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Unsolved Mysteries: The Children Who Vanished Without a Trace · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: A child walks out the door one summer morning, a
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Speaker 1: pool towel under her arm and the whole day ahead
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Speaker 1: of her. Two sisters play outside their building in the mid-afternoon,
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Speaker 1: while a toddler clumps around a campsite in oversized cowboy boots,
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Speaker 1: and a girl answers a knock at the front door.
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Speaker 1: These are ordinary moments, the kind no one thinks to remember,
0:21
Speaker 1: because nothing is supposed to happen. But something did. And
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Speaker 1: in each case, a child was never seen again. And
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Speaker 1: these are their stories, the stories of four children still missing. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
0:36
Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
0:39
Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful,
0:41
Speaker 1: intellectually-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
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Speaker 1: their stories. So without further ado, let's get into these
0:58
Speaker 1: four cases. Tionda Z. Bradley was born on January 20, 1991,
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Speaker 1: in Chicago, Illinois. She was 10 years old, 4'2, and
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Speaker 1: 70 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. And she
1:25
Speaker 1: notably had a long ponytail and a burn scar on
1:28
Speaker 1: her left forearm around the size of a quarter. And
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Speaker 1: her great-aunt, Shalia Bradley-Smith, described her as sassy and quick-witted,
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Speaker 1: the kind of kid who'd entertain a whole room without
1:39
Speaker 1: even trying. And dancing was her love, and she did
1:42
Speaker 1: it everywhere. And Chilia used to tell her, quote unquote,
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Speaker 1: dance for me, baby. And Tionda would dance and dance.
1:49
Speaker 1: And she was also the responsible one, the little mama
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Speaker 1: to her younger sister, Diamond. and phone numbers stuck in
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Speaker 1: her head. And she'd pick up the phone and call
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Speaker 1: her great aunt for no reason other than to just
2:00
Speaker 1: check in. And her catchphrase was girl. And when she
2:04
Speaker 1: said goodbye, it came out as baby bye. And that
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Speaker 1: summer she was taking classes at Doolittle Elementary School, which
2:11
Speaker 1: was two blocks from where the family lived. Now Diamond
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Speaker 1: Yvette Bradley was born on November 25th, 1997. And she
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Speaker 1: was three years old, three feet tall and 40 pounds
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Speaker 1: with black hair and deep set brown eyes. And she
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Speaker 1: wore her hair in braided ponytails with purple holders and
2:28
Speaker 1: had a scar on the left side of her scalp. Now,
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Speaker 1: Shalia called her a quiet, shy, laid-back little girl with
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Speaker 1: a sweet smile. And she was timid around new people,
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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 12, Tianda
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Speaker 1: at 10, Victoria at 9, and Diamond, the baby, at 3.
2:50
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 Bronzeville area on Chicago's South Side. Now,
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Speaker 1: family wasn't far away because there were relatives nearby and
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Speaker 1: the families looked after each other's kids with whoever was
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Speaker 1: available taking a shift. They really had a village. And
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Speaker 1: the girl's grandmother, Mary Tiny Bradley, lived in the Robert
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Speaker 1: Taylor Homes, a public housing complex in Bronzeville. And Tracy
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Speaker 1: also worked there. So the two girls bounced between their
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Speaker 1: mom's apartments and their grandmother's, and over at Robert Taylor Park,
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Speaker 1: they were enrolled in dance and gymnastics. Now, months before
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Speaker 1: they vanished, Shalia saw the girls one last time at
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Speaker 1: a family funeral. Now, Tiana was dancing, and Diamond, true
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Speaker 1: to form, was hiding behind a corner, peeking out at
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Speaker 1: her great aunt with that quiet little smile of hers.
3:40
Speaker 1: And they were both just full of life in their
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Speaker 1: own way. So on the evening of July 5th, 2001,
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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. And around 9.30 p.m., two
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Speaker 1: of Tracy's friends came over to watch the Cubs play
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Speaker 1: the Mets. And one of them was a neighbor known
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Speaker 1: as Porgy, who sometimes babysat the girls, along with his friend, Steven.
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Speaker 1: And they left around 10.30. And once the friends were gone,
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Speaker 1: a neighbor stopped by, though he didn't go any deeper
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Speaker 1: into the apartment than the entryway, and he said he
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Speaker 1: didn't see the girls. Then Tracy left to go to
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Speaker 1: her boyfriend George's house for the night, having told Tionda
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Speaker 1: and Diamond not to let anyone inside. So Diamond and
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Speaker 1: Tionda were home alone all night, a 10-year-old and a
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Speaker 1: three-year-old all by themselves in that apartment. And throughout the night,
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Speaker 1: the apartment's phone was active with calls going in and out,
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Speaker 1: And one came in around 2 a.m. and another went
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Speaker 1: out to George's place. And law enforcement still doesn't know
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Speaker 1: who made those calls. Now, on the morning of July 6th,
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Speaker 1: George drove Tracy to work for her 7 a.m. shift.
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Speaker 1: And on her break, Tracy tried the apartment over and
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Speaker 1: over again. 7.58 a.m., no answer. 8.06 a.m., no answer. 8.45 a.m.,
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Speaker 1: no answer. And she left a message to pick up
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Speaker 1: the phone. And at 8.17 a.m., someone in the apartment
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Speaker 1: dialed Tracy's cell. And it's believed to have been Tianta,
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Speaker 1: but the call went unanswered. And the voicemail was, Ma,
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Speaker 1: George is at the door, around 11 a.m. And around
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Speaker 1: 11 a.m., 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 11.29 a.m., George
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Speaker 1: phoned the apartment and left a voicemail saying the girls
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Speaker 1: should pack up their clothes and blankets because they were
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Speaker 1: going camping at Lake Schaefer, Indiana. Then George borrowed $ 20
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Speaker 1: from Porgy and took Tracy to Jewel Osco for Victoria's
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Speaker 1: birthday cake at 1221 p.m. And there's a receipt in
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Speaker 1: support of it because Victoria had a birthday on July 7th.
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Speaker 1: Now back at the apartment, something was waiting for them.
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Speaker 1: A note sitting on the back of the sofa right
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Speaker 1: next to a pile of clothes. and it was attributed
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Speaker 1: to Tionda. And the message said the two of them
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Speaker 1: went to the store and then the school playground. Doolittle
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Speaker 1: Elementary had their summer classes running and Tionda was supposed
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Speaker 1: to be there, but she never showed. And kids in
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Speaker 1: the neighborhood told police they'd spotted Tionda and Diamond outside
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Speaker 1: the building around noon playing, and that was the last
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Speaker 1: trace of either of them. So from roughly 1 p.m.
6:27
Speaker 1: to 6 p.m., Tracy searched for the girls and George
6:31
Speaker 1: took her down 35th Street in the direction of the
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Speaker 1: lakefront and told her to call Chicago PD and then
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Speaker 1: he left. But Tracy didn't call because she was terrified
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Speaker 1: the state would come for Rita and Victoria as her
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Speaker 1: sister had already lost her own children to the state
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Speaker 1: and that fear kept her from picking up the phone.
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Speaker 1: So police weren't called until approximately 6 p.m., roughly seven
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Speaker 1: hours after Tracy came home to an empty apartment. And
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Speaker 1: no suspect has ever been formally named in the disappearance
7:01
Speaker 1: of Diamond and T'Yonda 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 in documentary and 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
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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: an 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.
7:43
Speaker 1: Rita described later that he had no interest in them
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Speaker 1: and that he didn't want them near him, so his
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Speaker 1: contact with the girls was very minimal. But on July 5th,
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Speaker 1: the day before they vanished, George proposed something out of character,
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Speaker 1: that camping trip to Lake Schaefer, Indiana, about two hours
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Speaker 1: south of Chicago. The family and their private investigator found
8:03
Speaker 1: this suspicious, and P.I.P. Foster was blunt about it, saying, quote,
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Speaker 1: there was a planned trip for these children to go
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Speaker 1: on a camping trip That camping trip is all fraudulent.
8:14
Speaker 1: That camping trip never manifested, unquote. And on July 6th,
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Speaker 1: George made a Home Depot run for bleach, contractor bags,
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Speaker 1: and heavy duty gloves. And four bags were gone from
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Speaker 1: the roll, but he claimed he had only used two,
8:29
Speaker 1: and he said it was all for home renovations. And
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Speaker 1: he told investigators he threw the garbage bags into a
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Speaker 1: lagoon near Washington Park, but the trash was never found.
8:39
Speaker 1: And the bleach caught investigators' attention because they thought it
8:42
Speaker 1: could have been used to clean up in the aftermath.
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Speaker 1: And neighbors told the same story. At his garage, about
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Speaker 1: 10 miles from the apartment, George was seen burning something
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Speaker 1: in a 55-gallon drum, then loading the barrel into his
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Speaker 1: car and driving off. And when investigators examined his vehicle,
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Speaker 1: they found charring and the outline of what appeared to
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Speaker 1: be a metal drum. And they also found hair in
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Speaker 1: the trunk. one strand matching Tianda and another matched Tracy.
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Speaker 1: And according to Rita, the girls had barely ever ridden
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Speaker 1: in George's car, maybe four or five times in total,
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Speaker 1: and they'd never once been in the trunk. But George
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Speaker 1: would have an answer for that too, saying he'd stash
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Speaker 1: the girls in the trunk to skip the cover charge
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Speaker 1: at drive-in theaters. And later that night, George got in
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Speaker 1: his car and headed to Gary, Indiana, about 45 minutes
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Speaker 1: from Chicago. And a woman in Gary said George turned
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Speaker 1: up at her door, visibly rattled, though nobody has been
9:38
Speaker 1: able to confirm her account. And around 2 a.m., law
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Speaker 1: enforcement dialed George's home number and someone picked up and
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Speaker 1: talked for about three minutes, but it wasn't George. And
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Speaker 1: then there was Tracy. Now for 22 years, Tracy gave
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Speaker 1: investigators and the press the same story. George came to
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Speaker 1: her place that night and slept over, but that was
9:59
Speaker 1: a lie because she had gone to his place and
10:03
Speaker 1: the truth didn't come out until a 2023 television special.
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Speaker 1: Detectives set up meetings with her and she blew them
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Speaker 1: off more than once. And in March 2002, an officer
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Speaker 1: asked her to come to the precinct to discuss new leads.
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Speaker 1: And she actually shoved him so they cuffed her and
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Speaker 1: brought her in. And she talked to investigators for a
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Speaker 1: few minutes before her lawyer showed up. and ended the conversation.
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Speaker 1: And the note Tionda supposedly left raised its own questions.
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Speaker 1: Relatives who spoke to Dateline said the note looked too
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Speaker 1: polished because the spelling and grammar were beyond what a
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Speaker 1: 10-year-old would produce. And on top of that, a note
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Speaker 1: wasn't Tionda's style. Since she had phone numbers memorized, and
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Speaker 1: if she wanted her mom to know something, she would
10:46
Speaker 1: always just call. Shalia was more direct, saying, And then
10:50
Speaker 1: there was the voicemail that may or may not exist.
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Speaker 1: Deondra 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've 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 later,
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Speaker 1: It vanished. Tracy's sister, April, described it as, quote, ending
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Speaker 1: up in the wrong hands, unquote. And according to Shalia,
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Speaker 1: she captured the voicemail on her cell phone and forwarded
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Speaker 1: it to her own email, but consumer cell phones in
11:42
Speaker 1: 2001 couldn't record audio. Now, retired detective Ed Carroll pleaded
11:47
Speaker 1: with Shalia because he wanted to hear that recording himself.
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Speaker 1: Nothing ever came of it. Chicago detective Pamela Childs, who
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Speaker 1: worked the case from the very beginning, said, quote, at
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Speaker 1: the very beginning, in the deepest part of me, I
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Speaker 1: felt that somebody had the girls, unquote. And there were
12:01
Speaker 1: no signs of forced entry. And from the beginning, Childs
12:05
Speaker 1: believed whoever took the girls was someone familiar to them.
12:09
Speaker 1: And in her view, only two people held the answers. Quote,
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Speaker 1: George and Tracy were the only two people that we
12:15
Speaker 1: could look at to bring more clarity to what happened
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Speaker 1: to Tionda and Diamond, unquote. And the family agreed. And
12:22
Speaker 1: according to Shalia, quote, this is not a case of
12:24
Speaker 1: stranger danger. They knew to be suspicious of strangers. It
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Speaker 1: was somebody they knew, somebody they trusted, unquote. But no
12:32
Speaker 1: charges have ever been filed against George because the evidence
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Speaker 1: remains circumstantial, which is just such absolute nonsense. Bullshit to me,
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Speaker 1: given the evidence that was found, but what do I know?
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Speaker 1: Diamond and Tionda Bradley became what investigators called one of
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Speaker 1: the biggest missing persons operations in Chicago's history. And FBI
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Speaker 1: Special Agent Johnson called it, quote, unquote. And the response
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Speaker 1: was enormous. And for weeks, Hundreds of Chicago police, FBI agents,
13:05
Speaker 1: and civilian volunteers combed the South Side, working through its streets, sewers,
13:10
Speaker 1: abandoned factories, and buildings. And they conducted dozens of interviews
13:14
Speaker 1: and ran down close to a hundred of the area's
13:17
Speaker 1: registered sex offenders. And the investigation reached all the way
13:21
Speaker 1: to Wisconsin, where they went through the children's great-grandfather's house,
13:25
Speaker 1: but nothing turned up. And Tracy and George were interrogated separately,
13:29
Speaker 1: And each session lasted 22 hours. And they each sat
13:33
Speaker 1: for a polygraph, and police sources said both came back clean.
13:37
Speaker 1: But Foster, the PI working for the family, told a
13:40
Speaker 1: different story, saying George's polygraph was inconclusive. Investigators also chased
13:46
Speaker 1: leads far beyond Chicago. And there was a lead involving
13:49
Speaker 1: a North African man who'd been paying child support for
13:53
Speaker 1: one of the girls. But that stopped in the summer
13:55
Speaker 1: of 2001. And when he discovered he wasn't the biological father,
14:00
Speaker 1: FBI agents flew to Morocco to investigate. But they came
14:03
Speaker 1: up empty-handed. And over the years, around 12 people have
14:07
Speaker 1: came forward claiming to be the Bradley sisters, most of
14:11
Speaker 1: whom were quickly dismissed. And in 2019, a young woman
14:15
Speaker 1: in Texas claimed to be Diamond, but her claim was
14:18
Speaker 1: determined to be false. And then in May 2023, another
14:21
Speaker 1: woman in Harris County, Texas, posted a TikTok video making
14:25
Speaker 1: the same claim. And she reached out to Shalia on Facebook.
14:28
Speaker 1: And she agreed to a cheek swab and submitted her
14:31
Speaker 1: fingerprints to the FBI. And her story was that she
14:34
Speaker 1: had memories of riding in a car and spending time
14:37
Speaker 1: around Tionda, and that at some point, she was separated
14:40
Speaker 1: from her and never saw Tionda again. And she also
14:43
Speaker 1: claimed she'd only recently gotten free from the people who
14:46
Speaker 1: had kept her captive. And one detail in particular stood
14:50
Speaker 1: out because Diamond's records listed a scar on the left
14:53
Speaker 1: side of her scalp and the woman had scarring in
14:56
Speaker 1: the same area. And Shalia said, quote, I've never known
14:59
Speaker 1: or experienced someone so eager to tear down the doors
15:03
Speaker 1: of the FBI to prove who they are. So that
15:06
Speaker 1: gives me a different dynamic of hope, unquote. But the
15:09
Speaker 1: FBI stayed silent on the matter, and as of the
15:12
Speaker 1: last reporting, no DNA results were made public. And police
15:16
Speaker 1: believe that if Tionda were alive and free, she would
15:19
Speaker 1: have reached out to her family by now. So the
15:21
Speaker 1: working theory is grim. Either the girls are deceased, or
15:27
Speaker 1: they were moved out of the United States. And Chicago
15:30
Speaker 1: PD is still running point on the investigation, with the
15:33
Speaker 1: FBI backing them. And as of 2021, there are no
15:35
Speaker 1: new leads. And $ 10, 000 is on the table for anyone
15:40
Speaker 1: who can help locate Diamond and Tionda Bradley. And age
15:43
Speaker 1: progression photos from the National Center for Missing and Exploited
15:46
Speaker 1: Children show what the sisters might look like today. Because
15:50
Speaker 1: Tionda would be 35 now, and Diamond would be 28.
15:55
Speaker 1: And for two decades, Shalia has been the one speaking
15:57
Speaker 1: for the family, building out Facebook pages to keep the
16:01
Speaker 1: case in front of people. And every year on the anniversary,
16:04
Speaker 1: the family gathers for a vigil. And in 2021, the
16:07
Speaker 1: 20th anniversary, more than 50 relatives gathered at Robert Taylor Park.
16:12
Speaker 1: And Tracy told reporters, quote, We have to keep them
16:15
Speaker 1: in the public eye, in the news, and hope it
16:18
Speaker 1: breaks through. We have to keep hope alive, unquote. And
16:21
Speaker 1: Shalia stood beside her and addressed the crowd, saying, quote,
16:24
Speaker 1: And in July of 2025, they held the 24th anniversary
16:26
Speaker 1: vigil at the Dan Ryan Forest Woods. And the family
16:40
Speaker 1: sees it this way. No bodies means no charges because
16:43
Speaker 1: the evidence is circumstantial. And in their eyes, that's why
16:47
Speaker 1: prosecutors won't move forward. But Shalia is still holding out, saying, quote,
16:52
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that they're out there alive, but we
16:55
Speaker 1: still hold on to hope. You have to have hope, unquote.
16:58
Speaker 1: So if you know anything about Tionda and Diamond, please,
17:02
Speaker 1: please reach out to their local authorities. I wanna take
17:06
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17:09
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17:13
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17:15
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17:18
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17:22
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17:26
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17:29
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18:43
Speaker 1: Dior Coons Jr. was two years old, born on December 30th,
18:47
Speaker 1: 2012 in Idaho Falls, Idaho. And everyone called him Little Man.
18:53
Speaker 1: He lived with his mother, Jessica Mitchell, and his father,
18:56
Speaker 1: Vernal Dior-Kunz. And two additional children came 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 cup, 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 Dior. and sweet, handsome Dior. So on July 9th, 2015,
19:24
Speaker 1: the family would take a camping trip about 125 miles
19:28
Speaker 1: northwest of Idaho Falls, out near the tiny town of
19:31
Speaker 1: Lador in Lamai County. Now, Dior's great-grandfather, Robert Walton, knew
19:36
Speaker 1: the area very well, Timber Creek Campground, because he'd been
19:39
Speaker 1: going there since he was younger. And by then, Walton
19:42
Speaker 1: was well into old age, and he personally couldn't go
19:46
Speaker 1: anywhere without an oxygen machine. And his friend, Isaac Rainwand,
19:49
Speaker 1: was coming along as well. And that trip was the
19:51
Speaker 1: first time Rainwand had ever been around Mitchell, Koontz, or
19:55
Speaker 1: little Dior. Now the two groups drove separately. Dior and
19:59
Speaker 1: his parents in one vehicle, and Walton and Rainwand in another.
20:03
Speaker 1: And night had already fallen when they pulled into the campground,
20:06
Speaker 1: so Rainwand pitched a tent. And Walton slept in his camper.
20:10
Speaker 1: And Dior, along with his parents, set up in the
20:13
Speaker 1: rear of Walton's blue Chevy Blazer. And the campground was
20:16
Speaker 1: remote with a steep hill on one side and on
20:19
Speaker 1: the opposite side. And the ground fell away eight to
20:21
Speaker 1: 10 feet down to a creek. Nobody else was camping
20:25
Speaker 1: anywhere near them at the time. Now the next morning,
20:27
Speaker 1: July 10th, everyone gathered for breakfast. And Dior was wearing
20:31
Speaker 1: a pair of cowboy boots that were too big for
20:34
Speaker 1: his feet. And Rainwand remembered watching him clump around the
20:37
Speaker 1: campsite in them. And it was around midday, Mitchell and
20:40
Speaker 1: Kuntz drove Dior out to the stage stop Junction Store
20:44
Speaker 1: in L'Adore, which was about a 30 minute ride over
20:47
Speaker 1: rough terrain. And when they returned, Mitchell and Koontz headed
20:50
Speaker 1: off to walk the area around the site. And Mitchell
20:53
Speaker 1: says she told Walton to watch the boy before she
20:56
Speaker 1: and Koontz headed out. But Walton said he never heard
20:59
Speaker 1: her ask. And his version was that he'd been alone
21:02
Speaker 1: inside the trailer, just resting. But Walton's own account shifted
21:06
Speaker 1: because eventually he acknowledged that Dior had been near the
21:09
Speaker 1: water right there with him and that he turned away briefly.
21:13
Speaker 1: And then Dior... wasn't there anymore. And Rain Juan's account, meanwhile,
21:17
Speaker 1: placed him down at the water, fishing on his own
21:20
Speaker 1: with Dior, not with him. And former Lamai County Sheriff,
21:23
Speaker 1: Steve Penner, later summed it up saying, quote, they left
21:26
Speaker 1: Dior in the care of their grandfather. They went fishing
21:30
Speaker 1: for a little bit and then came back, and he
21:32
Speaker 1: was gone. And Walton thought he was with them. Isaac
21:36
Speaker 1: was off in the creek fishing, unquote. Nobody noticed the
21:39
Speaker 1: boy was gone for about 30 minutes. His blanket was
21:43
Speaker 1: still at the campsite, and so were his cup and
21:46
Speaker 1: his stuffed monkey, the three things he never went anywhere without,
21:50
Speaker 1: all left behind. And at 2.28 p.m., Mitchell called 911. Quote,'
21:56
Speaker 1: My two-year-old son, we can't find him,' He was wearing
21:59
Speaker 1: cowboy boots, pajama pants, and a camo jacket, and he's
22:02
Speaker 1: got shaky blonde hair. Unquote. And Koons took off in
22:06
Speaker 1: his truck, racing down a dirt road until his phone
22:09
Speaker 1: found a signal. While Mitchell's phone caught enough reception right
22:12
Speaker 1: there at the site to make a call. And Koons
22:15
Speaker 1: later told reporters, quote, it's such a small area, that's
22:18
Speaker 1: what a lot of people don't understand. They just assume,
22:21
Speaker 1: how could you let your kid out of your site? Well,
22:24
Speaker 1: this area is pretty well blocked in and there's no
22:26
Speaker 1: way you could not see him, unquote. But Dior Koons Jr.
22:30
Speaker 1: was never found. And for six months, months, investigators worked
22:34
Speaker 1: the case without publicly naming anyone. And that changed in
22:38
Speaker 1: January 2016, when then Sheriff Lynn Bowerman told reporters he
22:43
Speaker 1: believed Dior's parents were withholding information. And Bowerman's position was
22:48
Speaker 1: that Dior was dead, though whether it happened by accident
22:51
Speaker 1: or on purpose, he wouldn't say for certain. But Bowerman
22:55
Speaker 1: was direct about it, telling Dateline, quote, I believe his
22:58
Speaker 1: parents are hiding something. There is no doubt in my mind.
23:02
Speaker 1: And he added that he believed the case, quote, has
23:04
Speaker 1: to be a homicide, unquote, and that Dior was not
23:08
Speaker 1: anywhere on that mountain. And he pointed to a pattern
23:11
Speaker 1: that frustrated investigators saying, quote, where they were keeps changing.
23:15
Speaker 1: and movements and statements about Dior Jr. keep changing. Their
23:19
Speaker 1: statements don't match, and it's frustrating because we have absolutely
23:22
Speaker 1: no idea where Dior is. And there have been so
23:26
Speaker 1: many inconsistencies that it's hard to tell the truth from
23:28
Speaker 1: everything they've said. And investigators tagged Walton and Rainwald as
23:33
Speaker 1: persons of interest, though neither were ever called a suspect.
23:37
Speaker 1: And Bowerman said, quote, I think mom and dad are
23:40
Speaker 1: higher on the list, unquote. And law enforcement narrowed it
23:43
Speaker 1: down to three possibilities. One, an animal killed him, a
23:48
Speaker 1: mountain lion, a wolf, something in the wilderness. Two, he
23:52
Speaker 1: was abducted by someone. And three, foul play. The cowboy
23:56
Speaker 1: boots became a key piece of the puzzle because they
23:59
Speaker 1: were a size too big. So they kept slipping off
24:02
Speaker 1: his feet. And if a wild animal dragged a toddler
24:05
Speaker 1: away or someone grabs him fast, the oversized boots don't
24:09
Speaker 1: stay on for that. They'd be lying somewhere in the dirt.
24:13
Speaker 1: but searchers never found them, not one boot anywhere. And still,
24:17
Speaker 1: both parents held firm that someone took their boy, and
24:21
Speaker 1: their attorney was the one who floated the possibility of
24:24
Speaker 1: a wild animal attack. Private investigator Philip Klein, however, reached
24:27
Speaker 1: a different conclusion, and that was an accidental homicide, meaning
24:32
Speaker 1: that Dior was dead and his parents had something to
24:35
Speaker 1: do with it. And Klein released a statement in 2017 saying, quote,'
24:39
Speaker 1: All evidence leads to the death of Dior Coons Jr.'
24:43
Speaker 1: We do not believe a kidnapping or animal attack occurred,
24:46
Speaker 1: and all evidence supports this finding, unquote. But David Marshburn,
24:50
Speaker 1: another PI working alongside the family, disagrees with all of
24:53
Speaker 1: that because, in his view, Mitchell and Koontz are innocent,
24:57
Speaker 1: and his focus is instead on Reinwand, whom he thinks
25:01
Speaker 1: is holding back. Now, Reinwand 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. The
25:12
Speaker 1: way they see it, every adult who was at the
25:14
Speaker 1: campsite carries the same weight, since all four of them
25:18
Speaker 1: were the last ones around Dior before he vanished. And
25:21
Speaker 1: no one has ever been arrested or charged. And within
25:24
Speaker 1: 48 hours of the 911 call, a massive search was underway.
25:28
Speaker 1: Crews on foot, ATVs and horseback, helicopters overhead, canine units,
25:33
Speaker 1: and divers in the reservoir and the creek, with guys
25:36
Speaker 1: on their stomachs in the shallow water ripping apart log
25:39
Speaker 1: jams and brush piles by hand. Former Sheriff Penner described
25:43
Speaker 1: the effort, quote, we searched that reel intently. It's not
25:46
Speaker 1: very deep, but we put divers in there on their
25:49
Speaker 1: bellies and removed all the log jams and brush piles
25:51
Speaker 1: and things like that, unquote. And three days in, the
25:54
Speaker 1: volunteer count topped 200 and John Bennett, now the sheriff,
25:58
Speaker 1: was in the water himself doing those dives. And grid
26:02
Speaker 1: searchers went up next, side by side, close enough to
26:04
Speaker 1: hold hands, walking step by step through the campsite and
26:08
Speaker 1: the surrounding terrain. And Bonneville County Sheriff's Office joined the effort,
26:12
Speaker 1: and so did the FBI. And Dewar's photo went up everywhere,
26:16
Speaker 1: on posters, on billboards, all over eastern Idaho, and leads
26:19
Speaker 1: started flooding in from every part of the United States.
26:22
Speaker 1: and investigators received a lead placing the toddler at a
26:24
Speaker 1: Motel 6 in California, but it turned out to be false.
26:28
Speaker 1: And bones turned up at the campground more than once
26:31
Speaker 1: over the years, and anthropologists at Idaho State University examined
26:35
Speaker 1: photographs of each discovery, but each time the answer came
26:38
Speaker 1: back the same, which was just animal remains. And one
26:42
Speaker 1: set of the remains got sent all the way to
26:44
Speaker 1: the FBI's lab in Quantico, but it was an animal again.
26:47
Speaker 1: And former Sheriff Penner said, quote, everything that we have
26:50
Speaker 1: sent to the lab has been analyzed and it has
26:52
Speaker 1: not produced anything. None of the evidence has had a
26:55
Speaker 1: positive outcome, unquote. And to this day, investigators have turned
26:59
Speaker 1: up nothing outside of the initial belongings, not one physical
27:04
Speaker 1: trace of the boy. Three private investigators have worked a
27:07
Speaker 1: case over the years, Vilt, Klein, and Marshburn. And the
27:11
Speaker 1: saga reads like a case study in dysfunction. Frank Vilt
27:15
Speaker 1: came on in August 2015, offering to work the case
27:18
Speaker 1: for free. And at first, his read was kidnapping. But
27:22
Speaker 1: within a month, he'd reversed course and accused Mitchell and
27:25
Speaker 1: Kuntz of lying. And he cut ties in September, and
27:28
Speaker 1: Vilt died in August of 2023. And the Kuntz family
27:32
Speaker 1: originally brought on Philip Klein in November 2015. And Klein's
27:35
Speaker 1: conclusion was the same as mentioned before. The boy was dead.
27:40
Speaker 1: And his parents knew what happened. And by March 2016,
27:43
Speaker 1: the Kuhns 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, unquote.
27:57
Speaker 1: So Koontz and his father, Dennis Dior Koontz, took Klein
28:01
Speaker 1: to court in 2017 for defamation, but the case was
28:05
Speaker 1: thrown out in 2019 because the judge found insufficient evidence
28:09
Speaker 1: that Klein had slandered Koontz. And polygraphs didn't go well
28:13
Speaker 1: for either parent, because according to Klein, Koontz failed five
28:17
Speaker 1: and Mitchell failed four. And Klein said, quote, in my
28:20
Speaker 1: 26 years, I've never heard of a person failing that bad, unquote.
28:25
Speaker 1: And David Marshburn, the third P.I., is still working with
28:28
Speaker 1: the family as of 2025. And People magazine put Dior
28:32
Speaker 1: on its cover in June 2016, headlined, quote, without a trace, unquote.
28:37
Speaker 1: And in 2017, the National Center for Missing and Exploited
28:40
Speaker 1: Children 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 vitriol followed.
28:52
Speaker 1: And it got bad enough that Koontz 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 Koontz to the point
29:04
Speaker 1: of near- And indeed, Koontz had gone into counseling for-
29:09
Speaker 1: Ideation driven by people telling the world he'd killed his
29:13
Speaker 1: own son. And the couple split and Mitchell remarried and
29:16
Speaker 1: stayed in Idaho Falls while Coons packed up and left
29:19
Speaker 1: the state. And in the days right after Dior vanished,
29:22
Speaker 1: Mitchell had begged publicly for his return, saying, quote, Who
29:26
Speaker 1: would harm us this way, especially knowing how much he
29:29
Speaker 1: means 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 10 years later, her statement was quieter,
29:39
Speaker 1: but no less heavy saying, quote, each of the 3,647
29:44
Speaker 1: days have felt the same. The pain of him missing
29:47
Speaker 1: is still as real as the day one. I love
29:50
Speaker 1: and miss my son every day, unquote. And Robert Walton
29:53
Speaker 1: died in 2019. And when contacted in 2025, Rainwald said
29:58
Speaker 1: he was trying to, quote, put this behind him and
30:01
Speaker 1: move forward, unquote. And Trina Clegg, Dior'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 a hundred
30:14
Speaker 1: times in 10 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 10 years later, there is
30:32
Speaker 1: no arrest, no charges, and no physical evidence. And Dior
30:36
Speaker 1: Coons Jr. is still missing. So if you know anything
30:40
Speaker 1: about his disappearance, please contact Idaho Falls authorities. All right,
30:45
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Speaker 1: ZocDoc for sponsoring this video and supporting the channel. And
32:03
Speaker 1: let's get back to it. Antoinette Christine Cayedito was born
32:06
Speaker 1: on Christmas day, 1976 in New Mexico. She was nine
32:10
Speaker 1: years old of Navajo and Italian descent. And she stood
32:14
Speaker 1: four feet seven and weighed 55 pounds with dark brown hair,
32:18
Speaker 1: brown eyes, and freckles. She had scars on her knee
32:21
Speaker 1: and lip, moles across her back, cheeks, nose, hands, and
32:26
Speaker 1: right ankle. And she wore glasses. And around her neck,
32:29
Speaker 1: she wore a silver chain with small turquoise cross pendant. Now,
32:33
Speaker 1: Antoinette was a fourth grader at Lincoln Elementary School in Gallup,
32:37
Speaker 1: New Mexico. And people who knew her said she carried
32:39
Speaker 1: herself like someone older, mature and responsible, not your typical nine-year-old.
32:44
Speaker 1: And by the time she was six, she was already
32:47
Speaker 1: cooking for her younger sisters and ironing their clothes for
32:49
Speaker 1: the week. And her father called her nine going on 15.
32:53
Speaker 1: And she lived with her mother, Penny Cayedito, and her
32:56
Speaker 1: two younger sisters, including Wendy, Montoya, and Penny was raising
33:01
Speaker 1: the three of them on her own. Now, Penny had
33:03
Speaker 1: been out on the evening of April 6, 1986, and
33:06
Speaker 1: she got home around midnight, where a babysitter had stayed
33:09
Speaker 1: with the girls. And the two younger sisters were down
33:11
Speaker 1: for the night, but Antoinette stayed up late until close
33:15
Speaker 1: to 3 a.m., Then sometime after 3 a.m., a man
33:19
Speaker 1: knocked at the front door and Antoinette and her sister
33:22
Speaker 1: heard a voice they couldn't place. So they would leave
33:25
Speaker 1: it unanswered and they would go back to bed. And
33:27
Speaker 1: then came the second knock. And this time the man
33:30
Speaker 1: said he was their Uncle Joe. So Antoinette got up
33:34
Speaker 1: to answer it while her sister stayed in bed. And
33:36
Speaker 1: by her sister Wendy's account, two men were at the door.
33:40
Speaker 1: One again calling himself Uncle Joe. And the moment Antoinette
33:44
Speaker 1: opened it in her pink nightgown, They grabbed her, carried
33:48
Speaker 1: her to a brown van, and drove off. Now, Wendy
33:51
Speaker 1: was only a child herself and kept what she saw
33:54
Speaker 1: to herself for years. And her younger sister, Sadie, has
33:58
Speaker 1: never been sure a second knock even happened. And that
34:02
Speaker 1: detail has never been resolved. So around 6.30 or 7 a.m.,
34:06
Speaker 1: a neighbor noticed an older model brown truck with New
34:09
Speaker 1: Mexico plates outside the house. and a man got out
34:13
Speaker 1: and walked toward the front door, though the neighbor couldn't
34:15
Speaker 1: describe him or the truck in any detail. And by
34:19
Speaker 1: her own account, Penny slept through it all and didn't
34:22
Speaker 1: realize anything was wrong until about 7 a.m., when she
34:25
Speaker 1: went to wake the girls and found Antoinette's bed empty. Now,
34:29
Speaker 1: Penny searched the neighborhood, but no one had seen her,
34:32
Speaker 1: and she said, quote, we went looking for her around
34:35
Speaker 1: the house, nothing. I didn't start panicking until we checked
34:38
Speaker 1: with all the neighbors and went to every house and
34:40
Speaker 1: nobody had seen her. So it was around 11 a.m.
34:44
Speaker 1: before she called the police. And when she did, they
34:47
Speaker 1: told her she'd have to wait eight hours before she
34:50
Speaker 1: could even file a report. And for years, this looked
34:53
Speaker 1: like a stranger at the door, but whoever knocked used
34:56
Speaker 1: the name Uncle Joe. a name that would mean something
35:00
Speaker 1: to these children. So it pointed to someone who knew
35:03
Speaker 1: the family had an uncle by that name and knew
35:06
Speaker 1: it would get the door open. And the case never
35:08
Speaker 1: sat right with investigators. And over the years, their focus
35:11
Speaker 1: turned inward to Penny herself because Penny's own account of
35:15
Speaker 1: that night changed. And at first she said she woke
35:19
Speaker 1: at 7 a.m. and found Antoinette's bed empty. But years later,
35:23
Speaker 1: in a 1994 interview with the FBI, she told it differently,
35:27
Speaker 1: saying that she heard the knock herself around 3.30 or 4.30 a.m.
35:31
Speaker 1: in the morning and told Antoinette to answer it and
35:34
Speaker 1: that she waited about 30 minutes and her daughter never
35:37
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 Emiliano Gardella, a
35:54
Speaker 1: man Penny said had given the nine-year-old flowers three times
35:58
Speaker 1: in the days before she vanished. And Penny had also
36:02
Speaker 1: failed a polygraph administered by the FBI. And a detective
36:06
Speaker 1: who worked the case, Marty Escobel, said years later that
36:09
Speaker 1: he was confident Penny knew who had taken Antoinette. But
36:12
Speaker 1: no charges were ever filed. And the FBI believed Penny
36:16
Speaker 1: was involved, but she was never charged somehow. And Penny
36:21
Speaker 1: always said Antoinette would never have opened the door for
36:24
Speaker 1: a stranger, and that she must have known whoever was
36:26
Speaker 1: on the other side. And once they realized that she
36:28
Speaker 1: was missing, police and Penny's neighbors searched the foothills and
36:32
Speaker 1: Gallop and found no trace of her. And from the start,
36:35
Speaker 1: they were all but certain she was kidnapped. And the
36:38
Speaker 1: first person they looked at was an uncle, after one
36:41
Speaker 1: of the younger sisters told the police that the man
36:43
Speaker 1: at the door was one of their uncles. But he
36:46
Speaker 1: was questioned and quickly cleared and was never considered a suspect.
36:50
Speaker 1: And in April of 1987, about a year after she vanished,
36:54
Speaker 1: a call reached the Gallup Police Department when a young
36:57
Speaker 1: girl said she was Antoinette from Albuquerque. But before the
37:02
Speaker 1: call could be traced, an angry man's voice cut in saying,
37:04
Speaker 1: quote unquote, who said you could use the phone? The
37:07
Speaker 1: girl screamed and there was a scuffle and the line
37:10
Speaker 1: went dead. And the whole call lasted about 40 seconds
37:14
Speaker 1: and it was caught on tape. And it was never
37:16
Speaker 1: confirmed whether the caller really was Antoinette or whether the
37:19
Speaker 1: call was simply a cruel prank. But Penny listened to
37:22
Speaker 1: the recording repeatedly and she said, quote, I listened to
37:25
Speaker 1: that tape over and over and over. And just by
37:28
Speaker 1: the way she says her last name and the way
37:30
Speaker 1: she screamed sent chills all over my body. A mother knows,
37:33
Speaker 1: and I know that was her. The FBI released two
37:37
Speaker 1: computer-enhanced images showing what Antoinette might look like at 14.
37:41
Speaker 1: And four months after those images went out, a waitress
37:43
Speaker 1: in Carson City, Nevada, thought she might have served her.
37:47
Speaker 1: And three people sat at the table, a disheveled couple,
37:50
Speaker 1: and a girl in her early teens. And all through
37:52
Speaker 1: the meal, the girl kept letting her fork slip to
37:55
Speaker 1: the floor, and every time the waitress brought it back,
37:58
Speaker 1: the child clutched at her hand. And after they left,
38:01
Speaker 1: the waitress cleared the table and found a napkin the
38:04
Speaker 1: girl had left under the plate, and it read, help me,
38:07
Speaker 1: call the police. But by the time she understood what
38:10
Speaker 1: it meant, the three of them were already gone, and
38:13
Speaker 1: no one ever confirmed that the girl was Antoinette. The
38:16
Speaker 1: family also turned to a well-known Navajo medicine woman who
38:19
Speaker 1: carried out the crystal ritual, a ceremony meant to reach
38:23
Speaker 1: someone who has vanished. And by her reading, Antoinette was
38:26
Speaker 1: still alive, might have had a child even, and was
38:29
Speaker 1: being held somewhere in the southwest, kept there by force.
38:33
Speaker 1: And Penny held on to that, and she said, quote,
38:36
Speaker 1: But Penny would die in 1999. And the questions of
38:45
Speaker 1: what happened to her daughter were still unanswered at that point.
38:48
Speaker 1: And Wendy described what the loss of Antoinette meant, saying, quote,
38:52
Speaker 1: it just broke my whole family up. It was a
38:54
Speaker 1: very dark and dysfunctional time, unquote. And the case has
38:58
Speaker 1: been told and retold on Unsolved Mysteries, first under Robert
39:01
Speaker 1: Stack and later under Dennis Farina. And three agencies are
39:04
Speaker 1: working the case, the FBI, the Gallup Police Department, and
39:07
Speaker 1: the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety. And Frank Fisher,
39:11
Speaker 1: a public affairs officer for the FBI's Albuquerque division, has said, quote,
39:15
Speaker 1: we have not stopped looking for answers. We are still
39:17
Speaker 1: working with Navajo Nation Division and Public Safety and Gallup
39:21
Speaker 1: Police Department to come up with answers, unquote. And on
39:24
Speaker 1: the 35th anniversary in 2021, the FBI renewed its public
39:28
Speaker 1: appeal and acting special agents. in charge, Eric S. Brown Sr., said, quote,
39:33
Speaker 1: we are asking anyone who might have information about this
39:36
Speaker 1: case to come forward now and help us find Antinette, unquote.
39:40
Speaker 1: And the case is still open and its paperwork sits
39:43
Speaker 1: boxed up at the Gallup Police Department. A spokesperson there
39:46
Speaker 1: told Dateline that tips have grown scarce over the years,
39:50
Speaker 1: but each new detective who joins gives the case a
39:52
Speaker 1: fresh look. And Antoinette Cayedito would be 49 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.fbi.gov. Nicole Louise Morin was eight years old,
40:11
Speaker 1: and she lived in a top floor penthouse apartment at
40:14
Speaker 1: 627 the West Mall in Etobicoke, a borough of Toronto, Ontario.
40:18
Speaker 1: And the building was 21 stories tall, and she stood
40:22
Speaker 1: just four feet tall and weighed about 51 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, Arthur,
40:39
Speaker 1: called Art. And they had married about a dozen years
40:42
Speaker 1: before she was born. But Art was living separately in
40:45
Speaker 1: Mississauga while Nicole and Jeanette were in that Etobicoke penthouse.
40:49
Speaker 1: where Jeanette ran a daycare for young children out of
40:52
Speaker 1: that apartment. Now, Nicole's best friend was a seven-year-old girl
40:55
Speaker 1: named Melissa Elastic. who lived in the same apartment complex.
40:59
Speaker 1: And the two of them would walk to school every
41:01
Speaker 1: day together. And Nicole's mom used to babysit Melissa's younger
41:05
Speaker 1: brother as well. But swimming was their thing because the
41:08
Speaker 1: building had its own pool and meeting there was part
41:11
Speaker 1: of their routine. So they were just normal kids spending
41:14
Speaker 1: their summer exactly the way that you'd expect them to.
41:16
Speaker 1: So July 30th, 1985 would come. And it was a
41:20
Speaker 1: morning like any other at the apartment on the West Mall.
41:23
Speaker 1: And Nicole had planned to take the elevator down to
41:25
Speaker 1: the lobby, head to the pool to meet her friend,
41:28
Speaker 1: and enjoy her time in the sun. So sometime around
41:31
Speaker 1: 11 o'clock, she would tell her mom that she was
41:33
Speaker 1: leaving out of the penthouse. And she wore a peach
41:35
Speaker 1: one-piece 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 her
41:45
Speaker 1: arm and a purple beach towel. Everything about her just
41:48
Speaker 1: screamed pool day, but unfortunately she would never make it
41:52
Speaker 1: 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 went with because Jeanette 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 3 p.m., roughly four hours after Nicole left. And
42:19
Speaker 1: there were no security cameras in the building at the time.
42:22
Speaker 1: because although they'd been purchased and scheduled for installation, they
42:26
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to be put up until the very next day.
42:30
Speaker 1: So one day later, and there might have been footage.
42:34
Speaker 1: One day later, and someone might have seen what happened
42:37
Speaker 1: in that lobby. But on that day, Nicole seemingly vanished
42:41
Speaker 1: from the face of the earth. And in response, Toronto
42:44
Speaker 1: police launched a search that would become one of the
42:46
Speaker 1: largest in the department's history. A task force of 20
42:50
Speaker 1: officers were assembled and investigators logged more than 15,000 man
42:54
Speaker 1: hours trying to find her. And they knocked on every
42:57
Speaker 1: unit in the building and let themselves into the ones
43:00
Speaker 1: that didn't answer. And eventually someone recognized a photo of
43:03
Speaker 1: Nicole and police were able to determine that she had
43:06
Speaker 1: in fact made it down to the lobby. But after that,
43:09
Speaker 1: there was nothing. And as Detective Sergeant Steve Smith said, quote,
43:13
Speaker 1: we have no hard evidence. After she went into that elevator,
43:17
Speaker 1: it's almost like she disappeared, unquote. Now, the following day,
43:21
Speaker 1: more officers arrived, and the search widened into a dragnet
43:24
Speaker 1: near Highway 27. And mounted police, boats, helicopters, officers on foot,
43:29
Speaker 1: and dogs all spread out across the area near the building.
43:32
Speaker 1: And it's worth noting, about 45 minutes before Nicole vanished,
43:36
Speaker 1: a neighbor noticed a blonde woman she didn't recognize sitting
43:39
Speaker 1: in the hallway on Nicole's floor with a notebook. And
43:42
Speaker 1: police wanted to talk to her, but they never tracked
43:45
Speaker 1: her down. Now, more than 900 people from the neighborhood
43:48
Speaker 1: also joined in on that search. And Toronto Crime Stoppers
43:52
Speaker 1: had just been informed. And this was its first big case.
43:55
Speaker 1: So it offered a $ 1, 000 reward and put out posters
43:59
Speaker 1: and filmed the recreation of her last known steps. And
44:02
Speaker 1: the Toronto Star ran off thousands more posters with her
44:05
Speaker 1: photo and police number. And police had thousands of watercolor
44:08
Speaker 1: sketches of her made up and sent around. And police
44:11
Speaker 1: also found a note in the apartment written in Nicole's
44:14
Speaker 1: handwriting in pencil a few months earlier saying, quote unquote,
44:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to disappear, which is so chilling in hindsight. Now,
44:24
Speaker 1: family and acquaintances were all checked and cleared, and eventually
44:28
Speaker 1: the case drew in homicide detectives. And the first year
44:31
Speaker 1: of the search alone ran an estimated $ 1. 8 million, and
44:36
Speaker 1: many more would quickly pass without meaningful progress. But the
44:39
Speaker 1: search for Nicole continued on, and by 2001, Crimestoppers had
44:43
Speaker 1: aged Nicole forward in her mid-20s in a new photo
44:47
Speaker 1: and circulated it online to more than 1,000 programs across
44:50
Speaker 1: 17 countries. And then in 2004, researchers with a Belgian group,
44:56
Speaker 1: the foundation Princesses de Croix et Massimo Lensolati, 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 for...
45:10
Speaker 1: children and reported a strong resemblance. But unfortunately, nothing came
45:15
Speaker 1: from it. And then Child Find Ontario kept at it
45:18
Speaker 1: as well, getting Nicole's photo and details in front of
45:21
Speaker 1: the public wherever it could. On screens, in ESSO stations,
45:25
Speaker 1: in the billing envelopes Rogers and the Canadian Imperial Bank
45:29
Speaker 1: of Commerce mailed out, on Toronto Transit Commission display screens,
45:33
Speaker 1: and even on the backs of transport trucks. And more
45:36
Speaker 1: reenactments followed, and the force's video unit cut another for
45:40
Speaker 1: the case's 29th anniversary in 2014, which screened at max
45:45
Speaker 1: convenience stores around Ontario. And in October 2014, a tip
45:50
Speaker 1: sent out investigators into the field. 38 officers, 10 from
45:54
Speaker 1: the Ontario Provincial Police and 28 from Toronto, searched Springwater
45:58
Speaker 1: Township with cadaver dogs. The whole operation traced back to
46:02
Speaker 1: a tip that had first reached the OPP almost 30
46:06
Speaker 1: years before. Back then, police had looked into it and
46:09
Speaker 1: just came up empty, but after a renewed Republic appeal
46:12
Speaker 1: in the summer of 2014, police decided it warranted a
46:16
Speaker 1: second look. And Inspector Jerry Cashman wasn't optimistic, calling it
46:20
Speaker 1: a long shot. But he said they had no choice
46:23
Speaker 1: but to follow through. Quote, for the family, for Nicole,
46:26
Speaker 1: she's still a missing person to us. She could still
46:28
Speaker 1: be somewhere out in the world at this point, not
46:31
Speaker 1: wanting to be found. We don't know that. But if
46:33
Speaker 1: she has met with foul play, it's our duty to
46:36
Speaker 1: come out here and stand up for her and find
46:38
Speaker 1: the person responsible if that's the case, unquote. But nothing
46:42
Speaker 1: came of it. And in 2015, marking 30 years, police
46:45
Speaker 1: would organize a 5K run called Nicole's Run in Centennial Park,
46:49
Speaker 1: complete with a candlelit vigil and raised $ 3, 000 for the
46:53
Speaker 1: Canadian Center for Child Protection. And in 2019, police put
46:57
Speaker 1: out another age-progressed image, imagining Nicole in her early 40s
47:01
Speaker 1: at this point. And in 2020, a new lead would
47:04
Speaker 1: come forward. Because a woman told a missing persons group
47:08
Speaker 1: that on the day Nicole vanished, she had seen her
47:11
Speaker 1: with a man at a West End park, a few
47:14
Speaker 1: kilometers from the building. And she had been about 12
47:17
Speaker 1: at the time, and is now in her early 50s.
47:21
Speaker 1: And she said the man she saw with Nicole had money. her.
47:25
Speaker 1: And then in 2022, that group, Please Bring Me Home,
47:29
Speaker 1: brought cadaver dogs to the park and the dogs alerted
47:32
Speaker 1: on a specific spot, a sign that remains could be
47:36
Speaker 1: buried there. However, an excavation has not taken place, and
47:40
Speaker 1: even if it did, there's no guarantee that they would
47:43
Speaker 1: find Nicole's body there. And over the years, one name
47:46
Speaker 1: kept surfacing though, Calvin Hoover. He had already been linked
47:50
Speaker 1: to another disappearance from the same era, so investigators looked
47:54
Speaker 1: at him for Nicole's case as well. But no charges
47:57
Speaker 1: were ever filed, and Hoover had died in 2015, taking
48:01
Speaker 1: whatever he knew, if anything, with him. And after her disappearance,
48:04
Speaker 1: Nicole's father, Art, quit his job, set up an office
48:08
Speaker 1: to run the search from, and chased leads for her
48:10
Speaker 1: across Canada and the United States. And for a while,
48:14
Speaker 1: he moved back in with Jeanette, but the marriage didn't survive.
48:17
Speaker 1: And the two split for good in 1987. And he
48:20
Speaker 1: also ignored police advice and put his own money for
48:23
Speaker 1: a private investigator. And as of 2020, the last update
48:27
Speaker 1: on record, Art was still living in the Atatubuk area.
48:31
Speaker 1: And Jeanette, for her part, turned to a psychic in Calgary,
48:34
Speaker 1: hoping it might point her toward her daughter. But she
48:37
Speaker 1: would pass away in 2007. And then there's Melissa Alaschuk,
48:42
Speaker 1: Nicole's childhood best friend. And Melissa spoke of their pool
48:45
Speaker 1: time together plainly. Quote, this was literally a regular occurrence
48:50
Speaker 1: for us and it very easily could have been me, unquote.
48:53
Speaker 1: She would actually grow up to become a police officer,
48:56
Speaker 1: serving 21 years because Nicole's disappearance not only steered her
49:00
Speaker 1: into policing, but also changed how she raised her own kids.
49:04
Speaker 1: And she actually still carries a photo negative of Nicole
49:07
Speaker 1: from when they were kids. a piece of their friendship
49:10
Speaker 1: that never got to finish. And at a press conference
49:14
Speaker 1: in 2025, Melissa made a public plea saying, quote, there
49:17
Speaker 1: is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that somebody knows something.
49:20
Speaker 1: There is no insignificant information unquote. And she added, quote,
49:25
Speaker 1: if you think that you may be Nicole, if you
49:27
Speaker 1: don't know what your past is, I would encourage you
49:30
Speaker 1: to come forward because we do have ways of verifying, unquote.
49:34
Speaker 1: And on July 30th, 2025, exactly 40 years after Nicole
49:38
Speaker 1: walked out of that penthouse, Toronto police announced a $ 50, 000
49:42
Speaker 1: reward for information on her whereabouts. And the reward stands
49:46
Speaker 1: for one year. And police also released a new age
49:49
Speaker 1: progress photo projecting what Nicole might look like as a
49:52
Speaker 1: grown woman now. and she would be in her late 40s.
49:56
Speaker 1: Detective Sergeant Smith has called this one of the highest
49:59
Speaker 1: profile cases in Toronto history, maybe in all of Canada.
50:03
Speaker 1: And he noted as well, quote, this case is not closed.
50:06
Speaker 1: It has never been forgotten, and it only takes one
50:09
Speaker 1: piece of new information to make that difference, unquote. 40
50:13
Speaker 1: years later, there is no arrest, no remains, and no answers.
50:17
Speaker 1: And Nicole Morin is still missing. So if you know
50:21
Speaker 1: anything about about her disappearance or have just any tips, please,
50:25
Speaker 1: please contact Toronto Police. And that is it for these
50:28
Speaker 1: missing children's cases. Again, if anyone has any information on
50:32
Speaker 1: any of these missing persons, they should contact their local
50:35
Speaker 1: FBI office or submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov. Thank you
50:40
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening. Let me know if you
50:42
Speaker 1: want me to dive into any other cases down below.
50:45
Speaker 1: And until then, please stay safe out there. And I really, really,
50:48
Speaker 1: truly hope that these cases are solved.