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  • 1Pebbles' World Profile of Pebbles Hooper, the beautiful and successful daughter of fashion designers Denise L'Estrange Corbet and Francis Hooper, who was recently diagnosed with Diabetes.

    • Start 00 : 01 : 07
    • Finish 00 : 14 : 26
    • Duration 13 : 19
    Reporters
    • Hannah Ockelford (Reporter, Television New Zealand)
    Speakers
    • Denise L'Estrange Corbet (Fashion Designer)
    • Pebbles Hooper (Fashion Blogger)
    Contributors
    • Joanne Mitchell (Producer)
    • Heloise Le Gros (Editor)
    • Peter Day (Cameraman)
    • Gary Hopper (Cameraman)
    Live Broadcast
    • No
    Commercials
    • No
  • 2Don't Try This Teenagers in search of their fifteen minutes of fame are trying more and more outrageous and dangerous stunts, in order to become viral internet sensations. Is the internet fuelling risky teenage behaviour or just highlighting what was already there?

    • Start 00 : 18 : 50
    • Finish 00 : 26 : 18
    • Duration 07 : 28
    Live Broadcast
    • No
    Commercials
    • No
  • 3Back From the Dead Eric Myers was a husband and father of five - heir to a fortune suddenly vanished - was it amnesia, kidnapping or something even more sinister?

    • Start 00 : 30 : 10
    • Finish 00 : 55 : 57
    • Duration 25 : 47
    Live Broadcast
    • No
    Commercials
    • Yes
Primary Title
  • 20/20
Date Broadcast
  • Thursday 1 August 2013
Start Time
  • 21 : 30
Finish Time
  • 22 : 30
Duration
  • 60:00
Channel
  • TV2
Broadcaster
  • Television New Zealand
Classification
  • Not Classified
Owning Collection
  • Chapman Archive
Broadcast Platform
  • Television
Languages
  • English
Captions
Live Broadcast
  • No
Rights Statement
  • Made for the University of Auckland's educational use as permitted by the Screenrights Licensing Agreement.
Genres
  • Newsmagazine
Hosts
  • Sonya Wilson (Presenter)
Tonight on 20/20 ` She's the daughter of world-famous designers,... I was like the Bionic Woman. I was hooked up to everything. ...facing up to a killer illness. If you don't take this medication every day,... you will die. Young, dumb and famous. Some teens think that they're one video away from becoming a celebrity. Teens in search of their 15 minutes... This is a phase in their life where they are the most impulsive. ...are ending up in a lifetime of pain. All this because of... All this because of... ...45 seconds of being stupid. A husband and father of five, an heir to a fortune, vanished. Anne never believed he was dead. What she told me was she wanted him to be dead. Was it amnesia, kidnapping or something more sinister? It sounds like he pulled off the great escape act of the century. Captioning by TVNZ Access Services. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2013 Kia ora. I'm Sonya Wilson. Well, you can be wealthy, famous and beautiful, but if your health stops you from living your life, then what does any of that matter? So says Denise L'Estrange-Corbet, fashion designer and mother of Pebbles Hooper. Their world came crashing down recently when Pebbles got a diagnosis they never saw coming. Here's Hannah Ockelford with a very personal story. FUNKY MUSIC Everyone will know someone who knows someone or know someone that has it. And it affects so many people from every walk of life ` if you're poor, if you're skinny, if you're fat, if you're old, if you're young. It doesn't discriminate. The world of Pebbles Hooper is one to admire. Guy, tell me how much you love me. Tinky Winky backpack. She's got the looks, the style and the fame, but it's something else she has that makes your world the one she envies. You're always sick. You're constantly ill because it's never going away. It's changed life, and that's how it is. It's not going to go back to the way it was. Born with the world at her feet, Pebbles never saw what was ahead. The specialist came in and said, 'You will die. If this happens again, you will die.' I never imagined, looking at this tiny, beautiful, perfect child, what she had coming. Pebbles is the only child to the creative minds behind NZ's iconic fashion house World ` That's pretty bright. Oh yeah, that one. their one true treasure amongst a large collection. 'I can't afford to lose you. I would give it all up. 'I would give everything I have up for you, because I am not going to bury you Are these your T-shirts? Let's have a look. Her life is so changed now from... from what I envisaged it would be. You know, you see them grow up, and they go to school and all those firsts, and you think they'll grow up and they'll have children and they'll forge a career, and suddenly something drops into the mix that changes all of that and things aren't going to be what you thought they were going to be. Pebbles has been diagnosed with a condition that's invisible yet deadly. It's life-threatening. You will go into a coma, and you will die, that's it, and Pebbles has come very close to that far too many times. It was four years ago when Denise noticed things weren't right. I remember we went to a gas station, and she'd just brought a big 2-litre bottle of water. We'd just started to drive off, and she said, 'Can we go back to the gas station? I need to get a bottle of water.' And I said, 'Are you serious? You've just drunk 2 litres of water. I'm not going back.' She said, 'I don't think you realise how serious my thirst is.' Pebbles googled her symptoms,... As it got worse, I just figured it out quite quickly. ...becoming convinced she had diabetes. And I said, 'Oh, don't be silly. Of course you haven't got diabetes.' And she said, 'No, I really` I think I have.' Did you think she was being dramatic? Oh, yeah, I thought she was being a hypochondriac. But her health got worse. Her weight started to suddenly plummet, like, uncontrollably, and her eating went off the Richter scale. I mean, she just couldn't stop eating, and I mean huge enormous meals all the time. Her jeans, which were tiny ` I think an 8 ` were just falling down, and she was hitching them up. Her body was looking for energy anywhere it could get it. It burns through the food, and I mean burns. I liken it to throwing coals on a fire, but no heat's coming out. Finally, a diagnosis. I got to the hospital, and she was just in floods of tears, and her first words were, 'I told you.' As Pebbles had suspected, she had diabetes, but not type II, often related to lifestyle; she had type I. They said, 'OK, today your life has changed. This is what you have to do from now on. 'Here's the insulin. Here's the needle.' And she was screaming, 'I don't want to do it. I don't want to do this.' But the choice was no longer hers. Make that two. Make that two. Make it three, and can I also get the grapefruit to start? Type I is an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system turns against itself,... # Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. # ...attacking the cells that produce insulin, essential for survival. Like this. Daily injections are now the norm. I'm doing it. We're not looking. If you don't take this medication every day, you will die. Even with such high stakes, Pebbles couldn't accept her life as she knew it was over. It was just the, 'Why me? Why me? Why have i got it? Why`? Why have I got it? 'None of my friends have got it.' It was, you know, frustration on top of fear and on just complete uncertainty. At 19, Pebbles found out the hard way. One morning, I remember, really early in the morning, she got into bed with me, and she said, 'I am so cold, Mum. I'm absolutely freezing.' She made a decision that nearly killed her. Without telling anyone, she'd stopped taking her insulin. She said to me, 'I think I'm gonna go and have a shower, cos I'm so cold.' I remember falling back to sleep and waking up, cos I thought I heard an... I thought I heard someone call. And then I heard her call again, and I went into the bathroom, and she was just slumped in the shower, and she just said, 'Call an ambulance.' And I was screaming down the phone, like, 'She's gonna die.' Cos she just went... (INHALES), and I thought, 'Oh my God, I've lost her.' And I was massaging her feet and screaming at her, saying, 'You've gotta stay with me. You've gotta stay with me, Pebbles.' And the doctor came in, and he was trying to say, 'Pebbles, can you hear me? Can you hear me?' And you could see she was just in and out of consciousness. And I was saying to him, 'Is she gonna make it?' And he was, like, 'Look, it's touch and go.' 'This cannot be happening to me. She's my only child. This just cannot be happening to me.' I was like the Bionic Woman. I was hooked up to everything. It was one of 12 hospital admissions because Pebbles had chosen not to inject her insulin. It was the first time I understood the realness of how quickly it can defeat you. Has she been in denial? Has she been in denial? Oh, she absolutely has, and she would admit that now. It's something that you can control, and a lot of people do do that, but I didn't really take that on board straight away. You can't be forced to change. You know, like, if you tell a fat person to go on a diet, they're, like, 'Maybe I don't want to go on a diet. 'I want to be skinny, but I don't want to go on a diet.' So it's sort of... Like, I want to be better, but I don't want to take the medicine. We've had a couple of, you know, the flatmate ones lately. Denise is used to dishing out advice in the weekly Canvas mag... Have we had any that we can't print? ...to common, tricky and sometimes icky problems. The mashed poo, though, that was a new one to me. The mashed poo, though, that was a new one to me. No, you win that one. She offers her solutions, and so does Pebbles, both seeing the world through different lenses. Given their trials, I sent them a question of my own. 'Dear D & P. My daughter's just been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition, 'but to make matters worse, she's not looking after herself. 'We're normally so close. How do I get through to her?' 'This is a tricky one. 'You first need to figure out what is stopping her from taking her medication, 'what mental block is causing her to ignore her health. 'Remember, this is her journey, though. You can only support her along the way. 'Try not to get angry with her, as this will only cause further tension between you two.' 'Whenever anyone has an illness that they're not prepared to accept, 'it causes problems for all family and friends concerned. 'If she does not want to talk with you about it, 'then it would be best if you sought a professional that can talk to her about it, 'someone that is well versed in this area.' After butting heads with her mum, it was the doctor that got through. The illness introduced so many different changes, and I think it was the changes that I found hard to... accept. What was the turning point? What was the turning point? I think honestly, it would have been... being sick of being sick. You know, not being able to just get out of bed in the morning is... it's not worth it, you know. And then as you get the medicine and you realise how good you can feel, you go, 'Oh, this is actually way better. 'Like, why didn't I do this?' Um, but it's that kind of accepting this new lifestyle in order to regain... the life you had. But type I diabetes is far more challenging than just managing sugar levels. When I first got diagnosed, a lot of people, the first thing they would ask me is, 'What does that mean? Can you drink?' And I just thought, 'Well, I think that's the last of my worries.' She faces a lifetime of complications ` all a result of diabetes. I've just been told I have early-onset cataracts, which are treatable, but you need to get surgery, so... it's something I'm not really looking forward to. These days, Pebbles is taking charge of her health and her career,... Hello. Welcome back to U Late. I'm joined on the couch now by Pebbles Hooper. ..showing off her fabulous and sometimes ferocious self,... Don't fuck with crazy women. Don't fuck with crazy women. That is a pretty good lesson. ...and now on a mission with her mum to inject a little appeal to a charity that needs an image makeover. Oh, Urzila, this is my dad, Francis. Oh, Urzila, this is my dad, Francis. Hi. Lovely to meet you. What do people think of when you say 'diabetes'? That you're fat and that you're old and that you had lots of sugar when you were young, which isn't the case at all. Hey, how are you? I guarantee if you got up a picture of every single type I in the world, you would never know any of them had anything wrong with them. At the diabetes ball their energy focused on raising funds. And now we come to the auction. First up ` dinner with Denise. I know about all the other fashion designers, and believe me, it's the stuff that will never be printed. At 1500. Who's gonna make it 750? And I'll be bloody mortified if someone doesn't think I'm worth that. Come on. 1750. Over here. Looking for 2000. Sold. I've never been sold so cheaply, honest to God. I cajoled, I threatened, I pulled in all sorts of favours from friends and colleagues, because, you know, a lot of them have known her since she was a baby. This is afternoon high tea with our own prime minister, John Key. You can't buy the prime minister's ear, but you can bid tonight. Who's gonna give me 10,000? Seven and a half. Well done. You'll enjoy that. I feel now... that she's been as bad as it can possibly get, so she's someone that is the perfect person to be an ambassador for diabetes. LAID-BACK MUSIC She can really relate to all those emotions that people who have it have to deal with when they get it, which is denial, which is, 'Well, if don't think about it, it's gonna go away.' It's, like, 'It's not gonna go away.' Pebbles, who lives through the daily trials of this disease, takes a pragmatic approach to her future. I have diabetes, and I don't mind if people know that I do. If I met me now three years ago, I'd be, like, 'Get your shit together. Stop being a little bitch and take your medicine.' The best way to live a good life with it is to just... accept it. I just want her to have a... a happy life and a long life, and I don't want it to be cut short by the fact she's got diabetes. # Let me live that fantasy. # OK, next up on 20/20 ` what is it about teens and risk? And is the internet fuelling it or just highlighting it? This is a phase in their life where they are the most impulsive, and so they're thinking, 'Will this be funny? Will people think this is cool?' Planking. The cinnamon challenge. ALL LAUGH And eyeball shots with vodka,... even tabasco sauce. (SCREAMS) 1 Welcome back. MTV reality show Jackass had a tagline ` don't try this at home. Unfortunately for some of today's teenagers, they're not heeding that advice, as an alarming number of dangerous, sometimes deadly, self-injuring stunts are all the rage on the internet. As if the rush of a cheap thrill found while hill-hopping or car-surfing is not enough, they're now turning towards new and inventive ways to get high. These days, the stupid teen tricks are more outrageous than ever. Think I broke me jaw. Digital-age teen Jackassery even has its own special vernacular ` planking, the cinnamon challenge,... Waaah! Waaah! (LAUGHS) (RETCHES) ...and eyeball shots with vodka ` even Tabasco sauce. Aaah! Aaah! LAUGHTER But those stunts are now hopelessly passe. Wassup? Hi, guys. Hi, people. Here's the new thing. It involves salt, a few cubes of ice,... Apparently, it burns. ...and voila,... (GASPS) ...third-degree burn. What the hell is that? BOTH: Oh my God! Whoever can stand it the longest wins. I win, guys. Saul, nice try. Aah! This is a condom. Think you've had the sex talk with your teen? Well, you probably never imagined you'd have to tell them where not to put a condom. Condom snorting is one of the hottest teen trends online right now. I'm going to be doing a challenge that I probably shouldn't be doing, but that's OK. Hear that? 'I probably shouldn't be doing this, yet I'm going to.' Hear that? 'I probably shouldn't be doing this, yet I'm going to.' She knows. She knows. > We're gonna stop the video right here, cos this gets pretty gross. That condom goes up her nose and comes out her mouth. I know what it means to be a teen in trouble. Josh Shipp is a behaviour expert who has appeared on the reality show Teen Trouble. There's a lot of dangers. With the condom challenge, they can get caught, you can suffocate on it. If they're not inhaling latex,... Get oxygen into the bottle. ...they might be inhaling alcohol. Smoking this type of stuff, does it do anything to you? I mean, this guy's claiming that he can get a buzz off of it. (EXHALES NOISILY) Dude! Not just a buzz, but rapid intoxication, because the alcohol vapour is bypassing the stomach and heads straight to a teenager's brain ` a brain that is, by the way, already at a disadvantage. Is this an illustration of the fact that the part of a teenager's brain that regulates stupid impulses is not physically fully developed yet? Yeah. This is a phase in their life when they are the most impulsive. And so they're thinking, 'Will this be funny? Will people think this is cool?' Something else is trending, and it's not a new trend at all. A study out just this week shows teen speeding is on the rise. 18-year-old Pranjal Dahiya went racing down this dark road at 110mph. Oh, Jesus, take the wheel! LAUGHTER A friend was driving; Pranjal was filming. When you were speeding along, did you think, 'This is pretty funny'? It was more like, 'This is sweet. We're cool. Look at us, going fast at night.' I think some teens think that they're, like, one video away from becoming a celebrity. They want to be known. They want that attention. Hope y'all enjoyed that. Daniel Jensen, an 18-year-old from California, gets lots of online attention because of high jinks like this. His latest stunt was inspired by this Nike video with Kobe Bryant. It popped up in my head, and I was, like, 'You know what? I think I wanna try jumping over a car.' But a parked car wasn't enough. Daniel was dead set on doing this with one that was speeding toward him. Perhaps the only person with less common sense than Daniel was the driver. My biggest concern was how he would know when exactly to jump. And he told me, 'Don't worry about it.' I was supposed to have her drive towards me at about 40mph, and by the time I came down, she would be gone, so I wouldn't land on the car. But I jumped too late. I felt myself in the air... THUD! I closed my eyes, and the first thought that went through my head was, 'Oh my goodness. I just killed Daniel.' I threw my feet down... and I was just, like, 'Did I land that? I didn't die?' Whoo! Ah! Daniel posted his video on YouTube just two weeks ago, and it has already impressed hundreds of thousands of viewers ` but not his father. He made me promise not to do any more stupid things. But we have different opinions of 'stupid'. Whoo! Is there any risk that by showing these videos, > that we're encouraging people to do this kind of moronic stuff? We cannot protect our kids from seeing these sorts of videos. This is an opportunity for you to talk to your kid about them. And this part is key. He says you have to talk in a certain way to be effective. Here's the idea, is that lecturing leads to them tuning you out, but questioning leads to critical thinking. 'Do you think this is dumb?' 'Do you think this is dumb?' Right! Instead of saying, 'This is stupid!' 'Do you think this is stupid?' But furthermore, you need to show them what the possible dangers are. Find a video where it goes terribly wrong, and show that video. This is that video. Save me, Jesus! (LAUGHS) Remember Pranjal? As he recorded his friend speeding at 110mph, the car hit a kerb. There's a turn! Jesus! 'I heard, like, a car screech.' BOY YELLS Oh my God. Oh my God. THUDDING 'And then I, like, flew off the back. My entire body was numb.' I broke my C6 vertebra. And then when it broke, it, like, shattered. And that paralysed me from my neck down. Reach. Five. > He has spent the last year recovering and adjusting to a life that will now be lived in a wheelchair. All this because of...? Like, maybe 45 seconds of being stupid. Which will be with you forever. Which will be with you forever. Forever, yeah. What's your message to kids? You can have fun, but there's always that limit, and don't push it, push it, push it. Do you point to your legs and say, 'This can happen to you'? Do you point to your legs and say, 'This can happen to you'? Yeah. I mean, I was that kid, like, 'It's not gonna happen to me.' But then, like, it did happen. Yes, please don't try any of that at home. Next up on 20/20 ` the twisted story of the missing Mr Myres. Is he hiding, dead or something even stranger? With no body, no funeral, nothing except a death certificate to mark his passing, Eric Myres' life comes to an unceremonious close on June 30th 1996. His family cashes out an insurance policy worth close to $1 million. But now when there should finally be closure, there's not. Troubling questions remain. I was like the Bionic Woman. I was hooked up to everything. 1 Welcome back. Eric myres is a father of five, a devout Christian and an heir to a fortune. He's also vanished into thin air. His family are desperate for answers, and the police are simply scratching their heads. Tonight we pick up on the trail that had gone cold and uncover the truth with an incredible twist. Madonna ruling the pop charts, the smartphone's a thing of the future, and there's no social media or GPS to help track missing people. What did they find out in those first few days of investigation? The real car was abandoned. It was found in a` a seedy part of San Diego, his wallet was found in an area where junkies would throw trash, and then a month after he disappeared, these three cancelled cheques surface. Was Eric Myers murdered in a random mugging? Or perhaps the real estate heir had been targeted for kidnapping? They found out that he checked out of his hotel on the first day of the conference, but continued going, but nobody knows where he is. Nobody knows where he went. OMINOUS MUSIC Police also consider an outlandish theory. The story goes that Eric, at some point, had rescued a woman from a violent biker gang who was trying to flee that subculture, and he'd taken her in and given her shelter and that the bikers had threatened his life. Those leads all turn into dead ends and the case goes cold. Meanwhile, Eric Myers' family is in tatters. < And was there any consoling? Was there any`? Oh yeah. I mean,... my mom did everything she could. But what was she gonna do, other than just hold me and tell me that it was gonna be OK? Weeks dissolve into months, then years, with no sign of Daddy, so Anne and her kids are forced to move on, celebrating birthdays, proms, graduations, all without Eric. Anne Myers declined our recent request for an interview, but once spoke with Robert Anglen. This case is cloaked` as cold as ice. Anne Myers is moving through her career. The family never holds a memorial service for Eric, but they do have him declared legally dead. With no body, no funeral, nothing except a death certificate to mark his passing, Eric Myers' life comes to an unceremonious close on June 30th 1996. His family cashes out an insurance policy worth close to a million dollars. But now, when there should finally be closure, there's not. Trouble and questions remain. Anne never believed he was dead in the beginning. But as the years passed, what she told me was she wanted him to be dead. She wanted him to be dead, and she wanted him to die unmourned, unloved and unsung. And as time went on...? And as time went on...? I stopped crying. Did you assume that he'd died? What did you think? No. The only logical conclusion that I could come to was, you know, it's a lot easier to find a dead body than it is to find a living one. And if a living body doesn't want to be found, that means it doesn't want to be here. Could it really be that Eric Myers wasn't murdered after all? That he'd simply walked out on his wife, kids and parents? And if so, why? It would take time, a trip to Mexico and this nude model to explain it all. It sounds like he pulled off the great escape act of the century. Yeah, he pulled off the great escape. Stay with us. I was like the Bionic Woman. I was hooked up to everything. 1 You want your ziti or your pizza? You want your ziti or your pizza? I want my ziti. Kirsten Myers Ruggiano was just 8 years old when her father, Eric, a devout Christian and heir to a real estate fortune, disappeared without a trace. For years, she blamed herself. So as you grew older, did you just feel that, 'Dad just doesn't wanna be with us. He left us'? Yeah. (SNIFFLES) Maybe I wasn't a good enough kid. With no father, she says her mother, Anne, became her world. My mother is one of the most selfless people I've ever met. If either my sister or I called her and said, 'I need you here now,' she would absolutely drop everything to be by our side as soon as she needed to. While Anne was stitching together her frayed family,... LIVELY MUSIC ...a much different scene was playing out nearly 1000 miles south in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. With its warm sand and cold, colourful drinks, it's a great getaway, or escape. And it was just that for a newcomer who called himself Roberto. He took odd jobs as a bouncer, a physical trainer, with no ID required. No one got close enough to know who he was or why he was there. But Roberto was actually Eric Myers. Says he's poverty stricken, he` he doesn't know where his next meal's gonna come from. He was very dramatic. The Mexican getaway goes on for four months without one phone call home. Then Roberto heads back stateside, not to Phoenix, but to swinging Palm Springs, California ` Hollywood's ritzy desert playground. Everyone from the Rat Pack to Elvis to Barbra Streisand have had homes here. But why would a poverty-stricken Eric, now calling himself Robert, land in such an expensive spot? Tonight, for the first time on camera, Eric Myers explains his bizarre odyssey. I just wanted it all to end. I wanted everything to end. He says it's a story of pain that came to a head during that business trip in San Diego. You get to San Diego, and you check into the hotel. What do you remember about the hotel? I don't remember even checking in. I don't recall checking in to any hotel, let alone the one I did. And I don't remember checking out. Some would say maybe you choose not to remember because you don't have to answer to anything. And I'd say it'd be much better for me to have my whole story spelled out than have these gaps. I'm answering honestly that I have gaps. Eric says he had an emotional breakdown, and that's when things headed south, literally, to Cabo. I just had to get away. You know, I'm going through justification things along the way, cos I'm sitting there, saying, 'You can do this and still go back.' I wondered about him. I wondered if he'd ever come back, and at some point, it became clear to me that he was never coming back and that I needed to just move on. How much were you thinking about your kids? I would try not to dwell or` or think down that road, because that would just take me into a very dark place. And, again, this isn't a justification. But isn't that a selfish way to look at it? I mean, you're thinking about yourself and shutting down, and you've got children crying themselves to sleep wondering what happened to Dad? I cannot say anything to deny that it is the most selfish thing in the world. And I will never be painted as a saint. But no one is all good, and no one's all bad. If he wasn't thinking about his kids, what was he thinking about? It was this man ` Sean Lung. We were both alone. We felt alone, and we kinda connected because of that. And it was instant. You see, Eric wasn't just hiding out; he was coming out. At 6 years old, I knew I was attracted, drawn very heavily to other people my same sex. That's right. The once strait-laced evangelical family man is gay, something that has tortured him since adolescence. That was when I started thinking, 'This isn't right.' You know, 'I want to be with men.' And so I-I'm assuming it's right around mid-12 to mid-13 I had three different suicide events. He says he considered taking his life, once with a gun, another time perched on the edge of a cliff. TEARFULLY: I'm on that cliff just like that. I'm looking at that gun just like that. And I think, 'I'll go to my grave that way.' I've let go of being ashamed and that there's anything wrong with it. But remembering the pain brings it back like it was yesterday. Yesterday I was on the cliff. So young Eric joined an evangelical church, trying to pray it all away. You were trying to...? You were trying to...? ...get rid of Satan. I thought I was possessed. When that didn't work, he hoped marrying his friend Anne and starting a family would. But it wasn't until he ran away from that family and met Sean, a Canadian tourist, that he finally felt right. I remember thinking that, 'I'm not gonna be with Sean that long,' but at a two-week point of our being together, I turned around and said to him, 'I think I'm falling in love with you.' In Palm Springs, with its sunny, gay lifestyle was the perfect place for that love to flourish. When Sean develops an interest in photography, Eric even poses nude for him ` images later exhibited at a local art gallery. But while he was baring all for the cameras, it would take a while for him to reveal his most private parts; for Sean to learn the truth about his new love, Eric Myers. Did he come across as a guy who was on the run? Who had ditched his family? Not at all. No. He, um` You weren't troubled by that? You weren't troubled by that? I didn't know that part. And Eric doesn't know how much his family is hurting. How did you deal with the sadness? How did you cope with those feelings? Badly. I think I was 11 when I first started, like, stealing... wine and realised that it made me feel less sad. And then I think that was the beginning of experimenting with self-medicating behaviour. Kirsten says she struggled with addictions for years, and thanks to her mom, sobered up and began building a new life. Meantime, her father is building a new life with that new love, Sean. The years roll by, with two worlds unfolding. Eric's now finding comfort in his gay life; Sean now knows him as a man of many secrets but accepts him anyway. They move to Vancouver, Canada, where Eric creates yet another alias, calling himself Chaz, even claiming to have a PhD from Princeton. Why did you do that? > Well, I definitely believed that I knew how to market, and so I wanted the credentials which wouldn't be checked out very well, and in fact, in Princeton they don't have a marketing degree. Why Eric is living a lofty Ivy League fraud, his former family has a lowly reality back in the desert. Remember, they've declared Eric legally dead and are trying to put their grief behind them. But Anne Myers has no clue that a grenade is about to blow her world apart. EXPLOSION She says that her first reaction was, 'Oh my God, the Antichrist has returned.' He got away clean, but he came back, and destroyed everybody's life in the process. He's a sick, psychotic person who has only ever acted for himself. Stay with us. I was like the Bionic Woman. I was hooked up to everything. 1 GENTLE MUSIC 16 years after escaping from ` or some might say abandoning ` his former life as a married father of five, Eric Myers decides to come back from the dead. There was never any plan to come back, just like there was never any plan to leave. And it just happened. He reaches out to an old friend, who eventually arranges a meeting between Eric and the one person likely to forgive him anything ` his mother. I think we shared an energy of love... (TEARFULLY) that forgave everything... (SNAPS FINGERS) like that. Just that. It was all gone. My mother and I were past it with one hug. A lot of people lose children, but they don't get them back, you know? I could think of nothing but gratitude about the whole thing. Today, Eric has reconnected to his brothers and sisters, most of whom have accepted him back without skipping a beat. I think the picture we took ` the first Christmas card we sent after he came back was our five kids. And every friend wrote back and said, 'That says it all.' But his former wife, Anne, didn't roll out the red carpet. Her first reaction was, 'Oh my God, the Antichrist has returned.' Eric's resurrection dealt a seismic blow to his family and kids, especially Kirsten, now a mom of two who'd finally found happiness and peace in her life. < When he came back from the dead, what was your overriding emotion? < When he came back from the dead, what was your overriding emotion? Disbelief. It almost hurt more to have him come back than it did for him to go in the first place. What hurts most ` discovering you were abandoned by your dad or that he is gay? I don't care that he's gay. If he was, you know, a normal person, it wouldn't make any difference. It bothers me that he thinks that being gay is an excuse to abandon your family. That's what bothers me. She says the heartbroken little girl captured in an old family photo still haunts her. And when I saw the picture of me as a child,... it was really bizarre. I wanted to hug her, and I wanted to tell her that it would be OK. I wanted to save her, even though it was me. But why come back now and risk opening old wounds? Eric points out he and Sean moved in with his elderly parents, caring for his father in the last few years of his life. But some wondered if he was motivated not by love,... KA-CHING! ...but by dollar signs. Millions of them. It's not for money; it's not for inheritance. It's for healing. I mean, there's a lot of pain and suffering having to do with all my coming back, but it's all been for healing, and the majority of people have healed. But certainly not Kirsten, who's only glimpsed her father once in person since he returned. They've never spoken. Do you ever envision anywhere, years from now, that you might want to` Do you ever envision anywhere, years from now, that you might want to` No. ...sit down with your dad and understand anything? ...sit down with your dad and understand anything? There's nothing he can say. He's not... He's not even a real person. And the big question remains ` was Eric's original disappearance all part of a masterplan? Were you fantasizing at all about... leaving, getting out of here, escaping your life? I say that as God is my witness ` never once. But the insurance company that paid out Eric's death benefit doesn't buy it. With Eric still alive, Liberty Life Insurance is suing the Myers family. They're saying he committed fraud and that he left knowing his daughters would be provided for through the death benefit. Robert Anglen uncovered this explosive story while digging through court records. The Myers family trauma made headlines. Liberty Life wants back its $800,000 paid to Kirsten and her sister, plus interest. But who should pay? Eric's ex-wife, Anne, and his daughters say he should. But he says there's no legal obligation. My life insurance policy wasn't mine very quickly after I left. A conservator was named after I disappeared. He said that conservator, his father, made decisions that take him out of the equation. It's a messy family squabble playing out in the courts right now. But despite the painful consequences, Eric insists he made the right decision to return. To live in a disguise is a horrible prison. And then to take the disguise off ` it might hurt some people, but did you do it to hurt people or did you do it to be true? And once they see that disguise off, it's their choice to like it or hate it. His daughter has clearly made her choice. It's insulting to all the gay people that I know and love for him to say, 'Well, I did it because I was gay.' I know a lot of people who would never do this and absolutely never blame it on their homosexuality. I don't believe that he's capable of love. Toward anyone? Toward anyone? Towards anyone but himself. EMOTIVE MUSIC Yes, honest guy all round, eh. Uh, now, if you want to see any of tonight's show again head to our website. It's... You can also email us at... or, of course, go to our Facebook page ` we're at... and let us know what you think of tonight's stories. Well, thanks for all your feedback over the past week. We're interested in your ideas too, so keep them coming.
Reporters
  • Hannah Ockelford (Reporter, Television New Zealand)
Speakers
  • Denise L'Estrange Corbet (Fashion Designer)
  • Pebbles Hooper (Fashion Blogger)
Contributors
  • Gary Hopper (Cameraman)
  • Heloise Le Gros (Editor)
  • Joanne Mitchell (Producer)
  • Peter Day (Cameraman)