gayle. she would have not taken all of it. that was in carol s personality to just be very fair. made sense then? uh-huh. and then there were those mysterious phone calls. we d get the calls on special days. her birthday, my birthday. my grandmother. we d get calls. and just silence on the other end? yeah. what would you do? we d say, carol, we love you. we hope you come back. we felt like she was finding a happier life somewhere. and understood that to make that successful she might have to make a complete and total break? yeah. almost three months after carol vanished, the detective handling her case put it in the inactive file in his report he wrote, no foul play involved. i remember thinking about her all the time and i used to play records over and over that she liked. and just thinking, where is she? when is she coming back? eventually, mike started dating a 19-year-old names
man, he murdered his wife. of course, lewin knew to prove a murder had occurred, he had to show the victim was no longer alive. for that, he turned to detective wallace who explained to the jury the facebook and social media presence he created for carol had turned up a whole lot of nothing. have you been contacted by anybody, either by phone, email, in writing who says, you know what, i have seen carol lubahn after the day she disappeared? no. though as lewin and his team also let the jury hear, family members like carol s sister gayle believe what mike told them. that carol had run off. has it been hard for you to accept the possibility that she may be dead? well, yes. is it maybe even more difficult by the fact that you care deeply for the defendant?
shortly after his second wife left him. he talked about my stepmother constantly for years. was nonstop. and why was that so significant to you? because he never talked about my mother. at all? never. but mike never confronted his father. i just knew in the back of my mind that this could be a possibility. and i really, honestly, at that time, i never wanted my father to go to jail. i just wanted to know. it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. to get the truth, and avoid a trial, prosecutor john lewin was willing to make a deal. we had offered him voluntary manslaughter if he gave us carol s body. and he turned you down flat? he did. repeatedly. mike pleaded not guilty. the case was going to trial. and if members of carol s own family didn t believe mike did it, what would a jury think?
expect. and now, here was mike s fate. we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant guilty. mike was going to prison. jim wallace felt surrounded by a very unfamiliar reaction. i had cases before where you get done and you walk out of the courtroom and the family throws their arms around you and they are so grateful. that s not this case. i was very surprised that the jury would convict him on such little evidence. i don t think any of us are happy to see mike go to jail. you still believe mike is a nice guy, believable guy? yes. what gale and the rest of the family wanted most were answers. not so much that i want mike to pay for what he did, i just want to know what happened to my
years, i thought about this night so many times. and i just, you know, i ve seen that car back out of the driveway many, many times, you know, when she was leaving. so i think i just thought it repeatedly in my mind that that s what i thought happened. i can see the car. i can see it right now. he never thought for a moment, he said, it would be the last time he saw his wife. i thought maybe she had gone out that night and went dancing and stayed the night with a friend. what did happen to her? mike insisted he simply didn t know. did you have anything to do with killing her? no. did you have anything to do with her disappearance? no. other than i didn t sign the papers and made her upset, but that s it. successful testimony? maybe. but now the down side. he d have to answer questions from john lewin. do you lie sometimes? no. you never lie? i wouldn t say never.