Before They Go Missing

Starla was 15 when the voices started. By 25, she was living on the streets. By 29, her family didn't know if she was alive. This is the story of untreated mental illness. Of a young woman with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression, and PTSD who tried to get help — but the system failed her. Of parents who did everything right and watched their daughter disappear anyway. Of a cous...

Julia was 10 years old when her dad overdosed. She went into foster care. Five placements. Multiple caseworkers. Then she turned 18 and the system stopped caring. Chelsea's mom was a lawyer who forgot to pick her up from school. By 15, she was in the system. By 18, she had nowhere to go. This is the story of what happens when the government decides you're an adult. Even though you've n...

For the first three weeks, the casseroles didn't stop coming. Brenda's refrigerator was full. Her freezer was full. Then by week six, the flowers were dead. By month three, people had mostly stopped asking how she was doing. By month six, something worse happened — they stopped saying her son's name. Tyler was nineteen when he died. Two years later, Brenda still thinks about him every...

He had three kids. Two of them lived in the same city. They all assumed someone else was checking on him. Jim was a foreman, a Little League coach, a father who taught his kids how to drive in empty parking lots on Sunday afternoons. He was the kind of man who remembered every birthday. Then a stroke took his car, his independence, his ability to move freely through the world. And somewhere betwee...

She had seventeen house plants. Each one named. Each one watered on a schedule she kept in a little notebook by her kitchen window. Margaret was 71. She hadn't left her apartment in six weeks. Not because she couldn't. Because there was nowhere to go and nobody who would notice if she did. This is the episode that started everything. THE NUMBER THIS WEEK Fifty-eight hours. That is the aver...