he, of all people, should not just up and vanish. it didn t make sense to me. and so i just kept, no, it can t be. it can t be. i just kept hoping. i did everything i could. reporter: but even as she ran down leads herself, it seemed to tara that lisa, her sister-in-law, gavin s wife, wasn t searching. so he disappeared, and you couldn t give up on the possibility he was out there somewhere, and lisa could. and i wondered whether there were ever sort of dark nights to your soul where you thought i wonder if she had something to do with this. it crossed our minds all the time. it just did. i mean, did i think that she could ever be the one responsible, the physical? no. but somehow it kept playing back, why won t you search. why?
Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline Extra 20191216 05:12:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
underwater on their mortgage. on the verge of losing their home. we were in a horrible position financially. reporter: lisa discovered that before he disappeared, gavin had been taking money from his retirement account and recklessly blowing through his six-figure salary. and there were other signs of strain in the family. in april 2012, a month before gavin disappeared, his son evan wrote this message on twitter. thoughts and prayers out to my amazing mom and brothers please. my dad decided to leave the family last night. real family sticks together. sister tara spoke with gavin at the time. he was struggling with losing what he had come to know and love for so many years, and that was his family unit. uh-huh. and he didn t want to hurt those boys. and that s what he kept saying, i don t want to be without them.
Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline 20190901 08:12:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
did know something, just not what tara expected. there were secrets they had. he adored me, our family was exactly what he wanted to have. it just got lost. reporter: lost. it all started in the early 80s even before she met gavin when he was a stunt man on the tv series reming on the steel. he played a shooting victim, falling from a second story window. the stunt went wrong and he broke his back. he would take pain pills for his back. so usually percocet, something like that for pain. when that didn t work anymore, he was prescribed oxycontin. and he was addicted to it. reporter: he went to a drug rehab center called the matrix institute here in the san fernando veal. he clearly stopped using. he was feeling healthier than he felt in years. reporter: but when detective