And Then They Were Gone

When his wife, Beverly Wise was murdered in their San Bernardino, California home in 1977 and their two oldest children were kidnapped, Claude Wise feared that he would never see them again. But two years later, in 1979, detectives told him that they believed his children were still alive. In fact, their investigation would reveal that the children had been hiding in plain sight: eating out in res...

On the afternoon of March 30, 1977, a young mother is brutally stabbed to death while home with her three young children. Her two oldest children, Brandi Summers and Tiffani Wise were taken. Her youngest child, Stacy Wise, who was only eight months old at the time, was later found sitting alone in the hallway, completely unharmed. Over the course of the next three years, police would uncover what...

A mom takes her six-year-old son out of school for a day at the zoo. It’s basically every kid’s dream. But Amy Fry-Pitzen failed to tell her husband about these plans, so he was confused when he went to pick his son, Timmothy up at the end of the school day, only to be told by the school secretary that he was gone. Amy was found shortly thereafter, but Timmothy Pitzen remains missing, nearly 10 ye...

A young geologist goes to work, but once he gets there, he’s acting confused and leaves 15 minutes later. His co-workers are concerned, and when time passes and he doesn’t respond to his family’s calls and texts, they begin to worry as well. Did Daniel Robinson decide to disconnect and leave on his own, or, as his family suspects, did he fall victim to a darker fate? It’s been  four months, and Da...

A couple starts off from Florida on a long road trip. But instead of making it to their ultimate destination together, the boyfriend returns alone to his mother’s home in his girlfriend’s car, and says he has no clue where she is. This isn’t the case you may be thinking of. This is the story of the 2020 disappearance of 36-year-old Kelley Brannon, from Live Oak, Florida, and the friends who are de...

CW: Child sexual abuseA man kidnaps his own child. He says that he did it to save her from sexual abuse. Her mother says that he’s brainwashing their daughter and using her to make money off of a sympathetic public. Sophie Long was last seen on July 12, 2021 in Seguin Texas. Her father has been on the run with her ever since. Is he a hero who is doing whatever he can to protect his daughter from a...

CW: Child sexual abuseA couple is going through a nasty custody battle. And then they go viral for the worst reason imaginable. Their 9-year-old daughter, Sophie, alleges that she is being sexually abused while at her mother’s house. The case is investigated, but one year later, in July of 2021, Sophie’s dad, Michael, abducts her. He claims that he’s trying to save her, but Sophie’s mother claims...

A woman goes missing under bizarre circumstances with a very clear suspect. Sound familiar? You probably haven't heard the story of Akia Eggleston, the 22-year-old black woman who went missing from Baltimore in 2017 when she was eight months pregnant. Despite a difficult pregnancy and suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance, Baltimore City Police suggested that she simply took o...

Gabby Petito and her fiance, Bryan Laundrie, are young, attractive, and Instagram-ready. The engaged couple bought a van, redid the inside, and set off for a cross-country adventure where they embraced hiking, the land, and the simple life. The couple left on July 2, 2021, and were supposed to be gone for 4 months. But on September 1, Brian returned home to Florida alone. Now, Gabby has officially...

On July 28, 1998, 18-year-old Deirdre Jacob was back home from university and staying with her parents for the summer. She was preparing to begin her second year at St. Mary's University in London and needed to mail the deposit for her school accommodations. So Deirdre made the walk into town like she had done hundreds of times before. Having grown up in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, she...

When Dennis Appleby came home during his lunch break and didn't see his 11-year-old daughter Trudy, he wasn't initially worried. It was the last days of summer and he assumed she was outside or over at a friend's house enjoying herself. But when he returned from work that evening and there was still no sign of Trudy, he knew something was wrong. Despite witnesses and even Dennis himsel...

After Bryce Laspisa told his mother he was pulling his car over to get some sleep on the way back to their Laguna Niguel, California home, he drove up to an access road for a cell tower and drove down a 25-foot embankment, crashing into the road below. But Bryce walked away from that crash. After weeks of searching nearby Castaic Lake, investigators believed that Bryce took his own life. But many...

When 19-year-old Bryce Laspisa broke up with his college girlfriend suddenly and told his parents that he had something he needed to talk to them about, they assumed that he was going through typical teenage problems. But when Bryce left his girlfriend’s house on the night of August 28th, Bryce didn’t go to his apartment. Instead he kept driving. And driving. What followed was over two days of aim...

Most disappearances happen quickly. Someone is there one moment and gone the next. But when 19-year-old Bryce Laspisa disappeared from California in 2013, it was the culmination of three days of strange behavior, driving, and contact with his family and law enforcement. In part one of Bryce's story, we discuss the three day period that saw the college student unexpectedly break up with his gir...

This is the first case we ever covered, and we've re-recorded the story for our one-year podcast anniversary. J.R. was only 5 when he went missing while playing with his older cousins on Short Mountain in West Virginia. It was a place he had spent many happy days before, but on May 1, 1994, something happened. Despite an immediate and extensive search effort, not a single trace of the boy was...

On September 16, 2019, 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez disappeared from a park in Bridgeton, New Jersey. In 2020, right as the Covid-19 pandemic was about to grip the world, three mysterious letters related to Dulce showed up in Ohio. This led police down a rabbit hole and investigators were left wondering if the sender was involved in the little girl’s disappearance, or if it was all a cruel hoax....

On September 16, 2019, 5-year-old Dulce Maria Alavez was playing in a park with her 3-year-old brother. It was a gorgeous day in Bridgeton, New Jersey, and the two children were enjoying ice cream. But in under 15 minutes, the idyllic day would turn into a parent's worst nightmare, when Manuel came running back to the car without his older sister. A search for Dulce Maria was immediately launc...

When a black, transgender woman went missing from Charlottesville, Virginia in 2012, her family was appalled by the lack of a police investigation, despite having a solid person of interest. In Part 2 of our look at Sage Smith's disappearance, we talk about the investigative timeline, Erik McFadden, the main person of interest, as well as some other possible suspects. Sage Smith has received a...

On November 20, 2012, 19-year-old Sage Smith was supposed to meet a man she had been seeing. She told her roommate where she was going and headed down to Charlottesville, Virginia's Main Street, where they were supposed to meet. Sage ran into her step-sister on her way, but was allegedly never seen after that. But the man she was supposed to meet, Erik McFadden, disappeared from the area just...

February 4, 2003 was the day before Sofia Juarez's 5th birthday. The little girl was excited, as any kid would be. It was around 9 pm, and Sofia's grandmother's boyfriend was going to the convenience store. Sofia's mom gave her a dollar to get a treat, and Sofia left the house. But she never made it to the store, and her family hasn't seen her since. Now, 18 years after the abd...

19-year-old Logan Schiendelman went for a drive early one morning. When he returned home, he told his grandmother, Ginnie, that he had an epiphany about his life. Logan had been floundering for the past year, so Ginnie hoped this meant that he was turning a corner. He had been struggling with his mixed-race identity, and his freshman year at Washington State University had not gone as planned. Now...

On a warm night in Beaumaris, in Victoria, Australia, the three Worledge children, 8-year-old Eloise, 6-year-old Anna, and 4-year-old Blake all went to sleep. Though their parents had been going through a rocky patch and had been arguing a lot, the day was an ordinary one for the children. But the next morning, only two of them would wake up in their beds. Eloise was gone. What followed was the la...

This week, we wrap up the case of missing 38-year-old Ralph Jean-Marie. Ralph went missing in Barre, Vermont on April 13, 2020. Just over one year later, police admit that they're no further along than they were when the investigation began. Now, family members and activists are calling for more accountability from the Barre Police Department, as well as additional investigative measures, incl...

Late at night on April 13, 2020, 38-year-old Ralph Jean-Marie left his motel room in Barre, Vermont after having an argument with girlfriend. Cooling off after a fight is a normal thing to do, but Ralph never came back. And no one reported him missing until 68 hours later. The next month, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and the country was filled with protests for racial justice. Local ac...

In this week's episode, we conclude our look into the unexplained disappearance of Cindy Anderson. Several named suspects emerge, and we go over our theories of what happened to the 20-year-old Toledo, Ohio legal secretary back in 1981. Could the answer lie in the pair of serial killers working in the area at the time, or did Cindy's nightmares about someone she trusted hurting her come cl...