Up and Vanished - 7 Disappearances. 5 Cases. Up and Vanished comes to Oxygen!

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

The Up and Vanished team comes together to preview the upcoming TV series on Oxygen. This season, the team will cover 7 disappearances across 5 mysterious cases, diving into a new case each week. Don't miss the special 2-hour premiere this Saturday, February 15th at 7/6 central on Oxygen, the true network for crime. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone else close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. This Saturday, February 15th, Up and Vanished will premiere on the Oxygen Network.

Over the course of the season, we'll cover five missing persons cases. The UAV team, Payne, Donald, and myself sat down for a roundtable discussion on each of these cases. Here's Rob to give you some case details. Case number one. Karina Malinowski and Annette Sagers. In 1987, in rural South Carolina, 26-year-old mother Karina Malinowski disappeared without a trace. Then, almost one year later,

her 11-year-old daughter Annetteagers, went missing from the same place. You just don't see two members of the same family disappear a year apart, and no trace of either one is found. It's a very suspicious set of circumstances. Both mother and daughter were last seen around the plantation grounds they called home with their family. Stephen Malinowski, Karina's husband and Annette's stepfather, was the caretaker for the plantation grounds. The couple also had two young sons. Not only did we not know our mother's name, we didn't know anything that had happened. Karina was my sister. She loved life. She loved her kids. He thought she and him did not get along very well and that he had done something to her. When 11-year-old Annette Sagers disappeared, her stepfather found a note

in a nearby bus shelter, allegedly written by young Annette Sagers disappeared, her stepfather found a note in a nearby bus shelter, allegedly written by young Annette, explaining that her mom had come back for her. A bus driver had come to pick up my niece. She wasn't there. There was a note. The note said that mom came back and got me. Did mom actually come back?

Did someone else force her to write that note? It's been over 30 years, and no one has heard from either of them since. Nothing ever turned up. We thought Nanette was in Texas. They found a carpet that was rolled up and tied with an electrical cord. Could it be the most perfectly planned escape? Mother and daughter starting anew in a different place? Or is there something more nefarious at play here? So for the Malinowski-Sager case, we were in South Carolina, kind of right outside of Charleston, maybe about 30 minutes or so. For me, I kind of felt like that one seemed similar in some ways to doing a case like Tara Grinstead's case because it was the

South. It was that, you know, kind of outside of a big city, kind of a rural area, Southern town, a lot of empty space. It kind of had some similarities to me. It definitely had that Southern Gothic vibe. And it was, I mean, tons of land out there outside of Charleston I mean a huge plantation I don't even know how big that was it was huge we flew a drone over it but it was enormous I mean just so much space to look for a body a missing persons unbelievable so do you want to give a little overview of what that case is about so it was it was 1987. They disappeared on your birthday or I can't remember. I think the timeline is actually kind of gray, but it's it was

I think it was the wee morning hours of the 20th and the 21st of November 1987, which strangely enough, that's actually my birth date. I was born on November 21st, 1987. Karina Malinowski goes missing, and she lived on this plantation with her husband and her daughter and two sons. She got in a fight with her husband, Stephen Malinowski, apparently, allegedly got in a fight, and she left the property and never returned according to steven the husband she got in a car and drove to the edge of the plantation and then just left the

car there and she disappeared so she didn't take the car off the property to go drive somewhere else either someone picked her up or what i think, she never left the property and something bad happened to her there. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense at all that you would leave and just drive to the edge of the property to be picked up by someone else. And yeah, a lot of holes in the story. What really jumped out at us, number one, obviously you had an interesting connection there with your birthday. So I think that made the case automatically memorable to you um because i remember i was talking about even before doing the tv show and then um the fact that it's a the mother goes missing and under very suspicious circumstances um leaving her three children

and then her daughter disappears a year later and leaves a note. So the circumstances were just very eerie and weird that two people from a family would disappear. So I know that's what jumped out at me is like, how do we get to the bottom of this? Is it the same person? Did the mother actually run away and then come back to pick up her daughter? It's really strange.

Yeah, she leaves a note, but not just any note. It's a note that says, I'm going to see mommy. Mommy came back. I'm going to see her. In the letter that she wrote, Annette actually supposedly wrote, give the boys a hug, which doesn't seem like something that a little girl would write to me. It feels like very adult language. And that kind of stood out to me as something that's weird hmm yeah it's a good point give

the boys a hug the boys yeah yeah I mean how does that sound it I mean when we spoke to the police officers they said that stood out to them too the wording didn't sound like something an 11 year old girl would write yeah yeah what's crazy though is that the police really examined this note, and they determined that it was her handwriting. So the question becomes, you know, was she forced to write this note? Was it written under duress? Or even just kind of like duped into it, thinking it was for something else.

You just never know. It's just a really strange case that, you know, it's hard to wrap your head around why a mother would leave her three children, come back then for just one of them. One of the things that was really unique about this case was essentially getting to spend time with the family, all of Stephen Malinowski's children, kind of this fractured family from, you know, different parents, but all sharing the same dad. And they'd sort of met just over the last couple of years. And while we're doing the episode, they actually had a reunion because they didn't really grow

up together and they hadn't spent a lot of time, but they really enjoyed getting to know each other. It was it was really cool to see them all kind of come together. Yeah. Here's a clip from the episode going over the handwriting analysis. I asked Meredith to help me take a closer look at the note Annette left behind. Did you guys do an analysis of the handwriting for her and compare that? The initial investigators back in 88 did send the note and handwriting samples from Annette from school work to the state lab and had an analysis done on that.

And the analyst concluded that she did indeed write the note. Is there a way to tell if a note is written under any duress or stress? Just because she wrote the note doesn't specifically mean that she came up with the words to the note. It does look like she has a lot of cross outs and added words. And that just kind of adds to the mystery. If Karina did come back, she would have wrote the note right there at the bus shed. Is that why it looks the way it looks or does it look like this because it was written under duress? When you look at just the overall appearance of the note, it's crumpled.

Why is it crumpled, though? I don't know. That means someone either crumpled it up, then flattened it out, and then wrote it, or wrote it, and then said nope, and then crumpled it up to throw it away. Case number two. Crystal Reisinger. too. Crystal Reisinger. In July of 2016, 29-year-old Crystal Reisinger went missing from Crestone, a spiritual outpost in the mountains of Colorado. The Navajo Indians have considered Crestone sacred ground. It's a haven for people on a spiritual journey. It was a very bright

place during the day, and then at night it was a very dark place. Her apartment was locked, no sign of a struggle. Crystal was a very smart, talented young lady. The one thing she loved more than anything in life was our daughter. She would not have severed ties with our daughter. Many speculated that she had gotten lost in the mountains on a spiritually driven walkabout. She was very much into the occult.

However, she was never found along any trail, and she appeared to take none of her valuables. People were afraid to talk. They don't like to get law enforcement involved. Some say she was hanging out with an untrustworthy crowd involved in hard drugs. She was about ready to go to the police about being raped, and people didn't want her to make that report.

I suspect foul play. Up and Vanished covered Crystal's case in season two, and the team is back to follow up on tips and talk to a particular person of interest, who, according to the police report, may have been the last person to see Crystal. Some people were scared after the podcast came out. Justice will be served, and get ready,

because we're going to get everybody who's involved. Coming right off of season two of the podcast, Crystal Reisinger's case, we basically immediately started filming. And I said, we have to do a TV show episode about Crystal. We have to continue covering this story however we can. And so obviously having spent almost a year in Colorado with Crystal's family in Crestone, talking to everyone we could think of,

we had to try something a little different this go around. For me, that was getting face to face with some people that I had a lot of questions for. And I think you know who I'm talking about. There's one person in particular. And that was pretty much the game that I was playing. How do I get this particular person to sit down with me, man to man, and have a real discussion about what may have happened to Crystal? Thankfully, we accomplished that. And this was your first time face-to-face with him. You've talked to him on the phone, exchanged emails and texts, but your first time face-to-face. Yeah. With Tara's case, being there for so long in in Osceola, but with no cameras, it was definitely different when shooting the pilot coming back.

Just the reception from the town. Right. You had people who were like, oh, yeah, you guys are here finally going to get some closure for this thing. You have people saying, I don't want you in my restaurant because you're just here to kick up more dust. Let's talk about how it was going back to Crestone with cameras this time. How was that experience so people can know? I mean, personally, I wasn't very excited about bringing a whole camera crew to Crestone, Colorado. Right. One, because immediately everyone who lives there is going to know exactly who this is and exactly what we're doing. lives there is going to know exactly who this is and exactly what we're doing. I knew it was just a matter of seconds or minutes before the whole town knew what we were up to. And so I told the

entire production crew, literally everyone I could think of, to really keep a low profile when we get there. I knew eventually the cat would be out of the bag, but I don't, but it's the South. It's a, you know, kind of a, it's a unique town, but nowhere near as unique as Crestone. Crestone is this spiritual center where there's, you know, you're in mountain ranges and just people who are there for various reasons. It's not just like your small town in the South. So you're going to stick out like a sore thumb unless you are truly a local. No one drives a black SUV in Crestone. Right. Going back to Crestone with cameras this time and after having done the podcast, it was instantly different.

I remember the first time we went to Crestone, no one knew who we were. No one really knew that that story was being brought up again it had been a little bit of time so I think it was a little in some ways an advantage in the beginning in some ways people were kind of wary when we brought up Crystal you know they would say like why do you want to know about that now at least it was like oh you're with those people at least we know what this is about but I kind of think I missed the anonymity of coming to Crestone a really tiny town and not having some preconceived notion about who we were and what we were doing um but at least I guess people knew immediately, oh, it's for that podcast.

Oh, it's for that story. In some ways, people came to us. Like we got some tips. And I think one of the best things we did right now is actually follow up on some tips that we hadn't had the opportunity to follow up on before. Yeah, there's a lot of power in being incognito when it comes to investigating something. Yeah, I think it's also good to kind of put those who might be responsible on notice that like the podcast was over, but this thing wasn't over for us. And not only did we come back, we came back with cameras. We came back to do it on a different level in a different way.

So, you know, as much as we can do that, we like to, just because you don't want anyone to ever get comfortable that they've gotten away with this. The truth is there's still tips being sent in. There's still people, you know, giving information and talking about this case. So it really isn't over. Right. Yeah. There was a lot of pressure, not just in Crystal's case, but all the cases that we looked into,

to move the needle in some way in a very short amount of time. And so my head was always going to, okay, where is this person of interest? There always is one. And there's usually one that hasn't been talked to or confronted. And find that person, get as much information as you can, and then go talk to them. Go talk to them. A great thing about this episode on Crystal's case is that we also do go and talk to some of the voices that you guys might be familiar with from the podcast. And we talk to them again in more depth, knowing what we know now. So people like Sheriff Dan Warwick and Ara, the landlord. And the great thing about talking to someone multiple times is sometimes they remember new things or they give you a new perspective. And it's also great that I can truly say everyone still feels an urgency to solve this, including the sheriff's department.

Absolutely. Definitely. Here's a clip from Crystal's episode. On July 30th, 2016, Ora filed a police report with the Swatch County Sheriff's Department. When did you go up to Crestone? In early August, I finally got a hold of the sheriff and it just was like this endless gauntlet of possibilities,

things that could have happened to her. The Sewatch County Sheriff's Department is located 30 miles from Crestone and covers over 3,200 square miles of dense wilderness. With all that land and only several officers, they're stretched pretty thin. Meredith is meeting with Dan Warwick, who has been the sheriff in Sewatch County since 2015.

Can you walk me through the beginning of Crystal's case? When were you guys first called? It initially came in as nobody had seen her for a while. Not that that was real unusual. Up in Crestone, it's not uncommon for somebody to go up hiking and be overdue coming home or coming back. The first theory was that Crystal had wandered off on her own.

Another theory was that Crystal joined the Rainbow Gathering and left town. The Rainbow Gathering is a controversial group of nomads who congregate at primitive camping spots around the world. Most people in those camps weren't very open to talk to law enforcement, so it hindered things there. The first two weeks, we weren't even sure that she was truly a missing person, but just somebody who was overdue. And when we finally made entry into her apartment, that helped to clarify that there's more here than just she wandered off. What did you guys find in Crystal's apartment?

Clothes, computers, cell phone, things that most people don't leave home without anymore. Do you think there was any sort of a struggle at Crystal's apartment? I don't believe so. If there had been a struggle, how did the door get locked on the way out? So the door was locked? Yes. We could never find her key. We never found a wallet.

But she left her tobacco, her phone, and her bag at home. And her computer. I think it's odd she left her phone, though. Yes. And all the lights were on, the fan was on. It was like that for weeks. It was disturbing. Law enforcement processed the apartment, but came up empty-handed.

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Understood. Available now on Spotify. Case number three. Molly Miller and Colt Haynes. We didn't start this, but we will finish it. We're not going to let go until Molly and Colt are home. One night in Love County, Oklahoma in 2013. Our town is really small.

It's Wilson. Everybody knows everybody. There's one degree of separation. A car spun out in front of a cop vehicle, instigating a high-speed chase. It all started with a late-night police chase in Wilson. The car held three young people. People she thought were her friends. Driver James Kahn Nipp and two passengers, Colt Haynes and Molly Miller. Molly was a very rambunctious girl who enjoyed life. Wild, outgoing, fun, down to earth, and just an amazing person.

During the pursuit, they peeled into the woods to take cover. But only one of them emerged. into the woods to take cover. But only one of them emerged. Police say James Connip was driving a car that spun out in front of an officer, led authorities on a chase, where the pursuit was called off by the sheriff. I'm going to get out of the car here and talk to him.

I think that it seems very fishy how it was dealt with. Some of these witnesses are scared of being threatened with their life. And until those people come forward, this case is likely to go unsolved for a while. Three went in and one came out. What really happened that night? on july 8th 2013 molly miller and colt haynes disappeared from love county oklahoma the circumstances surrounding their disappearance are bizarre, to say the least. Basically, the night started with a police chase.

Molly and Colt were in the car as passengers, and a man named James Connip was driving. Apparently, he spun out in a parking lot and got the attention of a cop, and a police chase started. So Connip is blazing through Love County, Oklahoma in this police chase and Molly and Colt are passengers in this vehicle. They go through this crazy, insane police chase that goes off the road, basically through the woods onto someone else's

property, just tearing through the woods at night. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be as a passenger. And eventually, they get away, but the only person to emerge from the woods is James Connip. Yeah, so Molly and Colt are in the car, and by the time this chase is over, they're somewhere left in the woods, and Connip appears healthy and well back at his home. Yeah, basically, long story short, James Connip gets in a police chase, evades the police, drives like a maniac through the woods, and totals his car, and then walks away from the scene, and then has no idea what happened to his fellow passengers?

Right. Another interesting thing about the chase is that Sheriff Joe Russell, who is Connip's uncle, actually calls off the chase. So while these officers are chasing Connip, you know, throughout Love County and into these woods, the sheriff calls it off and says basically, you know, stop chasing him, which obviously is a conflict of interest there. That's his nephew. And we just don't know what happened once they got into those woods. Only thing that we know is that Molly and Colt never emerged. The landscape in this case is really interesting to me.

When we were down there, I thought, oh, my gosh, how would you ever find somebody here? There was a lake as a place of interest. There was a forest as a place of interest, like someone's property as a place of interest where you can't get permission to go there. It just seemed like such a difficult uphill battle to really search the necessary areas. Well, I mean, you can get permission, but certain people aren't granting that. And that's the biggest problem with this case. That's another kind of similarity to the Grinstead case in a way. It's like, you know, maybe the evidence or part of the story is on private property. Yeah. What was interesting about this case, too, is that we had a little bit of help from retired FBI agent Maureen O'Connell, who kind of gave us some insight of what to look for

and kind of her opinion on what happened and really profiling who Sheriff Joe Russell was and kind of what we could expect when we were out there looking for him. And, you know, we went out to hunt for him and see if we could get some answers from him. One thing that's interesting to me about this case and about the show in general is that we did two cases that were two people. Malinowski and Sager, mother and daughter, and then Molly Miller and Colt Haynes. It's actually kind of more amazing and unbelievable

when two people can't be found. I think it oftentimes boils down to somebody saw something and the other person also had to be silenced if it indeed is murder. Right. Yeah, I think that's just different from the podcast and those two cases that you mentioned that were both multiple people. Also younger people. Annette Sager was 11 when she disappeared.

Molly Miller, 17. Colt Haynes, 21. So those are the three youngest people that we've ever looked into their disappearances. Yeah, these are both cases where it seems like someone saw something that they shouldn't have and became a second victim so that they could cover the whole thing up. Here's a clip from the show where we talk to Molly Miller's family. I don't know much about Colt. From my understanding, she had just recently met him. So was Molly friends with Colt? She had become friends with Colt, yes. He was older than her.

I believe he was 22 when they went missing, and she was 17, and I think she was infatuated with him, according to one of her friends. She just kind of liked him. I don't know if the feeling was mutual. Like I said, I only think they knew each other about a week from what I've been told. So she never mentioned Colt to you? No. I had known Colt from school. I didn't know Colt to be a ruthless guy. What do you think happened that night? And how do you think that Molly and Colt ended up in the car with Con?

Oh, well, it kind of caught me off guard that she was even with him. Last time I saw Molly was May of 2013 at our family reunion she had poison ivy terrible and we left that night and my elder son said you need to turn around and I said why and he's like we need to go get Molly something bad is about to happen to her. I just feel it in my gut. We've got to go get her. When did you find out that Molly was missing? I got a phone call. I was driving down the road and screaming. Because I was, I mean, it was pain. I was in so much pain.

Just screaming, yelling, you know, out to God. And like, why is this happening? Do you think that Molly was murdered? Yes. I think she saw something she wasn't supposed to, and they made the executive decision to kill her. Case number four. Jennifer Kessie.

In 2006, a young professional woman went missing from Orlando, Florida. Jen was a very outgoing, fun girl. Full of life. Just a beautiful soul. She was always very safety conscious. She was just on her way to work and then disappears off the face of the earth. On January 23rd, 24-year-old Jennifer Kessie went home to her condo after work. She talked to her boyfriend on the phone around 10 p.m. and she hasn't been heard from since.

My heart dropped and instantly I said, oh my my god we have to find her. You don't ever expect to get a call that your best friend just went missing. In a place like central Florida there are so many places you can dispose of a body. The next day video footage captured a grainy shot of someone parking her car at a neighboring complex and walking away. Held my breath when the trunk popped open because I thought, she's in the trunk of that car. However, the facial features couldn't be determined, and the person was never apprehended. She saw Jennifer the night of her disappearance

being forced into the back of a car that she says looks just like Jennifer's Chevy Malibu. I witnessed a gentleman coming out of the truck, pulled out a long carpet, walked to the lake edge and threw it in. Her parents, Joyce and Drew Kessey, have worked tirelessly to find their daughter. From changing laws to initiating searches, they've done it all. What this tells me is that they are indicating to human remains sent in this area.

Where is Jennifer Kessie? And I believe she's still out there needing to be rescued. On January 23rd, 2006, Jennifer Kessie, 24 years old, disappeared from Orlando, Florida. And many of our Up and Advantage listeners may know about this case. It only happened a few months after Tara went missing. And there are some other similarities. There was actually a theory that there was a serial killer on the loose at the time that may be connected to both of their cases. And Maurice Godwin actually worked the Kessie case for several months as well as working Tara's case, obviously. So there was obviously some connections there between these two cases and we all knew about it prior to actually this series and investigating it.

I think one of the things that stood out to me about this case was not only the very bizarre circumstances of Jennifer's disappearance, but even after her disappearance, the fight that the Kesey family went through in order to get justice and then to even get the support and documentation and evidence so they could launch their own investigation. You know, nothing has been easy. And the thought of trying to launch your own investigation, have to fight the state of Florida while grieving the loss of your daughter was heartbreaking and something you just can't imagine. The last time that Jennifer was seen was on January 23rd. She had gotten home from work. She talked to her father and her boyfriend that day and never showed up to work

the next day. And there was just so many takeaways from the apartment itself. That was really, we know she made it home. Her car was outside. Her apartment was being renovated at the time. So there was a lot of people in and out, a lot of painters, a lot of construction workers. And the case becomes more and more difficult to get answers because a lot of the people that you needed to talk to at that time, if you didn't talk to them that very same day, you probably would never get to talk to them because they might be transients because they're there to work on the property. Even if the police are showing up, people aren't showing up the next day for work because they don't want to just be in that environment. So it was a difficult one. I think that it was uphill battle for the police, but

there was just so much that they didn't do that day. Couldn't do that day. Couldn't do that day, actually, yeah. I agree with you. I think the family is really an incredible part of this case. Mr. Kessie is such a force to be reckoned with. They have really run a lot of the investigation on their own, which is incredible. And it's been such a battle. And they've changed laws in doing that. They raised the age. Hey, Mike, what's that law that they

changed? So it's the Jennifer Kessie and Tiffany Sessions Missing Persons Act. It directs law officers to start looking for a missing person 25 or younger within two hours of his or her reported disappearance. I can't find what the age used to be, but I think it was younger than that, like 18 or something. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was 18 and under. Wow. It only applies to those suspected of being in danger or the victims of a crime. Wow. Yeah. I think it used to be minors and now it's older. And so they've really been like these total pioneers for missing persons cases. And Mr. Kessie really helps out a lot of other families that are going through the same thing.

And they've used a ton of their funds, their own personal funds, just to look for their daughter. And they're really incredible people to talk to. Here's a clip from the show where Jennifer's family talks about the first time they found out she was missing. Jennifer's family talks about the first time they found out she was missing. Can you walk me through when you discovered that she went missing? Jen's a creature of habits. She did the very same things over and over again. Every morning, Jennifer was like my wake-up call.

She'd always shoot me a text or call me on her way to work. About what time would she usually text you in the morning? Normally about 8 o'clock. And so at around that time, where would Jennifer be? Would she still be in her apartment or on the way to work. About what time would she usually text you in the morning? Normally about 8 o'clock. And so at around that time, where would Jennifer be? Would she still be in her apartment or on the way to work? Normally she'd be on the way to work. Then I texted her a few times. I still didn't hear anything back from her, which I thought was kind of odd.

And then her parents reached out to me and said, have you talked to Jen today? And I said, no, I haven't talked to her. And that's when reality kind of sunk in that something had gone wrong. I got a phone call, and it was from Jen's boss and he wanted to know if there was a family emergency. And I said, no, why do you ask?

And he said, well, Jen didn't show up for work and she didn't call and we can't reach her. I rang Jennifer's phone. It went directly to voicemail. My heart dropped and instantly I said, oh my God, we have to find her. I never, never thought she was in an accident. It was just like, oh my God, we have to find her.

Yeah, so she's last seen leaving work on a Monday around 6 p.m., talks to her dad around that time, then talks to her boyfriend that night sometime after 10 p.m., and she's never seen or heard from again. The next day around noon down the street a surveillance video picks up her car being moved by an unknown individual and just dropped off at this different apartment complex and this man steps out of the vehicle and walks behind this fence and goes who knows where because the camera cuts off i mean so there was only one good angle of her car being parked there but

obviously whoever has her vehicle at that time and has never come forward is associated with her disappearance and the problem is, it's classic black and white grainy footage. It kind of looks like he's wearing a painter's outfit. It could just be the way that it looks. It looks like he's wearing all white, but again, it's black and white, so you can't definitively say that.

But he just casually rolls up in Jennifer's car, parks it, and then walks away. And whoever did that, whoever that person is, has never come forward. And that tells law enforcement and tells me that he's probably involved in her disappearance and likely murder. Here's a clip from the show where we discuss the surveillance footage. We did obtain some video surveillance at the condominiums where her vehicle was found. And that surveillance video depicted a picture of a pedestrian, which we're classifying as a person of interest. And so police had that image for a bit before they released it. And we think, oh my gosh, they have a picture of this suspect.

We cannot wait to see who this person of interest is. And then you look at the photo. It shows you nothing. Could be anybody. Could be me walking there. How is it possible that in that short span, they find the car and they get a picture, and it does nothing? The face is perfectly blocked by that fence.

It's, I mean, the luckiest suspect on the planet. Case number five. Jodi Husentrude. On June 27, 1995, 27-year-old news anchor Jodi Husentruth didn't show up for work at her news station in Mason City, Iowa. Mason City is just a small town in North Iowa. People don't even lock their house doors, much less their vehicles. Quiet community. Everybody knew everybody. Everybody knew Jodi.

Magnetic personality. People were just drawn to her. She was a great young gal with a bright future. We would go out in Mason City. Everybody knew who she was. Around 4 a.m., when Jodi was late for her usual slot on the morning news, her colleague called to check in. Jodi answered the phone, said she'd overslept, and she'd be there as soon as possible. But by 6 a.m., Jodi still hadn't shown up.

Around 7 a.m., the news station called the Mason City Police. The police arrived at Jodi's apartment complex to find her things scattered by her car in the parking lot. Her car key was bent. And Jodi was nowhere to be found. There were drag marks. Never thought in a million years that she would be abducted. Did Jody ever mention having a stalker? Yes.

I don't believe police have investigated the theories that have been put forward. Can we just stop for a second? I'm trying to find the truth. On June 27th, 1995, in Mason City, Iowa, Jody Husentrout, a local news anchor, went missing from her apartment. This is a clear abduction, or at least it's made to look that way. Based on the evidence in the parking lot, it really does look like she was leaving her apartment that morning and trying to get in her vehicle, or was about to, and someone ambushed her and either knocked her out, tried to abduct her or something right there next to her

car. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because saying that it's a clear abduction, it makes me really think about the other cases where there's, you aren't really sure what happened. Did someone disappear of their own will or were they abducted with just no trace of an abduction? Whereas this one, there are clear indications that there was an abduction with her keys and purse scattered around and a clear time of when this happened, when she was going to work in the morning before her morning broadcast. Speaking of morning broadcast, I think it's also interesting that this case has a little bit of that local celebrity aspect to it. You know, this is a small town. Mason City isn't a big market.

And everyone knew Jodi Husentroop because she was on the morning news. And in a market like Mason City, everyone's going to watch that news program and everyone's going to know who she is. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess the similarities there to Tara as well with her history as a pageant queen and then her being a local high school teacher in a small town. Again, there was a celebrity element, even though local, maybe not that they were playing that up, but they were just very well known in their market. Yeah. In a small community. I also think that in this case, there was a lot of focus and a lot of discussion during our interviews of jody having admirers multiple admirers and um because one of the one of the biggest questions is was she abducted and murdered by someone she knew or was it a complete stranger who was just

fascinated with her from watching her on the news every day. There was very clearly some creeps who were into her because she told her family this, that she was kind of weirded out by some people that she may have thought were stalking her. In a small town, a beautiful woman on TV every day that came with some local creeps who kind of were obsessed with her. I think that you have a good point when it comes to kind of being exposed in her job field to negative attention. One of the signs of struggle at the scene was her car key was actually bent, which indicates that her car key was probably already in her door when she was struck or pushed up against the car and it bent at that point. So you really have a clear indication of the force that went into abducting her and a clear time of when it happened before her morning broadcast.

What makes more sense to you guys? before her morning broadcast. What makes more sense to you guys? That a local stranger who became obsessed with Jodi from watching her on TV every day, you know, stalks her, finds out where she lives and her schedule, and then randomly one morning ambushes her and kills her?

Or does an action like that come from someone who may have cared about her in a different way? Is there more, does it take stronger feelings than that? Is it an obsession by a stranger or someone who knew Jodi who felt a certain way about her? Is it a crime of passion? It feels more like passion to me. Someone who was felt maybe rejected, but who was in her life and wanted maybe a relationship that she didn't want. And it felt more personal to me.

Just looking into the story, looking at the crime scene, definitely felt like it was a crime of passion. I mean, statistically speaking, we all know it's more likely that someone gets killed by someone they know. However, I'm glad we explored all avenues because I don't think you can really rule anything out when it comes to someone who's a local celebrity. There can be that, you know, one-off chance that there was someone who took a unique interest in her that really had never met her. Here's a clip from the show where we discuss the possibility of an obsessed stalker. These findings led investigators to believe that she didn't leave on her own.

But why would anyone want to hurt Jodi? to believe that she didn't leave on her own. But why would anyone want to hurt Jodi? I really thought it was more somebody fixated on her, specifically because of her personality, her, you know, her smile, her laugh, the way she presented herself to the world. So less of an enemy, more of an obsessed admirer? Yes.

There were guys who were kind of obsessed with her. She was getting some strange phone calls and stuff, and then that guy had been following her one day when she was out jogging. Who knows? Maybe that was innocent, but she got very upset about it. They didn't leave her with a good feeling. She did call. Did she tell you this? Yeah. They never found that guy or that truck. Did Jodi ever mention having a stalker?

Yes. I know there was some guy in a truck that she had seen. There was nothing that ever happened with that. We're not aware of any stalking incident that she was involved with, nor did she report any stalking incident to us. According to her friends and family, Jody filed a police report in November of 1994, seven months before she went missing. But the police chief claims they have no knowledge of this and no record of a report ever being

filed. Here's a clip from the show where I talked to one of Jodi's friends. How do you think that law enforcement dealt with Jodi's case? I think that they handled it poorly. There were things that were in her apartment that were weird. Beer cans of beer that she doesn't drink. The toilet seat was left up. Was there a guy in there? Was there not a guy in there? If so, who was it?

Phone records, there was a message on her answer machine. Did they listen to that? I don't know. It just seems like they did a shoddy job at the whole investigation. With all the beer cans and the toilet seat left up, they just never really tried to figure out exactly who... That's to my knowledge. No, I don't believe so. Those do seem like pretty significant details if she didn't drink that beer and get there when she's gone. Her bed was made, which is odd, and if she was running late. Someone said that in the apartment building. They heard a knock on the door late at night and said,

Jody, open up, I know you're in there. Jody, open up, and they were pounding on the door. The two-hour season premiere of Up and Vanished premieres this Saturday, February 15th at 7, 6 Central, starting with the Jody Husen truth case. New episodes will come out every Saturday. Thanks for listening. This episode is presented by Oxygen Network,

with clips from the Up and Vanished TV show on Oxygen. Executive produced by Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Meredith Stedman, and Cooper Skinner. Voice narration by Rob Ricotta. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. A big thank you to the crew and everyone we spoke to during filming. Check out the show this weekend, only on Oxygen.