SHHH� SECRETS! WHO KEEPS THEM? WHO BETRAYS THEM?,
ON ABC NEWS� �20/20,� FRIDAY, MARCH 3
** Harboring a Destructive Secret: A Mom Responsible for Her
Newborn Baby�s Death Comes Clean to Help Others;
** A Prominent Dentist Secretly Travels to Have Sex with Boys;
** The New Confessional for Women -- the Beauty Salon;
** Secrets as an Art Exhibit
Secrets� Whether we are protecting ourselves or others, hiding the truth sometimes comes with a cost. �20/20� shares extraordinary stories of people who found the courage to come clean and of people whose secrets were revealed unwillingly, FRIDAY, MARCH 3 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.
The mystery surrounding a newborn baby boy found dead in a duffle bag in a flooded quarry in suburban Cleveland in 1999 kept the police and a horrified community guessing for years: Who was responsible for the baby�s unfathomable death? It was a deep, dark secret kept for six-and-a-half years by Jessica Coleman -- who in 1999 was a 15-year-old high school sophomore -- and her boyfriend at the time, Tom Truelson. The two teenagers kept her unwanted pregnancy a secret, the birth a secret, the death a secret and the disposing of the baby�s body a secret. In an exclusive interview with ABC News correspondent Jim Avila, Coleman, who pled guilty to charges including child endangering and involuntary manslaughter and is now serving six years in state prison, speaks out for the first time about her story in hopes of reaching other pregnant teens who also may be harboring destructive secrets.
�I made a terrible mistake� maybe I can prevent this from happening to somebody else.�
And: For years Dr. Todd Calvin was a prominent dentist in Lakewood, TX, a small suburb of Dallas. A trained singer, he often serenaded his patients, which earned him the nickname �the singing dentist.� To the outside world his marriage to Darlene Doxey, with whom he had two children, was the picture of happiness. Then one day, after 10 years, Dr. Calvin asked for a divorce. Doxey tells Deborah Roberts that the divorce was a welcome change, as they had been living separate lives for a while. But a year later, a shocking revelation about the singing dentist would turn the family�s world upside down� Doxey�s ex-husband was arrested for attempting to travel to Mexico to have sex with young boys.
Also: The beauty salon is a place for more than just a cut and color -- it�s a haven for the heart to heart, where women and men trim some split ends and spill some secrets. In the movies, the beautician is often depicted as a trusted confidant and, as Lynn Sherr reports, it�s not so different in real life. Kim Vo, owner of the B2V salon in West Hollywood and hairdresser to the stars, says: �I�m part pseudo therapist, and I�m part artist, and just a good friend to most of my clients. I am here to do their hair, but sometimes that comes secondary.� Sometimes sharing your most private thoughts at the salon can even be lifesaving. Just ask Melanie Caldwell and her manicurist, Laura Love-Brown, who made headlines when their casual weekly nail session became a lifeline for Melanie, who was dealing with an alleged abusive husband. In fact, it�s so common for women to confide in their beauticians that there�s even a national organization called �Cut It Out,� which trains salon professionals to recognize signs of abuse.
Plus: They came in by the thousands: Secrets describing shame, deception, romance, regret, childhood traumas -- mailed on postcards to a 41-year-old man named Frank Warren in a Maryland suburb. Warren solicited these secrets as part of a community arts project he started less than a year-and-a-half ago, asking people to send him their secrets anonymously. When the concept spread through an art exhibit and on the internet, the flood of cards increased, and it has never stopped � he has received more than 25,000 postcards in all. He has published more than 300 of them in a book, called PostSecret. �I think when you look at each postcard, it can almost act like a six-inch by four-inch window into somebody�s soul, and they�re allowing you to peek in and share something from their own life that they haven�t been comfortable sharing with their closest friends and family,� Warren tells Bob Brown.
Included in the reports is Dr. Gail Saltz, who has written an upcoming book about the psychology of living with secrets.
�20/20� is anchored by Elizabeth Vargas and John Stossel. David Sloan is the executive producer.
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