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00:00What happened to you in 1952 that changed your life?
00:18Well, my mother went missing when I was 10 years old.
00:24My sisters and I came home from school, and my mother was missing,
00:28and we never saw her again.
00:33Why would she disappear?
00:35How bad would it have been for her to leave three children
00:38and never contact them again?
00:41I thought she was desperate because she had taken all the money.
00:46Was she hurt?
00:48Did someone do something bad to her?
00:51I found out that my family kept a lot of big secrets.
00:55I think it's about time we found some answers.
00:58If you could see your mother again, what would you say to her?
01:04One word.
01:05Why?
01:09Every family has a secret, even my own.
01:12I'm Jane Seymour, and my experience proves that solving a mystery,
01:16however painful, can bring a family closer together.
01:19We've assembled a team of genealogists, historians, and researchers,
01:24led by archaeologist Natasha Bilson, to do just that.
01:29Solve the puzzles of the past to heal the families of the present.
01:33There might be no closer bond than a mother with her children.
01:51I can't imagine having that bond torn apart in an instant without reason or explanation.
02:02To a child, that would be incomprehensible and indelibly change the course of their life.
02:09So, this is the mystery of Catherine Cooper.
02:18She disappeared in 1952 from Philadelphia.
02:22I wonder if we can find out the reasons.
02:25Yeah, I wonder where she went.
02:26A woman leaving her three young children behind.
02:30I think it's fascinating.
02:32I'm a mom, I have four kids.
02:34And as a mother, I cannot even conceive of leaving my children.
02:38So, it had to be something major.
02:41There are so many theories.
02:43There are theories that maybe she was on drugs.
02:46Theories that maybe there was an affair.
02:48Maybe there was blackmail.
02:50What happened to that woman that made her make that decision?
02:54Finding out the secrets of the past is an enormous amount of healing
02:59that can be done.
03:00We're going to need specialists who can deal with DNA,
03:04then genealogists to decipher the family history.
03:07It's a lot of people involved in this,
03:09but I love finding ways to connect people through history.
03:13And then we're going to meet the family, and it is a big family.
03:17I'm sure we can put on the precious charm for them.
03:19Oh, sure?
03:19Yes.
03:20We were born, like, a mile apart.
03:22We were.
03:22We were.
03:23Who knew?
03:29One thing I've learned already about being in the States
03:36is that there are a lot of highways.
03:41Wow, if you want a divorce, $499.
03:44A divorce center?
03:46Did not know that was a thing.
03:47Good morning, welcome to us and our home.
04:12Hi.
04:13Hi.
04:14Hello.
04:15Lovely to meet you all.
04:16Nice to meet you.
04:18So, Natasha.
04:19And I brought some gifts.
04:20I thought, why not have some British treats?
04:23Oh, I hope you like it.
04:24So we got some biscuits, some chocolates.
04:27That's wonderful.
04:29Let me dig in.
04:31So, why did you want to start this journey with us?
04:36I've always been very curious about what happened to my grandmother.
04:38It wasn't easy for my grandfather.
04:41He had to work hard to support his three kids.
04:44I often, in my mind, would visualize what that was like to grow up like that.
04:48And felt sad for them that they had to go through all that.
04:51And always wondering what happened to the mother.
04:54And to give closure to my mother and her brother,
04:58I just started trying to solve what happened.
05:01Other family members would tell me stories.
05:03There was talk of an affair or she possibly had been taken advantage of.
05:10Was she desperate?
05:11Was her heart broken and not knowing what to do and felt that she had to run?
05:16So I just started researching and researching.
05:19There were times where I felt very close to some answers.
05:24And then brick walls were there and I couldn't find those answers.
05:26If I had to put myself in those shoes now, being a mom,
05:30that had to be the hardest decision she would have had to make ever.
05:35I cannot imagine having to make that choice.
05:39Oh, it pulls out my heartstrings.
05:41Like, honestly, it's just so hard to hear something like this.
05:44But to think now that some of those answers might be upon us
05:48is exciting and heavy all at the same time.
05:51To start our investigation,
06:21we submitted samples of the family's DNA for testing,
06:25in case there were children born outside of Catherine's marriage.
06:29Our next step was to talk to Catherine's two living children
06:33to get their eyewitness perspective on our two main mysteries.
06:38What happened to their mother?
06:40And why?
06:42Mary Ann, now 82,
06:44was just 10 when her mother Catherine disappeared in 1952.
06:48Amel Jr., now 78,
06:52was just 6.
06:54Her older sibling, Kitty,
06:56died in 2011.
06:58Come on in and meet my mom and the family.
07:08Hello.
07:10Hi, Bethany.
07:11Hi.
07:13Everyone, this is Natasha.
07:15Hi.
07:16This is my mom.
07:18Hi.
07:18I love you to meet you.
07:21You too, honey.
07:22This is Amel.
07:23My uncle.
07:23Hi.
07:24How you doing?
07:26Should I sit here?
07:27Sure.
07:27Excuse me, Natasha.
07:28I want to get my glasses over there.
07:29Oh, okay.
07:30That's okay.
07:31Oh, jeez.
07:32I'm sorry.
07:32I'm just nervous.
07:35I'm coming.
07:35This is an album of, I guess you would say, my life put together.
07:43Wow.
07:44This is my mother holding me.
07:48She was always a loving mother.
07:51This is my father.
07:54His name was Amel, too.
07:56Amel.
07:57I'm a junior.
07:58Yeah.
07:59How was your upbringing before your mother left?
08:02We used to do a lot of things, you know, together.
08:06They used to take us on different trips.
08:10Is this your family home?
08:12Yes.
08:12Philadelphia.
08:15We lived on 5400 Marvine Street block.
08:20They were all row houses, and they were mostly working class.
08:25And my mother was home, but she just did domestic work.
08:28She would clean houses for different people on the block.
08:32We were starting to get a picture of the Cooper family before Catherine's disappearance.
08:38The time was the 1950s, an unforgiving era when conformity was the watchword,
08:45and any kind of deviation from the norm could be punished.
08:50Sex outside of marriage was taboo, especially for a Catholic family like the Coopers.
08:57Abortion was illegal, and for Catholics, a mortal sin.
09:00Women overall were second-class citizens.
09:06The pressure to assimilate must have been especially immense for immigrant families like Catherine Coopers.
09:12Her parents, John Flick and Mary Wendell, arrived in America in 1912 and gave birth to her two years later in 1914.
09:23Well, my mother's side of the family, my grandfather was in the Austro-Hungarian Navy, and he came to New York one time.
09:32He liked it so much, when he got out of the service, he brought my grandmother over and moved to the United States.
09:38And my father grew up on a farm in Germany.
09:44He only had a third-grade education, and that's why we came here.
09:49It was 1929.
09:54My father and August, two brothers, they were going to come over to the United States, and my uncle August chickened out at the last minute, so my father came over by himself.
10:04And then August came over the following year with his daughter, Elsie, and they settled in Philadelphia.
10:09This is my father's passport, and that's what it looked like.
10:16It does say Bavaria.
10:18He escaped in 1929 before Hitler took over, and they were very afraid to be German during the war.
10:26People know they interned the Japanese in the United States, but they also interned the Germans in camps out west if they thought you were a Nazi.
10:35My father was always afraid that they would come and take him.
10:39He was ashamed of being German, and he never went back.
10:45While the family's German heritage could be important to the why of this mystery, it shed no immediate light on what exactly happened to Catherine Cooper in 1952.
10:59Oh, here you go.
11:00There, that's right.
11:01Last picture of my mother disappeared.
11:03Before she disappeared, yeah.
11:09In 1952, in September, we were on our way home from school, my brother, sister, and I.
11:18As my dad picked us up, he took us to the front of the house.
11:22Usually the door was open, but the door wasn't open, and my mother wasn't there.
11:28At that point, nobody knew what happened.
11:31I was only six years old.
11:34And the same thing, I remember coming home, and she wasn't there.
11:39And all the money was gone, even out of my piggy bank.
11:42And they supposedly had a detective out looking for her, and even came into the house just to make sure my father didn't kill her and stuff her body somewhere.
11:54When you look back, did you have any feelings before?
12:03Inclination, no.
12:04I mean, there was never any arguing or fighting with my parents.
12:07It's normal.
12:10And as kids, we always thought she was going to come back.
12:16I can feel there's a lot of emotion.
12:21How did everything kind of change?
12:24After my mother left, my father, he didn't talk.
12:28He went into a shell.
12:31And he worked a lot.
12:33Usually worked the 11 to 7 shift.
12:37We were alone a lot.
12:40We grew up fast.
12:42Yep.
12:46The pain in their voices felt authentic, like the events of 70 years ago had happened just yesterday.
12:57But their memories shed little insight.
13:01After all, memories aren't recordings of what happened.
13:05They are the stories we tell ourselves about what happened.
13:09They might be the truth.
13:11They might be a fantasy.
13:13And sometimes, they might be a lie.
13:17To find out which, our researchers scoured Bethann's years of impressive research,
13:22poring over her notes, family photos, and historical records to glean any clues.
13:28One document in particular stood out.
13:33The affidavit that Catherine Cooper's husband, Amel, signed in court in 1962, 10 years after her disappearance.
13:43An affidavit in which Amel claimed that the FBI had searched for her and found nothing.
13:49When Amel signed this document, Catherine Cooper, mother of three, was officially declared dead.
13:58So, Bethann, you mentioned to us that following your grandmother's disappearance, your grandfather, Amel, put in an FBI and Philadelphia police inquiry.
14:18Yes.
14:18Right.
14:19So, through the Freedom of Information Act, we've been able to open the file.
14:24Okay.
14:25Which you were not able to do.
14:26And what we have determined is that there is no evidence of an FBI inquiry.
14:35Okay.
14:36Gotcha.
14:36So, the fact that we can't find any information, there's no newspaper clippings or reports to say, to even mention your grandmother's disappearance.
14:45Mm-hmm.
14:45So, this is like opening a lot more questions for us.
14:48So, if the FBI and the Philadelphia police had no record of any investigation into Catherine Cooper's disappearance, and there were no newspaper articles about it, then the chances that she was a victim of a crime seemed very small.
15:07And suddenly, this seemed less like a mystery, and more like a secret someone was trying to keep.
15:17Ten years after she disappeared, there's a declaration of death.
15:22Yes.
15:23Everything was in half of her name.
15:26All the bank accounts, all the money and all that.
15:29So, in order for her not to come back and take all the money again, my father had to declare her illegally dead, so her name would be off all that.
15:35Both the mortgage and title of the house.
15:39Hmm.
15:41This was progress.
15:44If the affidavit of death was really intended to strip Catherine of any claim to the house, then clearly, no one really thought she was dead.
15:56Especially her husband, Emil Sr.
16:01That just left one other option.
16:04But she ran away.
16:05Do you have any theories behind her motivations?
16:10Some people think she was on drugs.
16:13That's what I think, she was on drugs, the way the money was squandered out like that.
16:18Pain medication, they talked about.
16:19Right.
16:20Pain medication.
16:21I remember going to the park, and we were little, and she handed a man an envelope, just that.
16:31It was a stranger.
16:32Yes.
16:34I thought, well, maybe somebody was blackmailing her.
16:37Either that or she was pregnant.
16:39Well, we were told later that she was having an affair with my uncle, and that maybe somebody was blackmailing her, so my father wouldn't find out.
16:51But the theories around this affair, is there anything to back it up, or is it just speculation?
16:57Well, after my father died, there was a cousin, Elsie, that told us my mother was having an affair with my uncle.
17:07And based on what Elsie said, because when Elsie questioned her father, August, he didn't say no.
17:15He said, basically, we won't speak of it.
17:17So he didn't deny that there was a relationship, and they never talked for years.
17:24Right.
17:25My father, after that, did not talk to August for years.
17:29So did they stop talking following your mother's disappearance?
17:33Yes.
17:33Mm-hmm.
17:34Well, like I said, our cousin, after my father died, said that my uncle claimed that I was his son.
17:42I don't know.
17:45Who was my father?
17:48We now knew that Catherine didn't die in 1952, and that the rumor of an affair had shaken this family to its core.
17:58And suddenly, the DNA tests we asked the family to take were critically important.
18:05They could reveal the truth, but the results weren't ready yet.
18:11So we focused on our next key question.
18:14If Catherine ran away, where did she go?
18:18After all, people don't just disappear.
18:21So in more recent years, you started to go back into the genealogy aspect, I think, Bethan.
18:28You started trying to trace your family roots and solve the mystery.
18:31I started poking around in, like, the mid-2000s on the computer, but it was unknown territory to me, and how do I even begin that?
18:40And it wasn't until Joe Wechselberger, an extended family member, contacted us to tell us that, I think that your mother, your grandmother, didn't die.
18:51He said, it appears that Catherine Cooper assumed a new identity as Kay Hale in Chicago.
18:58So, I couldn't believe it, you know, that she could have been alive.
19:07I don't believe it.
19:09How could she leave three children and a husband and never contact them again?
19:14Something, if it was her, drove her away that was so bad that she couldn't stay.
19:24Now, since we were getting to the heart of the mystery, I wanted to talk to Bethan myself.
19:32Hi, Bethan.
19:34How are you?
19:35How are you?
19:36I'm good.
19:36Good.
19:37So, tell me about the bombshell of the Kay Hale revelation.
19:41Did it make you emotional?
19:42Yeah, it did.
19:44Knowing that she could have had a whole other life out there, I just felt driven by wanting to know those answers.
19:51And my mother, as I shared with Natasha before, my mother had said that had she known that her mother was out there,
19:59she would have gone there and told her that she loved her and forgave her.
20:04And that has always amazed me and stayed with me and drove me to wanting to find answers and started steering us over to Chicago,
20:15where we were trying to find some more factual things and we found her social security record.
20:20What Bethan found was a 1952 social security card application from a woman named Kay Hale.
20:30This application was filed just days after Catherine Cooper's disappearance.
20:36The birth dates for Kay Hale and Catherine Cooper were the same.
20:43February 24th, 1914.
20:47And the mother's names were the same too.
20:49Mary Flick.
20:50And the father's first names were the same.
20:54John.
20:57So do you think it's technically possible?
20:59We weren't sure.
21:00And every time I tried to find out whether it was in the Philadelphia side of the mystery of her disappearance,
21:06there were so many brick walls.
21:07But how could a Philadelphia mother of three disappear one day and seemingly reappear a thousand miles away in Chicago
21:17with a new identity and a new job the next?
21:22So our team scoured Philadelphia court records, train schedules, and help wanted ads,
21:28trying to put the pieces together.
21:32And they fit.
21:33On September 23rd, Catherine Cooper could have boarded a Chicago-bound train in Philadelphia,
21:42perhaps the Baltimore and Ohio's Capital Limited.
21:45And during the 18-hour ride, she might have seen this job ad published that same day
21:52for a tray girl in the Chicago tuberculosis clinic called the Fresh Air Hospital.
21:58To get the job, she would have needed a social security number.
22:04And the moment Catherine Cooper filled out that form, she could have become Kay Hale.
22:13How has it affected your life, trying to solve this puzzle?
22:17We've been trying all these years to find out if that indeed was her.
22:21I know there's more facts out there, people that maybe she knew.
22:26I dug and I found out where she, that she was married.
22:31Beth Ann told us that Kay Hale, while working in the Fresh Air Hospital,
22:37met a Jewish dishwasher named Sol Berman.
22:41When they married in 1954, Kay Hale changed her name from Kay to Catherine.
22:47Searching for information out there was very hard because we had to prove that we were
22:54her next of kin or family, but that's what we were trying to prove.
22:58So it was hard to get people to give us information.
23:03So now the challenge is, can we prove that Kay Hale is Catherine Cooper?
23:10And if so, why did she flee?
23:13To solve this mystery, we needed to pivot from Philadelphia to Chicago.
23:21Through some old-fashioned sleuthing and the telephone book,
23:26we tracked down Kay and Sol's known addresses in Chicago.
23:31In those buildings' lobbies, we posted flyers,
23:34hoping someone still living there remembered them from decades past.
23:38We checked the local Catholic churches and synagogues to nothing.
23:45We needed help.
23:47So we called Ray Johnson, a retired Chicago police officer.
23:51So Ray, tell me, in your experience, have you ever seen a case like this?
23:55I've been doing genealogy work for about 30 years now.
23:59I was doing it while I was a police officer.
24:01I've seen it similarly, but the first time I've seen someone declared dead.
24:06So that makes it really interesting and a little bit more difficult.
24:10Where do you start?
24:11Well, one thing that would help a lot would be to get the death certificate.
24:15Beth Ann was having issues with trying to show the Office of Vital Records
24:21that she was, in fact, the daughter of Catherine Berman.
24:24And there are always clues, right, in death certificates?
24:27Yeah, it might be a little handwritten note in the corner,
24:30or there's always somebody who's providing the information on the death certificate.
24:35Every tiny little detail means something.
24:38While Ray tries to prove that Catherine Cooper is Kay Hale,
24:43Natasha met up with Beth Ann's kids
24:46to see how the rumors of Catherine's affair affected them
24:49and see how the family was faring while they waited for our DNA results.
24:57I'm curious, how has this family secret impacted you guys directly?
25:05I think now, having a family of our own,
25:08it kind of puts it into perspective even more,
25:10like, just how drastic of a thing this is.
25:13You know, we've watched my grandmother and her brother
25:16kind of ask so many questions of why, how, when.
25:21Is my mother still around?
25:22It's a big burden to carry.
25:24At that age?
25:26You know, 70 years, you build a narrative for your life,
25:29and at their age, find out that maybe it's not true.
25:33You may not understand why she left,
25:34but in the end, it may have been, in the best interest of her family.
25:38I really do believe that, yeah.
25:39It's almost unimaginable that a single revelation
25:50could transform the narrative of someone's entire life.
25:54But now, with their DNA test results in,
25:58that's exactly the possibility that Emil and Marianne were facing.
26:03We've done the DNA tests,
26:05and what we found is that you are siblings, like, 100%.
26:11We're siblings, Emil.
26:12Yeah, there you go.
26:14100%.
26:15What years of worry you're thinking?
26:17How about that?
26:20You were always brother and sister, but now you know it.
26:23So, Emil was my father.
26:25Emil was your father.
26:27So, the thing is, you are 100% siblings.
26:30Isn't that wonderful?
26:32But...
26:32But...
26:33But we can't prove or disprove
26:36that it was Emil or August that was the father, right?
26:41Because we would need more DNA kits to be taken.
26:45So, we need someone who's connected with August.
26:48Is there anyone?
26:50No.
26:51Nobody left.
26:54They're all gone.
26:54Well, first of all,
26:57August wasn't around when you were growing up.
26:59Right, yeah.
27:00If he wasn't around, it's not possible.
27:02That's it.
27:04All those years of speculation,
27:06and all those people who told just different stories.
27:08Well, yeah.
27:10Didn't we...
27:11Why didn't we do DNA years ago?
27:12Maybe we still both had the same mother and father,
27:13but maybe it's Joe Blow down the street.
27:16What?
27:20Does that DNA show any other brothers, sisters,
27:23or anything like...
27:24Like, if they would have had another half-sibling out there?
27:27Nothing else.
27:28Nothing like that.
27:29Nothing. Okay.
27:31Thank you so much.
27:33So now we know, brother,
27:35no more questions from you, right?
27:37Right.
27:37While we had answered one question for the family,
27:45there were still so many more.
27:48Luckily, Ray had managed to get Kay Berman's death certificate.
27:52But would it definitively prove
27:55that Kay Hale and Catherine Cooper
27:57were the same person?
27:59Well, I have something here
28:02that I want to show you.
28:07Wow.
28:08This is the death certificate
28:10of Catherine Berman.
28:13Mm-hmm.
28:14She was from Philadelphia.
28:15I see the Lakeview Nursing Home.
28:18I knew that that's where she lived.
28:22Her parents were John Flick and Mary Wendell.
28:28She's buried at Rose Hill Cemetery
28:30next to Saul.
28:35How does it make you feel holding this?
28:37You tried so hard to get it yourself.
28:39Yeah, I did try hard to get it myself.
28:41It's very interesting
28:42because I had spoken to the funeral home.
28:46I had spoken to the nursing home.
28:47I spoke to the cemetery.
28:49We were trying to prove that we were her family,
28:52but we weren't able to get this
28:54because there was not definitive proof
28:56that we were her family.
28:57So it was like, it was a strange circle.
29:00And it even shows the cause of her?
29:02Call it sepsis and congestive heart failure, yeah.
29:06She died August 25, 2005.
29:10But you won't see that.
29:13So she actually did, at the end,
29:16put her true parents in.
29:20It's her parents' names,
29:23which are the same as
29:24your great-grandparents' names.
29:27So we tried to contact people,
29:29connected to Saul and his family,
29:32his nieces, nothing we could find.
29:35You were able to contact his nieces.
29:37They did not know.
29:38But they didn't have any...
29:39They did not know who Saul Bremen was.
29:41Wow.
29:43But...
29:44the power of attorney.
29:46We had the name here.
29:49And she passed away in 2016.
29:52However, we were able to get hold of her son.
29:56And he was able to share with us some photographs.
30:01And we have them.
30:02If you'd like to have a look.
30:03Oh, yes.
30:04Yes, we'd like to look at that.
30:06Yeah.
30:06This was her.
30:17Could be.
30:21I mean, her hair is different,
30:22but, I mean, it obviously was decades later.
30:25When she went out there,
30:26maybe she dyed her hair or changed her hair.
30:29So, another one.
30:33Side by side, black and white,
30:34was a color photo.
30:38How did he have all these photos?
30:40His mother was the power of attorney.
30:42Yes.
30:42And they were friends.
30:43So he grew up knowing Catherine and Saul.
30:49People change over time.
30:50I mean, you're talking...
30:51She lived till she was 91.
30:541952, how old was she in 1952?
30:5539.
30:5639, so...
30:57So, you know, everybody looks different in 50 years.
31:03The son of the POA would be happy to speak with you.
31:08Mm-hmm.
31:09Great.
31:20Hello?
31:21Hi, this is Natasha.
31:23Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak to us.
31:27I'm just...
31:27Not a problem.
31:28I'm just in the living room with who we believe to be Catherine's children and grandchildren.
31:35And they do have a few questions.
31:39Sure.
31:39Can you tell us how you and your mom knew Catherine Berman?
31:46My mom, Pauline, worked at a nursing home, Carmen Manor, and Kay also worked at Carmen Manor, and that's where they met.
31:56And they became very good friends.
31:58And she became very good friends with, you know, with our family.
32:02This is all a major surprise to me.
32:06I mean, I didn't even know Kay had children.
32:09I mean, uh...
32:10Did she ever speak of a life in Philadelphia?
32:16No, I don't think she did at all.
32:19Could you describe Kay as you knew her?
32:23Kay was a very sweet lady.
32:26About 5'4", sandy blonde hair.
32:29Did she ever have dark hair, or was it always look like blonde?
32:38It's hard for a man to answer, right?
32:41Yeah, it's a tough one.
32:42You might have stumped me a little.
32:43Did she ever associate with any other family?
32:48She had some friends in the building where she lived.
32:52As far as other families, I don't know.
32:56Okay.
32:57Did you know Saul?
32:59I did.
33:00I mean, you know, like, they were always with us on the holidays.
33:04Kay was Catholic, and Saul was Jewish.
33:08So that's a nice little piece of the puzzle there, too, that she was Catholic.
33:11Yeah.
33:13I mean, you know, the more I'm talking about her with you, the more that comes to me about her.
33:18She was at my wedding.
33:19I mean, she was at all the parties.
33:22She was included in everything.
33:25You said she was at a lot of the family gatherings over the holidays and everything.
33:29Did she ever bring any kind of special dishes of her ethnic background,
33:35or did she ever mention her parents' Austro-Hungarian background?
33:40I can't recall that.
33:42I have a question.
33:44Sure.
33:45I understand her first husband had passed away.
33:49In 1994.
33:51Did her family have a lot of contact with him up to his death?
33:55Oh, yeah.
33:55All big in...
33:55Oh, yeah.
33:56We're all close family.
33:57Absolutely.
33:58Okay.
33:59So my question is, guys, did he not say anything?
34:03Was it not brought up to him?
34:06Hey, why did man leave?
34:08I knew that was going to come up.
34:08Yeah, it was, I think, a combination of the time period that it was and their German culture.
34:16Things weren't talked about.
34:17There was anger and hurt in the preceding months before she left, there was money missing in the home, bills weren't paid, and then when she left, the bank account was cleared out.
34:32So...
34:33Well, I got to tell you something.
34:36It doesn't seem like the K.I. do.
34:44Okay.
34:44Thank you so much for taking the time out, and we appreciate all the help that you are giving to the family here.
34:51I hope whenever we find out, we'll give you guys some closure.
34:56We appreciate all your help.
34:59Bye.
34:59Bye, guys.
35:00Bye-bye.
35:00Bye.
35:01You know, that was very nice of him.
35:02He doesn't know us.
35:03No, it was very kind of him.
35:06To me, it even points more to her because she had no siblings.
35:12She had no family associates.
35:14She had nobody over for the holidays.
35:16It was family.
35:17She was an absolute, just like...
35:19Single.
35:19Single.
35:20Person.
35:21Person with no past.
35:23Yeah.
35:24Well, a whole indication from the...
35:26Mm-hmm.
35:27That certificate.
35:28And the pictures matching.
35:30Apparently matching.
35:32Right.
35:32And like Todd said, she just kind of appeared.
35:36I know.
35:36She disappeared, and she appeared.
35:38Are you still skeptical?
35:40Or do you believe all this is done?
35:43I'm not skeptical.
35:44Because it's more information pushing to that gavel saying, yes.
35:51Well, we showed the photographs of what you had versus the most recent photos to our criminal
35:58investigator in Chicago, and they think it's the same person.
36:02They do think it's her.
36:03Yeah.
36:04Yeah.
36:04I like to believe that's her.
36:08Yeah.
36:09I would ask her not only why, and I'm very mad at her, because she ruined our lives, and
36:14my father's life changed it all.
36:17So I'm still...
36:18I can forgive people, but I'm still mad at her.
36:23It sucks, as Pop said, it's horrible to find out that she did live this life.
36:28Why?
36:28Maybe the pieces will come together in the coming months or whatever, but all things point to
36:34that it's her, and nothing really points to that it's not.
36:37I've dropped a lot of information on all of you.
36:43I'm going to let you all digest that.
36:45I'm going to take what we have.
36:46I'm going to meet up with Jane, and we're going to discuss this a little bit further.
36:50Sure.
36:50And then call you back.
36:52That's good.
36:52Okay?
36:53Yep.
36:54Bye.
36:55I'll see you.
36:56Yeah?
36:56Tell them we're all fans of her.
37:03While the family found some closure in knowing what had happened to Catherine Cooper, there
37:09was still one big question left to answer.
37:14Do you have any clue as to why she did it?
37:17Because that would be the interesting thing to me.
37:19Well, they did have their DNA tested, and the results came back that there were no half
37:24siblings, but that only counts the half siblings that also had their DNA tested.
37:29So there definitely could be another half sibling still out there.
37:33Is that what you think?
37:34Yeah.
37:34So my gut feeling is there was probably an unwanted pregnancy, and because she chose not
37:41to have an abortion, she couldn't stick around because people would obviously notice.
37:46So I think she actually left in order to have the baby and put it up for adoption.
37:51Adoption records are sealed in Illinois, but a little known fact is that prior to the
37:571960s, adoptions had to be published in a newspaper in Chicago, and it was a very small
38:03newspaper, and it was called the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, and it was only put out to lawyers
38:08and judges, actually.
38:10And prior to the 1960s, the adoptions and the petitions that were filed for the adoptions
38:16had to be published in that newspaper.
38:18But since there's no index, it's kind of painstaking because you have to go through the years when
38:24you think the adoption could have taken place, but you have to go day by day and check for
38:29any of the names that she may have been using at the time, whether it's Hale or Berman or Wendell
38:34or Flick or any of the other family names. So it is a painstaking process, but like all good
38:41mysteries, if you really want to solve it, you have to put the work in.
38:47I think at the end of the day, we all just want closure for our family, especially our
38:52grandmother and then our Uncle Emil as well.
38:56The thing is, we can't control what the answers are, but that doesn't change who we are and
39:00the family values that you all have. So I think whatever happens, we will find closure
39:05from this.
39:06What do you want to say?
39:10A trauma like Catherine Cooper's disappearance might have broken most families, but clearly
39:18they made this one stronger.
39:22Strong enough to handle whatever Ray had been able to find in the Chicago law libraries.
39:30Now that you've had a chance to think about all of this, what do you think? What do you
39:36believe?
39:36I believe that Catherine Cooper, their mom, my grandmother did go out to Chicago and she had
39:47a different life out there.
39:49It's hard to believe that she was alive after all this time.
39:53I'm getting more convinced, but the big question is, how can a woman leave three children and
40:01a husband penniless? I mean, we almost all wound up in an orphanage and just disappear like
40:08that and never hear from her again.
40:10It's, it's unfathomable, but most of the life went on and you went on to have beautiful
40:19families. And now hopefully this program is giving you a little more insight into the mystery.
40:26So we have Ray Johnson on the call who helped us get the death certificate of Cahill. And
40:34he's actually got a bit more information for us that he'd like to share.
40:38Hi, Ray.
40:39Hi, it was nice. It's nice finally meeting you. So the question was, why Chicago? I mean,
40:45it was known as a place for people to go onward mothers, so that could be part of it. My inkling
40:51is that there was an unwanted pregnancy that she probably put the child up for adoption.
40:55And of course you have to look at all the different names that she may have used. And I've managed to
41:00go through all of, well, from September when she went missing, September of 52 through 1953,
41:09and came up with the baby that had the last name Wendell. And that stood out because that was her
41:15mother's maiden name. Wow. The next step would be to try to possibly reach out to each of the
41:21individuals, try to clarify some information. And of course, if they were willing to take a DNA test,
41:28that would finally put it to rest. The big question is, what do you guys want to do about this
41:35information? I still feel very driven to finish the story. I would love to learn if the pregnancy did
41:43happen. There's a lot of questions I still have. And so the more answers we can get, the more it would
41:49clarify it. I would love to know as much as I can before I leave this earth. Because then when I pass
41:58on, I guess then I'll know everything. Beth Ann, Emil, Mary Ann, and their families are incredibly brave.
42:08Because answering one troubling question may just raise another, more difficult one. But with some luck,
42:16we know they'll find the truth they seek. Together.
42:30For more
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