Secrets in the Mist
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Hey everyone, it's Jenna Bush Hager from Today with Jenna and Friends, reminding you to check out my podcast, Open Book with Jenna. In this week's episode, I sit down with Tiffany Haddish live at the Read with Jenna Book Festival. We talked about everything from her new memoir, I Curse You with Joy, to her powerful journey growing up in foster care, learning to read as a teenager, and how she found healing through humor, books, and storytelling.

You can listen to the full conversation now by searching Open Book with Jenna, wherever you get your podcasts. Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75-year-old broadcast, it's a great responsibility. Good evening, I'm Tom Yamas. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the story. Wildfires continue to be a threat. With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For

For NBC News, I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC. A hopelessness. You know, where did she go? Who did she see? I just want to know what happened to my sister.

A young mother is missing in a case gone cold. It was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. Then detectives had an aha moment. To solve the case, they would turn to something you probably use every day, Facebook. Why don't you establish a Facebook account? I thought...

that could actually accomplish a great deal. And that's when everything started to change. Something happened to her. In court, you'll see it all come pouring out. A hidden crime and a son's heart-pounding moment. This is a horrible crime. I'm glad we know the truth. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. What were the secrets in the mist? ♪

January 2013, Point Vicente, California. The wet, gray morning cold has settled in to stay. At noon, a police boat sets off in the pea soup fog. The Hail Mary Pass, apparently, a slim chance to find the truth at last.

But why out there? Why after all those lost 30 years? Maybe some cases are destined to stay cold. Easier that way. Before they came along with their wild ideas about murder and Facebook of all things. And now this. Their doomed errand into the fog.

Her name was Carol Jean Meyer, though she was Carol Lubon when all this happened back in March 1981. The night of the slamming doors, the harsh words, the car roaring away. And it's an old story anyway. Pretty girl gets pregnant at 15, marries the guy. Pretty soon she's at 20-something with two kids and a hankering to live, really live for a change. And this particular pretty girl? She was fun. She was outgoing. She had a lot of friends.

She had these two sisters. Terry was the younger one, Gail the older. We were very close and made each other laugh all the time. But Carol Lubon wasn't laughing at the end of March 81. For one thing, she wanted to be somebody, her own somebody. I know that Carol wanted to complete school and further her career, and that's when she went back to study architecture.

Sure, her husband was a nice kid, and she loved him once with all the intensity of first love, the handsome high school football player who'd hang around on her front porch. His friends would come over. I thought that was kind of cool. All his football athlete friends. Dear Mike stepped up and married her after the baby was born.

He was a good father. He just seemed to really enjoy his kids. Enjoyed Carol's family, too, especially her dad, Milt. So Mike became kind of like his son. Milt brought young Mike into the family house painting business. We just took to him immediately. Everybody felt that way about Mike, his friends, everybody. He was always a very likable person.

Friendly, loyal, but not exactly ambitious. He didn't seem to mind at all settling down to a modest existence, them and the two kids all cramped up in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in Torrance. But Carol did mind it very much. I think she may have outgrown him somewhat. She'd had a secret affair by then, maybe more than one.

She got herself a cute little red car, an Audi Fox, ordered personalized plates, CJ's Fox. The car is long gone now, so we did this one up to look just like it. And quite often she'd get in her little car alone and go roaring off to school or to meat markets like the local Red Onion was back then.

I know she was going to the Red Onion. I never went there with her, so I don't know what she was like. She had another corner of her life that you weren't proud of. Yeah. And then that night in March, kids off to bed. Their son Mike Jr. was just a boy, 10 years old. I was in bed. I had just got a new stereo for my 10th birthday, and I was listening to the headphones. From his bed, he could see something happening out in the hallway.

I remember them getting into an argument, which was unusual. Because they just didn't. Not that I knew of. And I remember her marching past and going out the front door and slamming the door. You heard the slam. I heard the slam of the front door. I know that. And the next morning... We got up and she wasn't there.

Mike Sr. told Carol's dad that Carol had demanded he sign papers to sell their house, and he didn't want to, and she got mad, and they argued, and he went to bed, and when he woke up in the morning, she was just gone.

So we just assumed she needed to get away for a few days. But as the days went on, we got extremely worried. Nearly a week after Carol departed, her red Audi Fox showed up in the parking lot of the Red Onion, dusty as if it had been there a while. I remember being upset about it. She was gone and I didn't know where she went. They drove around, looking for her, went to bars, Carol's picture in hand.

And? Nobody had seen her. What feeling went with that? A hopelessness. You know, where did she go? Who did she see? The Torrance Police Department opened a file, but they couldn't answer any of the questions. Like, had she just finally gotten fed up with Mike and this little place and gone off to start a new life somewhere else? Or had she been in an accident or something worse? More than a week after Carol disappeared, there was still absolutely no sign of her.

And then something strange happened here at the house, something very strange. Could it be that Carol, unbeknownst to anyone, sneaked back in here when nobody else was around? Imagine what it was like back then in that little house. Mike thinking things over. On a hunch, he said he placed tape on Carol's dresser drawers, a little trap.

One day he took the kids to Universal Studios, and sure enough, when they returned, he noticed the tape was broken, and some mail on the counter was moved as well. A few weeks later, it happened again. Some of Carol's clothes went missing, along with some money from a place no burglar would know to look, under the butter dish in the refrigerator, where Mike said he and Carol kept $100 in emergency cash, and now $60 was missing. Just like Carol, said her Citra Gale.

She would have not taken all of it. That was in Carol's personality, to just be very fair. Made sense then. And then there were those mysterious phone calls. We'd get the calls on special days, her birthday, my birthday. My grandmother would get calls. And just silence on the other end. Yeah. What did you do? I would say, Carol, we love you. We hope you come back.

We felt like she was finding a happier life somewhere. And understood that to make that successful, she might have to make a complete and total break. Yeah. Almost three months after Carol vanished, the detective handling her case put it in the inactive file. In his report, he wrote, no foul play involved.

I remember thinking about her all the time, and I used to play records over and over that she liked, and just thinking, where is she? When is she coming back? Eventually, Mike started dating a 19-year-old named Carrie, brought her into the fold. We were happy that Mike was going on with life. And so they did all go on with life, and many years went by. Oh, my God.

Until the morning in a whole new millennium when a Torrance detective happened on the case of the missing young mother and somewhere in the back of his brain a little light turned on. I just had a hunch that this just didn't sound right to me.

Coming up, doubts about Carol's disappearance grow, and others also would have suspicions about what really happened. Later, they turn to a surprising source to help solve the mystery. Why don't you establish a Facebook account for Carol? Would they find the answer on Facebook?

In March of 1981, Carol Lubon, a lovely young mother of two known to be unhappy in her marriage, suddenly vanished, departed for parts unknown, leaving behind not just her husband, Mike, but her son, Mike Jr., then just 10 years old. I never felt that my mother abandoned me. I was never upset with her, ever. Really? I never thought she did. I don't know why. I just was upset she wasn't there.

I thought she would be there, show up at a graduation or something. I always thought, well, she could show up, she could show up. But she didn't. And at family gatherings as the years went by, Thanksgiving, Christmases, that awful question, why would she leave them, remained the unmentionable elephant in the room. When it came to my family, I think that

They didn't talk about it because they figured it would upset me or my sister. So they just kind of like, it was a taboo subject. They didn't really talk about her. My family's pretty closed to talking about heavy things. So something like that, rarely talked about. It was an ultimate heavy thing. Yeah. Could you see it in your mother's eyes or your father's? In my father's for sure. What would you see there? A lot of emotion, a lot of sadness. I'm going to cry thinking about it.

In 1987, almost six years after Carol vanished, the Torrance Police Department revisited the case and time seemed to have altered Mike's memory a little. A few more details would come back to him. Remember soon after Carol vanished, Mike said they argued, he went to sleep alone, woke up in the morning early and she was gone.

But in 1987, he remembered they argued, went to bed together. She got up at 5.30 in the morning to go to the bathroom. He woke up, then drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of a car engine starting and driving away. Odd, but memories do play tricks. Anyway, it didn't seem terribly significant, so the case went back into the file and got colder. Mike took over the house-painting business from Carol's dad.

and went on to marry Carrie and have two more sons. Gail and Terry raised their own families, and it was having babies that started to change Terry's way of looking at her sister's disappearance. As unhappy as you might be in your life, you might leave your husband, you would take your kids with you. And so when you began to suspect that she wouldn't leave her children, what did that mean to you? That something happened to her.

In 1996, 15 years since they'd heard from Carol, the police came around again. This time they scanned the Lubons' backyard with ground-concentrating radar, even dug up the ground. Didn't find a thing.

Funny thing though, about four months later the local paper, the Daily Breeze, did a little story, interviewed Mike and this time his memory was slightly different. He remembered that on that terrible morning when Carol left, he heard the garage door go up before she drove away. Just one more little detail, though nothing profoundly different. And of course no evidence whatsoever of any crime. Case went away again.

And then one day in 2002, a detective named Walt Delcine was rummaging through some cabinets behind his sergeant's desk. I was just being nosy. I thought, what is this? It was the Carol Lubon case folder. At that point, more than 20 years old and cold as they come. I'd never even heard of it before. And I go, this is interesting. I wonder if this lady's still missing. Of course, she was.

So again, he read through the police reports. Couldn't help but notice the subtle changes in Mike's story. And I thought that was kind of strange because I wouldn't think you would forget the last time you saw your wife. And so he went to see Carol's parents, her mom, Melba, her dad, Milt. And he looked up at me and he was starting to cry and I'm like...

Milt, are you okay? And he said, he goes, oh, he goes, I'm just so happy. I can't believe you guys are still interested in this case. How much did that have to do with you driving ahead on this case, that conversation? A lot. I'm the father of three daughters as well. And I thought, what if this is my middle daughter? Milt died one month later, never knowing what happened to his beautiful middle daughter.

But when Terry went to her father's funeral and saw Mike there, a private thought ate at her. Mike must know something. I didn't say anything. I tried to keep away. He was, of course, paying his respects to my family. But I couldn't carry on a conversation with him. Meanwhile, Walt Delcine had become a little obsessed. He had many other more pressing cases, but something kept pulling him back to Carol Lubon.

I actually would shove some of my work away. I got in a little trouble for that sometimes. For years, Detective Delcine chipped away. Until finally, in 2010, eight years after he found that musty old blue file, he decided to pay a surprise visit to Mike Lubon. His colleagues thought he was a bit nuts. There was those that thought, well, yeah, what do you think he's going to admit it to you? And I go, well, I played enough sports in my time.

I know you're not going to get anywhere if you don't try. You never know. Hi, Detective Delcine. We want to talk about peril. What story would Mike tell this time? Coming up, this version was straight out of 007. I think I did that James Bond thing with the paper on the door. Paper balls. But one detail did ring true. She said, you make my skin crawl. I'll bet you she did say that. When Dateline continues...

This was a Saturday night in Tacoma, Washington. So we get our shoes and we go to our lanes. Teresa Chepesky was there with two of her daughters, her boyfriend, some family, and some friends. And Tika sees the video games.

Tika was Teresa's two-year-old. It was my turn to bowl, and I told my brother and my boyfriend, "Make sure you watch Tika so nothing happens to her." Her attention was diverted for maybe 15 seconds, and something did happen. She was gone. The search for Tika began that night, and it still is not over.

Maybe you could be the key to solving her case. Dateline, Missing in America. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Listen now. Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit-Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, to talk about that Star Wars role that has shaped his life for nearly 50 years now, and his gripping new film From the Mind of Stephen King.

You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts.

Dateline True Crime Weekly. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

For eight years, Torrance police detective Walt Delcine worried away at the Carol Lubon file, drawn by an irresistible hunch that this young mother did not disappear voluntarily. But actual evidence of a crime? Just wasn't any. So finally, in 2010, 29 years after Carol supposedly walked out on her family and never came back, Delcine decided it was time for a surprise visit to Michael Lubon.

He went over with his sergeant. He invited us in. We did catch him unexpectedly, but that was the plan. But was Mike upset or thrown off? Not at all. Very nice, like I anticipated he would be, because I had now heard from everybody in the family how Mike's a good guy. So, together, they went over again the details of that last night back in March '81.

And right away, Mike remembered a little more about the night Carol presented him with a real estate contract and a demand they sell their tiny house. She came in and gave me the baby. She said no. Did she just say, turn around and walk away with it? What happened? She said, you make my skin crawl. You make my skin crawl? Yeah. Ah. And I thought, bing. I'll bet you she did say that.

So I pushed him some more, for more details. And the details were, once again, a little different. About when and where he last saw her, for example. It wasn't when he went to bed around 10 p.m., as he said on one occasion, or 5.30 the next morning, as he also said. No, this time Mike said he last saw Carol about 10.30 or 11 p.m. in the bathtub. How did you see in the tub? I used the bathroom.

And then he said, maybe around midnight or 1 or 2, he heard the garage door go up and he went to the door and actually saw Carol's car driving away. I see tail lights. You see tail lights? Yeah. And you're sure it was her car? Yeah.

Also, remember that story about putting tape on the dresser drawers after Carol left and that later he found it broken? Didn't remember that now. But as he sat here in 2010, he did remember some other traps he'd set, even more elaborate.

- I would take like baby powder and put it on the inside the door. So if in some somebody stepped in, I'd see. - Baby powder? Okay. And what else? Anything else?

I think I did that James Bond thing with the paper on the door. Paper on the door? Paper balls. Okay. That's about it. By now, Detective Delstein was working with his colleague Jim Wallace and Deputy D.A. John Lewin. Lewin specializes in tackling the most difficult of cold cases. Do you remember when you saw the results of that interview, what you thought? Yeah, I thought that his memory had grown in areas where it shouldn't.

and in areas where he should be saying the same story was different. And that's the hallmark of deception. Sure. But the mind plays tricks. The mind invents things and

and inserts them into your memory and you believe them as strenuously as if they actually happened. That's an interesting theory. I don't think it's really supported. Memories can be lost, but memories don't increase in details over the years, and they don't increase in different details. And that's a sign of what we call a lie. His version of what happened from the start made no sense to any of us. This is what makes the case. And why would Mike lie?

To the cold case team, it seemed obvious. He killed her that night. She stopped living that night. And everything else that's going that doesn't make sense, it's all because it's a lie. If you know it's a lie, then it all lines up. Remarkably, Mike Lubon continued to talk to them three more times of his own free will. Very friendly. Without an attorney, he even let the prosecutor take a crack at him. If you were me, if you were in my position, tell me what you would think. Probably what you're thinking. Which is? That I did it. Well, Mike, I can tell you.

You know, sometimes, you know, the kind of murder cases we get. We get cases where the husband finds out that his wife is cheating on him and kills her. So. Did you catch what Mike said? It had nothing to do with that. Lewin did.

When you just look at sentence structure and you look at how people talk and communicate, it wasn't about that. What is the it? You gave that great significance, didn't you? Oh, absolutely. So they kept at Mike. And at one point, it seemed to them, he was on the verge of confessing. Listen, why don't you give me a few minutes or a few days or something to think about a little bit? I'll come up for you when I come back.

But when he came back, he didn't give them anything. And they were right back where they started. Suspicion, sure, but no evidence of a crime. No way to even prove Carol was dead. That is, until Detective Jim Wallace hit on an idea to use a tool that didn't even exist when Carol Lubon fought with her husband on a March night in 1981.

Coming up, the long arm of Facebook. It's kind of a place where we say, here I am. It's also a place where you can find people. The result, a dramatic turn in the case and fresh heartbreak for Carol's family. Another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. The Deputy D.A. John Lewin and the Torrance Police Department Cole Casete believed Mike Lubon killed his wife Carol back in 1981.

But they had one big problem. They couldn't prove Carol was dead. The biggest assumption is going to be, well, how do you know she's not just out of the country or across the country or changed her identity? Kind of an important question with no answer. And then in January 2011, Jim Wallace got the flu. Lucky break. No, really. And I was laying in bed and my wife came in. And unfortunately, when you work these cases, all you talk about

Because we are a dedicated cold case team, and you're talking about the case you're working on. I'm sure she was tired of hearing it. But she mentioned to me, why don't you establish a Facebook account for Carol? I thought, that could actually accomplish a great deal. Of course, back in 1981, when Carol disappeared, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born yet.

But 30 years later, Detective Wallace knew social media and its potential to connect to millions of people around the globe instantly. It could determine, once and for all, he thought, whether Carol was alive or dead. Because all of us know from using Facebook that it's number one, it's kind of a place where we say, here I am, but it's also a place where you can find people. Surely if Carol was still alive, Wallace thought, someone on Facebook or Twitter would know something.

Of course, Wallace also knew Carol would look vastly different 30 years after her disappearance, so he found an age progression artist to create an image of what she might look like today. And then he placed that photo, and others like it, on Facebook and other sites. And it turned out it was a great point of contact for me to contact 350 friends and family of Carol. Right away we said, has anybody seen Carol? And we discovered immediately that nobody had seen Carol since the night she disappeared. ♪

And if Carol merely Googled her own name, she'd find herself at Wallace's website, caroljeanmeyerlubon.com. But that never happened, which meant something very significant, said the detective. She's not looking for herself. She's dead.

Or a farmer's wife in Uruguay who doesn't go on the computer much. Maybe. Lots of people are not on Facebook. Don't check or Google things. It doesn't mean that she is dead, for sure. Absolutely. It just means you've made a fairly good case for it. In this large cumulative thing that we're looking at, it's yet another piece that points to the same conclusion. ♪

If Carol was dead, if Mike killed her, taking the accusation to court would be risky. Totally circumstantial, of course, no body, an unclear motive, a sympathetic defendant. But Prosecutor Lewin decided to roll the dice. 30 years after Carol Lubon vanished from her family's life, on April 13, 2011, Mike was arrested for Carol's murder. When you went to the family and said, we're going to charge him,

What was her reaction? Mixed, at best. Mixed? That's a mild word. How about upset, horrified, mystified? In fact, most of Carol's family members believe the idea Mike could have murdered Carol was just ludicrous. Well, he was a member of our family, you know, and nobody wanted to see him be arrested or him be the reason or any of that. It's like...

Another nightmare on top of the first nightmare. This was a case where I think the family would have been more than happy to believe that Carol is still out there somewhere. She's not dead. And their beloved son-in-law is not a killer. But of all Mike Sr.'s family members, perhaps no one was as torn as his namesake firstborn son, Mike Jr., who loved his father unreservedly.

followed him into the family painting business, worked side by side with him for decades, and who had confessed to detectives that, like his Aunt Terri, he too had doubts about his father. Doubts that had taken root shortly after Mike Sr.'s second wife left him. He talked about my stepmother constantly for years, was nonstop. And why was that so significant to you? Because he never talked about my mother. At all? Never.

But Mike never confronted his father. I just knew in the back of my mind that this could be a possibility. And I really honestly, at that time, I never wanted my father to go to jail. I just wanted to know. And it was so important to me to know the truth behind that evening. To get the truth and avoid a trial, Prosecutor John Lewin was willing to make a deal. We had offered him voluntary manslaughter.

If he gave us Carol's body. And he turned you down flat. He did. Repeatedly. Mike pleaded not guilty. The case was going to trial. And if members of Carol's own family didn't believe Mike did it, what would a jury think? Coming up.

A father in court and a son on the stand. I was really, really stressed out about that. And he watches his dad answer this. Isn't it true, Mr. Lubon, that Carol lived her last breath in that bathtub when you murdered her? When Dateline continues.

I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and I hope you'll join us for Season 4 of Dateline Missing in America. In each episode of Dateline's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing persons case and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. You will want to listen closely. Maybe you could help investigators solve a mystery. Search Dateline Missing in America to listen on Apple Podcasts.

It was September 11th of all days. September 11th, 2012, 31 years, 5 months, 12 days after the last known sighting of Carol Lubon. An inauspicious day to begin the prosecution of a popular man? Could be. But Deputy DA John Lewin went ahead anyway. What I'm going to be able to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, ladies and gentlemen, is that despite the fact that Mike Lubon is a decent man, he murdered his wife.

Of course, Lewin knew that to prove a murder had occurred, he had to show the victim was in fact no longer alive. For that, he turned to Detective Wallace, who explained to the jury the Facebook and social media presence he'd created for Carol had turned up a whole lot of nothing. Have you been contacted by anybody, either by phone, email, in writing, who says, you know what, I've seen Carol Lubon after the day she disappeared? No. No.

Though, as Lewin and his team also let the jury hear, family members like Carol's sister Gail believed what Mike told them, that Carol had run off. Has it been hard for you to accept the possibility that she may be dead? Oh, yes. Is it made even more difficult by the fact that you cared deeply for the defendant? Yes. And younger sister Terry, even though she had suspected Mike for years...

Do you still think of Mike Lubon Sr. as a part of your family? Yes. But most anguished of all, Mike and Carol's son, Mike Jr. Is there anything about the way you remember your mom that would make you think or made you feel that she would leave you and never come back and never say goodbye? No. He loved his dad.

but also secretly doubted him, something he'd never revealed until now. I was sweating so profusely during that whole trial. He never knew I had these feelings. So on the stand publicly, I had to basically say, yeah, I'm thinking maybe there's some weird things about your story. And it was the first time that my father really would have known I felt that way. So I was really, really stressed out about that.

How hard is it for you to be here today? Very. Do you want to believe that your dad is responsible for your mother's disappearance? Do I want to believe it? Yes. No. Let's assume that your dad, in fact, did kill your mom. Would you want to see him punished for it? No, not particularly.

Prosecutor Lewin knew the ambivalence of these family members did not help his case. But... In the end, my job isn't to make sure that the family members get what they want. My job is to make sure that, you know, Carol's killer is held responsible. But was Mike a killer? His attorney, Kevin Donahue...

I think the police are just wrong. No forensics, no witnesses, not even a body. The defense might have stopped right there. Instead, they decided to gamble. Mike was a nice guy. Jury should see that. And if the details had been a little different each time he was asked to tell the story, here was his chance to straighten it all out for the jury.

How odd then that Mike, under oath now, amended his story just a little again. Like when he added the detail that Carol was in the bathtub when she said something mean to him. She said, you make my skin crawl. Also slightly different, the way he discovered she was gone. I opened the front door and went out and the garage door was up and the car was gone.

In earlier versions, didn't Mike say he heard the garage door go up and then saw tail lights as Carol drove away? Why had his story changed again? What's the deal with that? Did you hear the garage door? I don't think so. Why do you think that now? What has jogged your memory? Because I think over the years, I've thought about this night so many times. And I just, you know, I've seen that car back out of that driveway many, many times, you know.

when she was leaving. So I think I just thought repeatedly in my mind that that's what I thought happened. I saw the car. I can see it right now. He never thought for a moment, he said, it would be the last time he'd see his wife. I thought maybe she had gone out that night and went dancing and stayed the night with a friend. What did happen to her? Mike insisted he simply didn't know. Did you have anything to do with killing her? No. Do you have anything to do with her disappearance? No.

Other than I didn't sign the papers and it made her upset, but that's it. Successful testimony? Maybe. But now the downside. You'd have to answer questions from John Lewin. Do you lie sometimes? No. You never lie? I don't say never. I mean, a light lie? Who knows? Well, I'm asking, have you ever lied about something serious that wasn't a white lie in your life? No.

In your entire life, you've never lied once about anything that wasn't a white lie? I'll just say it. Not that I can remember. In fact, Mike had a hard time remembering a lot of things Prosecutor Lewin asked about. I don't remember. I don't remember going to bed. I don't remember saying that. I don't know.

But how on earth, asked Lewin, could he not remember the last time he saw his wife? Would you agree that that would be one of the most significant events, details of your entire life? Yes, but that doesn't mean I had to remember it. Lewin wasn't buying it. Isn't it true, Mr. Lubon?

that the last place that Carol lived, her last breath, was taken in that bathtub when you murdered her. No. Why are you looking at the judge? Because I'm waiting for him to correct you. No. I didn't murder her. I'm sorry. In the bathtub? And Mr. Lubon, if you had murdered her, you would tell us today that you did, if I asked. I would have admitted it. You would have admitted on the stand today? Yes. Do you think that statement's believable?

I think so. I'm done. Of course, believability was a question for the jury to decide. And decide they did. Though, as you'll see, that wasn't the end of the story. Not by a mile. Coming up, a son overcome with emotion.

A final push for the truth. Please, for your family, for your kids, tell us what happened. And then, a final fateful twist. It just is the ultimate answer. This is it. Okay, let's call the jurors out. There are few things in American life as dramatic, as weighted with consequence, as the moment a jury, verdict in hand, files into a courtroom.

Had they been persuaded that Mike killed Carol? Or even that she was dead? Mike's family held its collective breath. So did the prosecutor and the police. You know, you don't know what to expect. And now, here was Mike's fate. We, the jury, in above entitled action, find the defendant, Michael Clark Lubon Sr., guilty of the crime... Guilty of second degree murder. Mike Lubon was going to prison.

And longtime detective Jim Wallace felt surrounded by a very unfamiliar reaction. I've had cases before where you get done, you know, and you walk out of the courtroom and the family throws their arms around you. They're just so grateful, right? That's not this case. I was just very surprised that the jury would convict him on such little evidence. And I don't...

I don't think any of us are happy to see Mike go to jail. And you still believe Mike is a nice guy, believable guy? Yes. What Gail and the rest of the family wanted most were some answers. It's not so much that I want Mike to pay for what he did. I just want to know what happened to my sister. And at the sentencing hearing in December 2012, Mike's own son echoed those sentiments. Guilt or innocence aside, I've never wanted my father to go to prison.

And then, Mike Jr. made a heartbreaking plea to the court. After that, well...

Then the strange tale of the much-loved convicted killer took quite a remarkable turn. It happened that very day in court. Prosecutor Lewin. I'm asking right now as we sit here, Mr. Lubon's going to have a chance. Please, for your family, for your kids, just let it go. Tell us what happened. I just have a moment. The judge granted a recess so Mike could speak with his attorney privately. Did he actually have something to confess?

They returned a few minutes later. And we're asking to continue the sentencing. Time to think. The judge pushed back sentencing by a month. My hope was that he would tell us what happened, that he would tell us what he did with Carol, and that he would be honest about both. For almost four weeks, they waited until January 7, 2013. All eyes were on Mike Lubon as he entered the courtroom.

and then shifted as one to Prosecutor Lewin, who told the court that that very morning Mike finally revealed to him the secret he'd been keeping almost 32 years. And so now Lewin did the talking. And Mike, for once, said not a word. All of the information about them fighting about the selling of the house, he says that was truthful, that occurred. Then Carol stormed out. And it might have blown over, as arguments do, but...

She came back 1:30 a.m. and said the one thing that would not blow over, not ever. She told him that she was going to be taking somebody else, another man, to her sister Terry's upcoming wedding. He said he was very upset. She tried to comfort him then, he said. And she was telling him, "Don't worry, you'll find somebody else," etc.

And that was the last thing Carol Lubon ever said. He didn't want to hear it, and he said that he pushed her. She fell and hit her head on a heavy end table in the living room. He said that she didn't bleed, but he knew instantly that she was dead. Detectives hooked Lubon up to a polygraph machine. How much of this was true? After the polygraph, the test was done. He confronts him and says, you didn't pass. Now the defendant changes the story, and he says, okay, fine.

I punched her in the head and I punched her hard. But he said only one time. Then he told Lewin what he did with Carol's body. After he killed her, he put her in the garage behind some carpet. He took her car the next morning to the Red Onion parking lot, dumped it there. At some point, she was placed in the trunk of Mr. Lubon's vehicle. And then he said he took her to the ocean.

put her on a raft, paddled out to sea and dropped her down, a cinder block tied to her body. It was a shock, of course, a big shock. For so long the family, or most of it, believed Mike. And now in this very public way, they finally knew that Carol was dead and he, their sweet Mike, killed her. But the whole truth, was it actually out there somewhere?

And so, on that cold and foggy January day, Mike, surrounded by a retinue of cops and lawyers, floated out into the mist to find Carol, find whatever was left. If they find the cinder block in the ocean after the search, if they find that, that will give me half of the closure I need. She didn't get it, because after the boat ride, Mike admitted his ocean tale was one more lie. And perhaps it was finally for the sake of his son.

the son who never abandoned him, that he finally passed a polygraph and led investigators to the place he now says Mike's mother has been all these many years. The police searched, but couldn't find her remains. And now, after so much time, no one knows if they ever will. I don't really know why getting her back is the ultimate bookend for me. I want to know that she's, you know, properly recovered.

or cremated or whatever we would choose to do with her. Why is that so important? I think it just is the ultimate answer. This is it. There's no more wondering. No, not about that. But his father in prison, 15 to life? Good deal of wondering left to do about that man and what he took away. Do you still love him?

Yeah, I do. I mean, I always will. I just got to figure out how I'm going to process these facts I know. I don't know yet. I kind of thought a perfect punishment for my father was I was going to ask him to write one sentence about my mother to me every week he's in prison. You know, just so he has to think about her and I have to, I can remember her again. As those weeks turned to years, Mike Sr.'s children never gave up on him.

They wrote letters in support of his parole, but in prison he stayed. Then, in September 2021, a surprising twist. Prosecutor John Lewin, on behalf of the district attorney's office, filed a motion to have Mike Sr.'s conviction reduced from murder to voluntary manslaughter.

Lewin said he believed the story that Mike Sr. told after his conviction, that Carol was killed as a result of an argument about her wanting to sell their home and take the man she was having a secret affair with to her sister's upcoming wedding. Had he been aware of these circumstances, said Lewin, he would not have pursued murder charges. A hearing was held about a month later and the motion was granted by the trial judge, who agreed with Lewin's assessment.

In November 2021, Lubon's murder conviction was reduced to voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to six years in state prison, the maximum penalty for voluntary manslaughter at the time Carol was killed. Later that month, he was released from prison, having already served more than 10 years behind bars. As for Carol Lubon, her remains have yet to be found. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.