I found it and Sherlock Holmes assisted
OK, this was a weird one. First, swshawaii, thanks for the ideas - ALL locking and unlocking mechanisms worked but the outside door handle would always open door. How is that possible? Through a long series of trails and error, I figured out that previous owner had replaced the three locking mechanism mount screws (you could tell because they were rusty and had slightly different heads but I did not pay attention to this until much later). If you look at the lock mech, two holes go all the way through but one does not. It turns out that replacement screws were about two threads too long and would affect the inner working of the lock mech! By backing out one of the mounting screws two threads, everything worked! What is important to note here is that with the bad screw all the way in, all the control arms, etc. still APPEARED to function correctly - they would move to their limits, etc. The long screw simply bound up the mech internally & subtly. The only way I figured this out was that when I tested the mech out of the car it would work but when mounted it did not. It had to be something with how it was mounted - perhaps binding or bending or the screw being too long!! Anyway, this was clearly out of the norm since the lock mech itself was not at fault and those screws should have never been installed in the first place.
