Recently, I started thinking about what cases could have been featured on UM if the show had been on the air anytime before January 1987 - particularly during the '70s or early '80s. Have any of you ever speculated on that?

I'm only talking about cases that were solved before the show's very first broadcast (January 20, 1987). This, of course, includes wanted fugitives who were captured or confirmed dead before UM first aired. If the show had debuted earlier than it did, what case(s) do you think would have been appropriate for UM?

Zodiac ?

Adam Walsh pretty quickly comes to mind

Well they did cover some cases that happened prior to 1987. Son of Sam comes to mind. They also did the Unabomber/Zodiac episode. They actually covered Unabomber during the first season before he was caught, which makes two segments about Ted K. It also seems they did a Jack the Ripper episode, but I can't recall with certainty.

A lot of the non-infamous cases UM covered also happened years before 1987. Cindy Anderson happened in the early 80's as did Kurt Sova. I think the whole Charles Morgan thing happened in the 70's, even though the follow up segments about Casalaro happened later. There are many cases that they covered that were already cold before 1987.

EDIT:

Kane, just read all of your post. You are asking what would have happened if UM was around in the 70's/early 80's. That will take more thought. ;)

Recently, I started thinking about what cases could have been featured on UM if the show had been on the air anytime before January 1987 - particularly during the '70s or early '80s. Have any of you ever speculated on that?

I'm only talking about cases that were solved before the show's very first broadcast (January 20, 1987). This, of course, includes wanted fugitives who were captured or confirmed dead before UM first aired. If the show had debuted earlier than it did, what case(s) do you think would have been appropriate for UM?

Great Thread Kane:

I don't know about solved cases but there is one unsolved case from the seventies that I personally wished UM would've profiled but probably never did due to the fact it was already several years old by the time UM was first broadcast.

We've discussed the case a bit on here before and it's the case of disappearance of the Lyon Sisters (Sheila & Katherine) from Maryland. On the day of their disappearance (3-25-75), the two girls went to a local mall for lunch. They along with several other children encountered a man with a briefcase. Inside the briefcase was a small tape recorder with a microphone attached and apparently he made recordings of several of the children including Sheila and Katherine.

A short while after being seen with this man, both girls vanished and police have never been able to locate the man with the briefcase and tape recorder. Nobody is sure whether or not he has anything to do with the disappearance of the Lyon sisters, however he is considered to be the only possible lead that the authorities have in this case.

While none of these cases are officially solved, I have no doubt that UM would have covered them if they had been on the air before 1987.

Given what a big case it was in the 1980s and how groundbreaking it was for changing laws about missing children, I'm sure the Johnny Gosch case would have gotten exposure on UM. Quite frankly, I'm surprised they never covered it at all during the show's run. It would have interesting to see their interpretation of the case during that time period before it got REALLY weird with conspiracy theories about pedophilia rings and Johnny's mother receiving disturbing photos on her doorstep.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/g/gosch_john.html

The Etan Patz disappearance is another groundbreaking missing children case that probably would have been covered on UM since a lot of leads were being uncovered during that time period.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/patz_etan.html

The Jimmy Hoffa disappearance was already old news by the time UM started, but I'm sure they would covered it if they had been on the air several years earlier. Ditto for the Bob Crane murder. It would have been interesting to see John Carpenter do an UM interview trying to proclaim his innocence and possibly come across as badly as Paul Pollis or Mark Nichols.

It's also possible they may have even tried to do their own segment on the JFK assassination. Once the Oliver Stone film came out, the conspiracy theories became so widespread that there was no need for UM to cover it.

Adam Walsh pretty quickly comes to mind

How about the October 26, 1976 first-degree murder of University of Maryland engineering student Annette Nee ? She was not sexually assaulted. There was no DNA. It happened on a Tuesday morning while she was studying for midterms.

Her father Nicholas Nee was an engineer working in the Interstate 270 Technology Corridor, also in Maryland. He had immigrated from post - World War II China and fathered his two kids in the United States, eventually moving the family to Gaithersburg, MD near that technology corridor. After Annette graduated high school in 1975, she moved to an apartment in Hyattsville, MD that required her to drive to her classes on the College Park campus every day, but the campus wasn't where her killer found her.

As prosecutors determined years later, Annette bought a "to go order" of fried chicken at Gino's Hamburgers (a long - gone chain of fast food joints located exclusively in DC, Maryland and Virginia) that was within walking distance of her apartment. Nicholas later felt very guilty for having chosen that apartment while he and his daughter had gone apartment - hunting in the Maryland suburbs near the University of Maryland campus.

But nobody other than Annette or her killer knew what happened while she carried the bag of fried chicken on the sidewalk. All that was known for the next four years and some months was that neighbors in the apartment building had heard someone break into her unit. She failed to answer her ringing telephone that night or the next day. (College students didn't have home answering machines in 1976.) Nicholas Nee became concerned, drove from his Gaithersburg, MD home to Hyattsville and found his daughter dead inside her apartment. During those four years and some months there were no television shows that could have profiled the case or appealed for help in finding a suspect.

The case remained cold until sometime in late 1980 or early 1981 when an incarcerated heroin addict named George Dewey Robinson confessed to his cellmate, who then gave him up. Robinson's prior convictions had nothing to do with the Nee case. The cellmate later testified in a Prince George's County, MD courtroom that Robinson "could not forget the expression on the girl's face when the pistol went off," according to a Washington Post story published on August 24, 1981.

When questioned by Prince George's County police, Robinson pinned the blame on a fellow heroin addict with whom he had robbed several victims to get money for heroin. Despite that other addict's denials, Robinson was so persuasive that both he and his former partner in crime and addiction were indicted for murder in late January 1981. The indictment happened several days after Ronald Reagan's first inaugural parade took place near the courthouse.

By June of 1981, prosecutors and jurors agreed that George Dewey Robinson alone had stalked Annette Nee from the Gino's restaurant to her apartment, broke open the door and shot her. He alone was convicted of first-degree murder that June. On August 24, 1981 the Post ran a very long article about the case starting on its front page. It revealed, among other details, that Robinson's former cellmate had testified at the June trial that Robinson "could not forget the expression on the girl's face when the pistol went off."

It is hoped that to this day Robinson flashes back to the expression on Annette Nee's face as he deteriorates in his cell at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Maryland. He remains there at age 59 according to the website for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Evidently, Robinson has been denied parole, probably more than once. You can infer that from a September 1981 report in the Washington Post of his sentencing. It says George Dewey Robinson got a life sentence with the possibility of parole after thirteen years.

You will not find the Annette Nee case on Cold Case Files or any other television program. Moreover, you get nothing by Google - ing "Annette Nee" or "George Dewey Robinson."

You can search them on the Washington Post online archive, then you can read five articles from 1981 for a fee. All five have the byline of Loretta Tofani. Google her and you can find that she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for a scoop about the Prince George's County, MD jail housing convicted murderers with suspects who had just been arrested for shoplifting and couldn't make bail. The hardened criminals gang raped those poor people. From 1992 to 1996 Tofani was a Philadelphia Inquirer foreign correspondent in Beijing, China. Most likely she recalled that Nicholas Nee, whom she had interviewed at his Maryland home in 1981, was from China.

Dr. Jeannette Nee, a cardiologist who practices in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada, is the surviving younger sister of Annette. The sisters got along great throughout their childhood and adolescence. Jeannette was in high school when her mother informed her of the murder. She regrets not having kept in touch with Annette during the two-and-a-half semesters when Annette studied at the University of Maryland. (A teenager who drives from the Nee family home in Gaithersburg to Hyattsvile, where Annette lived and died, must venture onto the scary Capitol Beltway.) The front-page Washington Post profile of the case says that Jeannette, who was working in hospitals while applying to medical schools in 1981, thinks of her sister whenever she sees a patient die.

Zodiac ?

Well, they did a segment about the Zodiac killer in 1996, although it generally focused on the debate of whether was possible that Ted Kaczynski (aka Unabomber) was the killer.

Although I would concur that UM could have profiled the Zodiac case if it had been on the air as early as the 1970s (if not the late '60s, when the Zodiac killer first struck), this thread should focus only on cases that were solved before UM was on the air.

One case that I think would have been appropriate for UM to feature if the show had been on earlier is the manhunt for Josef Mengele. He was, of course, the notorious Nazi physician who performed human experiments (he is also the subject of the Slayer song "Angel of Death"). He went into hiding in the mid-1940s and remained on the run until his death in February 1979, when he suffered a stroke and drowned while swimming in the sea near Brazil.

But it wasn't until 1985 when his body was exhumed (after being buried under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard") and examined. Based on the forensic evidence that was available at the time, such as Mengele's dental records, it was deemed likely that the body was that of Josef Mengele. But it was a DNA testing in 1992 that confirmed it.

Again, if UM had existed earlier, the manhunt for Josef Mengele would have been a fitting case for UM.

Well, they did a segment about the Zodiac killer in 1996, although it generally focused on the debate of whether was possible that Ted Kaczynski (aka Unabomber) was the killer.

I do remember that segment, but I specifically meant one dedicated entirely to Zodiac, not a comparison with Unabomber. Am guessing they didn't do a dedicated segment because it seemed so outdated.

Great Thread Kane:

Thank you, DarkDante. :)

This is a hypothetical scenerio that recently crossed my mind. And I began to find it hard not to wonder what cases UM might have featured if the series had been on the air before its actual debut in 1987.

Many people don't realize it, but format wasn't new when either UM or America's Most Wanted first aired. In fact, similar shows were attempted. One was ABC's Counterattack (hosted by George Kennedy, of Airport and Naked Gun fame) in the spring of 1982 and CBS's Wanted during the 1955-56 season. However, neither show found an audience. It was particularly understandable with Wanted, since it aired during the early years of primetime television.

Anyway, I have come up with two more cases that would have been UM material:

1) Steven Stayner. Of course, he was abducted in December 1972 at the age of 7, but finally escaped in early 1980. Had UM been on during the 1970s, this case (which became the subject of the 1989 TV-movie I Know My First Name is Steven) would have been a perfect candidate for the show.

2) The Trailside Killer. This was a California serial killer who murdered women on hiking trails from 1979 until he was arrested and identified as David Carpenter in 1981. If UM had been on during that period, I'm sure the authorities investigating the murders would have at some requested the show for help.

I've always thought the mystery around the Sodder children who disappeared in the 40's would have been a very interesting case for UM to profile. Its very unusual in that the children were first thought to have died in a house fire but there was never any real evidence found of their bodies. Here's some more info:

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/sodder_jennie.html

And now I'm creeped out. :/ probably shouldn't have read those stories about the missing kids before I go to sleep. *shudders* augh man! it's so creepy imagining it was her Son who visited her years later out of the blue. claiming pedophiles are after him. but what if it wasn't him? :eek:

I've always thought the mystery around the Sodder children who disappeared in the 40's would have been a very interesting case for UM to profile. Its very unusual in that the children were first thought to have died in a house fire but there was never any real evidence found of their bodies. Here's some more info:

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/sodder_jennie.html

Even though this case is several decades old, the mystery is just SO bizarre that I couldn't believe UM never covered it. However, I found an interesting comment here from someone who claims that UM contacted the surviving Sodder family members numerous times over the years, hoping to do a segment, but they always turned them down.
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/fayetteville-wv/T9RU3V19KEH59KSP1

1) Steven Stayner. Of course, he was abducted in December 1972 at the age of 7, but finally escaped in early 1980. Had UM been on during the 1970s, this case (which became the subject of the 1989 TV-movie I Know My First Name is Steven) would have been a perfect candidate for the show.

I first became familiar with this case on an episode of American Justice. It was mostly about his brother Cary, who would go on to become the Yosemite Killer. It did talk for a while about Steven's abduction and things related to that. Just a very sad case all the way around.

It was very sad that Stayner and Timothy White both died at young ages, while that creep Parnell lived to an old age. A few years before he died, he attempted to bribe his nurse into getting him a 4 year old boy to molest, telling her "make sure he has a clean rectum" :mad: Thankfully, the nurse went to the police and Parnell arrested that day.

It was also sad that Parnell and his accomplices only served a few years each for the crimes. Another sad footnote: During the entire time Stayner was being held by Parnell in his cabin, he was unaware that he was only a few hundred feet from his grandmother's house.