Latest / NO FILTER / Missing father found buried under family home after decades of searching(MP3_160K)

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Missing father found buried under family home after decades of searching(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

0:00
Speaker 1: A word of warning. This podcast explores graphic and disturbing
0:03
Speaker 1: stories and includes some strong language. It therefore may not
0:07
Speaker 1: be suitable for our young listeners or other folks who
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Speaker 1: may find it disturbing. Hello and welcome to a special
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Speaker 1: edition of True Crime News the podcast I'm your host
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Speaker 1: Ana Garcia. Everyone in the world of true crime has
0:20
Speaker 1: a story to tell about a case they worked on
0:22
Speaker 1: or they live through. Some are high profile, some you
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Speaker 1: have never heard of, but they are all fascinating. Today's
0:28
Speaker 1: case is about a deadly family secret hidden in the basement.
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Speaker 1: Generations of the Carroll family lived in the home, wondering
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Speaker 1: whatever happened to the patriarch. The story was he just
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Speaker 1: walked away from the family well, following a hunch and
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Speaker 1: guided by a psychic vision. We now know what happened.
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Speaker 1: His murder and the secrets surrounding it are the subject
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Speaker 1: of a new investigation discovery documentary called The Secrets We Bury,
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Speaker 1: streaming on HBO Max. Our guest today is Patricia E. Gillespie,
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Speaker 1: the director of The Secrets We Bury. Trish, Welcome to
1:07
Speaker 1: the program.
1:08
Speaker 2: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
1:11
Speaker 1: So this is a fascinating case. I must be honest,
1:14
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet. I've only seen clips of it,
1:18
Speaker 1: but was reading some of the research on this, and
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Speaker 1: it's shocking to believe that, you know, George Carroll, the
1:27
Speaker 1: patriarch of this family the entire time, had been in
1:31
Speaker 1: the basement of the home.
1:33
Speaker 3: Indeed, yes, I think it came as quite a surprise
1:37
Speaker 3: to everyone in the film.
1:39
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. So this, you know, goes back to
1:42
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. Just a little bit of background here
1:45
Speaker 1: and then you'll lead us through this. George Carroll of
1:49
Speaker 1: Long Island, New York vanished, right. He just left behind
1:53
Speaker 1: his wife and four children. The kids have always had
1:56
Speaker 1: questions obviously when people just disappear, and people just don't
2:00
Speaker 1: disappear if you do want to. But that is in
2:03
Speaker 1: the minority. And so you know, his wife, Dorothy, having
2:08
Speaker 1: to take care of the four kids. Her story was
2:10
Speaker 1: to the children that he simply went to get a
2:13
Speaker 1: packet of cigarettes, which of course didn't make sense since
2:17
Speaker 1: he left his car, his wallet. It just I just
2:24
Speaker 1: find that, and that no one reported him missing to
2:27
Speaker 1: the police.
2:30
Speaker 3: No one picked up his list, paycheck. You know, there
2:32
Speaker 3: were a bunch of things that didn't totally make sense.
2:37
Speaker 3: But when you're young, you you know whatever you hear
2:41
Speaker 3: from your mom is what you believe. And it wasn't
2:43
Speaker 3: until the Carol children were older that they really started
2:46
Speaker 3: to ask questions. And I think one of the watershed
2:50
Speaker 3: moments for Mike. Mike had been Mike's the youngest of
2:53
Speaker 3: the Carol children, and one of the big moments for
2:58
Speaker 3: him was he'd been a paper growing up, and he
3:03
Speaker 3: delivered in the block surrounding his home, and there was
3:07
Speaker 3: this one yellow house that always sort of stood out
3:10
Speaker 3: to him, and he couldn't figure out why. And then
3:12
Speaker 3: when he was about seventeen or eighteen, he ended up
3:18
Speaker 3: hearing a knock at the door and seeing his mother
3:20
Speaker 3: go out, and it was the man from that yellow
3:22
Speaker 3: house delivering to his mother a box of possessions, and
3:27
Speaker 3: Mike said, what's that And she says, that's your father's stuff.
3:30
Speaker 2: He says, well, why does he have it? She says,
3:32
Speaker 2: that's your grandfather.
3:34
Speaker 3: And no one had ever told Mike that he'd been
3:38
Speaker 3: delivering papers to his grandfather for you know, seven or
3:40
Speaker 3: eight years. They had been kept totally separate, so I
3:43
Speaker 3: think at that point he knew something was going on.
3:46
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that is just bizarre. How would you not
3:49
Speaker 1: know that your grandparents? How do you not know that
3:52
Speaker 1: that these are your grandparents?
3:54
Speaker 2: Yeah? For sure.
3:55
Speaker 3: I mean I think there was an energy of secrets
3:58
Speaker 3: around that whole thing, and he couldn't really get a
4:01
Speaker 3: straight answer, and so that sort of lingered in his
4:04
Speaker 3: brain for the rest of his life there, and he
4:07
Speaker 3: started to put the pieces together over the ensuing decades.
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Speaker 1: So these grandparents, I'm just curious. Are they George's.
4:14
Speaker 3: Parents Georges George's mom and stepfather.
4:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Now one would think, Trish that they would have called
4:24
Speaker 1: the police. I mean, if their son is missing, Like,
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Speaker 1: how did they not get involved in an investigation?
4:30
Speaker 2: Yeah?
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Speaker 3: I mean there had been stories and rumors of George's
4:36
Speaker 3: mom actually hiring a private investigator who broke into the
4:40
Speaker 3: house and took pictures of the basement and had serious
4:43
Speaker 3: questions about it. But none of that ever came in
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Speaker 3: to bear fruit because she passed away long long before
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Speaker 3: this crime was ever solved.
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Speaker 1: How bizarre. Okay, So let's can you let's walk us
4:57
Speaker 1: through here and really the main people involved here. So
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Speaker 1: the story is that George Carol walks away in nineteen
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Speaker 1: sixty three, last time that he's seen alive. Okay, after
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Speaker 1: he disappears, there is a man who becomes prominent in
5:16
Speaker 1: this family. Who is this man? What role does he play?
5:20
Speaker 2: Yeah?
5:21
Speaker 3: So George had come home from the Korean War. He
5:25
Speaker 3: was a Korean War veteran, and you know, in making
5:29
Speaker 3: the adjustment coming back home with you know, four kids,
5:32
Speaker 3: he decided he wanted to add an extension to the house,
5:35
Speaker 3: do some work onto the house for Dorothy and the kids.
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Speaker 2: And he hired a local man to help sort of
5:44
Speaker 2: do this extension and do some work.
5:46
Speaker 3: And this guy ended up becoming a good friend of
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Speaker 3: George's and staying at the house when he had nowhere
5:55
Speaker 3: else to stay. And when George disappeared, he ended up
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Speaker 3: marrying Dorothy George's wife.
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Speaker 1: Well that's fairly suspicious.
6:09
Speaker 2: Certainly many people felt that way.
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Speaker 1: And his name Richard Darris mm hm. Okay, So Richard
6:16
Speaker 1: moves in Dad's gone, they marry. What is it like
6:23
Speaker 1: for the four Carol children during this marriage? And then
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Speaker 1: a child? They have a child, right, another child?
6:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they had Richie, who is the half brother
6:35
Speaker 3: of all the Carol children. They all share the same mom. Yeah,
6:39
Speaker 3: I think it was look blended families are always tough, right,
6:42
Speaker 3: and I think it was really hard for the Carol
6:45
Speaker 3: children to grow up in that house. Richard Darris was
6:48
Speaker 3: quite young and not the kindest man, and so it
6:54
Speaker 3: was definitely a tough ro to ho for them.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so then how do things progress? Does do Dorothy
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Speaker 1: the mom and Richard, who you know was working on
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Speaker 1: the house, do they live happily ever after? And then
7:12
Speaker 1: the kids do they stay in the house move out?
7:14
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand, like what's happening in the Carol
7:18
Speaker 1: Duress's family while dad has been gone for decades.
7:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Carol kids weren't a big fan of
7:26
Speaker 3: Richard Darris to say the least. Ritchie, the youngest, who's
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Speaker 3: Dearis's son, was quite young when his parents split up.
7:34
Speaker 3: Darris moved away, and the kids describe really their mother
7:39
Speaker 3: as becoming much more herself once that separation happened, and
7:45
Speaker 3: they sort of, you know, they grow up. They continue
7:49
Speaker 3: to grow up and raise their own families. Really with
7:53
Speaker 3: all that in the rear view and Dorothy, you know,
7:58
Speaker 3: they have questions throughout the gene and Mike in particular
8:02
Speaker 3: had questions throughout the years about their father.
8:04
Speaker 2: A bunch of weird.
8:04
Speaker 3: Things come up, but Mom doesn't really seem to want
8:07
Speaker 3: to talk about it. And then in nineteen ninety eight,
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Speaker 3: Mom passes away and Mike tells this incredible story in
8:13
Speaker 3: the film about the last few moments he had with
8:16
Speaker 3: her where she turned and winked at him and then
8:19
Speaker 3: immediately passed away after weeks of him asking Hey, where's
8:23
Speaker 3: dad and her refusing to tell him. So who knows
8:26
Speaker 3: what that means, But he just had this sense, you know,
8:29
Speaker 3: there's a deeper story here, and maybe now that Mom's gone,
8:32
Speaker 3: I'll never get it. But a few not long after that,
8:37
Speaker 3: a few years later, Mike was a respiratory therapist and
8:41
Speaker 3: he was working at a hospital and he.
8:44
Speaker 2: Gets this call. He's on call, and he gets his
8:46
Speaker 2: call on.
8:46
Speaker 3: The three o'clock in the morning to do a blood
8:49
Speaker 3: gas on a patient that was quite ill to pretty
8:53
Speaker 3: involved procedure.
8:54
Speaker 2: And he walks into the room and he's ready to do.
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Speaker 3: This procedure and he checks the guy's armband, which is
9:00
Speaker 3: part of the process, and he sees that it says
9:03
Speaker 3: Yagel on it, and Yagel is the name of his
9:05
Speaker 3: grandparents that he was kept separate from for many, many years.
9:10
Speaker 3: And he says, Hey, your last name is Yagel, do
9:13
Speaker 3: do you know do you ever hear George Carroll?
9:15
Speaker 2: And the guy says, yeah, that was my brother.
9:19
Speaker 3: So you know, George's mom had remarried a gentleman named
9:22
Speaker 3: named Yagel, and so they were half brothers. Oh, and
9:26
Speaker 3: he says, you know, we think your dad's buried under
9:28
Speaker 3: the house. And all of a sudden, this opens this
9:31
Speaker 3: insane world for Mike. But you know, the siblings and
9:36
Speaker 3: the world thinks it sounds totally fantastical and ridiculous, right, So,
9:41
Speaker 3: and Mike himself if and when you see the film.
9:45
Speaker 2: Mike's kind of an odd character. He's a hoarder, He's
9:48
Speaker 2: got some.
9:50
Speaker 3: Unusual beliefs, and he often is a person who gets overlooked, right,
9:56
Speaker 3: a person that we don't necessarily consider immediately credible or
9:59
Speaker 3: some and we want to believe. But little did the
10:03
Speaker 3: world know Mike Carroll was really on something there.
10:07
Speaker 1: So what happens to the house during so much change
10:11
Speaker 1: within the family? Did the family keep the house after
10:16
Speaker 1: mom Dorothy passed away. I'm trying to understand, you know,
10:20
Speaker 1: she's usually when someone passes kids lose control of the house.
10:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when Dorothy was sick, Mike bought the house
10:27
Speaker 3: from her. She wouldn't have to worry about bills or
10:30
Speaker 3: anything anymore, and helped her to be able to, you know,
10:34
Speaker 3: be sick and pass at home. And that's how Mike
10:37
Speaker 3: came into possession of the house. So now he's living
10:39
Speaker 3: in the house. He hears this wild story at the
10:42
Speaker 3: hospital and and you know, at a certain point the
10:48
Speaker 3: story somewhat implicates the mother, right. I think mister Jagel
10:54
Speaker 3: had felt that maybe Dorothy had something to do with it.
10:57
Speaker 3: That's where we find out that George's mom had hired
11:01
Speaker 3: the private.
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Speaker 2: Detective dah blah blah.
11:03
Speaker 3: And but there it feels like a hot potato, right
11:07
Speaker 3: because nobody, nobody wants to blame mom or look at mom.
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Speaker 3: And but then Jean really wants something to be done
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Speaker 3: about it. Jean Mike's sister, and she pushes him to
11:17
Speaker 3: go see the psychic, who tells a really she she
11:21
Speaker 3: you know, the way Mike recounts in the film, it's
11:24
Speaker 3: an hour of kind and nothing for him. And then
11:28
Speaker 3: and then he says, at the end, while you know
11:32
Speaker 3: the psychic, guess are you happy with the story. Mike says, no,
11:35
Speaker 3: I want to hear about my dad. And she says, oh,
11:37
Speaker 3: that's different. That's the m word. And I can't talk
11:40
Speaker 3: about that unless you want me to. Essentially, and she
11:43
Speaker 3: tells him this story and that his dad is essentially
11:47
Speaker 3: buried in the basement, which confirms this thing mister Yagel said.
11:51
Speaker 3: And at that point, Mike decides he's got a dig
11:54
Speaker 3: So even though half his siblings still think he's insane,
11:57
Speaker 3: his friends think he's insane, his coworker is the town
12:00
Speaker 3: thinks he's insane. He starts digging this giant hole into
12:03
Speaker 3: the wall of his house where he believed the psychic
12:07
Speaker 3: was hinting his father might be, and he almost collapses
12:10
Speaker 3: the foundation of the house. He takes for months and
12:12
Speaker 3: months and months and months. Everyone's telling him to stop,
12:15
Speaker 3: and in the end he finds nothing.
12:17
Speaker 1: So Mike is told by the psychic, he's told by
12:21
Speaker 1: his uncle right that dad is buried. Yet he has
12:26
Speaker 1: already dug up part of the house and he hasn't
12:29
Speaker 1: found anything. So, I mean, at what point do you
12:33
Speaker 1: just say enough?
12:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's at this point Mike kind of enters
12:37
Speaker 3: this sort of depression and the state of the house
12:39
Speaker 3: gets a little bit crazier. The hoarding intensifies, and the
12:42
Speaker 3: boys are like, we really got to get him out
12:44
Speaker 3: of here, but they know their dad won't leave until
12:47
Speaker 3: he knows for sure his father isn't in the house
12:49
Speaker 3: because he's just heard too much about it.
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Speaker 2: So bless him.
12:53
Speaker 3: They you know, Mike, even though he had no father
12:56
Speaker 3: of his own and a really bad experience with his stepfather,
12:59
Speaker 3: he became an extra ordinary father and his two sons
13:02
Speaker 3: love him and they are extraordinary sons.
13:04
Speaker 2: And they decided, you know what, we got to help
13:07
Speaker 2: dad out.
13:07
Speaker 3: So we're going to hire this ground pan frading radar
13:10
Speaker 3: something using commercial applications. Is Son Chris is an electricians
13:13
Speaker 3: was familiar with this sort of technology. They hire it
13:17
Speaker 3: and they think they're going to go scan the basement
13:19
Speaker 3: and prove that, you know, hey, there's nothing there. But
13:22
Speaker 3: as this scanner is going over the floor, all of
13:25
Speaker 3: a sudden, they get a hit and there is an
13:28
Speaker 3: anomaly in the basement floor and that's enough reason for
13:31
Speaker 3: them to dig again.
13:34
Speaker 2: And so Mike's all.
13:35
Speaker 3: Ready to go. He thinks, finally he's going to get
13:37
Speaker 3: some closure with his dad and then he has a stroke,
13:41
Speaker 3: really a pretty bad one, and he thinks, well, this
13:46
Speaker 3: is over. You know, I just I can't physically do it,
13:48
Speaker 3: but I'll probably never find Dad. But his sons come
13:53
Speaker 3: to the rescue, and for months and months and months,
13:55
Speaker 3: they broke up this cement floor with jackhammers, and you know,
13:59
Speaker 3: doug an eight foot hole. And these are guys in
14:03
Speaker 3: their early twenties. You know, there's a lot of things
14:05
Speaker 3: they'd probably rather be out doing than digging in Dad's basement.
14:08
Speaker 3: But lo and behold, after months of this effort, they Chris,
14:14
Speaker 3: the Mike's youngest son, is they're digging alone at night
14:19
Speaker 3: and he hit something and he starts pulling out fabric,
14:25
Speaker 3: and he starts pulling out pillows, and he's pulling out
14:28
Speaker 3: this soft dirt and he reveals a pelic bone. And
14:34
Speaker 3: George was in fact in the basement the whole time.
14:37
Speaker 3: Everybody thought Mike was crazy, but it turns out he
14:39
Speaker 3: wasn't crazy.
14:40
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So so Dad is buried in the basement.
14:46
Speaker 1: I'm curious how far off was George, Like, you know,
14:50
Speaker 1: how he first started digging and he couldn't find anything
14:53
Speaker 1: and gave up. What was the distance between where he
14:57
Speaker 1: was looking and where Dad was found.
14:58
Speaker 2: I'm just curious, approximately seven or eight feet.
15:02
Speaker 3: He first started digging the wall because the first second
15:04
Speaker 3: had told him underneath the target, and he remembered a
15:08
Speaker 3: bb gun target in the basement, and that's why he
15:11
Speaker 3: dug into the wall. But the ground prend and trading
15:14
Speaker 3: radar revealed an anomaly in the floor, and it turned
15:17
Speaker 3: out he was actually discovered where a well, which was
15:21
Speaker 3: common in many houses at the time in that area,
15:23
Speaker 3: had been cemented over, so he was in the well.
15:27
Speaker 1: He was in the well. So, because we are a
15:30
Speaker 1: true crime podcast and it's all about, you know, the
15:33
Speaker 1: forensics and the investigation, presumably they call the police at
15:37
Speaker 1: this point.
15:37
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, So they this was interestingly, it was Halloween night,
15:43
Speaker 3: so they don't find that it was the eve of Halloween,
15:46
Speaker 3: the night before Halloween, and it was very, very late,
15:50
Speaker 3: and so they decided we're going to wait until all
15:52
Speaker 3: the siblings can get here and we'll call in the morning.
15:54
Speaker 2: And Richie flew in I think he was on a
15:55
Speaker 2: business trip in Chicago.
15:57
Speaker 3: Steve came over and and the next morning they call
16:01
Speaker 3: the police. But for a while, the police won't arrive
16:04
Speaker 3: because it's Halloween, and they think it's a prank call,
16:07
Speaker 3: and yes.
16:09
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
16:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, a body in the basement hurt exactly.
16:12
Speaker 3: And finally the police show up and they go, holy cow,
16:15
Speaker 3: you know, and they have to interrogate the whole family,
16:17
Speaker 3: even though this is you know, a guy who's been
16:19
Speaker 3: in the ground for over fifty years, and that's probably
16:20
Speaker 3: pretty obvious when you find a body at a house
16:25
Speaker 3: and it's you know, technically you don't bury yourself in
16:28
Speaker 3: the well, so it's on the investigation, right, so they
16:31
Speaker 3: have to sort of separate everybody out and interview them, and.
16:36
Speaker 2: All this press descends on the house, and you have to.
16:39
Speaker 3: Understand, like these people, like for fifty years, we're told
16:42
Speaker 3: nothing happened. You're nuts, you know. And then all of
16:45
Speaker 3: a sudden there's a copter a helicopter over their house
16:48
Speaker 3: like with a camera and hundreds of press people and
16:52
Speaker 3: big forensics teams coming in excavating the basement. So it
16:55
Speaker 3: was quite a shock for them and they were able
16:58
Speaker 3: to you know, remove George for the basement, and eventually
17:02
Speaker 3: they were able to give them a funeral with full
17:05
Speaker 3: military honors.
17:05
Speaker 2: Which was really special.
17:07
Speaker 3: But everybody involved with you know, everybody who was an
17:12
Speaker 3: adult around the time George disappeared had passed away, so
17:15
Speaker 3: the investigation really kind of stalled out. There wasn't much
17:22
Speaker 3: they could do or say about what had factually happened
17:27
Speaker 3: to George. And I think that's one of the things
17:29
Speaker 3: that was so interesting about making this film to me,
17:32
Speaker 3: was really a surprising amount of murder cases don't get
17:36
Speaker 3: cleared or adjudicated, right, So when we listened to true
17:40
Speaker 3: crime content, a lot of times the stories that get
17:42
Speaker 3: told are the stories where, yeah, the bad guy was
17:44
Speaker 3: found and punished, or you know, there's some sort of
17:46
Speaker 3: closure ending to it that involves the legal system. But
17:49
Speaker 3: you know, I think there was a statistic recently that
17:52
Speaker 3: the clearance.
17:53
Speaker 2: Raised like half at this point.
17:56
Speaker 3: So this was a story about a family who, you know,
17:59
Speaker 3: they want the closure of knowing what had happened to
18:02
Speaker 3: their dad, and they got that, but they didn't get
18:04
Speaker 3: that closure from the legal system of who did it, when, why,
18:08
Speaker 3: And to me, that made such a much more interesting
18:11
Speaker 3: film because in this film, he's you know, you find
18:15
Speaker 3: George in the middle, it's not the end of the film,
18:17
Speaker 3: and the second half of the film really is about
18:20
Speaker 3: the impact that has on the family's lives and how
18:23
Speaker 3: it causes them to confront even deeper family secrets.
18:30
Speaker 1: Do we know how George died?
18:31
Speaker 3: Do we even know that George died of blunt force
18:34
Speaker 3: trauma to the head. There was a wrench found in
18:38
Speaker 3: the well, but they couldn't say whether or not that
18:41
Speaker 3: was a murder weapon.
18:43
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's that's that.
18:46
Speaker 3: You know, he'd been dead for so long there wasn't
18:47
Speaker 3: any real way to tell much more about his death.
18:51
Speaker 1: But still very telling, you know, that's still very telling.
18:55
Speaker 1: So we know kind of what killed him, right, We
19:00
Speaker 1: know what killed him. We know when he died, because
19:03
Speaker 1: that's when he disappeared. The question is then, who killed
19:07
Speaker 1: him and why? And what do you think?
19:11
Speaker 2: Well, I think we'll never know.
19:13
Speaker 3: But one of the other things that attracted me to
19:16
Speaker 3: this story was when I read the initial news coverage
19:18
Speaker 3: of it. When I when I pick a film, I'm
19:20
Speaker 3: often reading local papers and I'll get interested in a
19:23
Speaker 3: region of the country of the world, and I'll read
19:24
Speaker 3: local papers from there, and that's where I found this story.
19:27
Speaker 2: I called Mike.
19:29
Speaker 3: And I, you know, I'd just been reading about stuff
19:31
Speaker 3: in Long Island. I live in Queens. I live in
19:33
Speaker 3: New York.
19:33
Speaker 1: So I grew up in Queens and.
19:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so where in Queens you grow up? Forest
19:41
Speaker 3: Hilt Oh beautiful. Okay, we live in Sunnyside. Oh so yeah,
19:45
Speaker 3: I love it over here. But anyway, I had, you know,
19:48
Speaker 3: i'd just done a film, I'd done my first show,
19:49
Speaker 3: I had posted and can I was like, I want
19:51
Speaker 3: to be close to home. So I'm reading, reading, reading
19:53
Speaker 3: these local papers and they come upon this story.
19:56
Speaker 2: And I realizing most of the coverage.
19:57
Speaker 3: They're just immediately blaming the mom, right, because that's easy,
20:02
Speaker 3: that's low hanging fruit.
20:03
Speaker 2: Like, blame the woman. She's the one left standing. And
20:06
Speaker 2: hold on a second.
20:07
Speaker 1: It's kind of a reasonable leap here because it is
20:11
Speaker 1: her home, and it is hard to believe that, while
20:15
Speaker 1: raising four children, she has no idea that the husband
20:19
Speaker 1: is buried in the basement. I mean, it's not plausible.
20:23
Speaker 3: Well, remember that there was a stepfather who was president
20:28
Speaker 3: in the house when George was alive.
20:30
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, so she's not the only one.
20:33
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it, and they you know, the initial
20:36
Speaker 3: reporting on this really didn't touch on him too much.
20:38
Speaker 3: It was kind of a you know, it had a
20:41
Speaker 3: little bit of burn the witch energy.
20:43
Speaker 2: But we know you.
20:45
Speaker 1: No, I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking. I'm not saying
20:50
Speaker 1: she had something to do with the murder. I'm just saying,
20:52
Speaker 1: how could she not know that he was buried in
20:56
Speaker 1: the basement because it is her house. I'm thinking it
20:59
Speaker 1: was probably right, mister construction man.
21:03
Speaker 3: And it's so interesting to watch the children of Dorothy's
21:07
Speaker 3: children reckon with this, right because and the way they
21:11
Speaker 3: love each other through this really impossible circumstance. Right because,
21:15
Speaker 3: on the one hand, they all love their mother. They
21:18
Speaker 3: all are crazy about their mother. They say she was
21:20
Speaker 3: a wonderful mother. And also Rich the youngest, who's the
21:26
Speaker 3: half sibling of the rest of the Carols, he understandably
21:31
Speaker 3: feels defensive of his dad. He doesn't want to believe
21:34
Speaker 3: his dad had anything to do with it. So where
21:35
Speaker 3: does that leave him? Where does that leave the other siblings?
21:38
Speaker 3: How do they protect each other? Rich and his dad, Richard.
21:42
Speaker 2: Share a name. He's rich Daris Junior.
21:44
Speaker 3: You know, what does it look like to put that
21:46
Speaker 3: out into the press if they wanted to. They're trying
21:48
Speaker 3: to hide it to protect him and to protect his kids.
21:51
Speaker 3: It was an incredibly complicated situation and the family all
21:56
Speaker 3: has their theories about what went on. You know, you
21:58
Speaker 3: uncover like a very complicated web of family dynamics and
22:02
Speaker 3: abuse that occurred. And you know, you really have to
22:07
Speaker 3: situate this story for Dorothy and the times. Right when
22:10
Speaker 3: George left, it was in the sixties, a woman couldn't
22:12
Speaker 3: have a credit card or a mortgage in her own name,
22:15
Speaker 3: and she has four kids to feed, and women aren't
22:17
Speaker 3: really in the workforce, and you know, what can somebody
22:20
Speaker 3: in that situation do to provide for her children?
22:24
Speaker 2: Right?
22:24
Speaker 3: I think that was an important question. There had been
22:27
Speaker 3: rumors that George Carol was abusive, and Dorothy had told
22:31
Speaker 3: her children that he was abusive. Now, the contours of that,
22:35
Speaker 3: the reasoning behind that, we don't know. We do know
22:37
Speaker 3: he was a Korean War veteran, and again, considering the times,
22:41
Speaker 3: the supports that exist now for fellas or soldiers coming
22:47
Speaker 3: home for more didn't necessarily exist then, and one could
22:51
Speaker 3: argue they could still be a little bit better now, right,
22:54
Speaker 3: So you have the backdrop of that going on, you
22:57
Speaker 3: know there, you know, there could be an argument then
23:00
Speaker 3: that if Darris harmed George, he did so to protect Dorothy.
23:05
Speaker 3: There could be an argument that Dorothy knew nothing about it.
23:08
Speaker 3: There could be an argument that Dorothy didn't know about
23:10
Speaker 3: it until it was too late, and couldn't you know,
23:14
Speaker 3: lose the next man who is helping her run her household.
23:18
Speaker 3: You know, we'll never know for sure, but I think
23:20
Speaker 3: what's so interesting in the film is like this story
23:25
Speaker 3: for me really transcends that and it's the story about
23:29
Speaker 3: how these families deal with the after effects of a crime,
23:37
Speaker 3: and how that makes them look back at and reconsider
23:39
Speaker 3: their lives and how maybe you know, there was this
23:44
Speaker 3: thought that once they found George they would be at peace,
23:48
Speaker 3: but really just opened this can of worms. So it's
23:51
Speaker 3: not about like finality or justice or it's really about
23:55
Speaker 3: you know, loving each other through this process and and
24:00
Speaker 3: creating closure through those family bonds rather than you know,
24:04
Speaker 3: a legal process that was never going to come. And
24:07
Speaker 3: I think that's a situation of a lot of families
24:10
Speaker 3: touched by violence in this country and others, and not
24:14
Speaker 3: a story we hear all the time. So I was
24:16
Speaker 3: really thankful that they let me in ringside throughout that process.
24:21
Speaker 1: I would think that abandonment would have been a huge
24:25
Speaker 1: part of what the children were feeling because growing up,
24:28
Speaker 1: they don't know what happened to their dad. They're told
24:30
Speaker 1: that he left willingly, that he left them, never came back,
24:35
Speaker 1: never heard from him. So I would think that as
24:38
Speaker 1: a child, that is traumatic and it is forever scarring.
24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got that sense for Mike.
24:46
Speaker 3: He said to me once, He's like, you know, it
24:47
Speaker 3: was like at least he never left. He never left,
24:51
Speaker 3: you know. And I think Steve, the oldest son.
24:55
Speaker 2: Pitched that as a title. He was like, we should
24:57
Speaker 2: call it he never left. And I was like, Steve,
24:59
Speaker 2: everyone will know end of the story. But that's very fat.
25:02
Speaker 3: No, But yeah, it's I think there was a relief there.
25:06
Speaker 3: I think it was also the you know, Steve says
25:08
Speaker 3: something really interesting racist he couldn't start grieving until he
25:11
Speaker 3: found the body, because they started, you know, you had
25:13
Speaker 3: to shut yourself. It's also they're such an interesting age.
25:16
Speaker 3: You know, Jean's in her seventies, Mike's in his sixties,
25:19
Speaker 3: so that's sort of your spread.
25:20
Speaker 2: Richie's quite a bit younger. I think he's in his fifties.
25:23
Speaker 3: And you see this, you know, but the older siblings
25:28
Speaker 3: in particular from this era where you just don't talk
25:30
Speaker 3: about your feelings Dad left, don't talk about it, abuse
25:32
Speaker 3: in the home, don't talk about it, family drama, gohos
25:35
Speaker 3: in the ghosts in the attic, like, don't.
25:37
Speaker 2: Talk about it.
25:38
Speaker 3: And now they're in this new era where it's a
25:41
Speaker 3: little bit safer to talk about these things, but you
25:44
Speaker 3: were raised to think it's unsafe. So to watch some
25:46
Speaker 3: sort of start to process that, being of a generation
25:52
Speaker 3: that a lot of times these people just never do
25:55
Speaker 3: you bury these things deep no pun intended. It's been
25:59
Speaker 3: a real honor to sort of get to watch them
26:03
Speaker 3: start that process of grieving, which is part of the
26:06
Speaker 3: healing process, you know.
26:09
Speaker 1: So at what point do you, as the director here
26:13
Speaker 1: helping to tell their story, when do you enter it
26:17
Speaker 1: in the arc of the crime itself? Meaning is it
26:21
Speaker 1: after they have found the body that you join them?
26:25
Speaker 1: And then how do you tell this story in this case?
26:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was, like I said, I was reading
26:30
Speaker 3: these local papers in Long Island and I see this
26:33
Speaker 3: story up body found under man's house, solving fifty year
26:36
Speaker 3: old disappearance, right, And I go, gee, that's really interesting.
26:40
Speaker 3: I bet there's a deeper story here. And I call
26:42
Speaker 3: Mike up and he's sure, isn't eccentric, and he goes, well,
26:47
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know, why don't you just come
26:49
Speaker 3: out here? And so I get on the Long Island Railroad.
26:52
Speaker 3: At the time, this is in twenty eighteen, so I'm
26:54
Speaker 3: still a little young and dumb, and I just get
26:57
Speaker 3: on the Long Island Railroad by myself, and.
26:59
Speaker 2: I go out there and go into a hoarders going
27:03
Speaker 2: over to found.
27:05
Speaker 3: We met at the Duncan and Long Island style and
27:07
Speaker 3: we sat at we talked for a couple hours and
27:09
Speaker 3: we really really got along.
27:11
Speaker 2: And then he goes, you know what, I like you,
27:12
Speaker 2: I want to show you something. So again back to
27:16
Speaker 2: our house.
27:16
Speaker 3: Yes, I get in the car with him, and I'm like,
27:20
Speaker 3: this is maybe a bad I don't know this man,
27:23
Speaker 3: but you know whatever, young and dumb, still in my
27:26
Speaker 3: twenties at that time, and I get in the car.
27:28
Speaker 3: I get in the car with him, and he pulls
27:31
Speaker 3: up at the house and he takes me down to
27:33
Speaker 3: the basement. And at that time it was not all
27:35
Speaker 3: filled in, so there's this you know, this was maybe
27:37
Speaker 3: a week two weeks after his dad had been found.
27:40
Speaker 2: There's just this giant hole in the ground and.
27:43
Speaker 3: All of a sudden I'm like, man, it's a really
27:44
Speaker 3: good thing that he is an excellent person, because I'm
27:48
Speaker 3: standing over a giant hole in someone's basement. It was
27:51
Speaker 3: it was not it was not a choice I would
27:52
Speaker 3: make now for the further along in my career. But anyway, Yeah,
27:57
Speaker 3: so Mike and I really hit it off. But the
27:59
Speaker 3: rest I said family at the time did not seem
28:02
Speaker 3: ready to tell the story. There were some really sensitive
28:04
Speaker 3: things about cycles of abuse in the family and things
28:08
Speaker 3: some of the children had experienced that they just weren't
28:11
Speaker 3: ready to talk about. The film goes into that in
28:14
Speaker 3: much greater detail. But you know, so we just sort
28:19
Speaker 3: of again, like we'd hit it off. We kept in touch.
28:22
Speaker 3: I went, I brought a Lasagnia up, I met the
28:24
Speaker 3: whole family. They liked me, but they just weren't ready.
28:27
Speaker 3: And that's fine. I mean, I see fundamentally my job
28:29
Speaker 3: as being an advocate for survivors and loved ones of
28:34
Speaker 3: crimes like this. So if they're not ready, I'm not
28:36
Speaker 3: going to push them. And then you know, hello, Hi
28:41
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas on Facebook. A call every now and then
28:44
Speaker 3: for several years, and then about two years ago I
28:49
Speaker 3: got a call and they were like we're ready, We're
28:51
Speaker 3: ready to do it, we want to do it, And
28:53
Speaker 3: it was, Yeah, it was worth the way. It was
28:55
Speaker 3: such a privilege, and I'm glad I got to make
28:57
Speaker 3: it at that point because you know, I learned so much,
29:01
Speaker 3: you know, making other films that it really it felt
29:06
Speaker 3: like the right time to get into the nuances here and.
29:10
Speaker 1: What about either videos or photos? How are you able
29:15
Speaker 1: to tell the story of what was going on?
29:20
Speaker 3: The story is told in large there's a large element
29:24
Speaker 3: of archival footage in it, from the like super eight
29:28
Speaker 3: and sixteen millimeter films that the Carroll family made around
29:31
Speaker 3: the time George was alive or when the kids were young.
29:34
Speaker 3: We found bunches of this stuff in Mike's attic. Jane
29:37
Speaker 3: had kept a bunch the family had digitized some. We
29:40
Speaker 3: digitize some, and we sort of, yeah, we use it
29:43
Speaker 3: as a tapestry throughout the film, and many times you'll
29:47
Speaker 3: see the same piece of footage a few times, but
29:50
Speaker 3: it looks different depending on the information you're getting, right,
29:53
Speaker 3: And so we were trying to give audiences a sense
29:56
Speaker 3: of what it feels like to investigate your own family mystery.
30:00
Speaker 3: Right when you look at you might look at a
30:01
Speaker 3: picture one way, and then you learn something and you
30:04
Speaker 3: look at it a different way, and you sort of.
30:06
Speaker 2: Have to double back.
30:07
Speaker 3: And so that's definitely a big element of the film,
30:11
Speaker 3: and a lot of it's just following them, you know,
30:13
Speaker 3: they're all such interesting, lovable, fascinating people.
30:18
Speaker 2: A lot of it's just them in their daily lives.
30:20
Speaker 1: You know, when you are tasked with telling someone else's
30:26
Speaker 1: story and their trauma, you know, it can be hard
30:31
Speaker 1: for the survivor to see it played back to them.
30:35
Speaker 1: I'm curious what their reactions were when they finally saw
30:39
Speaker 1: the documentary.
30:41
Speaker 3: Well, so I'm a really I'm a very relational filmmaker, right,
30:45
Speaker 3: and I look at a lot of my work, as
30:48
Speaker 3: as I said before, being an advocate.
30:50
Speaker 2: But also, you know, I'm.
30:51
Speaker 3: Just attracted to stories where the people at the center
30:54
Speaker 3: of them are fighting to become the heroes of their
30:56
Speaker 3: own lives, you know, and that was the case with
30:59
Speaker 3: everybody in the story, And I think my job is
31:01
Speaker 3: just sort of sit back and absorb and observe that process, right,
31:07
Speaker 3: And I felt, in large part because of the amount
31:10
Speaker 3: of time I was able to spend talking to getting
31:12
Speaker 3: to know the family, getting updates on developments, in the
31:15
Speaker 3: story updates on developments in.
31:16
Speaker 2: These people's lives.
31:19
Speaker 3: We were really able to do that here, and that's
31:21
Speaker 3: that's also no small part because you know, Id was
31:24
Speaker 3: so patient with us in Pyramid Productions, who was a
31:28
Speaker 3: production company who produced this.
31:29
Speaker 2: Film, was so patient.
31:32
Speaker 3: But yeah, we The best compliment I got on this
31:35
Speaker 3: film was we, you know, me and Catherine, the head
31:38
Speaker 3: of production at i D, we drove out to Long
31:43
Speaker 3: Island one night and we showed it to the family
31:45
Speaker 3: and Steve, the oldest brother, was like, I'm gonna get
31:47
Speaker 3: pizzas and we're like, Steve, are you sure you want
31:49
Speaker 3: to eat during this?
31:50
Speaker 2: And he's like, that's what we do. So I brought
31:53
Speaker 2: a pie.
31:53
Speaker 3: We show the movie and they loved it, and Rich
31:58
Speaker 3: came up to me afterwards since said, hey, that's like
32:01
Speaker 3: a you know, I knew it was going to be
32:02
Speaker 3: a documentary, but I didn't know it was going to
32:04
Speaker 3: be a real movie. And I thought, dang, that's a
32:08
Speaker 3: really great compliment. And Mike said to me, I, you know,
32:12
Speaker 3: we all think things that are so different, but I
32:14
Speaker 3: don't know how you how you made us all say
32:17
Speaker 3: exactly what we think.
32:18
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, Mike, I didn't make you, you
32:20
Speaker 2: just did so.
32:22
Speaker 3: I think it was a very rewarding part of the process.
32:24
Speaker 3: And I think they've come to like understand each other
32:27
Speaker 3: a little bit better through that process. To get to
32:30
Speaker 3: hear each other uninterrupted tell their story and their take.
32:34
Speaker 3: It's been a really beautiful thing to be a part
32:36
Speaker 3: of the way this family loves each other and the
32:40
Speaker 3: way they think about and record their own histories.
32:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really special.
32:46
Speaker 1: Do they still have a house?
32:49
Speaker 2: They do.
32:49
Speaker 3: Mike actually finally a couple of weeks ago, filled in
32:54
Speaker 3: the hole in the basement for good, and his son
32:57
Speaker 3: is helping him clean it out, and and it's looking
33:00
Speaker 3: like he's going to move in with his youngest son, Chris.
33:03
Speaker 1: Uh.
33:04
Speaker 2: You know, sometime in twenty twenty six.
33:06
Speaker 3: Chris has a couple of kids and a beautiful wife,
33:09
Speaker 3: and Mike's gonna leave the home behind and go with them.
33:13
Speaker 2: So he's writing the house for that.
33:15
Speaker 1: Now, imagine the you know, the sales description here for
33:21
Speaker 1: this house, as you prominently featured.
33:25
Speaker 3: It's a it's a it is a it's a special place.
33:29
Speaker 3: Lake Grove is a special place. The house is a
33:31
Speaker 3: special place. It's and there's some people who are.
33:34
Speaker 2: Into that sort of thing. Yes, I've made Mike find one.
33:39
Speaker 1: I'm sure there is, right. Yeah, all you need is one,
33:42
Speaker 1: right buyer, That's all.
33:43
Speaker 2: You need, exactly exactly.
33:45
Speaker 1: Wow, this is fascinating. This is really fascinating. And I
33:49
Speaker 1: am also fascinated by the fact that the who did
33:53
Speaker 1: it and who's responsible and who knew what in this
33:58
Speaker 1: case is taking a back seat to everything else that
34:02
Speaker 1: is happening in the family and what Dad's disappearance and
34:06
Speaker 1: the impact was of that and being separated from the grandparents.
34:11
Speaker 1: It's fascinating.
34:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that to me is like I really one of
34:17
Speaker 3: the things I've always been as a filmmaker, like who
34:20
Speaker 3: often works in the crime space, is a way of
34:23
Speaker 3: seeing other things, structural things, Right. I'm just always really
34:29
Speaker 3: fascinated by that question of, well, what happens after? Right,
34:35
Speaker 3: Like you think about the fairy Tales land with Happily
34:37
Speaker 3: ever After, but then Cinderella and Prince Charming have to
34:40
Speaker 3: go live a whole life, right, And I think we
34:43
Speaker 3: sort of can sometimes do the same thing with crime stories. Okay,
34:47
Speaker 3: we have a verdict, it's over, but it's never over
34:50
Speaker 3: for people who survived violence, and it's you know, there's
34:54
Speaker 3: always this thing whenever you've been a part of something
34:58
Speaker 3: like that, either central figure in it or somebody on
35:01
Speaker 3: them periphery, or a loved one of a victim or whatever.
35:04
Speaker 3: There are always these sort of echoes and reverberations in
35:07
Speaker 3: your life and things that cause you to question your
35:09
Speaker 3: own history that I think we just don't always look
35:12
Speaker 3: at that enough. And I think it was very brave
35:14
Speaker 3: of the Carrols and rich Daris like let us peer
35:18
Speaker 3: inside their lives and look at those soft spots. And
35:22
Speaker 3: I think my hope is that their bravery will help
35:26
Speaker 3: a lot of other families talk about some secrets that
35:28
Speaker 3: are undiscussed, and people process some trauma, and people ask
35:31
Speaker 3: some important questions whether or not there was a giant,
35:35
Speaker 3: mysterious murder case at the center of their family stories.
35:38
Speaker 2: You know, most people have some.
35:39
Speaker 3: Stuff that they would benefit from talking about, and I
35:43
Speaker 3: hope this movie inspires some people to start that process
35:47
Speaker 3: in their own families.
35:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think every family has that. I recently went
35:51
Speaker 1: through something and has nothing to do with the crime,
35:53
Speaker 1: but I reconnected with family on Long Island, and I
35:57
Speaker 1: didn't know that these particulars family units even existed, that
36:01
Speaker 1: I was growing up and we're all the same age,
36:03
Speaker 1: and I found them on ancestry dot Com and then
36:07
Speaker 1: you know, we knew we were family immediately. You just
36:09
Speaker 1: had to look at us. And then we as the cousins,
36:14
Speaker 1: have over the last five years, been trying to figure
36:17
Speaker 1: out what was the rift in the family, Like what
36:21
Speaker 1: happened that three independent family units of this one all
36:25
Speaker 1: our grand our grandparents, our grandfathers are all brothers, right,
36:29
Speaker 1: how is it that we all lived like so close
36:32
Speaker 1: to each other and then this happened? And try, but
36:35
Speaker 1: when people are half passed, you can't question them. You
36:39
Speaker 1: can't figure out how in the family did we get
36:42
Speaker 1: to this point that we didn't know each other? Right?
36:45
Speaker 1: And yeah, and there are a lot of secrets and
36:48
Speaker 1: a lot of things that people and then they'll be
36:51
Speaker 1: there's there's shame depending on you know, someone who might
36:55
Speaker 1: have known something as it was or witnessed it as
36:58
Speaker 1: it was going down and yet didn't do anything maybe
37:02
Speaker 1: to stop it. It's so and we don't even have
37:05
Speaker 1: a murder in the case in the family.
37:08
Speaker 3: And in this family story like abuse of many different kinds,
37:12
Speaker 3: many different ways from different people was part of the
37:14
Speaker 3: narrative and that, and that's shockingly common. You know, it's
37:20
Speaker 3: shockingly common that women experience domestic violence, that children experience
37:24
Speaker 3: violence in the home. It's the numbers on these things
37:26
Speaker 3: are not as.
37:27
Speaker 2: Nice as we'd all like to believe they are.
37:29
Speaker 3: So it's a lot of people experience that in the
37:32
Speaker 3: sense the shame that creates, especially when children are involved,
37:36
Speaker 3: to feel that the abuse that they endured was their
37:41
Speaker 3: fault or what happened was their fault. That further complicates
37:45
Speaker 3: family systems, and that's definitely at play here.
37:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's such a deeper issue that everyone can
37:52
Speaker 1: really really understand and is probably dealing with in their
37:56
Speaker 1: own family, their family secrets. Well, this has just been fascinating, Trush,
38:01
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to add about this
38:04
Speaker 1: case in this documentary before.
38:06
Speaker 3: We go, not other than I hope folks watch it
38:09
Speaker 3: because I think the Carol family and the Dearris family
38:12
Speaker 3: very rich, Daris is very special people, and I think
38:16
Speaker 3: you'll hopefully love them as much as I do. They're
38:19
Speaker 3: just miraculous and it's an exciting story. But I also
38:22
Speaker 3: think it's a story we can learn a lot from
38:24
Speaker 3: things to them, So I hope you guys will check
38:27
Speaker 3: it out.
38:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's The Secrets we Bury, which is streaming on
38:32
Speaker 1: HBO Max. Amazing, Trish, this has just been delightful full.
38:35
Speaker 1: Where can people follow you if they want to see
38:38
Speaker 1: what else you're up to and what your next project is?
38:41
Speaker 2: Oh I.
38:44
Speaker 3: Have a questionably active Instagram and Gillespie okay, but otherwise
38:52
Speaker 3: hopefully you'll hear things soon that I can't tell you
38:55
Speaker 3: about now.
38:56
Speaker 2: But there's another one on the horizon.
38:58
Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. Fabulous. That that's great. It's been
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Speaker 1: such a pleasure having you on which we wish you
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Speaker 1: much success and we wish that the Carols find some
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Speaker 1: comfort in each other.
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Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Anna, it was pleasure, was all mine. Oh,
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Speaker 2: it's great.
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Speaker 1: So this is a special edition of True Crime News
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm your host, Anna Garcia. And as we
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Speaker 1: always say, crime never stops. Neither of do