2:30 p.m. in Northern Michigan and another day at Pine River School rushes to its close. 13-year-old Vicky Chba gathers her books and heads outside to the school bus. A half hour later, the bus drops Vicki off at home, where she expects to find her mother, Diane Chba, waiting. Instead, Vicki finds a different woman, family friend Judy Bean.
I remember opening the front door and seeing Judy on the floor in front of the bookcase going through books, papers. It seemed that she was looking for something. and she had told me that my mother had gone to Grand Rapids to pick up truck parts and that I would be coming and staying with her until she got home that evening.
At 3:02 p.m., American Airlines Flight 191 bound for Los Angeles is cleared for takeoff. Minutes after the jet lifts off the runway, bolts supporting the left engine fail and the engine separates from the wing. The plane gains 325 ft of altitude before crashing less than a half mile away. Everyone on board is killed.
The next day, Judy Bean and her husband Ali tell Vicky Chba that her mother was on the doomed flight. The teenager is also confused, not sure what to make of her mother’s sudden decision to fly to California. She would have told me if she was leaving town. That’s what made everything not seem right when they said that she was gone because she always told me when she was leaving.
13-year-old Vicki is not the only person who finds her mother’s behavior strange. May Rasmusen is Diane Chb’s landlord and friend. I was sure she was not on the plane. I just couldn’t believe that she went on that plane without saying something on a trip like that, you know, and because she didn’t travel around that much.
Rasbusen conveys her concern to Michigan State Police Detective George Pratt, who can find only one person who knew about Chba’s decision to fly out of state. That individual is Ali Bean. Mr. Bean claimed that he had taken her to the Big Rapids, Michigan area, met a person who he did not know, a female, driving an undescribable vehicle, and they left to go to board the airplane Chicago.
If Aliban is telling the truth, some evidence must exist, either in the form of a ticket, boarding pass, or passenger manifest. Diane Shorba’s family hires attorney Mike Mars to make inquiries in Chicago. And they came to me because um they had been told that Diane had taken this flight and um was either flying on someone else’s ticket or on standby or something like that.
And so they asked me to see if I could find out if she was on the flight. 2 months after the crash of flight 191, Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Robert Kushner and his team are still working to identify the 273 people killed. All of the bodies were badly charred and identification uh was going to be a long and arduous process.
Of those bodies that we were unable to identify, none of them fit the physical characteristics of Dan Shore. They were mostly men. of the few women who were in that group, they were all older. Also, she was pregnant at the time and we found no evidence of any pregnant women on board. So, we could basically exclude the fact that Diane Trevor had been on that flight.
Now, police turned their attention to the man who claimed she got on the flight in the first place, a local with a sketchy past by the name of Clarence Oliver Bean. He uh was known to drink heavily. Uh he was known to be a rounder. He could handle himself in many of the bar fights that he would become involved in.
As police dig into Ali Bean’s life, they learn that he is also a philanderer, maintaining sexual relationships with women while his wife Judy looks the other way. In December 1977, Judy Bean first discovered that she was sharing her husband with a woman named Diane Shorba. Nine months later, Diane bore a son Joshua by Ali Bean.
Then in February of 1979, Judy learned that Diane was pregnant again. And I said, “I don’t know how much you expect me to take. Um, why don’t you just divorce me?” 3 months after announcing her pregnancy, Diane Chba disappeared, leaving Detective George Pratt with at least two people who had opportunity and motive.
There are as many theories as there are dead ends in this case. With nobody, no physical evidence and no witnesses, police are at a loss. In time, the case goes cold and Diane Shorba is largely forgotten by everybody except one. [Music] 6 years after her mother disappeared, Vicky Churba has grown up into a life of her own.
At 18 years old, Vicki gives birth to her first child, an experience that sharpens the young woman’s perspective on her mother’s disappearance. That was the first time I thought to myself, nobody would ever leave their children. You know, after you give birth to your children, it’s kind of hard. I mean, you fall in love. You fall in love.
Vicki Chba begins with a phone call to the Michigan State Police. Detective Gary Schaefer takes the call and pulls up Diane Chba’s cold files. Vicky Chba asks Schaefer to take a hard look at Judy and Ali Bean. Schaefer tracks the couple to Oregon where they have been living since 1980. Schaefer asks and Vicky Chba agrees to help detectives get Judy Bean talking.
With tape recorder rolling, Vicki places a series of phone calls to Judy. Topic of conversation, motherhood. I’d call her on Mother’s Day. I’d call her on a holiday. Man, I’m really missing my mom. And and we talk a little bit. Do you believe him? Who knows? You know, with him, I have no idea. In each phone call over a period of time, her story changed.
For 9 years, the phone calls continue. Vicki recording each one, hoping for a hint as to her mother’s fate. [Music] More than once, Judy Bean has tried to leave her husband each time he has stopped her. I asked him, “Please don’t do that.” And he started beating on me. After 26 years of fearing for her life, Judy Bean is about to emerge from the shadow of fear cast by her husband.
The question is, will she talk about the day Diane Shorba disappeared? After 3 hours of questioning and a lifetime of abuse at the hands of her husband, the 55year-old woman reaches her limit and decides to let go of the truth. Right out of the blue, she says, “He told me he shot her.” And once I said those words, I couldn’t take them back.
Um, I said, “I guess I’m in a lot of trouble now.” Judy Bean’s story begins on the morning of May 24th, 1979. At 8:30 a.m., Ali Bean and his mistress Diane Shorba drive up to the Bean home. and she was out in the car and they left and then he came back a couple hours later and he’d come in the house and he was upset and he said he’d killed Diane.
According to Judy, her husband grabs his chainsaw and tells her to get in the car. She does as she’s told. During their drive, Judy asks what happened. that she was walking in front of him and he called her name because he didn’t want to shoot her in the back of the head and she turned around and he said, “This one’s for Judy.
” And he shot her in the head. At a dead end dirt road in the forest, Ali Bean pulls the car over. According to Judy, Diane Chba’s body lies face down in a hole. Cold case detectives fly Judy Bean back to Michigan and ask her to lead them to Diane Chba’s grave. But after 20 years, the landscape has changed and Judy’s memory has faded.
Police are unable to find any trace of Diane Sherba’s remains. They must make their case for murder without the benefit of a body. 22 years after Diane Shora went missing, Ali Bean faces trial for her murder, the state star witness is Judy Bean, a woman who has lived her own version of hell. The trial lasts 3 days.
After deliberating for 10 and a half hours, the jury reaches a verdict. Ali Bean is convicted of murder in the second degree. He is sentenced to 30 to 60 years and another cold case file is closed.