The Missing Screenwriter Found With No Hands

In honor of my friend Linda Mazur, we are replaying one of my favorite episodes: the little-known mystery of the 1997 disappearance of screenwriter Gary Devore.  Gary was returning home after working out the ending of his latest script, which he claimed would blow the lid off government secrets, when he disappeared without a trace.  Did Gary step out to “buy a pack of cigarettes,” or was he met with foul play?   We’ll delve into what happened that fateful night and revisit the rumors and conspiracy theories that continue to baffle and disturb people.  

Executive Producer Kristin Overn

Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis

Producer Terry Sampson

Music by Ethan Stoller

Transcript

Speaker: 0:11

Hello, my name is Sandy Adamis, the social media director for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and your host for the Writer's Hangout. A podcast that celebrates the many stages of writing, from inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting a project made and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hey guys, it's Sandy. I'm coming to you from Studio City, California, the jewel of the San Fernando Valley, and just one canyon or freeway ride away from the star studded mean streets of Hollywood, California. today. We're gonna replay one of my favorite episodes of the writer's Hangout in honor of my friend Linda Mazer, who left us way too soon. She was beautiful, generous, intelligent, and kind. Steve, David, and Laura, my heart is with you. Let's start the show. Hey writers, we're gonna do something a little different today. We're gonna tell you the story of screenwriter Gary Devore Terry, have you, do you recognize the name Gary Devore? I don't. Okay. I think a lot of our listeners are gonna find his story fascinating. On the morning of June 27th, 1997, 55-year-old screenwriter Gary Devore. A burly man with salt and pepper here, who was known for writing late 80 action movies and the Billy Crystal Gregory Hines buddy cop film running Scared. He was getting ready to head back to his home in Santa Barbara from the Santa Fe Ranch of his good friend and actress, Marsha Mason. You know that name right? Yes. Goodbye girl. Beautiful. It was such a good film. Gary always went to Marsha's Ranch when he needed to hunker down and figure out a tough script problem. this visit was no different. Gary had been struggling with the ending of his latest screenplay, the Big Steal, which was a patch and project of his, and now he was done. And for the audience. If you're going to drive straight through, like Gary was planning to do Santa Fe, New Mexico to Santa Barbara, where he lived is what would you say about a 14 to 15 hour ride if you're cruising. Yeah. Once behind the wheel of his Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer. I just love that. I love that Eddie Bauer. It, that was really big. I think in the eighties it was huge. Yeah. Gary phoned his wife, Wendy, saying he finished the script and he was heading home later that night and five hours from home at 10:20 PM Gary filled up at the. Hi, Sierra Oasis gas station in Fenner, California. He got back on the road and two hours later Gary called Wendy saying he was past Barstow. Again, for the audience, Fenner, California is midway point. Between Santa Barbara and Las Vegas. Wendy wanted Gary to stop and spend the night at a hotel, but they had friends coming over to watch the Tyson Holy Field match the next day, and he told Wendy he wanted to press on. Wendy was watching Real Sex on HBO. That sounds like it was an interesting show. Wow, Wendy. Yeah, and told Gary that she would call him back when it was over. Gary then stopped for coffee on Highway 14 at a Denny's around 12:45 AM in Mojave, California. Mojave, California is located in the southwestern region of the Mojave Desert. Gary is now two and a half hours away from home. As promised, Wendy called Gary, but she couldn't get through this time. She tried three times from 1:00 AM to one 10 with no luck. Then her phone rang. It was Gary, and he sounded distant. I. Was that you trying to call me honey? Wendy remembered thinking what a strange thing to say after all, who else would be trying to call at 1:00 AM Are you okay, Gary? Wendy asked, I'm pumping pure adrenaline here. Gary responded later. Wendy told authorities she thought that to mean Gary was scared and someone must have been in the car with him. This is a man whose business' words she was saying pumping pure adrenaline. Means something. Wendy drifted off to sleep and woke up at 9:00 AM Gary still wasn't home After the break. we'll continue with the Gary divorce story. This episode of The Writer's Hangout is brought to you by podcast, the podcast for people who want to launch, grow, and monetize. A successful podcast writers have you. Ever thought about starting a podcast? Do you even know where to start? If you said no? I was just like you. Back in 2022 when the writers hangout started. Now why does 2022 ring a bell for you? Oh yeah, we were in a pandemic, which meant none of my incredibly talented friends could drop by and help me brainstorm what to do. I cried a lot of tears and frustration before that first episode was launched. Do you hear me? GarageBand? I wish I had Podcast Craft back then. Podcast Craft takes you from novice podcaster to Confident Broadcaster. They'll teach you how to start and grow successful podcast in their easy to follow sessions. You can find podCraft@podcraft.net, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Back to the show. at 1:00 PM A worried. Wendy called the police only to be told nothing could be done. Gary was an adult and adults had to be missing for 24 hours before a report can be taken. That's a really stupid rule, by the way. I hate that does sound so wrong. I know. I hate that rule. I really do. Because people do know when people are missing. That it's time to look for 'em. Yes. Sometimes that's a half an hour. Absolutely. Yeah. You know your spouse's comings and goings. That's right. Also three hours in the desert, if you are lost that. That's precious time ticking away. Yeah. This is during the day, right? Yeah, that's okay. Okay, so at 4:00 PM Wendy filed a missing persons report for Gary, and the search became a multi-agency project including the Santa Barbara Sheriff's LA County, and get this, the FBI. Wendy called all of her and Gary's friends for help and sheriffs, organized search teams, and combed the area. He was last seen the Denny's in the Mojave Desert and the gas station in Fenner, California. A childhood friend of Gary's stepped up and offered a hundred thousand dollars reward. For his recovery, which enticed bikers and men with bloodhounds to join the search in Palmdale, California along Highway 14. The Aqueduct Bridge was driven over countless times. They figured if there was gonna be an accident, that's where it would've happened. Underneath the Aqueduct Bridge flows the water from the Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles, California. Gary's buddies arrived and rode on horseback searching under the relentless and unforgiving son while helicopters soared from above. Gary's ex-wife called people she knew in special forces for help. They searched the aqueduct with infrared. Dozens of agents in suits began to arrive one after another, claiming to be C-I-A-N-S-A and military. Wendy didn't ask questions. She was happy to have anyone's help. A week of searching went by. No, Gary, Wendy returned home to Santa Barbara there. She discovered the one copy of the big steal was missing from the home office. By week two, the men in suits disappeared and only law enforcement remained. Now it was Wendy's time in the barrel. Sheriff's got in her face and tried to intimidate her into confessing. She took part in Gary's disappearance. She was asked to take a lie detector test. She did, and unveiled, Wendy wondered if it was because of the extreme stress. People began to accept Gary's death. The chance of survival in the desert for three weeks are small media attention lessened, and month after month ticked by. But on the first anniversary of Gary's disappearance, the press once again became interested in the story. Wendy was quoted as saying, I'm not going to believe Gary's gone until I see a body. Nine days later on Friday, July 7th, 1998, an amateur detective named Douglas Crawford, who was fascinated by Gary's disappearance had a hunch that Gary could be under the waters of the California. Aqueduct in Palmdale, California as that was recently the location of another death. Although it had been searched by helicopters and people on the ground, Crawford was right. Police located skeletal remains inside Gary's submerged. Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer in an upright position, 15 feet underwater in the concrete open river channel. After the police had retrieved the Ford Explorer from the murky water, Gary's gun and his laptop containing the big steel couldn't be found. The SUV headlights were discovered to be in the off position, and Gary known for never wearing a seatbelt, was belted in tight. All strange, right? Yes. I buried the lead here. Gary's hands were missing. That's right. The writer had no hands. This has got to be some kind of message. That's gruesome. All this was considered very suspicious as again, the Aqueduct bridge was searched when Gary initially disappeared and had showed no. Signs of impact at the time. something. There would be skid marks. There would be a rail broken, When Gary first went missing, his case became popular with conspiracy theorists. And now with the discovery of the SUV minus Gary's script gun in hands, the speculations went through the roof. Let's break three of them down now. The number one theory out there. Enemy of the state. Gary was murdered by the CIA. I need to take a step back here a second. Explain something. The CIA had a long history in Hollywood and it's been alleged that back in the 1950s, they started a project called Operation Mockingbird, where the CIA began recruiting American journalists and writers into a propaganda network. The recruited writers were put on the CIA payroll and instructed to write fake stories that promoted government ideas by dispelling communist ones. Gary's script, the big steal he told friends would be the hardest hitting films studios had ever seen, featuring disturbing details against the US government involving drugs, bank robbery, and the 1989 invasion of. Would the CIA really murder a screenwriter over a movie? Gary was known to have a working relationship with the CIA and his ideology about the US government had changed from pro to disillusioned over the years. But is that enough to have someone murdered? That leads us to theory number two. The Invisible man, Gary Devore is in the witness protection program. Did the CIA become aware of the powerful and damning secrets Gary was about to spill to the world via his screenplay. Did they stop him that night on the road, tell him the only way out alive was to disappear, start a new life. Is that why it took a year to find Gary's body? Did the CIA stage, the Aqueduct area? Lot of questions, Gary's friends, and Wendy said Gary would never agree to such a thing. But then again, Wendy once said she saw a homeless man in a shopping center in LA who looked exactly like Gary as she imagined him having aged 15 years. The man talked about conspiracy theories and said he fought in the Gulf War. Wendy never saw the man again. The third theory is the least common. So I'll end with this double indemnity. Wendy had Gary killed possible, but no evidence was ever found. Terry, who do you think killed the screenwriter with no hands? I think we can eliminate Eddie Bowers and the hands thing freaks me out. That, that's really like a mafia move, right? Yeah. So you feel like he wasn't why would missing an arm, two hands. Yeah. Why would the CIA want that out there? Message not to write anything against, to government. Yeah. But to whom people that are interested in it. His screenplay did uncover some things about the invasion of Panama that he felt would. Be like a bomb dropping. Also we're talking about the eighties. I think if that came out today, wouldn't even make page one of any of the newspapers. Yeah, I think what I'm asking is that if the CIA, the kind of organization that wants to send a scare kill out and I have problems with that. Yeah. Although it really seems like I. That that fits the story pretty well. And I know that the CIA has changed a lot since the internet became popular. I think they were more active before. I feel like they're more in hiding now than they ever were before. I think they, I think they messed around a lot more, but the information flow right, tends to then have them to be even more secretive now. So do you believe that Operation Mockingbird did happen? That the CIA was just infiltrating the American psyche with positive stories and journalists and screenwriters helped with that Back in the day I. I just don't know. Yeah, we just don't know. We just dunno. Do you think that Gary, I mean he seemed like a successful, happy man. Everything that I read, him and Wendy were very happy. He had really cool friends. It was really a boys club in the eighties. For screenwriting, and he was in the mix. I can't see him disappearing, starting a new life. And everybody else who knew him said that he would never go into the witness protection program. And it's a, the car is so identifiable that. We know that he's that somebody's in there would be setting up. If it's not his skeleton, it's somebody else's. If he's setting that up, that seems like a lot of work. Yeah. That's a lot of work to find a skeleton, even if you are a cool guy from the eighties. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, let me, if I was just gonna make this a casual. Decision on this. I would say he drove off the road right. Possible to do that. Tired. It was very late at night. Yeah. He's he's energized by something. Yes. That feeling. Yeah. When you finish a project, you're happy. Yeah. And maybe you're not take taking the care that you would. And it's been a long drive. So he's off and he's into the water. It's deep. It is deep. It's deep. And you've mentioned it's happened before. Yeah. Yes. So it's possible. It's happened numerous times. Okay. And the other question I would ask you on this hands thing I barely got through biology in the high school Yes. That I went to. I would say I need to know if the lack of tendons and. Other parts that kind of keep the bones together. If over time those were fish, then other things, right? Yeah, that is a possibility. There were different pathologies done and like an, like anything else in the world. One said absolutely this can happen. Water wears things down the hands could have detached and then you have other people saying it's impossible for. Just the hands to detach. Oh, okay. That's a good point. But that just the screenwriter with no hands just sounds. Yeah. It'd be interesting if those hands were in the back with the computer finishing a sitcom piece. Wouldn't that be then you'd know. Yeah. Then you, then we would know. He didn't. He would just kept going. He said, this has to be done. I have to finish. I am fascinated by Gary Devore. I hope Wendy is okay. Just how horrible you're just talking to your husband and he just never makes it home they seem to be such a lovely couple. I wanna let you know my resources for this story were a vice article written by Thomas Gaine and I leaned very heavy on a book entitled The Writer With No Hands by Matthew Alford, and a doc. of the same name by William Westaway. The book is available on Amazon. Kindle, but the award-winning doc is really hard to find in the United States. spent hours searching for it and then I reached out to the director, William, who was kind enough to send me a link, and I really appreciated that. And I wanna say a big thank you to William. I highly recommend both the book and the doc. If you'd like to learn more about Gary Devore, And that's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your positive feedback will help us keep the show going so we can continue bringing you more future episodes. Remember, keep writing. The world needs your stories. The Writers Hangout is sponsored by the Page, international Screenwriting Awards executive producer Kristin Ove, producers Terry Sampson and Sandy Adamis. Music by Ethan Stoller.