Chapter 1: Who was Marie Singleton and what secrets did she keep?
We used to have a debate about who loved each other more. Mommy! I love you more. No, I love you more. And sometimes I even go to sleep and I still say, like, Mom, I love you more. That's the kind of stuff a kid never forgets.
She was the single mom who kept him safe. She was also keeping a secret. She was really working for the CIA. That's my understanding, yes. An undercover job handling classified documents. But the real intrigue started when she went missing.
I knew something was wrong.
I didn't want to believe that this was actually a reality.
We had concerns that there may be missing classified information. It could turn into an espionage investigation.
Espionage? Was this some kind of international spy caper? Or maybe it was something closer to home. What we got was the information that would break this case wide open. The case of a CIA mom. Could a clue from her son help solve this mystery? I'm never going to give up. Never going to give up on anything. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Missing Marie.
Secrets. We all have them. Some are small. Some large.
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Chapter 2: What led to Marie's mysterious disappearance?
Some professional. Others, very, very personal. This is a story about secrets. About a woman who was very good at keeping them. And about what happened when that woman suddenly disappeared.
She was beautiful. My mom was really beautiful and a great person, a nice person.
As a little boy, Marcus Singleton couldn't possibly foresee the loss he would suffer or the terrible choice he would one day have to make. All he knew back then was his mother's love.
I mean, she helped people. You know, if there was a kid in the street who needed something, she would pull over and see if they were okay. You know, she was that type of person that taught me to basically put others before myself first.
Marie was single when she had Marcus. He was the center of her world. Kelly Clayton was Marie's hairdresser and good friend. She talked about him a lot, the things that he was doing in school.
She got really excited about Marcus.
Marie's friends and co-workers, Bridget Harris and Jean Jones Apfel.
He was like the apple in her eye. He just sparkled every time she was around. She loved hugging him.
She was a doting mom or a strict mom?
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Chapter 3: How did authorities respond to Marie's disappearance?
But Marie wanted more than work and success. I know that she wanted to have somebody in her life. What kind of guy was she looking for?
Someone that will take care of her, love her, protect her. I guess that's any woman's dream, to have the whole package. That was kind of missing. She didn't have that guy figure, the father figure for Marcus.
Then one day, Marie told her fans... I met this guy, you know, and then they had a lunch date and he was cute and just, you know, the excitement of meeting somebody new.
His name was Andre Jackson, a handsome single father of two. Sparks flew immediately. I mean, she would just light up every time she talked about him. I mean, just... Big smile. Oh, the glow. He was her everything. The methodical business like Marie seemed to change overnight. Were you privy to the courtship with Andre?
The whirlwind courtship? Yes. Well, that's the way we would put it because one day she was smitten, next day she was in love, and then she was pregnant and having a wedding and no one knew about it.
Marcus knew about it. He was there. Your mom was happy? Yeah, she looked happy. Andre was happy? Yeah. We all were happy. At age eight, Marcus found himself welcoming a little brother named Marquis.
I think once my little brother came into the picture, it was more, you know, then I realized that it wasn't just the two of us anymore, but we're actually starting to become a family.
And there were two other step-siblings in the mix, Andre Jr. and Andrea.
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Chapter 4: What role did the FBI play in the investigation?
And you got along with them?
Yeah. Like, it was pretty great. I had a brother and a sister at home, and it was a pretty cool experience. Another cool experience, for the first time, having a dad. He taught me how to swim. He taught me how to throw a football. He even rode me on the back of his motorcycle a few times. It was good to actually have a male figure in the house that I could, you know, do stuff with.
So Andre was living up to his job as your father. Yeah. Yeah, he was. For Marcus and his mom, everything seemed just perfect.
Honestly, it was like a complete family. It felt like I finally had a complete family. It was the best feeling in the world, like the ultimate high. And then suddenly, the ultimate low.
The ultimate low because on November 11, 1994, Marie Singleton, rock-solid wife, mother, businesswoman, vanished.
The local police investigated of course, but so did an FBI agent named Rick Hadle. We had concerns that there may be missing classified information, U.S. government information.
Classified information? Yes. As we said before, everyone has secrets. And Marie had a big one, one she had told very few people.
Officially, Marie Singleton worked for the Department of Defense. That's what was publicly disseminated, yes. But she was really working for the CIA. That's my understanding, yes.
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Chapter 5: What shocking discovery was made about Marie's job?
A clandestine job with the CIA? When we come back, a question. Could Marie Singleton be hiding other secrets?
It could turn into an espionage investigation. Somebody's going over and helping the Russians, the Chinese. It could turn into that kind of a case.
The mystery was just beginning.
The day that changed Marcus Singleton's life began like any other, except that he had the day off from school. It was Friday, November 11th, 1994. Marcus, then eight years old, was glued to the TV in his family's living room.
I was watching a cartoon movie, Bugs Bunny movie. My mom comes up the stairs. She says something to me. I'm thinking she's going somewhere. I'm like, okay, yada, yada, yada. I'm watching television. You were zoned out. I was zoned out. And then I'm so zoned out, and then finally I fall asleep.
Marcus woke up later that evening to the sound of his baby brother crying.
So I go downstairs. I'm like, why is this little kid crying? Where is everybody at? Finally, the phone rang. My stepfather calls me, and he tells me, you know, he's saying, hey, is your mom there? Is your mom home yet? Whatever. And she, and I'm like, no, where the heck are you guys? I've been here, and Marquis won't stop crying. Like, he just won't stop.
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Chapter 6: What were the circumstances surrounding Marie's death?
And he says, okay, okay, I'll be there soon. I'll be there soon.
Andre said he'd last seen Marie around 5 p.m., just before he left for his son Andre Jr. 's football game. Now, when he returned home, Marie and her car were gone. Andre made a round of calls to friends. Nobody knew where Marie was. He then took all the kids to his mother's house and dropped them off.
I remember somebody asking him, where are you going? And he says he's going to go check with my mom's girlfriends to see if he can find out where she's at.
Andre's first stop was the home of Marie's friend, Bridget Harris, whom he'd called earlier.
First he called, and then I didn't really think anything of it because I'm like, well, she'll be back.
And then when he showed up is when I got concerned. I'm like, she's still not back? Cell phones were still pretty rare in those days. So I paged her because I knew if I paged, she would immediately call me back. But Marie did not call back. The next morning, Andre knocked on the door of another friend, Jean Jones Apfel.
And he said he had an argument. And I said, well, you had a little argument. Don't worry about it. But the second he told me that he had the baby, I knew something was wrong.
And so you paged her how many times?
I couldn't count how many times I paged her. And no answer? No answer.
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Chapter 7: How did Marie's son Marcus cope with the aftermath?
You know, I see him talking to the cops, but I still don't see my mom anywhere. And... I think that's when I found out that my mom still hadn't come home yet. I had no idea where she was at.
Police started interviewing witnesses, searching the neighborhood. But the weekend passed with no sign of Marie. That's when the phone rang on the desk of FBI agent Rick Hadle.
We got the report, I believe, on a Monday, maybe a Tuesday, that she was missing, didn't report to work. Of course, they were concerned to her disappearance. And that was unlike her? Absolutely.
It's unusual for the Bureau to get involved in a missing persons case. But it turned out that Marie Singleton was no ordinary missing person.
Not with her job. They called it Department of Defense. They didn't call it CIA. But she was working for the U.S. government, for the agency, working on communications for them.
Unbeknownst to just about everyone in her life, Marie Singleton was a code clerk for the Central Intelligence Agency. She wasn't a spy, but she did handle classified communications from agents overseas, information that might be very interesting to enemies of the United States. Part of what the FBI does is investigate things like this, if a CIA employee goes missing. Right, exactly.
Remember, this was 1994.
Memories of the Cold War were still fresh. It could turn into an espionage investigation, for example, if you have missing classified information and somebody's going over helping the Russians, the Chinese, somebody like that. It could theoretically turn into that kind of a case.
So now there were parallel investigations. The local cops looked for a missing person. The FBI, covertly, looked for an intelligence worker who might have been kidnapped or changed sides. Murray's family, meanwhile, just wanted her back.
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Chapter 8: What was the outcome of the trial and its implications?
They started making flyers for my mom. You remember the flyers? Yep. Definitely remember the flyers.
Soon, a number of Marie's coworkers and friends were posting flyers on telephone and light poles, storefronts, and shopping centers. Kelly Clayton remembers how she and a friend asked Andre what they could do to help.
He asked us to pass him out by the beach. At this time, I asked him, why would we pass him out at the beach? And so then he said, well, you know, that's okay. You don't have to pass him out at the beach.
Did he mention a specific beach or just anywhere in Southern California? No, Dock Wilder Beach. Dock Wilder Beach is about eight miles from Andre and Marie's home, near Los Angeles International Airport, where flights leave daily for Moscow and Beijing. On Tuesday, November 15th, four days after Marie disappeared, Andre himself went there to post flyers.
He had an encounter with a perfect stranger and asked for help. And that's when this story took another strange turn.
Coming up. I couldn't believe that I was seeing the car that this man was just looking for.
A huge break in the case and a heartbreaking moment at home.
We walk in the room and everybody's in there crying. Everyone in tears. When Dateline continues.
Tuesday, November 15th, 1994. Marie Singleton, wife, mother, and secret CIA employee, had been missing for four days. Police were looking for her. So was the FBI. She might have been a runaway, a crime victim, or a double agent. But Tim Kniff didn't know any of that when he stopped by Dockweiler Beach near LAX to take a short walk and unwind after work.
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