WEBVTT - CHAPTER FOUR: The Honda 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:03.000 Previously on Hello John Doe. 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:08.160 I think everybody's got an origin, and I would just 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:10.959 like to know you know where up again. I'm up 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.160 at all sad or disappointed how I grew up, But 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.640 I just I don't know, just it is a big 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:18.040 deal to me. 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.520 You want to a relationship with her at all? I mean, 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:22.479 would you like to have that? 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:23.759 I don't know. 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:26.320 Maybe I could answer that question better once I'll find 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.920 out why she gave me up, if that makes sense. 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.200 So I was in Charlotte, and that's why I met 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:34.280 Franklin Floyd. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.479 But I knew hi, Miss Brandon Williams. I loved the 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:38.960 fact that he was going to. 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:40.920 Help me get my kids back and take me away 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.720 from the situation. Love him, No, he's creepy. He was 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:46.920 always creepy. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.400 At twenty five years old, Sandy spent a month in 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.200 a Dallas jail. She had written a bad check trying 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.680 to get diapers. The days were long and boring, and 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:00.400 she wasn't allowed outside. 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.920 And scarily to a point that I didn't ever want 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.040 to do anything illegal again as long as I lived. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.720 It was nineteen seventy five. By then, she was a 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.360 mother of four, and she was afraid of her husband, 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.960 but still when she got out of jail, she wasn't 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:19.279 prepared for what happened in her absence. 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.600 While I was in jail, and he picked the kids up, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.120 and he took Allison and Amy to an orphanage and 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:28.399 left him at the orphanage. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.400 Her husband, Franklin Floyd, had left town and he had 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.839 forced Suzanne, Sandy's oldest daughter, to leave with him, and. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.560 That's when he took her. And that was the last time. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:46.240 That she was seen. That's Amy Winkles, Sandy's third oldest daughter. 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.600 She was one of the girls Floyd left in an orphanage. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.280 When Sandy realized what Floyd had done, she went first 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.080 to the Dallas police station. She told him her husband 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.560 had taken Susie. That's what she called. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:01:59.400 Her, Susie. 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.920 And I kept screaming, she's not his child, he's not 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.560 her father, and finally they escorted me out of a 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:08.160 police station. 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.560 They didn't think there was anything wrong with Floyd taking 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.480 off with his six year old stepdaughter. Lost were looser 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.720 before the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of nineteen eighty and 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.480 they buried state by state. So Sandy went Defy headquarters 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.040 in Dallas. They didn't help either. She was in such 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.080 a state, desperate, in heartsy, that she went to places 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.359 around town, at the grocery store to see if anyone 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:31.000 in Saint Floyd. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:36.280 When I couldn't find him, I packed. This is really stupid, but. 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.800 I packed everything in a duffel bag, all of the 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.079 girls stuff in a duffel bag, and started. Because somebody 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.320 said he went to Michigan hitshriking sounds STERI well, but 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.840 back then it wasn't like that. I went to a 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.680 truck stop and a truck driver said. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.400 What are you doing? And I told him what I 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:55.480 was doing and why I was doing. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.840 And then I must have been really freaky looking, because 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:01.239 I don't worried about combing my hair. 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.240 I was just I was going to find her. I 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:04.079 had to find her. 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:06.480 One truck driver gave me to another truck driver, to 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.919 another truck that there was no nobody ever said anything 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.280 about sex, nobody ever said anything about money. They put 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.080 the girls in the beds in the back of the truck, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.240 made sure everybody ate took me where I wanted to go, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.160 said that there any king can do to help you. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.160 But there was only so much that they or Sandy 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.679 could do. Here's Sandy's youngest Dorothy, who hadn't been born 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.480 when all this was going on. She's forty two, a 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.920 motorcycling enthusiast with three kids of her own. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.160 You know, they didn't have the missing children's yet, they 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.440 didn't have none of that stuff. When she was talking 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.240 with the police, as she was going through the different 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.160 states and everything, they were telling her that there was 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:49.560 nothing that they can do because she was married to him. 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:51.880 Legally, he had the right to take them. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.240 At that time, I called the FBI about it. They 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.080 couldn't comment on Susie's case in particular or what law 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.040 should have protected her, but they tell me something incredible. 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.240 They never found a missing person's report for Susy. Authorities 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.080 in North Carolina didn't take one, which is why Susy 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.440 was never in any databasis like NamUs. This was nineteen 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.040 seventy five. It wasn't a crime to take your step 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.200 child away from their biological parent. It wasn't kidnapping. But 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.839 Sandy's instincts told her something was really wrong, so she 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.599 went to the Salvation Army, which has a program that 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.160 reconnects lost relatives. 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:28.279 I mean when I went to the Salvation Army and 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.200 told them what they said, You know, you were married 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.360 to him. There's nothing we can do to help. And 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.400 they looked at me like, you're a woman, Just get 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:37.279 on with the program. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.680 And Sandy said her own flesh and blood barely registered 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:43.279 that their granddaughter was missing. 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:48.000 The Tulsa police called my mom and dad, and my 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.600 mom and dad said, oh, well, let her do what 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.320 she wants to do, and that was the end of that. 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.000 Her parents wouldn't come to Oklahoma and help her search. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.120 Sandy looked everwhere she could think of, but never saw 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.320 her missing husband or her missing daughter. 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.880 Susie never saw him, never saw them, didn't know anything 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:11.080 about what was going on. 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.159 Eventually, Sandy had to face what she didn't want to face, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:18.320 that without the help of authorities, she had an uphill 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.960 battle ahead of her. She couldn't keep hitchhiking forever. She 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:23.440 had to settle down and make a home for the 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:26.520 children she still had. That's how it came to me 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.279 that two of Sandy's girls grew up with her in Virginia, 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.680 but Steve and Susie didn't. Sandy tell me some of 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:35.520 the story on the phone. What did you think could 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.719 have been happening to her. What was your imagination, like, 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:39.480 what is he doing with this child? 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.240 No? No, at that point, I didn't think he was 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.000 doing anything like that at all. And I think now 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.680 that I look back on it, that was really naive 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.839 on my part, because to him, she was a princess. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.600 He could do nothing wrong. If she hit Alison or 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.760 hit Amy, it was Alison or Amy's fault, it was 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:01.040 her faults. 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:01.520 You know. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.119 She never did anything wrong. 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.360 Sandy knew him as Brandon Williams, but his real name 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.440 was Franklin Floyd. By this point he had been terrible 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.960 to her. She knew he had a temper, but couldn't 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:14.359 imagine he had hurt Susie. 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.920 And he just wanted her is what I thought. I 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:20.920 never thought it would be the nightmare it was. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.679 My name is Todd Matthews and this is hello John Doe, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.960 A sleuth, a family, and a serial killer. The story 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.880 of a family torn apart by tragedy, and my quest 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:45.360 to bring them back together. Chapter four, The Honda. Since 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:47.520 I started digging into Steve's life, I learned that he 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:50.400 was living with his adopted parents in North Carolina, not 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:55.480 that far from where Sandy gave birth to him. But 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.280 Sandy didn't know that because, as it turns out, she 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.280 wasn't working with the same clues I had, And you 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:04.000 didn't know to find Mary. 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.880 No, I did not know. 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.200 That's because Sandy's recollection of the adoption is pretty different 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.320 than Mary's. Mary said she got Steve from a trailer 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.960 park in nineteen seventy four, just six weeks after he 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:21.640 was born. The way Sandy remembered it, she had six 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.760 months with Steve before Floyd started talking about moving. They 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:27.520 were going to pile into his Honda and head to 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.640 Saint Louis. 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:31.520 And he said, we don't have room for everybody in 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:36.840 the car. And we drove one night to Mary's house 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:45.600 and took Steve and left him there. And I cried 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.000 the whole way back, and he said, we'll go back 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:48.480 and get him. 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:50.120 We'll go back and get him. We'll go back and 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:50.560 get him. 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.800 Here's what's weird. Mary and Sandy's story seemed to diverge 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.960 at every turn, but in the then diagram of mary 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.920 Memory and Sandy's, the tiny car was the overlap. Sandy 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.400 said the car was too small to bring everyone, even 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.720 an infant, and Mary remembered a tiny car too. It 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.480 had two doors and a small engine in front. When 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.720 Sandy was handing Steve over to her in the trailer part, 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.960 Mary said she noticed Floyd in the front seat and 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.720 three little ones in the back. I'll admit this tripped 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.840 me up a bed. It made Sandy's story feel more 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.880 true either way. Sandy said she left Steve because she 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.400 thought they would come back and get him. Their separation 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:32.599 was only temporary. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.160 He said they were Georgia and Mary Washington, is what 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.920 he told me their names were. And of course I 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:44.000 was still thinking, I know, I was still not thinking 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:44.720 real clearly. 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.920 How did you feel when they just dropped him off? 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:54.319 Oh? I was upset, very upset. But I remember giving 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.280 him to Mary. I remember handing him to Mary and saying, 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.280 Mommy will be back to get you. Just give mommy 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.240 a chance to get where she's going to. Mommy come 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.760 back and get you, and kissing him. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.040 And they continued on their trip in the Honda that 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.240 apparently didn't have room for four kids. 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.440 Well, when we lived in Saint Louis, we still had 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:15.959 the Honda and life always. 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.559 You know, we're going this weekend to get Steve. We're 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:19.200 going this weekend. 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:20.199 No, no, no, no. 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.040 And then finally he said, you'll never get him back. 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.640 Even when she did look after she went to jail, 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:28.240 she couldn't find Steve. 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.480 And I couldn't find Mary and George Washington anywhere in 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.840 North Carolina in that area. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.240 Now it's possible Mary Washington is Mary Patterson. Floyd used 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.280 a ton of alienses. Maybe he changed Mary's last name 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.760 to make her untraceable. Still, the timing doesn't line up. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:53.480 But I don't know how he knew Mary. That's what 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:54.559 I don't understand. 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:56.600 Maybe from the hospital. 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.480 He wasn't there when I had Steve. I didn't even 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.640 know him when I had Steve. I met him after. 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:04.200 I had Steve. 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.480 My producer Kate and I sat there with Sandy Parson 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.120 through the past trying to figure out how to square 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:18.319 Sandy's regulations with Mary's. Sometimes it was frustrating. I felt 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.440 like I'd shown up at Sandy's with a clear mission 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.240 to learn as much about Steve's adoption as I could 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.800 and bring those morsels of information back to him. But 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.920 there were some inconsistencies. Mary says Steve was adopted after 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:36.560 six weeks. Sandy says six months and the second thing. 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.600 They both remember the handoff happening in a trailer part, 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.440 but Mary thinks it's one in North Carolina, and Sandy 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.600 remembers driving out of state to give Steve up. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.839 I don't know what I could have done. I really 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:50.600 don't know what I could have done. And I tried 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.240 everything I could do, but it still wasn't enough. And 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.400 I could understand from his point of view, feeling like, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:10:59.560 why didn't. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:10:59.960 You try hard? 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:00.840 Yeah? 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.120 Why didn't you you do more? 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.280 This was nineteen seventy five, around the time the tent 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.160 Girl went missing and my father in law, Wilbur founder 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.880 in Kentucky. Finding missing children was even harder than it 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.199 is today. We used to say it name is that 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:21.320 children lay fewer clues behind, they leave smaller footprints. It 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.240 was hard. It was hard. We didn't have cell phones, 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.960 we didn't have the internet. It's exactly how he felt. 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.840 He doesn't understand why, because he felt like you knew 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:30.560 where he was, but you do. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:32.960 Know, Oh, I wish I hadn't known where he was. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.079 What would you say to Steve if you could talk 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:36.800 to him right now? 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:38.480 I still love him. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:46.040 I still see this little baby, and I'm I'm so. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.400 Sorry about what I let be done. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.120 But on the other hand, what was done was a 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.520 blessing because he wasn't a part of all this. 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.079 Sandy didn't know it at the time, but in giving 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:10.960 Steve away, she shielded him from a serial killer. She 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.200 possibly saved his life. Later on, Sandy shared some of 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.000 Steve's Facebook messages with us. He'd sent them back in 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.640 twenty twenty one. When I read them, my heart just sank. 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.120 He wrote, why did you leave me? You said there 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.360 was an excuse? Was it me? Was I not good enough? 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.840 I am curious? Yet, in her telling, Sandy didn't intend 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.640 to give Steve up permanently, and she did look for 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.400 him in the immediate aftermath, but so many things stood 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.760 in her way, including not knowing Mary's real last name. 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.720 After I got home from my trip to see Sandy, 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.679 my mind kept racing. I had to tell Steve all 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.960 of this. I set up in time to play him 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.440 some of Sandy's interview. At this point that only ever texted. 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.440 They hadn't talked on the phone or met in person, 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.320 but Steve pushing off our meeting until one Saturday he 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.320 said he was ready. Janette, of course, was my side. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.199 He guys, I would expecting it today, but it's a 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:18.040 pleasant surprise. 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:19.679 Okay, are we all here? 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:21.480 Let me speaker. 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:23.760 We might walk out to the car and see if 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:25.800 we could hear better out in the car, because we 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:27.560 can't really hear you, guys, very good. 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.120 Hold on, I gotta find the keys. I'm not prepared. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:36.120 I'm far Linda, we grabbed sleep per second. Thank you, honey. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:37.600 I'm a cat person. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:40.240 Are you a quieter? 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:41.160 I promise you that. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.400 I wanted him to hear what we heard when we 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.240 were with Sandy her side of the story this Saturday 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.160 in June. He was down to listen. 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:52.840 We're going to let you hear a little bit of 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:53.560 a tape. 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:56.600 So I had him listen to her story about the 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.319 tornado and how she started to spiral afterward. 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:02.800 The girls were traumatized by the tornado because we were 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.679 in the trailer when the tornado hit and we had 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:12.200 no way out, and I guess I snacked at I 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:13.040 didn't know what to do. 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.160 What do you think about that? 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.880 All right? All right? 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.440 Steve and Jeanette don't own a computer, so we were 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.600 talking on the phone, not on zoom. They connected the 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.720 phone to the car's bluetost that they could hear us, 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.800 which made Steve feel even farther away. I couldn't see 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.760 his face, but he seemed absent. Sandy says that she 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.720 was suffering from PTSD after a tornado wrecked her house, 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.880 and then she was barely functioning as a mother, and 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.680 she's admitted that. She said that there was a lot 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.400 of things she didn't remember, and she was traumatized, and 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:50.080 she said she didn't feel like she could take care 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:55.200 of kids. How seriously, Steve, do you take that Sandy 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.040 claims to have PTSD after a trailer was blown away. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:01.440 He still having a hard time. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.160 Thinking that she is not a terrible person. 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.640 Steve seem excited to get on the phone with us, 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.200 and I know Steve to be a pretty soft spoken dude, 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.160 but by this point in the call, he barely said 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.520 a word, and when he did, his emotions seemed muted. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.520 I was hopeful they're hearing the tape would change something 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.640 for him. I wanted him to hear Sandy describe the 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.560 impact Franklin Floyd had on her, how he had taken 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:29.360 over her life. 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:32.640 He destroyed all my pictures, most of my pictures of 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:37.280 my children, the girls, so. 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.120 You take everything, every memory everything. 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:42.560 How does that make you feel? 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.560 He does yeh, he might need to say, okay. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:50.120 That's okay, let's take a minute. 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.360 It was a very different memory, you know. 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.880 He he doesn't know about any of the time that 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.440 he was with them, never heard about any of that. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.200 She doesn't remembered handing you off to Mary, which was 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.239 surprising to me. And I wonder if that's surprising to you, Steve. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:16.560 Okay, it's not to me, then why not. I just 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.040 think she's a manipulator. 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:25.400 And I don't know, I want to I'm the type 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.080 of person that sees the good in anybody that after 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:34.520 watching how what he's went through, and I just hope 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.640 that she's just not trying to manipulate this as well. 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.440 Well. And there wasn't a lot of resources. Just imagine 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.000 if we had do network or name this. 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.560 Back in see if Y asked you wouldn't let us 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.600 call you a missing person. That we did anyway with 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.760 dot network because it's not regulating by the government, so 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:50.560 I could do whatever we. 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.920 Wanting, which was a blessing for us. 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.000 So it worked, I mean, it finally worked. It took 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.720 about a half about forty five years, but it finally worked. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.560 There's no doubt Sandy would have benefited from the dough network. 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:07.679 Think of all the volunteers who could have helped her 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.080 find clues. By now, Jeanette and I were the only 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:16.160 ones talking. Something was wrong with Steve. I recognize what 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.280 was happening because I've done it myself. I think Steven 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.520 drunk too much to numb himself. Maybe it's the only 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.720 way he could get on this call with us. There 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.359 was a lot to take in all this time. Steve 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.600 had assumed Sandy didn't want him, but she told us 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.000 that she didn't. We played him to take. 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.399 I honestly thought we were leaving Steve with friends of 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.000 his to come back and get him, like in a week. 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.399 But I remember giving him to Mary. I remember handing 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.280 him to Mary and saying, Mommy will be back to 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.120 get you. Just give mommy a chance to get where 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.600 she's going and Mommy will come back and get you, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:58.200 and kissing him. 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:00.439 It was hard to tell how much of this sunk in. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.600 He didn't say a thing after replayed him this stunning revelation. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.439 Sandy or none of them want to force you to 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.520 do anything you don't want to do. But you're practically 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.640 begging have something to do with you. So does that 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:17.560 do you not feel loved and wanting? I do that 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.760 because you had to hear it with your own ears, right, Yeah? 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.240 Is there a part of that that changed for you? 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.399 Or what? What did anyone say that changed that for you? 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:41.639 Got this? I want to be warning he wants to 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:42.280 be wanted. 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.359 After about an hour on the phone with Steve, this 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.359 felt like something. Hearing Sandy's voice yielded a small breakthrough. 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.000 Steve admitted he wants to be wanting. In the weeks 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.560 that followed, I tried calling step again, wanting to update 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.959 him on the other things I'd learned. Sometimes he texted 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.159 me back and returned my calls, but sometimes he didn't. 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:14.440 I could tell this was hard on him. I think 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.879 he was reluctant to confront this hat on take on 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.560 fifty years of reckoning all at once. I think Steve 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.320 believed that Sandy had deliberately written him and Susie out 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.240 of her life, that once they were gone, they were gone. 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.680 But in talking to her other kids, I soon found 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.800 out that she never forgot about the two she lost, 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.320 even when she didn't always want to talk about it. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.760 As she entered her late twenties, Sandy's life began to 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.280 fall into place. She went to a mental health group 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.440 where she talked about losing Susie and Steve. She got 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.199 married once more, and then finally to Carson Willett, her 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:48.879 husband of thirty years. 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.800 My kids at first, believeing my kids. We were living 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:56.640 in an apartment and we didn't have much. We didn't 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:58.600 have a TV. The first thing he did was the 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.439 next day he came back and in at te for 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.080 the kids. He said, no kids should be without a TV. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.200 She had three more children, two boys and one more girl. Dorothy, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.399 her youngest, told me that present day Sandy might be 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.639 unrecognizable to her younger self. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.960 She's a caregiver. That's all she is. She's just a caregiver. 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:22.720 She will give you anything and everything that she If. 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:25.240 She's got five dollars in her pocketing, you need three 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:27.000 of it, she's gonna give it to you. 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:30.640 Yeah, she's always taken care of us kids. 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.560 Dorothy only knows this Sandy. She never knew her mother 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.640 after the tornado, when she was inconsolable, when she could 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.439 barely take care of herself, let alone her children. But 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:44.520 that doesn't mean, Dorothy doesn't question some of her mom's choices. 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:47.000 You know, I told my mom. I was like, you're stupid. 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:49.400 I was like, why don't you call your mom and dad. 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.600 She said that her mom and dad didn't want anything 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:56.240 to do with her because they thought that she was 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:00.800 a whore. And my mom was never a whore. She 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:05.320 drank a lot, but she was never a whore. It's 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.120 not like she didn't look for them. 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:08.320 She did. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:15.600 She was hitchhiking to go find them. It's not like 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:16.200 she gave. 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:20.000