Long before Matthew McConaughey became an Oscar winner, one of his earliest television roles put him inside a real-life fugitive case that would soon have a very different ending. More than three decades later, the actor is taking a little credit for what happened after his Unsolved Mysteries appearance aired.
McConaughey brought up the 1992 job during a career conversation at the Filmland festival in Little Rock, Arkansas. “I’m gonna toot my own horn a little bit,” he said, according to Variety. “The Unsolved Mysteries episode I did? They caught the guy weeks later based on what I did.”
The future Dallas Buyers Club star played Larry Dickens, a 26-year-old former Marine who was killed in Texas in 1978 after confronting Edward Harold Bell. Bell was arrested shortly after Dickens’ death, but after being released on bail, he fled the United States and remained a fugitive for more than a decade.
The crucial development came after the episode aired. People who recognized the already-wanted fugitive supplied information that helped authorities find him in Panama.
McConaughey Played Larry Dickens in the 1992 Reenactment
The segment aired on Dec. 2, 1992, during the fifth season of the original Unsolved Mysteries. McConaughey portrayed Dickens in a dramatization of the confrontation that led to his death, before Dazed and Confused, A Time to Kill and the movies that eventually made him one of Hollywood’s most recognizable actors.
The official Unsolved Mysteries case history says Dickens was visiting his mother and sister in Pasadena, Texas, on Aug. 24, 1978, when Bell exposed himself near children in the neighborhood. Dickens confronted him while his mother contacted police.
Bell shot Dickens multiple times. Police spotted Bell’s truck and arrested him within about 20 minutes of the killing. Less than two months later, however, Bell was released on bail. According to Unsolved Mysteries, he liquidated his assets and disappeared with more than $140,000, eventually fleeing through Mexico and Central America.
A producer revisiting the segment for the 35th-anniversary documentary Unsolved Mysteries: Behind the Legacy joked about the young actor’s elaborate death scene and how far his acting had come since then, as Entertainment Weekly reported.
Viewers Helped Investigators Find Bell in Panama
By the time McConaughey’s reenactment reached television, authorities already knew Bell was wanted for Dickens’ murder. The mystery was where the fugitive had gone. That is where the broadcast made a tangible difference.
According to the official Unsolved Mysteries case page, at least two viewers recognized Bell after the story aired. One reported having recently met him during a business trip to Panama City, while another said Bell had been living in Panama for several years. The information helped narrow investigators’ search.
The show’s account quotes Houston FBI Special Agent Rolando Moss saying Panamanian police located Bell before working with the FBI to bring him back to the United States. Bell was arrested in Panama in February 1993, less than three months after McConaughey’s episode aired. He was later convicted of murdering Dickens and sentenced to 70 years in prison. Bell remained incarcerated until his death in 2019.
The Story Came Back Up as McConaughey Looked Over His Career
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According to Arkansas Cinema Society’s official schedule the Aug. 14 program included “A Conversation with Matthew McConaughey and Jeff Nichols” as McConaughey received Variety’s Legend & Groundbreaker Award.
Later that day, Filmland screened The Rivals of Amziah King, McConaughey’s latest film with Arkansas-born director Andrew Patterson.
The festival conversation ranged across a career that eventually included Dazed and Confused, Interstellar, The Wolf of Wall Street and his Oscar-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club.