do you have one that got away? he s my first love. the guy who disappeared. except, in her case, he really disappeared. he s going to call me in a couple days. he never called. his family, in agony. i called everyone from oprah winfrey to america s most wanted . a rookie detective finally broke the case. i said, oh my gosh. i think i hit pay dirt. a sweet strange phone call revealed a secret. david needed needed to be gotten rid of. then we got the real story. a bombshell revelation. was she really a believed ex? i always love david. or just maybe a black widow? barbara britton is in the middle. hello and welcome to dateline . four years, judy carlson lived in the most painful kind of limbo. her son david had disappeared without a trace. the case went unsolved. sitting called for more than a decade before rookie detective donna velazquez was assigned to investigate. digging into david s past, she uncovered a twisted tale of love gone bad. and
talked about david for hours. wasn t a problem for duty. she loves talking about her boy. even now, to us. david was my first child. he was just loved everything and everyone. he would walk in the room and everyone would just be drawn to him. david jackson was the eldest of duties three children. and mark jackson idolized his older brother. he looked out for me. he was that way with his friends. with everybody. bill brown with one of those friends. in 1982, after high school, brown and david jackson work together at burger king. where david became a manager. brown also had a front row seat to the budding romance between jackson and a pretty 16 year old coworker named barbara britton. they were together and that s awesome. if you can find love, that s what we all want. so, all these years later, detective velazquez paid a visit to the woman who had been the girl who had fallen in love
out of every day, either scream and cry in the morning, or scream and cry at night. the very hasn t been in your shoes understand what it s like? no. now, years later, the investigation was back in high gear. judy told detective velasquez, in some corner of her heart, she still hoped david might just turn up safely someday. the detective, however, was not inclined to false hope. she did not, for a minute, think he was still alive. had he died accidentally, surely, a sign of him would appear. no, she believed when bodies aren t found, it s because someone has intentionally hidden them. but david jackson might show up, just not a life. and my wheels started turning, i started thinking, you know, we live in florida. with a crazy weather that we have, in the water table that we have, if you were ever buried anywhere, somewhere along the line, you re gonna pop up.
maybe. detectives thought remains had popped up. after all, it had been a decade and a half since he disappeared. so, she googled unidentified remains. it lead her down an endless internet trail. and it s probably going on 10:00, my husband is saying where is that girl. one for, another debt, and until she got into one created by a florida medical examiner. promising, but exhausting. i am there typing away, and typing, and typing, and it pops up about 100 matches. she was determined, she finally will build it down to a possible. three one really stands out for, me it says, white male, and it says over six foot. david is a tall guy, he is a white male, possibly. those particular bones, just a few partial skeletons turned up during construction of a walmart parking lot, not far