ORADELL, NJ — Police in New Jersey are searching for a missing talent agent who left his family home in the suburb of Oradell, New Jersey to go for a walk in broad daylight — and never came back.

Mark Schlegel, 57, has been missing since Sunday when he reportedly left his house at around 3:30 P.M. Police say that the married father of two was heading toward a road three blocks away, and was carrying a gift bag. Authorities say that Schlegel did not have his keys, phone, or wallet when he left home.

Investigators are scouring the woods near Schlegel’s home to search for clues, and his family and friends say that they are are baffled by his mysterious disappearance.

Schlegel has worked for the CornerStone Talent Agency in Manhattan since 2002. His clients include Brandon Flynn (13 Reasons Why), Daniel Sunjata (The Dark Knight Rises), and Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos).

Schlegel as a white male. He is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 165 lbs, and has blue eyes and gray hair. He has no claimed physical or mental health issues, according to police. He was last seen wearing a white collared shirt, light-colored shorts, and boat shoes.

Oradell Police Lieutenant Victor Egg told NJ.com that the facts surrounding the disappearance were “very strange” and “odd.”

Schlegel’s Facebook page is filled with smiling photos of him and his wife. The couple had just returned from a vacation in Scotland. A Facebook post that was dated just before noon on the day he went missing showed Schlegel kissing a photo on the wall.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (201) 260-0200.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

NJ.com

Deadline

Main photo: Mark Schlegel [Provided]

The post Police Search For Missing Broadway Talent Agent Who Took A Walk & Never Came Back appeared first on CrimeFeed.

PITTSBURGH, PA — A group of budding detectives at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania have set up a college club dedicated to solving cold cases.

The “Students Conquering Cold Cases” was started in the fall of 2015 by Nicole Coons and Hannah Eisenhart, two undergrads who have been friends since they were little kids growing up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Every Wednesday night, more than two dozen members meet in a classroom to pore over case notes, interview victims’ family members, and brainstorm theories of crimes that police have so far been unable to solve.

Sophomore Amanda Mroz said that, like many other women in the group, she grew up watching Investigation Discovery. She explained how the show inspired her:

“My mom always thought it was like, weird or disturbing that I sat there and watched these shows. The one show I’d watch was Disappeared. The point of the show was that it was never solved in the end, they never really knew what happened. It would always bother me. Once the show was over I’d sit and think about it, I’d want to do something.”

Coons founded the club two years ago after she spotted a friend putting up missing persons posters for 21-year-old Kortne Stouffer, who vanished without a trace after an evening out in Palmyra.

When Coons went back to school that fall she approached Ron Freeman, a retired police commander who was in charge of violent crime investigations for the Pittsburgh police, and now teaches crime-scene investigation at Pitt, about forming a club. Freeman agreed to help advise the members, and soon, the applications were flooding in.

Coons said that the club selected students with at least a 3.2 GPA, who showed critical thinking skills and a demonstrated interest in pursuing careers related to criminal justice and the law. The group, which is almost all female, has only three male members. Many of the members have an interest in going into fields such as law enforcement and forensic pathology.

The club has worked on several cases — including the 24 year old cold case of 74-year-old grandmother Stephanie Coyle, who was found murdered on July 16, 1993. Her throat had been slashed, and her body had been stabbed several dozen times before the killer carved a design into her back.

Another infamous case the group has investigated is the infamous California Zodiac killer who is thought to have killed at least five people during the 1960s and the 1970s.

Last year, the club was approached by local handwriting expert named Michelle Dresbold, author of the 2006 book Sex, Lies and Handwriting. She told the club about a woman who suspected that her father might be the Zodiac, and had given Dresbold a Christmas card with his handwriting on it. The students invited the woman to a meeting of the club, and Coons took a DNA swab of her cheek that is now being sent to a California lab for familial DNA analysis.

Some weeks, they interview law enforcement, while other weeks, they analyze the information they have. They haven’t solved any crimes yet, but say that law enforcement takes their work seriously — and that they continue to be motivated by their commitment to help the victims’ family members get closure.

“I think people respond better to women, especially other women. They’d rather talk to a woman about sensitive things over a man,” sophomore Marisa Pescatore said. “Women’s voices are more calming, we seem less aggressive. Even men have a better response to women, in some cases — especially young women.”

Watch Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared On ID GO Now!

Topic.com

Main photo: Crime scene tape [Wikimedia Commons]

The post College Cold Case Club Of Young Detectives Inspired By Investigation Discovery appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On February 9, 2004, University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray crashed her car on an icy road in New Hampshire, over 100 miles from her dorm room where she should’ve been quietly studying. She was never seen again.

Over a decade later, there remain more questions than answers in Murray’s disappearance, and some of them are so strange that it’s no wonder this cold case has never been forgotten.

Watch “What Happened to Maura Murray?” Saturday, September 23 at 8/7c on Investigation Discovery!

Photo: Investigation Discovery's "Disappeared"

Maura Murray [Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared]

1. What was going on in Murray’s life?

The official website created by Murray’s loved ones includes a multi-part biography of Murray, calling her an “All-American Girl,” a model student, athlete, and daughter. She had attended West Point before transferring to UMass at Amherst to study nursing, and was planning to marry her high school sweetheart, Billy Rausch, who was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

But behind Murray’s smile, what secrets could she have been hiding? It remains unclear why exactly she left West Point – some investigation has suggested that she may have been asked to leave for an Honor Code violation. During her time at UMass, Murray ran into some legal trouble, and was charged with improper use of a credit card a few months before her disappearance for possessing and using stolen credit card numbers. According to the blog of true crime writer James Renner, her arrest record was once public, and he was able to retrieve a copy, but it’s now no longer available to reporters.

In the days before she disappeared, Murray uncharacteristically emailed professors to tell them that she would not be attending class, claiming there had been a death in the family. But there was no death, and nothing except a few internet searches and a phone call to a Vermont rental property to give any clues as to where Murray was headed or why.

2. How could Murray have vanished without a trace?

That February night in 2004, Murray drove her Saturn up Route 112 in New Hampshire. It was dark, there were snowbanks on either side of the road, and her car had been having problems. In fact, her father, Fred Murray, had visited her at school only a few days before to go car shopping, although they didn’t end up purchasing a new car.

Local bus driver Butch Atwood was on his way home when he came across the wrecked Saturn and a woman matching Murray’s description. He offered to help, but she insisted that she had already called AAA – strange, he thought, since cell phone reception was notoriously spotty in the remote area. Atwood went home, filed some paperwork for his job, and decided to call the police anyway. By the time the police arrived at 7:46 P.M., the Saturn was still in the road, but Murray was gone.

There were no sightings of any other vehicles, no footprints in the fresh snow. The area has been searched many times over the years, and if Murray was taken by one of the few people living within walking distance of the crash site, or if she wandered off to die in the elements, her body has never been found.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Miles to Nowhere” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

Courtesy of the Maura Murray Missing Facebook Group

3. Could Murray still be alive?

Murray’s father maintains that Murray was abducted, and he has not given up his search for his daughter, whether dead or alive. Although investigators have never been able to detect any pattern between Murray’s disappearance and that of other women and girls gone missing in similar circumstances, there have been cases that might indicate the possibility of a connection. Four years before Murray’s disappearance, 16-year-old Molly Bish seemingly vanished from her lifeguard post in Warren, Massachusetts. Her remains were found three years later in a wooded area only miles from her home. Her murder is still unsolved.

The disappearance of Brianna Maitland is also eerily similar to that of Murray. Maitland’s abandoned car was found approximately 100 miles from where Murray’s was, one month later. The case caught the attention of Murray’s family, who added a page about Maitland to their official website. To this day, Maitland’s disappearance is unresolved, and her body has never been found.

Renner, who wrote True Crime Addict about his obsession with Murray’s disappearance, and has maintained a comprehensive blog tracking his investigation, posits at the end of his book that Murray may have willfully disappeared and is still out there, alive. There have been reported sightings of her in Montreal, a possible picture pulled from Facebook, individuals who insist that they have seen Murray in the 12 years since she disappeared. Either way, every time one lead seems to suggest answers, it splinters and multiplies into more questions. If Murray met with foul play, where is the evidence? In all this time, how has no one slipped and revealed information that might point to her killer? And if Murray did disappear of her own free will — why? Will she ever come out of hiding to tell us?

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Maura Murray Missing

My Search for Maura Murray

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Maura Murray Missing Facebook Group

Main photo: Maura Murray Missing Poster

The post 3 Haunting Questions About The Disappearance Of Maura Murray appeared first on CrimeFeed.

JACKSONVILLE, NC — As the search for a three-year-old who disappeared from her home in North Carolina intensifies, her father has questioned his ex-wife’s account of the night their daughter apparently went missing.

Mariah Woods’ mother, Kristy Woods, said that she last saw her daughter at approximately 11 P.M. on Sunday night when she put her to bed at the family home in Jacksonville. She stated that her live-in boyfriend saw the child at around midnight when she got up, and that he told her to go back to bed.

At around 6 A.M. Sunday morning, the couple said that they realized that Mariah was missing from the home and called police.

Mariah’s father, Alex Woods, who does not live with the child or her mother, told WCTI-TV Tuesday he did not believe his daughter was abducted.

“Someone just walked right up in there, grabbed the 3-year-old out of the bed and she didn’t cry, she didn’t scream?” he said. “Nobody heard anything? Four people in the house, two adults and two kids, someone just comes up and snatches the baby and walks out?”

Woods said that he and his ex-wife have had custody issues in the past — and that he has not seen Mariah in about a year.

A statewide Amber Alert was issued for Mariah, and search crews combed the area, but so far have found nothing.

Mariah Woods FBI missing poster

A potential lead in the case was thrown out after investigators confirmed that a woman spotted in a Morehead City, North Carolina, Walmart on Monday with a toddler who looked like Mariah had no connection to her. But Onslow County Sheriff Hans Miller has stated that investigators are not ruling out any possibilities.

He said, “Our minds our open, our ears are open, and our eyes are open.”

On Wednesday, Miller said crews that included 225 investigators and agents from 14 local, state and federal agencies have conducted nearly 100 interviews and followed more than 140 leads.

Miller asks residents of the community to search their own properties including sheds, barns, and wooded areas, and also appealed to anyone who had been in contact with the girl’s immediate family on Sunday or Monday to reach out to investigators. Kristy Woods said her daughter is a “very sweet girl” who has trouble walking.

Anyone with information about the child’s whereabouts is asked to call 911 or the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Division at (910) 989-4070 or Crime Stoppers at (910) 938-3273. Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward of up to $2,500 for information deemed “of value or assistance” in the search.

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Main photo: Mariah Woods [FBI]

The post Where Is Mariah Woods? Search For Missing 3-Year-Old Girl appeared first on CrimeFeed.

TORONTO, CANADA — On December 2, 1919, Canadian entertainment mogul Ambrose Joseph Small disappeared. Police have never successfully concluded what happened, nor has his body ever been recovered.

In the realm of Toronto theater lore, the vanishing of Ambrose Small has long been the stuff of legend, right up to ongoing talk that the magnate’s spirit continues to haunt the Grand Opera House, his flagship property.

At 58, Ambrose Small loomed as a brash, famously ambitious public figure. He had worked himself up from ticket-taker and usher to ultimately being elected chairman of the Canadian Theatrical Managers’ Association and owning seven prestigious showplaces in Ontario alone, in addition to 62 other buildings.

On December 1, he made the deal of a lifetime (in his case, literally), selling the chain for a net profit of $1.6 million dollars (today, that would be $28 million).

The very next day, Small conferred with attorney F.W.M. Flock at Toronto’s Grand Opera House, where the mogul kept his central office. At around 5:30 P.M., Flock departed the theater, and he remains on record as the last person known to ever see Ambrose Small alive.

Ambrose Small Missing Poster [Toronto Police Department handout]

Related: Disappeared — What Happened To Utah Teen Macin Smith?

At first, few noticed Small’s absence, as he had been known to slip off by himself for extended periods, often to indulge his signature vices: sex, liquor, and gambling.

In addition to his office, Small had a secret “playroom” at the Grand Opera House bedecked with an ornate bed, a full bar, and pornographic artwork. He was said to regularly entertain chorus girls and other female performers in his proto-swing-pad. Supposedly, they called him “Amby.”

Even so, Small apparently lusted for money most of all and strategically married Theresa Small (née Korman) — whose mother was wed to Small’s father — with an eye on inheriting the sizable Korman family fortune. Matrimony hardly slowed down Small’s salacious ways, however.

Initially thinking her husband had taken off on another one of his runs, Theresa Small waited a full two weeks to contact the authorities. At first, Theresa put up $500 for information, but when police convinced her that Small had likely been kidnapped, she upped the offer to a staggering $50,000. Even so, nobody responded, nobody demanded a ransom, and nobody tried to siphon Small’s bank account.

The case became an international sensation. Every lead investigators pursued turned into a dead end. The most promising person of interest, Small’s assistant James Doughty — who also took off to parts unknown on December 2 — turned out to have just been an embezzler.

The press contacted iconic mystery author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and asked him to take a crack at the case. Alas, even the creator of Sherlock Holmes came away stymied.

In 1924, having come up with a half-decade of nothing, the Canadian government officially declared Ambrose Small dead.

Various theories have emerged throughout the decades. Typical accusations attempt to pin the murder on Theresa but, time and again, she has been exonerated.

Toronto’s Grand Opera House, 1874 [public domain]

As is customary in theater culture, many who have visited the Grand Opera House claim that they’ve encountered Ambrose Small’s restless spirit ambling about the rafters. No matter what, Toronto’s most famous disappearing millionaire took at least one endlessly compelling secret to his grave.

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Main image: Ambrose Small Missing Poster [Toronto Police Department handout]

The post Theater Owner Ambrose Small Vanished In 1919: Does His Ghost Haunt The Opera House? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On February 9, 2004, University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray crashed her car on Route 112, an icy road in Woodsville, New Hampshire. She was never seen again.

Fourteen years later, and Murray’s case has turned cold, and her disappearance continues to be a mystery. Facebook was only five days old when Murray went missing — and yet the case has been called “the first crime mystery of the social-media age.”

Below, the top five questions that continue to baffle investigators — and true crime aficionados, websleuths, and ID Addicts.

1. What was going on in Murray’s life at the time?

Murray’s friends and family have described the UMass junior as an “All-American Girl” and a model student, athlete, and daughter.

Murray had attended West Point before transferring to UMass Amherst to study nursing, and was planning to marry her high school sweetheart, Billy Rausch, who was stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. But other parts of Maura’s life remain a mystery. It does seem clear, however, that Murray’s life wasn’t as picture-perfect as it seemed on the outside.

It remains unclear why she left West Point – some investigation has suggested that she may have been asked to leave for an Honor Code violation, possibly related to a shoplifting incident. Her troubles continued during her time at UMass, as just a few months before her disappearance, Murray was charged with improper use of a credit card for possessing and using stolen credit card numbers.

In the days before she disappeared, Murray reportedly emailed professors and her job to tell them that she would not be attending class or work due to a death in the family — which was not true. Why did she lie, and why was she leaving town?

2. How could Murray have vanished without a trace?

The night of her disappearance, Murray drove her Saturn up Route 112. The car had been having problems, and the road was icy and bordered by snowbanks.

Local school bus driver Butch Atwood was on his way home when he came across the wrecked Saturn and a woman matching Murray’s description, shortly after 7 P.M. He offered to help, but she insisted that she had already called AAA, and would wait for them in her car. Atwood, skeptical of her claim, as he was aware of the spotty cell phone reception in the area, called the police after he got home.

Police arrived at 7:46 P.M. They found the Saturn, but Murray was gone.

There were no sightings of any other vehicles, and no footprints in the fresh snow. The area has been searched many times over the years, but no trace of Maura has ever been found.

3. What do we know about her last hours?

The night before her disappearance, she had dinner with her father Fred Murray, and, by all accounts, was behaving normally. After dinner, Murray dropped her father at his motel room and borrowed his Toyota Corolla to attend a dorm party.

She left the party at around 2:30 A.M. on Sunday, February 8, and, on her way home, got into a car accident, running into a guardrail.

Her father said that she was distressed by the accident, but said he told her not to worry about it and assured her that insurance would cover the damage. He told her to get accident forms to fill out — and according to reports, she stopped at some point during the day to pick up accident report forms from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The first reported contact Murray had with anyone on February 9 was at 1 P.M., when she emailed her boyfriend, Billy. She wrote: “I got your messages, but honestly, I didn’t feel like talking to much of anyone, I promise to call today though.”

That afternoon, she withdrew $280 out of an ATM, then went to a liquor store and bought Bailey’s, Kahlua, a box of red wine, and vodka. The receipt was later found in her wrecked car.

During the investigation of the abandoned car, police also found a coke bottle that smelled as if it had contained an alcoholic beverage, and noticed red stains in the car that appeared to be red wine. Investigators found many personal items belonging to Murray inside the car, but her debit card, credit cards, and cell phone were missing — and none of them have been used since.

At 4:37 P.M. that afternoon, the last known phone call was made from Murphy’s cell phone, and was used to access her voicemail.

True Crime Addict cover art [promotional]

4. Could Murray still be alive?

Murray’s father maintains that he believes Murray was abducted, and he has not given up his search for his daughter.

James Renner, who wrote True Crime Addict about his obsession with Murray’s disappearance, and has maintained a comprehensive blog tracking his investigation, posits at the end of his book that Murray may have willfully disappeared and is still out there somewhere, alive.

Police later searched Murray’s belongings, and stated that they found searches on her computer related to finding directions between Amherst, Massachusetts, and Burlington, Vermont.

According to her father, one of her last phone calls was to the owner of a condominium for rent in Bartlett, which he says is an area she was very familiar with. Friends and family stated that she was an accomplished athlete and hiker.

Over the years, there have been several reported sightings of her, including one in Montreal and a possible picture of Murray pulled from Facebook (above). But none of the sightings have ever been verified.

5. If Maura was murdered, could there be other victims out there?

Although investigators have never been able to detect any pattern between Murray’s disappearance and that of other women who have gone missing in similar circumstances, there have been cases that might indicate the possibility of a connection.

Four years before Murray’s disappearance, 16-year-old Molly Bish seemingly vanished from her lifeguard post in Warren, Massachusetts. Her remains were found three years later in a wooded area only miles from her home. Her murder is still unsolved.

One month after Murray disappeared, an abandoned car was discovered belonging to a woman named Brianna Maitland. The vehicle was found approximately 100 miles from where Murray’s was located. No trace of Maitland has ever been found.

New Hampshire and Vermont police have repeatedly dismissed any connection between Murray’s case and the disappearance of Maitland.

On Friday night, the Missing Maura Murray remembrance group will be holding a Facebook Live chat and encourage people to join to share personal stories and memories about Murray.

Anyone with information about Murray is urged to call the New Hampshire Cold Case Unit on (603) 223-3856.

Did deeper into the Maura Murray case with the “Miles to Nowhere” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

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Maura Murray Official – Facebook

Main photo: Maura Murray [Wikimedia Commons]

The post 14 Years Later: 5 Things That Still Bother Us About The Maura Murray Case appeared first on CrimeFeed.

CLEVELAND, OH — Ashley Summers was only a young teenager when she vanished from her hometown in the summer of 2007. The FBI says the then 14-year-old had had an argument with her mom before storming out of their house in Cleveland, Ohio.

Since then, the search has been on, and neither investigators nor her family have given up the hope of finding Ashley. In fact, the FBI recently plastered billboards up and down the East Coast.

Agents thought she may have been spotted at a Rhode Island ATM in 2015, but it was later revealed that it was not Ashley. The person in the photo appeared on the Rhode Island’s Most Wanted website, and although there were striking similarities, the FBI ruled this lead out. The unknown suspect in the photo was wanted by authorities for alleged theft and using stolen identities.

Reports say investigators also looked into the idea that Ashley could have been connected to the Ariel Castro case. Castro was accused of kidnapping and holding three women hostage inside his Cleveland home for years and years. Castro’s home was in the same neighborhood that Ashley vanished from. But there has never been any evidence to link her to that infamous case either.

The FBI notes that Ashley has a heart tattoo with the name “Gene” in the middle. In addition, she has blue eyes and was last known to have brown hair, although now it could be a different color and either shorter or longer. According to the missing poster, she was born on June 16, 1993.

If you know anything about Ashley’s case, please contact the FBI directly.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

For more on the Ashley Summers case, watch the “Edge of Fourteen” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

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Main photo: From Missing poster [FBI]

The post Disappeared: Ashley Summers Has Been Missing For Over 10 Years appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Disappeared: Gone In An Instant is a concise look into the unique and haunting circumstances surrounding the sudden disappearances of missing people. Each episode outlines the critical moments before each person vanishes, the emotional journey of their loved ones, and the efforts taken by law enforcement to bring each case to closure.

1. McStay Family Mystery

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

When a young family vanishes without a trace, police collect a series of haunting clues that point to the U.S./Mexico border. Discover the clues in this ongoing case here!

2. As Fate Would Have It

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

A popular Seattle punk rocker disappears amid tensions between his bandmates and fiancée. What happened to Brian and why?

3. Fight Or Flight

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

A college student vanishes along the dark roads back to school. While family are desperate for answers, police ponder if she’s truly missing. Could Michelle have a reason to disappear?

4. That Restless Night

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

In the heat of a late Florida night, a young mother returns home to find her eight-year-old son missing from his bed. Did Zachary’s mother have anything to do with his disappearance?

5. Nightmare in Naples

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

A beloved son vanishes after a routine traffic stop. As authorities unravel the mystery, signs point to the most unsettling of places. Could a person entrusted with keeping people safe be responsible for Terrance’s disappearance?

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Main photo: promotional art for Disappeared: Gone in an Instant [Investigation Discovery]

The post “Disappeared: Gone In An Instant”: 5 Episodes To Stream Now! appeared first on CrimeFeed.

TUMWATER, WA — In May 2016, 19-year-old Logan Schiendelman left his grandmother’s home in Tumwater, Washington. He never came home. The former high school football star, who seemed to have vanished without a trace, is the subject of a new episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared, “Last Words.”

The next day, his black 1996 Chrysler Sebring convertible was found abandoned on Interstate 5 near mile marker 92 between Tumwater and Maytown.

His grandmother Ginnie Schiendelman described Logan as happy and popular, someone that everyone wanted to be around. But Logan’s home life also had complications. He grew up mixed race in Tumwater, an area that was predominately white.

Logan’s Chrysler Sebring [Investigation Discovery]

His mother, Hannah, lived a few miles away in Olympia, but Logan was primarily raised by his grandparents. Logan never knew his father. According to his family, his father left for Saudi Arabia before Logan was born.

Ginnie said that Logan began to experience something of an identity crisis in high school.

After graduation, Logan began to separate himself from his former friends and decided to go to Washington State University, which had a more diverse student body. But his grades slipped, and he returned home to Tumwater after his freshman year. He began to work odd jobs around town, but kept largely to himself.

On the day he went missing, Ginnie remember that Logan seemed anxious to talk to her. “He was just really nervous, which he isn’t usually, kind of on a mission,” she said. Ginnie said that Logan told her that he had had an “epiphany.” She told Logan to talk to her when she got home from work — but was never able to finish the conversation.

When he failed to come home the next morning, Ginnie was worried.

Ginnie Schiendelman [Investigation Discovery]

When Ginnie reported Logan missing, she was surprised when police told her that his car had been impounded. Logan’s personal items including his license, wallet containing money, debit card, several bags of food, and his phone were found inside the car. Police towed the car, but never processed the vehicle for evidence.

Investigators pored over 911 calls, and found one that stuck out: A person reported seeing a vehicle traveling slowly and veering into other lanes before hitting the middle barrier and stopping on the shoulder.

According to the caller, the driver’s door opened and closed, and then the witness saw someone sprint into the woods, leaving the car behind. But the description of the man in the passenger car — a white male who was around six feet tall — did not match Logan. And because the vehicle was not forensically processed, proving who was in the car could be extremely difficult.

Police say they searched the area for several hours, but were unable to locate Logan.

They examined the teen’s cell phone records, which showed that the phone was traveling south on I-5 on May 19 before traveling back toward Tumwater. But by the early morning hours of May 20, the phone was dead.

At approximately 3:00 a.m. on May 21, a 911 dispatcher received another bizarre call from a driver. The caller claimed to have seen a half-naked man walking through an area that, according to police, was known to be frequented by drug users.

When the caller was asked if the man could have been black, the person replied “possibly.” Again, police found nothing.

Around a week after Logan went missing, a detective saw that his Facebook account appeared to have checked in at Olympia airport. Ginnie wondered if he could have gone to look for his estranged father in Saudi Arabia.

But the lead turned out to be false when investigators revealed that the Facebook check-in had actually been an anniversary post from a year earlier.

So what happened to Logan? Family members had a few theories.

Ginnie said that Logan had been smoking pot, and wondered if his drug use could have gotten him mixed up with the wrong people.
Other family members said that Logan was experiencing conflict at home after his half-sister Chloe and her boyfriend Jake had moved in. Jake had a history of domestic violence, and pleaded guilty to felony assault in a previous relationship in 2013. But police later gave Jake a polygraph test, which he reportedly passed.
Logan’s great aunt, Mary Ware, said that Ginnie cut Logan off from the African-American side of his family after she split with her daughter Hannah’s father. Could he have felt that starting over was his only option?

sketch of man witness described [Thurston County Sheriff]

In June 2017, police got another call. This time, it was a woman who claimed that she saw Logan’s car the day he went missing. But she said that she saw a Black male standing at the rear of the vehicle on the shoulder of the road — with two white men. She described one man as tall with scraggly hair, and said all she could see of the second man was that he had long blond hair. Police created a sketch of the mystery man, but so far, have been unable to identify him.

Despite the conflict, Logan’s family and friends are united in stating that whatever has happened, they just want him to come home.

They started the Facebook group Logan Schiendelman Missing and have posted constant photos and updates on the Tumwater High School graduate.

Logan Schiendelman is described as being six feet tall with black hair and brown eyes and weighing roughly 150 pounds. Police have asked anyone with information on Logan’s whereabouts to call Thurston County Sheriff Detective Frank Frawley at (360) 786-5599 or the Sheriff’s Office at (360) 704-2740.

Watch Investigation Discovery’s “Last Words,” the Disappeared episode about Logan Schiendelman, on ID GO now!

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Main photo: Logan Schiendelman [Thurston County Sheriff]

The post Disappeared: What Happened To Logan Schiendelman After His “Epiphany”? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

On March 23, 1998, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley was enjoying a week-long dream vacation with her family, sailing around the Caribbean aboard the Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship.

The vessel had departed San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 21 and traveled to the island of Aruba.

During the early morning hours of March 24, the ship was en route to its next island port of Curacao — and Amy was having the time of her life with her mother, Iva, father, Ron, and brother, Brad, 21.

According to Amy’s brother Brad, it was an exciting time for her, as Amy had just moved into her own apartment, and she had also just started working at a new job.

Despite the fact that Amy was a talented athlete and an accomplished swimmer, her family said that she was somewhat apprehensive about going on the cruise due to the fact that she had a fear of the open ocean.

On the night that Amy went missing, the Bradleys dressed up and enjoyed a formal dinner. Afterward, they changed into more casual clothing and went to the ship’s disco.Iva and Ron went back to the cabin while Amy and Brad mingled on the dance floor.

A few hours later, Brad said that he returned to the cabin at around 3:45 A.M.

Image taken from cruise ship footage of Amy at the disco [Investigation Discovery]

He said that he was sitting on the balcony when Amy came back around 20 minutes later.

Brad said that they discussed what they planned to do the next day when the ship docked in Curacao. When he went to bed at around 4 A.M., his sister said that she wanted to stay outside.

Her father said that he woke briefly between 5 A.M. and 6 A.M, and saw Amy still outside. But when he woke up again at around 7, she was gone.

Amy’s parents immediately alerted cruise staff that their daughter was missing – but said that they appeared to be more concerned with disturbing the other guests than finding Amy.

The captain gave Ron, Brad, and Iva the option of staying on in Curacao when the ship sailed for St. Martin — and the family made the agonizing decision to remain.

“When they put us off on the island, they gave us no instructions,” Ron said. “So it was like, ‘you’re off the ship you had to fend for yourself’.”

Amy and her brother Brad on the evening of the cruise ship’s formal dinner [Investigation Discovery]

The navy began a search, and then Amy’s family and the FBI rejoined the ship again in St. Martin and conducted a search there.

Amy’s family members say that the FBI interviewed them all separately and talked to many of the ship’s 2,900 passengers. Several people remembered seeing Amy with Alaistair Douglas, a band member known as “Yellow,” in the ship’s disco and then in the early hours of the morning.

Brad remembered having a disturbing encounter with Douglas. “I’m sitting by the pool at a table and up walks this guy, and the first thing he says is, ‘I’m sorry to hear about your sister‘,” Brad said. In retrospect, he says that he finds the timing of Douglas’ statements suspicious, due to the fact that he says that there had been no announcement about Amy’s disappearance.

Douglas agreed to submit to a polygraph exam. “He came out of the interview smiling, with his thumbs up to his band members, like everything was cool,” Ron said. “It made me feel like I wanted to strangle him, actually. I knew what was going on. I knew that he had been with Amy.”

Douglas has always insisted that he has no idea what had happened to Amy.

Amy’s family flew home, and did everything in their power to spread the word about her disappearance — including offering a $260,000 reward for information that would help lead them to Amy.

At the same time, the FBI deepened its investigation into Amy. But after hours of interviews on the ship, the FBI investigation produced no other credible leads. The agency did determine that it was highly unlikely that Amy, an upbeat person who was excited about life, committed suicide.

Amy’s brother Brad Bradley [Investigation Discovery]

One month after she went missing, Ron and Brad returned to Curacao. They passed out flyers and talked to locals, and Amy’s father said that he received a tip from a taxi driver who claimed that Amy was still alive — and on the island.

The taxi driver claimed that he had spoken to Amy when she came up to his cab and asked him where she could find a phone. The driver suggested three specific places on the island where he said that Ron and Brad should search for Amy — but they found nothing.

In May 1999, after Amy’s case was featured on America’s Most Wanted, a Canadian scuba diver named David Carmichael came forward and said that he remembered seeing Amy on a Curacao beach in August of 1998. Carmichael tells the FBI that the woman looked just like Amy, and described a Tasmanian devil tattoo on the mystery woman’s back that made Amy’s family believe it could have been her.

Carmichael said that the woman he saw was accompanied by two “aggressive” men. The FBI believed that the lead was credible, and attempted to vet his story. But since Curacao is not under American jurisdiction, FBI agents found it challenging to operate on the island. In the end, the agency was unable to corroborate Carmichael’s investigation.

In August 1999, the Bradley family began working with private investigator Frank Jones. Jones told the family he was a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer with a team of ex-Army Rangers and ex-Navy Seals who might be able to rescue Amy.

Within a few days, he told the family that Amy was still on the island, and had allegedly been spotted on the beach several times in the company of different men. According to Jones, Amy was being held against her will by local drug lords who were demanding money to release her.

The Bradleys sent Jones a total of $210,000, which included money for Amy’s search donated by the Nation’s Missing Children Organization.

But one of Jones’s men, former Army Special Forces sniper Tim Buckholtz who had been assigned to watch the house where Amy was supposedly being held, began to wonder whether Jones was lying. Buckholtz had figured out that Jones was a con artist, and broke the news to Iva and Ron.

“He said, ‘I want you to know that Frank Jones is a fraud and he’s down here sipping Dom Perignon on your nickel’,” Ron said.

Jones was arrested and eventually indicted for mail and wire fraud. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was also ordered to pay back the Bradleys.

But Amy’s family said that Jones had taken more than money from them. “He had taken time away from us being able to really search for Amy, because we put all our eggs in that basket,” Iva said.

Another former naval officer later came forward and said that a woman claiming to be Amy Bradley had spoken to him at a brothel. But when FBI agents arrived, they found that the former brothel had burned to the ground.

In 2005, a photo emerged of a scantily clad young woman who was advertising for sexual services on a prostitution website in the Caribbean. Agents pursued the lead that Amy could have been a victim of sex trafficking — but were unable to confirm the identity of the woman in the photo.

Twenty years after Amy’s disappearance, Amy’s family say that they will never give up on finding her.

Authorities have asked anyone with any information concerning the disappearance of Amy to contact their local FBI office, or the nearest American consulate.

To learn more about Amy Bradley, watch the “Troubled Waters” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

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Social Butterfly

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

A recent divorcee from Jacksonville, Florida, enjoys her new single life, but mysteriously vanishes amid a sticky situation between suitors. The cops think one of their suspects knows more than he’s letting on. Watch Jackie’s story now!

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Risky Business

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When a young single mom of three disappears during a road trip, authorities look to her salacious adult business for clues. Could one of her clients have something to do with the case? Find out what happened to Paige Bergfeld!

The Sleepover

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

An inseparable pair of teenage girls are untraceable after a devastating fire rocks their rural Oklahoma community. Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman got together for a slumber party, and vanished without a trace. How could the teens have disappeared?

The Golden Secret

screenshot from episode [Investigation Discovery]

An avid outdoorsman disappears on a secret adventure that’s hidden in Arizona’s notorious and mysterious Superstition Mountains. What was Jesse Capen searching for when he went missing? Did he pay the ultimate price for his quest?

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Main photo: screenshot from Hell on Wheels episode [Investigation Discovery]

The post 5 Mysterious & Compelling Cases Of People Who Disappeared Without A Trace appeared first on CrimeFeed.

HERMOSA BEACH, CA — On March 5, 2016, Michael Vanzandt was having a great night out, bar hopping with friends in the Waterfront Pier Plaza area of Hermosa Beach, California, when he made a fateful decision to go to find a bathroom. He never came back — and no trace of him has been seen since.

Michael, who lived in nearby Lancaster, California, was an incredible father to his three sons, according to his ex-wife, Krishain Vanzandt.

Earlier in the day, Michael had taken his kids to a basketball game at the local YMCA, and had lunch with them.

Footage of Michael at the bar on the night he disappeared [Investigation DIscovery]

After lunch ended at around 3 P.M., Michael dropped them off at their mother’s house. He had plans to watch UFC fights with Jamie Warfield, a friend from work, in Hermosa Beach, after that.

Friends and family say that Michael, who grew up in Pleasant Lake, Michigan, had no reason to disappear.

As a boy, Michael loved the military — so it was no surprise to friends and family that, in 1999, he enlisted after graduating high school. Michael did two tours in Iraq before getting a civilian job in the Air Force in 2011.

Krishain [Investigation Discovery]

He met Krishain in 2000 at a military base in Japan, and the couple later married. But by 2014, they were separated — and later divorced. However, Michael and Krishain remained friends and, according to Krishain, were in “constant contact” as co-parents to their children.

Another important person in Michael’s life was his friend Monique Nethercott. He had dated Monique in 2015, but after a few months together, the couple split. However, according to Monique, they too remained close friends.

In early 2016, Michael’s life was settling into a good place. He had learned that he was approved for a mortgage to purchase a home for himself and his children — and, according to friends, was excited about moving in in March.

On the night Michael disappeared, he’d called his brothers Tyler and Charles from the road and discussed his plans for the evening in Hermosa Beach. He also called Monique, who was in Las Vegas for the weekend.

Once he arrived in Hermosa Beach, Michael left his car in the parking garage of the Quality Inn motel, where Jamie and her friends had rented a room to share so that they did not have to drive back to Lancaster after an evening of drinking.

Michael on camera at the liquor store [Investigation Discovery]

At around 7 P.M., he took an Uber to a bar called The Underground to meet Jamie and her friends, Kyle, Mary, and Randall. When the UFC fight ended at around 10 P.M., the group decided to go bar hopping. They headed to a bar called American Junkie, and stood in line.

But according to Jamie, Michael soon grew impatient and told her that he was heading to the liquor store next door to use the restroom. His friends never saw him again.

Jamie and the others decided to leave the line they were standing in and go to a different bar. Jamie says she called Michael several times to let him know that they were next door, but her calls went straight to voicemail. At first, Jamie was not alarmed.

“I assumed he met a girl or ran into someone he knew,” Jamie said. When the bars closed at 2 A.M., the group headed back to the motel and saw Michael’s car still parked there — but he was nowhere to be found. “My heart sunk when we got home and he wasn’t there,” Jamie said.

Jamie Warfield [Investigation Discovery]

By the next afternoon, Jamie became increasingly alarmed. She drove back to Lancaster on Sunday and started making phone calls to local jails and hospitals.

On Sunday night, Jamie went to his apartment, but his car was not there and there was no answer at the door.

Monique and Michael’s brother Tyler were also trying to locate him. On Monday, Michael’s son was due to have oral surgery. When he failed to show up with the required insurance forms, Krishain called Monique and asked her to stop by Michael’s apartment. After Monique found no sign of Michael at his apartment, and learned that he had not shown up to work, Jamie reported Michael missing.

Monique drove to Hermosa Beach to look for Michael. She found his car — and saw his work access card inside — but there was no sign of Michael.

Michael and his sons [Investigation Discovery]

According to Monique, detectives told her that they could not treat Michael’s disappearance as a missing persons case because he was an adult, and not enough time had lapsed.

But then Michael’s family and friends posted his story on social media, and within hours, the story was trending on Facebook. Police stepped up their investigation, and, according to Sergeant Robert Higgins of the Hermosa Beach Police Department, began re-tracing his steps from the night he went missing.

Investigators obtained his cell phone records, and were able to determine that his phone last pinged in the downtown Hermosa area at around 9:45 p.m. — and then went off.

Police got a break when they found an image of Michael on surveillance video from the liquor store. After reviewing the surveillance video, they constructed a timeline of his evening.

In the video, he can be seen talking to his friends in the line before walking in to the liquor store. He was unable to use the liquor store bathroom, and after that he walked southbound on Hermosa Avenue. Police believe that Michael was looking for a restroom to use.

At one point, Michael returned to a liquor store to buy a small bottle of whiskey. Detectives got another clue when they saw Michael, on the video, pull out his cell phone. Since it did not light up, detectives believe that the phone battery was dead at that point.

At 11:27 P.M., Michael could be seen on the video walking alone toward the beach. Police say that he missed his friends by seconds.

According to Michael’s family, he had gone swimming after drinking in the past — so they believe that it is possible that he may have gone into the ocean and accidentally drowned. But even if Michael did go into the water that night, his family says that they cannot believe that no body — or other signs of Michael — have ever been found.

They have not given up hope that he may be out there somewhere.

If anyone has any information about Michael Vanzandt, please contact Hermosa Beach Detective Joshua Droz at (310) 318-0334 or jdroz@hermosapolice.org.

If you are in search of a missing person, make sure to enter their information into the database of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

For more on Michael Vanzandt, watch the “Just Out of Sight” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO!

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Main photo: Michael Vanzandt [Investigation Discovery]

The post He Left To Go To The Bathroom & Never Came Back: Where Is Michael Vanzandt? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

SPRING, TX — On April 26, 2010, 16-year-old Alexandria “Ali” Lowitzer got off the school bus three houses down from her home in Spring, Texas — and vanished.

Ali had just left Spring High School, where she was a sophomore. Before leaving campus, the teen spoke to her mother, Jo Ann Lowitzer. At around 2:30, Ali told her mom that she planned to walk the quarter mile to the Burger Barn, where she had recently begun working, to pick up her paycheck. But Ali never came home.

Initially, police treated Ali as a runaway — though she vanished with just the clothes she wore to school, her backpack, and her cell phone.

Ali was an avid texter and used her phone constantly, yet all communication including pinging cell towers stopped at about 3 P.M.

Photo of Ali with her parents Jo Ann and John [Investigation Discovery]

Ali’s parents and friends described her a popular and creative teen who loved life. John Lowitzer described his daughter as”fun-loving” and “energetic,” and her mother described her daughter’s love of the arts.

“Art was her favorite subject… I know that she had dreams of furthering her art by going to college,” her mother, Jo Ann Lowitzer said.

Ally had a large group of friends who her family says she was constantly texting — and a budding romance with a 16-year-old fellow student named D.J.

On the day she went missing, Jo Ann said that Ali left home for school at around 7:30 A.M., and that nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Ali’s brother Mason [Investigation Discovery]

At around 2:30 P.M., Ali spoke to her mother, who was at work. At that time Ali told Jo Ann that she had forgotten her house keys.

Her mother said that she called Ali’s half-brother Mason, who was 18 at the time and still lived at home.

Jo Ann said that she asked Mason to leave the door open when he left the house to meet a friend.

Ali told her mother that she wanted to stop at the Burger Barn to get her paycheck and to see if she could pick up a shift that afternoon.

Jo Ann told her daughter that she did not want her to walk to work. Though it was only a 10-minute walk, it ran along a road with no shoulder. Finally,Jo Ann said she relented and allowed her daughter to make the short trip.

She asked Ali to text her to let her know her plans, but when she got home, she found no sign of Ali.

Surveillance video showing Ali on the bus [Investigation Discovery]

Text messages to her daughter went unanswered. Finally,Jo Ann drove to the Burger Barn at around 9 P.M.

“All the lights were out, the chairs were on the tables and there was nobody there,” she said. “At that point, the hairs on my neck stood up.”

Jo Ann and John called police, and say that they were frustrated when officers seemed to believe that Ali was a runaway.

Her mother pointed out that Ali’s cell phone charger, money, makeup, and other personal items were still in the home — and insisted that nothing about her daughter’s behavior indicated that she planned to leave home.

Frustrated, John and Jo Ann began their own investigation. They enlisted the help of the Laura Project, offered a $25,000 reward, and began to paper the neighborhood with flyers and put Ali’s story on social media.

John tracked down the school bus company, and requested that he be allowed to review the video footage. Ali appeared in the footage, and John was able to confirm that Ali had been on the bus the entire time.

On the video, John saw that two young men got off the bus at the same time Ali did. The Lowitzers recognized one of the boys as a neighbor, who told Jo Ann and John that they walked with Ali for a while but that she veered away from the neighborhood on a path that would have led toward the Burger Barn.

But the owner of the Burger Barn told John that he never saw Ali the day before — she had never come to the restaurant, and never picked up her paycheck.

John was also able to view surveillance footage from a gas station that was across the street of the Burger Barn, and saw no sign of Ali approaching the restaurant.

Jo Ann Lowitzer [Investigation Discovery]

Jo Ann remembered that Ali’s cell phone had a family map feature. The last place that GPS coordinates placed Ali was on the outskirts of her neighborhood — around the area when she exited the bus.

On May 3, Ali’s parents gave detectives all of the evidence they had. Detectives also found Ali’s journals and found an entry that alluded to plans to run away.

But Ali’s parents insisted that the journals did not reflect her true feelings — and said that she had no history of attempting to run away.

Police later changed Ali’s status from “runaway” to “endangered runaway.” In May, the case was transferred to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Within hours, Ali’s family said that homicide detectives were knocking on the door.

Police began their investigation close to home, and interrogated John for hours. John admitted that Ali had been “very angry” with him since he andJo Ann had separated two years earlier.

Brandon Laverge [Investigation Discovery]

Detectives also reportedly took a long and hard look at Ali’s older brother Mason. Mason said that he had heard the bus coming on the day Ali disappeared, but told police that he left the house and never saw his sister.

Mason and John both took polygraph exams. Police say that both were found not to be deceptive to the questions they were asked.

Detectives later said that John was cleared of any involvement in connection with his daughter’s disappearance but, even though Mason passed the polygraph, police did not officially clear him from suspicion.

Authorities say that Mason has refused to talk further with them about his sister’s case, but he has always maintained that he had nothing to do with her vanishing.

Detectives found a clue in Ali’s cell phone records: At around 2:50 P.M., Ali texted an older boy from high school named Jay.

According toJo Ann, Ali asked him to come over after school and hang out. Detectives tracked Jay down, but Jay said that he never met up with Ali after she texted him.

Over the next two years, the case went cold.

Image from family video of Ali Lowitzer [Investigation Discovery]

On August 17, 2012, a man named Brandon Lavergne pleaded guilty to killing a college student in Lafayette, Louisiana.

A private investigator working with the Lowitzer family believed that the killing could have a connection to Ali’s case.

He pointed out that someone gave a tip that they had seen a girl talking to someone in a white truck — the same type of vehicle that Lavergne drove.

In addition, Lavergne had family in the area not far from where the Lowitzer family lived. “He had burned a white truck just north of Spring,”Jo Ann said.

Police investigated the lead, but Lavergne was able to prove that he had been offshore working on diesel engines.

In the fall of 2012, the Lowitzers hired a second investigator, Amber Cammack, who began to investigate the possibility that Ali had been kidnapped and forced into the sex trade.

In October 2012, Joanne received a call from a woman in Columbus, Ohio, who said that she believed she had seen Ali at a church function.

Cammack traveled to the Columbus area and went undercover to find Ali. She met a prostitute named “Amy” who led Cammack to a drug house. There, Cammack believed that she recognized Ali.

Eventually the Lowitzers, Cammack, Amy, and the police hatched a rescue mission — and in January 2013, a SWAT team raided the house.

Amber Cammack [Investigation Discovery]

Officers were able to rescue eight women. But Ali was not one of them.

Cammack still believes that Ali could have been trafficked. But Detective Christopher Cooke of the Harris County Sheriff’s office doubts that theory.

He says that the police department sent Ali’s fingerprints out around the globe and have yet to find a match. He said: “This case begins and ends right there where she got off the bus.”

Jo Ann has left her room untouched since the day her daughter disappeared. The Lowitzers say that they believe that someone, somewhere knows what happened to Ali — and that they will do anything to get answers.

Police have asked anyone with information about the case to contact them at (713) 274-9100.

For more on Ali Lowitzer, watch the “So Close to Home” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Disappeared on ID GO now!

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