The Most Astonishing Update?

[themaninblack]

What in your opinion is the most astonishing update ever featured on the show?
I will start with Pat Carlton being found alive 33 years after vanishing.

[tvscript124]

Dennis Depue being caught after fleeing the house where he was living AFTER his story aired! He and the woman he was living with were regular UM watchers.

The update with Elaine Parent committing suicide when the cops came to arrest her. Karma's a bitch!

The Patricia Stallings update in which RS reported that the night the story aired, calls poured into the UM telecenter with physicians familiar with the symptoms of MMA that Ryan Stallings died from.

Most perplexing and strange update: Elizabeth Campbell's purse being found for years after she disappeared.

Most heartwarming update: Judi Davis Dymond connecting with childhood friend Becky Terry while their segment was airing, and their junior high boyfriend David Major calling and leaving his number. hen, the two women reuniting and calling their old beau together!

[MegtheEgg86]

Stephen Marfeo's wistful look out the kitchen window at the end of the Doreen Marfeo segment, sitting there calmly with that cup of coffee while his own voiceover plays expressing his wishes that she would come home, then an abrupt cut to that text update detailing how, nine years later, Marfeo shot and killed his ex-girlfriend before committing suicide.

[WishfulDreamer]

The immediate jumpcut update to David O'Neil's body being hauled away in the Scott Rossiter update.

George Boyd's update turning from what looks like a thriller movie to a lost loves update. I'm glad her children were able to reunite, but there was a lot left to wonder about.

[dynoguy88]

Originally Posted by tvscript124

Dennis Depue being caught after fleeing the house where he was living AFTER his story aired! He and the woman he was living with were regular UM watchers.

Never shown in syndication (Lifetime or other networks) was how eager UM was to update the viewers on this one. The very next week after this segment originally aired, Stack informed us that Dennis had been captured after watching his own story and tried to escape. He did all this before introducing that night's segments. This is the only time UM did this.

Jerry Strickland and Missy Munday watched their own segment and then waited for the police to arrive. But Dennis tried to watch his own story while packing AND distracting his live-in girlfriend before making an escape. I think UM was really excited to get that news out before they could even film a reenactment of the update.

[1990 UM fan]

-The update that gave the sad news that Gale Samuels had died without ever finding her biological family

-The delivery in Robert Stack's voice when giving the update to the Daly City John Doe being identified by his family, as well as the John Doe who was found comatose (I forgot where he was found)

-Both the NBC and Lifetime update when Andolina Gonzalez was arrested and later freed when her victim, Judge Leland Geiler, died

-The eerie Lifetime update music that played when Astarte Davis-Rice was re-arrested in 2002

-The whole atmosphere when the deceased old man in the steamer trunk was identified as Jasper Watkins

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by MegtheEgg86

Stephen Marfeo's wistful look out the kitchen window at the end of the Doreen Marfeo segment, sitting there calmly with that cup of coffee while his own voiceover plays expressing his wishes that she would come home, then an abrupt cut to that text update detailing how, nine years later, Marfeo shot and killed his ex-girlfriend before committing suicide.

This is the one for me.

[Librarian1]

Authorities searched for Donald Eugene Webb for decades only to discover he died in 1999 and was buried in the backyard of his former wife’s home.

[cdr369]

Learning that Matthew Chase's killer had died unexpectedly in the days following Matthew's murder.

[Labonte18]

What's the one where a woman's skull was found like in a planter or green area outside a restaurant or something.. Years after she disappeared.

And.. Lee Selwyn's murderer being found. I mean.. For a random road rage case to be solved years later is actually fairly astonishing.

[WishfulDreamer]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

What's the one where a woman's skull was found like in a planter or green area outside a restaurant or something.. Years after she disappeared.

Linda Sherman, but this wasn't an update. The segment revolved around that happening over a decade after she vanished.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by WishfulDreamer

Linda Sherman, but this wasn't an update. The segment revolved around that happening over a decade after she vanished.

Yeah.. You're right.. I guess because it happened so long after the fact I kinda thought of it as an update.

[Mike82]

At the time, Lisa Marie Kimmell. The eyewitnesses were SO SURE and seemed 100% sincere, not coming across as crackpots or attention seekers. To find they were ALL wrong and she was killed almost immediately was a shock to me at the time.

Of course we UM veterans all know how useless eyewitness testimony and this is a case study on why you never rely on it but back then nobody saw that update coming.

[dynoguy88]

Originally Posted by Mike82

At the time, Lisa Marie Kimmell. The eyewitnesses were SO SURE and seemed 100% sincere, not coming across as crackpots or attention seekers. To find they were ALL wrong and she was killed almost immediately was a shock to me at the time.

Well, except she wasn't killed almost immediately. Lisa had a fate I wouldn't wish on anybody. She was tied up in Dale Wayne Eaton's van for over 3 full days, repeatedly raped and GOD knows what else, before being driven out to the bridge where she was stabbed, killed and THEN thrown overboard. Nothing about it was immediate. That's how much of a sick POS Eaton was.

This case, like the Gus Hoffman and the Ashley Freeman/Lauria Bible cases, disgust me to no end. The fact that there are people who are not only satisfied with killing people, they enjoy torturing their victims for multiple days first.

[Mike82]

Originally Posted by dynoguy88

Well, except she wasn't killed almost immediately. Lisa had a fate I wouldn't wish on anybody. She was tied up in Dale Wayne Eaton's van for over 3 full days, repeatedly raped and GOD knows what else, before being driven out to the bridge where she was stabbed, .

I was always under the impression it was "only" a day before she was killed. Regardless I only hope it was as painless as possible.

Really sickens me how long it took to get him locked up for life. Makes me wonder if the authorities were taken off the scent by the well meaning eyewitnesses as Eaton didn't seem like a criminal mastermind and don't get me started on how the Bechtel murder was handled.