Real Name: Unrevealed
Case: Lost Daughter
Location: Pomona, California
Date: 1949
Case[]
Details: Sixty-three-year-old Wilfred Boyd "Mac" McDonald is searching for his daughter, whom he was forced to abandon after his girlfriend's mother threatened to file rape charges against him. His story began in Pomona, California, in 1948, when he was twenty; he fell in love with his sixteen-year-old neighbor, Mary Helen Carr. One day, she approached him, talking about his motorcycle. He asked if she wanted to go for a ride, but she said that her mother would forbid her, especially since he was four years older than her. However, a few days later, when her mother was not home, they went for a ride and began a discrete relationship. Then, one day, her mother caught them together and he felt he had no choice but to leave. He went to the oil fields of Texas where he found work in Houston.
Three weeks later, Mary ran away from home to join Mac in Houston. She called him from a bus station and he immediately picked her up. The next day, they, posing as husband and wife, found an apartment in Houston. They were very happy together and planned to spend their lives so. One month later, however, a friend called and told him that the police were on their way to the apartment. Mary's mother had pressed statutory rape charges against him. He fled the scene just seconds before the police arrived to arrest him. He kept driving until he left Texas; Mary was taken back to California.
A year passed; Mac returned to California to take a new job. One evening, he and a friend stopped at a drive-in in Long Beach. He was shocked to find Mary working as a carhop there. She told him to come visit her at her apartment when she got off work. She then dropped the bombshell that they had a baby, who was there. Later that evening, he arrived and was shocked to find Mary's mother holding their baby. He believed that the meeting was a set-up and that the police were coming to arrest him again.
Mac finally held his baby, but he was still afraid that the police were coming to arrest him. At the time in California, statutory rape was punishable by up to thirty years in prison. He stayed for less than five minutes; he never even knew if his baby was a boy or a girl. He now realizes that he made a huge mistake and that he should have stayed behind for his baby. Today, as a result of his success, he has a substantial estate, worth over one million dollars, that he wants to leave to his baby when he passes away.
Extra Notes: This case first aired on the January 15, 1992 episode. The reunion for it is considered to be one of the more heartbreaking and awkward of the "Lost Loves" cases.
Results: Solved. As a result of the broadcast, Mac learned that he has a forty-three-year-old daughter named Sherry Blackman, who is married with two children. The viewer who called the telecenter was Mary. Sherry had been raised by a loving and caring stepfather, so it was difficult for her to come to terms that she had a biological father that wanted to be a part of her life.
One week after the broadcast, Mac arrived at Sherry's home in Denver, Colorado, where he was reunited with her. Although she felt that the situation was quite emotionally traumatic, in the end, she was more than willing to have him included in her life.
Sadly, Mac died on April 11, 2017 in Reno, Nevada. In his obituary, Sherry is not named among his survivors.
Links: