5 chilling details about the case shown in ID’s The Secret We Bury

In the suburbs of Lake Grove, Long Island, the disappearance of George Carroll in 1963 left his family grappling with unanswered questions for decades. A Korean War veteran and father of four young children, and his wife, Dorothy ‘Dotty' Carroll, had walked out one day for cigarettes and never returned.

No missing person report was ever filed, and the children grew up believing their father had abandoned them, a story that shaped their lives amid whispers of family strain and unspoken pain. It was not until 2018, more than 55 years later, that Mike Carroll and his sons unearthed skeletal remains buried deep beneath the concrete floor of the family's childhood home.

Forensic analysis confirmed the bones belonged to George Carroll, revealing blunt force trauma to the skull and classifying his death as a homicide. This discovery unraveled layers of hidden truths, including suspicions around Dorothy's quick remarriage to handyman Richard Darress and allegations of abuse within the home. 

Directed by Patricia E. Gillespie, Investigation Discovery's documentary The Secrets We Bury chronicles the siblings' emotional journey through interviews, archival footage and the painstaking excavation, exploring themes of memory, trauma and closure. The documentary premiered on December 16, 2025, on Investigation Discovery and is available to stream on Max. 

The Secrets We Bury: 5 Chilling Facts about the George Carroll

1. Remains hidden under the family's childhood home for over 50 years

In a residential home shared by the Carroll family, located in Lake Grove, Long Island, a horrific secret existed, tucked away beneath its basement floor. In October 2018, a Carroll family home search ensued after long-held suspicions, with the sons and father, Mike Carroll, who had bought the home from his mother in 1993, ultimately discovering skeletal remains packaged with clothes and footwear, buried a number of feet away inside a makeshift grave.

In 1963, these remains belonged to a man named George Carroll, who had gone missing from that residence. The children had played and lived above this site for years, while their father's body lay directly underneath during family gatherings and daily routines.

It was this that truly made the siblings confront how the home, once a place of normalcy, had actually concealed evidence of a violent end. For months, police excavated the site, sifting through the soil for clues; however, the passage of time limited further forensic yields, as reported by Fox News.

2. Blunt force trauma points to a homicide

Analysis of George Carroll's remains was an indicator of obvious homicide. His skull was an obvious indicator of blunt force trauma, and it was from this that it was presumed he was killed by some heavy force.

This was an indicator that George Carroll was killed by someone when Suffolk County police reported his death as a homicide in 2018, despite no arrests being made because of the time and no other suspected persons. George was 30 when he disappeared.

The trauma indicated a personal confrontation rather than an accident, raising questions about what transpired in the final moments of his life. Family members recalled a strained marriage between George Carroll and Dorothy, marked by arguments, but no prior violence was documented.

This detail emerged through detailed autopsy reports shared in the documentary, underscoring the brutality hidden behind the abandonment narrative, according to Fox News.

3. No missing person report: A silent cover-up

From the moment George Carroll vanished in 1963, his absence went unreported to authorities. Dorothy Carroll never filed a missing person report, nor did she notify the police or collect George's final paycheck from his employer. This omission allowed the case to fade without investigation, leaving the children to internalize the story of abandonment without external scrutiny.

Neighbors and extended family later noted the quick transition: Dorothy remarried Richard Darress, a handyman George Carroll had hired for home repairs, just months later. The home's basement, where construction had recently occurred, became a focal point of suspicion.

George's brother and stepbrother harbored private doubts, with the latter telling Mike in 1998 that he believed George Carroll was buried under the foundation during those renovations. This lack of official action preserved the family's isolation, preventing any early probes that might have uncovered the truth.

In the documentary, the siblings express a mix of confusion and protectiveness toward their mother's choices, viewing the silence as a shield against further pain, as reported by The Independent.

4. A psychic's uncannily precise vision guides the search

In 2010, Mike Carroll's sister Jean sought guidance from a psychic during a personal crisis, receiving details that would prove eerily accurate. The psychic claimed George Carroll had been murdered and buried in the basement of the family home, specifying the exact spot near a childhood-remembered gun-practice target on the wall. 

Skeptical at first, Mike dismissed it, but the description matched faint memories from his youth. This led to initial digs in 2010 and 2017 that yielded nothing, building tension until the 2018 breakthrough. Ground-penetrating radar detected anomalies in the floor, confirming a disturbance consistent with a burial.

The psychic's input, shared through emotional interviews in The Secrets We Bury, bridged intuition and evidence, prompting the family to act despite ridicule from police who initially dismissed earlier calls, as reported by Fox News.

5. Shadows of abuse from the stepfather's presence

Richard Darress, who became the Carroll children's stepfather after marrying Dorothy in 1963, cast a long shadow over the family. Living in the home during George Carroll's disappearance and aiding with basement construction, Darress faced later allegations of physical abuse toward the children and sexual assault against the daughters. 

These claims surfaced in the documentary through candid sibling accounts, detailing a household marked by fear and control. Darress, who died in Mexico in June 2018, just months before the remains' discovery, remained a figure of suspicion due to his proximity to the burial site and the timeline of events.

The children described him as a domineering presence who enforced silence about the past, aligning with Dorothy's directive never to question George Carroll's absence, as reported by Fox News. 

Watch The Secrets We Bury streaming on Investigation Discovery.