Missing Persons

Disappearances, and the investigations that tried to explain them.

73 cases

The Burning Barrel

On a July evening in 1981, Charlotte Grabbe never came back from the soybean fields of her family's Marshall, Illinois farm — her tractor parked in the shed, her lunch box untouched, and her divorce from the violent Fred Grabbe still unfinished.

Master and Slave

Elaine O'Hara vanished near Dublin in August 2012, the day after her release from a psychiatric hospital — and the investigation that unfolded over the next three years exposed one of the most shocking crimes in Irish history.

The Stolen Cradle

In September 2000, two expectant mothers met by chance in a Walmart and discovered they were neighbors — days later, Theresa Andrews vanished along with the Jeep Wrangler she had arranged to sell to a mystery buyer.

The Girl in the Barrel

During a final walkthrough before the sale of a Jericho, New York house in September 1999, the buyer insisted on removing a 355-pound barrel that had sat wedged in the crawlspace for decades — a barrel the seller had never once opened.

No Body, No Doubt

When Jamie Laiaddee disappeared from Arizona, prosecutor Juan Martinez — later famous for the Jodi Arias trial — took her boyfriend to court without a body, without physical evidence, and with a defendant who answered to two different names.

The Dexter Wannabe

A first date arranged on plentyoffish.com came with strange instructions — sneak in under the half-open garage door — and Gilles Tetreault stumbled out of that dark garage having barely escaped a man in a hockey mask following a script.

Written in Blue Ink

Nine-year-old Elizabeth Olten set off on the four-house walk home from a neighbor's in tiny St. Martin, Missouri, and never arrived — and her cell phone signal pointed hundreds of searchers into the dark woods directly behind their homes.

Models Inc.

On June 28, 2007, Paige Birgfeld drove home from a picnic with her high-school-sweetheart ex-husband and vanished — and the search for the Grand Junction, Colorado mother of three uncovered a secret life no one around her suspected.

The Photo Shoot

Jamie Reynolds told seventeen-year-old Georgia Williams he needed a model for a 'fake hanging' photo shoot at his Wellington, England home — an art project he had carefully planned for while his parents were away in Italy.

The Girl in the Box

In 1977, twenty-year-old hitchhiker Colleen Stan turned down rides that looked like trouble before accepting one from a clean-cut young couple with a baby — a decision near Red Bluff, California that would swallow seven years of her life.

A Walking Shadow

Nineteen-year-old Myles Fukunaga worked eighty-hour weeks to keep his family afloat in 1929 Hawaii, but when the Hawaiian Trust Company came collecting back rent once again, his quiet desperation fixed on a plan inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case.

Captain Cash

London heroin dealer Ken Avery — 'Captain Cash' to the underworld — lost everything when he turned informant, so he changed his name to Ken Regan and fixed his ambitions on a wealthy Heathrow freight importer named Amarjit 'Neil' Chohan.

The Oxford Murder

Oxford student Rachel McLean met charming bartender John Tanner one Blackpool summer, and his stream of love letters grew as intense as his frustration with the distance — then Rachel missed an appointment she never would have missed.

God Chose Us

Two days before her high school graduation, Shari Faye Smith's little blue Chevette sat idling at the end of her family's long South Carolina driveway, the driver's door open and the mail scattered — and seventeen-year-old Shari was gone.

A Unicorn Among Beasts

On Maui's laid-back North Shore, red-haired Charli Scott called herself 'a unicorn among beasts' — until the night she drove out past Ke'anae to help her ex-boyfriend Steven Capobianco with his stalled truck and never came home.

The Canal Killer

In February 2001, two boys fishing in London's Regent's Canal snagged a duffel bag weighted with bricks — the first of six bags divers would recover, holding a woman whose missing head, hands, and feet made her nearly impossible to identify.

Arizona Torso Murder #2

Six-times-married showgirl Marjorie Orbin finally landed the comfortable Scottsdale life with art dealer Jay Orbin — then Jay vanished on the road, and a blue Rubbermaid container turned up at the edge of the desert.

The Tacoma Murders

In 1986, months apart, young Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian were murdered near Tacoma parks just three miles from each other — crimes so similar police assumed one killer, until DNA told a stranger story that took decades to finish.

The Killer Bride

Days after her Kalispell, Montana wedding, reluctant bride Jordan Graham was confiding doubts to friends — and then her new husband Cody Johnson disappeared, followed by a mysterious email claiming he had fallen from a cliff in Glacier National Park.

The Broomstick Killer

Doted on by his pistol-packing mama in tiny Rosebud, Texas, Kenneth McDuff grew from small-town bully into one of the most sinister figures in Texan history — a killer handed unprecedented leniency by the very system meant to stop him.

Bloodthirsty Parolee

On New Year's night 1977, thirteen-year-old Bruce Kim left a party at a run-down Centralia, Washington apartment building and never came home — a murder so obscure the author knows it only because he grew up a few blocks away.

The Body in the Bag

Will Matheson grew up in a chaotic Sydney hoarder house shadowed by tragedy and developed a deep fixation with death — years before anyone thought to look inside the oversized cricket bag that was far too heavy to lift.

Mr. Mom Killer

On Valentine's Day 2007, stay-at-home dad Stephen Grant walked into the Macomb County Sheriff's office to report his jet-setting executive wife Tara missing — and wept for the cameras while searchers worked nearby Stoney Creek.

Mom, I'm a Monster

On October 5, 2012, ten-year-old Jessica Ridgeway started her ordinary morning walk to school in Westminster, Colorado and vanished — while the man who had attacked a jogger at nearby Ketner Lake months earlier was still unidentified.

The Alligator Theory

On the morning of his sixth wedding anniversary, Mike Williams set out alone to hunt ducks among the stumps of Lake Seminole and never returned — and with no body to recover, investigators reasoned the lake's alligators had left nothing to find.

The Kičevo Monster

In sleepy Kičevo, Macedonia, three older women were beaten and strangled between 2005 and 2008 — and mild-mannered local journalist Vlado Taneski covered the murders with an uncanny eye for details no reporter should have known.

The Submarine Case

Journalist Kim Wall skipped her own going-away party for a two-hour ride on inventor 'Rocket' Peter Madsen's homemade submarine, the UC3 Nautilus — and by the next day the sub was at the bottom of Copenhagen harbor and Madsen's story was already shifting.

Cold Storage Killer

After a Morrissey concert in June 1991, Denise Huber's gray Honda Accord was found abandoned on the Corona del Mar highway with a flat rear tire, just miles from her Newport Beach home — and for three years there was no trace of her at all.

The Werewolf Butcher

In September 1994, nine-year-old Penny Davis wandered off along Patterson Creek near tiny Tonasket, Washington and vanished without a trace — the beginning of a case that led to a man who believed himself a werewolf.

Lost in the Desert

Taw Benderly answered Loretta Bowersock's room-for-rent ad penniless and charming, and stayed for eighteen years — until December 14, 2004, when he rushed up to a Tucson mall security desk claiming Loretta had simply vanished from outside Dillard's.

The Crybaby Killer

Feeling ill, bartender Tami Engstrom left her shift early and stopped at the Nickelodeon Lounge in Masury, Ohio, where she showed off her new diamond ring and drank into the night with her uncle's friend, Kenneth Biros — and never made it home.

The Darlington Cannibal

When Julie Paterson vanished after a trip to a Darlington pub in April 1998, her boyfriend Alan knew she would never miss a visit with her daughter — and weeks later, a police dog led its handler into the overgrown garden of a house that wasn't abandoned after all.

I Found Mom!

Leonard Tyburski, dean of students at Detroit's Mackenzie High School, was obsessed with order, cleanliness, and control. During a screaming argument at the bottom of the basement stairs, his wife Dorothy taunted him one time too many — beside the family's chest freezer.

The Family Murders

In 1972, Bevan Spencer von Einem was hailed a hero for rescuing two men thrown into Adelaide's River Torrens. Seven years later, sixteen-year-old Alan Barnes stuck out his thumb on Grand Junction Road to hitch a ride home — and never arrived.

The Llama Farm Murder

Seventeen-year-old Leanna Walker told friends she planned to run away with Sky McDonough, a self-styled Rastafarian who quoted Bible verses about killing a wife who leaves. When she vanished from Milford, Pennsylvania, the search closed in on the woods around a llama farm.

The Piggy Palace

Women had been vanishing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside since 1983 — so many, and so invisible, that authorities took nearly a decade to notice. The trail eventually led out of the city to a pig farm and a man named Robert 'Willy' Pickton.

Where is Heather?

Peering through his new high-powered telescope over the Ohio River, Tim Walthall watched a young woman set up her beach chair on the Kentucky shore — then witnessed something that sent him racing for the phone. The search for Heather Teague never truly ended.

The Alligator Man

Joe Ball — bootlegger, brawler, crack shot — ran the Sociable Inn off Highway 181 in tiny Elmendorf, Texas, a rowdy roadhouse with poker tables, cold beer, and a pit of live alligators. Then people around Joe started to disappear.

Limb From Limb

Ashley Young was compassionate to a fault and believed in second chances. That generosity led her to Jared Chance — a bully with thirty-eight brushes with the law in his first ten years of adulthood, and the man the author says would destroy her.

The Eagle Scout

Thirteen-year-old paperboy Danny Joe Eberle vanished from his Bellevue, Nebraska route one Sunday morning in 1983, leaving behind his beloved BMX bike and a bag of undelivered newspapers. Just thirteen days earlier, another paperboy had disappeared two hours away in Des Moines.

The Girl Scout

Selling Girl Scout cookies door to door in Sabre Springs, California, Brenda van Dam and seven-year-old Danielle stopped at the immaculate home of wealthy neighbor David Westerfield — who bought cookies, showed off his kitchen, and mentioned his 'adult parties.' That weekend, Danielle vanished.

The Conman

In September 1991, lawyer Ernest Brendel, his librarian wife Alice, and their eight-year-old daughter Emily vanished without a trace from Barrington, Rhode Island. Six weeks later, the sleepy town learned it had been living with a sociopath in its midst: Christopher Hightower.

The Leg Thing

Fourteen-year-old Chris Steiner vanished from his Baraboo, Wisconsin home on the night of July 4, 1994, leaving a window screen cut from the outside and muddy footprints on the carpet. A year later, thirteen-year-old Thad Phillips woke to find himself being carried into the dark.

Vanished Innocence

Two days after Christmas 1962, six-year-old Mona Rae Minyard walked to Portland's Three Brothers Market with a five-dollar bill and her mother's short grocery list. She never came home — and suspicion settled on Joseph Walton Holmes, the man who lived just across the field.

The Crossword Murder

Seven-year-old Lars Bense set off through the snow to meet friends at the cinema in Halle-Neustadt, East Germany — a planned city of numbered concrete blocks with no street names. He vanished in the final few hundred feet, and the strangest clue would be a crossword puzzle.

The Screwdriver Killer

In 1957, Connecticut's George Davies answered a newspaper ad — 'French girl desires light housekeeping' — with devious intentions. Seventeen-year-old Gaetane Boivin left a note about a job opportunity and never came home; days later, nine-year-old Brenda Jane Doucette vanished walking to school.

Tony the Pervert

Three-year-old Rosie Palmer bought an ice pop from the ice cream van outside her Hartlepool, England home and vanished within the hour. Police went door to door; a few houses away, Shaun 'Tony' Armstrong told them he hadn't seen her, and they moved on.

Missing in Mississippi

Annie Laurie Hearin, wife of one of Mississippi's wealthiest men, vanished from her Jackson mansion one Tuesday afternoon in 1988 — leaving behind her shoes, purse, car, and the medication she couldn't survive without. A ransom note pointed to twelve names.

The Bayou Butcher

For five years, women vanished from the night streets of Baton Rouge while Sean Gillis lived quietly with a girlfriend who had no idea where he went after dark. The break in the case came from something as ordinary as a set of rare car tires.

The Hitchhiker Slayer

In 1970s Isla Vista, hitchhiking was simply how UC Santa Barbara students got around — until young women with outstretched thumbs began to vanish. When Jacqueline Rook missed Thanksgiving with her family, the community's free-spirited trust began to crumble.

The Creepy Uncle

Fifteen-year-old Danielle Jones left for her school bus stop in East Tilbury, Essex, and vanished. Witnesses saw a girl in uniform arguing with a man in a blue van — a van that belonged to her own uncle, Stuart Campbell.

Mr. Big

Thirteen-year-old Daniel Morcombe stood beneath a Queensland overpass in December 2003, waiting for a bus that had broken down. When the next bus arrived ten minutes later, Daniel — and the man seen lingering behind him — had vanished.

Death of a Cheerleader

Model and former Raiderette Linda Sobek changed her answering machine on November 16, 1995, saying she would be on location all day for a photo shoot. She never returned to hear her messages — and attention turned to photographer Charles Rathbun.

The Suitcase Killer

Bill McGuire vanished after a heated argument with his wife Melanie, a New Jersey fertility-clinic nurse, in April 2004. Then three suitcases surfaced in the Chesapeake Bay — each holding part of a grim answer.

The Sacrificial Shack

Pre-med student Mark Kilroy and three childhood friends made their third annual spring-break trip to South Padre Island in March 1989. One night across the border in Matamoros, Mark stepped away from his friends — and vanished into something far darker than anyone imagined.

A Killer Breakthrough

Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann took the Black Pad footpath to a babysitting job in Narborough, England, one November evening in 1983 and never came home. Solving her murder — and a second one nearby — would require a scientific technique no police force had ever used.

Loved It to Death

Donna Jones had everything but love: a civil-service career in Ottawa, her own home, and friends who adored her. Then she met Mark Hutt — and the sunny, bubbly Donna her friends knew slowly began to disappear.

The Christadelphian

Springfield, Vermont, seemed like a postcard New England town until thirteen-year-old Sherry Nastasia vanished in August 1979. Over the next four years more young girls were taken — and the clue that finally broke the case was a church sweatshirt.

Five Fatal Minutes

When nineteen-year-old Natalie Bollinger disappeared from Broomfield, Colorado, in December 2017, everyone pointed to the homeless man she had taken out a restraining order against. Then investigators found the Craigslist ad Natalie herself had posted.

The Vanishing

During a family night program at a St. Paul church in November 1981, six-year-old Cassie Hansen asked her mother for permission to use the bathroom just steps away. She never came back — and an abduction inside a sanctuary changed how the city thought about safety.