I made my parents watch the segment with me because I thought, "WTF is wrong with me? Why can't I get that composite drawing out of my head?" (Clearly, this board would have been helpful back then!) After the end of the segment, I told my parents that the drawing scared me. They didn't make fun of me. My mom told me that I was safe and that it was mind over matter, don't let it bother me, but she understood my reaction. My dad explained that RS said that the drawing was of a bad person, and if RS said that was of a nice person, I might react differently. I think I still might have had the willies just because the drawing itself is unsettling, especially since it's ambiguous, leaving room for people to question whether "Sam" exists or whether it was really Elaine Parent pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. However, even with the eerie factor, I can concede that my dad was right. The composite of a murderer is part of what makes that case so indelible in many of our memories, even if we forget Bev's name and remember it as "that case with the freak that showed up at the travel agency and a woman was murdered."

On a happier note, I fell in love with the "secret friends" Christmas episode with Jean and Russell and the stranger they fed, and the checks that kept showing up. The Chucky McGivern segment aired during the same episode. That's the one about the comatose boy who the family thinks was healed by the spirit of a saint who showed up as a young boy in Harry Potter glasses at the hospital. That is also the same episode with Anthonette Cayedito.

That segment with Jean and Russell Johnson makes me sad, because in today's world, many people would think twice about helping a random stranger that shows up looking for work.

It, I feel, represents a more innocent, hopeful time, because

The show did freak me out at times in the late 80s and I always slept better if I knew my father wasnt working overtime on the night of UM. The early cases that stick out that I was drawn to were DB Cooper, Son of Sam and Alcatraz. Other cases that just plain come to mind when I think of UM are the Wackers, Joe Owens, Kurt Sova and Blair Adams and there are countless others but the Wackers and Owens always top the list.

The Wackers really stuck in my mind because I remember thinking that those could be my grandparents if some sicko took it into their head to mess with them. Now, as an adult many moons later, I hate to think that it was someone in their family or otherwise close to them that they just didn't want to identify. However, money and other grievances can drive family to do bizarre things.