Volume 9

Driving near Lake Tahoe at dawn in June 1984, Maybel Harrison spotted flames beside the highway: a young woman burning on a makeshift pyre, bound, gagged, and unidentifiable. Nearly a decade later, Terry Knorr told police a story about her own family that no one believed. Read the full story →

Five-year-old Stephanie Hebert set off for a friend's house three doors down Aster Lane in Waggaman, Louisiana, in June 1978 — and never made it. More than 150 deputies searched the canals and levees for the little girl in baby-blue glasses without finding a trace. Read the full story →

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. Read the full story →

A utility crew working along Miami's North Bay Road spotted what looked like a candy wrapper behind a hedge. It was a lollipop decal on a tiny shirt — worn by a battered, starved toddler no one could identify, a boy the case would name Baby Lollipops. Read the full story →

Charles 'Smitty' Schmid stuffed his cowboy boots with crushed cans, wore pancake makeup, and painted on a fake mole — and Tucson's teenagers followed him anyway. Then he told Mary French he wanted to know what killing felt like, and asked her to pick the girl. Read the full story →

At a sleepover just a few houses from home in Louisville, twelve-year-old Jessica Thornsberry opened the front door around 11:00 p.m. and whispered that the neighborhood boys were back. Her best friend April told her to send them away — and never saw her alive again. Read the full story →

Sixteen-year-old Jason Sweeney saved every paycheck from his father's construction company to pay for military academy — his first step toward becoming a Navy SEAL. In Philadelphia's Fishtown, his lifelong best friend Eddie Batzig and the Coia brothers were growing jealous of every dollar. Read the full story →

Deltona limo driver Jimmy Sheaffer owed everyone — banks, payday lenders, bookies — so he quietly arranged for his neighbor Angela Stoldt to cash his disability checks for a hundred dollars a month. It was a favor between friends that wouldn't stay friendly. Read the full story →

On a snowy December Friday in 2010, Joanna Yeates kissed her boyfriend goodbye at the Bristol train station, had drinks with coworkers, and bought a pizza for her first night alone in their basement flat. She never answered another of his calls. Read the full story →

Eighteen-year-old Lisa Mather spent a 1985 Saturday night dancing outside the clubs of the Sunset Strip. When police scattered the underage crowd, her friends lost her — she was last seen talking to a tall, skinny boy dressed all in black with teased 'rocker hair.' Read the full story →

In 2008, Karlie Pearce-Stevenson left remote Alice Springs with her toddler, Khandalyce, and a boyfriend fifteen years her senior, Daniel Holdom. A year later her calls and texts home stopped — though her bank account stayed strangely active. Read the full story →

Susan Barnes traded a posh Scottsdale life for LSD and free love, then met marijuana dealer James Carson. Reborn as 'Michael and Suzan Bear,' they believed God had tasked them with ridding the world of witches — and aspiring actress Keryn Barnes became an early follower. Read the full story →