he went out there a with friend of his and they saw johnny for three days. i got pictures of johnny in, like, the old western town and everything. reporter: and maybe it was something about the distance, said barbara david and i became very good friends when i was out in arizona. and we used to talk a lot. reporter: in fact, what she felt deep in her heart, she said, never did go away. i ll always love david. reporter: and then it was june 25th, 1988. david s brother mark was flying into town to visit the family. david was to pick him up at the airport. but when mark arrived, he waited. and waited. no david. and mark jackson had a terrible feeling. no matter what, he d have been there for me. i knew something was wrong. i knew something bad happened. reporter: oh yes, very bad. and as the rookie detective donna velasquez poked around deep in the past, that something was reaching up through the mud to tell her its long neglected story.
swam in through pipes, under the little bridges on the little dirt roads, anywhere. you see a car that looked like his go by, you do a u-turn and you chased it. reporter: how long did that go on? that went on until they found his car. reporter: which, more than three months later, turned out to be at the airport. so did he just take off? his close friend didn t think so. maybe he got on a plane and he maybe he wanted to do something different. and then i was like, no, he wouldn t do that. reporter: for one thing, david had been preparing for the arrival, in two weeks, of his five year old son, john. this was a big one, a month-long summer visit. he was preparing for this visit. oh yeah, for johnny. yeah, wanted everything perfect. reporter: and right in the middle of preparations, he vanished? didn t make sense. but the days turned into weeks. months, years. not a sign of david. the police went on to newer cases but his mother never let up, phoning, nagging, writing
wow, you know, would it work, what if? reporter: strange how things turn out. barbara had moved back to florida. remarried again, had a daughter, took a job at walmart. but still held a candle for david, even as he lay under the ground practically next door to the very walmart where she worked. what did that do to you? it s an eerie feeling. you know, that he was in that area, that i didn t even know about. reporter: such an odd coincidence. too odd, maybe? time for a chat. detective velasquez called barbara, got herself invited over to barbara s house. barbara seemed to have no problem talking about david. she said she cared about him a lot. and i say, well, how was david as a father? well, david became abusive towards johnny physically and emotionally, verbally. reporter: wait a minute. this was a whole new wrinkle. up to now, everything about david s history had been squeaky clean.
thing. we were just too young. and to have a baby all the time, i you know, he was it was difficult for him. and it was difficult for me. reporter: so who was the first person to say, you got to get a divorce? my dad. reporter: how d david take it? so he was just kind of, like, let s just reporter: get it over with let s just find somebody, some lawyers and, you know, see what we have to do. and that was it. reporter: the two divorced in 1985. david arranged weekend visits with john. how were they together? oh, wonderful. johnny just clung to him. they loved each other. reporter: and they all moved on. couple of years later, barbara married again, michael wolfe, an ex-military man like her dad, about the same age as her dad, too. your dad and your new husband probably saw eye-to-eye a lot? they sure did. they had a lot in common. they would talk a lot. reporter: wolfe took barbara and john to live with him in arizona. but david wanted to be a part of h
motive. david disappeared, remember, as he was preparing for a visit from his five year old son, john. they decided that david needed to be gotten rid of because they never wanted david to be in johnny s life. reporter: david was murdered in cold blood just to keep him out of his son s life? and boom, it clicked for me all of a sudden. i said, wow. i said, that s over child custody. that s why he s not here today. reporter: that was the motive? that was the motive. reporter: but was wolfe s confession to an ex-wife a true story, or just alcohol fueled bravado? there was no way to know for sure. but it was enough at least to bring about the arrest, in october of 2004, of michael wolfe, now living in ohio. but, an arrest does not a conviction make.