Mystery Surrounds Writer's Death

With the help of an amateur detective, authorities believe they recovered a body of Hollywood screenwriter Gary Devore. Investigators have found his Ford Explorer, with a body they believe is Devore's, in an aqueduct in California's high desert.

But the chain of events leading to his death remain a mystery, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

Devore has been missing for a year. A one-time successful writer of big-screen action movies like Dogs of War, the 55-year-old Devore disappeared while driving home from a writing session in New Mexico, literally into thin air.

Some of his friends said he was the victim of foul play, while others wondered if he engineered his own disappearance.

No clues were left behind until this week, when a San Diego man named Douglas Crawford said he had figured out what happened. Crawford concluded that Devore could have vanished in the desert like that only by driving into the aqueduct, and he could have done it at a certain overpass.

He searched the area himself, finding part of a headlight assembly that had a Ford Explorer part number on it. Crawford alerted the family, and they called police.

Wendy Devore

Crawford has expressed surprise by the response.

"I feel like a suspect. That's how the police are treating me," he said.

However, authorities say Crawford is very credible and helpful, and is not a suspect.

Gary Devore was hoping for a comeback with a new movie script he would direct. Now his family and friends are hoping forensic tests will solve the real-life mystery of what happened to him.

"I do not mistrust Douglas Crawford personally, Mrs. Devore told CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Jane Robelot Friday. I don't know the man. What I made clear is that I thought it was odd and far too much of a coincidence for me to accept on face value."

Mrs. Devore described how Crawford sent a fax that was "an absolute extremely detailed blueprint for every single thing that had to have happened for Gary's car to have been in the very place that we all looked a year ago."

In the search for her husband, Mrs. Devore hired private detectives from various counties in the area where Gary disappeared. Professional rescue teams and a crew of volunteers helped her in the year-long search concentrated on the aqueduct area.

"It is amazing to me that none of us saw a piece of the car r anything else we could get. There were no skid marks or guard rail damage, or even the large amount of foliage where a car would have crushed going in," Mrs. Devore said.

She said she also found it odd that Crawford's discovery coincided with the one-year anniversery of Gary's disappearance, speculating that he may have waited for the story to become a timely - and possibly a more valuable - one for him.

Although Mrs. Devore is disturbed by the coincidence, she says she did not consider Crawford a suspect until the idea was suggested to her.

"I know that the sheriff's department dispatched people to San Diego to discuss things with him," she said.

"They are feeling less and less that he is suspicious, and I would accept what they say," she added.

For now, Mrs. Devore is relieved that part of the mystery of her husband's disappearance may be over as officials work to determine whether it is indeed Gary's body that was found in the sunken car.