It's not uncommon for people to go missing, but it is rare for them to virtually disappear into thin air and never be found or heard of again. That's what happened to a man named George Carroll in 1961. His disappearance rocked a community and left his family with a decades-long unsolved mystery. Investigators would be left with virtually no clues until more than half a century later when his youngest son happened to stumble upon something he couldn't ignore. This is the unexpected way in which their story unraveled.
George Carroll and the Rest of the Family
Before George Carroll disappeared, he'd already lived a pretty eventful life. In 1934, in the midst of The Great Depression, George was born. However, he didn't let this define him, and he went on to marry a woman named Dorothy, and the two had four children. Those children were named Patricia, Steven, Jean, and Mike, with Mike being the youngest of the four. He'd also be the one to stumble across the clue in the basement later in his life.
However, when their father disappeared, all four children were very young. Mike wasn't even a year old, and the oldest of the children, Patricia, was only nine years old at the time.
1961 Was a Year to Remember
There was a lot going on the year George disappeared. The year 1961 was filled with historical events. At the beginning of the year, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the nation's first Catholic president and its youngest leader in history. During the event, Kennedy gave his speech and famously said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
It was also the year that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel in space, giving the Soviet Union the lead in the space race and causing panic among the Americans.
1961 for the Carrol Family Was Full of Trauma
While the world was in the midst of the Cold War and historical events were happening all around them, the Carroll family didn't have time to take it all in. That's because this was the year that George disappeared without a trace. From that moment on, nothing would ever be the same, and the entire family would be haunted by the disappearance of George for years and decades to come.
While the Carroll children were still quite young during this time, they would grow to deal with the disappearance in different ways while it deeply impacted their mother, Dorothy.
Left With Questions That Couldn't Be Answered
Naturally, the Carroll children grew up wanting to know what happened to their father. However, their mother could never bring herself to talk about the disappearance for very long, and the children were largely left with a slew of unanswered questions. According to an interview conducted by the New York Post with the youngest child, Mike, in 2018, he said, "They always told me, 'Don't ask'… So I stopped asking."
You can imagine what it might've been like growing up without a father and never being told what happened. Not only that, but it sounds like the whole situation was treated as if it were taboo.
Theories as to Why George Disappeared
Left with no definitive answer as to why George disappeared, Dorothy could only give limited answers to her children. She reportedly told them that he simply left to go to the store one day and never returned. However, it didn't take long for the children to have doubts about this theory. For one thing, they came across their father's wallet when they were still kids. Why would someone go to the store without their wallet?
Mike later said that he never bought the story that their father simply left and never came back home, but it's unclear exactly what his mother actually believed.
Rumors as to What Happened to George
It didn't take long for others to speculate as to what happened to George. There were a couple of different rumors, but the most popular was that he'd flown back to Korea. George had served during the Korean War during the early 1950s, and it wasn't unheard of for veterans to return to the country after the war ended. Just why he'd want to return was never explained in the rumor.
However, it was one possible explanation that sought to explain how a grown man could just up and disappear from his home one day. Other rumors were a bit more dark.
A Much Darker Explanation for the Disappearance
With so much mystery surrounding his disappearance, there was bound to be some rumors that alleged George was actually murdered. One such rumor said that he was buried in the basement. Coincidentally, the basement was being built at the time of George's disappearance, so it didn't take long for neighbors and others to connect the two. We could only imagine how devastating it must've been for the family to hear things like this.
After losing a father and husband, the last thing you want to have to deal with are rumors alleging you had something to do with it. But what did the police think, and how did they handle the situation?
Did Anyone File a Missing Persons Report?
You'd think that one of the first things someone would do when a family member disappeared was file a missing persons report. However, this apparently never happened after George's disappearance. It's unclear why Dorothy never sought the help of the police. Perhaps she really did believe that George had simply abandoned the family. After all, it was a different time, and there were fewer repercussions for fathers who left.
However, her not filing a missing persons report no doubt led to some of the rumors that haunted the family and their home. What happened next must've also seemed strange to some.
Dorothy Remarries Shortly After the Disappearance
It wasn't long after George's disappearance that another man moved into the house. His name was Richard Darress, and he and Dorothy would go on to marry not long after and have a child together. The sudden marriage must've seemed strange to the neighbors, not only because of the relatively short timeframe but also because of the times. However, the two weren't meant to be, and they eventually divorced.
The entire thing probably took its toll not only on the children but also on Dorothy. The exact reasons for the divorce are still somewhat unknown, but we do know a couple of things.
The Suspected Reason for the Divorce
While it's not known for sure what happened between Dorothy and Richard, we do know that in the divorce filing, she said that he'd been unfaithful. Exactly what happened is still unclear. The divorce was made official in 1983, but she'd asked him to leave years earlier. Undoubtedly, this caused even more rumors in the neighborhood, but after George's disappearance, it's not surprising that Dorothy wasn't willing to put up with any more misbehavior from her husband.
However, we may never know exactly what happened between the two because not long after their divorce, Richard up and left not just the town but the entire country.
Richard Moves to Mexico
Not long after the divorce, Richard up and moved to Mexico for unknown reasons. We do know that while in Mexico, he remarried, but it eventually led to another divorce. Fox News obtained the divorce filing and learned that his new wife received a temporary protection order against Richard, adding to the mystery of what happened not only between those two but also between Richard and Dorothy.
We may never know the full truth because Richard passed away in 2018. He was 77 years old when he died, and he took anything he may have known about George's disappearance with him.
The Rumor About George Leaving Persisted
Dorothy stuck to the theory that George abandoned the family for years, even as the children grew older. What responses they could get from their mother always led back to this theory. However, it was only a matter of time before they became old enough to search for the truth on their own. “There wasn’t a lot of conversation about it. We grew curious about where he may be as grownups,” Steven told local channel WABC in 2018.
It wouldn't be long before some of the children did just that and started to search for answers on their own. What one of them would eventually discover would change the entire narrative.
Mike Purchases the Carroll Family Home
Before their mother passed away in 1988, Mike decided to buy the family home. Most likely just to keep it in the family, but he, like the rest of the children, also had some questions. Not able to completely put the old rumors about his father out of his head, Mike started to look towards the basement and wonder if there wasn't some truth in the rumors about what happened to his dad.
You can hardly blame him and the rest of the children, especially considering that they grew up not being able to talk about their father's absence and mysterious disappearance.
Mike Begins to Search for His Father
Referring to the search for his father, Mike told reporters, "It didn't happen overnight. It's something that's been spoken about for years," adding, "This is something that, as we got older, you know, we heard various stories." We can't imagine what it must've been like to grow up hearing the rumors and finally having the chance to begin your own search. We're sure there were parts of him that were split on what he actually hoped to find.
The search, seemingly simple on the outside, would prove to be filled with challenges as Mike started digging down in the basement of the family home in search of his father.
Mike Starts Digging for Answers
Mike began to break ground inside the basement of the family home in 2012. We can't imagine what must've been running through his head at the time. However, whatever it was, it was interrupted by the fact that he had to stop not long after he'd begun. Structural issues forced him to temporarily halt his digging because he feared that the house could collapse if he continued to dig around the foundations.
“I was actually digging in the wrong place. So it got to the point where it became dangerous because I was afraid my house would collapse. So I stopped digging,” he told a local station called News 12.
Experts Are Brought In
Despite the temporary setback, Mike was determined to continue the search, and not long after, he decided to bring in a group of experts to help him dig up the basement. However, he also made sure that he was involved in the search every step of the way, and he often occupied his time by carrying slabs of concrete from the basement upstairs before throwing them outside and going back down to grab more.
However, the team wasn't just digging mindlessly; and they'd recruited the help of technology in their effort to find out what really happened to George all of those years ago.
Ground-Penetrating Radar Finds Something
Among the team of experts Mike brought in was someone who knew how to scan the Earth using ground-penetrating radar. And it wasn't long before the radar picked up something strange in Mike's basement. Around six feet under the floor, it detected a strange mass that was different from the surrounding soil. But just what was this anomaly, and could it lead to answers concerning his father's sudden disappearance?
Mike was determined to find out. However, at the time, digging up the basement wasn't the only means of finding answers that Mike was actively pursuing, and he and the family sought out other help as well.
Using Less Orthodox Tactics to Find Their Father
Mike was far more concerned with using modern means to find their father, but when someone in your family mysteriously disappears, you'll do whatever it takes to track them down. So, after urging from his sister, Mike visited physic, who he hoped could shed some light on the mystery. "There are, of course, premonitions, hunches, things like that," Mike told the New York Post during the interview they had together.
As an adult, Mike was firmly a believer in science, but it turned out that he could recall one strangely familiar interaction with what some might call the supernatural when he was young.
A Strange Encounter
At one point during his interview with the local News 12 station, Mike said that he remembered a weird encounter he and a friend had in the family home when they were little. “My friend came over from Georgia and said, ‘Mike, I came out of your bathroom, and I saw a guy standing there, like, you know, the shadow of a man, standing up and coming down the stairs’— But that’s beside the point,” he said.
The story helps explain why Mike might be open to going and seeing a physic, and it certainly is weird that coming from a friend who was staying a night in the family home.
The Physic Visits the Carroll Home
Whether you believe in the paranormal or not is beside the point. There is certainly reason to be skeptical when it comes to people who claim they can connect with the other side, but according to Mike, something strange happened when the psychic visited the Carroll home. “There was a guy who came into my basement. And he went to the right place and said, ‘The energy is here,” Mike said during his interview with the New York Post.
That meant that Mike had a couple of clues that all pointed to something buried down in the basement. However, something would once again try and derail his search just as it was gaining momentum.
Mike Has a Stroke
During the search for his father, Mike suffered from a stroke. Having a stroke is never a pleasant experience, but Mike had one at what must've seemed like the worst possible time. Luckily, Mike's two sons, Christopher and Michael Jr., said that they would carry on the search while their father was recovering. "I think they felt bad for me because they knew this was important to me," Mike said during his interview with News 12.
With the two sons now taking over the dig, it wouldn't be long before they came across something that changed the family story forever and finally put to rest the age-old question of what happened to George.
The Sons Find Something in the Basement
Mike's two sons were digging in the basement when they happened across something not long after they had started. The discovery was around seven feet down, and it was in the same spot where the gound-penetrating radar and the physic had told Mike to dig. Excited about their discovery and also probably a little shocked about what they'd just found, the two quickly ran out of the basement to tell their father.
It's not clear if they understood the impact of what they'd just found or if they had uncovered all of it or only parts, but they were most certainly at least a little shocked.
Mike Surveys the Find
Mike was still recovering from his stroke when his boys ran up the stairs and told him they'd found something while digging. He told the news station that it was a bit hard for him to go upstairs and downstairs but that he had to go into the basement and see for himself what the boys had found. He was simply too eager not to go and see for himself.
When he got down into the hole, it didn't take him long to figure out that he was probably staring at bones that belonged to a person. The boys had stumbled upon human remains.
Alerting the Family and Police
The bones weren't laid out as you might expect them to be in a casket. Instead, "He was twisted into a knot, weird-looking," Mike said, adding, "He was lying twisted in the dirt… he wasn't totally exposed either." Whatever had happened, it looked as though it wasn't pleasant. This probably immediately raised more questions, but at the time, Mike knew he had to contact the rest of the family.
That's just what he did. The next day, on Halloween, Mike called the police to let them know that they'd discovered human remains buried in the basement of the Carroll home.
The Police Open up an Investigation
It didn't take long for the police to get to the home and confirm that they'd found human remains. However, to know if it really was George buried in the basement, the bones would have to be sent away for DNA testing. The police opened an official investigation for the first time since George's disappearance, but everyone would have to wait for the test results to find out for sure if it was him.
It might seem like a shut-and-closed case at this point, but you want to be 100% sure and put to rest the mystery of what happened to George nearly half a century ago.
Mike Is Sure He Found His Father
While the world would have to wait to know for sure if the remains belonged to George or not, Mike had no doubts. During his interview with the New York Post, Mike said, "[They're] going to be [of] my father. This is going to be a great thing for him — to be emancipated from that place where he didn't belong." The burden of years of wondering what happened must've finally lifted when the remains were found.
If the bones did belong to George, it would also mean that those rumors about what happened to him all those years ago would be true. However, it was more likely that they were lucky guesses than that they stemmed from anyone with knowledge of what happened.
Mike Finally Gets Some Closure
From the interviews he gave when the bones were being tested, it was clear to see that Mike had found some solace in discovering the remains. “I felt a vindication for my dad. I felt like he was dancing in the sky,” Mike said during an interview with News 12. The rest of the family was also relieved to finally know what happened to their father after decades of wondering.
However, they couldn't be 100% sure until the test results came back, no matter how likely it now seemed that George had finally been found years later in the basement.
The Test Results
It took a couple of months for the family to get the results back. However, when they did come back, they must've been a relief to the whole family. They confirmed that it was indeed George's remains that were buried in the basement. "The DNA was extremely well preserved within the skeletal remains, even after nearly 60 years," Michael Caplan, the medical examiner, told the media in an interview.
The family finally had answers. However, just as what happened with the disappearance became clear, other questions began to emerge, such as whether foul play was involved and, if so, who was to blame.
The Family Breathes a Sigh of Relief
While everyone was happy to finally know what happened to their father, Mike was understandably more relieved than the rest. “I took a chance. I could have done all this and found nothing, and then I would have had a whole basement in a mess,” he said during an interview with the media. “I have a basement in a mess. But I’m so glad we found what we found. It gives my family peace of mind.”
Throughout everything, the family, especially Mike's sons, came together to help Mike in his search to find out what really happened to George and put the family mystery to rest.
Answering New Questions
The medical examiner alerted the police to what they found when examining George's remains, and it shouldn't have come as a shock to anyone at this point that George had been murdered. After all, his body had been dumped and covered back up with dirt, meaning someone had to have at least known that he was buried down there. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
Knowing that George had been murdered probably wasn't shocking to the Carroll family, but that also raised the thorny issue of who was responsible for their father's murder.
The Psychic's Version of Events
While the news that George had died due to blunt force trauma may have surprised some in the community, Mike had already heard this theory before. When he had consulted with the psychic, he had been told that his father was struck with a pipe to the head, and that was how he'd passed away. "She informed me it was a pipe, that he was buried after being struck in the head with a pipe," He told the New York Post.
Whether it was just a lucky guess or the psychic's genuine inference is not really all that important. Mike already had an idea as to what had happened before the bones were discovered.
The 'Story Behind the Story'
While everyone was probably understandably curious as to who was responsible for George's death, Mike and the rest of the family took this time to grieve a bit. Still, Mike knew that there was more work to be done. "There's so much unfinished business here. There's a story behind the story behind the story," Mike said in an interview with News 12. However, for now, that story would need to wait.
Mike had just wrapped up literally decades of speculation and curiosity about what really happened to George, and everyone in the family needed to rest for a bit.
Police Leads as to What Happened
While Mike and the rest of the Carroll family took a break, the police continued their investigation, but there was a big problem. Everyone who might have information as to what happened was now dead. Richard had died in 2018, and he had been one of the people the police wanted to speak with the most, according to the Washington Post. However, his entering the picture so soon after George's disappearance did seem a little suspicious.
There was also the strange fact that Dorothy had never thought to call the police and report her husband missing, and if Richard did have something to do with the whole thing, then that certainly implicated Dorothy as well, right?
The Carroll Family's Thoughts
Considering there weren't any obvious avenues to finding out who murdered George, the Carroll family children decided that it was best not to speculate about what happened to their father. After all, it seemed likely that they would never know for certain, and pointing fingers at someone who wasn't around to defend themselves didn't seem very productive. For Mike, finding his father's remains and laying him to rest was enough.
"I feel great that my dad has finally gotten out of that nasty hole," he said. He finally had some solace in solving the mystery of his father's disappearance.
Other Possible Leads
The police were in a tough bind. Their two main suspects were dead, and other avenues of questioning seemed like longshots at best. If it wasn't Dorothy or Richard who committed the murder, then maybe it was someone else who lived nearby. However, most of the people who had lived there when George was alive were either long deceased or they and their families had moved out of the neighborhood.
"Justice passed when we dug it up because we just interrupted the perfect crime. They almost got away with it," Mike said in an interview with the New York Post.
A New Chapter for the Carroll Family
It's hard to overstate just how important it was for the Carroll family to find George's remains. For decades, his disappearance had hung over his children's heads like a rain cloud. For Mike, finding his dad was enough, and he and his children could finally move on with their lives. "I tell my kids… we hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, two outs," he said.
The alternative was living out the rest of his life, always wondering what happened to his father when the answer was really right below his feet the whole time.
Steven Expresses His Joy at Finding George
Mike wasn't the only one in the family who was very relieved to have found their father. Steven released a message not long after the remains were found. "I was surprised that he was here the whole time, and it's wonderful. The grandkids can now say they found Grandpa," he said. He, his children, and the rest of the family had wondered all their lives what really happened, he added.
Steven was around five years old when George disappeared, so while he didn't know his father very well, he may have had some brief memories of him and what he looked like.
Still Wondering Who Murdered His Father
Despite being glad that the remains were finally uncovered, Steven also expressed his disgust at whoever it was that was responsible for George's death. "How does something like this happen? How do you get rid of someone and bury them in the basement and pour cement on them without anyone knowing?" he said in an interview with Newsday. He has more than one good point here, and it's still perplexing that someone could get away with something like that.
We're sure that as time goes on, not even the official police report will satisfy some, considering it's unlikely they'll be able to say for sure what happened.
Putting George Carroll to Rest
The Carroll children organized a funeral for their father not long after the examination of the remains was finished. George was buried at the Calverton National Cemetary and given a veteran's service to honor his time in Korea. "I want him to be a soldier. I want him to get what he needs," Mike told the media. Thanks to him, his father was finally given a proper burial decades after he'd passed.
And while the mystery of their father's death will probably never be solved for certain, the Carroll children can rest knowing that they did everything they could to give their father the honor he deserved.