Page 6 - Mike Thinking News Today

Think they didnt talk about it because they figured it would upset me or my sister. >> my family is 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 mothers eyes or your fathers? >> in my fathers for sure. >> what would you see there? >> a lot of emotion. a lot of sadness. im going to cry thinking about it. >> in 1987, almost six years after carol vanished, the torrance police departme...

>> 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. the jury should see that. >> do you solemnly swear -- >> if the details had been a little different each time he was asked to tell the story, here was his chance to straighten it 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...

Missing. >> of course she was. so again he read through the police reports. couldnt help but notice the subtle changes in mikes story. >> and i thought that was kind of strange because i wouldnt think you would forget the last time you saw your wife. >> so he went to see carols parents, her mom, melba, her dad, milt. >> and he looked up at me. he was starting to cry. im like, milt, are you okay some and he said, he goes, i just -- so happy, i cant believe you guys are still interested in this ca...

Carol supposedly walked out on her family and never came back, delcine decided it was time for a surprise visit to michael luban. he went over with a 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 id now heard from everybody in the family how mikes a good guy. >> so together they went over again the details of that last night back in march, 81. and right away...

Maybe. but now the downside. hed have to answer questions from john lewin. >> do you lie sometimes? >> no. >> you never lie? >> i wouldnt say never. i mean, a white lie, who knows? >> have you ever lie good something serious in your life? >> no. >> in your entire life youve never lied once about anything that wasnt a white lie? >> ill just say not that i can remember. >> in fact, mike had a hard time remembering a lot of things prosecutor lewin asked about. >> i dont remember. i dont remember go...

Unbeknownst to anyone sneaked back in 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 carols 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 carols clothes went missing. along with some money from a plac...

>> wed 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? >> we 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...

>> it just means you have a fair good case for it. >> in this large, cumulative thing were looking at, its another piece that points to the same conclusion. >> reporter: 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 lewen decided to roll the dice. 30 years after carol lubahn vanished from her familys life on, april 13th, 2011, mike was arrested for carols...

In march of 1981, carol luban, a lonely mother of two, vanished, leaving for parts unknown, leaving not just her husband mike but her son, mike jr., just 10-years-old. >> i never felt that my mother abandoned mean. i never was upset with her never. i never thought she did. i dont know why. i was upset she wasnt there. i thought she would be there to show up at a graduation or something. >> but she didnt. and at family gatherings as the years went by, thanksgiving, christmases, that awful questio...

He woke up, drifted to sleep, and woke up to the sound of a car engine starting and driving away. odd. but memories do play tricks. anyway it didnt seem terribly significant. so the case went back into the file and got colder. mike took over the house-painting business from carols dad and went on to marry carrie and have two more sons. gail and teri raised their own families, and it was having babies that started to change terris way of looking at her sisters disappearance. >> as unhappy as you ...