Latest / The conspiracy / Mysterious Missing Children Cold Cases-Part 1

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Mysterious Missing Children Cold Cases-Part 1 · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: A child walks out the door one summer morning, a
0:03
Speaker 1: pool towel under her arm, and the whole day ahead
0:06
Speaker 1: of her. Two sisters play outside their building in the
0:09
Speaker 1: mid afternoon, while a toddler clumps around a campsite in
0:12
Speaker 1: oversized cowboy boots, and a girl answers a knock at
0:16
Speaker 1: the front door. These are ordinary moments, the kind no
0:20
Speaker 1: one thinks to remember because nothing is supposed to happen,
0:24
Speaker 1: but something did, and in each case, a child was
0:27
Speaker 1: never seen again. And these are their stories, the stories
0:31
Speaker 1: of four children still missing. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers,
0:37
Speaker 1: and murder, all things that I love to consume, and
0:39
Speaker 1: I know you do too, you stick twisted, beautiful, intellectually
0:42
Speaker 1: minded freak. Now, today we are talking about a few
0:45
Speaker 1: cases that have not been solved. But on the chance
0:48
Speaker 1: that someone out there might know something or recognize one
0:52
Speaker 1: of these kids or anything, we are going to tell
0:55
Speaker 1: their stories. So, without further ado, let's get into these
0:58
Speaker 1: four cases. Tianda Ze Bradley was born on January twentieth,
1:16
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, in Chicago, Illinois. She was ten years old,
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Speaker 1: four foot two and seventy pounds with brown hair and
1:24
Speaker 1: brown eyes, and she notably had a long ponytail and
1:27
Speaker 1: a burn scar on her left forearm around the size
1:30
Speaker 1: of a quarter, and her great aunt, Shelia Bradley Smith
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Speaker 1: described her as sassy and quick witted, the kind of
1:37
Speaker 1: kid who'd entertain a whole room without even trying. And
1:40
Speaker 1: dancing was her love and she did it everywhere, and
1:43
Speaker 1: Julia used to tell her, quote unquote, dance for my baby,
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Speaker 1: and Tianda would dance and dance. And she was also
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Speaker 1: the responsible one, the little mama to her younger sister Diamond,
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Speaker 1: and phone numbers stuck in her head and she'd pick
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Speaker 1: up the phone and call her great aunt for no
1:58
Speaker 1: reason other than to just check in. And her catchphrase
2:02
Speaker 1: was girl and when she said goodbye, it came out
2:05
Speaker 1: as baby bye. And that summer she was taking classes
2:09
Speaker 1: at Doolittle Elementary School, which was two blocks from where
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Speaker 1: the family lived now. Diamond Yvette Bradley was born on
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Speaker 1: November twenty fifth, nineteen ninety seven, and she was three
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Speaker 1: years old, three feet tall and forty pounds with black
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Speaker 1: hair and deep set brown eyes. And she wore her
2:25
Speaker 1: hair in braided ponytails with purple holders and had a
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Speaker 1: scar on the left side of her scalp. Now, Sheliah
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Speaker 1: called her a quiet, shy, late back little girl with
2:35
Speaker 1: a sweet smile, and she was timid around new people,
2:38
Speaker 1: but once she felt comfortable, she loved to talk. Now,
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Speaker 1: the two of these girls were part of a household
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Speaker 1: of four Bradley sisters, Rita the oldest at twelve, Tianda
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Speaker 1: at ten, Victoria at nine, and Diamond the baby, at three,
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Speaker 1: and they lived with their mother, Tracy Bradley, in the
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Speaker 1: Lake Grove Village apartments in Oakland, which was a neighborhood
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Speaker 1: part of the Bronsville area on Chicago's South Side. Family
3:00
Speaker 1: wasn't far away because there were relatives nearby, and the
3:03
Speaker 1: families looked after each other's kids, with whoever was available
3:07
Speaker 1: taking a shift. They really had a village, and the
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Speaker 1: girl's grandmother, Mary Tiny Bradley, lived in the Robert Taylor Homes,
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Speaker 1: a public housing complex in Bronzeville, and Tracy also worked there.
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Speaker 1: So the two girls bounced between their mom's apartments and
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Speaker 1: their grandmother's and over at Robert Taylor Park. They were
3:25
Speaker 1: enrolled in dance and gymnastics. Now, months before they vanished,
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Speaker 1: Shelia saw the girls one last time at a family funeral,
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Speaker 1: and Tianda was dancing, and Diamond, true to form, was
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Speaker 1: hiding behind a corner peeking out at her great aunt
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Speaker 1: with that quiet little smile of hers, and they were
3:40
Speaker 1: both just full of life in their own way. So
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Speaker 1: in the evening of July fifth, two thousand and one,
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Speaker 1: two of the four Bradley sisters were sent to spend
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Speaker 1: the night with their grandmother, so Victoria and Rita went
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Speaker 1: to Robert Taylor homes and Diamond and Tianda stayed behind
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Speaker 1: at the apartment with Tracy. In around nine thirty PM,
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Speaker 1: two of Tracy's friends came over to watch the Cubs
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Speaker 1: play the Mets, and one of them was a neighbor
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Speaker 1: known as Porgy, who sometimes babysat the girls, along with
4:09
Speaker 1: his friend Stephen, and they left around ten thirty, and
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Speaker 1: once the friends were gone, a neighbor stopped by, though
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Speaker 1: he didn't go any deeper into the apartment than the entryway,
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Speaker 1: and he said he didn't see the girls. Then Tracy
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Speaker 1: left to go to her boyfriend George's house for the night,
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Speaker 1: having told Tianda and Diamond not to let anyone inside,
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Speaker 1: so Diamond and Tianda were home alone all night. A
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Speaker 1: ten year old and a three year old all by
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Speaker 1: themselves in that apartment, and throughout the night, the apartment's
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Speaker 1: phone was active with calls going in and out, and
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Speaker 1: one came in around two am and another went out
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Speaker 1: to George's place, and law enforcement still doesn't know who
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Speaker 1: made those calls now. On the morning of July sixth,
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Speaker 1: George drove Tracy to work for her seven am shift,
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Speaker 1: and on her break, Tracy tried the apartment oh and
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Speaker 1: over again. Seven to fifty eight am, no answer, eight
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Speaker 1: oh six am, no answer, eight forty five am, no answer,
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Speaker 1: and she left a message to pick up the phone.
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Speaker 1: And at eight seventeen am, someone in the apartment dialed
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Speaker 1: Tracy's cell and it's believed to have been Tianta, but
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Speaker 1: the call went unanswered and the boys mail was maw
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Speaker 1: George is at the door around eleven am, and around
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Speaker 1: eleven am, George picked Tracy up from work and the
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Speaker 1: two of them headed to the apartment and walked upstairs,
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Speaker 1: but the girls were gone, and at eleven twenty nine am,
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Speaker 1: George phoned the apartment and left a voicemail saying the
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Speaker 1: girls should pack up their clothes and blankets because they
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Speaker 1: were going camping at Lake Schaeffer, Indiana. Then George borrowed
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Speaker 1: twenty dollars from Porgy and took Tracy to jewel Osco
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Speaker 1: for Victoria's birthday cake at twelve twenty one pm. And
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Speaker 1: there's a receipt in support of it, because Victoria had
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Speaker 1: a birthday on July seventh. Now, back at the apartment,
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Speaker 1: something was waiting for them, a note sitting on the
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Speaker 1: back of the sofa, right next to a pile of clothes,
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Speaker 1: and it was attributed to Tianda, and the message said
6:07
Speaker 1: the two of them went to the store and then
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Speaker 1: the school playground. Doolittle Elementary had their summer classes running
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Speaker 1: and Tianda was supposed to be there, but she never showed,
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Speaker 1: and kids in the neighborhood told police they'd spotted Tianda
6:20
Speaker 1: and Diamond outside the building around noon playing and that
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Speaker 1: was the last trace of either of them. So from
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Speaker 1: roughly one pm to six pm, Tracy searched for the girls,
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Speaker 1: and George took her down thirty fifth Street in the
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Speaker 1: direction of the Lakefront and told her to call Chicago
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Speaker 1: PD and then he left, but Tracy didn't call because
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Speaker 1: she was terrified the state would come for Rita. In Victoria,
6:43
Speaker 1: as her sister had already lost her own children to
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Speaker 1: the state, and that fear kept her from picking up
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Speaker 1: the phone, so police weren't called until approximately six pm,
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Speaker 1: roughly seven hours after Tracy came home to an empty apartment,
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Speaker 1: and no suspect has ever been formally named in the
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Speaker 1: disappearance of Diamond and Tianda Bradley, but within the family's orbit,
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Speaker 1: one person drew more scrutiny than anyone else, and that
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Speaker 1: was Tracy's boyfriend, George, and mainstream coverage only ever called
7:14
Speaker 1: him the boyfriend, and a documentary in podcast accounts, he's
7:17
Speaker 1: identified as George Washington, and he was actually married the
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Speaker 1: whole time he was with Tracy to a woman who
7:24
Speaker 1: was also named Diamond, and DNA testing confirmed he was
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Speaker 1: Diamond Bradley's father, a fact he refused to believe and
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Speaker 1: never acknowledged, and Tracy had named her daughter Diamond intentionally
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Speaker 1: and act aimed squarely at George, which is just so
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Speaker 1: messed up. But George kept his distance from Tracy's kids,
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Speaker 1: and Rita described later that he had no interest in
7:46
Speaker 1: them and that he didn't want them near him, so
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Speaker 1: his contact with the girls was very minimal, but on
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Speaker 1: July fifth, the day before they vanished, George proposed something
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Speaker 1: out of character, that camping trip to Lake Schaeffer, Indiana,
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Speaker 1: about two hours south of Chicago. The family and their
8:02
Speaker 1: private investigator found this suspicious, and Pip Foster was blunt
8:07
Speaker 1: about it, saying, quote, there was a planned trip for
8:10
Speaker 1: these children to go on a camping trip. That camping
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Speaker 1: trip is all fraudulent. That camping trip never manifested. And
8:17
Speaker 1: on July sixth, George made a home depot run for
8:20
Speaker 1: bleach contractor bags and heavy duty gloves, and four bags
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Speaker 1: were gone from the role, but he claimed he had
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Speaker 1: only used two and he said it was all for
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Speaker 1: home renovations, and he told investigators she threw the garbage
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Speaker 1: bags into a lagoon near Washington Park, but the trash
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Speaker 1: was never found, and the bleach caught investigator's attention because
8:42
Speaker 1: they thought it could have been used to clean up
8:44
Speaker 1: in the aftermath, and neighbors told the same story. At
8:47
Speaker 1: his garage, about ten miles from the apartment, George was
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Speaker 1: seen burning something in a fifty five gallon drum, then
8:55
Speaker 1: loading the barrel into his car and driving off, and
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Speaker 1: when investigators examined his vehicle, they found charring and the
9:01
Speaker 1: outline of what appeared to be a metal drum, and
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Speaker 1: they also found hair in the trunk, one strand matching
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Speaker 1: Tianda and another matched Tracy. And according to Rita, the
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Speaker 1: girls had barely ever ridden in George's car, maybe four
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Speaker 1: or five times in total, and they'd never once been
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Speaker 1: in the trunk. But George would have an answer for
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Speaker 1: that too, saying he'd stash the girls in the trunk
9:23
Speaker 1: to skip the cover charge at drive in theaters. And
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Speaker 1: later that night, George got in his car and headed
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Speaker 1: to Gary, Indiana, about forty five minutes from Chicago, and
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Speaker 1: a woman and Gary said George turned up at her
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Speaker 1: door visibly rattled, though nobody has been able to confirm
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Speaker 1: her account. At around two am, law enforcement dialed George's
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Speaker 1: home number and someone picked up and talked for about
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Speaker 1: three minutes, but it wasn't George, and then there was Tracy.
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Speaker 1: Now for twenty two years, Tracy gave investigators and the
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Speaker 1: press the same story. George came to her place that
9:57
Speaker 1: night and slept over, but that was a lie because
10:01
Speaker 1: she had gone to his place, And the truth didn't
10:03
Speaker 1: come out until a twenty twenty three television special detectives
10:07
Speaker 1: set up meetings with her, and she blew them off
10:09
Speaker 1: more than once, and in March two thousand and two,
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Speaker 1: an officer asked her to come to the precinct to
10:14
Speaker 1: discuss new leads, and she actually shoved him, so they
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Speaker 1: coffed her and brought her in, and she talked to
10:20
Speaker 1: investigators for a few minutes before her lawyer showed up
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Speaker 1: and ended the conversation. And the note Tianda supposedly left
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Speaker 1: raised its own questions, and relatives who spoke to Dateline
10:31
Speaker 1: said the note looked too polished because the spelling and
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Speaker 1: grammar were beyond what a ten year old would produce.
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Speaker 1: And on top of that, a note wasn't Tianda's style,
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Speaker 1: since she had phone numbers memorized and if she wanted
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Speaker 1: her mom to know something, she would always just call.
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Speaker 1: Julia was more direct, saying, quote, the person who took
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Speaker 1: the girls was right there beside her telling her exactly
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Speaker 1: what to write. She was being coached unquote. And then
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Speaker 1: there was the voicemail that may or may not exist.
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Speaker 1: DeAndre reportedly left a second voicemail, and in it she
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Speaker 1: said she and Diamond were heading to the store with
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Speaker 1: George to get Victoria's birthday cake. But police say that
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Speaker 1: message never reached them because they never listened to it
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Speaker 1: and they'd never had a copy. But family members say
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Speaker 1: they did hear it, and Tracy's sister had configured the
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Speaker 1: voicemail pins for the family's phone plan, so she logged
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Speaker 1: into Tracy's voicemail and heard the message herself. But days
11:27
Speaker 1: later it vanished, and Tracy's sister, April described it as
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Speaker 1: quote ending up in the wrong hands unquote, And according
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Speaker 1: to Shelia, she captured the voicemail on her cell phone
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Speaker 1: and forward it to her own email, but consumer cell
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Speaker 1: phones in two thousand and one couldn't record audio. The
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Speaker 1: retired detective ed Carol pleaded with Shelia because he wanted
11:48
Speaker 1: to hear that recording himself. Nothing ever came of it.
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Speaker 1: Chicago Detective Pamela Child's, who worked the case from the
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Speaker 1: very beginning, said, quote at the very beginning, in the
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Speaker 1: deepest part of me, I felt that somebody had the
12:00
Speaker 1: girls unquote, and there were no signs of forced entry.
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Speaker 1: And from the beginning, Child believed whoever took the girls
12:07
Speaker 1: was someone familiar to them, and in her view, only
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Speaker 1: two people held the answers. Quote, George and Tracy were
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Speaker 1: the only two people that we could look at to
12:16
Speaker 1: bring more clarity to what happened to Tianda and Diamond unquote,
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Speaker 1: and the family agreed, and according to Shaliah quote, this
12:23
Speaker 1: is not a case of stranger danger. They knew to
12:26
Speaker 1: be suspicious of strangers. It was somebody they knew, somebody
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Speaker 1: they trusted, unquote. But no charges have ever been filed
12:33
Speaker 1: against George because the evidence remains circumstantial, which is just
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Speaker 1: such absolute bullshit to me, given the evidence that was found,
12:44
Speaker 1: But what do I know? Diamond and Tanda Bradley became
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Speaker 1: what investigators called one of the biggest missing person's operations
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Speaker 1: in Chicago's history, and FBI special Agent Johnson called it,
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Speaker 1: quote one of the longest continuous searches conducted nationwide unquote.
13:00
Speaker 1: And the response was enormous, and for weeks, hundreds of
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Speaker 1: Chicago police, FBI agents, and civilian volunteers combed the South Side,
13:08
Speaker 1: working through its streets, sewers abandoned factories and buildings, and
13:13
Speaker 1: they conducted dozens of interviews and ran down close to
13:16
Speaker 1: one hundred of the area's registered defenders, and the investigation
13:20
Speaker 1: reached all the way to Wisconsin, where they went through
13:23
Speaker 1: the children's great grandfather's house, but nothing turned up, and
13:26
Speaker 1: Tracy and George were interrogated separately and each session lasted
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Speaker 1: twenty two hours, and they each sat for a polygraph,
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Speaker 1: and police sources said both came back clean, but Foster,
13:38
Speaker 1: the PI working for the family, told a different story,
13:41
Speaker 1: saying George's polygraph was inconclusive. Investigators also chased leads far
13:47
Speaker 1: beyond Chicago, and there was a lead involving a North
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Speaker 1: African man who had been paying child support for one
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Speaker 1: of the girls, but that stopped in the summer of
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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and when he discovered he wasn't
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Speaker 1: the biological father, FBI agents flew to Morocco to investigate,
14:02
Speaker 1: but they came up empty handed. And over the years,
14:05
Speaker 1: around twelve people have came forward claiming to be the
14:09
Speaker 1: Bradley sisters, most of whom were quickly dismissed, and in
14:13
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a young woman in Texas claimed to be Diamond,
14:17
Speaker 1: but her claim was determined to be false, and then
14:20
Speaker 1: in May twenty twenty three, another woman in Harris County, Texas,
14:23
Speaker 1: posted a TikTok video making the same claim. And she
14:26
Speaker 1: reached out to Salia on Facebook and she agreed to
14:29
Speaker 1: a cheek swab and submitted her fingerprints to the FBI.
14:33
Speaker 1: And her story was that she had memories of riding
14:35
Speaker 1: in a car and spending time around Tianda, and that
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Speaker 1: at some point she was separated from her and never
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Speaker 1: saw Tianda again. And she also claimed she'd only recently
14:45
Speaker 1: gotten free from the people who had kept her captive.
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Speaker 1: In one detail in particular stood out because Diamond's records
14:52
Speaker 1: listed a scar on the left side of her scalp,
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Speaker 1: and the woman had scarring in the same area, and
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Speaker 1: Shelia said quote, I've never known or experienced someone so
15:01
Speaker 1: eager to tear down the doors of the FBI to
15:04
Speaker 1: prove who they are, so that gives me a different
15:06
Speaker 1: dynamic of hope. But the FBI stayed silent on the matter,
15:11
Speaker 1: and as of the last reporting, no DNA results were
15:14
Speaker 1: made public, and police believe that if Tianda were alive
15:18
Speaker 1: and free, she would have reached out to her family
15:20
Speaker 1: by now. So the working theory is grim. Either the
15:24
Speaker 1: girls are deceased or they were moved out of the
15:28
Speaker 1: United States, and Chicago PD is still running point on
15:31
Speaker 1: the investigation. With the FBI backing them, and as of
15:35
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, there are no new leads and ten
15:38
Speaker 1: thousand dollars is on the table for anyone who could
15:41
Speaker 1: help locate Diamond and Tianda Bradley and age progression. Photos
15:44
Speaker 1: from the National Center for Missing Unexploited Children show what
15:47
Speaker 1: the sisters might look like today, because Tianda would be
15:51
Speaker 1: thirty five now and Diamond would be twenty eight. And
15:55
Speaker 1: for two decades, Sheliah has been the one speaking for
15:58
Speaker 1: the family, building out Facebook ages to keep the case
16:01
Speaker 1: in front of people, and every year on the anniversary,
16:04
Speaker 1: the family gathers for a visual and in twenty twenty one,
16:07
Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary, more than fifty relatives gathered at Robert
16:11
Speaker 1: Taylor Park, and Tracy told reporters, quote, we have to
16:15
Speaker 1: keep them in the public eye, in the news, and
16:17
Speaker 1: hope it breaks through. We have to keep Hope alive unquote.
16:21
Speaker 1: And Julia stood beside her and addressed the crowd, saying, quote,
16:24
Speaker 1: someone took Tianda and Diamond Bradley. Everybody knows Tianda and
16:28
Speaker 1: Diamond didn't just vanish. It's time to break the silence unquote.
16:33
Speaker 1: And in July twenty twenty five, they held the twenty
16:36
Speaker 1: fourth anniversary visual at the Dan Ryan Forest Woods, and
16:39
Speaker 1: the family sees it this way. No bodies means no
16:42
Speaker 1: charges because the evidence is circumstantial, and in their eyes,
16:46
Speaker 1: that's why prosecutors won't move forward. But Jalia is still
16:50
Speaker 1: holding out, saying, quote, I'm not sure that they're out
16:53
Speaker 1: there alive, but we still hold on to hope. You
16:56
Speaker 1: have to have hope unquote. So if you know anything
17:00
Speaker 1: about Tianda and Diamond, please please reach out to their
17:04
Speaker 1: local authorities. I want to take a quick pause to
17:07
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17:09
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17:12
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17:14
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17:16
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17:20
Speaker 1: Because I almost did it before something felt off. Now
17:24
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17:27
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17:30
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Speaker 1: and let's get back to it. Dior Coons Junior was
18:45
Speaker 1: two years old. Born on December thirtieth, twenty twelve, in
18:49
Speaker 1: Idaho Falls, Idaho, and everyone called him little Man. He
18:53
Speaker 1: lived with his mother, Jessica Mitchell, and his father, Vernal
18:57
Speaker 1: Dior Kuons and two additional children from Mitchell's earlier relationship.
19:02
Speaker 1: Vernal was a truck driver and spent a lot of
19:05
Speaker 1: time on the road, and Dior had three things he
19:08
Speaker 1: took everywhere, his blanket, his cop and his stuffed monkey,
19:12
Speaker 1: and according to his parents, he didn't go anywhere without them.
19:15
Speaker 1: And his grandmother Trina Clegg adored him, calling him sweet
19:19
Speaker 1: baby Dire and sweet Handsome Dire. So on July ninth,
19:23
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, the family would take a camping trip about
19:26
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five miles northwest of Idaho Falls
19:30
Speaker 1: out near the tiny town of Ladore in Lemai County.
19:33
Speaker 1: Door's great grandfather, Robert Walton, knew the area very well
19:37
Speaker 1: Timber Creek Campground because he'd been going there since he
19:40
Speaker 1: was younger, and by then Walton was well into old
19:44
Speaker 1: age and he personally couldn't go anywhere without an oxygen machine.
19:47
Speaker 1: And his friend Isaac Rainwand was coming along as well,
19:51
Speaker 1: and that trip was the first time Rainwand had ever
19:53
Speaker 1: been around Mitchell Koon's or Little Doore. Now the two
19:57
Speaker 1: groups drove separately, Dior and his parents in one vehicle
20:00
Speaker 1: and Walton and Rainwand in another. A night had already
20:04
Speaker 1: fallen when they pulled into the campground, so Rainwand pitched
20:07
Speaker 1: a tent and Walton slept in his camper and door
20:11
Speaker 1: along with his parents set up in the rear of
20:13
Speaker 1: Walton's blue Chevy Blazer. And the campground was remote, with
20:16
Speaker 1: a steep hill on one side and on the opposite side,
20:20
Speaker 1: and the ground fell away eight to ten feet down
20:22
Speaker 1: to a creek that nobody else was camping anywhere near
20:25
Speaker 1: them at the time. Now, the next morning, July tenth,
20:28
Speaker 1: everyone gathered for breakfast and Dior was wearing a pair
20:32
Speaker 1: of cowboy boots that were too big for his feet,
20:34
Speaker 1: and Rainwand remembered watching him clump around the campsite in them.
20:38
Speaker 1: And it was around midday Mitchell and Koons drove Dior
20:41
Speaker 1: out to the Stage Stop Junction store in Ladore, which
20:45
Speaker 1: was about a thirty minute ride over rough terrain, and
20:48
Speaker 1: when they returned, Mitchell and Kons headed off to walk
20:51
Speaker 1: the area around the site and Mitchell says she told
20:54
Speaker 1: Walton to watch the boy before she and coons headed out,
20:57
Speaker 1: but Walton said he never heard her ask, and his
21:00
Speaker 1: version was that he'd been alone inside the trailer, just resting.
21:04
Speaker 1: But Walton's own account shifted because eventually he acknowledged that
21:08
Speaker 1: Dior had been near the water right there with him,
21:11
Speaker 1: and that he turned away briefly and then Dior wasn't
21:15
Speaker 1: there anymore. In Rainwan's account meanwhile, placed him down at
21:18
Speaker 1: the water fishing on his own, with Dior not with him,
21:22
Speaker 1: and former Laia County Sheriff Steve Penner later summed it up, saying, quote,
21:26
Speaker 1: they left Dior in the care of their grandfather. They
21:29
Speaker 1: went fishing for a little bit, and then came back
21:31
Speaker 1: and he was gone, and Walton thought he was with them.
21:35
Speaker 1: Isaac was off in the creek fishing unquote. Nobody noticed
21:39
Speaker 1: the boy was gone for about thirty minutes. His blanket
21:43
Speaker 1: was still at the campsite, and so were his cup
21:46
Speaker 1: and his stuffed monkey, the three things he never went
21:48
Speaker 1: anywhere without all left behind. And at two twenty eight pm,
21:53
Speaker 1: Mitchell called nine to one one, quote, my two year
21:56
Speaker 1: old son, We can't find him. He was wearing cowboy boots,
22:00
Speaker 1: pajama pants, and a camo jacket, and he's got shaky
22:03
Speaker 1: blonde hair. And Coons took off in his truck, racing
22:07
Speaker 1: down a dirt road until his phone found a signal,
22:10
Speaker 1: while Mitchell's phone caught enough reception right there at the
22:12
Speaker 1: site to make a call, and Khons later told reporters, quote,
22:16
Speaker 1: it's such a small area. That's what a lot of
22:19
Speaker 1: people don't understand. They just assume, how could you let
22:22
Speaker 1: your kid out of your site? Well, this area is
22:25
Speaker 1: pretty well blocked in and there's no way you could
22:27
Speaker 1: not see him unquote. But Dior Coons Junior was never found,
22:31
Speaker 1: and for six months, investigators worked the case without publicly
22:35
Speaker 1: naming anyone. And that changed in January twenty sixteen, when
22:40
Speaker 1: then Sheriff Lynn Bowerman told reporters he believed Dior's parents
22:44
Speaker 1: were withholding information. And Bowerman's position was that Dior was dead,
22:49
Speaker 1: though whether it happened by accident or on purpose, he
22:52
Speaker 1: wouldn't say for certain, but Bowerman was direct about it,
22:55
Speaker 1: telling Dateline quote, I believe his parents are hiding something.
22:59
Speaker 1: There's no doubt in my mind. Quote, and he added
23:02
Speaker 1: that he believed the case quote has to be a
23:05
Speaker 1: homicide unquote, and that Dior was not anywhere on that mountain,
23:09
Speaker 1: and he pointed to a pattern that frustrated investigators, saying,
23:13
Speaker 1: quote where they were keeps changing, and movements and statements
23:16
Speaker 1: about Dior Junior keep changing. Their statements don't match, and
23:20
Speaker 1: it's frustrating because we have absolutely no idea where Dior is,
23:24
Speaker 1: and there have been so many inconsistencies that it's hard
23:27
Speaker 1: to tell the truth from everything they've set unquote. And
23:30
Speaker 1: investigators tagged Walton and Rainwald as persons of interest, though
23:35
Speaker 1: neither were ever called a suspect, and Bowerman said, quote,
23:38
Speaker 1: I think mom and Dad are higher on the list unquote.
23:42
Speaker 1: And law enforcement narrowed it down to three possibilities. One
23:46
Speaker 1: an animal killed him, a mountain lion, a wolf, something
23:50
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. Two he was abducted by someone, and
23:54
Speaker 1: three foul play. And the cowboy boots became a key
23:57
Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle because they were eyes too big,
24:01
Speaker 1: so they kept slipping off his feet. And if a
24:04
Speaker 1: wild animal dragged a toddler away or someone grabs him fast,
24:08
Speaker 1: the oversized boots don't stay on for that they'd be
24:11
Speaker 1: lying somewhere in the dirt, but searchers never found them,
24:15
Speaker 1: not one boot anywhere. And still both parents held firm
24:19
Speaker 1: that someone took their boy, and their attorney was the
24:22
Speaker 1: one who flowed the possibility of a wild animal attack.
24:25
Speaker 1: Private investigator Philip Klein, however, reached a different conclusion, and
24:29
Speaker 1: that was an accidental homicide, meaning that Dior was dead
24:33
Speaker 1: and his parents had something to do with it, and
24:36
Speaker 1: Klein released a statement in twenty seventeen saying, quote, all
24:40
Speaker 1: evidence leads to the death of Diyor Koons Junior. We
24:43
Speaker 1: do not believe a kidnapping or animal attack occurred, and
24:46
Speaker 1: all evidence supports this finding unquote. But David Marshburne, another
24:50
Speaker 1: PI working alongside the family, disagrees with all of that
24:54
Speaker 1: because in his view, Mitchell and Koon's are innocent, and
24:57
Speaker 1: his focus is instead on rhine w whom he thinks
25:01
Speaker 1: is holding back now. Rainwand was denied any involvement, and
25:05
Speaker 1: the sheriffs who followed Bowerman didn't share his certainty because
25:08
Speaker 1: neither Penner nor Bennett views the parents as suspects, and
25:12
Speaker 1: the way they see it, every adult who was at
25:14
Speaker 1: the campsite carries the same weight, since all four of
25:17
Speaker 1: them were the last ones around or before he vanished,
25:21
Speaker 1: and no one has ever been arrested or charged. And
25:23
Speaker 1: within forty eight hours of the nine to one one call,
25:26
Speaker 1: a massive search was underway. Crews on foot, ATVs and horseback, helicopters,
25:31
Speaker 1: overhead canine units and divers in the reservoir and the
25:35
Speaker 1: creek with guys on their stomachs in the shallow water,
25:38
Speaker 1: ripping apart log jams and brush piles by hand. Former
25:42
Speaker 1: Sheriff Penner described the effort quote, we searched that real intently.
25:46
Speaker 1: It's not very deep, but we put divers in there
25:48
Speaker 1: on their bellies and removed all the log jams and
25:51
Speaker 1: brush piles and things like that unquote, And three days
25:54
Speaker 1: in the volunteer count topped two hundred and John Bennett,
25:57
Speaker 1: now the sheriff, was in the water himself doing those
26:00
Speaker 1: dives and grid searchers went up next side by side,
26:04
Speaker 1: close enough to hold hands a walking step by step
26:07
Speaker 1: through the campsite and the surrounding terrain, and Bonville County
26:10
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office joined the effort, and so did the FBI,
26:13
Speaker 1: and your's photo went up everywhere on posters on billboards
26:17
Speaker 1: all over eastern Idaho, and leads started flooding in from
26:20
Speaker 1: every part of the United States, and investigators received a
26:23
Speaker 1: lead placing the toddler out of Motel six in California,
26:26
Speaker 1: but it turned out to be false, and bones turned
26:29
Speaker 1: up at the campground more than once over the years,
26:32
Speaker 1: and anthropologists at Idaho State University examined photographs of each discovery,
26:37
Speaker 1: but each time the answer came back the same, which
26:40
Speaker 1: was just animal remains. In one set of the remains
26:43
Speaker 1: got sent all the way to the FBI's lab in Quantico,
26:46
Speaker 1: but it was an animal again, and former Sheriff Penner said, quote,
26:49
Speaker 1: everything that we have sent to the lab has been
26:51
Speaker 1: analyzed and it has not produced anything. None of the
26:54
Speaker 1: evidence has had a positive outcome, unquote. And to this day,
26:58
Speaker 1: investigators have turned up nothing outside of the initial belongings,
27:02
Speaker 1: not one physical trace of the boy. Three private investigators
27:06
Speaker 1: have worked to the case over the years, Viilt, Klein,
27:09
Speaker 1: and Marshburn, and the saga reads like a case study
27:13
Speaker 1: in dysfunction. Frank Vilt came on in August twenty fifteen
27:17
Speaker 1: offering to work the case for free, and at first
27:19
Speaker 1: his read was kidnapping, but within a month he'd reversed
27:23
Speaker 1: course and accused Mitchell and Koons of lying, and he
27:26
Speaker 1: cut ties in September, and Bilt died in August of
27:29
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and the Koon's family originally brought on
27:33
Speaker 1: Philip Klein in November twenty fifteen, and Klein's conclusion was
27:36
Speaker 1: the same as mentioned before. The boy was debt and
27:40
Speaker 1: his parents knew what happened, and by March twenty sixteen,
27:43
Speaker 1: the Koon's family had cut him loose, but Klein said
27:46
Speaker 1: someone anonymous stepped in to fund his continued work on
27:49
Speaker 1: the case, and he told reporters that Mitchell quote knows
27:53
Speaker 1: where Deer's body is, but refuses to say where unquote.
27:57
Speaker 1: So Koons and his father, Dennis Kons took Klein to
28:01
Speaker 1: court in twenty seventeen for defamation, but the case was
28:05
Speaker 1: thrown out in twenty nineteen because the judge found insufficient
28:08
Speaker 1: evidence that Klein had slandered Kon's and polygraphs didn't go
28:12
Speaker 1: well for either parent because, according to Klein, Kons failed
28:16
Speaker 1: five and Mitchell failed four, and Klein said, quote, in
28:20
Speaker 1: my twenty six years, I've never heard of a person
28:23
Speaker 1: failing that bad unquote, and David Marshburne, the third PI,
28:27
Speaker 1: is still working with the family as of twenty twenty five,
28:30
Speaker 1: and People magazine put Door on its cover in June
28:33
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen headlined quote without a trace unquote, And in
28:37
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
28:40
Speaker 1: created an age progressed image of the boy, estimating his
28:43
Speaker 1: appearance at age four. But the public turned on the parents,
28:47
Speaker 1: and years of NonStop scrutiny, accusations, and outright vitual followed,
28:52
Speaker 1: and it got bad enough that Coon's had to leave
28:54
Speaker 1: Idaho Falls altogether, and his lawyer went to court over it,
28:58
Speaker 1: suing the woman who ran an online group called Justice
29:00
Speaker 1: for Baby Dior, alleging she'd driven Coons to the point
29:04
Speaker 1: of near and indeed Coons had gone into counseling for adiation,
29:10
Speaker 1: driven by people telling the world he'd killed his own son,
29:13
Speaker 1: and the couple split and Mitchell remarried and stayed in
29:16
Speaker 1: Idaho Falls while Coons packed up and left the state,
29:20
Speaker 1: And in the days right after de York vanished, Mitchell
29:23
Speaker 1: had begged publicly for his return, saying quote, who would
29:27
Speaker 1: harm us this way? Especially knowing how much he means
29:29
Speaker 1: to us. He's everything to us. If somebody has him,
29:32
Speaker 1: please don't hurt him. Just bring him home safely where
29:35
Speaker 1: he belongs unquote. And ten years later, her statement was
29:39
Speaker 1: quieter but no less heavy, saying, quote, each of the
29:42
Speaker 1: three thousand, six hundred and forty seven days have felt
29:45
Speaker 1: the same. The pain of him missing is still as
29:48
Speaker 1: real as the day one. I love and miss my
29:50
Speaker 1: son every day unquote. And Robert Walton died in twenty nineteen,
29:55
Speaker 1: and when contacted in twenty twenty five, Rainwald said he
29:58
Speaker 1: was trying to quote put this behind him and move
30:01
Speaker 1: forward unquote. And Trina Clegg do Your's grandmother keeps going
30:05
Speaker 1: back to Timber Creek because something about the quiet out
30:08
Speaker 1: there makes her feel like she might still find him.
30:11
Speaker 1: And Penner figures he's returned to that site one hundred
30:14
Speaker 1: times and ten years the badge is gone, but he
30:17
Speaker 1: stayed on with Lamai County Search and Rescue, and he
30:20
Speaker 1: and Bennett talk regularly, so quitting isn't on the table
30:23
Speaker 1: for either of them. And Penner has said it over
30:26
Speaker 1: and over, saying, quote, when someone is lost, you look
30:29
Speaker 1: for them unquote, and over ten years later, there is
30:32
Speaker 1: no arrest, no charges, and no physical evidence, and do
30:36
Speaker 1: or Koons Junior is still missing, so if you know
30:40
Speaker 1: anything about his disappearance, please contact Idaho Fall's authorities. All right,
30:45
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32:03
Speaker 1: let's get back to it. Antonette Christine Coyedito was born
32:06
Speaker 1: on Christmas Day, nineteen seventy six in New Mexico. She
32:10
Speaker 1: was nine years old of Navajo and Italian descent, and
32:13
Speaker 1: she stood four feet seven and weighed fifty five pounds
32:17
Speaker 1: with dark brown hair, brown eyes and freckles. She had
32:20
Speaker 1: scars on her knee and lip, moles across her back, cheeks, nose, hands,
32:25
Speaker 1: and right ankle, and she wore glasses and around her neck.
32:29
Speaker 1: She wore a silver chain with small turquoise cross pendant.
32:33
Speaker 1: Now Antinette was a fourth grader at Lincoln Elementary School
32:36
Speaker 1: in gallop, New Mexico, and people who knew her said
32:39
Speaker 1: she carried herself like someone older, mature and responsible, not
32:43
Speaker 1: your typical nine year old. And by the time she
32:45
Speaker 1: was six, she was already cooking for her younger sisters
32:48
Speaker 1: and ironing their clothes for the week, and her father
32:51
Speaker 1: called her nine going on fifteen, and she lived with
32:54
Speaker 1: her mother, Penny Coyaedido, and her two younger sisters, including
32:58
Speaker 1: Wendy Montoya, and Penny was raising the three of them
33:01
Speaker 1: on her own now. Penny had been out on the
33:03
Speaker 1: evening of April sixth, nineteen eighty six, and she got
33:06
Speaker 1: home around midnight, where a babysitter had stayed with the girls,
33:10
Speaker 1: and the two younger sisters were down for the night,
33:12
Speaker 1: but Antonette stayed up late until close to three am.
33:16
Speaker 1: Then some time after three am, a man knocked at
33:20
Speaker 1: the front door, and Antonette and her sister heard a
33:23
Speaker 1: voice they couldn't place, so they would leave it unanswered
33:26
Speaker 1: and they would go back to bed. And then came
33:28
Speaker 1: the second knock, and this time the man said he
33:31
Speaker 1: was their uncle, Joe, so Antonette got up to answer
33:34
Speaker 1: it while her sister stayed in bed, and by her
33:37
Speaker 1: sister Wendy's account, two men were at the door, one
33:40
Speaker 1: again calling himself Uncle Joe, and the moment Antonette opened
33:44
Speaker 1: it in her pink nightgown, they grabbed her, carried her
33:48
Speaker 1: to a brown van, and drove off. Now Wendy was
33:52
Speaker 1: only a child herself and kept what she saw to
33:55
Speaker 1: herself for years, and her younger sister, Sadie, has never
33:59
Speaker 1: been sure a second knock even happened, and that detail
34:02
Speaker 1: has never been resolved. So around six point thirty or
34:06
Speaker 1: seven am, a neighbor noticed an older model brown truck
34:09
Speaker 1: with new Mexico plates outside the house, and a man
34:12
Speaker 1: got out and walked toward the front door, though the
34:15
Speaker 1: neighbor couldn't describe him or the truck in any detail.
34:18
Speaker 1: And by her own account, Penny slept through it all
34:21
Speaker 1: and didn't realize anything was wrong until about seven am,
34:25
Speaker 1: when she went to wake the girls and found Antonette's
34:27
Speaker 1: bed empty. No Penny searched the neighborhood, but no one
34:31
Speaker 1: had seen her, and she said, quote, we went looking
34:34
Speaker 1: for her around the house. Nothing. I didn't start panicking
34:37
Speaker 1: until we checked with all the neighbors, went to every
34:40
Speaker 1: house and nobody had seen her unquote, So it was
34:43
Speaker 1: around eleven am before she called the police, and when
34:46
Speaker 1: she did, they told her she'd have to wait eight
34:49
Speaker 1: hours before she could even file a report. And for
34:52
Speaker 1: years this looked like a stranger at the door. But
34:55
Speaker 1: whoever knocked used the name Uncle Joe, a name that
34:59
Speaker 1: would mean something to these children, So it pointed to
35:02
Speaker 1: someone who knew the family had an uncle by that
35:05
Speaker 1: name and knew it would get the door opened. And
35:08
Speaker 1: the case never sat right with investigators, and over the
35:10
Speaker 1: years their focus turned inward to Penny herself, because Penny's
35:14
Speaker 1: own account of that night changed, and at first she
35:18
Speaker 1: said she woke at seven am and found Antonette's bed empty,
35:21
Speaker 1: but years later, in a nineteen ninety four interview with
35:24
Speaker 1: the FBI, she told it differently, saying that she heard
35:28
Speaker 1: the knock herself around three thirty or four thirty am
35:31
Speaker 1: in the morning and told Antonette to answer it, and
35:34
Speaker 1: that she waited about thirty minutes and her daughter never
35:38
Speaker 1: came back. And in that same period, Penny told FBI
35:41
Speaker 1: agents she had been involved, and according to investigators, she
35:44
Speaker 1: admitted she knew who was coming for her daughter and
35:47
Speaker 1: that she and a man she named as Emo had
35:50
Speaker 1: discussed a plan beforehand. Now Emo was a Miliano Guardella,
35:54
Speaker 1: a man Penny said had given the nine year old
35:57
Speaker 1: flowers three times in the days before she vanished, and
36:00
Speaker 1: Penny had also failed a polygraph administered by the FBI,
36:05
Speaker 1: and a detective who worked the case, Marty Escabel, said
36:08
Speaker 1: years later that he was confident Penny knew who had
36:11
Speaker 1: taken Antinette, but no charges were ever filed, and the
36:15
Speaker 1: FBI believed Penny was involved, but she was never charged somehow,
36:20
Speaker 1: and Penny always said Antonette would never have opened the
36:23
Speaker 1: door for a stranger and that she must have known
36:26
Speaker 1: whoever was on the other side. And once they realized
36:28
Speaker 1: that she was missing, police and Penny's neighbors searched the
36:31
Speaker 1: foothills and gallop and found no trace of her, and
36:35
Speaker 1: from the start they were all but certain she was kidnapped.
36:38
Speaker 1: The first person they looked at was an uncle, after
36:41
Speaker 1: one of the younger sisters told the police that the
36:43
Speaker 1: man at the door was one of their uncles, but
36:46
Speaker 1: he was questioned and quickly cleared and was never considered
36:49
Speaker 1: a suspect. And in April of nineteen eighty seven, about
36:52
Speaker 1: a year after she vanished, a call reached the Gallop
36:55
Speaker 1: Police Department when a young girl said she was Antonette Albuquerque,
37:01
Speaker 1: but before the call could be traced, an angry man's
37:04
Speaker 1: voice cut in, saying, quote unquote, who said you could
37:06
Speaker 1: use the phone? The girl screamed, and there was a scuffle,
37:10
Speaker 1: and the line went dead, and the whole call lasted
37:13
Speaker 1: about forty seconds, and it was caught on tape, and
37:16
Speaker 1: it was never confirmed whether the caller really was Antonette
37:19
Speaker 1: or whether the call was simply a cruel prank. A
37:22
Speaker 1: Penny listened to the recording repeatedly, and she said, quote,
37:25
Speaker 1: I listened to that tape over and over and over,
37:27
Speaker 1: and just by the way she says her last name,
37:30
Speaker 1: and the way she screamed sent chills all over my body.
37:32
Speaker 1: A mother knows, and I know that was her unquote.
37:36
Speaker 1: The FBI released two computer enhanced images showing what Antinett
37:39
Speaker 1: might look like at fourteen, and four months after those
37:42
Speaker 1: images went out, a waitress in Carson City, Nevada, thought
37:45
Speaker 1: she might have served her and three people sat at
37:48
Speaker 1: the table, a disheveled couple and a girl in her
37:51
Speaker 1: early teens, and all through the meal, the girl kept
37:54
Speaker 1: letting her fork slip to the floor. And every time
37:56
Speaker 1: the waitress brought it back, the child clutched at her hands.
38:00
Speaker 1: And after they left, the waitress cleared the table and
38:03
Speaker 1: found a napkin the girl had left out of the
38:05
Speaker 1: plate and it read, help me call the police. But
38:09
Speaker 1: by the time she understood what it meant, the three
38:11
Speaker 1: of them were already gone, and no one ever confirmed
38:14
Speaker 1: that the girl was Antonette, and the family also turned
38:17
Speaker 1: to a well known Navajo medicine woman who carried out
38:20
Speaker 1: the crystal ritual a ceremony meant to reach someone who
38:23
Speaker 1: has vanished, and by her reading, Antonette was still alive,
38:27
Speaker 1: might have had a child even and was being held
38:30
Speaker 1: somewhere in the Southwest, kept there by force. And Penny
38:33
Speaker 1: held on to that, and she said, quote going to
38:36
Speaker 1: the medicine lady gives me a lot of strength, and
38:38
Speaker 1: it helps me to just know that she is alive unquote.
38:42
Speaker 1: But Penny would die in nineteen ninety nine, and the
38:45
Speaker 1: questions of what happened to her daughter were still unanswered
38:47
Speaker 1: at that point, and Wendy described what the loss of
38:50
Speaker 1: Antonette meant, saying, quote, it just broke my whole family up.
38:54
Speaker 1: It was a very dark and dysfunctional time. Unquote, And
38:57
Speaker 1: the case has been told and retold on Unsolved Mystery,
39:00
Speaker 1: first under Robert Stack and later under Dennis Farina, and
39:03
Speaker 1: three agencies are working the case, the FBI, the Gallup
39:06
Speaker 1: Police Department, and the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety,
39:10
Speaker 1: and Frank Fisher, public affairs officers for the FBI's Albuquerque Division,
39:14
Speaker 1: has said, quote, we have not stopped looking for answers.
39:17
Speaker 1: We are still working with Navajo Nation Division and Public
39:20
Speaker 1: Safety and Gallup Police Department to come up with answers unquote.
39:23
Speaker 1: And on the thirty fifth anniversary in twenty twenty one,
39:26
Speaker 1: the FBI renewed its public appeal, and acting Special Agent
39:30
Speaker 1: in Charge Eric S. Brown Senior, said, quote, we are
39:33
Speaker 1: asking anyone who might have information about this case to
39:36
Speaker 1: come forward now and help us find Antonette unquote. And
39:40
Speaker 1: the case is still open and its paperwork sits boxed up.
39:43
Speaker 1: At the Gallup Police Department, a spokesperson there told Dateline
39:47
Speaker 1: that tips have grown scarce over the years, but each
39:50
Speaker 1: new detective who joins gives the case a fresh look.
39:53
Speaker 1: And Antonette Kayedido would be forty nine years old now
39:57
Speaker 1: and she is still missing, So anyone with information on
40:00
Speaker 1: her disappearance should contact their local FBI or submit a
40:04
Speaker 1: tip at tips dot FBI dot gov. Nicole Louise Marine
40:09
Speaker 1: was eight years old and she lived in a top
40:12
Speaker 1: floor penthouse apartment at six two seven the West Mall
40:15
Speaker 1: in a Toboco A borough of Toronto, Ontario, and the
40:19
Speaker 1: building was twenty one stories tall, and she stood just
40:23
Speaker 1: four feet tall and weighed about fifty one pounds. And
40:26
Speaker 1: she had a birthmark on the right side of her forehead,
40:28
Speaker 1: brown hair and brown eyes, along with pierced ears that
40:32
Speaker 1: stuck out and a little gap between her front teeth. Now,
40:35
Speaker 1: Nicole was the only child of Jeanette Morin and her husband,
40:39
Speaker 1: Arthur called Art, and they had married about a dozen
40:41
Speaker 1: years before she was born, but Art was living separately
40:45
Speaker 1: in Mississauga, while Nicole and Jeannette were in that a
40:48
Speaker 1: Tobago penthouse where Jeanette ran a daycare for young children
40:52
Speaker 1: out of that apartment. Now, Nicole's best friend was a
40:54
Speaker 1: seven year old girl named Melissa Alastchuk who lived in
40:58
Speaker 1: the same apartment complex and the two some of them
41:00
Speaker 1: would walk to school every day together and Nicole's mom
41:03
Speaker 1: used to babysit Melissa's younger brother as well, but swimming
41:07
Speaker 1: was their thing because the building had its own pool,
41:10
Speaker 1: and meeting there was part of their routine. So they
41:12
Speaker 1: were just normal kids spending their summer exactly the way
41:15
Speaker 1: that you'd expect them to. So July thirtieth, nineteen eighty
41:18
Speaker 1: five would come and it was a morning like any
41:21
Speaker 1: other at the apartment on the West Mall, and Nicole
41:24
Speaker 1: had planned to take the elevator down to the lobby
41:26
Speaker 1: head to the pool to meet her friend and enjoy
41:28
Speaker 1: her time in the sun. So sometime around eleven o'clock
41:31
Speaker 1: she would tell her mom that she was leaving out
41:33
Speaker 1: of the penthouse, and she wore a peach one piece
41:36
Speaker 1: bathing suit with colored stripes across the front of it,
41:39
Speaker 1: a green headband, and a pair of red canvas shoes,
41:42
Speaker 1: and she also had a beach colored blanket tucked under
41:45
Speaker 1: her arm and a purple beach towel. Everything about her
41:48
Speaker 1: just screamed pool day. But unfortunately she would never make
41:52
Speaker 1: it to the pool, and she would never meet her friend,
41:56
Speaker 1: and nobody in that building saw where she went or
41:59
Speaker 1: who she was with, because Jeannette was occupied with the
42:02
Speaker 1: children in her daycare, so she assumed Nicole had either
42:05
Speaker 1: gone down to the pool on her own or was
42:08
Speaker 1: playing with the other kids behind the complex, and she
42:11
Speaker 1: didn't call the police to report her daughter missing until
42:14
Speaker 1: around three pm, roughly four hours after Nicole left. And
42:19
Speaker 1: there were no security cameras in the building at the
42:21
Speaker 1: time because although they'd been purchased and scheduled for installation,
42:26
Speaker 1: they weren't supposed to be put up until the very
42:28
Speaker 1: next day, So one day later, and there might have
42:32
Speaker 1: been footage one day later, and someone might have seen
42:36
Speaker 1: what happened in that lobby. But on that day, Nicole
42:40
Speaker 1: seemingly vanished from the face of the earth, and in response,
42:43
Speaker 1: Toronto Police launched a search that would become one of
42:46
Speaker 1: the largest in the department's history. A task force of
42:50
Speaker 1: twenty officers were assembled and investigators logged more than fifteen
42:54
Speaker 1: thousand man hours trying to find her. And they knocked
42:57
Speaker 1: on every unit in the building and let themselves into
42:59
Speaker 1: the one that didn't answer, and eventually someone recognized a
43:03
Speaker 1: photo of Nicole and police were able to determine that
43:05
Speaker 1: she had in fact made it down to the lobby.
43:08
Speaker 1: But after that there was nothing, and as Detective Sergeant
43:11
Speaker 1: Steve Smith said, quote, we have no hard evidence after
43:15
Speaker 1: she went into that elevator. It's almost like she disappeared unquote. Now.
43:20
Speaker 1: The following day, more officers arrived and the search widened
43:23
Speaker 1: into a dragnet near Highway twenty seven and mounted police boats, helicopter's,
43:28
Speaker 1: officers on foot and dogs all spread out across the
43:31
Speaker 1: area near the building. And it's worth noting about forty
43:33
Speaker 1: five minutes before Nicole vanished, a neighbor noticed a blonde
43:37
Speaker 1: woman she didn't recognize sitting in the hallway on Nichole's
43:40
Speaker 1: floor with a notebook, and police wanted to talk to her,
43:44
Speaker 1: but they never tracked her down. Now more than nine
43:46
Speaker 1: hundred people from the neighborhood also joined in on that search,
43:50
Speaker 1: and Toronto Crimestoppers had just been informed and this was
43:54
Speaker 1: its first big case, so it offered a one thousand
43:57
Speaker 1: dollars reward and put out posters and filmed the rec
44:00
Speaker 1: creation of her last known steps, and the Toronto Star
44:03
Speaker 1: ran off thousands more posters with her photo and police number,
44:06
Speaker 1: and police had thousands of watercolor sketches of her made
44:09
Speaker 1: up and sent around. And police also found a note
44:12
Speaker 1: in the apartment written in Nicole's handwriting in pencil a
44:16
Speaker 1: few months earlier, saying quote unquote, I'm going to disappear,
44:21
Speaker 1: which is so chilling in hindsight. Family and acquaintances were
44:26
Speaker 1: all checked and cleared, and eventually the case drew in
44:29
Speaker 1: homicide detectives and the first year of the search alone
44:32
Speaker 1: ran and estimated one point eight million dollars, and many
44:36
Speaker 1: more would quickly pass without meaningful progress. But the search
44:40
Speaker 1: for Nicole continued on, and by two thousand and one,
44:42
Speaker 1: crime stoppers had aged Nicole forward in her mid twenties
44:46
Speaker 1: in a new photo and circulated it online to more
44:49
Speaker 1: than a thousand programs across seventeen countries. And then in
44:53
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, researchers with a Belgian group, the
44:56
Speaker 1: Foundation Princesses de Croix at Massimo Lencelatti definitely butchered that apologize,
45:02
Speaker 1: used biometric analysis to compare photos of Nicole from a
45:06
Speaker 1: Canadian police site with images on a Dutch advocacy site
45:09
Speaker 1: for children and reported a strong resemblance, but unfortunately nothing
45:15
Speaker 1: came from it, and then Child find Ontario kept at
45:18
Speaker 1: it as well, getting Nicholl's photo and details in front
45:21
Speaker 1: of the public wherever it could on screens in esso
45:25
Speaker 1: stations in the billing envelopes Rogers and the Canadian Imperial
45:29
Speaker 1: Bank of Commerce mailed out on Toronto Transit Commission display
45:32
Speaker 1: screens and even on the backs of transport trucks and
45:36
Speaker 1: more reenactments followed, and the Forces Video Unit cut another
45:40
Speaker 1: for the Cases twenty ninth anniversary in twenty fourteen, which
45:44
Speaker 1: screened at Max convenience stores around Ontario, and in October
45:49
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, a tip sent out investigators into the field.
45:52
Speaker 1: Thirty eight officers, ten from the Ontario Provincial Police and
45:56
Speaker 1: twenty eight from Toronto searched Springwater Township with cadaver dogs,
46:00
Speaker 1: and the whole operation traced back to a tip that
46:03
Speaker 1: had first reached the opp almost thirty years before, and
46:07
Speaker 1: back then police had looked into it and just came
46:09
Speaker 1: up empty. But after a renewed republic appeal in the
46:13
Speaker 1: summer of twenty fourteen, police decided it warranted a second look,
46:17
Speaker 1: and Inspector Jerry Cashman wasn't optimistic, calling it a long shot,
46:21
Speaker 1: but he said they had no choice but to follow through.
46:24
Speaker 1: Quote for the family, for Nicole, she's still a missing
46:27
Speaker 1: person to us. She could still be somewhere out in
46:29
Speaker 1: the world. At this point, not wanting to be found.
46:32
Speaker 1: We don't know that, but if she has met with
46:34
Speaker 1: foul play, it's our duty to come out here and
46:37
Speaker 1: stand up for her and find the person responsible if
46:39
Speaker 1: that's the case unquote. But nothing came of it, and
46:43
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, marking thirty years, police would organize a
46:46
Speaker 1: five k run called Nicole's Run the Incentennial Park, complete
46:50
Speaker 1: with a candlelight visual and raised three thousand dollars for
46:53
Speaker 1: the Canadian Center for Child Protection. And in twenty nineteen
46:57
Speaker 1: police put out another age progressed image imagine Nicole in
47:00
Speaker 1: her early forties at this point. And in twenty twenty
47:03
Speaker 1: a new lead would come forward because a woman told
47:07
Speaker 1: a missing persons group that on the day Nicole vanished,
47:10
Speaker 1: she had seen her with a man at a West
47:13
Speaker 1: End park a few kilometers from the building, and she
47:16
Speaker 1: had been about twelve at the time and is now
47:19
Speaker 1: in her early fifties, and she said the man she
47:22
Speaker 1: saw with Nicole had her. And then in twenty twenty
47:26
Speaker 1: two that group Please Bring Me Home brought cadaver dogs
47:30
Speaker 1: to the park and the dogs alerted on a specific spot,
47:34
Speaker 1: a sign that remains could be buried there However, an
47:37
Speaker 1: excavation has not taken place, and even if it did,
47:41
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that they would find Nichole's body there.
47:44
Speaker 1: And over the years one name kept surfacing, though, Calvin Hoover.
47:49
Speaker 1: He had already been linked to another disappearance from the
47:52
Speaker 1: same era, so investigators looked at him for Nicole's case
47:55
Speaker 1: as well, but no charges were ever filed, and Hoover
47:59
Speaker 1: had died into twenty fifteen, taking whatever he knew, if anything,
48:03
Speaker 1: with him. And after her disappearance, Nichole's father, Art quit
48:06
Speaker 1: his job, set up an office to run the search from,
48:09
Speaker 1: and chased leeds for her across Canada and the United States,
48:13
Speaker 1: and for a while he moved back in with Jeanette,
48:15
Speaker 1: but the marriage didn't survive and the two split for
48:18
Speaker 1: good in nineteen eighty seven, and he also ignored police
48:21
Speaker 1: advice and put his own money for a private investigator,
48:25
Speaker 1: and as of twenty twenty, the last update on record,
48:28
Speaker 1: Art was still living in the Attatabuk area, and Jeanette,
48:31
Speaker 1: for her part, turned to a psychic in Calgary, hoping
48:34
Speaker 1: it might point her toward her daughter, but she would
48:37
Speaker 1: pass away in two thousand and seven and then there's
48:40
Speaker 1: Melissa Elastchuk, Nichole's childhood best friend. Now. Melissa spoke of
48:45
Speaker 1: their pool time together plainly, quote, this was literally a
48:49
Speaker 1: regular occurrence for us, and it very easily could have
48:52
Speaker 1: been me unquote. She would actually grow up to become
48:55
Speaker 1: a police officer, serving twenty one years, because Nichole's disappearance
48:59
Speaker 1: not only stilled her into policing, but also changed how
49:02
Speaker 1: she raised her own kids. And she actually still carries
49:05
Speaker 1: a photo negative of Nicole from when they were kids,
49:09
Speaker 1: a piece of their friendship that never got to finish.
49:12
Speaker 1: And at a press conference in twenty twenty five, Melissa
49:14
Speaker 1: made a public plea saying, quote, there is no doubt
49:17
Speaker 1: in my mind whatsoever that somebody knows something. There is
49:21
Speaker 1: no insignificant information unquote, and she added quote, if you
49:25
Speaker 1: think that you may be Nicole, if you don't know
49:28
Speaker 1: what your past is, I would encourage you to come
49:30
Speaker 1: forward because we do have ways of verifying unquote. And
49:34
Speaker 1: on July thirtieth, twenty twenty five, exactly forty years after
49:37
Speaker 1: Nicole walked out of that penhouse, Toronto Police announced a
49:41
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars reward for information on her whereabouts and
49:45
Speaker 1: The reward stands for one year, and police also released
49:48
Speaker 1: a new age progress photo projecting what Nicole might look
49:52
Speaker 1: like as a grown woman now, and she would be
49:54
Speaker 1: in her late forties. A detective, Sarga Smith, has called
49:58
Speaker 1: this one of the highest profile cases in Toronto history,
50:01
Speaker 1: maybe in all of Canada, and he noted as well, quote,
50:04
Speaker 1: this case is not closed. It has never been forgotten,
50:08
Speaker 1: and it only takes one piece of new information to
50:10
Speaker 1: make that difference. Unquote. Forty years later, there is no arrest,
50:15
Speaker 1: no remains, and no answers, and Nicole Moran is still missing.
50:20
Speaker 1: So if you know anything about her disappearance or have
50:23
Speaker 1: just any tips, please please contact Toronto Police. And that
50:28
Speaker 1: is it for these missing children's cases. Again. If anyone
50:31
Speaker 1: has any information on any of these missing persons, they
50:34
Speaker 1: should contact their local FBI office or submit a tip
50:37
Speaker 1: at tips dot FBI dot gov. Thank you guys so
50:40
Speaker 1: much for listening. Let me know if you want me
50:42
Speaker 1: to dive into any other cases down below, and until then,
50:46
Speaker 1: please stay safe out there. And I really, really truly
50:48
Speaker 1: hope that these cases are solved.