Unseen - The Vanishing Of Marlene Oakes | The Case Of Lalana Bramble | UNSEEN

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

“He tried to hide it, but I know what I saw” -- On October 12th, 1980, 4-year-old Lalana and her older brother Donald are put on a plane to Rhode Island without their mom, who had vanished just a few hours earlier, with no evidence left behind. It would take years for Lalana to finally solve the case herself, uncovering disturbing family secrets over 20 years old, and answer the question that’s been on her mind all this time: what happened to Mom? Or rather, who wanted her to disappear? External Footage from: "Catch My Killer", "Blood Sacrifice", "Investigator Discovery", "A&E Cold Case File" (Season 3, Episode 12, Daddy Knows Best), "Forensic Files" (Season 9, Episode 13), "A Daughter's Journey TLC", "Court TV", "TRUTV", "Reenactment Diary Recording", "Lilly Junod", "Vanished with Beth Holloway A&E Television Network LLC". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello? Hello. I keep getting gospel, Lulana, and she wants to know where her mother is. She pulled the gun on you. You took it off her and shot her, right? Yeah, that's one story. This recording sounds like a confession tape, but nothing in this case is what it seems. On October 12, 1980, 9-year-old Lelana Bramble's mom, Marlene, leaves the house, but never returns. Her husband Bill spends hours driving around but finds nothing. Lalana believes her mom has abandoned her. October 13th, the next day, police investigate a man named Glenn St. Heler

after his affair with Marlene is made known. When questioned by the authorities, he hands over Marlene's diaries. Only a few hours later, police release Glenn St. Hilaire and Marlene's case quickly grows cold. For more than 20 years, the circumstances surrounding Marlene's disappearance would remain a mystery, unless her daughter Lilana could solve her case, not yet knowing that hidden in the diary was something that put Marlene's children in grave danger. Marlene loved those two kids,

and there was no way in the world she would have left and not taken the kids with her. You have pulled off the perfect crime, haven't you? No, I wouldn't call it perfect, because if a crime was perfect, nobody would ever know about it. The very least I can do as her child is see that she gets,

The year is 1980. 4-year-old Lalana is living with her parents, Marlene and Bill, and her 8-year-old brother, Donald, in the small town of Verona, Kentucky. Marlene and Bill Major got married nine years prior, and after raising two children together, the family seems happy from the outside world. But in reality, their parents' marriage is not what it appears to be. Marlene and Bill are constantly fighting, making the household unstable for both children. In the early summer of 1980, Bill meets 28-year-old Glenn St. Hilaire,

who is hired as a regular handyman for the family, helping around the house. As time goes on, Glenn actually becomes a close friend of the married couple. But strangely, Bill seems to encourage his wife and Glenn to spend time alone. Months go by and the fighting between Bill and Marlene keeps getting worse, until one day she threatens to leave him and take the kids with her away from him. October 12th, Lelana and Donald are asleep in their bedrooms, like any other night, when all of a sudden, Bill wakes the two kids up and rushes them to their next-door neighbor. He tells them he will only be gone for a few hours and not to worry.

The next morning, the kids wake up and their mother is gone. She didn't have her driver's license for Social Security card. She had nothing with her. It was literally like she had just completely dropped off the face of the earth. October 13, 1980. One day later, Glenn, the close family friend, is at the police station talking to a detective. Glenn St. Helder explained to me that a girl by the name Marlene Major is missing. The mom of two has yet to return home.

No one can find her, and her kids are worried. Although Glenn is the one who reported the missing woman, the police become suspicious of him. Glenn St. Clair would be a good suspect, and now he's coming in to report someone else's wife missing, a little bit unusual. The police actually investigated him and suspected him of having something to do with her disappearance. However, police need more information and go to Marlene's husband, Bill, to understand his side of the story. Bill tells police a shocking revelation. His wife was having an affair with Glenn and that on the night of her disappearance,

she left in her car to go see the 28-year-old man. We have two people who are reporting the same person missing. They're both pointing fingers, and so the concern is what really happened. Bill's story is believable because one spouse is happy with the other and a lot of times it'll take the kids in a leave. All indications was that she left in her car.

The two men's versions of the story don't add up, And now police are worried for Marlene's safety. They talk to the neighbors and possible witnesses, but no one is seen or heard anything. We're able to search at the immediate area within days of this happening and couldn't find any indication of any foul play, blood or anything. Detectives don't have anything to go on in the surrounding area, so they send Marlene Major's profile to different agencies to expand the search.

Her dental records were faxed all over the United States. Anytime there was a woman of her approximate build, an approximate age who was found, I'd say they were probably faxed at least 25 different times. Glenn seems genuinely worried for Marlene and eager to help the detectives find her. He presents what could be an interesting piece of evidence, the young woman's secret diary. Inside, Marlene has written that her children are in grave danger. Marlene couldn't even tell that horrific secret to her own family, but she did record it in her diary, not in specific detail, but enough that you know what she's talking about.

But unfortunately, the detectives find themselves unable to take any action based on what the mom has written. Legally, we had all kinds of problems with trying to make a case out of vagueness in the diaries. She didn't get specific, so there wasn't a whole lot we could do with that at that time. Even though what is written in the diary is compelling, it cannot be used to convict anyone because usually diaries are considered hearsay in court. Unbeknownst to the investigators, the diary would later be vital in solving the case. But for the time being, Marlene's diary will remain on a police investigation shelf for two decades, unseen from the two children, until Lalana becomes an adult. With two potential suspects in mind, but still zero evidence to go on, the investigators can't go much further and let both men return home. Only a few days after, Bill takes the two children and moves to Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

At first, Lalana thinks it's only temporary, but quickly learns it's not. We got told that we were going to live there now. We had no idea, and we're completely taken abet. It's now late October 1980. Lalana and Donald are finally given an explanation about their mom as their dad sits them down and coldly says that their mother has abandoned them, ran away with a boyfriend, and that they will never see her again. My dad basically told us that she was a drug addict, alcoholic prostitute,

you know, who just really didn't care about us and that she had run off with another man. La Lana doesn't move. She has not yet fully grasped. her father really means. In her confusion, only one thing stays clear in her mind. With their mom gone, who will protect them against their father? Meanwhile, back in Kentucky, the police investigation comes to a standstill. I couldn't even call the case of murder case because I had no evidence to show that she was dead. We had nothing. You know, it's not that I gave up. I never gave up. You're always hoping something will pop up, but up to this point, things were looking pretty bleak for us.

Months go by, but Lalana can't stop thinking about her mom. Even if she believes her mother has abandoned them, the little girl misses her and dreams that she will come back one day. There's that fuzzy moment where you're starting to wake up and you're not quite awake, but you're not totally asleep either. And there was a lot of days that I would hit that moment and I would stop and I would listen. And I just knew that there was going to be a knock on the door. And it was going to be her. It's now in 1981. The family has been living in Rhode Island for one year.

From the outside looking in, nobody had any clue what was going on inside that household. The five-year-old girl still hasn't heard from her mother, and whenever she asks her father about her whereabouts, or if he received news from her, he suddenly lashes out and becomes enraged, even violent towards her and her brother. The violence escalates over time, to the point we're going. Going to school has become difficult for the siblings, constantly needing to cover up their injuries. I've seen him beat my brother to the point Donald could not pick himself up off the floor. You know, you would miss school because you had bruises. But that's not the worst part for the little girl. Her dad starts to force her to do things no child should ever do.

His favorite threat was, if you don't do what I tell you to do, if you don't do what I want you to do, I'll kill your brother. And he would turn around and tell my brother, if you don't do what I tell you to, I'll kill your sister. So he used our feelings for each other, our love for one another, against us. Meanwhile, the Kentucky police officer still have no new evidence on the missing case of Marlene. And without a body, they have no way to convict anyone. 1984, three years have gone by, and Lalana is now eight years old. Her mom is still missing, and there's no new information about the case. But someone out there knows where she is.

day, after school, things take a turn for the worse. Donald is off with some of his friends, and Lalana is alone with her father. And I was outside in front of the trailer playing in the yard, and he grabbed me by the back of the hair, and he threw me in the trailer. And he took a gun and he shoved it in my face. And he told me that if I did not learn to keep my mouth shut, he would blow my head off. Lalana is left alone, paralyzed by fear. The little girl has learned to keep quiet about what is really happening inside the house. It's now in 1985.

The father has remarried a woman named Pauline, who is the new stepmom to Lalana and Donald. From the outside, the newly blended family appears normal, but life in the Major's household hasn't changed. Lalana continues to stay silent, protecting her and her brother. Until one day, while alone in a room, Donald, now 13, walks up to his younger sister and tells her that from this day on, their life would change forever.

Donald said to me, he said, it's over. He said, he's not going to hurt us anymore. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, I told Pauline, and she caught the cops, and they're going to arrest him. My first reaction was, we're both dead. Lalana paces nervously across the room. Now that her brother has spoken up, it's unclear how their father might react, as his violent outbursts have always been unpredictable to the two kids.

It's August 10th at around 7 p.m. The whole family is at home when, all of a sudden, someone knocks at the major's door. Lalana is petrified. Her and Donald hide behind the corner when policemen suddenly run onto the property. The children watch in disbelief as their dad is taken by officers and put into handcuffs. And I can remember watching them put the handcuffs on him, and he turned around and he looked down that hallway at us. And I was just like, we're dead. I'm like, if they don't keep him, we're dead.

Bill Major is sentenced to only 15 years behind bars, with the possibility of parole. After their dad's arrest, 9-year-old Lelana and 13-year-old Donald moved back to Kentucky to live with their maternal grandmother. The siblings now try to grow up like normal kids, but something is still deeply wrong. At home, everyone avoids talking about Marlene. She's been gone for five years, with no one actively looking for her. Lelana struggles to accept that her mom won't ever come back, and misses her greatly.

One day, Lalana is alone with her grandmother. It's the perfect opportunity to ask for the first time about her mom's disappearance. We were sitting in the parking lot in front of a department store, and I said, well, do you know where my mother is? Have you seen her? Have you heard from her? It was just like 10 seconds of absolute silence. And she looked at me, she said, honey, she said, your mother's dead. She said, she's been dead.

She said, your father killed her. La Lana is shocked at her grandmother's secret, but can't fully explain. All her life, her dad told Lalana and Donald that their mom ran away and didn't love them. But now, her grandmother is saying it's not the truth. It's possible Marlene may have been a victim of Bill, but unfortunately, no one has looked for her in years, and there's no evidence. So Lalana is forced to take matters into her own hands. I got a composition notebook.

It cost me like 99 cents at Walmart. And if I talked to somebody, I wrote the date the time and what the conversation was over. Lelana gets as much information she can possibly get her hands on. With a cold case, the resources are limited, but this doesn't stop her. However, now in 1997, the investigation takes a dangerous turn. Her father Bill is suddenly released from jail on good behavior, having only served 12 years behind bars. When he finally got out of jail, I was terrified he was going to hunt me down. That even after all that time, if there was a way he could get to me, he would.

More anxious than ever to solve her mom's disappearance and find evidence to put her father in jail for life, Lalana goes to the police station and demands access to her mom's files. They've been untouched for over 17 years, including her mom's diary, which has been held as evidence by detectives and never seen by Lalana. But now, since she is finally of legal age, she's granted access to the whole police investigation. And for the first time in her life, Lalana reads her mom's diaries. I got up early this morning and went to get Donald up for school and caught Bill with him. He tried to hide what they were doing, but I know what I saw.

I told him not to touch me ever again, and if he touches Donald, I'll kill him. Lalana is in a state of shock, her whole life. She believed her mom ran away and never loved her, but she now realizes that all along, her mom knew about her father's abusive behavior and was prepared to fight for the safety of her children. She soon discovers another disturbing piece of information inside her mom's file. In 1981, a year after her mom's disappearance, a man had discovered a skull in a farm in Boone County, Kentucky, about a mile from the Major's old home. At the time of the discovery in the 1980s,

science wasn't advanced enough to test bone material for DNA. So, in order to identify a body, they needed teeth to compare to dental records, but unfortunately, that wasn't possible. He would have manipulated her head to pull her teeth out and to remove her lower jaw.

Remind you of horror movies that you watched on TV. There was no face, there was no jaw. It was just the top of the skull that had a distinct blood. right in the top of it. Lelana then decides to go back to Boone County and search for herself. If she finds the rest of those remains, identification will be possible, and it will be one step closer to finding out what really happened to her mom.

When she arrives at the site, she takes out her shovel from her car and digs. I was really, really, really hoping to find something. Because I was like, if I could find something, if I could, you know, that would be something more than we have now. If I could find the rest of her body. body, you know, but at the same time, you know, it was constant terror that I would find something. But despite all her efforts, she doesn't find anything. Lalana is exhausted and stopped searching for the night when all of a sudden a break in the

case happens. Lalana receives the news that with new lab technology, they now only need a small sample from the skull to create a DNA profile. The one thing that was holding up the prosecution and finally getting justice for her and being able to get closure from my family, being able to lay her to rest, hinged on that DNA test. If it came back that it wasn't her, you have to start all over. After the forensic evidence returns back from the lab, it is proved by DNA that the skull did in fact belong to Marlene.

The missing case of Marlene Major has officially become a murder case. Learning 110%, she's gone. No coming back, no chance. Lalana is crushed by the confirmation, but despite her broken heart, her fight is not over yet. She realizes that her last option is to confront her own father and try to get a confession out of him. Lalana calls him and asks about her mom's disappearance. You know, just tell me what you did with her body so we can bury her, and I'll leave you alone. I said, I won't force the issue, won't try to get you prosecuted.

And he laughed at me. And his specific words to me were, if you think I'm going to tell you where your mother's body is, you're a crazy. So at that point I told him, I said, okay, fine, it's all. Lalana is determined to get a full confession from her dad, which is the only way to prove him guilty. Her drive to solve her mom's murder inspires a new detective, Todd Kenner, to work on the cold case. Detective Kenner comes up with a plan. He asks Jim Major, Bill's father, to call his son and have the police record the conversation in an attempt to get a confession. Basically asked him, what we were after was to get what details he could out of you.

Bill, I said, I'm calling up, I want to know something. He's what's that? I said, why won't you tell me where you buried Marlene? I keep getting gospel, Lulana, and she wants to know where her mother is so that she can get the bones and put them in a gasket and have closure. Yeah, and put me in jail for life. Christ, at least you could be decent enough to say where you dumped it. I'll tip her where the body is if you let me know.

And then she's gonna bounce it right back on me again. Then I'll have them Kentucky cops coming up here to arrest. There was no denial there. He's basically saying, if I tell the truth, I'm going to jail. You have pulled off the perfect crime, haven't you? No, I wouldn't call it perfect. Because if a crime was perfect, nobody would ever know about it. That's when the cops said, we got them.

Yeah, we got him. Don't you even feel bad for killing? I don't have any kind of conscience about anything. I think to the son I raised could do such a thing. There's no good son of a bitch at hanging myself if I could get my hands on him. He don't deserve to breathe the air. With the DNA matched on the skull and this incriminating phone call, police have enough to arrest Bill for the murder of Marlene Major in 1980.

On the 25th of June, 2001, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, Bill is arrested at his home for murdering his wife. On the way back to Boone County, in the back of a police car, he openly confesses about what really happened 21 years ago. It was late at night on October 12, 1980. Marlene and Bill were fighting downstairs. When the conversation ended with Marlene threatening to leave him and take the children, she exited the house and got into her car. And he followed her. He said that she was screaming after me. I couldn't take it anymore.

And he said, that's when they shot. And after he shot her in the head, he would cut her head off, cut her, knock her teeth out with the butt of the gun, and then he would remove her jaw. And cut her up in little pieces and spread her throughout the state. He claims that he got rid of the gun in a pond and left his wife's skull in his sinkhole. He then pushed her car into the Ohio River. I think the crime scene was probably contained to the vehicle. And so her body and all the evidence of the crime remained in that vehicle. So when he got rid of the vehicle, he essentially got rid of the crime scene.

During the next few days, despite intense searching, police are unable to find the gun, the car, or Marlene's remains. However, the prosecution possesses sufficient evidence, including positive DNA testing and Bill's confession to his dad to successfully indict the killer. July 28, 2003, Bill Major is trialed for the murder of his wife, Marlene, and tampering with physical evidence. Glenn St. Hilaire, the family's handyman and alleged lover of Marlene, takes the stand and describes how Bill Major seemed to push him and Marlene to be alone together and encouraged him to have a romantic relationship with his wife. Both Lalana and Donald are there to make sure justice is served, and they testify about the molestation they endured growing up. Lalana describes how Bill threatened to kill her if she didn't keep their secret. The court stays silent as they listen to the harrowing tales of the siblings. It takes the jury less than an hour to find him guilty.

And when the verdict came back, I just almost dropped. I did. I just, if my brother hadn't had a hold of me, I would have collapsed. Bill is sentenced to life without parole. During the final remarks, officers note how much Lalana truly loved and cared for her mom. Lelana had been driven for a long time to bring closure to this and to bring her father to justice. I mean, it was obvious. Just you could see the passion for this in her eyes, the way she talked.

Even though she didn't really know her mother that well, she was just a child when all this occurred. She had a lot of love for her mother. Today, after having confronted her dad and finding out the truth about what really happened to her mom, she proved that her mother never abandoned them. Lalana and Donald's mom actually did the opposite and gave up her life trying to protect them from the monster they called dad. I have spent so much of my life absolutely terrified of that man. And now, I honestly, I don't. I don't feel anything for him.

And I finally felt a sense of peace that day, that she finally could rest. Throughout the years, Donald has kept supporting Lelana, and together they broke the cycle of abuse created by their father. Even though it took years for Lelana to heal from the wounds created by her father, she is living proof that even after tragedy, there's a life worth living. With incredible strength and resilience, she managed to face her own demons in the name of her mom.

Ultimately, she died to protect us. You know, she was trying to get us away from him and to get us out of that situation. She was trying to protect her children.