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Hey there, listeners. Josh Dean here, host

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of the latest installment of Witnessed Fade to Black.

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Last season, Witnessed Devil in the Ditch made huge

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waves in the true crime world, becoming

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the number one show on Apple Podcasts. This

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season, we're back with another unsolved case,

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the mysterious disappearance of Hollywood screenwriter

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Gary DeVore. This is a missing

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person case unlike anything you've ever heard of.

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This one involves the CIA, a Hollywood

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screenplay, a missing laptop, and

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even a dash of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Take

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a listen. I

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didn't understand that people go missing

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this way. Not until

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you either, if you're in law

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enforcement or something like that, or if

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you actually have it happen to someone you

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know. It's a very odd thing.

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You don't know how to handle it. I

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always say to people, you have no idea what it's like

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to lose a human being on your

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watch.

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It was a few minutes

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after 1 a.m. on June 28th, 1997,

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and Wendy Oates DeVore was alone in bed, waiting

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for her husband Gary to call her back. At

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the time, they lived in a small beach house on a

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windswept lane in Montecito, California,

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about an hour north of L.A. Wendy's

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husband, Gary DeVore, was a screenwriter,

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known

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for some of the biggest action films of the era, starring

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people like Tim Burton, and the late, late, late, late,

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Bob God, and some of the best, real-time

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heroes,

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in Vegas. Ooh, and some nasty

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stuff in there. There'd like to be a bite

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almost. Holyfield is very unhappy. Look

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at this. The Vander Hulla field. That

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was definitely a bite. But

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that hadn't happened yet. The

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fight had been on Wendy's mind all day because

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Gary had rented it on... pay-per-view, which

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was kind of a thing then, because it was new.

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They were having friends over to watch it that evening, and

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Wendy expected Gary to arrive back in plenty

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of time. Gary went to Santa Fe to stay

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with Marsha Mason, who was a very dear

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old friend. Marsha Mason, the four-time

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Academy Award-nominated actor and

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amateur race car driver, was an old

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friend of Gary's. She and her partner had

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a guest room where he often stayed to write. He

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had been a truck driver when he was young,

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and when he was trying to work

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out script and ideas, he loved

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taking very long drives so that he could

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think about what he was writing.

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Gary had gone to New Mexico to finish the adaptation

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of a script he was excited about, but

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which had been dogging him. It was called

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The Big Steel. Gary

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had made most of his money in recent years as a rewrite

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guy, punching up other people's action

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films about a stolen U.S. Army payroll.

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What are you looking for? Just a few hundred thousand dollars. There's nothing

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here. Early

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on that Friday morning of his return, before

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he got behind the wheel of his white, Eddie Bauer

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edition Ford Explorer to begin the 897-mile drive

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home, Gary had phoned Wendy

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to say he had a breakthrough. He was finally

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ready to get back and deliver his script. He

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left after lunch, calling Wendy frequently

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along the way.

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I mean, I talked to Gary a dozen

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times a day. He called me all

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the time from the road. It

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was certainly not normal not

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to hear from him.

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Gary's last call to Wendy had been at 12.38 a.m. He

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told her he was pulling in for a cup of coffee

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at a Denny's in the Mojave Desert, and

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that he'd call her again when he was back on the road in

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just a few minutes. But 45

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minutes passed, and Wendy was getting

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impatient.

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Well it was the middle of

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the night. I slept in the buff. We

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had a gate that I used to go out and open for

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him when I was staying up and waiting for him to come in.

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I was trying to decide whether to throw.

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on some clothes and go out and open the gate

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or wait for his next call. I

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gave him enough time to have a cup of coffee and

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then I got mad. I wanted to go to sleep

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so I said, oh screw it, I'm going to call him right

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now. So I called him. I

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needed an answer. I called three

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times and then I got really

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concerned.

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As she waited for Gary's call on that

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cool June night, Wendy could hear the

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waves rolling into the sand just a few feet

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from her window. The silence

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of her phone had become deafening. And

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then at 1.15 in the morning,

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the phone rang and it was him. And

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he said, what was that? Are you calling? And I

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said, well, who else would it be at one o'clock in the morning?

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And he didn't even respond to that. And

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I said, Gary, are you okay? And

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he said, I'm pumping pure adrenaline

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here. And I said, Gary,

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and he said, beautiful. Writers

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pick their words very carefully. I'm

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pumping pure adrenaline here is not

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a normal thing that he would say ever. And

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there was something else. You could

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tell back then very easily if

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a person was on a cell phone as opposed

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to a landline. And he

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was on a landline. And I knew that.

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And for Wendy, one final point.

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We made a deal with each other that

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when we hung up the phone, we would always say,

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I love you. We'd made so many mistakes

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in all of our relationships. This

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is what we did. It was the only time

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in our whole relationship that he said, got to

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go. He didn't say, I love you. And he

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hung. I mean,

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it was gone.

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The last ping from Gary's cell phone was

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picked up by a relay tower in the Mojave desert at 1 20 a.m.

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near that Denny's where Gary had stopped for coffee. This

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Denny's has to be the first time in the whole world. to be one of the most remote

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Denny's on the entire planet. Placed

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there probably because it's at a critical

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juncture. Just 20 miles from

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Edwards Air Force Base and the desert

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industrial town of Palmdale, home

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of the Lockheed Skunk Works and the Stealth

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Bomber. It's also just

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off Highway 14, the road Gary

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was on when he vanished. A modern

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super highway built in the 70s with twisting

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elevated concrete spans carved through

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the rock canyons. It's remote but

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heavily traveled. And that's what drove

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people crazy about Gary's disappearance

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from the very beginning. The area around

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it is sparsely populated. There are barely

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any trees and just zero urban

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cover. How could Gary

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and his 4,000 pound forward explorer

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have just vanished into this

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barren landscape without a trace?

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And now, as Wendy sat there wondering

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why Gary had acted so strangely on the

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phone, something he told her popped

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into her mind. Over the

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coming months, these words would

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haunt her.

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Gary told me that this script was going

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to blow the lid off the CIA.

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And I just chalked

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it up

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to his enthusiasm and his ego.

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Search for Witness, Fade to Black, wherever

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