Unsolved Mysteries Television Program

It had been 44 years since Alma Sipple had seen the woman, and then only briefly, yet she could not forget her--the no-nonsense brown hair, the rimless glasses, the air of authority. Everything about her said "authority"--and that's why Sipple had handed over her infant daughter. This nice woman was going to take the child to a hospital for a checkup. Alma Sipple never saw her baby again.

A 32-year-old Santa Ana man suspected of molesting, torturing and killing a toddler last January was arrested in Albuquerque on Friday night after his picture was aired on the television show "Unsolved Mysteries," police said. Albuquerque police arrested Trent Stephen Fouts, who was the last person seen with 20-month-old Joshua Troy Massengill.

A 32-year-old Santa Ana man suspected of molesting, torturing and killing a toddler last January was arrested in Albuquerque on Friday night after his picture was aired on the television show "Unsolved Mysteries," police said. Albuquerque police arrested Trent Stephen Fouts, who was the last person seen with 20-month-old Joshua Troy Massengill.

Folks in Spearfish, S.D., were shocked when Gary Johnston was arrested in 1993. Police officers, sheriff's deputies, state troopers and FBI agents swooped down on the Ford dealership, guns drawn. They said Johnston, the mild-mannered service manager, was an escaped cop killer. Who could believe it? Johnston was too nice to be a murderer. People here had known Gary and his wife, Bobbie, for years. Surely it was a case of mistaken identity. But there was no mistake.

The male caller identified himself only as a reader of Tarot cards: "Look for the baby boy on Maui. He's staying with his father at one of the largest hotels on the island. Look near a volcano that is erupting, or about to erupt. I also see a bright pink orchid nearby." The operator dutifully typed the information into her computer. "Thank you for calling," she said. " That child is going to be found," the man said confidently to himself as he hung up the phone.

An eccentric drifter who died nearly a decade ago left more than $1 million in abandoned bank accounts to an American Legion post, the state controller's office said Thursday. With interest, the three accounts total $1,013,843, Controller Gray Davis said. He said the money came from the bank accounts of Max Taylor, who died in 1984 at the age of 68. Little is known about Taylor, who died in Long Beach. He reportedly never married, worked sporadically as a house painter and traveled the country.

A federal magistrate in Sacramento ordered a convicted bank robber who shot a police officer back to certain imprisonment in Connecticut only a week after his story appeared on the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Jean Marie Gagnon, 35, a native of Montreal who was featured on the NBC program, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers during a traffic stop near Orland in northern California, the Marshals Service said.

The decade-old mystery of what happened to the 51-foot yacht Freedom II and two women reported missing from the vessel has resurfaced with the FBI's arrest of a fugitive in Hawaii. Robert Dozier, 44, was taken into custody on April 19 on on the island of Hawaii on a warrant naming him as a grand theft suspect in the case of a yacht falsely reported missing from a Wilmington slip in June, 1981.

But for its modern, mass-media twist, the story is right out of Dickens. Their mother dead of cancer, three children cling fiercely to each other in the temporary care of a family friend. A year goes by, and finally word comes from the court: The oldest is to be shipped off to Texas to live with the troubled father who left the family years before. The younger two are adopted into a settled, middle-class life with a childless couple in Maine.

An eccentric drifter who died nearly a decade ago left more than $1 million in abandoned bank accounts to an American Legion post, the state controller's office said Thursday. With interest, the three accounts total $1,013,843, Controller Gray Davis said. He said the money came from the bank accounts of Max Taylor, who died in 1984 at the age of 68. Little is known about Taylor, who died in Long Beach. He reportedly never married, worked sporadically as a house painter and traveled the country.

The male caller identified himself only as a reader of Tarot cards: "Look for the baby boy on Maui. He's staying with his father at one of the largest hotels on the island. Look near a volcano that is erupting, or about to erupt. I also see a bright pink orchid nearby." The operator dutifully typed the information into her computer. "Thank you for calling," she said. " That child is going to be found," the man said confidently to himself as he hung up the phone.

The decade-old mystery of what happened to the 51-foot yacht Freedom II and two women reported missing from the vessel has resurfaced with the FBI's arrest of a fugitive in Hawaii. Robert Dozier, 44, was taken into custody on April 19 on on the island of Hawaii on a warrant naming him as a grand theft suspect in the case of a yacht falsely reported missing from a Wilmington slip in June, 1981.

It had been 44 years since Alma Sipple had seen the woman, and then only briefly, yet she could not forget her--the no-nonsense brown hair, the rimless glasses, the air of authority. Everything about her said "authority"--and that's why Sipple had handed over her infant daughter. This nice woman was going to take the child to a hospital for a checkup. Alma Sipple never saw her baby again.

But for its modern, mass-media twist, the story is right out of Dickens. Their mother dead of cancer, three children cling fiercely to each other in the temporary care of a family friend. A year goes by, and finally word comes from the court: The oldest is to be shipped off to Texas to live with the troubled father who left the family years before. The younger two are adopted into a settled, middle-class life with a childless couple in Maine.

Folks in Spearfish, S.D., were shocked when Gary Johnston was arrested in 1993. Police officers, sheriff's deputies, state troopers and FBI agents swooped down on the Ford dealership, guns drawn. They said Johnston, the mild-mannered service manager, was an escaped cop killer. Who could believe it? Johnston was too nice to be a murderer. People here had known Gary and his wife, Bobbie, for years. Surely it was a case of mistaken identity. But there was no mistake.

A federal magistrate in Sacramento ordered a convicted bank robber who shot a police officer back to certain imprisonment in Connecticut only a week after his story appeared on the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries." Jean Marie Gagnon, 35, a native of Montreal who was featured on the NBC program, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers during a traffic stop near Orland in northern California, the Marshals Service said.