Man Discovers Troubling Truths In His Basement Years After His Father Disappears

This is the story of a man who mysteriously vanished in his own house. In 1961, George Carroll disappeared in his Long Island home. His disappearance left great sorrow in the hearts of his four children. They were heartbroken, yet they didn’t know what to do or where to look for him.

Let’s start with the man who vanished: George Carroll. George was born in 1934, in one of the worst years of the Great Depression. It was the year when many people turned their backs on those who had promised a better future. The situation was increasingly dark and depressing. 

The year 1961 was a year to remember. This year shaped the world as we know it today in many ways. A truly remarkable event took place in 1961: Yuri Gagarin and a team of scientists conducted the first human space flight. 

Of all the events of 1961, the most shocking event in the Carroll Family was the disappearance of their patriarch. This was the year their father vanished without leaving any clue. It marked the start of changes in their family, and not for the better.

The children were left with nothing but questions, and so they turned to their mother for answers. Their mother, who was also shaken by what happened, could only offer sparse details to her children. As they grew older, they asked her multiple times for answers over the years.

George’s disappearance was a crisis for the family. Dorothy, who was also baffled by what had happened, was never able to give concrete answers to her children. Without any facts, Dorothy would occasionally tell her children that their father had left the house one night to get cigarettes and that he never made it home.

Since there were more questions than answers regarding George’s disappearance, rumors started to circulate around the neighborhood. When people don’t get answers to a mystery like that, their curiosity gets the better of them, and they start to believe their own speculations. 

But the speculation did not end there. Instead, people began spreading another, quite sinister, rumor as time went by. George was said to have been buried under the family’s basement, which was being built at the time of his disappearance. People truly believed that his body would be found underneath the house.

Following George’s sudden disappearance, it was later claimed that no one had actually filed a missing person report. Consequently, the authorities were likely never aware of his absence. Despite their unanswered questions, his family began to move on in the following years.

Shortly after George’s disappearance, a man named Richard Darress moved into the Carroll family house. Eventually, he became Dorothy’s second husband, and the two had a son together. When you think about the timeline, it all seems a bit fast.

The splitting of Dorothy and Richard had nothing to do with the disappearance of Dorothy’s last husband. In 1983, Dorothy filed for divorce on the grounds that Richard had been unfaithful. She had already asked him to pack her bags sometime in the late 1970s.

Richard Darress went to Mexico after his divorce from Dorothy, where he remarried. However, according to court records acquired by Fox News, Darress’ new wife sought a temporary protection order against him in 2000, before her divorce.

The rumors about George abandoning his family were still going strong as his children grew older. It was because of Dorothy that many believed that George had left them of his own volition. It wasn’t clear why she thought of that in the first place, given that there was never any evidence to back the theory up.

Mike, the youngest son, bought the Carroll family house before Dorothy died in 1988. He still lives there to this day. As many memories were made with the rest of the family in that house, it’s just right that one of the family members should have it.

We can say that George and Dorothy’s children were deprived of answers simply because there were no clues whatsoever. Dorothy wasn’t able to share any information with her children. It’s not surprising that they wanted to uncover the mystery themselves.

Since Mike owned the family house, he could start doing whatever he wanted to do to it. In 2012, Mike decided to dig down into the basement to find some answers. It was a courageous act, knowing that the results could haunt him for the rest of his days, but he continued.

Just because Mike’s first attempt was stopped by an engineering issue, he didn’t lose hope. Mike and his family never gave up their quest to find out the truth. If you are that desperate to find answers, no one can stop you from hunting for them.

With the help of the experts, Mike and his family were able to find their first clue. Someone who worked with ground-penetrating radar was one of the people Mike got on board. This type of technology examines subsurface structures using electromagnetic radiation to create an image of what’s underneath. 

Yes, the first clue was helpful. But for Mike, it still wasn’t enough. Mike was willing to do anything to get to the bottom of his father’s disappearance. If we were in Mike’s shoes, we would also do whatever we could to find what truly happened to our father.

Mike later disclosed to News 12 that he had seen “spirits” in his residence as a child. It’s typical for children to say they saw something only they could see. Childhood is a time when our imaginations have no limits. 

It may seem unlikely and unscientific, but there have been stories about psychics helping out in police investigations. Although some people are skeptical about them, psychics say that they can actually help to solve cases just like this one.

To make matters more complicated, Mike suffered a stroke during the course of his investigation. But because his family was there to support him, the search continued in his absence. His two adult sons, Christopher and Michael Jr., took over.

It was just another day when Christopher and Michael Jr. hit the jackpot. As Mike’s sons were excavating the psychic’s specified site, they made a huge breakthrough. What they found was surreal. They couldn’t wait to let their father know.

After his son notified him about their discovery, Mike rushed down to the basement. “It’s not easy for me to go up and down the stairs,” he said. But despite his limited mobility, he was eager to view the new discovery. “I actually got into the hole where they were digging,” Mike told News 12.

The sight that Mike and his sons uncovered was gruesome. “He was twisted into a knot, weird-looking,” he explained. “He was lying twisted in the dirt… he wasn’t totally exposed either,” Mike told the New York Post. We can’t imagine what kind of person could treat a human body like that.

After contacting his siblings, Mike alerted the authorities about the discovery. He knew that by doing so, the police could finally help to put an end to their family’s misery. We think that calling in the police was probably something their mother, Dorothy, should have done all those years ago.

Mike was relieved that his role in finding his father’s remains was over. Even if the results from the police were still ongoing, Mike was certain that the bones he found belonged to his father. That kind of thinking makes sense, given the kind of rumors that had been around for all those years.

Mike was very confident that the bones belonged to his lost father. He was entirely at ease when they uncovered them. It was as though he could see his father in the distance, thanking him and offering him closure on all those years of pain.

In December 2018, after a couple more months of testing, the officials from Suffolk County confirmed that the bones did indeed belong to their father, George. This was the news the Carroll family had waited on for over 60 years.

The discovery of George’s body was one thing. It dashed the rumors that he had left his family to fend for themselves all those years ago. However, one question remained: What really happened to him? Obviously, he didn’t climb into the hole after digging it himself.

Finding out that their father had been murdered was quite a surprise for Mike’s siblings, but not so for Mike. Unlike them, he was not as taken aback by the revelations. The psychic Mike had hired earlier in his investigation clued him into this detail.

“There’s so much unfinished business here. There’s a story behind the story behind the story,” Mike told News 12. While one question was answered, several more questions appeared. For Mike, this wasn’t the end—it was just the beginning. 

The police, on the other hand, had their own theories, according to The Washington Post. They reportedly wanted to speak with Mike’s ex-stepfather, Darress, for example. However, they were unable to question him since he had recently passed away. As a consequence, Mike had maintained an open mind about it, telling Newsday, “I’m trying to avoid pointing fingers right now.”

The Carroll family opted not to speculate about what could have happened to George while the police completed their investigation. They were just ecstatic to have found him after all these years. Mike told Newsday, “I feel great that my dad has finally gotten out of that nasty hole.”

George’s disappearance happened long ago. Many of the other residents in the neighborhood had already passed away, and many had left to other places. The number of potential leads would have been endless.

Finding his father was something Mike had always dreamt of doing. Now that he had, he needed to celebrate. He told the New York Post, “I tell my kids … we hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, two outs,” adding, “We found our dad, so we won.”

Steven, another one of George and Dorothy’s sons, was also relieved to have found his father’s remains. He was five years old at the time of his father’s disappearance. He was too young to understand what had happened. He never believed that their father had abandoned them like their mom told them all those years ago.

Steven was still baffled by who would do this to his father, though he was grateful. We couldn’t bear to think about such an idea—who would do that to someone we loved so dearly? Someone may have done something horrible to their father in their house, but they had no idea who.

There are still many questions regarding the discovery of their father’s body, and the siblings still desire to find out more information. The Carrolls can now begin to think about finally laying their father to rest. After all, they’d always wanted to give their father a proper burial.