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NBC’s Dateline episode titled, Buried Secrets, elaborated on the tragic story of David Jackson, who disappeared in 1988 and, after more than a decade, was found to be murdered. In 2003, the cold case was reopened by Detective Donna Velazquez, who finally solved the case and put behind bars Michael Wolf.
Wolf was responsible for killing Jackson, and Velazquez also discovered the involvement of more people in the case.
The synopsis of the Dateline episode reads:
"Judy Carlson lived in a painful limbo. Her son disappeared without a trace. Years went by and she may never have known his fate if not for a rookie detective's dogged work but to solve this cold case, the investigator also need the help of a killer."
More on this in our story.
Dateline: Who was David Jackson, and what happened to him? Details explored
David Jackson went missing on June 25, 1988. The 24-year-old man left his home after receiving a call and never came back. Furthermore, even after a thorough investigation, the inspectors were unable to find anything related to David, apart from his car six weeks after his disappearance near the airport.
As per Dateline, the family was devastated and always had a little hope of finding David. The circumstances left them in shock when it happened, 15 years later. Detective Donna Velazquez was handed the cold case of David Jackson’s disappearance in 2003. After noticing the missing poster at the detective's desk, David’s estranged son, John (now an adult), informed the detective that it was his father during a meeting of the Police Explorers program.
John aided in the investigation and suspected his mother, David's ex-wife, Barbara Britton, of hiding some crucial information. Britton's strange reaction when John informed her about the reopening of the case gave it away.
While digging through the case, the detective found out that David met Barbara when he was working at Burger King. After Barbara got pregnant, they got married at a young age, which was not favoured by Barbara’s father, Harry. He despised David, and David was scared of him.
However, the marriage didn’t work, and they got divorced, and both of them shared joint custody of John. Barbara then married Michael Wolf, a 41-year-old former military police officer, and moved to Arizona. David was informed of the move merely three hours before. Creating confusion about the custody, David and Barbara decided to let John stay with his father for a month-long summer in Florida.
However, just before John arrived in Florida, David went missing after receiving a phone call. Initially thought to have left town on his own accord, the story quickly turned more sinister when David’s car was discovered after six weeks of his disappearance, with no fingerprints, not even David's.
Moreover, Det. Velazquez was surprised after discovering that Barbara’s new husband, Michael, adopted John just a few months after David’s disappearance. With a strong suspicion of Barbara, Velaquez used Google search to find David’s body by surfing the internet for unidentified bodies.
Fortunately, she found David’s remains and confirmed it with his mother, Judy’s DNA, proving that David was dead. Barbara was questioned, but nothing was proven as she shared that she was not in Florida when David went missing. However, the detective was not satisfied and she met Michael, Barbara’s then husband, and asked about the murder.
Although Michael denied killing David, he shared that Barbara’s father, Harry, had discussed with him about getting rid of David. He even told the detective that he suggested to Harry what kind of gun he should use.
Further digging brought another person, Nancy Graham, one of Michael’s ex-wives, into the investigation after it was discovered that Michael had given her a gun. She became one of the first people who help solve a 15-year-old case after she revealed that Michael had killed David.
Dateline: Michael Wolfe was found guilty of David Jackson’s murder
Nancy revealed that Michael confessed to killing David and other related details while he was drunk. Nancy stated that Michael and Barbara were at a Motel 6 in Florida, where she called David, who was later shot in the head and killed by Michael. Other than Nancy, another of Michael’s ex-wives, Carol Larson, also told the detective the same story, which helped them arrest Michael, who was sentenced to life imprisonment.
However, the confessions were not strong enough to arrest Barbara until Michael made his confession. He revealed that Barbara and Harry were also accomplices to the murder. All three of them planned it together: Barbara called David to come to the motel, she was present when Micahel shot him in the head twice, and then David's body was loaded into Harry's car to be buried.
Barbara was arrested and imprisoned for three years until her trial. She pleaded guilty only to the fact that she called David to go to the motel and was not involved in the murder.
The Dateline episode includes an interview with Barbara Britton, among others, and is reported by Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison.
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Also Read: Dateline: The Devil's in the Details - Everything we know about the latest true crime episode
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