IDThe Secrets We Bury is a new documentary that focuses on a Long Island family’s decades-long search for answers into what happened to their father, George Carroll, after he mysteriously disappeared.
2025 has been a huge year for true crime, whether that be the viral twist at the center of Unknown Number: A High School Catfish or the deepest dive yet on the Ruby Franke case in Devil in the Family.
But while many of this year’s entries have been characterized by digital deception, The Secrets We Bury centers on a truly stranger-than-fiction murder mystery, one that began in the 1960s when George Carroll supposedly walked out on his wife and four kids and never returned.
When their mother, Dorothy, died in the ‘90s, the Carroll siblings’ search for closure led to them digging deep into the basement of their family’s home. Warning: spoilers if you’re unfamiliar with the case and some may find this content distressing.
Who killed George Carroll?
IDWith so much time having passed and key suspects now deceased, police were unable to determine who killed George Carroll, though the leading theory points to Richard Darress, the man Dorothy married after George’s disappearance.
George, a Korean War veteran, vanished without a trace from his Long Island home in 1963. For years, Dorothy told her four children that he had gone out for a packet of cigarettes and simply abandoned them. Not only did she never file a missing persons report, but George had left behind his wallet, car, and last paycheck.
Mike Carroll, one of Dorothy’s sons, ended up buying his family’s home as his mom was struggling financially, and when she got sick in the late ‘90s, he decided to ask her questions about his father in the hope of getting some answers.
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“On her deathbed, I asked her, ‘Mom, can you tell me anything about dad before you leave?’ It was April 17, 1998. My mother literally turned her head, winked at me, never said a word, and then passed away,” Mike says in the true crime documentary.
What happened next sounds like it was ripped from a horror movie script: Mike’s sister Jean took him to see a psychic, who revealed that their father had been murdered and that he was buried in a specific spot in their basement.
In a separate incident, Mike was called into work at the hospital to treat a man who just so happened to be George’s brother and therefore Mike’s uncle. He revealed that his brother would never have abandoned four children.
Mike decided to start digging, and when he suffered a stroke, his two sons stepped in to help. They brought in radar technology specialists, who were able to identify an anomaly in the floor.
IDTheir excavation efforts led them to an underground wall, which they knocked down to discover George Carroll’s bones. The family contacted the police the following day – Halloween 2018 – which led to a full-on investigation.
But as Mike points out, “When we found my dad, it was kind of like we answered one question but we got 100,000 new questions.”
The coroner was able to determine that George had died from blunt force trauma to the head, but then the family never heard anything after. So many years had passed and all witnesses had since died, making a murder investigation impossible.
However, another of the Carroll siblings, Steve, states, “When we look at the basement and we have any kind of theory about what happened, it all points to Darress.”
The Secrets We Bury digs into the theories
IDAs said, among all the Carroll siblings, the leading theory is that Richard Darress killed George Carroll. Shortly before George’s disappearance, Darress had recently been released from prison for theft and was living in the family home.
George had offered him a place to stay in exchange for help renovating the basement. Crucially, it later emerged that Darress was sexually abusive towards the girls and a predator, something that did not fully come to light until after George vanished.
Steve points to Darress’ familiarity with the basement as particularly suspicious. “There was a rectangular opening in the basement floor where the water pump was… Darress was in the house, he was intimate with pouring cement, the opening to the floor was there already,” he says.
When the family began uncovering these details, they planned to confront Darress, but he died before they could ask him any questions.
IDRichard Darress Jr., known as Richy – the Carrolls’ half-brother and Darress’ son – initially believed his father might not have intended to kill George. He suggests it could have been an accident: George may have slipped, hit his head, and Darress panicked, covering it up by pouring cement.
Others raised the possibility that George had a temper. “I want to believe it was PTSD from Korea,” says Jean, referencing comments about George having “heavy hands.” This led to speculation that he killed George while defending Dorothy.
However, the documentary reveals a far darker picture. Pat Carroll, the siblings’ sister, ran away from home at 15 and later told Mike’s son Chris that she had been sexually abused by Darress.
Jean admits she initially didn’t believe Pat, until she came to terms with the fact that she too was abused by Darress, beginning when she was just eight years old. Mike also says he was physically abused by their stepfather.
IDFurther research uncovered a pattern: Darress had allegedly abused girls in other households he lived in. “He was a predator,” Mike says, a sentiment echoed by Steve, who recalls a relative claiming Darress exposed himself to the girls shortly after moving in.
Steve wonders if his father may have confronted Darress about this and paid for it. “Was that the day that he went home and confronted either Darress or my mother, and then Darress got up behind him and hit him with the pipe wrench?” he asks.
This raises the most painful question of all: what did Dorothy know? She never filed a missing persons report, remained silent on her deathbed, and stayed with Darress despite the abuse allegations.
Some family members speculate Dorothy may have been trapped and possibly blackmailed, afraid of losing everything or fearful that speaking out would implicate her. Richy reflects, “If my mother did tell the authorities… it’s going to open up a can of worms about the death of George Carroll… It’s a big bind to be in.”
IDJean ultimately forgives her mother, believing Dorothy’s priority was survival and protecting her children as best she could, but others remain unsure. As Steve puts it, if Dorothy knew, why didn’t she speak when she was dying – or was silence her final attempt to preserve how her children remembered her?
The documentary leaves these questions open-ended, because, ultimately, there are no solid answers. What remains is a family left to live with the consequences of a truth uncovered far too late.
The Secrets We Bury is streaming on HBO Max now. For more true crime news, find out if Sean Combs: The Reckoning Season 2 is happening, the truth behind Kendra Licari’s motives, and where Susan Lorincz is now.