apparent from public records is that hoffman's parents live in a home in howe arrested, where the family, the three-person family and family friend all disappeared from. that's the only apparent connection through public records. rick: wow, a bizarre case. maybe we'll learn more as the search continues for those missing people. steve brown in chicago, thanks. martha: and a fox news alert for you this morning on surprising new retail numbers that are coming in today. u.s. retail sales, posting their biggest gain in seven months, so that is certainly a good sign, the commerce department reporting a 1.2% jump in october, nearly double what was expected, and that's the biggest increase we've seen since march. car sales also helped to fuel that rise, but that's certainly a piece of good news for the economy. if people get out there and buying, maybe christmas shopping dicking in and car sales doing well, so confidence in the market, it seems. rick: nice to see, we'll see