567 replies to this topic

[chailey]

Haven't seen a thread for this show yet.

I find this series rather frustrating, as the most episodes end with no resolution, though in one case a body was found after the episode aired. It is a real education in the difficulties of real life law enforcement, as each disappearance is surrounded by a web of confusing and conflicting clues. The two episodes which covered the disappearances of entire families, the McStays of California and the Jamisons of Oklahoma are both fascinating and chilling.

Did the McStays meet with foul play, or did they literally drop everything in their lives and run off to Mexico? If they were killed, why? Their truck was abandoned, and there was no sign that anyone tried to force one of the parents to withdraw money from an ATM. Could someone have targeted them because they wanted the children? No sign of illegal activity on the father's part, no indication of extramarital affairs, no sign of violence in the house, no apparent theft. Just perplexing and weird. Was that them on the border videotape happily walking into Mexico? Where was their truck in the days before it was abandoned? Why would they leave their beloved dogs tied up in the yard and $100,00 in a savings account if they were starting over in a new life?

Why did the Jamisons have $30,000 in their car? Who knew that they were going up into the mountains that day? Why did they appear to be acting oddly when they packed their SUV up for the trip?

Creepy and maddening.

[cheeztoast]

The first episode I saw is one of the only episodes I've seen of this show where the person is actually found alive. So it gave me hope, but most of the episodes have a maddeningly open-ended non-ending. The McStays thing is such a weird weird mystery. Who would kill an entire family? Are they did? They looked a little free-spirited hippie but the father/husband was a businessman and they were fairly suburban in their lifestyle so that was a major headscratcher. I hope they show this episode in Mexico to see if anybody has any recollection of them.

I have to say, of all the death-sploitation shows in I.D., this one has the best production values and writing. A lot of their other shows are pretty sloppily done rehashes of better true crime shows.

[tonkacat]

Wasn't the Jamison family the ones who were trying to find out how to get rid of ghosts or witches or something? I think that was on another show. I was frustrated with this show at first until I realized it could create new leads in old cases.

[chailey]

Yes, that was the Jamisons . I believe that the wife was considered to be bi-polar which may explain the vituperative letter to her husband which was found in the car, and also, perhaps, the whole "witch" thing. The show didn't mention it, but the local sheriff described the couple as "scammers" who frequently sued people. There was a suspicion that they were involved with drugs, but the local LE found no sign of that. The area is so remote, it seems unlikely that someone would have just stumbled across them and then decided, spur of the moment, to kidnap/kill them all. The money found in the car indicates that they may have been meeting someone. The show said that they were "looking at land" not that they were buying it on the spot, though. The woman on the episode who said that she didn't think that the parents took the photo of the little girl may be on to something. The kid definitely had an odd look on her face.

The first episode I saw is one of the only episodes I've seen of this show where the person is actually found alive.

I haven't seen that one. Hopefully will catch it in reruns. The people who have problems in their lives and just drop out, putting their families through years of sheer hell truly piss me off. Send a postcard saying that you're ok, for goodness sake.

[Celina]

I saw the McStay episode and it really haunted me. Just so baffling.

To me, there was just something very off about the wife. The fact that she had changed her name a few times just seemed odd. Her sister seemed to be "covering" for her somehow. Also the fact that she did not want to move to the new house. Maybe it's possible that she met someone else, they killed the husband, disposed of his body, and then took the kids into hiding in Mexico. The husband's parents said they do not believe the man in the border crossing footage was their son, however it clearly seemed to be the wife, the two kids and a man. Also, this would account for the four days gap between leaving the house and crossing the border. They also may have bought the toys at Ross to just keep the kids occupied. Who knows!

[jalfredprufrock]

I love this show. I agree that the production value is better than other similar true crime shows on ID Discovery and other channels. I also like the fact that most of the stories are true mysteries - I often find myself very captivated by the stories and ruminating about what could have possibly happened to the individuals featured. I think that other so-called "mystery" shows (like 48 Hours Mystery) could take a lesson from this show. I also like the fact that most of the stories have not been featured/recycled from other true crime franchises, and are thus new to me.

Edited by jalfredprufrock, Mar 16, 2011 @ 4:18 PM.

[LingPetunia]

I love this show too, but I'm kind of addicted to the whole channel. I watched a marathon a few weeks ago, and I was shocked when, in about the fifth episode, the person was found. Not only alive and in decent shape, but found after SEVEN days! She got in a car accident on the streeet in between her work and home. That episode gave me hope there are others are out there that are found, or at least have closure.

[chailey]

New episode on last night, the one with the missing firefighter, Brandy Hall. I suspect the husband and some of his pot growing partners. More than a little suspicious that she disappears the night before she's going to testify as a character witness at his sentencing. What was with this guy? He had a well paying and respected job as a Fire Chief, and he decides to grow pot on the side? He seemed like a dim bulb. I wonder if she told him that she was going to divorce him while he served his sentence? He had certainly screwed her life up royally at that point. I don't believe that she would run away and abandon her kids. She wasn't flush with funds at that point either. I think that someone killed her, hid her body, and dumped her truck in the pond to make it look like she had run away. They probably stole her gun, too.

[marym52]

I don't mind at all that most of the cases are unresolved-- "Unsolved Mysteries" was one of my favorite shows. I love trying to come up with solutions.

My idea on the McStays is that they were tempted by a chance to make a lot of money on a one-time drug deal in Mexico. Nervous & distracted, they forgot the $30,000 & left it in their van. They met up with the dealers in Mexico. When they couldn't produce payment, the dealers killed the entire family.

[Runner123]

Re: Brandy Hall--I remember them mentioning the backpack and day planner, but they didn't mention this find in 2008, did they?
http://www.wftv.com/...034/detail.html

[chailey]

My idea on the McStays is that they were tempted by a chance to make a lot of money on a one-time drug deal in Mexico. Nervous & distracted, they forgot the $30,000 & left it in their van. They met up with the dealers in Mexico. When they couldn't produce payment, the dealers killed the entire family.

I think that you've gotten the two missing families mixed up. The McStays (may have) disappeared into Mexico, but the $30,000 was found in the van belonging to the other missing family, the Jamisons. I think that all that was found in the McStay's van were large bags filled with toys.

[jalfredprufrock]

New episode on last night, the one with the missing firefighter, Brandy Hall. I suspect the husband and some of his pot growing partners. More than a little suspicious that she disappears the night before she's going to testify as a character witness at his sentencing.

I think the husband is a shady character, too - and I hate the fact that the husband is eliminated essentially because he passed a polygraph test. Don't the cops know that people without a conscience have no problem "passing" those tests? If that dude killed his wife and doesn't feel guilty about it, no deception will be indicated.

The episode that haunted me the most recently was the one with the mother, her daughter, and the daughter's friend who disappeared from their house the night of their high school graduation 20 years ago - what the heck? That was super scary, because obviously something really bad happened to them. They need to dig up that parking garage where they might be buried, I'm still not sure why law enforcement is dragging their feet on that.

[chailey]

They need to dig up that parking garage where they might be buried, I'm still not sure why law enforcement is dragging their feet on that.

Yes, just dig it up already. It is a small spot in the garage, not the whole structure. This case is slightly different than most of the others in that they know who did it, but still haven't found the bodies.

[KADC]

The first episode I saw is one of the only episodes I've seen of this show where the person is actually found alive.

I haven't seen that one. Hopefully will catch it in reruns. The people who have problems in their lives and just drop out, putting their families through years of sheer hell truly piss me off. Send a postcard saying that you're ok, for goodness sake.

If that's the one with the woman who ended up working in Oregon, I have no problem with her leaving and letting her mother deal with the fallout. That was the one where the mother actually told her own daughter that getting raped was her own fault. The girl left because she had a bitch for a mom, a "mom" who was anything but supportive after her daughter was traumatized. Yeah, she was a troubled girl who sometimes made bad decisions, but I didn't have any problem with her leaving. Any mother who'll say something like that to her own daughter gets what she deserves. I hated her and the cop who kept heaping his own bullshit on the daughter.

Edited by KADC, Mar 31, 2011 @ 8:25 PM.

[chailey]

I haven't seen that one. Hopefully will catch it in reruns. The people who have problems in their lives and just drop out, putting their families through years of sheer hell truly piss me off. Send a postcard saying that you're ok, for goodness sake.

If that's the one with the woman who ended up working in Oregon, I have no problem with her leaving and letting her mother deal with the fallout.

No actually I was thinking of the young man who may or may not have committed suicide, the one that was really obsessed with the book Into the Wild He may have committed suicide (even though they searched for a body quite thoroughly and came up with nothing) or he may have faked it. I haven't seen the episode that you're talking about, but yeah, toxic parent, totally understandable that she'd want to split. I feel bad for all of the time that law enforcement wastes on some of these cases though. Even considering the whole toxic family situation, there's always the chance that a friend might notice that someone is missing and report that.

I've heard of other cases, not necessarily highlighted on this show, where people (often husbands, though not always) just get overwhelmed with their lives/family responsibilities and split. Like I said, leave a freakin' note, and not an ambiguous one at that. Worst case scenario, the neighborhood gossip about a possible homicide could lead to unpleasant consequences.

[cheeztoast]

The episode I was referring to when I said the first episode I saw the person was found alive was in Washington State. This married couple weren't too close to their families so it was just the two of them and the wife had two jobs and her husband worked a shift where he didn't get to see her much. She didn't make it to her one job and the husband couldn't get the police to let him file a missing persons report. He had an incredibly difficult time getting them to believe that he hadn't caused his wife's disappearance. The wife's boss started rumors that the husband had done some suspicious things (he hadn't). The police were interrogating him and on the verge of charging him with her disappearance when her jeep was found about 1 1/2 miles from their house overturned. She was still ALIVE, hanging upside down by her seat belt. It was in an area right off the road that was completely covered in trees and stuff in a ravine. She was badly injured by barely alive. So they interviewed her at the end of the show. So that was the first episode I happened to see that gave me hope that sometimes people really are alive.

[Malachi]

I watch this show pretty regularly, but there is one thing that I find unsettling about it: sometimes the friends or relatives of the missing person, in their TH interviews, seem to be smiling inappropriately. Sometimes they smile or laugh when recalling a funny or nice memory of the missing person, which isn't what I'm referring to. I'm talking about the people sitting there giving the facts about the case with huge grins on their faces. This is really noticeable in the episode about Paige Birgfeld, the mom/secret escort. Her friend was talking about the day Paige told her, "If I ever go missing, my exhusband killed me" with a big smile on her face. I know some people's mouths just turn up naturally, making it look like they are smiling a lot, and maybe it was a nervous reaction to being interviewed for a television show, but I found it extremely unsettling. It was like a bad SNL sketch.

[chailey]

but there is one thing that I find unsettling about it: sometimes the friends or relatives of the missing person, in their TH interviews, seem to be smiling inappropriately....maybe it was a nervous reaction to being interviewed for a television show

I'm willing to give most of them the benefit of the doubt and put it down to nerves (speaking as someone who also sometimes grins at inappropriate times when nervous). Of course, some of them may be shallow jerks who enjoy the limelight.

Saw the repeat last night about the missing musician. I still think, polygraph or no, that someone in that band knows something.

[travel9x]

The first episode I saw is one of the only episodes I've seen of this show where the person is actually found alive.

There are two episodes in which they found the person alive -- the one in which the daughter ran away and made a new life on the other side of the US and the one in which the wife had the car accident and the husband had to fight hard to be listened to. The editing on the run away daughter episode had such subtle clues that she would be found.

As for Brandy Hall, I think that her boyfriend's wife had a lot to do with the disappearance. And that's because of the timing -- Brandy's husband was going away to prison (that was obvious) and the boyfriend was still clearly involved in Brandy's life.

The one episode that's stuck with me is the accountant who disappeared. The clues are there but nothing seems to add up about where he could have gone.

ILNative -- That sounds right to me -- that's it's the guy from Arkansas. I hoped it would not be suicide since the pressures he was under were livable. But I'm open to that as a possibility as well.

Edited by travel9x, Apr 5, 2011 @ 11:02 AM.

[ILNative]

The one episode that's stuck with me is the accountant who disappeared. The clues are there but nothing seems to add up about where he could have gone.

Is that the guy from Arkansas? I live in the LR suburbs and his disappearance was all over the media here. I personally think he committed suicide at Petit Jean State Park.

[lola212005]

This show was surreal to me. They featured a missing person from my home town on this show. It was so weird seeing my street on t.v. It brought all of the memories back.

[mooyoo]

The first episode I saw is one of the only episodes I've seen of this show where the person is actually found alive. So it gave me hope, but most of the episodes have a maddeningly open-ended non-ending.

I had the same experience. The first episode I watched was one in which a young woman goes out to a bar with a guy she met on the internet and then never comes home, and at first it was firmly believed that the internet guy killed her, but later it's discovered that they got separated and she met a couple other guys, one of whom killed her and buried her body, and he eventually confessed and led the police to where he buried her. I figured all the episodes would end with a resolution like that, and then I watched the episode with the young woman who drives alone across country and disappears somewhere in Washington or Oregon. Her car is found run off the road in the woods, with all of her stuff strewn around and blankets covering the windows and no sign of her or of anyone having been in the car when it crashed. The last bit of evidence they have is footage of her from the security camera inside a gas station, repeatedly looking outside at something off camera, and signs that her car was tampered with. I was left feeling so intensely frustrated after that episode, which I can imagine pales in comparison to the frustration these families feel with no idea what happened.

The young woman driving across country and the McStay family are the two most perplexing to me. The McStays in particular, there is just nothing to go on, it seems, and just endlessly puzzling. If they picked up and moved to Mexico, why leave so much money in their bank account? Why leave the house is such disarray, with food left out as if they were coming right back to it? Why leave the dogs in the backyard? So frustrating to never have any resolution, and yet I'm so addicted to this show.

[chailey]

The McStays in particular, there is just nothing to go on, it seems, and just endlessly puzzling.

My gut feeling is that the McStay's are dead, or, the parents are at least. I just can't believe that they would simply drop everything and run off to Mexico, leaving their dogs and belongings behind, not to mention that 100,000$ in a savings account. I dunno, perhaps someone wanted to snatch the kids? Could someone have rung the doorbell and just kidnapped them at gunpoint? The van was left at the border, so they weren't car-jacked. Nobody tried to withdraw money from their bank accounts. There was apparently no hanky-panky going on with his business. I mean, WTH is the motive with this case?

Edited by chailey, Apr 9, 2011 @ 11:53 AM.

[caverona]

There are 2 shows that I consider must see t.v.: The First 48 and Disappeared. The emotions that go on with both these programs are amazing.
Tonites Disappeared about the young man from Utah who was last seen in Henderson NV was heartbreaking specially compounded at the end with the disclouser of his fathers fate. As for the fate of the young man, I wonder if he just gave up on his life and somehow went out into the desert to die sorry to say.

Haven't missed any of Disappeared since it started. It seems many of the disappearance are probably people who were eventually murdered. A few were probably suicides. It is the 3rd probabilities in these cases that are the most intriguing-the 'walk aways'-the ones who decided to disappear for whatever reason and manage to stay disappeared. These people who do this for whatever reason have to be truly selfish as to put their families/friends thru the ultimate in heartbreak. I can't imagine how the families of the people who decided to walk away continue to exist not knowing whatever happened to their disappeared family member. 'specially if the disappeared is a young person.

it is the episodes that are about the young people(usually in the 20s/30s) who have just vanished into the unknown that are really fascinating and sad. Like the one tonite of the young man from the Utah area.
The other recent one of the young lady who disappeared in the Austin Tx area while home on xmas break was another one. I still wonder about the ex-boyfriend mentioned who was so emotionally hung up on her and appeared at the house 2 nites before her disappearance may have had something to do with it.
And finally the other recent episode related to the D.A. from PA named Gricar was interesting big time. His desire to access and determination to remove the hard drive on his take home laptap is interesting factor in the case. specially since the laptop was eventually found in the river without the hard drive. Just wondering if the DA had a dark side and may have had child porn on the hard drive that he was afraid may about to be found out or discovered and that is why he wanted it erased or taken out. Just a hunch but his disappearance can easily be in the one of the 3 possible scenarios-murdered, suicide or a walk away.

each episode is just as interesting usually as the next. Again, how the families of the disappeared manage to go on after the family member disappears is beyond amazing as I dont know how I would be able to cope if it was my son/daughter etc.

[lola212005]

Like the one tonite of the young man from the Utah area.

This one puzzled me the most. The investigators alluded to possible drug dealing, gambling etc. yet they never really found anything solid that linked him to any of those activities. A part of me thinks that he was caught up in some shady activities.

[chailey]

The young man from Utah may have been a suicide--there's a lot of desert out there to get lost in. However, he was filmed leaving his truck with a folder or sheaf of papers and I don't think that points to a suicide. I think that someone in that neighborhood offered him a job and he was going to meet with him. I think that I would be rather nervous living in that neighborhood, as the general supposition seemed to be that someone who lived there did him in. They mentioned a tip about a suspicious house in the area, but never had any evidence to search the place. It's the incongruity of where he disappeared that is so strange here. Nobody would wonder at something bad happening to him in Las Vegas, but his car was abandoned in an upper middle class retirement community. Just weird.

[travel9x]

During the Guy from Utah case, I kept having a nagging feeling that his family was not being completely honest about everything they knew about him (or suspected). Every lead did not exactly pan out so the family could have been on the up and up. And I don't think that they were aware about what he was exactly up to in his own life; either he put up barriers to knowing or they just assumed things about his life. The cousin the show had as a talking head bugged me greatly.

The missing DA case, I agree with caverona -- there was something that the DA really didn't want people to know about on that hard drive and that whatever it was was part of the disappearance.

[caverona]

Tonites episode about Morgan the student at Va Tech was sad as well as frustrating to watch for me. As it progressed it was goiing to be obvious that she was not going to be a person who wanted to disappear for whatever reason some of the people do in this show. Even with the eventual sad ending it was obvious that she was a victim of murder.

What for me was the frustrating side of this episode, I hate to say, was Morgans careless and poor choice in the decisions she made that fateful nite. Two of the careless choices she made were- 1. leaving the arena, for some reason that will never be known, way before the concert was over and 2. when her friends, who she went to the concert with called her after she failed to return to her seat and found her outside the arena, Morgan told the friend she would not wait to go home with them, after the concert, outside the arena but instead she would 'find' a ride home! It is troubling to me that Morgan would try to 'find' a way home from someone who was all likely hood a total stranger. That would have a been a very poor choice of a plan to get back home.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of situations as Morgans case that can be found in the news somewhere in the USA these days.
Young people, in their 20s and usually female, are far too often victims of crimes such as the one in tonites episode who appear to underestimate the evil that is out there waiting to take advantage of, for want of a better word, naive young women.

And what is finally the most troubling aspect of tonites show was that there is a connection to whoever is involved in Morgans story to another woman who was attacked a few years previously. Whoever this person is involved in both of these cases, if not in jail or is dead, will strike again as creeps as this do not just stop this sort of criminal behavior. Hopefully the scum who did this to Morgan is not amongst us and can not cause anymore heartache as Morgans family experienced. Sympathy to her family and friends.

[chailey]

What for me was the frustrating side of this episode, I hate to say, was Morgans careless and poor choice in the decisions she made that fateful nite. Two of the careless choices she made were- 1. leaving the arena, for some reason that will never be known, way before the concert was over and 2. when her friends, who she went to the concert with called her after she failed to return to her seat and found her outside the arena, Morgan told the friend she would not wait to go home with them, after the concert, outside the arena but instead she would 'find' a ride home!

Yes, both decisions were insane. How could she mistakenly make her way outside while looking for a restroom? Why wouldn't she just wait for her friends to leave the arena and go home with them after the show? I think that someone doped her drink in that arena, and she was in a daze. Her friends said she wasn't drunk. I think she was confused, wandered out of the arena, stumbled around (apparently falling) and just flat out wasn't thinking coherently. A date rape drug would have knocked her out altogether, so it wasn't that, but perhaps ludes or some other sort of pill (not an expert on this sort of thing). Or, perhaps, she took some medication before the show and it didn't react well with the alcohol she had that night. I just find it hard to believe that any young woman would choose to hitchhike home, at night no less, in that sort of situation, especially when she just had to wait a couple of hours for a ride.

The location where her body was found is puzzling. It looked like the murderer would have had to either march her over a mile and a half from the road or carry her body that far. Very strange.

Metallica isn't known for being a touchy-feely band--glad to see that they did everything in their power to help the police and that they contacted the family personally.

[ILNative]

This was on our local news this weekend: John Glasgow, the Arkansas man profiled on Disappeared -- his family has had him declared legally dead.