Heir finder gets spot on 'Mysteries'
The Vindicator, Thursday, October 27, 1988
Jane Tims - Staff Columnist
Still hoping Michael Anthony will arrive on your doorstep with a little token from "The Millionaire?"
Wait no more for John Beresford Tipton, that unseen benefactor from the television series of the 1950s. It's Josh Butler you're looking for, and he lives right here in Poland.
Actually, you're not looking for him so much, as hoping he's looking for you. He's a locator of lost heirs, and you may be next.
In the whole scheme of professions - doctor, lawyer, merchant, thief - locator of lost heirs is not one of the best known. In fact there are only about 25 such sleuths in the entire country.
But that is now. After Josh appears on a segment of NBC-TV's Unsolved Mysteries," the whole world will be clamoring to get in the business.
It won't be easy to do. There is no preparatory course, although backgrounds in English and law would help. There is no manual; Josh learns from his own mistakes.
There is little frivolity, tracking the living from the dead. It is a tough and lonely business, requiring enduring patience, a willingness to camp out in libraries and courthouse record rooms, an eye for the deciding detail, and a behaviorist's ability to envision people's paths in given situations.
There is little immediate financial incentive. Payday can be elusive. Like the defeated plaintiff attorney, he may find himself on a wild goose chase and wind up with nothing. Or, and this is the worst, the found heir may refuse to deal.
Fact can convince
The heir may be enticed by Josh's story but begrudging of his fee, and try to track down the money himself. Or he may think this guy is nuts, calling with money to deliver. We have become a skeptical society since the days of "The Millionaire," and strangers entering our private lives are not always welcome.
One distinctive fact can make the difference. Josh finally found one heir who wasn't about to buy his story. How could he convince her this wasn't fraud?
"Your name as a child was Bo-Bo," he told her, and he could almost hear her smile over the phone. Case closed.
On to the next unsolved mystery. A set of unclaimed shares, perhaps, in a Canadian gold mine.
How did a guy from Poland, a former disc jockey hired by a Savannah station because he could rattle off commercials twice as fast as any Georgian, a former policeman, metal fabricator and sailor wind up tracking down lost heirs?
He was a lost heir himself, or suspected of being one, to some mineral rights near Abilene. The rights had belonged to his great grandfather, the late Youngstown industrialist Joseph Green Butler Jr.
As it turned out, Josh was not the lawful heir. But in a classic case of closed door leading to open window, he got a new profession out of the deal Pete Johnson, the Texas locator who took a wrong turn and "found" Josh, has become his mentor and friend.
These guys often work closely together, and after six years in the business, Josh knows them all. It was a Canadian peer who put Josh in touch with "Unsolved Mysteries."
Said no at first
They wanted to do a segment with him in Omaha, where he'd been working on a case involving Curly Green's $150,000. Vagueness of orphanage and adoption records rendered proof elusive, and Josh finally closed the case. It was one of his few unsolved mysteries.
"At first I said no," said Josh of the TV series' offer. "Then I thought they might not ask me twice."
The show follows the format of "60 Minutes" or "20/20," with three or four unrelated segments per episode. "It's fun," says Josh. "Certainly not '60 Minutes' and not the National Enquirer. Just a nice blend of populist news."
Josh plays himself, without makeup or contrived costume, chatting in an office that doesn't much resemble his own and poring over records in the Omaha library.
He was impressed with the crew as they filmed Curly, played by a professional actor. It was, according to Josh's records, quite realistic, from Curly's arrival in Omaha via steam locomotive to his fatal heart attack while trimming roses in his own front yard.
Josh was not paid, and fame will be fleeting. But it's kind of fun when a hometown boy winds up on network television.
Last word was that the segment will air this fall, but the exact date is not certain. I for one will tune in the next few Wednesday nights just in case. So will Josh's wife and chief researcher, Susan. So will their three sons, ages 12, 9 and 1.
As for the star himself, he's hardly puffed up. "It was a very pleasant time," said Josh, "just something I did for a couple of days,"
Josh Butler of Poland will appear on NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" Wednesday at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WFMJ-TV Channel 21. The segment involves the unclaimed inheritance of a railroad man in Omaha.