OK here is what I did to fix this. Anyone running into the same problem may find this useful. I have been struggling with this for weeks now before the original post.
I searched the logs according to mythedoff's suggestion (thanks man). However there was nothing in the logs - anywhere - that gave me a filename that I could use.
I studied up on SQL commands since I have no background with databases. Using the MySQL module in webmin i executed this
SELECT *
FROM recorded
WHERE title LIKE '%name_here%'
and got back four entries that listed the original filename. I used mythedoff's syntax again (thx man once more) and created the files. I noticed that the list in mythweb now indicated the files had a reasonable size instead of just zero bytes. I used the mythweb interface to delete them and they are gone for good.
Thanks mythedoff for the suggestions. They were very helpful. And thanks to the entire Knoppmyth community for being helpful - these forums are great.
