And Then They Were Gone

On the night of August 31, 1976, a three-year-old girl crept out of bed and witnessed her father wrap his hands around her mother's throat, push her against the wall, and drag her out of sight. The next morning, her father, Ralph Otto, told her and her sister that their mother, 24-year-old Patty Otto, wasn’t coming back. For years, Suzanne wasn’t sure what she had seen that night, but as she b...

This episode originally aired in 2024 When 13-year-old Bianca Piper got into an argument with her mother, Shannon Tanner, over doing the dishes, Shannon put her in the car, drove her a mile up the road, and told her to walk home. While this may seem like an odd form of punishment, it was actually something that had been recommended by Bianca’s therapist. But on March 10, 2005, Bianca never made it...

In the early morning hours of December 10, 1999, an 18-year-old UCLA freshman finished playing a computer game in his dorm room, stepped into the hallway to high-five the friend he'd been playing against, and walked back toward his own room.  When his roommate woke up the next morning, Michael Negrete was gone. Bloodhounds traced his scent to a bus stop a few blocks away, but then the trail ju...

On the evening of January 2, 1999, two sisters stood on their street in Mesa, Arizona, waiting for the ice cream truck. The older girl, who was 11, had two quarters clutched in her hand. Her little sister, who was 9, got cold and ran inside — just for a minute. When she came back out, the bike her sister had been sitting on was lying in the road, one wheel still slowly spinning. The two quarters w...

Sometime in the pre-dawn hours of October 13, 2018, a 16-year-old girl walked out of her family's home in Chalfont, California and into the dark. It was a cold morning, but she wasn't wearing a jacket. She didn’t take her glasses, and she left her phone and money behind. She left everything. The last person to see her inside the house was her stepmother, who says she watched Karlie Gusé ly...

December 12, 1990 was the night before Norine Brown’s 32nd birthday. Late that night, the mother of two told her husband she was running out to the grocery store to buy ingredients for Christmas cookies. She grabbed some cash and got into her station wagon. The following morning, her car was found in the Pathmark parking lot a mile from her home. It was locked and there were Christmas presents wra...

On May 15, 2026, news broke that Gretchen Fleming's remains had been positively identified. That same day, it was also announced that Preston Pierce had been arrested on charges related to her murder. This story is developing, so this week we have a mini update on the charges and what is happening next on the case. What follows is our original episode on Gretchen Fleming from February 23, 2024...

On the night of February 2, 2006, Ali Gilmore came home from a late shift, got into bed, and started reading a prenatal book. She was four months pregnant. Ali had a complicated life: an estranged husband and a boyfriend. Did one of them lure her out of her home that night? The Tallahassee Police Department has called this the largest case file it has ever accumulated. There have been twenty years...

On the night of February 7, 2018, 23-year-old Khadijah Britton was at a friend's house in Covelo, California. Just eight days earlier, she had escaped from her boyfriend's home after he assaulted her, causing serious injuries. Khadijah reported the attack to police, but she was scared of what he would do to her if she followed through. That night, he showed up with a gun.  Witnesses report...

On the night of March 7, 2021, 41-year-old Sarm Heslop had dinner with her boyfriend on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands. It was a relaxed evening at a local bar, and afterwards, they took a short dinghy ride back to the 47-foot catamaran they lived on together, and went to bed. But by sunrise, Sarm was gone. Her phone, wallet and passport were still on the boat, but she was not. An...

In 2015, 19-year-old Kately Akens was visiting her family in Spotsylvania, Virginia and celebrating her new nephew. On December 5, she was supposed to board a flight back home to her fiancee in Arizona, but she never made it to the airport.  A suspect quickly emerged in her case, but police were never able to find enough evidence to make an arrest. Then, in April 2026, 10 years after she failed to...

This episode was originally released in 2022. Update episode can be found right above this one (Released 5/1/26). In 2015, 19-year-old Katelin Akens was getting ready to start a new life. The teenager fell in love, and left her small Virginia town to move across the country to Arizona with her fiancee. She was living her life and making changes, but when her sister gave birth to a son that Decembe...

On the morning of October 14, 2003, 23-year-old Felipe Santos was heading to work at a concrete and masonry company in North Naples, Florida. He was riding with two of his brothers when his white Ford Tempo collided with another car on Immokalee Road. It was a minor fender-bender, and no one was hurt. What happened next would depend on who you ask. But after that morning, Felipe was never seen aga...

On the morning of April 15, 2005, a well-respected district attorney in central Pennsylvania took a day off work, climbed into his beloved red Mini Cooper, and called his girlfriend to tell her he was going for a drive. That was the last anyone heard from him. Ray Gricar had spent twenty years prosecuting murderers and rapists in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and was on the cusp of retirement. What...

Late in the evening of September 13, 2010, 19-year-old Samantha Clarke was dressed in her pajamas and watching TV with her younger brother in their Orange, Virginia home. But after receiving a call, she told her brother she was going out and would be back in the morning. Samantha left her home, and has never been seen again. Police had few clues to work with, but did zero in on a person of interes...

 On Thursday, September 22, 2022, a 25-year-old woman left her apartment building in Salinas, California. She looked like anyone else going to work that morning. But she wasn’t wearing the right clothes, and she wasn’t leaving at the right time. Arelie Garcia never made it to her job that morning. Later that same day, her car was found more than an hour away, with her phone, keys, and wallet left...

Disappearing is something “all boys do at the age of 16.” That’s what police told Valerie Nettles when she discovered her 16-year-old son, Damien, hadn’t come home the night before. The teenager had been at a party with friends on November 2, 1996, but missed his midnight curfew, and couldn’t be found the next day. The Nettles family was frantic, but police treated Damien as a runaway.  This early...

On September 12, 1987, 50-year-old Dale Kerstetter clocked into his overnight security shift at Corning Glassworks in Bradford, Pennsylvania. It was supposed to be an ordinary night at a place he’d worked for years, but by the time morning came, Dale was gone– and so was over $250,000 in platinum.  Now, almost forty years later, Dale has never been found, and what happened that night remains a sub...

Fiona Pender was seven months pregnant and ready for her baby. On August 22, 1996, she went shopping for baby clothes with her mother and brother. It was a period of joy and nesting for the 25-year-old hairdresser and part-time model. According to her partner, John Thompson, Fiona was asleep the next morning when he left for work. He kissed her goodbye, left their flat on Church Street in Tullamor...

On September 21, 2015, 26-year-old Asha Kreimer was having breakfast with her boyfriend and her childhood friend in Point Arena, California. She got up to use the bathroom, and never returned. Her sudden disappearance would have been strange enough, but it was the culmination of four days of sleepless nights, a refusal to eat, and delusional thoughts. While many people believed that Asha may have...

“I’m going to be there one day, Mom.” That’s what Joe Pichler told his mom as a child when they were watching The Academy Awards together. While many kids have said something like that, Joe actively worked to make his dreams come true. A role in a local commercial led to gigs in TV and movies, and his star was on the rise. After returning to his hometown of Bremerton, Washington to finish high sch...

On February 13, 1996, eight-year-old Debbie Sassen left her elementary school in Düsseldorf, Germany after a morning swimming lesson. She was heading home for lunch, but she never arrived. In the span of a 900-meter walk through her quiet neighborhood, Debbie vanished without a trace.  For the next 30 years, her family was torn apart and left to wonder what happened to the bright, bubbly little gi...

On December 13, 2009, Steven Koecher disappeared after parking his car in an upscale neighborhood in Henderson, Nevada. Steven had no known associates in Henderson, so no one knew why the 30-year-old drove there that day. Was he there for a meeting? A job? No one in the neighborhood admitted to knowing him, or to having plans to meet with a young man that day. As the investigation went on, bank re...

On December 13, 2009, security cameras in Henderson, Nevada captured a man parking his white Chevy Cavalier at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Sun City Anthem neighborhood. He stepped out with something tucked under his arm, and walked purposefully down the sidewalk. He never came back. Two days later, the car was still there, but 30-year-old Steven Koecher was nowhere to be found. In the days and...

When 19-year-old Brittney Wood disappeared on May 30 2012, from Mobile, Alabama, it looked at first like so many stories we’ve heard before: a young woman vanished, and her family launched a desperate search, but there was no trace of her. But almost immediately, it became clear that this case was different. Because Brittney’s disappearance wasn’t the only police investigation into her family. In...