DeVore No Longer Suspects Sleuth

The widow of screenwriter Gary DeVore no longer suspects the motives of the novice sleuth who led police to her husband's remains more than a year after he disappeared.

"I'm certainly satisfied," Wendy DeVore said Monday. "I think he took the same information that any detective could have taken and came up with a hypothesis...I'm just so grateful he decided to follow his hunch."

Mrs. DeVore said she changed her mind after speaking by phone to Douglas Crawford of San Diego on Monday. The conversation dispelled her doubts about how he led police to DeVore's Ford Explorer submerged in the California Aqueduct near Palmdale last week.

"He was delightful and decent to me," Mrs. DeVore said. "I just hope he goes on to help other people."

On Friday, however, Mrs. Devore felt differently. "I do not mistrust Douglas Crawford personally, Mrs. Devore told CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Jane Robelot. "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."

Crawford told police he solved the mystery after reading about the similar disappearance of a woman who drowned when her car crashed into the California Aqueduct and was swallowed in deep mud.

Authorities said they believed Crawford because all the information he had used to find DeVore's remains had been in the news media.

DeVore, 55, who co-wrote Running Scared, vanished on June 28, 1997, while driving from New Mexico to his home in Carpinteria on the Santa Barbara County coast.

Detectives believe the car ended up in the waterway by accident but have not ruled out foul play. Mrs. DeVore said she still believes the circumstances surrounding his disappearance were questionable.