Help I'm Alive

cheating death and taxes

When Olivia Newton John's former fiancee Patrick McDermott disappeared 5 years ago it made headlines. For one thing Ms Newton John is kind of well known. Then there were all the irregularities in the case. The body was never found. McDermott was deep in debt. There was also a 100 grand life insurance policy in which his son was the beneficiary. So people started talking insurance fraud fast. The working theory was that McDermott had faked his death to escape debt and so that his son could cash in on the insurance.

Wasn't this on the Rockford Files?

Nothing was ever proven. People kept claiming to have seen McDermott down around Mexico. ONJ gave interviews asking him to contact her if he was still alive. Professional and amateur sleuths got involved in the case. The was a lot of notoriety to the person who solved it. Plus the insurance companies would probably pay a percentage on reclaimed money to anyone who could prove he was alive. One man claiming to have come close is Texas based PI Phillip Klein. PK has come forward and stated that McDermott is alive.

Klein got involved in the case when an American investigative journalism type program hired him. The Coast Guard had previously failed to make a conclusive determination. The Coast Guard and the media eventually lost interest moved on to other things, but Klein intrepidly continued. He even set up a web site to keep track of McDermott sightings. The web site paid off big. Seems that Mr McDermott himself regularly logged onto the sight - according to Klein, and that's how they found him.

"pay up sucker"

Now Klein isn't a bad guy and agreed to leave Mr McDermott alone (after doggedly perusing him for 5 years). In exchange Mr McDermott supposedly provide some documentation and voice recording verifying his identity. Klein says that McDermott is still leaving in Mexico and that it is his wish not to be hounded. So what's in it for Klein. Apart from the satisfaction of a job well done Klein is planning to release a book on the whole deal. Now that should be an interesting read. Hopefully Mr McDermott has a piece of that action.



Now from one mystery to some others, here's Gary Bell with the View From Space to blow the whistle on the whole C S Lewis Narnia thing. Just click on 2005-12-11-space on the player below.


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