Around the time that Gordon Weaver went missing -- his parents say he was probably dead -- a stranger named David Carson arrived in Eugene, Ore.

While staying at a motel in town, he answered an ad for a room to rent at this rooming house owned by Jaime Jaramillo. It would be a chance meeting that triggered unforeseen and seismic consequences.

Jaime Jaramillo: I feel sad for him. There were tears in his eyes.

When David Carson showed up at the rooming house, he had little more than a baseball cap, duffel bag, running shoes, and a tale of woe about a tragic accident, back in Maine. He had no bank account, but ample cash, and offered to pay Jaime three months rent in advance. Soon after the stranger moved in, Jaime introduced him to his son, Jon, who also heard his sad history.

Jon Jaramillo: His story was that his wife and two daughters had died in a car crash. He was the driver and the car burst into flames and they all perished in the car wreck, but he survived. You just immediately - you feel compassion for the person, thinking, "Oh, you know, what a tragic thing."

The stranger was convincing. And Jaime, the father, quickly grew fond of the quiet, intelligent man from Maine.

And it turned out, he was very handy -- especially when it came to construction. Jaime, who was recovering from prostate cancer and was 67 at the time, needed someone just like David to help him out at his home in Florence, Ore., 60 miles west of his business in Eugene.

Within a few weeks, Jaime invited the stranger to stay at what he called "the ranch," the spacious, secluded hilltop dream house he shared with his wife, Lueene.

Jaime Jaramillo: I like him very much. That's why I invite him here.

Jaime and Lueene had many friends - especially from their church - none closer than Richard and Donna Dobson.

Donna Dobson: They were full of electricity. Full of life, kind of the center place for people to gather and have food and fellowship.

The Jaramillos soon began considering the stranger a part of the family. And their church friends took to him as well.

Donna Dobson: I just thought he was a quiet, nice guy.

Richard Dobson: He was always helping people with projects. Wouldn't charge a nickel.

Sara James: And he did a good job, right?

Richard Dobson: Yeah, real good job.

Especially on this sunroom he helped build onto the Jaramillos' home in the summer of 2000.

David also made an impact by helping out with two grandsons who were living with the Jaramillos. He paid the boys a lot of attention and they soon grew attached to him.

Joconda Nielson: I was divorced at the time and the two boys needed some sort of a friend or father figure.

Joconda Nielson is a daughter of the Jaramillos and the boys' mother.

Joconda Nielson: And they had a lot of fun with David. He spent a lot of time with them.

He helped the boys with homework, which improved their grades, took them on runs through the hills and built bonfires with them.

Eventually the daughter herself become close with the stranger and they developed an intimate relationship. But there was always something about him which troubled her.

Joconda Nielson: He held back from me. He couldn't really express a lot of his feelings through words like couples do. And the closer we got together, the further away he got away from me.

It must be because of that horrible car crash, she thought. Still, he was becoming an integral part of the family and their community.

Jon Jaramillo: He's becoming like a big hit in the home, in the family, with everybody.

But not exactly with everybody. There was one member of the family who was never quite comfortable with him. Jon himself had doubts about David Carson. Just who was this guy? Was he really who he claimed to be?

Jon Jaramillo: I tried to do some research, trying to look up a name, David Carson, anything I could find, even a story about some family that died in a car crash in Maine.

Sara James: And did you have any luck?

Jon Jaramillo: No, no, I couldn't find anything.

His father even had a criminal background check conducted on David Carson - and that, too, came back clean.

Meanwhile, as Jaime spent much of each week working in Eugene, his wife was at the ranch with their grandsons and David. She seemed increasingly enchanted by the stranger, despite her being a generation older, especially after he began attending her church.

Jon Jaramillo: Whenever I would question or voice my suspicions, she would always come back with, "Well, he's such a great Christian man. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't swear. He's not a womanizer and he's helped the kids. The kids love him.”

Sara James: He sounds like a perfect guy.

Jon Jaramillo: You couldn't ask for like, you know, a better person. And so I - whenever she'd go on this laundry list of things of how great he was, I’m saying, "Well, mom, there's just not something -- there's something not right about this guy."

Sara James: Your mom was bewitched --

Jon Jaramillo: Absolutely, absolutely.

Sara James: Entranced.

Jon Jaramillo: Yes.

If only they'd known who he was. Did Jon sense it? On some level he knew something wasn't quite right with this man.

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