2009. New Canaan, Connecticut.
Journalist Bill Dedman was browsing homes for sale.
One listing made him stop.
An expensive estate. And it came with a strange detail: the house had been unoccupied, but maintained, for nearly 60 years.
For 60 years, no one had lived there. And for 60 years, someone had kept it up.
Who? And why?
Dedman traced the owner. The trail led to a name almost no one knew.
Huguette Clark.
Her father was William A. Clark, a copper baron and U.S. senator, one of the richest men in America. Huguette, his youngest daughter, was born in Paris in 1906 and grew up in what was described as the largest house in New York City.
If she was still alive, she was over 100.
The more Dedman dug, the stranger it got.
The caretakers at her homes had not seen her in decades.
Some of her belongings had been quietly sold.
An heiress over 100 years old. No one had seen her.
Was she even still alive?