WEBVTT

1
00:00:32.799 --> 00:00:36.520
Welcome back to the Path. When
Chili, I'm Robin, I'm Jules,

2
00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:42.920
and I'm Ashley, let's jump right
into this week's case. June twelfth,

3
00:00:43.119 --> 00:00:49.000
nineteen sixty two, Worthington, Minnesota, twenty year old Marlous Gross gives birth

4
00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:53.159
to a baby daughter named Mary Agnes, who is told by the hospital staff

5
00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:57.640
of the child did not survive.
Mary Agnes is given a funeral and buried

6
00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:00.799
in a grave, but months later, Marla's is mailed a photograph of a

7
00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:07.000
family holding a baby whom she believes
as her daughter. After discovering a number

8
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:11.799
of suspicious discrepancies, Marla's petitions to
have some bone fragments exhumed from Mary Agnes's

9
00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:17.840
grave in nineteen ninety six, and
DNA testing reveals that the remains do not

10
00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.799
belong to her. Marla suspects that
her child was stolen and sold in an

11
00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:26.799
illegal black market adoption, but no
one knows what actually happened to Mary Agnes.

12
00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:32.560
After that, the Path went chilly. So today we're going to be

13
00:01:32.599 --> 00:01:36.920
exploring one of the most bizarre mysteries
we've ever recovered, the nineteen sixty two

14
00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:42.879
disappearance of Mary Agnes Gross. Well, maybe we'll call this a possible disappearance.

15
00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:46.760
The reason I've decided to revisit this
one now is because five and a

16
00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:49.840
half years ago, The Trail Went
Cold released an episode about the disappearance of

17
00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:53.959
Mary Agnes Moroney, a two year
old girl who was abducted from her family

18
00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:57.439
all the way back in nineteen thirty. Well, believe it or not,

19
00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:04.200
he was recently announce that genetic genealogy
had identified Mary Agnes as a woman who

20
00:02:04.239 --> 00:02:07.159
died in Florida twenty years ago,
so it looks like she lived her entire

21
00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:13.199
life under a false identity without even
realizing it. This set a new record

22
00:02:13.240 --> 00:02:15.759
for the oldest case featured on The
Trail Went Cold to be solved. But

23
00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:21.479
it is not the only mystery I've
ever covered involving a missing child named Mary

24
00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:25.599
Agnes. Nearly three years ago,
I released an episode of Mary Agnes Gross,

25
00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:30.360
a newborn baby who supposedly died shortly
after her mother gave birth to her.

26
00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:36.120
But it's possible this many have been
a completely fabricated cover story. The

27
00:02:36.199 --> 00:02:39.879
story was featured on Unsolved Mysteries as
a lost love segment, which generally aren't

28
00:02:39.919 --> 00:02:45.719
the subject of Trail Went Cold or
path went Chili episodes, but the circumstances

29
00:02:45.719 --> 00:02:50.680
of this story are just so odd
that will make an exception. After Mary

30
00:02:50.680 --> 00:02:53.599
Agnes's death, she was buried in
a grave at a local cemetery, which

31
00:02:53.639 --> 00:02:59.360
was periodically visited by her mother,
Marlus over the next three decades. But

32
00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:04.199
things took a surprising turn when Marla
suddenly showed up one day and saw a

33
00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:08.599
headstone with the name Pamela ray Dickie
over her daughter's burial plot it turned out

34
00:03:08.639 --> 00:03:14.800
that Pamela Ray Dickey was a completely
different deceased child who died shortly after being

35
00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:19.120
born in the exact same hospital on
the exact same day as Mary Agnes.

36
00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:23.000
Marla started believing that some sort of
cover up had been orchestrated by the hospital

37
00:03:23.240 --> 00:03:28.159
and that her daughter might still be
alive somewhere, so she managed to exume

38
00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:31.800
mary Agnes's remains, and DNA testing
would prove that they did not belong to

39
00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:37.280
her. The prevalent theory is that
Mary Agnes was taken away from her mother

40
00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:42.520
and sold to another family in a
black market adoption, prompting the hospital to

41
00:03:42.520 --> 00:03:46.800
give Marlas the false impression that her
child was dead. But if that's not

42
00:03:46.840 --> 00:03:51.280
what happened. Then this whole mystery
might be the result of a disastrous series

43
00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:55.080
of mistakes and clerical errors. Either
way, after hearing what happened in the

44
00:03:55.159 --> 00:04:00.639
Mary Agnes Maroni case, I do
believe there's a decent possible the Merry Agnes

45
00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:05.560
Gross might still be alive somewhere today
under a different identity. While this story

46
00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:09.800
is quite a jigsaw puzzle, we're
at least going to make an attempt to

47
00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:14.400
put the pieces together on today's episode. This case, I want to say,

48
00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:18.560
sounds crazy, like how could this
happen? Except this is a fascinating

49
00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:23.480
topic that has always interested me.
I used to live in Missouri, as

50
00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:26.920
you guys know, and I know
there was a hospital there. The name

51
00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:30.040
of the hospital was Homer G.
Phillips, And in the nineteen fifties and

52
00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:38.199
sixties there were several, several several
cases of babies being taken away from low

53
00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:44.879
income black or single mothers and being
told that they died during childbirth right and

54
00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:47.720
the baby no longer survived, and
then the mothers were simply sent home with

55
00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:53.199
nothing. They weren't given remains or
anything. I know that there was a

56
00:04:53.240 --> 00:04:57.480
group of black women about I think
eighteen or twenty women that came forward and

57
00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:01.079
said in that timeframe, this same
hospital came in my room, told me

58
00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:05.560
my child was dead and told me
to go home. And now we're finding

59
00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:11.480
out that these children exist around the
country that were given away, adopted,

60
00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:16.480
sold on these black markets because the
hospital people, the nurses, they were

61
00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:20.959
part of these schemes where they would
not value a human life in that mother

62
00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:24.519
or child connection and say, look, the child would be better off,

63
00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:27.040
or I want the money, or
these kinds of things. And so,

64
00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:30.079
as crazy as it sounds, I
don't think it was that. I mean,

65
00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:32.839
it's abnormal, but I think it
happened more than we'd like to think.

66
00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:35.519
Well, I'm glad you confirmed that, because I wondered when I was

67
00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:41.319
thinking about the possibility that they were
holding this black market adoption scam and stealing

68
00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:45.199
babies from their mothers after they were
born, I wondered if that sort of

69
00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:47.759
thing happened a lot during this time
period. And here you are mentioning Missouri

70
00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:53.600
during the nineteen fifties, which is
not far off from Minnesota in nineteen sixty

71
00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:57.560
two. So that only makes this
theory that Mary Agnes might have been taken

72
00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:00.399
from her mother all the more plausible. I know they did the same thing

73
00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:03.839
in Ireland with those mother and baby
homes. Do you either of you know

74
00:06:03.879 --> 00:06:08.959
anything about those? Oh no,
I've never heard about the ones in Ireland.

75
00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:12.800
I know in Chicago. I think
there's another famous hospital that was known

76
00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:15.360
for these kind of schemes too.
What happened in Ireland, well, basically

77
00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:18.680
they were Catholic hospitals where unwed mothers
would go and they would basically take their

78
00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:23.160
kids away, just like what you
described at what was the name of the

79
00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:26.720
hospital again, it was Philip G. Homer, Philip G. Homers,

80
00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.279
the Homer not vice versa Homer G. Phillips Hospital in Missouri, except in

81
00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.480
the place of nurses, it was
nuns. And so they were doing some

82
00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:39.120
pretty unscrupulous things, not giving these
young mothers the opportunity to raise their children,

83
00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:43.680
and just like you said, not
valuing that mother child connection. Instead,

84
00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:46.720
they were giving them a way to
like quote unquote good families where it

85
00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:50.680
was like a married unit and either
they weren't able to conceive a child naturally

86
00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:56.439
or they wanted another child. And
it's unclear in all cases if you know

87
00:06:56.519 --> 00:07:00.920
money was exchanged or if it was
just like this is a more respectable situation,

88
00:07:00.240 --> 00:07:04.480
because I think there there was even
more of a stigma associated with an

89
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:12.519
unwed mother raising a child in a
predominantly Catholic country. Our story begins in

90
00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:16.480
Minnesota in nineteen sixty two, and
one of our central figures is twenty year

91
00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:20.120
old Marlas Gross, who was on
the verge of giving birth to her first

92
00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:26.040
child. Marlus was married to the
child's father, Layton Gross, but when

93
00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:29.800
she was seven months pregnant, she
decided to separate from her husband and move

94
00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:32.319
in with her mother, Clara's are
off in the small town of Bigelow.

95
00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:36.519
Even though her marriage has come to
an end, Marlus is still planning to

96
00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:41.120
raise her child as a single mother, and if the baby turns out to

97
00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:45.240
be a girl, she will be
named Mary Agnes. On June twelfth,

98
00:07:45.439 --> 00:07:48.800
Marlus went into labor and traveled to
the nearby town of Worthington in order to

99
00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:55.279
give birth in Worthington Regional Hospital.
She was put under a heavy anesthesia for

100
00:07:55.319 --> 00:08:00.120
the delivery and would later recall having
vague images of seeing her newborn baby we

101
00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:05.279
move around her little feet while being
examined by her pediatrician, doctor John Stamb.

102
00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:09.199
Marlas soon fell asleep, and when
she woke up, doctor Stamb appeared

103
00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:13.000
at her bedside and told her she'd
given birth to a daughter, Mary Agnes,

104
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:18.240
but he also had some terrible news. The child was now dead.

105
00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:22.360
According to doctor Stamb, mary Agnes
had lived for an hour after her birth

106
00:08:22.439 --> 00:08:26.879
before she passed away, though he
would not provide any details about her exact

107
00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:33.200
cause of death. Shortly thereafter,
Marlus was wheeled out of the delivery room

108
00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.200
into the hallway and wound up passing
by a bassinette, which she believed contained

109
00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:43.679
Mary Agnes's body. When Marlus begged
to see her, the staff reluctantly let

110
00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:48.159
her take a look for around ten
to fifteen seconds. Marlus would later say

111
00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:52.120
that Mary Agnes looked like she was
sound asleep and did not appear to be

112
00:08:52.200 --> 00:08:56.399
dead, as her skin did not
have the purple color that stillborn babies normally

113
00:08:56.440 --> 00:09:00.519
have. Regardless, this would turn
out to be the only time and Marlis

114
00:09:00.600 --> 00:09:03.960
was allowed to see her daughter,
and the hospital would not allow her to

115
00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:09.320
take any photographs of Mary Agnes's body. Marlis would later ask fl Shade,

116
00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:13.919
the doctor who delivered Mary Agnes,
if an autopsy could be performed in order

117
00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:18.720
to get a better idea of how
she died. Shade told her that it

118
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:22.519
was too late to do this because
the funeral home had already picked up Mary

119
00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:26.879
Agnes's body and embombed it. So
this is what's really bizarre about this case,

120
00:09:28.039 --> 00:09:33.879
is that they're actually allowing her to
go retrieve a body. So is

121
00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:39.879
there's another family that's also at somehow
losing access to their child and or are

122
00:09:39.960 --> 00:09:45.720
maybe given her baby instead of their
deceased child. So this one's even more

123
00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:48.240
bizarre than the ones where they say, listen, you're kind of an unfit

124
00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:52.759
mom and there's a better moral circumstance, or we're going to get money for

125
00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:56.840
your child. Here it sounds like
Mary Agnes. It's like either they made

126
00:09:56.879 --> 00:10:03.080
those decisions and said this deceased baby
is going to be given to Marlous right

127
00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:07.159
or and they knew knowing like did
it or they switched them up. Is

128
00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:11.840
that also a possibility. It is
a possibility. It's possible that like while

129
00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:16.399
Marlos was going down the hallway,
she just happened to see them wheeling Mary

130
00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:18.399
Agnes out of there, and once
she pointed out, they were like,

131
00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.639
okay, we should let her see
her child, but only for a few

132
00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:26.360
seconds, so that she doesn't really
notice anything is wrong. Because even though

133
00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:28.279
she got to see her body for
a brief period of time, this really

134
00:10:28.519 --> 00:10:33.360
wasn't standard practice for people who have
given birth to stillborn babies, because a

135
00:10:33.360 --> 00:10:37.919
lot of the time they'll still let
you hold the body and spend a little

136
00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:41.000
bit of time with the child before
they take it away from you, whereas

137
00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:43.519
and they do allow you to take
photographs, whereas here they only gave her

138
00:10:43.559 --> 00:10:46.799
ten to fifteen seconds, which was
the bare minimum, which is one of

139
00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:52.440
the reasons why she got suspicious.
But if Mary Agnes died an hour after,

140
00:10:52.559 --> 00:10:56.960
she's technically not stillborn. Correct,
yeah, not stillborn yet. But

141
00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.840
I find it curious that they only
let her take a look at the body

142
00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:03.240
for like a few seconds, because
if that baby was alive and its chest

143
00:11:03.399 --> 00:11:07.399
was moving, it wouldn't take her
long to realize, Hey, that's my

144
00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:11.320
baby, and my baby's alive.
Why did you say that she was deceased?

145
00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:15.759
So it seems like they would have
some skin in the game in order

146
00:11:15.799 --> 00:11:18.000
to be like, okay, quick, peek and then we wheel the baby

147
00:11:18.039 --> 00:11:22.799
away, so she's none the wiser. I mean now it's a lot more

148
00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:26.120
sensitive in the fact that like they
allow the pictures to be taken and people

149
00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:31.440
to process that grief. Like I
can't imagine what it would be like for

150
00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:33.759
a mother, Like Ash, you're
a mother, what would have it felt

151
00:11:33.799 --> 00:11:37.919
like for you in a situation where
you would have given birth to Reagan and

152
00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:41.799
then you know, you wake up
and they're like, sorry, your baby

153
00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:43.440
is passed, and no, you
may not take any photos with her,

154
00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:48.360
and you really can't see her only
by chance when you're wheeled by in the

155
00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:50.399
hallway. Oh, I can't imagine. I mean for me, it's like

156
00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:54.519
the moment you see a plus sign
on a pregnancy test. It's the love

157
00:11:54.559 --> 00:11:56.960
and the energy that like, look, we have a baby on the way,

158
00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.679
and so like even with miscarriages,
I didn't I've never been in the

159
00:12:01.840 --> 00:12:05.600
horrible nightmare of having to hold a
child you birth and they're not alive anymore,

160
00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:09.159
and or being told her not alive
anymore. I've had four miscarriages,

161
00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:13.799
and I know that that is hell
on earth, where you know you're pregnant

162
00:12:13.799 --> 00:12:16.679
and then you don't get to meet
that baby. So I can't imagine carrying

163
00:12:16.679 --> 00:12:20.440
a baby to full term, having
them. I just remember the moment that

164
00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.320
I had Reagan and held her against
my chest, like my world was radically

165
00:12:24.440 --> 00:12:28.559
changed, and then to be told
an hour later she wasn't there. I

166
00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:31.600
mean, it's the unthinkable. I
can't even start to putt into words how

167
00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:33.440
I would never know how that would
make me feel, because it's such an

168
00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:37.039
awful thing to think about. Was
she alone in the delivery room or was

169
00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:41.559
her mother Clara there as well?
Sounds like she was alone, Like I

170
00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:45.600
haven't heard any clarification about Clara being
at the hospital, which I would think

171
00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:48.000
she would be because she was living
with her at the time, But Clara

172
00:12:48.039 --> 00:12:52.600
has never confirmed that she was around
when any of these strange events took place.

173
00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:56.279
But she very well may have been
alone. I know that they didn't

174
00:12:56.360 --> 00:13:00.320
used to allow people in all the
time, so that's a newer on stept

175
00:13:00.360 --> 00:13:03.120
up allowing family members in the delivery
room. A lot of like if you

176
00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:07.039
talk to our grandparents or our parents, you'll have a lot of family are

177
00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:09.399
like, yeah, we weren't allowed
back there. It just seems like such

178
00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:13.360
a traumatic thing to go through,
to be put under and to have your

179
00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:18.000
baby be gone, and to go
through all that all on your own and

180
00:13:18.039 --> 00:13:22.799
to just feel like you at that
point would be incapable of processing everything and

181
00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:28.559
you just be collapsing like inside of
yourself because just the amount of grief and

182
00:13:28.679 --> 00:13:33.480
trauma associated with a situation such as
that, and it just seems so incomprehensible.

183
00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:37.600
So to not have somebody to hold
your hand at that time, it's

184
00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:41.799
just so heartbreaking. So Mary Agnes's
funeral would be held at the Benson funeral

185
00:13:41.879 --> 00:13:46.840
Home the following day, but Marlas
was unable to attend since she was still

186
00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:50.320
recovering in the hospital. Her mother, Clara and Marlas's best friend, Judy

187
00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:56.000
Bogus, wound up going to the
funeral home instead and viewed Mary Agnes's body

188
00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:00.399
in her casket. Oddly, Judy
would describe the child she sigh, having

189
00:14:00.480 --> 00:14:03.399
sparse, light colored hair, but
when Marla saw Mary Agnes in the basin

190
00:14:03.480 --> 00:14:07.519
at the previous day, she remembered
her having a full head of dark brown

191
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:13.519
hair. Marlas had also noticed Mark
saw Mary Agnes's forehead from the doctor having

192
00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:16.840
used forceps during the delivery, but
Judy claimed that the child in the casket

193
00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:20.960
did not have these marks. The
funeral director also told Clara that she was

194
00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:26.159
not allowed to take any photographs of
Mary Agnes's body, though she was able

195
00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:28.960
to take a few pictures of the
closed casket right before it was buried in

196
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.240
a grave at Saint Mary's Cemetery.
When Mary Agnes was laid to rest,

197
00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:37.799
Clara claimed she saw another family standing
near the grave site who her crying and

198
00:14:37.879 --> 00:14:43.960
seemed very emotional about the situation,
but she did not recognize them. Oh

199
00:14:43.039 --> 00:14:48.440
my god. Okay, so we
know for a fact that there was another

200
00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:56.120
family involved in this situation, because
there's possibly two babies. So if we're

201
00:14:56.200 --> 00:15:03.080
burying someone who is not Mary Agnes, it's very possible then that another family

202
00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:09.080
is knowledgeable that their child died at
birth or was born as a stillborn baby.

203
00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:16.080
And and if they're grieving the burial
and the death of this child,

204
00:15:16.360 --> 00:15:20.879
and then they're gonna say, but
the consolation is that we paid for or

205
00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:26.399
convinced the hospital to allow us to
raise this baby in our care who happens

206
00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:31.360
to be this other woman's child.
Like that's even more depraved than like a

207
00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:35.120
mix up at the hospital or a
nurse making a decision to sell the baby

208
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:39.759
on the black market. It's like
this two families come in. One family

209
00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:41.919
has a tragedy happen, and they
go, hey, we've got this single

210
00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.799
mom. Don't worry, you can
have her baby. One week later,

211
00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:52.639
Marlis was finally released from the hospital
and went to the cemetery to visit her

212
00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:56.759
daughter's gravesite for the first time.
At this point, the burial plot was

213
00:15:56.840 --> 00:16:00.159
nothing more than amount of dirt,
but over the course of the next next

214
00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:03.600
year, Marlus gradually saved up enough
money to purchase a headstone with the name

215
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.879
Mary Agnes Gross on it. Things
took an odd turn three months after Mary

216
00:16:08.919 --> 00:16:15.320
Agnes's death, when Marlas was mailed
an envelope containing a photograph. There was

217
00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:18.519
no note or return address, but
the photo featured what appeared to be a

218
00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:22.840
family consisting of a father, mother, two older children, and a newborn

219
00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:27.159
baby. When Marlas took a look
at the baby's face, she thought it

220
00:16:27.159 --> 00:16:32.960
bore a striking resemblance to her ex
husband. She started wondering if the child

221
00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:37.480
might be Mary Agnes, who was
still alive somewhere, but neither Marla's,

222
00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:41.480
her mother, nor anyone else they
knew recognized the family. There would be

223
00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:48.200
another strange occurrence the following year,
when Marlas visited Saint Mary's cemetery and discovered

224
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:52.840
that the headstone she purchased for Mary
Agnes had been moved. Instead of resting

225
00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:56.600
directly on top of the burial plot, the headstone had inexplicably been shifted a

226
00:16:56.600 --> 00:17:00.759
few feet to the side. But
in spite of these odd events, Marless

227
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:06.279
would leave the area and move on
with her life. She eventually got remarried

228
00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:10.119
and had three sons, and while
her second marriage also ended in divorce,

229
00:17:10.440 --> 00:17:14.640
she would permanently settle in Soou Fall, South Dakota, under the name Marless

230
00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:19.519
Thomas in order to raise your boys. How stressful you're sitting there trying to

231
00:17:19.559 --> 00:17:25.640
process the grief of your baby.
You're also divorced and young, and there's

232
00:17:25.680 --> 00:17:29.519
been a lot of stress and trauma
in her life. And here she is

233
00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:34.440
at this gravestone grieving, and she
goes weird, like the gravestone's been moved,

234
00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.799
which has its own to me emotions
attached to it, right, Like

235
00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:42.759
that is the piece, that's the
fixture that says, hey, my loved

236
00:17:42.759 --> 00:17:47.599
one is buried here. To have
it moved, surely there was some kind

237
00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:51.200
of trauma associated with that, and
it is kind of like, well,

238
00:17:51.240 --> 00:17:53.720
I mean, it's not a massive
problem. So she's saying, listen,

239
00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:56.880
it is what it is, and
she has to move on with her life,

240
00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:00.720
like, I'm incredibly grateful she got
a second opportunity at love, even

241
00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:04.359
though it didn't divorce, but she
got three awesome humans out of that.

242
00:18:04.480 --> 00:18:10.160
So she got her rainbow babies and
was able to kind of move forward with

243
00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:12.359
her life, but always, you
know, with the thought of Mary Agnes

244
00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.480
in the back of her head,
like what happened. But to put that

245
00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:19.319
picture on top of it, guys, like, imagine getting that picture of

246
00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:25.880
a family you don't know at your
baby's grave site. How distirming would that

247
00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:30.559
be? Indigo, is that actually
my baby they're holding. The photo didn't

248
00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:33.400
show them at the grave site.
It was just a random family. And

249
00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:36.039
that was the thing about it is
that it was sent to her with no

250
00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:40.279
context at all, Like they didn't
specifically say, this is Mary Ages with

251
00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:44.279
her new family. But that was
the implication because why else would someone just

252
00:18:44.640 --> 00:18:48.319
send like a random photograph of a
family to her. So it almost seems

253
00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:52.000
like someone had inside knowledge of something
that was going on and just wanted to

254
00:18:52.039 --> 00:18:55.880
send a message tomorrow list that I
know what happened and your baby is still

255
00:18:55.880 --> 00:18:59.880
out there somewhere. Oh well,
they do meet the Dickey family like later

256
00:19:00.039 --> 00:19:03.279
on life, and they're definitely not
the family in the photograph. And the

257
00:19:03.359 --> 00:19:07.079
Dickey family it sounds like they're completely
innocent. They didn't have any involvement in

258
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:11.000
what happened to Mary Agnes. They
went through a tragedy themselves, but I

259
00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:15.480
don't see any indication that the Dickey
family had any knowledge of what was going

260
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:18.559
on back then. Well, thank
god, and I'm grateful that was at

261
00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:21.680
the gravestone. I thought you said
the families of the gravestone. I went,

262
00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:26.319
geez, Louise, that's so disturbing. But even to get that picture

263
00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:30.720
and to say that baby's a spinning
image of my ex husband? Is that

264
00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.960
my child? And it makes it
really eerie that there's no context, there's

265
00:19:33.960 --> 00:19:38.200
no return address, there's nothing.
Is it someone from the hospital? Is

266
00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:42.839
it someone who knows these families?
Very very disturbing. It reminds me of

267
00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:47.599
the Sauder children, where like the
Saudery, it was like four or five

268
00:19:47.599 --> 00:19:51.200
of them were thought to have burned
up in that fire. And then later

269
00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:56.079
there's a photo that's sent to the
parents of two of the boys and Frankie

270
00:19:56.119 --> 00:19:57.559
and I can't remember if the other
one's name was, but either way,

271
00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:02.640
it was like, WHOA looked exactly
like what they would have looked like with

272
00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:06.039
age progression, And there wasn't a
lot of context. There was like a

273
00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:10.279
couple different things written on it,
and so there was. It just created

274
00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:14.839
more questions than answers if they're alive, like why were they taken? And

275
00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:18.559
all these sorts of other things.
So I can only imagine what she was

276
00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:22.480
experiencing when she got this picture and
was like, WHOA, that baby sure

277
00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:29.359
looks like my ex husband. Over
the next three decades, Marlos would periodically

278
00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:33.000
return to Minnesota and visit Saint Mary's
cemetery in order to pay her respects to

279
00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:37.680
Mary Agnes. However, things took
a surprising turn during the summer of nineteen

280
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:42.440
ninety three when Marlos went to her
daughter's grave site and discovered that an entirely

281
00:20:42.559 --> 00:20:48.240
new headstone was there. While Mary
Agnes's headstone was still located a few feet

282
00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:52.319
away, her actual burial plot now
had a headstone resting on top of it

283
00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:56.119
with the name Pamela Ray Dickey.
To make things even stranger, it also

284
00:20:56.200 --> 00:21:00.839
contained the exact same date as Mary
Agnes's death, June the twelfth, nineteen

285
00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:06.599
sixty two. When Marla spoke to
the cemetery caretaker about this, she was

286
00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:11.519
told that the headstone had originally been
placed there in nineteen eighty nine. Records

287
00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:15.359
showed that a Pamela Ray Dickey was
buried in that plot, but there was

288
00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:19.160
nothing on file for Mary Agnes Gross. In fact, the caretaker even admitted

289
00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:23.480
that he always wondered why Mary Agnes's
headstone was placed at that spot to begin

290
00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:27.200
with, since as far as he
knew, no one else besides Pamela Ray

291
00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:32.359
Dickey was buried there. What in
the world, so she might not have

292
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:37.079
even been buried there. They might
have quote prepared a baby's body for burial,

293
00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:41.480
and then Mary Agnes was never buried. There was no body actually placed

294
00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:45.599
in that grave. Well, it
sounds like, you know how Clara said

295
00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:48.759
that there was a family at this
grave side who looked emotional. It seems

296
00:21:48.880 --> 00:21:53.599
very likely that was the Dickey family
burying Pamela Ray like having her funeral,

297
00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.160
and while Clara was there, she
was under the impression that this was Mary

298
00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:02.519
Agnes's funeral, but her there's nothing
buried in her plot. It just turns

299
00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:04.960
out that we only have a record
for a Pamela Ray Dickie, but nothing

300
00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:08.920
about Mary Agnes. Gross, Oh
my god. So they've showed up to

301
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.039
a funeral and we're told it was
Mary Agnes and it's actually they're attending someone

302
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:15.920
else's. So the Dicky famis on, who are these people over there as

303
00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:19.319
well? Who paid for this funeral? But who paid for it exactly?

304
00:22:19.559 --> 00:22:25.480
I'm just so confused how this even
happens. It's like I would assume that

305
00:22:26.119 --> 00:22:29.119
she would be paying for the funeral. These things don't come for free.

306
00:22:29.359 --> 00:22:32.599
And just another thing we talked about
earlier, which I don't know at the

307
00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:36.559
time what was standard, But the
funeral home saying that she wasn't allowed to

308
00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:41.240
take photos of the body doesn't seem
a little strange because you're paying for these

309
00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:45.079
services, so why would you not
be able to take photos of your child?

310
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.119
Oh yeah, like that's standard practice. Like why didn't they going to

311
00:22:48.160 --> 00:22:52.680
step in and say you can't take
photos of your deceased loved one? Like

312
00:22:52.720 --> 00:22:56.279
why did they have the right to
say that? So it's just another red

313
00:22:56.279 --> 00:23:03.279
flag showing that they're just trying to
cover something up. When Marlas contacted the

314
00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:07.680
Worthington Police Department, she was told
there was nothing they could do, so

315
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:11.519
this compelled her to start doing her
own investigative work. Even though the cemetery

316
00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:15.960
did not have any records for Mary
Agnes, Marlus paid a visit to Benson

317
00:23:17.079 --> 00:23:21.880
Funeral Home and she did find a
record there which listed Mary Agnes Gross's burial

318
00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:26.039
as taking place at four pm on
June thirteenth, nineteen sixty two. However,

319
00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:32.640
there was no actual burial permit on
file or any documentation about who actually

320
00:23:32.680 --> 00:23:37.240
paid for the burial and Mary Agnes's
casket. When Marlas checked records from Worthington

321
00:23:37.319 --> 00:23:44.880
Regional Hospital, she uncovered some unsettling
discrepancies. Mary Agnes's birth certificate listed her

322
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.319
time of birth at six twenty three
pm, and her death certificate listed the

323
00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:52.960
time of death at six thirty pm, even though Marlus requilled her pediatrician,

324
00:23:53.039 --> 00:23:57.000
doctor John Stamm, telling her that
the baby lift for an hour after being

325
00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:03.119
born. Furthermore, the certificate contained
a handwritten note from doctor Stam stating that

326
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:07.440
Mary Agnes died at six to twenty
pm, three minutes before the time of

327
00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:12.240
her birth. The death certificate also
stated that Mary Agnes died of anoxia,

328
00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:17.559
which is the absence of oxygen,
and it was signed by doctor John Stam

329
00:24:17.559 --> 00:24:22.799
on June fourteenth, two days after
her death. While some hospital records showed

330
00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:26.039
that Mary Agnes never even got a
chance to take a breath after she was

331
00:24:26.079 --> 00:24:30.839
born, other records also showed that
fl Shade, the doctor who delivered her,

332
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:34.000
gave her an Apgar score of four
out of ten. In case you're

333
00:24:34.039 --> 00:24:38.519
not aware of what that is,
Apgar is an acronym for appearance, pulse,

334
00:24:38.599 --> 00:24:42.920
grimace, activity, and respiration.
Whenever a baby is born, a

335
00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:47.400
doctor will give them a rating in
each of these five categories on a scale

336
00:24:47.400 --> 00:24:51.440
of zero to two. Well,
doctor Shade gave Mary Agnes a zero and

337
00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:53.839
three of the categories. He gave
her a rating of two for her skin

338
00:24:53.880 --> 00:24:57.359
color and heart rate, even though
it's common for newborns to have a pale

339
00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:02.640
skin color and a week or absent
heartbeat and that they're unable to breathe.

340
00:25:03.240 --> 00:25:07.400
By the time these discoveries were made, doctor Shade had already passed away,

341
00:25:07.640 --> 00:25:11.880
and doctor Stam claimed that since so
much time had passed, he had very

342
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:15.000
little recollection of these events, but
he did say. All I can tell

343
00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:18.799
you is that I worked with honest
guys. If I certified a baby was

344
00:25:18.839 --> 00:25:23.720
dead, that would be on my
honor. The times alone really bothered me.

345
00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:30.319
You have someone writing in handwriting that
the baby was dead three minutes before

346
00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:33.880
the birth was even recorded at six
twenty three, right, So they're saying

347
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:37.960
she was dead at six twenty.
Yet she remembers seeing her baby move.

348
00:25:38.359 --> 00:25:42.240
She also remembers being told that the
baby died an hour after her birth.

349
00:25:42.519 --> 00:25:47.599
And yet even when you look at
the death certificate that her death says that

350
00:25:47.640 --> 00:25:52.480
she died at six thirty, So
not a single fact lines up. And

351
00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:56.440
then you add the Apgar scores and
things like that, where they don't indicate

352
00:25:56.480 --> 00:26:00.440
a deceased child, right or somebody
who's on the verge of death. So

353
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:06.920
I'm very confused as to how they
could document these things in such a sloppy

354
00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:10.039
manner and expect no one to look
into it and say, like, what

355
00:26:10.279 --> 00:26:14.839
happened the doctor saying, listen,
everyone was honest. I'm honest, So

356
00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:18.839
if I wrote that, it must
have been that way, you can't make

357
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:22.480
sense of the facts. You guys
just told me. They probably figured no

358
00:26:22.519 --> 00:26:26.160
one would ever look into this.
They figured that Marlist would probably just accept

359
00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:29.279
that her baby died and moved on
and never dreamed that she would look at

360
00:26:29.319 --> 00:26:33.160
the records thirty years after the fact. But even if there wasn't an intentional

361
00:26:33.160 --> 00:26:36.359
cover up going on, that really
doesn't bode well for the hospital because this

362
00:26:36.440 --> 00:26:40.680
is very sloppy record keeping. The
fact that they would have all these conflicting

363
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:45.000
times of death un lists Mary Agnes's
death before the time of her actual birth,

364
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.440
so it really is not a good
sign. And I can understand why

365
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:52.000
they would suspect that something shady was
going on. I mean, after all,

366
00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:55.359
one of the doctors was named doctor
Shade, so that didn't make sense.

367
00:26:56.640 --> 00:26:59.839
Yeah, it just seems so strange. Maybe they thought that she was

368
00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:03.599
this single mother without any resources and
she wouldn't continue to look into it,

369
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:07.240
and if she did, they would
be able to discredit her as being like

370
00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:11.680
a quote hysterical woman, because that
was a common diagnosis at the time.

371
00:27:12.119 --> 00:27:15.559
And I think they probably just thought, Okay, she'll just move on with

372
00:27:15.559 --> 00:27:21.359
her life. And I just keep
going back to that like three minutes before

373
00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:26.279
she was born, and then doctors
Shade like doing the most being like if

374
00:27:26.319 --> 00:27:30.400
I did if I certified a baby's
deceased, it's on my honor. So

375
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:33.359
I feel like he's trying to like
walk it back and make it look like

376
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:37.640
he's this really honorable guy. And
I'm not saying that he wasn't a good

377
00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:41.720
doctor, but it certainly appears that
the mistakes were made by doctor Shade and

378
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.079
doctor stam Well. Believe it or
not, it turned out that in an

379
00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:49.440
addition to Mary Agnes, two other
female infants were born at Worthington Regional Hospital

380
00:27:49.480 --> 00:27:53.519
on June the twelfth, nineteen sixty
two, and wound up passing away shortly

381
00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:57.519
thereafter. One of the babies was
named Julie, who belonged to a couple

382
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:02.920
named Charles and Betty Hurrah. But
unlike Marlus, they claimed that the hospital

383
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:06.759
let them spend a decent amount of
time with their child's body following your death,

384
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:11.119
and they were allowed to take photographs
of Julie inside her casket and the

385
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:15.960
other deceased infants well. She happened
to be Pamela Ray Dickey, the same

386
00:28:15.039 --> 00:28:19.839
name on the headstone above Mary Agnes's
burial plot. Marla's managed to get in

387
00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:23.839
touch with Pamela Ray's mother, Margaret
Dickey, who confirmed that she gave birth

388
00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:27.680
to her daughter a few hours before
Mary Agnes was born, but lost the

389
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:33.519
child the following morning due to lung
failure. Margaret described Pamela Ray as having

390
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:37.440
fuzzy, light colored hair, and
she seemed to match the description of the

391
00:28:37.519 --> 00:28:41.359
child that Marlus's friend Judy Vogis,
had seen in Mary Agnes's casket at the

392
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:47.160
funeral home. I am floord.
I am going back to that family who

393
00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:51.680
is basically having their own funeral for
their baby, the Dickey family, while

394
00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:55.599
Marlas and everybody else is going,
Okay, we thought this was for Mary

395
00:28:55.640 --> 00:28:59.559
Agnes. But when you look at
this, there were three deaths in that

396
00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:03.880
hospital all that night, which is
also very odd, supposedly three deaths.

397
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:08.359
You know, infant mortality rates they've
gone down significantly, but I can't imagine

398
00:29:08.599 --> 00:29:11.960
three babies born at the same hospital
dying that night, Like I wonder,

399
00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:17.039
that seems incredibly high. Yeah,
I mean, I know that the death

400
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:22.160
of Julie Harrid and Pamela Ray Dickie
do seem legitimate, but the idea that

401
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.640
three of them could all die in
the same day in a fairly small town

402
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:29.960
Worthington, Minnesota. Like this isn't
a large, busy metropolitan hospital, Like

403
00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:33.119
why are the odds that like three
children would die on the same night.

404
00:29:33.160 --> 00:29:36.960
It really doesn't paint the hospital on
a flattering light that you could have such

405
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:41.119
a high infant mortality rate. And
from a statistical point of view, if

406
00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:45.319
you were going to steal a baby
from somebody and pass it off as the

407
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:48.799
baby was either still born or died
an hour after they were born, it

408
00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:52.400
just seems like an odd night to
choose it if you have two other deaths,

409
00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:56.519
because you think if there was any
kind of investigation into it, it

410
00:29:56.559 --> 00:30:02.079
would look really bad on the hospital
staff for sure. And what's what's crazy

411
00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:04.920
is it? Like originally I didn't
know that the poor Dickey family was having

412
00:30:04.920 --> 00:30:08.920
a legitimate funeral for their baby who
is deceased. Like they're really showing up,

413
00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.480
but it sounds like at the at
the at the funeral home, they're

414
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:18.920
showing Pamela's body to them as if
it is Mary agnes Is and they're saying

415
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:22.279
like basically, we're you know,
there's there's two funerals we're gonna have.

416
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:26.799
We're gonna convince two families that this
one baby is who we're bearing for both

417
00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:30.960
families. It's it's disgusting. So
I'm not sure like where all of this

418
00:30:32.160 --> 00:30:36.160
starts and goes wrong, but it
sounds like throughout the process there's multiple people

419
00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:41.240
who are creating this narrative for this
family. I wonder if they double dipped,

420
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:45.839
like the funeral home, if they
made both families pay for the casket

421
00:30:45.880 --> 00:30:48.440
and both families pay for the funeral. Yeah, it sounds like the funeral

422
00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:52.400
home was kind of shady in its
own So it feels like if there's a

423
00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.759
conspiracy here, that the hospital and
the funeral home had to be in on

424
00:30:55.839 --> 00:31:00.799
it. But here's where things get
really strange. Remember how Marlas's mother,

425
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:04.440
Clara, claimed that she saw an
emotional family she didn't recognize that Mary Agnes's

426
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:08.799
grave site when she was laid to
rest. While even though Margaret Dickey was

427
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:14.279
not well enough to leave the hospital
to attend Pamela Ray's funeral, she confirmed

428
00:31:14.279 --> 00:31:18.359
that her husband, father, and
four other daughters were at Saint Mary's cemetery

429
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:22.680
that day in order to burry Pamela
Ray in the grave. Furthermore, when

430
00:31:22.720 --> 00:31:26.680
Marla showed Margaret the photograph Clara had
taken of what she believed was Mary Agnes's

431
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:32.680
casket. Margaret recognized it and confirmed
that her husband had bought that casket for

432
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:36.480
Pamela Ray's burial. So yes,
on the surface, it seemed like,

433
00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:41.240
without even realizing it, both Clara
and the Dickey family had simultaneously attended the

434
00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:47.279
exact same burial and were each under
the impression that they were watching their own

435
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:52.359
child get laid to rest. If
things weren't confusing enough, when Marlas looked

436
00:31:52.359 --> 00:31:56.599
at Pamela Ray's funeral records, she
found a card which stated that a nurse

437
00:31:56.640 --> 00:32:01.519
from Worthington Regional Hospital had called them
with information about pamela raised death. However,

438
00:32:01.640 --> 00:32:07.519
Marlos also noticed that Mary Agnes's last
name Gross had inexplicably been handwritten in

439
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:13.400
the brackets in the card's upper right
hand corner. Unbelievable, So like someone

440
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:16.039
had scribbled, hey, don't forget, like this is Mary Agnes Gross as

441
00:32:16.079 --> 00:32:20.039
well, and it's like, why
would they be putting that name on a

442
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:24.000
Pamela Ray's card. Mason looked like
a conspiracy, doesn't it? It does,

443
00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:29.480
yeah, exactly, So Marlos asked
Margaret Dickey if she would be willing

444
00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:34.079
to exhume Pamela Rai's burial plot,
but she declined. However, Margaret did

445
00:32:34.119 --> 00:32:38.000
say that she would consent to Marlos
excavating the ground beneath Mary Agnes's headstone a

446
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:44.400
few feet away as long as Pamela
raised Gray wasn't disturbed. Marlos hired an

447
00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:49.480
attorney and spent nearly two years in
core petitioning for Mary Agnes's gravesite to be

448
00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:53.519
dug up before she was finally granted
permission in November of nineteen ninety six.

449
00:32:53.839 --> 00:32:59.640
The round beneath Mary Agnes's headstone was
excavated and some bone fragments making up nearly

450
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:02.559
fifty percent of a skeleton for an
infant girl, were found. Before they

451
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:07.119
were exhumed. Some woodchips were also
found, along with the apparent outline of

452
00:33:07.160 --> 00:33:13.200
a disintegrated tiny casket in the clay. DNA testing was performed on one of

453
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.680
the leg bones and compared with the
sample of Marlus's blood. The results show

454
00:33:16.759 --> 00:33:22.759
no genetic connection between them, conclusively
establishing that the remains of the deceased child

455
00:33:22.000 --> 00:33:27.480
did not belong to Mary Agnes.
Dear God, So there's a third baby

456
00:33:27.599 --> 00:33:31.240
who's kind of caught up in this
mix somebody had a deceased child who was

457
00:33:31.319 --> 00:33:37.240
buried in this kind of makeshift casket
here, but it's not Mary Agnes and

458
00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:44.440
clearly Pamela's and her little casket right
next to this makeshift grave site exactly.

459
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:46.559
And that's the weirdest part of this
story is that even if there was no

460
00:33:46.640 --> 00:33:51.599
conspiracy involved and this was just like
a clerical era, a tragic mix up,

461
00:33:51.880 --> 00:33:54.000
who to the remains of that child
belonged to? Because it's not Mary

462
00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:58.240
Agnes and it's not Pamela Ray,
do we know who else? Well?

463
00:33:58.400 --> 00:34:00.960
Like, how many other births were
there that night? Like can trace down

464
00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:06.359
the other families who also delivered at
that hospital that evening? Well there was

465
00:34:06.400 --> 00:34:08.159
the other one, the hair Rides, who gave birth to a child named

466
00:34:08.199 --> 00:34:13.679
Julie who died as well shortly after
birth. But I think you were able

467
00:34:13.679 --> 00:34:16.159
to track down where she was buried
and confirmed that that child was not her.

468
00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:23.480
Margaret Dickey also consented DNA testing,
which revealed no genetic connection between her

469
00:34:23.559 --> 00:34:28.639
and the remains, ruling out the
possibility that they belonged to Pamela Ray.

470
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:34.159
So who could this unidentified child have
been? Well, that particular section of

471
00:34:34.199 --> 00:34:38.639
Saint Mary's cemetery was known as Babyland
because a number of deceased infants were buried

472
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:45.360
there. During her visits to Mary
Agnes's grave during the nineteen sixties, Marlas

473
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:49.599
did remember seeing some headstones in that
section, which were no longer around by

474
00:34:49.599 --> 00:34:53.519
the time the grave site was exhumed
in nineteen ninety six. According to the

475
00:34:53.559 --> 00:34:59.960
cemetery caretaker, since records for Babyland
were incomplete, the remains could have belonged

476
00:35:00.039 --> 00:35:05.000
to an unidentified child who was buried
at that spot long before Mary Agnes died.

477
00:35:05.639 --> 00:35:09.199
In spite of these new revelations,
Margaret would still not consent to exhuming

478
00:35:09.239 --> 00:35:15.159
Pamela Ray's gravesite, stating she's laid
there for thirty four years without being disturbed

479
00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:17.400
and she's not going to be now. I don't blame her. I mean,

480
00:35:17.440 --> 00:35:21.880
as a as a mom, that's
all you can do when you're a

481
00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:24.199
child passes away, is like,
I want them safe, I want to

482
00:35:24.239 --> 00:35:27.960
know where they're buried. I want
to make sure that I did everything I

483
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:31.840
could to like create the most peaceful
environment for her after her death. And

484
00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:37.559
so, I mean, that would
be a very difficult decision of saying okay,

485
00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:42.159
do I emotionally go through to help
this other family or do I keep

486
00:35:42.679 --> 00:35:46.719
my family and myself at peace.
I mean, I can't fault her there

487
00:35:46.719 --> 00:35:52.039
by saying no, not now,
we're not going to disturb our child's burial

488
00:35:52.079 --> 00:35:57.440
spot. It's easy to judge,
I think, unless you're in that situation

489
00:35:57.519 --> 00:35:59.679
and be like, well, why
wouldn't you just help those people out?

490
00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:01.840
But I agree with you, Ash, I think in a situation like that,

491
00:36:01.880 --> 00:36:07.440
you can't judge the Dickey family because
it's so much trauma and to lose

492
00:36:07.480 --> 00:36:12.880
a child. But then your only
resolution is they're late in their final resting

493
00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:15.960
place, never to be disturbed.
So the idea of having to disturb that

494
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:22.280
body that's at rest is just so
disruptive to their healing and to their journey.

495
00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:28.000
So I can understand where they were
coming from. I mean, from

496
00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:30.599
Marlst's perspective, I'm sure she's thinking
like, why won't you just do this

497
00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:36.280
and help me out? And please
just let me know definitively if this is

498
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:40.000
Mary Agnes. But I can understand
how both sides will feel a certain type

499
00:36:40.039 --> 00:36:45.280
of way. This was a terrible
trauma as well for the Dickey family,

500
00:36:45.320 --> 00:36:47.719
and here there are thirty four years
after losing their child, being told that,

501
00:36:49.079 --> 00:36:51.760
hey, you have a mystery going
around associated with you, and there

502
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:54.320
might be the wrong child buried in
your grave. And can you imagine though,

503
00:36:54.360 --> 00:36:58.440
if they did zoom Pamela Ray and
they found out that the remains did

504
00:36:58.519 --> 00:37:01.679
not belong to her, and now
they had no idea where Pamela Ray was,

505
00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:06.039
that would be like huge trauma for
them to like not know. So

506
00:37:06.320 --> 00:37:08.559
maybe they're just feeling that if we
found out that Pamela Ray was not in

507
00:37:08.599 --> 00:37:12.159
that grave, then the shock would
like we kill us. Yeah, I

508
00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:15.079
mean, and I think you have
to give them grace and say, I

509
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:16.400
mean, like the older I get, I've always been the person that's like,

510
00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:19.320
yes, yes, if I can
help you, yes, or if

511
00:37:19.360 --> 00:37:22.000
I can take on your pain or
if I can help you heal, yes,

512
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:24.559
But the older you get, or
like the more trauma you go through,

513
00:37:24.599 --> 00:37:30.800
it's like to preserve my family and
my health and my kind of mental

514
00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:34.760
space, Like sometimes I have to
say no, and I have to say

515
00:37:34.400 --> 00:37:39.199
my health and my mental stress,
my grief is more important because it's what

516
00:37:39.519 --> 00:37:44.920
saves me or what provides for my
family. So like I can't give all

517
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:47.679
of me to everyone who needs me
to do that. If that makes any

518
00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:52.239
sense, well, there's nothing left
of you. If you keep giving to

519
00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:55.519
everybody else, you have enough people
in your life who you have to consider

520
00:37:55.559 --> 00:37:59.519
and who you have to give your
love to that there will be nothing of

521
00:37:59.559 --> 00:38:04.079
Ashley left. And I think probably
the Dickey family felt the same way,

522
00:38:04.159 --> 00:38:09.039
because I can't even imagine what it
would feel like when you've basically you're at

523
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:13.480
piece. It's thirty four years later, and I'm sure it's still something that

524
00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:15.840
they think about all the time.
But to find out that you don't know

525
00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:20.440
where your daughter is, if it
isn't her remains, that would just open

526
00:38:20.519 --> 00:38:23.239
that wound again. And people at
this point had moved on with their lives,

527
00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:29.039
so I can completely understand why they
just said hard, stop no.

528
00:38:30.559 --> 00:38:36.519
Marla suspected that after Mary Agnes was
born, individuals from Worthington Regional Hospital conspired

529
00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:39.400
to orchestrate some sort of cover up
in order to take her child away and

530
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:45.320
take her debt. Marlas's theory was
that the responsible parties were involved in some

531
00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:50.840
sort of black market baby selling operation
and illegally adopted Mary Agnes out to another

532
00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:54.679
family, likely the same family featured
in the photograph, which was anonymously mailed

533
00:38:54.679 --> 00:39:00.360
to her months later. In April
of nineteen ninety eight, Marla's year on

534
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:04.440
an episode of Unsaw Mysteries in order
to share a story, hoping that Mary

535
00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:07.840
Agnes might still be alive out there
somewhere, completely unaware that she was living

536
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:13.679
under a false identity. But unfortunately, the segment never led to any conclusive

537
00:39:13.719 --> 00:39:17.280
answers, and Marlus would pass away
in August of twenty twelve at the age

538
00:39:17.320 --> 00:39:22.360
of seventy. If Mary Agnes Gross
is still alive at the time of this

539
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:25.440
recording, she would only be a
few months away from turning sixty one years

540
00:39:25.440 --> 00:39:30.960
old. However, the exact circumstances
of what actually happened to her remain unknown.

541
00:39:31.559 --> 00:39:36.320
So I guess you could say the
path went chilly, you know.

542
00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:39.719
I would normally say, yeah,
the path is cold. But what's so

543
00:39:39.880 --> 00:39:45.159
fascinating is that in this case,
there's zero way from Mary Agnes Gross to

544
00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:49.800
know that anything was out of the
ordinary. If she was taken from the

545
00:39:49.800 --> 00:39:52.000
hospital the day she was born,
and she was given to a new family,

546
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:57.360
or she was raised by a different
family, she would never have any

547
00:39:57.400 --> 00:40:00.519
reason to think anything had happened to
her. Even if eventually they talked about

548
00:40:00.679 --> 00:40:05.039
you were adopted, we were blessed
to get you on when you were born,

549
00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:09.920
There's just no way for her to
know except now in twenty twenty three,

550
00:40:10.039 --> 00:40:15.079
just like you just talked about the
other Mary Agnes Robin, that her

551
00:40:15.159 --> 00:40:20.000
case was solved, Like we know
this missing baby was living this full life

552
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:25.079
under this other identity DNA, and
these genealogy websites would be one way that

553
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:30.840
Mary Agnes one day could go wait, who am I? But again,

554
00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:36.199
imagine the trauma that would come with
that, Like, imagine what would happen

555
00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:39.039
when you were raised your whole life
not knowing what happened, and all of

556
00:40:39.039 --> 00:40:43.280
a sudden being sixty some odd years
old and saying, wait, I did

557
00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:45.800
this fun genealogy thing, and all
of a sudden, I'm not related to

558
00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:51.679
anyone. This is not the story
that I was told. And what's wild,

559
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:54.039
guys, is that the family who
would have taken her in may have

560
00:40:54.159 --> 00:40:59.760
zero concept either that anything shady had
happened. They could have been going through

561
00:40:59.800 --> 00:41:06.559
an adoption agency that was, um, you know, a depraved organization who

562
00:41:06.559 --> 00:41:08.880
said, listen, we're gonna get
our children anyway we can we get the

563
00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:13.559
money. I don't care who it
hurts. So a family that raised her

564
00:41:13.639 --> 00:41:17.039
as a happy, healthy child may
have had zero concept that anything had gone

565
00:41:17.039 --> 00:41:23.719
wrong either. So do you guys
think that this is like an organized potentially

566
00:41:23.719 --> 00:41:29.719
an organized adoption ring where they're taking
money from people, or do you think

567
00:41:29.760 --> 00:41:32.679
that it's more like what is the
name of this hospital again, the Worthington

568
00:41:32.719 --> 00:41:40.480
Hospital, Worthington Regional Hospital, right, or this one? Okay, I

569
00:41:40.559 --> 00:41:44.840
thought you were bringing to the one
that Ashley mentioned from before. Yeah,

570
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:47.239
this this hospital, Worthington Hospital.
I mean, I don't know about the

571
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:51.840
types of people that worked there,
but I'm just wondering if it's possible that

572
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:54.199
it could be like the mother and
baby homes where it might not be as

573
00:41:54.840 --> 00:42:00.079
as organized in that they're taking money
from the individuals kind of setting up these

574
00:42:00.079 --> 00:42:06.000
situations, or that it could be
like what Ashley had said earlier on where

575
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:08.400
a family loses a child and they're
like, hey, you know, we've

576
00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:13.880
got a solution for you type of
a thing where it's like there's no money

577
00:42:13.960 --> 00:42:19.280
is exchanging hands, but they feel
like they're making the morally correct decision to

578
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.639
put a baby into like a two
parent household. That would make sense to

579
00:42:22.679 --> 00:42:25.800
me because you when you think about
how many people would have to be involved

580
00:42:25.800 --> 00:42:29.960
in something like this, there wouldn't
be much money in it for them because

581
00:42:29.960 --> 00:42:31.679
even if they were paid, would
have to be split up with a bunch

582
00:42:31.679 --> 00:42:36.000
of different people. But if it's
like a bunch of individuals who think we're

583
00:42:36.039 --> 00:42:38.000
doing the morally right thing, then
they'd be willing to do it without any

584
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.960
compensation. Or what about the idea
that perhaps a nurse or a doctor there

585
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:46.159
wanted a child and they couldn't have
a child, and so they decided,

586
00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:50.960
hey, this is my chance,
Like this is a unwed mother, this

587
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:54.639
is someone who doesn't quote deserve to
raise a baby, and I want one.

588
00:42:55.639 --> 00:43:00.280
That would make sense, and that
would also explain if that photo draft

589
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:04.440
that Marlos received was legitimate of the
family with the baby, that it would

590
00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:07.440
have to be someone who had inside
knowledge, and that would make sense if

591
00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:09.639
it was like another family where it
was a nurse or a hospital employee,

592
00:43:09.639 --> 00:43:13.480
you couldn't have a child, and
that's how they were able to obtain a

593
00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:16.199
photograph of them. And given the
time period too, I don't think it

594
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:21.880
would be too difficult to get your
colleagues to help cover that up, because

595
00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:25.480
the baby would be going to like
a quote loving home with two parents who

596
00:43:25.480 --> 00:43:30.880
could provide for the baby. So
I have to admit that, even though

597
00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:35.880
I pretty much consider myself to be
an Unsolved Mysteries encyclopedia, this is one

598
00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:39.280
case which took me completely off guard
when it was uploaded onto the show's official

599
00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:44.920
film right channel on Amazon Prime several
years ago. I just figured it was

600
00:43:44.920 --> 00:43:49.320
going to be your standard lost love
story about a mother trying to reunite with

601
00:43:49.360 --> 00:43:52.719
a child who was separated from her
a long time ago. But I didn't

602
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:55.519
expect this to become such a bizarre, intriguing mystery. I mean, the

603
00:43:55.559 --> 00:43:59.760
whole thing could very well be the
result of a colossal screw up, and

604
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:04.800
Mary Agnes's remains might still be buried
somewhere in Saint Mary's Cemetery in an unmarked

605
00:44:04.840 --> 00:44:08.079
spot. But it's also possible that
there was some sort of conspiracy to take

606
00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:13.360
Mary Agnes from her birth mother and
illegally adopt her out to another family.

607
00:44:14.119 --> 00:44:17.119
A good chunk of the Lost Love's
cases featured on Unsolved Mysteries wound up being

608
00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:22.519
solved, but I think this one
was at a tremendous disadvantage because there were

609
00:44:22.559 --> 00:44:28.199
no photographs available of Mary Agnes.
On numerous occasions, these cases got solved

610
00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:31.639
because the right person just happened to
be watching the Unsolved Mystery segment on television

611
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:36.719
and were shocked to see an old
photograph of someone they recognized on screen.

612
00:44:37.239 --> 00:44:42.280
Sometimes it was even the person in
the photo recognizing themselves, but that just

613
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:46.360
wasn't an option in this particular case, because Mary Agnes's family was specifically forbid

614
00:44:46.519 --> 00:44:52.159
from taking pictures of her body after
she died. The keen in this mystery

615
00:44:52.199 --> 00:44:55.800
probably would have been the photo without
Marlous received of the unidentified family holding the

616
00:44:55.840 --> 00:45:00.599
baby resembling Mary Agnes, but unfortunately
she lost it a long time ago.

617
00:45:01.400 --> 00:45:06.719
While the show did produce a reenactment
to Marlo's receiving the photo, the picture

618
00:45:06.760 --> 00:45:09.440
they used during the filming of the
scene was not the real one. I

619
00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:14.639
can't help but think that if the
family portrait had been displayed on national television,

620
00:45:15.039 --> 00:45:19.599
somebody might recognize them. You might
be wondering how Marlos could lose something

621
00:45:19.599 --> 00:45:23.639
so potentially important That in the years
following Mary Agis's death, she got remarried

622
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:28.840
and had three more kids and moved
around quite a lot as she spent time

623
00:45:28.840 --> 00:45:32.360
living in Washington, California, and
South Dakota. So I can see how

624
00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:37.199
that photo might go missing during one
of those moves. Well, poor Marlas.

625
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:42.239
Poor Marlas. If she's anything like
me, I put quote important things

626
00:45:42.280 --> 00:45:47.519
in quote special places and then I
can never ever remember where they are,

627
00:45:47.599 --> 00:45:52.639
and so I feel empathy for her
there because it's like I have had certain

628
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:55.679
things and I'm like, oh my
god, I will never lose this,

629
00:45:57.079 --> 00:46:00.440
and then I can't, for the
life of me find it. I mean,

630
00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:01.719
it's simple to do. It is
one of those things where like it's

631
00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:05.480
so critical, how could she lose
it? Well, the same way,

632
00:46:05.559 --> 00:46:07.280
I have never been able to find
a Social Security card in my life,

633
00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:13.000
for birth certificates or anything else because
I never remember where my special hiding places

634
00:46:13.039 --> 00:46:19.039
are. I hid a very expensive
pair of diamond earrings somewhere for safekeeping,

635
00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:22.320
and luckily my husband doesn't listen to
this, so he's not gonna find out.

636
00:46:22.800 --> 00:46:27.039
But I don't know where the life
of me where they are. I

637
00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:30.320
like torn everywhere apart, and I
know that I put them somewhere because I

638
00:46:30.320 --> 00:46:35.800
thought it would be quote safe so
I can definitely relate to Marla's there and

639
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:39.320
you ash because I put things in
places where it seems like such a good

640
00:46:39.360 --> 00:46:43.239
idea at the time, but I
can never remember where I've hidden it.

641
00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:46.079
So our next podcast episode is going
to be about the missing diamond earrings,

642
00:46:46.159 --> 00:46:50.679
right, Yeah, information out there
and maybe solve this guy. I want

643
00:46:50.679 --> 00:46:53.079
her husband where those beautiful diamonds I
got you? And she's like, not

644
00:46:53.199 --> 00:46:59.599
tonight, they're too expensive. I
don't want to lose them. I mean

645
00:46:59.639 --> 00:47:02.039
it all fairness. I really like
wearing bracelets, but like I have lots

646
00:47:02.039 --> 00:47:06.360
of necklaces and earrings, so I
never really wear I'm not a huge jewelry

647
00:47:06.400 --> 00:47:08.719
person, so they've usually sit in
a box. So luckily I can get

648
00:47:08.760 --> 00:47:16.000
away. That's right now. Unsolved
Mysteries also aired a couple of lost Love

649
00:47:16.119 --> 00:47:21.920
stories about black market operations where babies
were stolen from their parents after they were

650
00:47:21.960 --> 00:47:27.119
born and adopted out to other families
for a prophet. The most infamous example

651
00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:31.719
is probably Georgia Tan, who ran
the Tennessee Children's Home Society. She was

652
00:47:31.800 --> 00:47:37.280
believed to have stolen and adopted out
over five thousand children over the course of

653
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:42.599
twenty five years. Before she died
of cancer in nineteen fifty. The show

654
00:47:42.679 --> 00:47:46.280
also produced a segment about some newborn
children who were stolen by a nurse named

655
00:47:46.360 --> 00:47:51.880
Ethel Nation, who worked in San
Antonio, Texas during the nineteen fifties and

656
00:47:51.960 --> 00:47:55.400
sixties, and would often coerce single
mothers into giving up their babies so she

657
00:47:55.440 --> 00:48:00.239
could sell them on the black market
to couples who were unable to have children

658
00:48:00.280 --> 00:48:05.440
of their own. And even though
Robin mentioned that the aforementioned Mary Agnes Maroney

659
00:48:05.480 --> 00:48:08.719
case was recently solved, there are
still a lot of unanswered questions about her

660
00:48:08.719 --> 00:48:13.760
abduction. We do know she was
taken from her family by a woman who

661
00:48:13.800 --> 00:48:16.960
claims she was representing a social worker. It's possible she wanted a child of

662
00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:21.880
her own and decided to raise Mary
Agnes as her own daughter. But she

663
00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:25.119
also might have been involved in a
black market adoption ring and sold Mary Agnes

664
00:48:25.159 --> 00:48:30.840
to another family. Sadly, these
types of operations involving stolen children were not

665
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:37.079
uncommon during the first half of the
twentieth century. Absolutely insane, and I

666
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:39.280
do think a lot of it goes
back to that moral compass right and like

667
00:48:39.719 --> 00:48:46.000
our skewed views of race and ses
and two parent households and things like that,

668
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:50.440
because even religiosity in a way,
like if it's a Jewish family and

669
00:48:50.480 --> 00:48:52.519
they think they should be raised in
a Christian family, right, you did

670
00:48:52.639 --> 00:48:59.920
have hospitals that were making those decisions, adoption agencies that were taking children again

671
00:49:00.320 --> 00:49:05.400
family's wills or conning people into giving
up their children. It is devastating.

672
00:49:05.559 --> 00:49:08.239
One of the most horrific things I
think you could do to somebody. And

673
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:12.639
I'd sort of throw in a wrestling
tie in. But Ric Flair, the

674
00:49:12.719 --> 00:49:16.480
very famous professional wrestler, is also
a Georgia tan baby because she had him

675
00:49:16.519 --> 00:49:21.719
taken from his biological mother and adopted
him out to a rich, well off

676
00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:24.920
family who had no idea that she
was running this illegal operation. She thought

677
00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:29.599
it was legit. So Rick Flair
grew up in this nice family, found

678
00:49:29.599 --> 00:49:31.519
out years later that he'd been stolen
from his birth mother, and to this

679
00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:36.440
day he's never reunited with her.
So it can happen anyone, are you

680
00:49:36.639 --> 00:49:40.679
so good? Yeah, So it's
like pretty crazy that like someone who was

681
00:49:40.719 --> 00:49:44.400
one of these children who was stolen
from his birth mother grew up to be

682
00:49:44.440 --> 00:49:47.920
one of the most famous professional wrestlers
of all time. Wow, I had

683
00:49:49.039 --> 00:49:52.800
no idea, no me neither.
And one of the things that's really sad

684
00:49:52.960 --> 00:49:55.800
is that this is such a difficult
topic to talk about because adoption was also

685
00:49:55.840 --> 00:50:00.880
one of those things that was kind
of taboo back then, like you didn't

686
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:04.599
want people to know that you couldn't
have your own child unless you were doing

687
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:07.599
it just some of the goodness of
your heart. Like families that were struggling

688
00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:10.679
with fertility. It was this kind
of very shameful thing, like why can't

689
00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:15.280
we have a baby? We want
a baby so badly, And so adoption

690
00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:19.599
wasn't talked about a lot. You
didn't have parents really celebrating with children in

691
00:50:19.639 --> 00:50:22.800
the sixties, like you're an adopted
child, like we do now right,

692
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:25.559
like I picked you, You're that
special. We didn't talk about adoption.

693
00:50:25.679 --> 00:50:30.760
That was something that was more of
a kind of hush hush thing. And

694
00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:35.159
so that complicates these issues so much
that conversations that could have been had that

695
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:38.119
probably should have been had, and
it would have created more healthy family dynamics

696
00:50:38.119 --> 00:50:45.559
and understanding. Even adoption in general
was kind of this shadowy idea back in

697
00:50:45.559 --> 00:50:49.519
the fifties and sixties. Well,
I think burying the truth was sort of

698
00:50:49.559 --> 00:50:52.480
tied to the shame of the parents, and I think particularly the shame of

699
00:50:52.480 --> 00:50:57.639
the woman, because oftentimes fertility issues, even though a lot of times it

700
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:00.920
would be because men were you know, there's sperm can wasn't high enough,

701
00:51:00.039 --> 00:51:04.239
the woman would be blamed. The
woman would be blamed by you know,

702
00:51:04.320 --> 00:51:07.719
their in laws as well and society
as a whole. So to be able

703
00:51:07.760 --> 00:51:13.480
to have an open conversation like today, that people can talk about their infertility

704
00:51:13.519 --> 00:51:16.119
issues, as difficult as it still
is, that just wasn't the case then.

705
00:51:16.239 --> 00:51:20.400
So I totally agree with you Ash. I think that people in those

706
00:51:20.400 --> 00:51:22.159
situations would often just be like,
yeah, we had a baby, and

707
00:51:22.199 --> 00:51:25.639
then people would be like, kind
of don't ask, don't tell any questions

708
00:51:25.639 --> 00:51:30.000
about it, and then they bury
the truth and they don't tell that child

709
00:51:30.119 --> 00:51:36.760
ever any of the circumstances because they
then feel shameful about their situation and how

710
00:51:36.760 --> 00:51:40.400
they were unable to conceive on their
own. And then by the time they've

711
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:44.440
waited too long, they feel like, hey, it's been X amount of

712
00:51:44.519 --> 00:51:47.639
years. My mom, like her
mom, basically had lied to her about

713
00:51:47.639 --> 00:51:52.320
who her father was until my mom
was forty years old. She found out

714
00:51:52.360 --> 00:51:55.360
who she thought was her father was
not her father, and he was an

715
00:51:55.400 --> 00:52:00.360
awful, awful man, let me
tell you. So she was happy to

716
00:52:00.400 --> 00:52:02.880
find out that he wasn't her biological
father, but it was because of my

717
00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:08.199
nana's shame, the shame that she
had sex at a time when she wasn't

718
00:52:08.239 --> 00:52:13.559
married, and that was a huge
thing. And so even in her years

719
00:52:13.599 --> 00:52:16.880
up to when she died, trying
to get accurate information out of her about

720
00:52:16.960 --> 00:52:22.960
that and about who her birth father
was was nearly impossible because her shame superseded

721
00:52:23.159 --> 00:52:29.599
my mom's need at her right to
know about her birth father, even just

722
00:52:29.880 --> 00:52:34.000
for health or genetic reasons. So
that's something that my mom is still grappling

723
00:52:34.039 --> 00:52:37.960
with today. So I can understand
from that perspective what these families went through

724
00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:42.719
and why they kept it a secret, and why we're so much luckier now

725
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:45.800
that these things were being talked about
more openly. Oh yeah, that type

726
00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:50.599
of scenario was the basis of so
many lost love segments and unsolved mysteries.

727
00:52:50.599 --> 00:52:53.480
People finding out, like a lot
of adults finding out when they got older

728
00:52:53.519 --> 00:52:57.480
that the person they thought was their
parents was not actually their parents. So

729
00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:00.679
they were trying to track them down
so, but these stories we're just so

730
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:05.519
common way back in the first half
of the twentieth century. So I think

731
00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:07.440
that about brings an end to Part
one. Join us next week as we

732
00:53:07.519 --> 00:53:13.440
present part two of our series on
the disappearance of Mary Agnus Gross Robin,

733
00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:15.119
do you want to tell us a
little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?

734
00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:19.840
Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has
been around for three years now,

735
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:24.000
and we offer the standard bonus features
like early ad free episodes, and I

736
00:53:24.039 --> 00:53:29.519
also send out stickers and sign thank
you cards to anyone who signs up with

737
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:32.760
us on Patreon. If you join
our five dollar tier Tier two, we

738
00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:38.199
also offer monthly bonus episodes in which
I talk about cases which are not featured

739
00:53:38.239 --> 00:53:43.039
on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon, and

740
00:53:43.079 --> 00:53:46.000
if you join our highest tier tier
three, the ten dollars tier. One

741
00:53:46.039 --> 00:53:52.280
of the features we offer is a
audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD

742
00:53:52.320 --> 00:53:55.719
Mysteries, where you can download an
audio file and then boot up the original

743
00:53:55.760 --> 00:54:01.320
UNSAWD Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
YouTube and play it with my audio commentary

744
00:54:01.360 --> 00:54:06.400
playing in the background, where I
just provide trivia and factoids about the cases

745
00:54:06.440 --> 00:54:09.599
featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that I did

746
00:54:09.599 --> 00:54:14.880
a commentary track over was the episode
featuring this case. So if you want

747
00:54:14.920 --> 00:54:19.400
to download a commentary track in which
I make more smartass remarks about Jewel Kaylor

748
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:22.760
than be sure to join Tier three. So I want to let you know

749
00:54:22.840 --> 00:54:25.480
a little bit about the Jewels and
Ashley Patreons. So there's early ad free

750
00:54:25.519 --> 00:54:30.400
episodes of The Path Went Chili.
We've brought our Path Went Chili minis,

751
00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:32.639
which are always over an hour,
so they're not very mini, but they're

752
00:54:32.639 --> 00:54:37.320
just too short to turn into a
series, and we're really enjoying doing those,

753
00:54:37.360 --> 00:54:39.360
so we hope you'll check out those. Patreons will link them in the

754
00:54:39.400 --> 00:54:43.800
show notes. So I want to
thank you all for listening, and any

755
00:54:43.880 --> 00:54:46.320
chance you have to share us on
social media with a friend or to rate

756
00:54:46.360 --> 00:54:50.519
and review is greatly appreciate it.
You can email us at The Path Went

757
00:54:50.639 --> 00:54:53.320
Chili at gmail dot com. You
can reach us on Twitter at the Path

758
00:54:53.400 --> 00:54:58.239
Went. So until next time,
be sure to bundle up because cold Trails

759
00:54:58.280 --> 00:55:01.480
and Chilli pass. Call for Warm
Loathing music by Paul Rich from the podcast

760
00:55:01.559 --> 00:55:02.679
Cold Callers comedy,