Saddest Updates - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

PracTz · 01-24-2004, 07:06 PM

For me, perhaps the most heartbreaking one had to do with that elderly WWII vet whose young wife had died in childbirth decades earlier and, after he was wounded in combat, had found out that his daughter had been put up for adoption after her foster mother had died. He remarried but had no more children but became a beloved Radio Santa to try to cheer up other children yet despite decades of searching had NO idea what had become of his only child but carried her faded snapshot in his wallet. It turned out that the girl had died at age 18 in an explosion- having grown up thinking both her parents were also dead!

crystaldawn · 01-24-2004, 10:08 PM

One of the saddest updates is about Bill Day, who was searching for his son Kristoff. His ex-wife had taken him and he finally tracked her down years later (in another country) only to find out his son had died of leukemia! How heartbreaking!

dynoguy88 · 01-25-2004, 01:32 AM

That was the first case that came to mind for me, crystaldawn.

I hope Betty Day was punished for kidnapping their son all those years. The unsolved mysteries update didn't mention whether or not she was punished.

radar1979 · 02-22-2004, 08:33 PM

I think the update on the Carrie Lynn Nixon story was one the really tugged at my heart...but it was not the one the ednduced the most tears.

That honor goes to the 1991 story of the fmaily of Charley Best from tennessee. This was not long after I first started watching UM, and it was the first episode I ever taped. I must have watched the tape at least 40 times between late 1991 and May of 1992 when the Update was aired. The images, the music, and the short little monologue by Robert Stack saying that Charley had died 8 weeks after the Update was filmed....well....I was only 12 then, and it was the first time television ever made me cry.

dynoguy88 · 02-23-2004, 10:06 AM

Yeah, that update with Charlie Best was sad, but at least he was reuninted with Ada before he died. His family said that the reunion brought him great comfort in his final days.

Kane · 02-23-2004, 07:55 PM

It's hard for me to choose the #1 saddest update, but I will admit that one of the saddest updates that I have ever seen on Unsolved Mysteries was the one on the disappearance of Trisha Ann Autry. She was the fifteen-year-old teenager who met someone online, only to vanish not long afterwards. Her disappearance took place in June of 2000.

In the spring of 2001, Trisha's remains were found buried near a facility. Last month, Cody Lynn Nielsen was convicted of her murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Zero · 02-26-2004, 12:22 AM

A story about an elderly man looking for his wife. She simply disappeared one day. Then they showed an updated where a man who knew her confessed to her rape and murder and that he burried her somewhere on either their property or his.

Another is about a man who's house burned down but they couldn't find him. Then somet time later they found his body some distance behind his house and he appeared to have a fractured skull.

A lady named Susan vanished and her two sons were looking for her. Some hunter found her remains in the forest. Her husband at the time said she was drunk and became very mean with him like she always used to. According to him anyway. He said he went to bed and the next morning she was gone. Her car was found at the airport parked but they never found out who took it there. I think he had something to do with it.

The first two were listed as special alert.

Composite Sketch · 02-26-2004, 02:41 AM

Yeah, I remember the second one. I thought it was kind of silly, actually. Since it was a special alert at the end of the show, it was very short, and it was basically "his house blew up, but his body hasn't been found", followed immediately by the update "we found his body near the site of the explosion". Um, OK? Not the best search team in the country I guess?

The third case was the one that came to mind when I first saw this thread. It gets my vote. The update music was so sad and creepy. She was found in the dead of winter more than two years after she vanished. They probably found just bones. I didn't want to go to sleep the night I saw it. I also think the ex-husband was involved.

Kane · 02-26-2004, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zero
A story about an elderly man looking for his wife. She simply disappeared one day. Then they showed an updated where a man who knew her confessed to her rape and murder and that he burried her somewhere on either their property or his.

In the not-too-distant past, that case was featured on the Discovery channel series The FBI Files. When I realized that the story was about the 1992 disappearance of a Tennessee elderly woman, I started to put two and two together that it was a case that was briefly profiled on Unsolved Mysterties. The missing woman, Doe Roberts, was found buried in her neighbor's property, one year after she vanished. Her neighbor was eventually found guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison.

mattc · 08-20-2009, 09:00 PM

Remember the one about the mother (single mom with two kids) who disappeared and they thought she might have gone to meet a man. It was later determined she had committed suicide and her body was found in a hotel room somewhere. Does anyone know the name of that case?

justins5256 · 08-20-2009, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattc

Remember the one about the mother (single mom with two kids) who disappeared and they thought she might have gone to meet a man. It was later determined she had committed suicide and her body was found in a hotel room somewhere. Does anyone know the name of that case?

Gayle Delano.

UMfan77 · 08-21-2009, 10:32 AM

How about the one where a woman (she had really black hair) was looking for her twin sister, but found out that she had passed away only a few months before the update/reunion. But her twin sister did have 5 grown sons and the woman was able to meet all of the them. During the reunion, she was standing in the middle of all these people and she had this lost look on her face and was crying, she was so heartbroken that she never got to meet her twin sister. She said in the interview that her sister "will always be in my heart". My heart broke for her.

justins5256 · 08-21-2009, 11:57 AM

Another sad one was that story about a woman who was stricken with a rare but life threatening disease and was looking for her estranged sister (sorry, I can't remember the names) as she needed bone marrow or something similar that she could only get from a family member or else she would die. Her sister was her only living relative, or at least the only relative she could get a workable donation from. She hadn't spoken with the sister in many years and had no current contact information. I think she hired a PI who was also unable to trace the sister. The UM broadcast was pretty much her last hope. I remember watching the original airing in '94 and I felt really bad for her. I never saw an update until many years later when the story was shown on Lifetime with a quick blurb at the end indicating that she had not been able to locate her sister and had died soon after the original story aired.

crystaldawn · 08-21-2009, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by justins5256

Another sad one was that story about a woman who was stricken with a rare but life threatening disease and was looking for her estranged sister (sorry, I can't remember the names) as she needed bone marrow or something similar that she could only get from a family member or else she would die. Her sister was her only living relative, or at least the only relative she could get a workable donation from. She hadn't spoken with the sister in many years and had no current contact information. I think she hired a PI who was also unable to trace the sister. The UM broadcast was pretty much her last hope. I remember watching the original airing in '94 and I felt really bad for her. I never saw an update until many years later when the story was shown on Lifetime with a quick blurb at the end indicating that she had not been able to locate her sister and had died soon after the original story aired.

I'm confused. I was thinking she had found her sister but that she wasn't a match and Diane Hahnlein passed away from her illness. I even thought I saw a reunion about it. I couldn't find anything about it on the board so maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

justins5256 · 08-21-2009, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crystaldawn

I'm confused. I was thinking she had found her sister but that she wasn't a match and Diane Hahnlein passed away from her illness. I even thought I saw a reunion about it. I couldn't find anything about it on the board so maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

Hmmm, how curious. I seem to remember a text only over bluescreen type update indicating that she had died before locating her sister. I don't think this is one I have on tape from Lifetime, I'll have to check.

In the mean time, does anyone else remember?

Slightly OT but can someone clarify the Craig Williamson update? I recall one indicating that he was located and reunited with his wife. This may have been a text only deal again. Then I saw another version of the update that went into detail about them breaking up because the feelings just weren't the same. I maybe saw this version like one or two times. I can't recall if it was on Lifetime or NBC. However, I never saw it again and whenever I caught the episode in reruns they always had the first update saying that Craig had been located and reunited with his wife and that more information would be forthcoming.

01-25-2004, 01:32 AM	#3
dynoguy88 Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Apr 01, 2000 Location: Michigan, USA Posts: 3,672	reply That was the first case that came to mind for me, crystaldawn. I hope Betty Day was punished for kidnapping their son all those years. The unsolved mysteries update didn't mention whether or not she was punished.

02-23-2004, 10:06 AM	#5
dynoguy88 Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Apr 01, 2000 Location: Michigan, USA Posts: 3,672	REPLY Yeah, that update with Charlie Best was sad, but at least he was reuninted with Ada before he died. His family said that the reunion brought him great comfort in his final days.

02-23-2004, 07:55 PM	#6
Kane Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Mar 07, 2001 Location: MA, United States Posts: 3,367	Trisha Ann Autry It's hard for me to choose the #1 saddest update, but I will admit that one of the saddest updates that I have ever seen on Unsolved Mysteries was the one on the disappearance of Trisha Ann Autry. She was the fifteen-year-old teenager who met someone online, only to vanish not long afterwards. Her disappearance took place in June of 2000. In the spring of 2001, Trisha's remains were found buried near a facility. Last month, Cody Lynn Nielsen was convicted of her murder, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

02-26-2004, 12:22 AM	#7
Zero Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Jun 15, 2003 Posts: 495	A story about an elderly man looking for his wife. She simply disappeared one day. Then they showed an updated where a man who knew her confessed to her rape and murder and that he burried her somewhere on either their property or his. Another is about a man who's house burned down but they couldn't find him. Then somet time later they found his body some distance behind his house and he appeared to have a fractured skull. A lady named Susan vanished and her two sons were looking for her. Some hunter found her remains in the forest. Her husband at the time said she was drunk and became very mean with him like she always used to. According to him anyway. He said he went to bed and the next morning she was gone. Her car was found at the airport parked but they never found out who took it there. I think he had something to do with it. The first two were listed as special alert.
	__________________ "Are we ourselves, and do we really know?"

01-24-2004, 07:06 PM	#1
PracTz Member Senior Member Join Date: Jul 14, 2002 Location: United States of America [Happily Living in the 20th Century] Posts: 2,711	Saddest Updates For me, perhaps the most heartbreaking one had to do with that elderly WWII vet whose young wife had died in childbirth decades earlier and, after he was wounded in combat, had found out that his daughter had been put up for adoption after her foster mother had died. He remarried but had no more children but became a beloved Radio Santa to try to cheer up other children yet despite decades of searching had NO idea what had become of his only child but carried her faded snapshot in his wallet. It turned out that the girl had died at age 18 in an explosion- having grown up thinking both her parents were also dead!

01-24-2004, 10:08 PM	#2
crystaldawn Member Forum 4000 Club Member Join Date: Dec 17, 2002 Location: Illinois Posts: 4,261	One of the saddest updates is about Bill Day, who was searching for his son Kristoff. His ex-wife had taken him and he finally tracked her down years later (in another country) only to find out his son had died of leukemia! How heartbreaking!

02-22-2004, 08:33 PM	#4
radar1979 Member Occasional Poster Join Date: Feb 22, 2004 Location: St. Albans W.V. Posts: 68	I think the update on the Carrie Lynn Nixon story was one the really tugged at my heart...but it was not the one the ednduced the most tears. That honor goes to the 1991 story of the fmaily of Charley Best from tennessee. This was not long after I first started watching UM, and it was the first episode I ever taped. I must have watched the tape at least 40 times between late 1991 and May of 1992 when the Update was aired. The images, the music, and the short little monologue by Robert Stack saying that Charley had died 8 weeks after the Update was filmed....well....I was only 12 then, and it was the first time television ever made me cry.

02-26-2004, 02:41 AM	#8
Composite Sketch Staring at you Frequent Poster Join Date: Aug 26, 2003 Location: British Columbia, Canada Posts: 304	Yeah, I remember the second one. I thought it was kind of silly, actually. Since it was a special alert at the end of the show, it was very short, and it was basically "his house blew up, but his body hasn't been found", followed immediately by the update "we found his body near the site of the explosion". Um, OK? Not the best search team in the country I guess? The third case was the one that came to mind when I first saw this thread. It gets my vote. The update music was so sad and creepy. She was found in the dead of winter more than two years after she vanished. They probably found just bones. I didn't want to go to sleep the night I saw it. I also think the ex-husband was involved.

08-20-2009, 09:00 PM	#10
mattc Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Nov 16, 2008 Location: Virginia Posts: 273	Remember the one about the mother (single mom with two kids) who disappeared and they thought she might have gone to meet a man. It was later determined she had committed suicide and her body was found in a hotel room somewhere. Does anyone know the name of that case?

08-21-2009, 10:32 AM	#12
UMfan77 Member Senior Member Join Date: Nov 28, 2003 Posts: 1,064	How about the one where a woman (she had really black hair) was looking for her twin sister, but found out that she had passed away only a few months before the update/reunion. But her twin sister did have 5 grown sons and the woman was able to meet all of the them. During the reunion, she was standing in the middle of all these people and she had this lost look on her face and was crying, she was so heartbroken that she never got to meet her twin sister. She said in the interview that her sister "will always be in my heart". My heart broke for her.

08-21-2009, 11:57 AM	#13
justins5256 Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Aug 08, 2002 Posts: 3,866	Another sad one was that story about a woman who was stricken with a rare but life threatening disease and was looking for her estranged sister (sorry, I can't remember the names) as she needed bone marrow or something similar that she could only get from a family member or else she would die. Her sister was her only living relative, or at least the only relative she could get a workable donation from. She hadn't spoken with the sister in many years and had no current contact information. I think she hired a PI who was also unable to trace the sister. The UM broadcast was pretty much her last hope. I remember watching the original airing in '94 and I felt really bad for her. I never saw an update until many years later when the story was shown on Lifetime with a quick blurb at the end indicating that she had not been able to locate her sister and had died soon after the original story aired.