Invate John spir disappeared on Friday February 23rd 2007 when a person disappears without a trace often the most critical information you have to work with is hidden in their actions and words from the days before they vanished John spira’s last known 24 hours May hold the clues to what happened to him
His girlfriend is calling where are you where are you in the car and closer and closer together she getting more and more frantic there’s a phrase about like the whole world crashing down around you when John spir a beloved local blu’s musician fails to show up at a gig his
Friends and family go on high alert I asked for the ban leader when’s the last time you talked to him and I knew that that if he hadn’t talked to Rich even that there was something like terribly desperately wrong but as the search for spir begins investigators quickly find themselves at a loss
We no clues that uh have conclusively pointed Us in One Direction Over another Direction and that is probably one of the most frustrating parts of all this was without one trace of evidence one trace of evidence I mean he was lifted out of the earth and that’s what scares me the [Applause] most The day before he disappears John spir rolls through the door of Brian’s Char House known around town as Chicago Johnny he’s a regular at the restaurant the greater Chicago area is about to be hit with a massive snowstorm but nothing is going to stop the 45-year-old musician from visiting one of his favorite
Hauns well John and I we known each other for 20 years first when I open he was here every night he will leave from work and stop here then you go home he used to hang out at Brian’s all the time it was just directly across the street
From his office and uh I think he used to play there and you can see when you go in pictures of John you know all wall that night Spirit takes a seat at his usual stool we call this as a family section cuz every everybody who comes
There in a regular will call a family section when spira’s girlfriend ranata meets him at the Char House she notices he is unusually stressed there were people that we knew that were playing at Brian’s trous on Thursday so I got there I think even like 10:30 or 11:00 by the
Time I got there and I put all of his writing spir is slowly coming to the end of a 2 year divorce battle a situation made worse by the fact that he is still living with his estranged wife he’d sleep on the side of the house and she
She sleep on the exact other side of the house I don’t know how much dialogue they had but my guess is it was pretty salty and they stayed away from each other as much as they could he loved the house every bit as much as she did so
That was a big b of contention and thring the through the discussion and talking about plans with the force that became a major element to how they were going up it’s the last night John will have to avoid going home he stays at the Char House until 3:00 a.m. before finally
Climbing into his car and driving Home for John spir the morning of Friday February 23rd 2007 starts with a familiar sound the sizzle of eggs hitting a Hot Grill spir is ordering his favorite breakfast of eggs hash browns toast and bacon he was you know kind of a creature of habit he would go to his
Favorite restaurant every morning he would order the same thing he thought it was the healthiest thing it was a complete protein that it would get him through so he wouldn’t have to take a lot of time out to have lunch two eggs over medium hash browns white toast and
Bacon and it was just like this litany I could decided for him but despite his routine meal there’s something else very unusual about this morning he’s about to enter into the final negotiations for his divorce with his wife Suzanne after breakfast spir heads back to his house for an important phone
Call it was a 2year discussion and if one person really wants to get divorced and the other one doesn’t or vice versa then it gets really acrimonious it got pretty rough um towards the end the morning that he disappeared on February 23rd he hammered out the final details
Of the divorce settlement with his lawyer and suan on the phone his lawyer had called John and Suzanne from the courthouse they were both at home they had a court date that day and they worked out the settlement details the couple had met in the early
1980s at a local blues house in Chicago it was love at first sight I was there that night we were at a blues bar downtown and John and I were sitting at a table you know I was in the Blues and he went to get us drinks but spir never
Returns to the table he never came back he never came back to the table and so you know I looked around there he was talking to this girl who ended up being suzan and they hit it off and the rest is History they seem like the perfect couple but in 1995 a family tragedy shatters their world the news sends shock waves through the family I knew how badly it affected Suzanne I mean she was a mess you know rightly so that’s a pretty hard thing to deal with so you
Know I didn’t know if it was connected or what I just knew that something was different after that the homicide trial takes place in Buffalo New York finding it too taxing to travel back and forth spe’s wife moves there full time for the trial he flew out
There to to Buffalo and supported an apartment and gave as much support as he could and I didn’t know what else he was supposed to do and he had offered quite a bit of suggestions so that was a strange strange facet in the marriage John and San’s marriage was never able
To recover after the killing they slowly grew apart over the next 12 years now on the phone separated by a single floor John spir is finally negotiating the end of his marriage both sides agree on the terms and set a date to sign the papers the following week to make it official they
Both agreed so John’s attorney set it for prove up so they were going to go back to court on March 8th to get the you know rubber stamp on a divorce John leaves his home and heads to meet his friend to go over some work connected to Jon’s underground cabling
Company he was at a business meeting with me on the afternoon of February 23rd he had actually been in my business um around 3: to 3:30 John spir dabbled in a few business ventures but his main focus is universal cable an underground cabling company we were connecting two buildings together and that’s what
John’s company would do they would do a directional bar and and cable buildings together and and we provided all the communications and business telephone equipment at the business meeting spir seems like a changed man with the terms of the divorce settled on spir is very upbeat yeah he he seemed very positive
About everything pretty much uh that day matter of fact as as positive and upbeat as I have ever spoke to him spir is in such a good mood he makes plans to celebrate with his buddy Jim the next day he felt that he was finally going to have his situation as far as
The divorce resolved and uh we had talked in in length that day and we made plans to uh he was going to play his band down in Aurora and we were planning to get together and have dinner and I was going to watch him play that [Applause] evening spir leaves Jim’s business and
Heads to his own office he spends the next few hours working at his desk he liked to take care of the paperwork and and most of his job was just doing stuff on the computer taking care of insurance you know the um health insurance for the company and also like any insurance
Claims against them from digging mishaps after make dinner plans for the evening he said you want to get some dinner and when I told him I’d rather work i’ explained why he was a little upset he tried to tuck me out of it so he was getting all pouty and a little
Upset at me said well you call somebody else and have dinner I maybe you know I could join you later or you know whatever as spir hangs up the phone with ranata it is 5:30 p.m. he says goodbye to his business partner and walks out the door but as John spirro walks toward
The parking lot it is the last time he is seen on Friday February 23rd 2007 45-year-old John Spirit disappears from his West Chicago neighborhood On the evening of Friday February 23rd 2007 John spiran never calls his girlfriend to tell her where he is having dinner he also never calls her to say good night which is completely out of character for the 45-year-old when ranata finally arrives home from work and there is no message from John it
Gives her pause and as she gets ready for bed and still there is no call she becomes concerned rata tries through the night to reach spir with no success get a hold of him that whole night and I kept trying I think I kept trying until almost midnight Rada his girlfriend is
Calling where are you where are you and the calls are getting closer and closer together she’s getting more and more frantic as rata becomes panicked she remembers her last conversation with John he was angry that she could not leave work to join him for dinner she stops calling him
Thinking he simply does not want to speak to her I thought wow he’s really mad at me and I thought oh gosh you know he’s been under a lot of stress and sometimes when somebody’s stressed something little can just set them off and I thought okay if he doesn’t want to
Talk to me that’s fine I’ll see him at the cake tomorrow as ranata wakes up on the morning of February 24th she senses something is wrong she still hasn’t heard from John and his phone is now going straight to voicemail I thought but he’d be having breakfast now you
Know even late breakfast and still no calls and still the phone is off as the hours tick by still no John rata ignores the anxiety slowly Rising inside of her she tells herself that she will see JN at his concert later that night and I thought okay well
If nothing else 3 or 4:00 he’d be going home to pick up his equipment to go to the gig and I still didn’t get a hold of him but around 3 or 4:00 I needed to go meet him at the gate as ranata gets ready to head to has also made plans to
Meet Jon before his concert on Saturday it started snowing pretty heavily and uh I had a call into John to to find out if if we were going to meet or we were going to ride together or what we hadn’t really made all the details and I left
Him a voicemail but JN never returns the phone call which is out of character for the 45-year-old as friends and fans slowly start to trickle into the concert the band also begins to arrive when ranata pulls into the parking lot she notices John’s truck is nowhere to be found I
Was there in time for the band to start playing and no truck and I thought okay well maybe he got into an accident something’s wrong with the truck so then maybe he got a ride with one of the guys but is r walks in and sees the band
Playing without John Panic sets in when I found out he was not there they were already starting their first song so I had to wait until that song was over which felt like you know a million years I asked for the band later when’s the
Last time you talked to him and I knew that that if he hadn’t talked to Rich even that there was something like terribly desperately wrong for John to be late to a gig was unheard of for him to not show up at all is a sign that something is seriously wrong if he
Had a gig he was going to be there set up and get ready to play and that’s probably one of the few things that really ever made John mad was if you didn’t show up if he couldn’t depend on you he scheduled to play he plays he’s played even when he’s had 103
Temperature he does not miss those Spear’s dedication stems from his Lifelong Love Of Music he rarely goes through the day without picking up a guitar ever since childhood he has been addicted to making music I think the second he looked at a guitar he was 11 probably I think when
He first played his first chord and he was hooked I mean every job he had was saving for a guitar or an amp or a strap or music pics everything was related to the art of playing guitar when he was a kid one of his relatives gave him a transister radio he
Said he would sleep with that radio you know after lights out and everybody was supposed to be sleeping he said he would tuck it under his ears so it’ be like right there in his head you know and that was in the time period that it was
Like real music you know what people call you know um old school now but that was real music John built his name as a local guitarist over the past two decades known as Chicago Johnny he played in some of the oldest blues clubs and biggest venues throughout the Windy City
It was his passion and he was a dead hard musician he was the real deal and he could play the drums he’s better than I was as a drummer on Saturday Night February 24th the band plays without spir it will be the first gig John has missed in over 20 years of
Playing spe’s girlfriend ranata is in a frenzy she leaves the concert venue to look for John she immediately heads to her home to see if he is there so I just want running out of there got in my car and I start driving but as ranata starts driving the
Snowstorm that hit Chicago early in the day is starting to get worse the roads are now coated with snow and the temperature is dropping quickly if you can picture it I’m in a car driving along a river on a road that you can’t even see anymore and Snow’s so
Thick that you can barely see through it and not just snow but it’s like the slush and ice and everything extremely concerned that John may be injured she contacts police I called 911 and they patched me through to the St Charles Police Department I asked them to check
To make sure that there was nothing bad happening at his house I described his truck I said it should be in the driveway but ranata is told she cannot file the report since she is not the next of kin now desperate for help rata races into the police station herself
Hoping an in-person plea will help they gave me the paperwork I filled out the missing person’s report I slid it back through the counter he said we can’t take this from me you’re not next of Kim and I said but you know what you do in cases of emergency and everybody around
Me was so calm I mean it’s it’s like those thriller movies that you see where everybody’s just trying to calm you down and tell you that it’s you know on your mind but as hours tick by her anxiety continues to grow she contacts the police department again and pleads with
Them to perform a wellness check on spir where police will drive by his home or business to see if there are any visible signs of injury or a crime I said what do I do now now I’m beyond crying now you know it’s I’m getting angry I called and asked for
Wellness check out by his office if he was at work and he was bored he might have started working on equipment I thought maybe he’s been pained under equipment since Friday so then I had this thought of him you know lying there bleeding or you know something R also starts her own investigation
Driving out to John’s office to search the area with her friend so rather than trying to get hold of the County police again Kelly and I got in my car and we drove over there and pulled into the parking lot she boosted me up a little
Bit so I could see over the fence that his truck was there seeing Jon’s truck sends a shot of adrenaline through rata she jumps the fence at Spear’s property and starts frantically looking I tried every door that I could and I was like pounding on the there’s like a roll up
Although Jon’s truck is in the parking lot he is nowhere to be seen without a missing person’s report the police cannot search any further it is now Sunday February 25th and John spir has been missing for almost 30 [Applause] Hours as the sun slowly Rises with the frozen tundra that is now west chicago 45-year-old John spir is still missing ranata sp’s girlfriend is desperately searching for him but the police cannot become involved until sp’s estranged wife fills out a missing person’s report since they are not yet divorced she is
His closest next of kin but no one else seems to think spir is missing except Rada I knew there was something desperately wrong at that point and and they called his wife and came back and told me that she doesn’t think he’s missing police suggest ranata call spe’s
Family in Arizona to see if they have heard from him the police suggested is maybe he had to fly out on short notice and he hasn’t had a chance to notify anybody because the week before his mother had surgery and they thought maybe she’ taken a turn for the worst
And he had to fly out suddenly spir is an accomplished pilot he flies regularly and is part of a local Flight Club at the DuPage Airport planes are a passion of spir and he can regularly be found at the airport he was so into it he loved it in fact he
Flew from Chicago to Phoenix to come out and visit me in just one of those little tiny airplanes spe’s love of planes is so intense he has breakfast his cherished daily ritual with clients at the local airport he started having meetings at paage airport because of the
Aviation business that he was um getting involved in he realized they served breakfast also when they saw him pulling into the parking lot they had his breakfast started and at the time he finished drinking coffee his breakfast was you know their way but ranata knew spir could never have flown the day he
Disappeared as a pilot for more than 10 years he would not have risked flying in a snowstorm you don’t know John John if there’s a snowstorm and he’s a pilot so he knows the weather I mean he had on his speed dial on the phone check the
Weather as a pilot you just learn to know the weather and to check it and to keep updated on it still police convince her to call spe’s parents in Arizona to see if he is there visiting his ill mother finally got a hold of people there no she’s fine she’s she’s
Recovered in fact spir actually had made plans to fly to Arizona to visit his ailen mother but not then KRA I was ready to call and go okay give me your flight info so I can pick you up at the airport but then I got the call from my
Dad I didn’t find out until Sunday like around noon when my dad called and said Um Steph I have some disconcerting news um your brother seems to be missing um nobody’s heard from him since Friday now with his family’s concern growing John Spear’s wife finally agrees to find a missing person’s report police start their investigation Sunday evening almost 48 hours after John spir disappeared we were dealing
With a time delay of course he was last seen 637 o00 at his office and we’re getting involved in the investigation at 9 or 10:00 on Sunday evening so we’re dealing with more than two days with time working against them police immediately jump into action Commander Mark edals is brought in to
Lead the investigation his first step is to search spe’s business the location where he was last seen his car was found at his business that uh got us to do an immediate search that evening in the immediate area on foot two police officers showed up they went through the
Outside and the inside twice both of them they looked in and under and on top of every piece of Machinery there’s like a loft they went through through everything once again there is no sign of JN the fact that spe’s vehicle is still sitting in the parking lot of his
Cabling company is alarming to edals apparently spir never went anywhere without his car even if it was a trip down the block the fact that his car was in the parking lot that was a big indication that something was terribly wrong with pitch black conditions outside and no clues to go on
Edals decides to resume the foot search in the morning At Daybreak officers begin to scour the area surrounding John spira’s business it is isolated terrain made up of forest preserves and long stretches of ice covered Fields freezing temperatures hampered the search within the first 48 Hours you got the entire ground covered with a significant snowfall so that certainly
Had to inhibit searching police bring in search dogss to cover Thea more quickly blood hounds and German Shepherds comb through the wooded landscape but with such a time delay in their search investigators also brace themselves for the possibility they may be looking for spe’s body Kines are also
Trying to search for uh human remains so if this or had met with some type of Foul Play that type of canine could have helped us locating him that and also begins searching any phone records might help track spir he is desperate for any information that might
Yield new Clues we worked on getting cell phone information and to see if he had made phone calls and um if possible pinpoint where those phone calls came from the record shows spirit’s cell phone remained active several hours after he was last seen the cell phone was picking up on
Towers around his business through the evening of February 23rd his phone was indicated on a couple of local cell towers and it kind of gave us a little bit of a jumping off point for active searches we know where his cell phone was pinging there’s a range of the
Pinging from his cell phone through the towers so I feel like he’s probably located there or at least his cell phone is so we should search those areas it’s a huge area police set up a new grid to search based on the cell records due to the
Size of the terrain they bring in ATVs to cover more ground quickly but even with teams searching the area investigators find nothing we no clues again that have conclusively point at us in One Direction Over another Direction and that is probably one of the most frustrating parts of all of
Us to generate more leads police tried to establish a timeline of the 24 hours before Spirit disappeared trying to piece together his every move they conduct interviews with family and friends in hopes of finding Clues the first step in the investigation was to talk to the people that he worked
With where he was last seen his partner and his business the people that work for them his wife any family friends that we could talk to that might have heard from him police hope that individuals will be able to account for the events before spe’s disappearance they also hope to uncover
Any possible suspects but as they gather interviews everything suggests he had a normal day once he arrived at the office there was nothing unusual that occurred during his work day he handled his business couple meetings in there that were not unusual while their interviews with spe’s wife family members and
Colleagues yield no suspects they do come across an interesting piece of information while interviewing employees at spira’s business when employees came back to work that Monday morning after John spir disappeared they found a large industrial roll of plastic wrap was missing that came up in our initial investigation when we were talking is
There anything missing from here you see tools um Vehicles files anything like that we ask all that to help us maybe point us in a direction investigators believe the plastic wrap’s disappearance during the same weekend John disappeared is not relevant um in this case the plastic wrap that has been discussed nobody
Remembers throwing it away so that is something that is still on the table for us the existence or non-existence of the plastic and how it might have been a part of the incident the news about the missing plastic wrap spreads to family and friends some take it as a sign that
Jon’s disappearance may not have been an accident plastic wrap big huge piece of plastic wrap what else are you going to do with that and now it’s gone um pretty coincidental you know I and I told my dad and he said well there’s no hope now get more disappeared online at investigationdiscovery.com Search teams continue to trudge through the snow and ice in West Chicago in hopes of finding any clues in The Disappearance of John spir who has now been missing for a week as each day passes family and friends must confront the possibility that Jon might never be
Found I don’t think there’s any question about being hard on on you know missing a guy like John I mean he was a very good friend of mine still foot searches around his business continue Spear’s company is not an ordinary office setting an underground cabling company it warehouses large digging and boring
Machinery there’s all sorts of digging equipment there’s anything and everything the discovery that industrial plastic wrap is missing from spe’s business also keeps the search centered around un ival cable friends and family are convinced the plastic wrap is a key clue to his disappearance I think everything that
Happen is connected to his case I mean this was an industrial piece of wrapping plastic that they cover stones and cabling with uh that had gone missing uh and the whole company knew about it I think that whoever took it knew exactly how much to take how to rrap someone if
That’s what they use it for which is my assumption and bury it where it wouldn’t get found every day that Jon remains missing his family and friends are left to imagine what happened to him without knowing they consider the worst that’s what gets me and that’s what brings me down is
However it happened I just I want to know how it happened but I just hope that it wasn’t so epic where he was aware of it you know I hope that whatever happened was quick but while family and volunteers continue their search around Spiro’s business investigators begin to consider another
Possibility that John might have disappeared on purpose there’s information evidence that could take us in any one of two directions Foul Play or uh a willful disappearance he’s gone on his own to see if there are any clues why he might have wanted to vanish they start going through bank
Accounts and retracing spe’s final steps it’s difficult work for investigators it can be more time consuming can be more frustrating definitely because an adult can hide themselves consciously make the effort to stay hidden or not wanting to be found edals reexamines the pieces of evidence they have so far including spe’s
SUV the red flag according to the people he worked with that was his main mode of transportation and finding at the office could indicate that he was transported by somebody else to O’Hara Airport or Midway airport or any other means to leave on his own police start looking into the
Possibility that spir may have flown somewhere the day he disappeared we did look into the possibility that he flew off on his own he was a licensed Pilot police also check for Spear’s name on Commercial passenger lists but it doesn’t show up there either but family and friends inis Spirit did not leave
Intentionally they believe the investigation has taken a wrong turn it is not in his nature to run away from anything let alone responsibility this is trait that was instilled in him since his teenage years in the armed forces my father and him had had many serious discussions about just what it was John
Was going to do uh college was not for him uh but my dad had said look you’ve got two choices in this house you can go to college or you can join the Army so he said fine I’ll join the Army straight out of high school John spir enlists in
The Army he quickly finds his interest is in the field of large Machinery he drove the tanks I think he actually crashed one once yeah he he had a little Tink accident but yeah that’s what he did but spe’s decision to join the tank unit does not go over well with all family
Members boy did that make my dad mad when he found out that’s what he wanted to do in the Army but what kid wouldn’t you know if you’re 17 years old you’re going to want to drive a tank and I think that he probably could have gone into Electronics or engineering or
Something like that but that’s that’s what he wanted to do and so for 3 years that’s that’s what he did it turns out spe’s investment in the tank did not go to waste his time in the Army would set him up for his future career in underground cabling John told
Me that he kind of got involved in that business because he was a tank operator in the service and um the Directional Boring equipment was very similar to a tank so uh that’s that’s how I guess his passion or his business came out of that spir built his life on the disciplines
He learned in the army now as police officials look into the possibility he may left voluntarily family members do not believe he would abandon the life he worked not a chance why would he leave not telling anybody he’s he had nothing bad for him going on here to to leave if
He wanted to leave just to find something better you would just say you know see I will leave I’ll move to Florida or California or you know life is uh not good for me here spir not only had a good life it was about to get better on the day he
Disappeared he had finally settled the terms of his divorce he was happy that day I talked to him a week and a half before and he said I gave her an ultimatum I’m giving her a week if she doesn’t accept my terms then we’re going
To go to court so I am sure that that the fact that they finally agreed made him a happy guy that day family members also insist spir would not have disappeared on purpose because his mother was still recovering from major surgery wouldn’t have separated himself from for me and my
Sister as well as my parents my mother had just gotten out of surgery a couple weeks before to have her spleen removed looking for clues that spir left on his own bition is a waste of time they say but investigators say there is a basis for the search we’ve discussed
It with the family continue to discuss it with the family and it’s something that they don’t really consider as a possibility but they understand why we do and until there’s evidence that points us to another theory then we have to continue to investigate them with the focus shifting from Foul
Play to willful disappearance foot searches by Police become less frequent friends and family decide to take matters into their own hands and continue to search for John but days turn into weeks and still no clues surface it seems to me now that it’s so dead ended it’s a little frustrating
That I don’t know you know I just totally in the dark as far as what could have happened here nearly seven months after John Spear’s disappearance his name will be in the news once again a series of events catapult Chicago Johnny back into the spotlight and shock everyone connected to Spe As summer starts to slip away 45-year-old John spir is still missing Chicago Johnny vanished Without a Trace almost 7 months earlier determined to keep the hunt for spir alive family and friends regularly search West Chicago for any clues I needed to do something I needed to be active in this and and try
And figure out what the heck happened and get some answers volunteers gathered to help search the months after spe went missing I believe we searched every type of weather s but you know we didn’t really know what we were doing we were just heading out to
As many Forest preservers as we could uh it helped they’re searching for any of sp’s personal belongings that were never recovered by police hoping for some break in the case desperate for answers spe’s family brings in professional support a lot of times on these uh individuals searches the families try to
Go about it on their own they don’t have a lot of support or guidance Sean henned of aerial image Corporation and the Texas equa search team begin searching every square inch of the land and water around spira’s business they utilize stateoftheart equipment to make sure nothing is missed
They request us to go in and try to bring in additional equipment to Aid in the search whether that’s uh tools for aerial photography or sonar mapping or even just ground based searching try bring in a little bit of additional level of support for the families sonar equipment is brought in
To search nearby bodies of water as henned and his team search Lake after Lake hope Fades even with state of the-art equipment Searchers are unable to find a single trace of John spir through all the different searches you try to come in and help out the families come up with certain answer and
Unfortunately you don’t always come up with the right answer or any answer at all some are left unresolved worried Spirits cases starting to slip into Oblivion family members devise a plan to keep the community involved and Chicago Johnny’s memory alive yeah we had a big gigantic Banner made it was 20
Ft by 5 ft each end had a really great picture of John and then it had his information you know missing February 23rd 2007 pH number to call and we put it directly across the street from and facing John’s business but no one could have predicted what happens next the strange thing is
Is that the day we put up that first Banner the next day somebody uh ripped it down family members take it as a clear sign there is more to their brother’s disappearance that someone knows something we put up this banner and suddenly it’s ripped apart determined not to be deterred the
Family hangs another Banner that went up um my friends came and did it they took out the post hole they put the banner up on these wooden 2x4s and uh it was a lot of work to put it up so that went up Friday night September 14th 2007 it too
Is destroyed within 24 hours where it was initially placed across the street from John’s business it was removed during the night we don’t quite know why or by who what investigators don’t know is this That Grew cold is it about to become burning hot well something is wrong obviously something is wrong
Here 24 hours after John Spiro’s Banner is found destroyed for the second time family friends and investigators are stunned when the case is once again in the headlines there is a huge fire and spe’s business slowly Burns to the ground it is an incident family members feel they
Cannot ignore we put the banner up on Friday night and by Sun the Banner’s gone and the building’s burned down so very a strange coincidence and to me it’s related it’s all connected somebody saw that sign go up and they didn’t like it and they took it down and burned the
B my first thought was when I found out about the sign disappearing and then the fire breaking out my first thought was somebody was angry enough to tear down the sign and set fire to it and somehow oops accidentally Set Fire to the building some believe the fire might be
A blessing and finally help reignite the missing person’s investigation I was really upset and then I thought wait this could be good because maybe it’ll jump start the investigation which had seemed pretty much to be dead in its tracks uh I thought wow okay here we go now you’re
Going to get him you’re going to find out what happened to John investigators immediately launch a search to uncover the cause of the fire our investigators worked with the fire ARs and the fire task force to share information to determine if any of the information from the fire itself might
Be useful in the investigation in John’s disappearance but soon family and friends see spe’s case suffering the same fate it’s been plagued with for months as days and weeks pass by no clues seem to surface Spear’s case once again runs cold I don’t understand how they can’t
Figure out in a small building how a fire started but they say they can’t so I don’t know I’m not a arson investigator but it just seems too coincidental to be an accident and no I haven’t gotten any answers and I don’t expect to nothing ever happened no one
Ever made a connection there was no evidence I still haven’t gotten the report because they’ll they’ll tell you that oh ARS investigations can go on for 20 years what do you think happened then what do you what is this and they still won’t answer it police maintain that
They are still actively looking into the cause of the fire no official determination has been made yet the missing person’s investigation also remains open to this Day nearly 2 years after his disappearance John spir is still missing but he is not forgotten sometime we don’t realize how close we are with with people at Brian’s Char House Spear’s stool sits empty waiting for him to return and fill the void cre created on the day he
Disappeared I miss it it’s a feeling I don’t know how to describe it but you know he used to say that corny line and it’s from the movie and he used to say you complete me but it’s it didn’t seem corny it felt so fitting like it’s just
Somebody be who’s meant to be there his family and friends still can’t accept that Jon may be gone forever I mean he’s gone and I don’t have it anymore I can’t draw for him it anymore I can’t joke around with him with a wrong brotherly uh inside jokes and I miss
That so much I just miss that so I just missed his company I miss his company his family and friends still search for any information about him you kind of Tor between not wanting to know and really needing to have it resolved I had finally made peace with the fact
That I would rather know no matter what it is and then I’ll just deal with the emotions and everything that comes up then but it’s still better than being like nowhere they don’t plan on giving up Hunt For answers anytime soon I would like to stop and I would like to
Get on with my life and move forward but how can I stop I mean this is my brother and uh I love him and um somebody needs to look for him he’s a popular fraternity brother with a big heart a highly talented a natural leader he’s very dedicated when he
Wanted to do something he did it a laps in judgment trips him up but he soon gets himself back on track he seemed like he was doing really well in school he was keeping up with school work until one day he heads to campus and never
Returns it’s as if if when that bus pulled away he vanished a cryptic note is his only explanation said my family’s given me a lot of opportunities that I just didn’t take advantage of his puzzling Secrets lead detectives and his loved ones baffled do we think there’s somebody out
There that can help us figure out what’s going on I don’t care why he left where he’s been I just want him become home [Applause] Tuesday night April 19th 2016 18-year-old College sophomore James Martin Roberts who goes by Martin meets with friends at a favorite appalachin State University hangout the kondik cafe it was a pretty busy night um pretty usual for kondik I mean pack that you can still walk around but it’s
Pretty hard you’re probably going to get your fees uped on or something Martin and his fraternity brother have come for the klondike’s Big Draw my group of friends we wanted to go to play trivia and so I texted Martin I was wondering if he was going to be
There according to Martin’s friend Holly he’s true de form that night he would always just say funny things and just he always be the guy that everybody wanted to hang out with I was just so mesmerized by Martin always like had such a huge crush on him
That I didn’t even realize anything else was going On the son of parents who are divorced and estranged from each other Martin first enrolled at appalachin State University in Boon North Carolina almost a year and a half earlier he was really set on going to Appalachian State and when that that acceptance came in he was really excited
About it nestled in the foothills of the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains the school’s Vibe is unique the laid-back atmosphere I think it suits him his very first semester he’d been invited to pledge of fraternity onus ta Kappa Epsilon known as te for should he knew people there already and
They were invited to the Frat parties and immediately he was selected I know that he’s someone who thrives when he’s around his friends he wanted an opportunity to make friends quickly and that was the best way to do it I think he liked the Brotherhood he’ always played Sports and had his team
And the fraternity was kind of the same thing even as a child in Kernersville North Carolina Martin was a natural athlete playing soccer playing baseball playing football he just he always loved Sports as the brown-haired blue-eyed Dynamo got older he excelled on the soccer field he liked to compete he
Liked to play he liked to play to win Martin was pure hustle pure work and he did it calmly and quietly all time he could walk off the field and be relaxed comfortable fun loving respectful kind caring he’s got a big heart people would look up to him and it
Made him feel really good about himself in high school he was voted captain of his soccer team yet by the time he graduated he was ready for a change Martin was very very focused on something that interested him business finance things of that nature were something that he had said all along he
Thought he had an interest in academically Martin set his sights on app States business school he was smart he’s very dedicated when he wanted to do something he did it Wednesday night April 20th the day after Martin was at the Klondike Cafe his father John Roberts who lives 2
Hours away has been expecting a call from Martin we were making plans for the you know coming weeks and for the summer and for next semester we were talking about the classes he was in and you the grades that he had at that time two days earlier Martin told his dad he’d soon
Have his first paycheck from his new dishwashing job at the Daniel Boone Inn all right talk to the D he was going to call me back Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest and talk about how much money he made but according to Martin’s friends and family his phone was his Achilles
Heel he was just a not a great like texting Communicator phone Communicator I feel like multiple times he always had a broken phone he refused to put it in a case ever would not put it in a case so by the next day Martin’s father still hasn’t heard from his son he tries
Reaching him yet again with no luck seemed a little bit strange since he was so definite that he was going to call me Back that same morning Martin is actually at his apartment getting ready to start his day he chats with his roommates over breakfast they all said that they saw him in passing on Thursday Martin tells them he’s heading to the library took a water bottle and he put
It in his backpack and he he left probably about 10:30 that [Applause] morning around lunch time Martin’s cousin who also attends App State runs into him on campus it was a complete chance meeting she had uh forgotten something for her class the two have barely seen each other this
Semester they walked together to the nearby Apple CART bus stop the free bus service students and Boon residents use to get around town they had a conversation for 10 or 15 minutes and upbeat Martin tells her about his plans for next semester and that he’s on his way to his fraternity house Now when the bus comes she gets on and the cousins go their separate ways he started walking down the street and she didn’t think anything of it this brief casual meeting will soon take on far greater significance than his cousin ever imagined it really was some kind of
Coincidence if you believe in that kind of thing that they happened to meet up at that time at that place and it would be the last time that we’ve seen or heard from Him at 4:00 that afternoon two of Martin’s close friends and frat brothers stopped by his apartment to see him Martin hey Martin man you okay the day before he’d abruptly dropped out of their fraternity chat group he was the Freshman pledge class leader of that group of those people reached out to
Martin wanted to know why but Martin’s not in his room and he’s no longer responding to the texts from his friend Friends by Friday morning Martin’s father is increasingly worried about his son it’s been four landlord for the apartment complex I said are you going to go by there anytime today this
Morning I need to check on Martin the apartment manager started calling the roommates and saying hey can you go in his room see if he’s there see if you can figure out what’s going on Martin’s roommate knocks on his closed door Martin Martin and they didn’t know if he
Was in the room or gone Martin’s not inside but on his desk there’s a note reading it his roommate immediately realizes something is very [Applause] Wrong Friday morning April 22nd 2016 a roommate of college sophomore Martin Roberts has made an alarming Discovery in his room the roommate called me read me the note over the telephone and I knew I had to get up there ASAP just dropped everything at work got
Home as quick as I could and got my wife Abby and we headed to Boon as fast as we could get there the roommate’s second call is to the Boon police department they contacted the police and said we need to report this young man Missing when detective Kevin Wilson arrives at the apartment he reads Martin’s letter the note is so personal Martin’s parents have made only parts of it public it was a note that Martin left stating that he was leaving I think it’s said to the folks that I won’t see and
He said my family’s given me a lot of opportunities that I just didn’t take advantage of he was disappointed at himself I think he felt like a failure it’s really Sad but it didn’t really say where he was going or what he was doing it doesn’t say this is a suicide note and I’m going to hurt myself nor does it say this is not a suicide note and I’m going to go away so when I saw it I
Thought this is not going to be good um it’s going to be a difficult case Martin has also left important possessions behind his laptop his iPad his phone and his wallet I think it could be seen as the old ultimate withdrawal Boon police reach Martin’s half immediately got on phone with my
Mom and would let her know what was going on I left work went and got her and we went to Boon all the way up there I kept thinking he just went off with a couple of his friends and forgot to tell somebody he’s going to turn up according to Martin’s father and
Stepmother the 19-year-old had expressed disappointment in himself before 8 months earlier after a great freshman year Martin had just returned to appalachin State as a sophomore his very first night back he ran into trouble he went up for the sole purpose of attending this fraternity
Party he was a social drinker so I don’t think he was addicted to alcohol in any sort of way he drank with his friends who unfortunately drank a lot he made the decision to drive after he had had you know apparently too much to drink then 18 Martin pulled right out in
Front of appstate campus police they stopped him and then that evolved into a driving while impaired citation Martin was taken into custody that night I get a call from him I think it’s like 2:00 a.m. 3:00 a.m. maybe and he tells me I need to come
Pick him up hello because he’s in jail and he got a DWI Martin’s girlfriend Kayla lived almost a 100 miles away from M State I don’t know why he didn’t pick somebody closer I think that calling his parents was definitely out of the question at that point he was nervous and scared and
Didn’t want to disappoint them Kayla says she drove 2 hours to Boon that night to help Martin when I arrived he was out as soon as I got there he threw money at me as in like gas money he was like I’m sorry you came all the way up
Here for nothing exhausted and emotional Kayla says they wound up fighting I was like I can’t do this I deserve a little bit better um someone who doesn’t just considerer himself in decisions that he makes Caleb that night Martin lost his driver’s license and his girlfriend Place 24 hours passed before Martin got
Up the courage to call his father and stepmother speaker when he told us he had got a DUI and said he needed to come home that the situation he was in was not good for him and he needed some time away from it that same day they brought him back home
To Kernersville North Carolina we first thought maybe he was just going to come home for the weekend uh or maybe even began to say I think I want to take a semester off I’d like to get away from the fraternity life Martin officially withdrew from appstate while home a friend of his
Family heard he was looking for work and I said well I’m going be opening up my uh store that semester so he’s going to be one of my first HS according to riller Martin thrived at his new job in the restaurant much like he had playing
Soccer he’s a rare kid you see a kid that young that mature uh be able to handle business the consistency that he showed on the field is exactly what he showed when he started working for me Martin even put his business education to work to boost the restaurant’s bottom
Line the job helped repair his bruised self-esteem Martin did you know exaggerate some but he said that rich wanted to Grim him for management After Martin took a full semester off he returned to college in January of 2016 he was ready to get not to be living with us again but according to his father Martin wanted to handle his education differently this time he was not living on campus in a dorm like he
Did his first year he was living in an apartment with three other fraternity Brothers he seemed like he was doing well in school he was keeping up with school workor I think he was glad to be back uh with his friends um but we didn’t talk as much after he went
Back now just 4 months later Martin’s family and friends have been blindsided by his sudden disappearance during the 2-hour drive his father calls Martin’s cousin whose a on the op State campus she was the one that said we ran into each other yesterday as a matter of fact at Martin’s father’s request she
Rushes to Martin’s apartment while talking with his roommates inconsistencies emerge they thought Martin was headed to the library Thursday morning which isn’t where his cousin ran into him Martin told her he was headed to the house where his teak fraternity Brothers hang out if he were to go to the te house he
Would have made a right Andross the street and the te house would be right up here but police find no evidence Martin arrived there were people that were at the house that day around that time and they said he he didn’t come by today we didn’t see him at
All trying to determine where Martin went detective Wilson contacts the city’s apple cart bus service there is video on the apple cart transit buses we poured over video that night we were actually able after several hours to find him on video walking away from the bus [Applause] Stop April 23rd 2016 call colge student Martin Roberts was reported missing 15 hours earlier by his roommates his cousin was the last person to see him as they parted at a campus bus stop now police have just spotted him on video taken by bus security cameras it’s
Kind of grainy but uh it’s clear enough to tell that it’s Mark the front camera clearly shows him starting to walk away the side camera you can see him through the glass and then the back camera catches him as he’s walking away Martin’s on foot and heading toward a busy intersection he’s
Right on the edge of Campus so the detective is hoping the video will reveal which direction he takes he’s on that video that last frame for approximately 17 seconds and he’s right at a street corner he looks One Direction and looks the other direction and then they don’t see him anymore as
If when that bus pulled away he vanished Hoping for leads on which way Martin headed boom police tried to access his phone but without his passcode it’s sealed tight as a drum but the unique thing to Apple products is if you haven’t opened your emails or phone calls or text messages they’ll actually are visible on that
Phone a lot of M text and Miss phone calls if investigators follow up on every missed call and text as a result the news quickly spreads that Martin can’t be found it was just like the worst feeling you could ever have your heart just drops police begin scrutinizing Martin’s
Interactions before he went missing Thursday trying to understand his frame of mind a fraternity brother tells police that 48 hours before Martin disappeared he’ driven him to get a haircut they actually took him to the bank because he had to go to the bank to withdraw cash money when Martin returned according to
His roommates he’d also bought groceries he had a small refrigerator in his bedroom and when we were there could have taken the food with him when he Left Martin’s high school girlfriend Kayla tells police that in her case she’d grown concerned about Martin 3 days earlier when he withdrew from a high school chat group she sent him a text saying what are you doing do you not want to talk to me anymore in particular
She didn’t know that that very night Martin also withdrew from his fraternity chat group and then he started saying things that made me question if he was okay it was things like no one can help me at this point there’s nobody I can talk to the next day Martin went missing it’s
Unbelievably alarming but uh you know we don’t know we don’t know what’s going to happen until until it happens then Boon police are told about a possible sighting of Martin just an hour and a half after he left his cousin at the bus stop we had a young lady come
Forward who stated that she had seen him walk in uh in an area not too far from town she knew who Martin was I think she described the had like an unusual or a particular gate that she hey I know that’s Martin Roberts the exact location flry Fork Road between Winkler’s Creek
And paint Branch roads from there it’s possible Martin may have been headed to a nearby Recreation Area called Trout Lake it is a well visited area by college students it’s easy to get to and there’s water there there’s walking trails you can hike in the mountains there police learn
That Martin has been to Trout Lake before perhaps he’d packed some food for a hike and something happened to him here in the densely forested foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains the day after Martin was reported missing North Carolina State Highway Patrol provides a specially equipped helicopter to conduct a
Nighttime search for Martin in the area of the sighting they have what’s called a Ford looking infrared radar if you’re walking in an area or if there’s an animal in the area they give off a lot more heat than the surrounding ground if Martin’s somewhere in the woods the
Sensors would see him plain as day but the infrared search yields [Applause] nothing as investigators piece together details about Martin from his friends and family a pattern begins to emerge they discover he’d been selectively revealing or hiding details about himself for months before he went missing after coming back to college his
Friends started to notice that they were who sometimes would say I was with my cousin well but we talked to his cousin he only has one cousin in Boon and she says I haven’t seen him we don’t hang out together Martin also hid something much bigger from his roommates and his mother and
Sister that he wasn’t even attending appalachin State this semester we thought he was back enrolled in appalachin he was now enrolled in our local Community College we wanted to take classes online I think it’s four or five classes at the community college investigators get Martin’s academic records from the Community College there’s another
Revelation he was doing fine he wasn’t failing anything but he just decided to stop going it had been nearly a month since Martin had logged on to any online courses he was you know telling me about his grades and his classes and extra credit and things like that and he had quit
Going that’s not all Martin had been hiding we called the places that he was telling his family members he worked at and they said we we have applications um I was actually able to find applications to all the places he’s talking about but he never got
Hired at the time I thought me he is he’s working himself to death you know no I no different but you know I wish i’ have known then but we didn’t know he was being mysterious or untruthful or hiding something from from just about everybody Martin’s mother and sister say he even
Lied to them about his DWI he told them he’d been ticketed while walking home he said that he was stopped by the police and for drunk and disorderly I said well you know um you’ve learn your lesson at least you weren’t driving but Martin was behind the wheel that
Night I was shocked I always thought thought we had the relationship that he could just talk to me about anything it just seems like he was trying his best to give out this picture to people that everything’s okay I’m doing fine uh when in actuality he wasn’t doing fine at [Applause] All 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing from Boon North Carolina for 5 days in that time police have uncovered a trail of disengaging from his networks and his friends and and being so deceptive about things was very unusual it was not how he was everything that happened was pointing to
Him is he was actually miserable and it wasn’t work tired it wasn’t School tired burnt out whatever he was just miserable or depressed or something Martin’s cryptic note now makes more sense to investigators they think he’d been telling people what he imagined they wanted to hear about him it seems to me
That Martin was very much trying to keep up the facade that everything was going great for him and his he alluded to being tired of that of tired of his life not living up to Expectations but police have no idea what Martin’s intentions were they look for clues in his possessions starting with his wallet as a result of his DWI Martin no longer had a valid driver’s license they take your driver’s license away from you physically his father says Martin did get a state issued ID
Card it’s now gone his original ID was not in that room we assume it somewhere else or or on his person Martin didn’t take his bank card with him his parents had said you know he’s going to have a certain debit card and this is this is what bank is through
When police check Martin’s banking history there were no large withdrawals or suspicious purchases before he went missing there’s been no more activity and still hasn’t been any activity at all this time Boon police also find something unexpected Martin Left Behind Some anti-depressant pills that uh Martin was not prescribed
There there were quite a few of them I don’t know of any time that he has been treated for depression it’s not something that we see being bought and sold between students here police are never able to determine how Martin got the anti-depressants or why he had them in the first
Place 5 days after he went missing two more possible sightings of Martin are reported to police one near Trout Lake the other winkers Creek Road bolstering the likelihood of the original sighting hour and a half after he’d left the bus stop in that same general area uh around the
Same time frame and so for us that seemed to act check other modes of transportation Martin could have used to go in different directions the best we can tell he didn’t take a bus he didn’t take a cab he didn’t take uh you know one of these app based
Companies unless Martin hitched a ride this leads police back to square one the theory he was traveling on foot he definitely had the ability to hike and he was very active um had a lot of endurance and could do anything that he put his mind to but those who know
Martin best question if he’d ever attempt anything more ambitious than a day hike he’s a go outside and sweat for five minutes come inside and take a shower type person he just didn’t have a lot of experience probably hadn’t been camping five times in his Life in the bus security video Martin certainly wasn’t dressed for a long journey I only had on with some cheap tennis shoes and a not even what I would describe as a backpack even so investigators consider the possibility Martin might have wandered into the hundreds of miles of wilderness
Surrounding Boon perhaps attempting to connect to the nearby appalachin Trail we received a couple things said hey there was a kid out here definitely didn’t belong out here but it wasn’t him something like completely different Martin’s Family suggests another possible destination we’ve always been a beach family we’ve always gone at least once
If not two or three times a season to the beach a family favorite is ocean is Beach North Carolina 280 mi from Boone it’s just outside Myrtle Beach he’s yeah definitely a beach kind of person if so Martin’s two distinctive tattoos might stand out there on his
Left forearm he’s got an homage to appalachin State it’s kind of a a blended view of mountains which is definitely reflective of Boon on his right rib cage Martin has a tattoo of a lyric from Bob Marley’s song Zion train don’t gain the world and lose your soul wisdom is better than silver
Or gold over the next two months sightings of young men matching Martin’s description pop up along Coastal North and South Carolina but after investigation none turn out to be [Applause] him a into their investigation Bo police have followed numerous leads trying to L we have these time periods where we
Don’t know where Martin was police find no answers in Martin’s digital footprint extracted from his laptop I would say I’ve went through 12,000 emails and actually read them and and tried to figure out what what’s he doing as an investigative hail May Boon’s chief of police appeals to the
Community for anything they may know about Martin when he was off the radar it’s almost an open letter to the public hey if you’ve got information about this good or bad or whatever you know here’s the chief’s office line you call me the appeal elicits no
Responses I’ve been do this job 20 plus years and I’ve never had any case where you put a fraction of this amount of work into it and you get nothing back then after 4 months worth of dead ends detective Wilson receives an unexpected call from a coroner 350 M
Away in Indiana who’s investigating some unidentified human remains they had found from what I understood the lower portion of a leg the foot but it was in a shoe not just any shoe a gray New Balance sneaker the same kind of sneaker Martin was wearing when he went
Missing so that coroner said that you guys are the first thing that popped up so I just called you would there be a reason he came [Applause] Here 19-year-old Martin Roberts has been missing for 4 months but a coroner in Indiana has just recovered human remains that potentially could be his Boon’s detective Wilson quickly discovers the sneaker found in Indiana is a size and a half larger than what Martin wears yet there’s only one definitive
Way to know if it’s Martin’s we had actually done parental DNA testing I had gone and met with his father and birth mother to do DNA samples the coiner said we’re going to send our stuff off and obviously if there’s a match you guys are going to get
That neither one of them ended up being a match in June of 2016 Boon police investigate another potentially har we’re looking you know we’re looking for that that with three reported sightings of Martin near Trout Lake immediately after he went missing police focus on that area and specifically in the water those
Bodies of water you know it’s not UNC commmon for folks to use those as a mean mechanism to to commit suicide or to harm themselves extensive water searches are conducted of both trout lake and the nearby Boon Reservoir the North Carolina estate Bureau Investigation they have a few dog
Teams of um hrd dogs human remains detection most folks know them as caber dogs the dogs are trained on the odor of human decomposition the gases are actually lighter than the water so they’re going to rise to the surface and so what we’re looking for when we’re doing the
Searches of the water is for the dogs to do exactly the same thing as they do on the ground is to alert us when they smell those gases their searches also use sonar technology and divers to scan the bottoms of the lake and Reservoir afterward the dogs scour the land
Surrounding both bodies of water the searches yield nothing there was nothing uh no change of behavior on the days that we searched for uh Martin in the water areas no animation nothing gave us any indication that there was anything [Applause] there Boon police Circle back to try to understand Martin’s behavior and what
He’d been silently struggling with before he went missing I did a search warrant to the college because they have a Counseling Center that that offers free counseling to the students laws protecting patient confidentiality make mental health records difficult to access even for law enforcement did he have some type of um mental illness
Happening did he have an addiction is having problems with his sexuality or you know some type of identity issue or or or or whatever we never saw any signs or or there never been any discussion or communication that he was having any issues with uh sexuality or gender
Identity you we’ve always told him if you have any problem you can tell us about it in our interviews with his friends which are our greatest source of information nobody can give us any information about any of that being a problem but Martin’s friends tell police
They had noticed a marked change in him when he returned to school in January of 2016 he was less about always having fun and going and doing things with them there’d be times where he’d wanted to be alone I would have never known that he was struggling with anything he hit it
Well at State months pass and Boon police explore a host of theories for other places Martin could have gone they also enlist outside help to scrutinize his case we brought in experts in the field hand him the case File and see in two days and just let them just go through
It with fresh eyes and try to point out anything that we didn’t do well enough or didn’t do it all or anything that they can come up with Martin’s Family holds tight to the hope that investigators can find him they’re offering a reward for up to $10,000 for
Information on Martin we think there’s somebody out there that knows something that can help us figure out what’s going on Martin’s father and stepmother have set up a Facebook page called help find Martin Roberts toen the visibility of their cherished missing son just also to try to communicate directly with Martin
How much we love him and we miss him and we want him back we just want to know you’re okay nearly 2 years have passed since the day Martin disappeared leaving behind troubling questions I to have no clue what was impacting him I just feel so bad I didn’t see
It the one thing that we know for sure is we we don’t know anything for sure but somebody does in August of 2017 Martin would have turned 21 for his family the pain of his absence is excruciating the plan had always been that Martin was going to walk me down the
Aisle after I got engaged I asked him he said yeah the day that I went and picked out my wedding dress he said I can’t wait for the wedding says but after Martin disappeared she had to decide if she would proceed and he wasn’t there we want to get him back home and
Be a part of the family again I don’t care why he left where he’s been I just want him become whole if you have any information about James Martin Roberts or his disappearance you can confidentially contact the Boon police department at 828 2686 900 or High Country Crim Stoppers at 828 268
6959 Dia Abrams disappeared on June 6th 2020 no one knows what happened to DIA she’s missing she’s disappeared she left her phone her driver’s license all of her credit cards and a large sum of money behind does it make sense her family is desperate for answers we’ll do
A search immediately of the rants maybe she had gone on a hike maybe she’d got injured would she have ran away because she had so much on her plate she was cutting her kids out of her will they had been basically disowned children were money hungry and Dio said would have disappeared retraces
Dia’s last known stabs but Keith Harper had a whole lot to gain by di missing who is this guy was there Foul Play here I’m worried I I think he’s got connections with mob people I mean he was the last one to see her when we kept
Thinking could he have really hurt her you don’t kill people you love you kill people that you don’t love I feel like I failed her it’s the not knowing drives me crazy the more people who know Dia’s Story the greater the chance of bringing her home share on social media ABS my name is Diana and I’m a friend and neighbor of Dia Abrams in Garner Valley California on June 6th of 2020 Dia Abrams disappeared appeared from her Bonita Vista Ranch in Garner Valley California Dia and I first met through a mutual friend and from that our
Friendship grew we I first met Dia Abrams in either 2010 or 2011 and throughout the years it seemed like we ended up rescuing each other all the time I had a really bad accident she took care of me she had a really gnarly back surgery and I took care of
Her Diana DEA and myself we became good friends after That I can only describe Dia with one word and that word is firecracker she had a presence about her her Pride and Joy were her animals if there was a dog on the side of the road she’d find a home for It Dia came out to this area Mountain Center area in the mid to late ’90s her Ranch is one of the most beautiful areas that you’ll see Dia owns three properties in the Mountain Center area one home was located on a 5 acre parcel in Barner Valley another residence was the Bonita
Vista Ranch which consisted of 116 acres and then another resided between the Garner Valley house and the Bita Vista Ranch I’m Jenny Kushner and I was a reporter and photographer for the Idol wild Town CER newspaper and one the you went missing it was probably the biggest story that I had worked on
Idow wild is a small Mountain Community in the mountains above Palm Springs and it sits surrounded by the San berardino National Forest it’s a small population it’s about 4,000 people and everybody definitely knows everybody it’s a very tight before she moved to Mountain Center Dia married clim
Abrams he was a wealthy real estate developer out of the San Diego area Dia and Clen separated when she moved to Mountain Center and he passed away in 2019 DIA has two children their son Clinton and her daughter crisara crosara is a couple years older than
Clinton I know that Dia loved her kids I do but I remember her telling me that she was disappointed in her children in that they could not make time for her they for their their mother just because of how her children made her feel I think she wanted an
Emotional partner and then Harper came along my name is Keith Harper I was born and raised in a little town in Southern Idaho then I went into Private Industry a recreational outfitting business out of Durango Silverton uray Colorado I met Dia in a dating site and uh we had a 4-year
Relationship when I looked at her I said gosh you are a country girl and she said why do you say that and I said because you have hay in your hair and she looked in the mirror and she said you know I fed the horses before I came I am so
Sorry and I said no know that just proves to me who you are I knew we had something special connected I knew she needed help on the ranch and I offered to come and actually work for her and I fell deeply in love with Her Dia had told me at one point that Harper had had a a criminal past but that he was not a criminal came around I thought it was a good thing because it was helping fra but it was never really a romantic thing there was no affection
Between the two uh usually if you are involved in a relationship you hold their hand or smile at them a certain way uh or put your arm around them uh when you’re sitting in a chair it was lacking any type of physical emotion or activity with one
Another so I didn’t know if they were dating or not she goes well yeah he is he’s more than a friend and that was it that’s all I knew we were leaving for Colorado after the weekend we’ve had some great trips where we went and it all has to do with
Nature and she was an Enthusiast about that anyway that was our plan she had packed we were packed and I said I’m going to go out and mow the metal I had stopped at around 2:00 had lunch with Dia she said have you got a minute I need I need to talk
With you and I said Dia it’s going to take me till dark to get the metal done I’m I’m not that far into it I need to get it done and she said oh okay me cuz she felt it was fairly significant I kind of discouraged that I
Wish I hadn’t done I may have learned things about what she knew that she was willing to share at that moment and I never get to do that chance again I went back to mowing by times I got things squared away and came into the house it was approximately 7:00 so right at
Dark and I went upstairs and I found her phone plugged in and no de her purse was sitting there and I thought surpris didn’t take her purse here somewhere I was surprised that she wasn’t there but she had talked about going down to the lower horse ranch and
Uh uh going out and exercising the horses so I thought maybe that’s what she does she should be back shortly it was almost 12:30 by the time I had finished any searching of the property when I hadn’t found her I called the highway patrolman and expressed a concern and he just said you
Know nothing by morning then get concerned and so I didn’t sleep much that night I contacted the highway patrolman in the morning he he told me Sunday morning June 7th I received a phone call from Julie and she asked me has Harper called you I said no why would Harper call me
So I call Harper I said what’s going on goes did Dia spend the night with you I said no well I can’t find her I said what do you mean he goes well she was here Saturday I saw her at lunch I asked if he checked the Garner
Valley house he said yes she’s not there so I said okay I’m coming over we’ll do a search immediately of of the rants you know my concern was where she was and what was going on with her maybe she had gone on a hike maybe she’d got
Injured and so all that’s going through my mind so we called everyone we could think of to come help and search the property we all went to the bista ranch and met with Harper her truck is here her keys to the truck are here her purse is here her
Cell phone is here so things were not adding up night there was no sign of her it was getting dark so we all decided to go home and start fresh early the next morning like at 6:00 a.m. I started calling the police Monday morning called Monday
Afternoon and all the way up until they finally showed up on Monday night I said you know we’ve done an initial search of the property and uh I said you know I was planning on leaving on Sunday I have some business to take place in Colorado on
Monday Harper I st I’m on probation and I have to go back I can’t be here for more than a certain amount of days before I have to leave and then I have to go check in with my my probation officer so I have to go check in with
Them I didn’t know what for and I said well do you think that’s such a good idea but I used to be a probation officer I know if I had a probationer call me and said hey look my girlfriend is missing I don’t think it’s a good
Idea if I leave the probation officer I’m sure would say it was okay to do so the sheriff’s office said they would be shutting Colorado so I left on Monday June 8th of 2020 Harper left the state the community definitely had some red flags on why he would do
That there was no real answers on why he left by that time DIA son Clinton showed up one of the neighbors had called him to say hey your mom’s missing I remember Clinton just kind of hanging out in the front he never went searching he never asked
Questions was just kind of hanging out with the crowd almost like he was searching for pity or something I never met Clinton as being so smart that he was scary I remember once Dia looked me straight in the eye and said if anything ever happens to me my son Clinton did it Dia loved her children but she did not get to see them very often she said they want to do their own thing she said she was hurt a lot by the inattention she got from them she said they weren’t always exactly kind she ended up doing
The reaching out it wasn’t the other way around and in 10 years I never met Clinton I thought that was pretty Odd she told me she had a constant conf I never ever heard Clinton call her mom it was always Dia as if he was talking down to her and I remember being very angry about that and I said you cannot continue to let him talk to you that way
She was disappointed because from what I understood from DIA was that the children were money hungry when Dia’s husband Clen was alive the two of them had an arrangement that he would pay for the bills at the ranch then when she got absolutely nothing from that will she realized she had to do
Something so that belonged to the season clim Abs from her children the estate is suspected to be worth about $5 to $30 million she said she was upset about having to go through the lawsuit with her kids and she didn’t like fighting with them she was just disappointed in
Them I’m Matt Owens I’m a lawyer I’m a partner with the law firm in San Diego California and I handle disputes involving trusts in the states and I represent Dia’s children Dia was seeking to throw out or invalidate her prenuptial agreement that Dia had with Clen her hus because just like any other
Trustee would have had to do the same thing in order to protect and honor what Clen had stated he wanted in the trust document Dia’s children were going to be fine regardless of who won or lost that lawsuit that Dia had filed there was no potential out come in that case where
Dia’s kids got nothing from Clem’s trust it was just a a dispute over how much Dia was going to get during her lifetime and some other nuances but her kids were going to be fine regardless of the outcome of that case the lawsuit for CLM Abrams estate I
Understand from away her truck as it was in Clem’s trust that was the heaviest thing on her mind before her disappearance was they’re going to take my truck what am I going to do they wouldn’t even give me a ride home like what am I supposed to do
I can’t have transportation why do they need my truck the truck belonged to Clem’s trust and so if you’re Trustee of Clem’s trust and there’s an asset out there that belongs to the Clen abrs trust you kind of have to go get it I don’t think that
There was any sort of desire to fight over uh I think it was like a 2006 Ford truck right like I don’t I don’t think truste needing to go collect an asset that belonged to the trust that was the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak when they were
Trying to take the truck away di stated that she was cutting her kids out of her will the reason for that is why would you want to help people who were not willing to help you while adaa was in the middle of this court battle fighting for that estate
She still had control over the three properties in the ID wild area Dia Abrams owned those three properties that completely separate time you know about March I think it was she had texted me and asked me would you mind being uh the executive in my will
I’m thinking this woman has at least 20 more years cuz she’s in great shape mentally just all there and it’s not going to be a thing so I said sure no problem she texted back I’m trying to get Keith Harper to say yes to being executive as
Well Dia changed her trust and that the children weren’t to be allowed on she states their name and she says I leave you my love which is worth more than anything else I have Dia changed her trust about two weeks I think it was technically 15 days
Before she went missing she did not reach out to her kids in that intervening 15 days and say hey I updated my trust just want to let you know okay she did that basically in secrecy I found it highly suspicious idea she feared extremely that her son would do
Something negative to her a lot of the times she would Express her concern for her efforts to control me and to shut me out of these fathers and Trust so many things run through your head but as far as I was concerned he still had something to do with it not
Himself personally I don’t think he would ever touch his mom that way or H his his mom physically but he knew people that could or would just based on Dia’s statements do you said one state um I’m worried I I think he’s got connections with mob
People and in my mind I’m like I don’t want to hear this because that’s dangerous and I it’s ridiculous I mean it’s just ridiculous to make that sort of allegation against him Clinton has absolutely no ties with any sort of Mafia organized crime whatever you want to call it once Riverside County Sheriff’s
Department we’re done on Wednesday they called Di’s kids and said we’re done with the investigation you can go into the property even though we continuously told them do not call the kids Dia said that she did not want the children to ever go into her house she was adamant
About that she goes do not let my children in the house all they care about are the things in the house what they can take what they can sell spoke to Dia’s attorney and he obtained a copy of the power of attorney and a copy of the
Trust I remember Clinton coming up it felt like stand up at the okay Corral Clinton gets out of the truck the lawyer comes out of another car he walks up and Diana’s got the papers in hand and I said uh-uh I said here’s the paperwork from the attorney Dia named me and
Harper as executive to her Will Harper he left the property and I have our attorney here’s a document that says that I’m acting on Dia’s behalf and I made a promise to her that I would we didn’t realize at the time it was about to get so much worse Shue of the
Truck I said you can’t leave leave with her property Dia hasn’t been gone long what if she came back we need to find her there was really no emotion coming from planton if my mom was missing I’d be yelling and screaming going where the heck is
She and that’s when he said that the truck was part of his father’s trust and that he’s taking it who does that it wasn’t worth anything it’s not like Dia didn’t have assets right I she had three properties if she really needed a truck
Is it really that big of a deal for her to get a different vehicle I mean I I don’t understand what the to that as one instance where they’re trying to spin it and make Clinton look like he was about to you know do harm to their Mother so there’s obviously a lot of legal and Fin Financial conflict going on but it’s unclear how any of this kind of shows anything about why she disappeared there really hasn’t been any evidence to show that there was any foul play in the first place the next morning we went out on
Our ATVs to search for Dia Dia she’s missing she’s disappeared so you start having a lot of thoughts run through your mind like okay what else could have happened would she have ran away because she had so much on her plate like no she wouldn’t have ran away because she left
Her dog she left all of her other animals she left her phone her driver’s license all of her credit cards and a large sum of money behind does it make sense then then we started thinking foul play Diana and I we started to put together scenarios in our minds and what
They would have have to gain specific actions that they would take or not take in the pursuit of finding Dia weeks are going by and Dia is still missing but the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department isn’t commenting on the case at all over time Harper seemed to be more
Interested in the property and the ranch than he was in finding de I realized I didn’t know anything about Harper’s personality I didn’t know anything about his personal life I didn’t know him at all spoke the more I realized some of the things that he was saying didn’t make
Sense I mean he was the last one to see her when we kept thinking could he have could he have really hurt her eth Harper this is not someone as far as we could tell who had any sort of significant wealth after she goes missing all of a
Sudden Harper finds himself in a great situation he’s living on this 115 acre ranch his whole life changes that’s a big deal for someone in his situation and then you contrast that with what do the kids have to gain from DIA going missing very little they’re
Still going to be provided for under any scenario Missing there is a lot of attention about me I’m the primary suspect cuz I’m the boyfriend what about the rants did you kill her because you wanted the ranch God know you know I’ve worked on a ranch ranching does not make money I know how to make money I’m here because
I loved a girl when somebody asked me did you kill her I’ve had that question to ask and I said honestly you don’t kill people you love you kill people that you don’t Love and learn some things that were pretty shocking to us he had been convicted of sexual assault against two women in Colorado so Mr Harper ran some sort of business where he would take people around on a snowmobile based on the court record he took these two women out on a snowmobile
Tour they alleged that he groped both of them and the authorities got involved and he was arrested and ultimately convicted of sexual assault in connection with that event that’s what required him to be registered as a sex offender he was sentenced to 12 months in jail for that conviction I believe he
Served just short of 9 months I have this only conviction basically I have I was wrongly accused of that allegation it gets blown out of perspective but uh I will tell you that I was not guilty of that charge there’s not much more I will say on
That one of the things you definitely want to look at in that type of case is the nature of the relationship between Dia and the person who’s now benefiting under the trust document so Harper who is this Keith Harper guy was there Foul Play here did something nefarious
Happened you begin to wonder over and over again the reason the fingers are being pointed because it’s pointed away for where they should look Dia Abrams was last seen June 6th 2020 if you have any information please contact the Riverside County Sheriff’s department at 951-955 2400 a few months after it possibly
Happened to DIA and I know that the police were looking at Harper because he’s the obvious suspect I didn’t want to believe believe it was Harper I didn’t want to believe it was their son Clinton to this point I don’t know where to cast suspicions to
Us he was Harper was not really ruled out per se but we don’t know him I grew very fond of Dia and loved that girl I can understand their concern as her boyfriend husbands boyfriends are often the ones they look at and most of the time they’re the ones involved in
The situation ation so I understood on March 16th of 2021 Dia’s kids made a surprising move in court so they filed a probate petition asking to remove Diana feder and Keith Harper as Trustees of the estate so the petition um is saying that they think that Harper
Could be a suspect in this disappearance of Dia Abrams we were trying to to get Keith Harper and Diana feder out of that position as trustee we wanted him out they’re not qualified to serveice trustee Harper been breaching fiduciary duties meaning he had done things that U
Were wrong under the law that were they’re trying to point the finger I mean you just can’t come in and just demand that the trust be changed you have to have reasons why that change should occur we’ve learned that Harper started renting out multiple structures on that
Rent branch on Airbnb weddings all sorts of things that generated income he was depositing into his personal bank account so not in the name of DS trust which you know any trust lawyer will tell you you cannot do if you’re a truste and you’re receiving rental
Income from a trust property you have to put that money in a trust bank account meaning a bank account that’s set up in the name of V trust the money to fight it uh or hire an attorney so I’m removing myself as Trustee of the estate
Diana walked away from the case so she agreed not to seek to serve in any fiduciary role so Dia’s body hasn’t been found and really there’s no evidence that anything even happened to her except that she’s missing so a lot of finger pointing of
He said she said but at the end of the day she’s still missing so so at this point there’s been no Persons of Interest that have have been released by the rivers as far as evidence or suspects or anything but Harper has a lot of things kind of working against
Him there’s definitely a lot of speculation on whether he’s a suspect or not I mean the community is definitely unsure it did really seem like he wanted to prove his innocence and kind of clear his name At that point it’s nearly a year has come and pass so I contact Kelly Snider with a group out of Phoenix that comes in calls the find me organization the FindMe group work with law enforcement to try to connect families with their and intuitive resources when conventional methods of
Searching for people maybe doesn’t turn up any clues it’s not really uncommon to try some unconventional methods like psychics he works with approximately 100 psychics that helps you know make some predictions about these missing people cases even though you know Keith Harper might be sort of grasping its draws um
You know it’s not not surprising that he would you know try any methods he could to help find her when I talked to Kelly I said hey I I’ve lost a girlfriend she’s been gone almost a year now I need your help is studied uh Dia’s case we’re going to
Help you find her so as a result of that Kelly spend 6 weeks on the investigation by the time he comes out he basically says that he found her where she was Kelly said the body’s location was placed in Lake Hammond I remember calling the detective that
The sheriff’s office I said you know you do have a dive team he great that goes on for about 20 minutes they go out approximately 40 yards you can see the bubbles where they go out then uh when they had found nothing I contacted Kelly I was a little
Frustrated on why they had not f found anything under his recommendation I was pretty confident that they would but uh she was not found Then so at the end of the day’s body wasn’t found in lake himt and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department really didn’t um want to disclose any information about any evidence that might have been found so people and so they claimed they’re only accurate about 30 to 35% of the
Time I have to be clear I can’t say that Keith Harper did it right I don’t have that information I don’t have personal knowledge of that all I can say is that his behavior after she went missing is highly suspect and his history before she went missing is highly
Suspect but we did achieve the settlement agreement I was working with the Dia’s attorney he said you know what my recommendation is you have a compromise with him them that you divide the property 50/50 and and let the pieces fall I agreed with that the court in their ruling basically
Agreed to divide the property 50/50 with her children if any one of us are found to be guilty they are to receive nothing until such time as the 5-year Mark is is passed or if he is located and determined to be dead as a result of that that’s where
We’re currently in the status of determining what the status is and what the ruling of the Court really means at least the main litigations in this matter I don’t see how he could make a different decision at this time to be fair if you know anything and you
See what’s going on here what this poor lady had to go through please help we’re looking for information from anyone who might know what happened to to DIA you have information about some sort of vow play where someone perhaps abducted her or even worse that’s the type of information we’re looking for do
You know the whereabouts of where her remains might be if that’s the situation um those are the types of things that we’re looking for Clinton wants a reward post it cuz he wants wants people to come forward with information as to what happened to DIA so if anyone comes forward with
Information leading $100,000 Reward I want this to be over I I want to have some kind of conclusion um I think we’re close enough now that uh her case will move forward I’m very hopeful of that that it’s interesting I don’t think you really evaluate how important a relationship is until you lose
It and once you have lost it then you realize how significant that relationship was if I could see de again I would just give her a big hug and cry and just be so happy to see her and then I’d be like darn you for disappearing like that darn
It darn it I would just oh I would just want to say everything’s going to be okay but if she’s not here and she’s in heaven I know that someday I’ll see her there and I know I’ll see her again and that gives me Comfort this missing person’s case was unusual and it continue to get more unusual I’m like we need to get up there because this is just not like Devonte I believe that this area is known for Cults inkk underworld fighting I’m thinking every moment where’s my baby Stephanie is an independent bubbly
99-year-old who prefers cowboy boots to dresses we would rather be out playing in the dirt with the trucks with the boys then in playing with the Halls one night she goes bowling with friends and never returns I remember him watching all of us kids I realized that
Man that I saw could have been something more than just an unusual person she was a 9-year-old girl if she’d have ran away from home she’d be at Grandma’s house and she’s not here it’s a story that alters a small City forever October 11th will always bring back memories of
Stephanie she’ll never be forgotten not from any of us and left loved ones to face Decades of enduring pain so I named my third child Stephanie after my best friend CU she’s still a part of my family she always will be [Applause] [Applause] October 11th 1993 chalice Idaho rural city of just a thousand people tucked between two Scenic Mountain chains the closest town is an hour away Tellis is very small it’s very remote so everybody knows everybody everybody watches out for everybody and everybody cares for everybody around 300 p.m. 9-year-old
Stephanie crane finishes school and goes with her friends to the bowling alley across the road we all walk to the Chalice Lanes Bing alley to do our elementary bowling league we bow three games a lot of the times we all ordered food and ate together Stephanie liked to be involved
So I know she played soccer and bowling Stephanie is definitely not a girls girl I knew it you got what a baby C she was a tomboy she ran around with Dad all the time went fishing hunting Rock kicking very outdoorsy her and I were we both raised
Kind of the same way we would rather be out playing in the dirt with the trucks with the boys than in playing with dolls and doing our hair nails has always made friends easily with boys as well as girls she seemed to be always bouncing around laughing she
Had this huge smile and she was just funny very outgoing she didn’t have enemies she didn’t dislike anybody she liked everybody she was fun to be Around Stephanie’s father Ben works in the local mineral mines and also does Taxidermy her mother Sandy is a homemaker they have three younger daughters ages 2 4 and six Stephanie was closer to her father than she was her mother because there was the younger babies coming along and I think Sandy
Was busy with them her friends say that Stephanie has a unique relationship with her father they was always joking with each other and teasing each other and playing around just happy you know [Applause] Loving and Stephanie the first grandchild of the family is especially close to her grandmother Hazel so St would come over and spend time with me because I was out working in the garden or the yard and she liked to be out and she spent a lot of time
Stephanie happily assumes the role of big sister to her three younger siblings she was always taking care of them always making sure they had whatever they needed I remember her pack and her little sister around it was like she was our she was kind of our alive the
All and the 9-year-old loves the freedom she has to walk or bike anywhere in chalice we all rode bikes all over chalice and we rode everywhere in chalice you know the whole County it’s the rare kind of town where people don’t lock their doors children freely ride bicycles walk by themselves
And play outside unaccompanied parents were there A lot of times to pick us up you know somewhere Stephanie always walked home from the boing alley like she walked home from school at 4:45 p.m. on October 11th Stephanie and her classmates are wrapping up their games for their after school bowling league
A teammate’s mother Luanne Barry is there serving as scorekeeper for the kids the girls team which was Stephanie and her two friends were actually bowling and when they finished the parents came and got them or they left and we were the only ones left finishing [Applause] bowling on her way out Luan sees
Stephanie standing in the bowling alley parking lot I asked Stephanie are you going home and she lived just across the trick from the bowling alley and she said yes she was going home and so I got in my car and as I backed out I look in
My rear room mirror and I see Stephanie and there was a foot bridge that went across Grandma’s house Hazel’s as they’re pulling out of the parking lot Brandy Bennetts and her mother also see Stephanie outside the bowling alley but now she’s waiting to cross Highway 93 headed back towards the
School I remember my mom waiting for her to cross so my mom kind of stopped and just said ask Stephanie if she needs a ride why she headed back to the school and I hollered hey Steph where you going want to ride home no I forgot my
Backpack she said up on the soccer field the school is a 5-minute walk away and then it’s 10 minutes back to Stephanie’s home she is supposed to be there by 5:00 p.m. her grandmother Hazel lives right next door but 5:00 passes with no sign of Stephanie Sandy Stephanie mother called
Me about 5:15 and she said is Stephanie over to your house and I said no she’s not but I said just a minute maybe she’s out playing with the boys so I went out and checked with the boys and know they hadn’t seen Stephanie Stephanie’s mother and grandmother immediately start to search
For her and I got in the car and I went driving around looking and when it started getting dark I knew she had to be someplace because she wouldn’t be out playing around when it got dark her family says anyone who knows Stephanie is aware that the one thing
That always terrified her was the dark she was always asking can I stay the night with you and I’d say yes and as soon as it started getting dusk she wanted to go home she spent very few nights with us even when Stephanie was in her own
Home at night it couldn’t be dark in her bedroom we stayed the night at her house one night and uh we didn’t shut the lights off in her little bedroom I couldn’t figure out why and she didn’t say it her family wonders if Stephanie went home with a friend for a sleepover maybe
To escape the commotion at her house with three younger siblings we decided that the best chance was that she went home with a friend and I started calling those people to see you know if maybe she went home with somebody but Hazel’s phone calls and a drive around town with Sandy turn up
Nothing by 8:00 p.m. there’s still no news about Stephanie and her mother Sandy becomes extremely concerned Sandy crane Stephanie’s mother came into the sheriff’s office at about I believe it was quarter after 8 in the evening to report that she could not find her 9-year-old daughter Stephanie
Then sent the one Deputy who was in the office with me to check the creek behind the bowling alley to see if she had fallen in it appears that Stephanie isn’t at the creek though it’s difficult to know for certain in the dark kuster County search and rescue as well as the
Fire department Town’s people also joined the hunt for Stephanie so it was probably about 50 of us at the time um and we all walked where we were supposed to walk and they came back met at Bolan alley and they wanted us to extend the search into town
Knowing that time is of the essence search teams use every means available they use the Sheriff’s Office pickups in the search horses four-wheelers they searched on foot Custer County search and rescue you boat to search from here to Salmon on the Salmon River but the teams find no sign of
Stephanie we were supposed to report back to the Sheriff’s office at midnight and we did and the sheriff said that they were calling off the search with her close friend now inexplicably missing Brandy Bennetts is haunted by her last image of Stephanie I waved to her when she was on the sidewalk headed
Back up to the elementary school and I waved goodbye to her and told her I would see her tomorrow at School 9-year-old Stephanie crane didn’t come home after leaving Bowling practice in her hometown of chalice Idaho she’s been missing for 14 hours the last people to see Stephanie remember her saying she was heading back to school to get her backpack and then home word TRS fast around chalice that Stephanie is
Missing the next morning her friend bry’s mother shares the upsetting news she’s like well they they can’t find Stephanie Nobody seen Stephanie since yesterday at the bowling alley I didn’t know what to think Stephanie’s parents and other loved ones are stunned by her disappearance I found out the next
Morning that Stephanie had not returned and that’s when the questions just stormed in on me her grandmother was asking Stephanie with you you know did she go somewhere else in the daylight local sheriff’s deputies fire department search and rescue and over 100 volunteers expand the hunt state and federal law enforcement also
Arrive in chalice to lend a hand a photo of Stephanie and a description of what she was wearing is faxed out to Idaho State Police and all the county law enforcement agencies across the state we find toothed more of the area where we had walked the previous night
Bushes and backyard sighting near the school gets investigators attention a vehicle that residents don’t recognize is parked at the high school a couple hundred yards from Stephanie’s school we received numerous reports of a yellow pickup around the school people just thought it was suspicious in a town the size of chalice
Residents say they often recognize each other’s vehicles but this one was isn’t linked to any chalice parent when police go looking for the truck they hit a snag the truck that was spotted at the school was not there when the deputies arrived and nobody could provide a license
Plate while police try to locate the truck local chalice residents mobilized to spread the word about Stephanie’s disappearance people formed what they called friends of Stephanie and they took Flyers of Stephanie and they stuffed them in envelopes to send mail them out Nationwide we sent Flyers all over the
United States we would take 10 15 20 Flyers you know notice with her picture on it and people would post them all over in where they lived in their Town an Idaho State Police search dog is brought in to retrace Stephanie’s possible movements he was by the bowling
Alley and going up to the high school and going down to Hazel and where Stephanie lived the dog picks up Stephanie sent but then loses it just yards from the bowling alley in the midst of the search efforts Stephanie’s friends and classmates say they try to resume their normal lives
But nothing is as it was before she sat off to the left of me remember when we went back to school that we were allowed to go to our desks but we weren’t allowed to touch Stephan’s desk it kind of had some stuff around it and it was meant to stay as it
Was I’m sitting in class and Stephanie’s not there and when a kid and when one of us was sick everybody knew why we were sick or what we were doing so it was really abnormal 4 days after Stephanie went missing investigators interviewed the children who were with her the night she
Disappeared and several of them say they noticed something that concerned them I saw and a suspicious person that I’ve never seen before in my life and he looked creepy according according to the kids The Stranger seemed to be fixated on their bowling game I remember him
Watching all of us kids I realized that man that I saw could have been something more than just an unusual [Applause] person jumping on the new lead agents asked Stephanie’s friend Chase for more identifying details that’s when I started to explain everything to him that I could possibly think of that
Sketch artist to help reconstruct the suspicious man’s face they would say did he have a round face did he have a oval face and you know he he had a skinny face and then they wanted to know how high his cheekbones were and they would
Show me how they would draw them once I said yeah that looks a lot like him they printed it off and they put it up for a wanted person investigators circulate the sketch Statewide but don’t get any hits they also speak with the owner of the
Bowling alley over the next 10 days no further information comes in to explain what could have happened to Stephanie even a $50,000 reward half-raised by towns people half from an anonymous donor produces no results Stephanie’s family continues to cope with the pain and confusion of her sudden disappearance ear haunted and at first
You know probably the first week I didn’t sleep at all and now why did I think that if I stayed awake something bad couldn’t happen to her according to Friends Stephanie’s parents are heartbroken but trying to hold out some hope her father Ben becomes more reserved I remember him being more quiet
Not as talkative seeing one of their own vanish Into Thin Air the people of chalice are now living in Fear these small communities you think you’re safe and then you get that Whiplash of nothing safe Anymore we were terrified all of us parents children we became very even more closed in than we are more protective residents say the Carefree days of children walking anywhere in chalice by themselves are over Tad was only in third grade and so I would deliver him
To school in the morning by walking him to his classroom I would pick him up from his classroom I wouldn’t even trust anybody to walk him to the school bus and when I would get there there would be 10 15 20 other parents picking their children up from the classroom Law enforcement continues canvasing door Todo trying to determine if anyone saw anything suspicious the night Stephanie vanished including seeing strangers in town the mysterious pickup truck parked at the high school is still unidentified the investigator’s task is Complicated by the fact that Stephanie disappeared all month long hunters from
Other towns and States drive through Chalice on Highway 93 the main road in and out of town that Stephanie was seen waiting to cross Hunters come from the cities from the south you know um Idol Falls and Pocatello and it was very crowded investigators have to contend with a
Frightening worst case scenario a transient Hunter could have come through town and quickly grabbed Stephanie from the side of the highway on October 15th 4 days after Stephanie went missing a tip comes in suggesting just that possibility on the night she vanished another unknown vehicle was seen in town a blue van
Parked on the shoulder of Highway 93 about a half mile from the bowling alley then just 45 minutes later there’s another sighting of a blue van 30 Mi south of chalice one of the reports County Sheriff’s Office received from the clerk at the convenience store was the two men we’re [Applause] Fighting 4 days after 9-year-old Stephanie crane disappeared authorities get a promising lead about a Blue Van that was seen in chalice Idaho with two men fighting nearby deputies try to find the blue van where it was last seen on Highway 75 southeast of chalice but by the time the
Officers got there the van was gone as far as kuster County sheriff’s deputies can tell the blue van is no longer in the Chalice area they discover that like the earlier sighting of the pickup truck no one wrote down the van’s license plate or its make or model and there was no
Security video recorded over the next 3 months no further information comes in to law enforcement the composite sketch of the man in the bowling alley is still leading Nowhere on September 27th 1994 just a day before what would have been Stephanie’s 10th birthday the res residents of chalice decide to mark it with a symbolic gesture purple was her favorite color in remembrance of Stephanie the family and other Town’s people have released purple Balloons already reeling from the loss of Stephanie her family goes through even more upheaval in the years that follow in 1995 a year and a half after Stephanie vanished her parents Sandy and Ben decide to end their marriage they ended up splitting up which I don’t think is
Unusual I think Ben tried to forget it or go on I think Sandy had a harder time in May 1995 Hazel’s daughter-in-law Sandy moves to Reno Nevada and suffers health issues I don’t think her life was good she ended up passing away from blood clots in her lungs Stephanie’s father Ben stays in
Chalice and raises their three daughters on his own according to her grandmother the crane family agonizes over the loss of Stephanie every day Hazel says her husband Earl Stephanie’s grandfather becomes angry and frustrated at the complete lack of any answers in his granddaughter’s disappearance he was mad he was mad at
Whoever took her he was mad at the legal system CU they didn’t find her he was mad at himself cuz he couldn’t solve it figure it out Hazel says she tries her best to continue some semblance of a normal life but it’s extremely difficult I don’t know that you cult you
Just have to do the things you have to do at one point we had some friends down for dinner on Friday evening and and everyone was laughing and joking around I had a meltdown I went outside got in the RV and sat down and balled and cried Stephanie’s family members say
They feel that authorities have not kept them apprised of developments in the investigation in 1995 Idaho attorney general visits the cranes in an attempt to address their concerns but the official message he brings them isn’t a welcome one one of the things that we complained about was
The fact that we didn’t know we weren’t being kept in the loop and the state’s attorney general said you know according to our office there’s no proof there was a crime committed here I said you think she just vaporized I said yes there was a crime committed
They said well maybe she ran away and I said no she didn’t run away she was a 9-year-old girl if she’d have ran away from home she’d be at Grandma’s house and she’s not here the case goes cold for another year but in early 199 huge lead they have a hunter named Keith
Hcock in custody for unlawful possession of wildlife inspectors have found a cash pornography among his belongings some of it appearing to depict underage females what’s more they believed that hcock was in the Chalice area 4 years earlier when Stephanie disappeared we knew that Mr hescock was
Here on October 11th because he had shot a big orange sheep up Morgan Creek in kuster County investigators also learned that hcock used to drive a pickup truck that was similar to The Mysterious yellow ones spotted at the high school after Stephanie disappeared he drove a little yellow
Pickup but we didn’t really have enough there wasn’t enough evidence to follow that but four years later police are unable to locate the yellow truck despite the discovery of the pornography and a possible link to the truck a search of hasc’s residents turns up no evidence of Stephanie in the end
Deputies can’t connect him to her disappearance no new tips come into kuster County once again the case grows Stone Cold and then there are more changes in the crane family’s life in 1998 5 years after Stephanie disappeared her father Ben moves the whole family to orcus Island Washington about 800 miles from
Idaho Stephanie’s grandparents Hazel and Earl remain in chalice still hoping that she may someday come home I could see somebody maybe picking her up and telling her her mom and dad sold her or didn’t want her I think even a nine-year-old even though she’s older I think you could convince her of that
Over time and maybe that’s just because I want to think that two more years pass with no further developments in the Investigation and then in May 2000 almost 7 years after Stephanie vanished there’s a stunning new lead from NAA Idaho 200 mil east of chalice Sergeant miles received information that in inmate in our Detention Facility had information on Stephanie crane disappearance so Miles interviewed this inmate the inmate tells detectives that
A female friend of his had rented a room in a man’s apartment back in 1993 the Year Stephanie went missing the inmate says she told him that neighbors heard disturbing sounds from a street level window they had heard a girl crying and screaming down on the basement nobody was ever allowed down [Applause] There in the seven years since 9-year-old Stephanie crane vanished law enforcement has had few productive leads by the year 2000 the crane case has become notorious throughout the state of Idaho when I say I’ve grown up in chalice you say wasn’t there girl abducted from your town there was it’s
Just a nationally known thing then in April of 2000 the cold Cas suddenly heats up again after a tip comes in to the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office 200 m east of chalice St crane case was considered a big case anytime you have a little girl that goes missing it it’s
Important to do everything you can on it and and our department did a lot of lot of work and a lot of follow on this information over the course of several months the tip comes from a Canyon County Prison inmate who tells officials about a woman who claims to know the man
Responsible for Stephanie’s disappearance detectives bring the woman in for questioning and she tells them that 7 years earlier in 1993 she roomed with a man who had drifted between Idaho and Oregon when she lived with him in NAA Idaho she found his behavior extremely suspicious that’s when we learned about
This basement and uh there was no nobody allowed down there he wouldn’t let anybody down there and people heard a girl crying down there the roommate says neighbors believed someone was being held captive she says she asked The Drifter why he always kept the basement locked and his answer was
Troubling he said that it was his daughter she was being punished for running away or something like that the woman tells deputies that when The Drifter was out of the apartment she went through his belongings and found several disturbing items including girls underwear frightened and confused she
Decided she needed to get away from The Drifter before something happened to her or her children 7 years later investigators wonder whether a girl allegedly held in the basement could have been Stephanie crane this is the corner apartment number one where the Drifter was residing this is the window here where
Different individuals had said that they had heard a young girl screaming or crying in April 2000 armed with the woman’s account Canyon County detectives dig into the drifter’s background they discover that 13 months before Stephanie vanished in November of 1992 he was arrested on a sex charge involving a
Minor he was charged at a time that he lived in Portland with uh abusing his daughter The Drifter whose name authorities won’t release was convicted of sexual abuse in the third degree but never served time because of a plea bargain and allowed to move to Idaho the judge also ruled that any
Future contact with his daughter would have to be supervised in mid April detectives track him down at his job when I first uh confronted this Drifter he was working his basic common labor at a local business in NAA and asked he would be willing to come in for an interview the
Man agrees to submit to a PO and investigators ask him a series of pointed questions they were to the effect did you have anything to do with The Disappearance of Stephanie crane did you take Stephanie crane three questions along that nature in which he answered no and it indicated that he was being
Extremely deceptive on his answers when he is told the polygraph results The Drifter becomes defensive he became kind of I rate argumentative you know tried to explain why his answers come up deceptive a week later detectives obtain a search warrant for the drifter’s former apartment in Nampa they fully inspect the basement
Where 7 years earlier neighbors said they heard a girl’s voice and there was a couple mattresses in the basement some stains appeared to be blood stains which we cut out and labeled we also found a rope that had some Fiber hairs in it detectives send the Blood Stained
Mattress and rope samples to the state lab near Boise 2 months later the results come back the blood findings are inconclusive forensics can’t determine if the blood is human or from an animal the hair sample is human but the state lab isn’t equipped to perform DNA testing on it because it doesn’t have
The follicle attached they would have to have more evidence as far as being able to say well you know this was ha was Stephanie crane although investigators believe they have some evidence that The Drifter could be connected to Stephanie’s disappearance it’s not enough for an arrest so the mystery surrounding what
Happened to Stephanie lingers such an old case it’s hard to say if if anybody will ever be able to find out you know more time goes by the harder it gets a month later Idaho State Police and the the FBI are back in chalice still looking for evidence that might implicate The
Drifter they show a photo lineup to Tina Foster who was working at the bowling alley the night Stephanie disappeared when asked if she sees the suspicious looking man described seven years earlier by Stephanie’s friend Chase Tina points to the photo of The Drifter but says she’s not 100% certain
With no positive identification or physical evidence [Applause] like in June 2002 the name of a man authorities questioned 5 years ago surfaces again Bonville County sheriff’s deputies are in Hot Pursuit of Keith hescock the hunter who was arrested for poaching and possessing pornography of seemingly underage females now hescock is suspected in a
Horrific sex crime he had kidnapped a little girl from Idaho FS he had raped her he handcuffed her to the bed and he left and went to work he had told her that he had done this before and he killed the little girl she got a hold of a fire
Extinguisher pounded on the handcuffs until she got away 4 hours after his 14-year-old victim escapes hescock is Tracked Down by authorities at his house when Mr hescock showed it back up from work the cops were waiting at his front door he took off they had a high-speed chase through Bon of County
Ended up in Madison County he got out he shot and killed the police dog shot the deputy in the leg and then shot himself 357 we are down K9 down we need Idaho up here hescock dies from the wound so authorities may never know if he had anything to do with Stephanie’s
Disappearance but they say he remains a suspect in November 2003 Hazel suffers another major loss when her husband Earl dies for the next 3 years there are no new developments in the case until December 2006 when a stunning lead comes into law enforcement from the town of Thorn Creek Idaho 165 M from
Chalice police there are investigating a man’s suicide and they discover that he left behind a note describing feelings of guilt that drove him to take his own life the note contains a name that’s new to investigators Kevin money the friend had left a note saying he had to kill
Himself because he could not live with the secret that Kevin Mooney had told him Kevin Mooney had told him that he had picked up a girl in chalice raped and killed her and he referred to her as Step In December 2006 13 years after 9-year-old Stephanie crane vanished a new and unusual lead suddenly surfaces a man in Thorn Creek 165 mil from chalice left a suicide he had kidnapped a girl named Steph in chalice and killed her chalice law enforcement jumps on it after the kuster County Sheriff’s Office
Received the information we called Idaho State Police and the FBI they discover that Kevin money is a 42-year-old who changes jobs frequently and has several criminal convictions for minor offenses Mr Mooney was contacted brought into the FBI office in boisey a polygraph Mooney tells police he can’t remember being in Chalice on
October 11th 1993 sheriff’s deputies conduct a full search of his house we did take cadaver dogs around Mr money’s property and they did not hit on anything money tells investigators he doesn’t know why his friend would say he killed a girl when he passes his polygraph detectives no longer consider
Him a person of interest the investigation is once again at a dead end on October 11th 2012 19 years after Stephanie went missing the crane family experiences yet another tragedy 19 years from the day that we lost Stephanie we lost Ben just massive heart attack Stephanie’s father Ben was 48 years
Old Hazel says that living through the loss of her first granddaughter has forever changed the way her family treats one another never leave without giving each other a hug and saying I love you even if it’s just on the Phone you don’t leave each other mad you know cuz life’s short according to Hazel she has received some updates about investigation into Stephanie’s disappearance over the years but she understands why she wasn’t told about all the possible leads that came into the sheriff’s office if we knew
Every thing that came in that supposedly happened you would be up and down so much that You’ probably drive yourself crazy so I think they’re protecting you when they don’t tell you Linda duil who took the missing person report from Stephanie’s mother 24 years ago has never forgotten the young Carefree 9-year-old
Girl I just want to know what happened to this little girl that went missing when I was on duty where is she why can’t we find her it seems like she just disappeared Into Thin Air then in June 2016 the search for Stephanie heats up yet again this time Linda du finding a girl in his basement back in 1993 the kuster County Sheriff’s Office won’t disclose anything from those interviews because Stephanie’s case is an ongoing investigation detective Wayne Christie who interviewed The Drifter back in 2000
Says he felt like he was on the verge of solving the case most frustrating thing about this case is this Drifter we were pretty convinced that he was involved in it but we just couldn’t get him to confess to give it up I mean he came close but he just wouldn’t take that
Final Step Her grandmother Hazel says that she does her best to live in the present but there is one thing about Stephanie’s disappearance that she cannot shake I’ve thought for years that surely somebody saw something whether they didn’t realize they saw what they saw or they just didn’t want to come forth with
It after all this time with her being gone I would hope that if somebody had seen something they would come forward recent news stories about girls who were abducted and then escaped from their kidnappers decades later give some people in chalice hope when I saw this story of the Three kidnapped gals from
Ohio and then the story of JC leard out of California every now and then I’ll think maybe she’s still alive Hazel says that after all these years she still can’t imagine what happened to Stephanie on that October night I am not even sure she’s dead and maybe that’s just because I want to
Think that her loved ones say that even 24 years after she disappeared Stephanie remains in their hearts October 11th will always bring back memories of Stephanie fall you remember Stephanie it it’s just a given she’ll never be forgotten you know um not from any of us so I named my third
Child Stephanie after my best friend she’s still a part of my family she how will be age progression software reveals what Stephanie crane would look like today at age 33 if you have any information about Stephanie crane disappearance you can confidentially come contact the kuster County Sheriff’s Office at 208 879 2232 m
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