And Then They Were Gone

On March 22, 2010, 23-year-old Nokesville, Virginia resident Shane Donahue was having a good day. He had just gotten paid $5,000 in cash for installing ceiling tiles at a local business. He was with his buddy, Timothy Hickerson, who helped him with the job. The friends went over to Shane’s parents’ house for a while before getting into Timothy’s truck and heading off. But no one ever saw Shane aga...

In 1999, she saved a couple from flooding after Hurricane Floyd. In 2002, she joined the Army so she could serve her country after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In 2006, she vanished. On October 10, 2006, 29-year-old Margaret Haddican-McEnroe was a mother of three girls, including a 6-month-old, when she allegedly walked out of her Warren, New Jersey home, leaving behind her cell phone, car, and her...

On October 2, 2024, police announced a huge break in the case of missing 6-year-old, Morgan Nick. A hair that is a DNA match to hers was found in the truck owned by longtime suspect in her case, Billy Jack Links. Links died in prison in 2000, so now the investigation's focus is on finding Morgan's body. We released our episode on Morgan's case in 2021, so this week we are re-releasing...

In the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, 9-year-old Asha Degree took her backpack and slipped out of her Shelby, North Carolina home. Several motorists later reported seeing her walking alone in a rainstorm at around 4 am. Where was she going? What or who made her leave her home that night? Over the next 24 years, Asha Degree’s story has been the subject of countless blogs, internet forums...

Paul Bergrin is a hotshot criminal defense attorney in Newark, New Jersey. Seemingly unstoppable and with unorthodox methods, he’s built a reputation for getting his clients off the hook. But as Paul's legend grows, so do the suspicions swirling around him. When FBI Agent Shawn Brokos starts investigating a major drug ring, she makes a shocking discovery: the gang's most powerful player is...

A 15-year-old girl had an argument with her father about her grades. It’s a scene parents all over the world are likely familiar with, and one that is usually forgotten in a day or two. But when Katya Lyne had this argument with her father, Pat, on March 21, 1997, it ended in tragedy. Within days, Katya was missing, and her father was dead. The Lyne family’s world was completely turned upside down...

Asha Degree was a bright, talented, happy 9-year-old living with her parents and brother in Shelby, North Carolina. She was an excellent student and the star of her basketball team. Surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, there was no shortage of love in Asha’s life. But in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, Asha took her backpack that she had packed with several changes...

On January 29, 1992, Byron Page was getting ready to go to college and take his driver’s exam. He had already been accepted into several schools, with more acceptance letters on the way. That afternoon, the 17-year-old decided to take the bus to his favorite movie and music store in West Hollywood, California. He never made it. Despite being a promising student with no issues in his personal life,...

Today’s story is one about intimate partner violence. According to her family, friends, and police and court records, Mamta Kafle’s husband, Naresh Bhatt, was abusing her. He hid her documents, destroyed her phone, threatened to give their baby to social services, and physically abused her. Throughout it all, Mamta remained a kind, caring friend and a mother whose baby was her entire world. But th...

On November 20, 1987, Louis and Susan Zaharias had an argument. By this point, fights weren’t uncommon for the couple, who had been married for six years. Susan was a stay-at-home mom with two small children who was feeling isolated while her husband worked long hours far away. But this day was different. Susan was acting paranoid, and not like herself. After a violent altercation, Louis left the...

On August 2, 2024, Manassas Park Police visited the Virginia home that Mamta Kafle shared with her husband, Naresh Bhatt. They were there to perform a welfare check because Mamta didn’t show up to work at UVA Health Prince William Medical Center on August 1, and her colleagues were concerned. Naresh allegedly told police that Mamta had disappeared before, and that he didn’t want to file a missing...

Introducing…World of Secrets: The Apartheid Killer Introducing a NEW investigation from the BBC’s World of Secrets podcast: The Apartheid Killer. All the victims were black and the youngest was just 12 years old. Some relatives are still searching for the graves. They were killed during a three-year bloodbath in the 1980s, in the South African city of East London – by one person. He killed so many...

Disappearances can happen in an instant. On April 19, 2016, 16-year-old Tyler Christensen went on a jog. He wanted to get a short run in on his way to a youth group meeting. But Tyler never arrived. After Tyler’s family realized that he was gone, they assumed something terrible must have happened to him. After all, he was a happy kid, living in Edmonds, Washington with a loving family and seemingl...

It was a scene straight out of an action movie: specifically The Bourne Identity . On September 16, 2008, the captain of a Staten Island Ferry saw a woman floating face down in the Hudson River, near the Statue of Liberty. Horrified and thinking they found a dead body, two deckhands jumped in a rescue boat and went to her. When they reached the woman, one picked her up by her ankles, while another...

On August 1, 2018, 28-year-old Samantha Sayers was ready for an adventure. An experienced hiker, Sam decided to drive two hours away from her Seattle home and tackle Vesper’s Peak. The hike was supposed to only be a day trip, so when darkness fell with no word from Samantha, her boyfriend, Kevin Dare grew concerned. Worried that she was injured, he drove out to the trail. But instead of his girlfr...

Though our podcast focuses on unsolved missing persons cases, over the course of the last four years, we’ve seen movement on many of the cases we’ve covered, including some resolutions. This week, we’re going to revisit a few of the missing people whose stories we’ve told on this podcast and give you updates on what’s going on in their cases today. In this episode, we're updating you on the st...

In 2014, a little girl named Relisha Rudd went missing while living in a Washington DC homeless shelter, but no one noticed. For 18 days, no one in Relisha’s life saw her, but no one reported her missing. It wasn’t until a social worker from her school visited the shelter in person that he realized the little girl whom he had been told was sick, wasn’t sick at all. She was just gone. Relisha’s sto...

On November 21, 2022, 11-year-old Madalina Cojocari boarded her school bus and went to school as usual. That afternoon, the bus dropped her off near her Cornelius, North Carolina home. But the next day, the bus went to school without Madalina, and no one at her school has seen her since. The most chilling part of her disappearance? Madalina’s family never reported her missing. Both Madalina’s moth...

This is a re-release of our April 2023 episode on Madalina Cojocari. You can listen to our June 2024 update here. Imagine the abject fear a parent would experience after their 11-year-old child has been missing for over three weeks. No one has heard from her, no one has seen her. You’d be climbing the walls, right? Begging investigators and the public to help you find her? That’s what usually happ...

After 26 years of marriage, Bonnie Lee Schultz was ready to spread her wings. After being a stay-at-home mom to her two children, Josh and Gretchen, she was working part-time and had just started a second job. She was meeting new people and finding new opportunities. In 1997, Bonnie decided that a more drastic life change was in order: she wanted a divorce. Bonnie’s husband, Rick Schultz, didn’t w...

When Mattie Mitchell was watching her great-grandchildren at their Wichita, Kansas home, she decided to lie down and go to sleep with them. After all, what could be safer than keeping the little ones close? But when Mattie woke up at around 3 am on September 5, 2001, her four-year-old great-grandaughter, Jaquilla Scales was gone. Mattie wasn’t sure what had happened, just that Jaquilla had disappe...

July 30, 1985 was a hot summer day in Toronto, Ontario, and 8-year-old Nicole Morin planned on spending it at the pool with her friends. The little girl donned her bathing suit, grabbed her beach towel, and said goodbye to her mother, Jeanette. It was around 11 am when Nicole left her penthouse apartment and headed to the elevator to meet her friend in the lobby. But Nicole never arrived. Once Jea...

A 15-year-old boy finishes his nightly chores and goes to bed. But the next morning when his mother tries to wake him up for school, he’s gone. That’s what happened in the early morning hours of February 26, 2024, when Sebastian Rogers seemingly disappeared from his Hendersonville, Tennessee home. What at first seemed to be a teenager walking off in the middle of the night has turned into a much m...

A troubled marriage leads to divorce and a bitter custody battle, with two young children caught in the middle. In 2011 Julia Birukova and her two children, 4-year-old Maile and 2-year-old Sky were living in an apartment in Redmond, Washington. On November 6, 2011, Julia and her children were up early. Sky was sick, and she needed to take him to the hospital. She bundled the children into her brot...

No new episode this week, so in celebration of the release of The Tortured Poet's Department, Taylor Swift's new album, and the song, "Florida," we're re-releasing the episode on Richard Hoagland, the Indianapolis family man who walked away from his wife and kids in 1993 and decided to re-invent himself in-- you guessed it-- Florida. --- Richard Hoagland was a successful family...