In what has become just another missing persons report in the annals of unsolved crimes, Moon was dating the victim of a mysterious disappearance and featured on Unsolved Mysteries more than two decades ago.

From the Unsolved Mysteries transcript:

“Gorman, Maryland, population 200. It was a typical workday for 19-year-old Cathy Ford. She was a waitress at her family’s restaurant, The Old Mill. Around 2 o’clock [p.m.] Cathy received a mysterious phone call and she left work early. She never returned. Paul Ferrell, a former deputy sheriff, was convicted of her kidnapping and murder.

The next day Cathy’s family and her boyfriend, Darvin Moon, organized search parties and put up posters offering a reward. During the search, Darvin Moon talked to Paul Ferrell outside the Old Mill restaurant. There was a story going around. Cathy had been seen the day before near Paul’s trailer. Darvin also told Ferrell that smoke from some unexplained source had been seen near his trailer. To Paul Ferrell, it felt like an accusation. So he decided to look around for himself. According to Ferrell, he found Cathy’s burnt out car less than 200 yards from his trailer. At that point he made a critical decision. He wouldn’t tell anyone about the car. Ferrell says that it was simply a matter of fear…

Ferrell: Initially I was panicked. I was afraid to go close, afraid of what I might find. How do I explain this, you know? She’s dead and she’s dead in my backyard, you know. And all these people are searching and they are talking about these big searches and about the vehicles in someone’s backyard. It’s in my backyard.

Ferrell says he then made another mistake that made him look even more guilty. He wrote an anonymous letter to the Old Mill restaurant, pretending to be Cathy. The letter said that she had run away and that she wanted her parents to know that she was safe. Ferrell even enclosed $200 to help pay for the ruined Bronco. Initially he denied sending the letter, but in court an FBI handwriting expert proved that he had written it.

Ferrell: My idea was to stop the search for the vehicle, to avoid someone from going in there and finding that vehicle in my backyard. Or finding, what I thought, maybe a body was back there, too. I just panicked, I did an irrational thing. I don’t think it says guilt or anything else, but it was just something, looking back, I don’t have a real good explanation for it, just that I panicked.”

As the trial progressed, the prosecution introduced some unusual testimony. An FBI expert said that during Ferrell’s interrogation, he gave Ferrell a hypothetical scenario about Cathy’s murder. As Ferrell was talking, the expert says that he saw signs of guilt in Ferrell’s body language.

Expert (voice, not shown): I told Mr. Ferrell that I believed that maybe something had happened, such as Cathy Ford had taunted him, teased him, something had caused him to lose his temper. He had responded emotionally as opposed to rationally, and Mr. Ferrell was nodding in this regard.

Taken from the State West Virginia v. Paul William appeal on July 24, 1990:

On 29 February 1988, Mr. Ferrell made a collect call from Uniontown, Pennsylvania to his girlfriend, Cathy Bernard, in which he asked her to call the Ford family to say Cathy Ford was alright. When asked to explain Ms. Bernard’s testimony that he had asked her to make calls claiming she was Cathy Ford, Paul Ferrell told police that on 20 February 1988, (three days after Cathy Ford disappeared), he asked Ms. Bernard to call someone saying Cathy Ford was alright, because he wanted to slow down the investigation so that his telephone calls might not be discovered. On 2 March 1988, Cathy Ford’s parents received a letter postmarked Pittsburgh, 29 February 1988. (It was stipulated that a letter mailed from Uniontown would be postmarked Pittsburgh.) The letter said:

The only crime here was we had to get rid of the old man’s Bronco right away. Cathy is 19, an adult and we had to leave fast. We came into some dangerous money. So here is some money on the Bronco. More will follow. She will call you when she feels it is safe to do so. We are heading where I can get some work. Cathy made me write so you would not worry. She had to get away from Moon, the restaurant and certain people. We keep the money, her green bank bag. Tell Moon to leave us alone.”

Richard Williams, an FBI handwriting expert, testified that the letter and its envelope were both in Paul Ferrell’s handwriting. Enclosed with the letter was the sum of two hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills. On 23 February 1988, Paul Ferrell had withdrawn two hundred dollars from his personal savings account.”

The judge and jury agreed: even in lieu of a body, the sun and the moon of evidence aligning wasn’t just sheer coincidence. Paul Ferrell would go on to be convicted for his brazen role in the disappearance and assumed murder of Cathy Ford. Reports would eventually surface of over 400 similar phone calls being made to area women–sexually explicit in nature–in attempts to lure them to secluded areas, much like the fateful night Cathy disappeared. Prosecutors even attempted to connect him to murders at Yellowstone Park, where he had previously worked, where similar evidence surmounted in the death of local females. After his conviction, he would be granted parole and released in May of 2004, after only serving 15 years of his 25-year sentence.

Decades later, to say that Moon has moved on to greener pastures with his life–or as a logger, greener forests–is quite the understatement. The quiet and humble Maryland forester became poker’s newest amateur millionaire and still refuses sponsorships or retirement into his new found winnings. It helps to judge where a man’s going by where he’s come from, and while he’ll probably Jamie Gold or Jerry Yang the title, at least this everyman has shown us that a dark past can prevail with a bright future.

After bringing the competition at the World Series of Poker to its knees, Moon is poised to sit down and use his monster chip lead to win the thing outright in November.  And while he is the least experienced player at the table, you just can’t argue with the guy holding 30% of the chips.

But that’s just the beginning: in the four months since the much-ballyhooed Final Table was determined, Moon has had every opportunity to sign a major promotional deal with the online poker site of his choosing. Instead Moon has remained a lone gunner, stating that “there is not enough money in the world for someone to tell me what to do.”

Well, we here at CarbonPoker are not about to take no for an answer.  You hear that, Darvin?  We like you just the way you are.  With that in mind here are the

Top Five Reasons You Should Join CarbonPoker, Darvin Moon

5. Holy!  We Like the Saints Tooooo!

We just love that you wear a Saints hat while you play. If you join us we’ll put out a hit on Drew Brees and have you starting in no less than a year.

4. CarbonPoker is Elderly-Friendly

Everyone is talking about how you learned to play from your grandfather.  Well, sign on with us and we’ll open the internet’s first 80+ poker room, featuring on-screen reminders of what the hands are, 0.01 cent Sit and Gos, and weekly online garage sales.  It’ll be the bees knees.

3. Goatees = Nice

If you become Carbon’s number one man, we’ll institute a mandatory goatee policy for all employees.  But none will be as bushy as yours, Darvin, promise.

2.  Logging is For Winners

We’re very impressed that you own a logging company, Darvin.  We hate forests.  We’ll clear-cut the Eastern seaboard if that would get you on board.

1. We Like Being Told What to Do

Don’t worry about us telling you what to do, Darvin.  With your enticing combination of looks, personality, and enthusiasm, we won’t need a marketing strategy with you on our side.  Just undo that lower button on your golf shirt and accept the keys to the CarbonPoker vault.