6:00

He was one of those kind of kids that you can't wait

6:02

to see what he's going to do next. Very

6:04

creative and very, just really adventurous.

6:07

But just a really sweet little boy. Back

6:10

then, Conroe was the place you moved to

6:13

if you wanted to live near Houston,

6:15

but in more of a small town environment.

6:18

It was kind of a magical little place

6:20

to grow up because of the fact that

6:22

there wasn't, you know, cars to run us

6:24

over or, you know, we didn't think about

6:26

strangers being around and we had a field

6:28

next door to the Everett's house that had

6:31

blackberries just like crazy. So in the summertime,

6:33

we would, you know, pick blackberries.

6:35

It was real pretty innocent. There was a

6:37

lot of ownership. This was, you

6:39

know, a small group of families, a

6:41

few families, and this was our place.

6:47

The day McKay disappeared after

6:50

unwinding outside, he went straight

6:52

to the piano. He

6:55

loved the piano. He would

6:57

prepare for his lessons, but then he loved to just

6:59

play on the piano and have fun. McKay

7:03

was a musical kid. He

7:05

played piano, trumpet, guitar,

7:07

and the violin. When

7:10

he was four, he wanted a

7:12

violin for Christmas and

7:14

he did not like the person

7:17

that I had hired to teach him

7:19

violin. And he said, I'll teach myself.

7:22

And so we were going on a trip one day.

7:25

He said, wait a minute. And

7:28

he sat down and played and

7:30

he taught himself amazing grace. Oh

7:32

my goodness. Wow. He

7:35

was a prodigy in many ways. Well,

7:37

my mother's side of the family are

7:39

honky tonkers. And so McKay would say,

7:41

when I get older, I'm going to

7:43

go honking, tonking. And

7:46

so I think some of that just was natural

7:48

talent. But while music

7:50

came easy for McKay, he struggled

7:52

with his schoolwork that day

7:54

after McKay finished at the piano. Paulette

7:58

sat down with him to go over his assignment.

8:00

something they had done since McKay was in

8:03

the first grade. McKay had

8:05

a slight dyslexia. And

8:07

when he started school, every

8:10

afternoon, I tutored, tutored,

8:12

tutored because Carl did not want

8:14

him to repeat first grade. And

8:16

he really probably should have, but

8:18

Carl's ego was just not

8:21

strong enough to handle that. So

8:23

that meant, you know, McKay had to be

8:25

tutored every day by me. And

8:28

I just felt like that just isn't

8:30

quite fair, but, you know, when Carl wasn't

8:32

there to do it, he wanted

8:34

to make the decision, but he had played no

8:36

role in dealing with it. Paulette

8:40

was the one tutoring McKay, in

8:42

part because her husband Carl was

8:44

often traveling for work. And

8:46

while Paulette sometimes resented having to tutor

8:49

McKay, spending so much time

8:51

with him had made the two of them

8:53

extremely close. I had

8:55

talked so much to him because Carl was gone

8:57

during the week when oil and gas was busy.

9:00

So I would talk to McKay like he was

9:02

an adult. Paulette's

9:05

husband Carl had started his own small

9:07

oil company in 1983, the

9:10

same year McKay was born. And

9:12

Paulette had quit her job teaching elementary school

9:14

to help out with the business. For

9:17

a while, the average did well for

9:19

themselves. But by the early

9:21

90s, oil prices were down. And

9:23

Carl was getting burnt out. The

9:26

idea of not having to work hard in

9:28

the oil patch sounded good. And

9:30

recently, Carl had heard about a new

9:33

way to make money. Welcome to Amway

9:35

and the Amway Business Opportunity. As

9:38

you open the kit and discover the many Amway products

9:40

that's hide that box, how about

9:42

congratulating yourself? First,

9:44

for taking your first step towards building a

9:46

business of your own. I

9:50

think the draw to it was, you know, you could have

9:52

the income coming in. As with

9:54

any opportunity, feeling uncertain right now is only

9:56

natural. Amway is a

9:59

company that sells... wholesale products that

10:01

members could buy and then resell

10:03

at a profit. They saw

10:05

everything. But am way is

10:07

a multi-level marketing program. You

10:10

make money not just by selling products

10:12

but also by recruiting more people into

10:14

am way. You know they say

10:16

you have bill of goods that a lot of the

10:19

people that got involved with that they should do it.

10:22

While pollitt was skeptical Carl

10:24

was one of those people that just dove

10:26

right in. Before long their

10:29

garage was full of boxes of am

10:31

way products that Carl was trying to

10:33

unload on family and friends and

10:36

Carl was also trying to recruit new

10:38

am way members. In fact

10:40

on September 12 1995 the night that McKay disappeared.

10:45

Carl was hosting an am way

10:48

meeting at a bank building downtown. The

10:50

plan was Carl would head to the meeting

10:53

straight from work and pollitt

10:55

would carpool over with a neighbor and

10:57

leave McKay at the house. I've

11:01

got him dinner and he wanted ice cream

11:04

after dinner. Pollitt neighbor

11:06

Randy Bartlett came over around 7.45 to

11:08

give her a ride.

11:11

McKay was sitting in front of the TV

11:14

eating ice cream straight out of a half

11:16

gallon tub. It was raining

11:18

and I just thought the lights might go

11:20

out you never know. And

11:23

my flashlight. Pollitt

11:26

remembers waving goodbye to McKay

11:28

as she left. I can

11:30

see him inside the door waving by. You

11:33

know just typical kid lanky you know you

11:36

have to have phase in life when your

11:38

nose looks like it's the most prominent thing

11:40

on your face. And

11:44

I remember saying you know I've done all

11:46

I can do because I went through my

11:48

little mental checklist. I had

11:50

done everything I could do to get him a flashlight

11:52

to make sure the doors locked in the alarm system

11:55

so on and blah blah blah. Maybe

11:58

I had done all I could do.