Crime Junkie - MISSING: Diane Louise Augat

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

A woman leaves her sister’s home one April day in 1998 and never returns. But she doesn’t vanish into thin air, because over the next several years, there are sightings, phone calls, even physical signs that she might be out there somewhere. If you have any information about Diane Augat’s disappearance, contact Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay at 1-800-873-TIPS. May is Mental Health Month. Please take care of yours.  The National Alliance on Mental Illness HelpLine Open Monday to Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. ET1-800-950-6264 [e-mail].  National Suicide Prevention HotlineOpen 24/7By phone: [phone] (1-800-273-TALK) By text: send HELLO to 741741 Special thanks to Dr. Claire O’Donovan, MB, FRCPC for speaking to our team about bipolar disorder and to our friend Sarah who shared her personal story with us. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-diane-louise-augat/ 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And many of you probably know that May is Mental Health Month here in the U.S. and in many other countries. And if you have been around Britt and I long enough, you'll know how important this issue is to both of us. Oh, totally. I mean, I know I've talked before about my own personal experience with mental illness and, Ashley, you've been really open, too, about how you take care of your mental health, like with counseling and a lot of other, like...

Yeah, I am a huge fan of therapy. Now, we've been telling you guys true crime stories on this show for over three years now. And during that time, we have seen time and time again how mental health can so often be a contributing factor in the stories that we tell. And often, I mean, it's hard not to wonder if a victim were diagnosed sooner. If they had access to the right resources, could any of the cases we discuss have been prevented? And a lot of people don't like talking about mental illness. But to me, it's hard to imagine not talking about it when it impacts so many people. According to Mental Health America, nearly one in five American adults will have a diagnosable mental health condition in any given year. And I

say in any given year, because if you actually look at a bigger chunk of time, those numbers are even higher. Almost half of us, 46%, will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in our lives. If you haven't had this experience personally, you almost certainly know someone else who has. Someone like the person I want to talk to you about today. This is one of the most baffling missing person cases I have ever come across. This is a story of a woman who leaves her sisters home one April day in 1998 and just never returns. But this is not one of those missing person cases where the person just vanishes into thin air. This one's different. There are sightings, phone calls, physical

signs that she is out there somewhere, out there and possibly in trouble. This is the story of Diane Oggett. It's April 10th, 1998, and Deborah Cronin is just arriving home from a doctor's appointment. It's Good Friday, actually, and Deborah's sister, 40-year-old Diane Oggett, who's staying with Deborah for the time being, should be home. She's supposed to be home, but she's not. And you might be thinking, like, listen, she's a grown woman. Come on. And that's true. Deborah was expecting her sister to be there when she got back from her appointment. And even though she is an adult and she can come and go as she pleases, it is a little more

complicated than that because Diane had just been released a couple of weeks ago from a stay at a mental health facility and was actually living with Deborah for a while, like for her own safety and well-being. So what had she been in the facility for? So Diane has bipolar disorder, although in the late 90s when our story is taking place, it was known as manic depression. And listen, everyone's probably heard the term bipolar before. I mean, even throwing around casually is another word for angry or overly emotional or whatever. I mean, it gets used out of context all too often. And that's why it's so important to be careful with the words that we use because it can stigmatize and diminish the reality

of what so many people deal with. And Diane, she was one of those people who truly dealt with bipolar disorder, which at its core is a mental illness that causes intense mood swings. So you go from like depression or really, really low mood to mania or really high mood. Now, our team is actually lucky enough to speak with Dr. Claire O'Donovan, who is a psychiatrist at the QE2 Health Sciences Center in Halifax, Canada. And she is especially a specialist in bipolar disorder with more than 30 years experience treating patients with bipolar. And she told us that bipolar disorder with its dramatic shifts in mood can have a huge impact on people's lives on their sleep, their energy levels, and especially

their judgment and behavior. Well, and I've heard that bipolar disorder, or at least some of the symptoms of bipolar, can be, you know, mild for some people or range to severe for others. Symptoms of bipolar? Yes. But when it comes to bipolar as an illness, there really is no mild. Okay. According to the National Institute for Mental Health, more than 80% of bipolar disorder cases are severe. And the other 20% are classified as moderate. No mild. Oh, wow. Yeah. What's more accurate to say is that there are people with bipolar whose illness is well managed, people who have found like the right mix of medication, therapy, and lifestyle that works for them. But even well managed bipolar is pretty unpredictable.

Dr. O'Donovan told us that there are two main types of bipolar disorder, bipolar one and bipolar two. Now, you might have heard that one type is more severe than the other, but that's actually not the case. They're just different. A person with bipolar one tends to have depressive episodes along with manic episodes that either last a long time or are severe enough that they need to be hospitalized. And people with bipolar two tend to have periods of depression followed by periods of hypomania, which is a high mood, but not quite as high as mania. People with bipolar disorder can experience psychosis too, which is essentially a break from reality. And so that's when things like delusions

can come into play, even hallucinations. So based on what I've read about Diane, including comments from her family members, her bipolar disorder was definitely severe, severe enough that her mother told the Tampa Bay Times that Diane, quote, deeply needed institutionalized care, end quote, which she'd had in the past many times and not always of her own volition. In fact, Diane's most recent hospitalization, the one that had just ended before she went to live with her sister had been an involuntary hold, which was actually one of more than 30 involuntary holds for her in the last 10 years. Oh, wow. So you said she was what, 40 years old?

Right. Yeah. So was her bipolar not an issue when she was younger, or was she just not getting treated much before then? You know, it's hard to say because it's just not that straightforward. So bipolar disorder symptoms don't really tend to present in most cases until people are like 20, 25. And even then it is super hard to diagnose. One study I read in The Guardian found that on average, people wait more than 13 years to be diagnosed. And not just because they're fine living with the symptoms, it's mostly because bipolar is often misdiagnosed as depression because

those symptoms are better known, they're easier to recognize. And people are more likely to go see their doctor when they're depressed versus when they're in one of those like manic episodes or a hypomanic episode. And in fact, it's actually usually the family and friends of a person with bipolar who see it first or at least start to wonder. So it's very, very difficult to identify that pattern of behavior in yourself. So while I don't know for sure when Diane's symptoms presented or how she dealt with any symptoms that she might have had in her younger years, I do know that she was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was around 30 years old. And actually, I find you can

kind of look at Diane's life in two separate parts. There's this period before age 30, and there's this period after. You see, Diane's life had been very different through the 1970s and 80s. She was happily married. She was a stay-at-home mom with three kids. She had two girls and a boy. And according to Tamara Lush's reporting for the Tampa Bay Times, she loved being a mom. I mean, she doted on those kids and she kept a meticulous home. She loved camping and fishing and music, all of that. But then in 1988, this is the year that she turned 30, things started to change. That year, her children were removed from her custody by the Department of Children and Families over allegations of child abuse.

They suspected Diane had what's called Munchausen syndrome by proxy, which is something I actually only know a little bit about. Most of what I know is from watching Mommy, Dad, and Dearest, to be honest. But Brett, I actually asked you to look into this a little bit more and kind of explain it to our listeners if they don't know. Yeah. So the first thing I learned is that it's actually not even called Munchausen by proxy anymore. Oh, okay. So now it's known by factitious disorder imposed on another, or FDIA. And according to the

Cleveland Clinic, FDIA causes a person to, quote, intentionally harm or describe non-existent symptoms in their children to get the attention given to the family of someone who is sick, end quote. And most often the perpetrator is a mother and the victim is a child under the age of six. FDIA is recognized as mental illness, but it's also considered a form of child abuse, which is likely why the Department of Children and Families got involved when they suspected it in Diane's case. And suspected is an important word here because actually Diane ended up being acquitted of those charges. But by that time, her children were already out of her care and living with

her husband. And the family just never recovered from this. Diane and her husband divorced in 1991 and he took on sole custody of their kids after that. So losing her kids and her husband, I mean, her whole family, all of that was devastating for Diane. And so from that point on, she started drinking heavily and using drugs. And as you can imagine, things only spiraled from there. At around the same time she and her husband separated and the kids started living with him, Diane also started having run-ins with the law. And she was arrested several times for petty crimes. I'm actually kind of shocked that things spiraled after she was diagnosed. I mean, I'll be the

first to admit I'm pretty ignorant, but my assumption would have been that once they nailed down her diagnosis and started to treat it, things would have gotten better for her, not worse. Yeah, I kind of thought the same thing too, but a big part of the issue during those years for her, so we're talking like from age 30 to 40, was that Diane needed daily medication to manage her illness, but she was only taking it sporadically, which is honestly not that uncommon. So according to the World Journal of Psychiatry, about half of people diagnosed with bipolar

disorder don't follow their treatment plans. And I know that sounds like a lot, but actually, it turns out half of the people in treatment for any chronic illness, so I mean, we're talking mental, physical, whatever, half of all people have this issue with medication non-adherence, as they call it. Really, I guess I always thought that I had more to do with the side effects of the medications that you would take for bipolar specifically. Yeah, I mean, you hear that right where people don't feel like themselves, and that's definitely a factor for sure, but it is by far not the only factor. And again, like when I looked

into it, I expected to find all of these like really nuanced and complicated reasons, but honestly, sometimes it's as simple as a person not always having the money to afford the treatment that they need, or maybe they're supposed to take a bunch of medications at different doses at different times of the day, and they just really struggle to stay on top of it. There's nothing in the media coverage about why Diane didn't always stay on top of her meds. So again, it could be any one of the things that I mentioned above or all of them. The media coverage just says that she didn't always stick to her treatment plan. And in

the time of our story, this is actually one of those times because Deborah knows Diane hasn't been taking her medications at all since being released from that stay in inpatient treatment. But just because her sister's in home, Deborah is trying not to spiral too quickly on this because, you know, Diane could walk through the door at any minute. But all of Friday comes and goes with no word. And by the time Saturday rolls around, I mean, now we're talking 24 hours, Deborah knows she needs to do something. So that's when she reaches out to Mildred, which is her and Diane's mother. And it's Mildred who makes the call to the Pasco County Sheriff's to officially report Diane missing. Now Diane

is no stranger to the Pasco County Sheriff's. I mean, I mentioned she'd been arrested a few times for petty crimes. But just a few months ago, she'd been picked up by law enforcement wandering around the streets during one of her manic episodes. Now, that interaction totally could have led to an involuntary hold. But it didn't. Police just ended up dropping Diane off at Mildred's place instead. So is this the part of the episode where you tell me that they refuse to take a report? Or, you know, told the family that they had to wait 24, 48, who knows how many hours? Actually, no, I'm pretty sure that they do take a report and start looking right away because one of the first leads that they get on this case

is from a bartender at a local tavern who says that he saw Diane on the afternoon of April 10th, which would have been that same Friday that she left her sister's place. What's interesting is that this tavern, it's this place called the Haloft, isn't walking distance to Deborah's house. Like, it would take an hour to get there on foot. And Diane didn't have a car. So police think that either someone picked her up from her sister's place or she, like, hitchhiked and, like, thumbed a ride. The bartender tells them he served Diane that afternoon, but he ended up cutting her off because, according to a story by Jeff Doherty in the Tampa Bay Tribune, she was, quote, walking in circles. And this sighting

of Diane is actually kind of a sigh of relief for her family. I mean, she had run off like this in the past and she'd always come back after a day or two. But even though this might be kind of normal for her, I mean, this time still felt a little bit different. And they're extra worried because they know Diane, again, isn't taking her medication right now. And that puts her in a really, really vulnerable position, much more vulnerable than the rest of the population. According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, people with severe mental illness are, you're not even going to believe this. Actually, you should believe this, up to 11 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than the rest of the population.

Oh my God. Yeah. And within that, women are almost twice as likely as men to be victimized. So you can see why Diane was at a very high risk. And when she wasn't taking her medication, she was even less discerning about who she spent time with and who she trusted. One of the officers assigned to Diane's case told the Tampa Tribune, quote, when she did not take her medication correctly, her personality would change. And during those bouts, she was known to hang out with a pretty rough crowd, end quote. And so that is why Deborah and Mildred can't just turn off their worry. They can't just say, oh, she's going to

be home. I mean, they're hopeful, absolutely. But they are also concerned that maybe Diane trusted the wrong person this time. Saturday rolls to Sunday with no sign of Diane. And it's not until Monday comes that the first sign of Diane pops up again. Mildred comes home after being out of the house for a bit and finds a voice message on her machine. She clicks play and hears a voice on the other end of the line. It's Diane. She knows Diane's voice. But the second of relief that she might have felt when those first words came out of Diane's mouth quickly faded to dread when she hears what Diane is saying.

What Mildred hears on the other end of the line is her daughter saying, help, let me out, followed by a scuffling sound like somebody is trying to grab the phone from her. Then she hears, hey, give me that. And then click. The line just goes dead. Oh, my God. Now, the good news is Mildred has caller ID, which is how she knows that her daughter's call came from Starlight. Starlight? What's Starlight? Just Starlight, which I don't know. It seems kind of weird. It's not like a last name. It almost seems like a business. And yeah, again, I'm used to like caller ID now. Like, can we be more specific here, please? Or even being able to like Google something really quick. Right.

But either way, as soon as she finds this in her caller ID, Mildred calls the number back and it rings and it rings, but no one picks up. Now, at some point, Mildred lets police know about this call and apparently they look into it. But as far as I can tell, the lead is a dead end or they found something, but they're not willing to share it with the public even to this day. There were a couple of users on Reddit who say that they found businesses that were in the area back in 1998 with Starlight in the name. But again, I don't want to get too tangled up at this point, like in Reddit threads or whatever, because things are about to get even weirder.

Oh, wait, how do we not get tangled up? Like she called her mom has a number. Like that's something a huge lead to me. Girl, I know, but literally, I mean, at least publicly, nothing comes of it that they report on. So like, like I said, I have to believe that they tracked down every possible star light in the area. Like you said, she has the number. I would call it till I was blue in the face. I don't know. I mean, this voicemail keeps me up at night. Well, the thing is, we're talking about 1998, right? Like a woman with mental health issues goes missing. It's probably not going to be front page news. So in my mind, at least

there's no way that this could even be a hoax. Like this has to be her. I mean, not to mention a mother knows her daughter's voice. No, I agree. And actually, if it was some kind of practical joke, there were only like a handful of people who could have pulled it. Since you're right, like the public actually didn't find out anything about Diane's disappearance until after Mildred gets this voicemail. But listen, again, we have to move on. You can text me at 2am when you're still thinking about this because I will be too. But you're going to be texting me about something else because I am telling you, this is not even the weirdest thing that happens in this case.

Okay, let's hear it. So two days after Mildred gets that message from Diane, this is now around like 4pm on Wednesday, April 15th. A woman is walking to work along Highway 19 in Hudson. This is less than a 10 minute car ride from Deborah's house. So she's walking along this highway when she sees what looks like a finger. But like she thinks what probably most of us might think or at least if you're not a crime junkie, like that can't be an actual finger. Like it has to be some kind of joke. It's a fake finger part of someone's Halloween costume, whatever. So she kind of just brushes it off and keeps walking. But later that night when

she gets home, she tells her boyfriend about this weird, maybe fake finger. And the boyfriend is like, um, are you sure? This seems like something that like maybe you should check out. Yeah. Thank you, boyfriend. Yeah. So the next day, he goes back to the same spot to check it out. And wouldn't you know it? Lying there on the side of the highway, right where his girlfriend said it would be, is the top third of a finger. Nail painted red. And there's no doubt in his mind that what he's looking at is real.

Oh my God. The boyfriend phones police to tell them what he found. But Andy Gottlieb reported for the Tampa Tribune that the woman and her boyfriend actually give slightly different descriptions of what they saw, like different enough that police initially started looking for two fingers. Oh my God. Ultimately, police find only one finger when they get to the scene and they quickly take it away to see if they can lift some prints and maybe get a hit in their system, which they do. And wouldn't you know it? The fingertip belongs to a woman who is well known to them

and who has been missing for a couple of days. Diane Oggett. So has the finger been like cut off or I mean, what does the police think happened? No one ever gives a detailed description of the finger beyond just the fact that it's like the top third tip of her right middle finger and that the nail was painted some kind of like, some sources say it was like a red, others say it was coral. But there's nothing out there about whether it was like a clean cut, whether it was jagged, if the finger was kind of crushed in any way, how long it had been there. Again, I have all the questions. And so with all the questions, we're kind of left to do exactly what Diane's

family finds himself doing. Speculate. But at this point, how do you not jump to all of the worst case scenarios, right? Like after that phone message where she's saying let me out followed immediately by a finger just lying on the side of the highway that we know is hers. Like Mildred is convinced at this point that Diane was kidnapped and is being held somewhere and tortured or worse has been kidnapped, tortured and already killed. I mean, yeah, isn't that what everyone is thinking at this point? No. Police don't seem ready to officially say that they suspect foul play. They say, at least at this point in the investigation, that they can't rule it out, but that they

also can't rule out that maybe this was just some kind of accident. Like maybe she slammed her finger in a car door or something like that. And they're also considering the option that this might all be some kind of cruel joke. I mean, come on, that would be some sort of like gone girl level trickster stuff. I can't. Yeah. I mean, the only person who could write this bonkers story if it was fiction would be Gillian Flynn. And I'm sure she was but a wee babe during this time. So you can't even convince me a hoax is an option. But anyways, this fingertip is the police's first big break in the case. And importantly, it finally gives them somewhere to start in terms

of a physical search for Diane, which they do with a helicopter. Like a helicopter and like a ton of ground search too, right? Well, strangely, I haven't come across any reference to a ground search in my research for this case. I have to assume so. I mean, again, part of this search is that they're looking for a potential second fingertip. Like there's no way you're going to see that from a helicopter. But despite their efforts, their search doesn't turn up anything. Nobody, nobody parts, no clues as to where Diane might be. Just nothing. And while at this point, Diane's family is seriously concerned for her safety and again, rightly so, there isn't much police

can really do except wait. And that's what Diane's family is doing to just waiting, waiting for any sign of Diane, waiting for her to turn up somewhere to come home, or at least to call again. And it turns out they don't have to wait long, because just two days after that fingertip is found on the side of the road, Deborah's phone rings. And what the voice on the other line tells her opens the door to a whole new set of questions about her sister's disappearance. On the other line is the manager of a convenience store about a half hour from Hudson where Diane was last seen. The store manager says that she was checking the store's outdoor

freezer case when she found something inside that she wasn't expecting. Inside the freezer is a laundry bag and inside that bag are several items of neatly folded clothing. As soon as this woman saw the bag of clothing, she made the connection to Diane, who had been a regular customer at that particular store for years. And so this clerk like calls Deborah right away and Deborah hops into her car and heads up to Odessa, Florida. That's where like this convenience store is located. And it's not just like some random town half an hour away. This is actually the town where Diane lives. But wasn't she living with Deborah?

Well, right now, when she's like going through this bit of like a rough patch, she's like staying with her sister, but her main home is in Odessa, which is like a half hour away from Deborah's place. Okay. So when Deborah gets there and sees the clothes, she knows right away that they actually do belong to Diane. This isn't like some kind of false sighting. She's seen the clothes before at Diane's house. And some were even clothes that Deborah had given to Diane, according to Tampa Bay Times reporter Christopher Gofford. Are any of these the clothes that she had on when she went missing?

I wondered that and I looked for that, but I really didn't get a solid answer either way. Like, I'd like to think that if they were, that would have been reported somewhere at some point over the past 23 years. Like to me, that feels significant, but I don't know. Yeah, I totally agree. Like, I feel like that would be a completely different story altogether. But do we know how long the clothes had been there? Like, did someone check this freezer like every couple hours or daily? No, no. So we don't know exactly. The convenience store manager tells police that this was the

first time that she'd checked the freezer case in like, I think it was like something like three weeks, which means it's possible that the clothes were there even since before Diane went missing. Like, again, maybe there's a world in which Diane could have put them there herself before she went missing. I mean, I feel like someone would have noticed a bag of clothes before that. Like, if not an employee, then a customer or something. I would think so too. But here's the thing, there is another scenario that police are considering as well. Diane apparently used to let people party at her place before she

went missing. These were like juveniles based on Christopher Gofford's description in the Tampa Bay Times. And police had gotten a tip the same weekend Diane's clothes were found in the freezer that items were being stolen from or at least moved out of her house in Odessa, which is like a few minutes from this convenience store. So because Deborah says that she recognizes the clothes as ones that she'd seen in Diane's house, police wonder if maybe whoever was looting the place maybe put the clothes there and has nothing to do with Diane or whatever happened to her. Or maybe whoever is looting the house is also responsible for Diane's disappearance.

Well, police do say that they're looking into a possible connection. But I have to assume that they don't find one because it doesn't come up again in any of the source material for this case. If there is an upside to all these random occurrences, though, the call, finger, the freezer, it's that they generate some much needed media interest in Diane's case. The very first published story that we could find in our research was from Saturday April 18. That's a week after Diane was first reported missing by her family. Oh, wow. And like we kind of said earlier, I don't know the reason behind that if police didn't tend to use the media to support investigations back in 98 or if they tried but the media

weren't interested in her story. But I can't help but think that Diane's mental illness and her substance use, her history with police, like all of those things likely influence the way police and the media approached the investigation in those like critical early days and whether or not the media and the public was even interested in her disappearance as a story. But media can be a really important partner for police during those early days or at any point in an investigation. And in Diane's case, this flurry of activity, which again, comes a full week after she was reported missing, does generate some new leads. So that tip about people looting her house in Odessa, that's one of almost 40 calls that come in

the weekend when the story of her disappearance goes public. Okay, but anything like investigatable? Most of the tips are from people saying that they might have seen Diane in different places around the city. And there are at least two that are credible enough for police to tell the media about them. One is from a woman who says she saw Diane walking along Highway 19 in Hudson, like same area where her finger was found. And she said that she saw her between like three and four in the afternoon on April 11, which is just one day after she left her sister's place. There's a second sighting of Diane to from a witness who says she saw Diane having lunch at a local restaurant two days after that, which would have been on

Monday. Matt is the same day that Mildred got that voice message. So to the waitress, notice if the woman she saw had like a missing or bandaged finger, I feel like that would tell us so much more about the timeline of events and like whether these sightings are real or not. Well, so there's no mention of any of that in the source material, but timeline wise, this sighting happens at the diner like two days before the woman finds the fingertip on the side of the road. Okay, so this restaurant where the waitress may have seen her, is it close to Deborah's house or is it like somewhere else?

Yeah, no, this is at the place that's called the Inn on the Gulf in Hudson, and it actually wasn't far from where Deborah lives. But that's the last sighting of Diane as far as I can tell. And while it's certainly something, it doesn't get police any closer to finding her. None of those strange clues do either. Not to mention, none of it makes any sense. Not if you look at them together, or even if you pull them apart. And really to me, not even when you consider that because of her mental illness, Diane is a woman whose behavior doesn't always make perfect sense. And the more time that passes, the more her family and police are forced to consider the possibility that she may not be coming home.

And time does pass. Weeks and months and years go by with no word from Diane. Police continue to work the case investigating leads as they come in. But by the time November 2000 rolls around, police have investigated at least 100 leads. And not a single one has led them anywhere solid. But then in late November 2000, two and a half years after Diane's disappearance, the local paper runs an update story about the ongoing police investigation. Now there's no new information in this piece, which was written by Tamara Lush for the Tampa Bay Times. It just like recaps what we already know and asks the public to call the Pasco County Sheriff's if they have any information. But that story runs on Friday. And let me just

tell you what happens the very next day. On November 25. So this is a Saturday, a woman named Terry Wilson is hitting up a Circle K convenience store to grab a bottle of pop and like some cigarettes, whatever. When she walked into the store, the lottery counter catches her eye. But not because she's feeling lucky. It catches her eye because there's something just sitting there that seems out of place. She walks over. And as she gets closer, she realizes what it is. It is a clear Ziploc bag full of stuff. Black eyeliner, bright pink lipstick, a bottle of perfume, a tube of toothpaste. She grabs the bag and takes it with her to her car. And when she looks more closely at it, she sees right there on the front

written in black marker is a word, a name Diane. What? And Terry knows immediately who Diane is, who these things might belong to. Because you see, Terry is actually dating Diane's brother, which is why she's able to head straight to Mildred with the bag. Now, Mildred is understandably emotional about all of this. In one way, it's a hopeful sign that maybe Diane is still out there somewhere. But on the other hand, it brings all that hurt and pain about her daughter's disappearance to the surface again. But here's the thing. Mildred is pretty sure that these are in fact Diane's things, like not just some random things with a random name written on the bag, because not only are the makeup and the perfume the type that Diane is known to wear,

but the toothpaste, which is just like this generic tube, it's not even like brand name, but it's exactly the kind that they gave out at the mental health facility that had just discharged Diane a couple of weeks before she went missing. Does the state of the item tell the family anything? What do you mean? The toothpaste, is it still full? Has it been used? Is it even empty? The lipstick, has it been worn all the way down? To me, if all these things seem untouched, that feels like straight-up killer trophy stuff that was kept as opposed to something that is being used all the time and it's being left behind. Yeah, I don't know. There was no mention that I could find anywhere about whether it was an empty tube of toothpaste or a full tube

or the lipstick had been used. I have no idea. And you said this was at a convenience store, right? Right. So was this the same store where her clothes were found in the freezer? No, actually. So this one is in a neighborhood called Viva Villas and it was known to Diane though. Like Diane was known to spend quite a bit of time in this area. It's the same area that Diane was picked up by police a few months before she went missing. The time that she was just like wandering around in a manic state. Remember, I said they could have taken her but they didn't. So I mean, I know she'd been in that area before. So Mildred calls the Pasco County Sheriff's to let them know what Terry found and where she found it and they tell her that

they'll look into it. Specifically, they want to look at the store's surveillance tape to see who came in with the bag or like how the bag got there. Oh my god, do we actually have a working surveillance system? Hold your horses because there is no follow-up on this again. There is literally that one media article, Tamara Lush's, about this development and it doesn't confirm anything. In fact, it says detectives quote, wouldn't speculate whether the contents of the bag had been actually Oggett's possessions. End quote. So I don't know this part of Florida, but like how small is this place? You said the person who found the bag was Diane's sister-in-law. Like yeah, dating her brother or whatever. Yeah, but like what are the chances of the

person who finds this random bag of her things is actually connected to Diane's family? No, I think it's just as wild as you do. And it's actually something that you'll see in like online discussions and message boards about this case because some people think that whoever put the bag there either somehow knew that Terry would find it. Others think that Diane's family is somehow involved. Either they are somehow connected to the disappearance or they're thinking that maybe putting the clothes in the bag and all these things in these random places is a way to like keep the media interested, keep people focused on the case. I don't know that I truly believe any of that. I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence that the bag of toiletries appeared

just after the media story, which again ran like after two years of radio silence. But I think it's more likely that maybe someone had the bag of stuff and thought like, oh yeah, right, like I need to get rid of that bag. Like no one's forgotten about this woman or you know, if that person's even more sick, like, oh good, people are interested again. I love the attention. I don't know. Well, I'm like on and this is probably a little more personal to me, but my mom's name is Diana and it's not a wildly uncommon name for someone in that like age range, I guess. So the like hop skip and a jump to that. It's definitely hers seems a little bit quick too. Well, which I get again, I don't think the Ziploc bag was just like her name says that. But again,

I think that like it's like this specific tube of toothpaste that came. It's the perfume that she uses. There's like a lot of things that like contribute to it. Yeah, right. Likely are possibly being hers versus literally any other Diane or Diana out there. Yeah. And to be fair though, you're right. I mean, maybe it doesn't mean anything because ultimately the lead goes nowhere, just like the bag of clothes before that the fingertip before that and the voice message before that. And so the trail goes cold again. And again, Diane's family waits and wonders until almost a year later at the end of July 2001, when Deborah's phone rings again on the other end of the line is a detective working on her sister's case, calling her to tell her they've

made an arrest. So before you get too excited, the arrest isn't directly connected to Diane's disappearance, but it's a name Deborah has heard before Gary Evers. The detective tells Deborah that Gary has been arrested for murder. I'm sorry. So he has been arrested for murder, but but it's not connected to Diane's disappearance. Like how does that make sense? I'm so confused. Yeah. So the best place to start is actually a few days before the arrest. So this guy Gary and his partner Rose were co managers of a Hudson motel called Coral Sands, which is this like cheap no frills kind of situation with long term residents along highway 19. And that's fingertip highway, right? The very same. Now at around 4am that Wednesday morning,

two masked men carrying guns barged into Coral Sands motel office, which is where Gary and Rose live and they're planning to rob the place. Gary was in the back bedroom at the time, but when he came out to the main space, he saw these guys beating Rose with their guns. The guys bolted after that. But according to a Tampa Bay Times story by Richard Rake, late the next night, Gary invited this neighborhood guy, this guy named Todd, over to his place to talk about the robbery. Apparently Gary thought Todd was one of the guys who who broke in or whatever. Oh, and there are for sure several different versions of this story. But another person who was there that night said that the two guys talked and drank for a couple

of hours. And even though Todd denied having anything to do with the robbery and the assault on Rose, it didn't matter. Gary shot the guy. He shot Todd 11 times in the face and body. I mean, 11 times he had to have taken the time to reload his gun in between. Oh my God. A witness called police right away. And when they got to the door, according to that same article, Gary said, quote, there's a dead guy in here. Come in and see. End quote. That is that's cold. But what does the story have anything to do with Diane? So a couple of things. It turns out the Coral Sands motel is actually one of the last places Diane was known to be before she disappeared, which seems like that fact may have been known all

along to Deborah based on this story in the Times. But this story in the Times is the first mention of it publicly in the media. Deborah actually says that apparently this guy, Gary Evers, had been a suspect in Diane's disappearance all the way back in 1998 when she first went missing. Although police won't confirm that publicly. The other super sketch thing about this is that the motel is not just on the same road where Diane's fingertip was found all those years ago. It is a block from where her fingertip was found all those years ago. Yeah. During that phone call with the detective, Deborah asks if they plan to search Gary's place to see if there's any evidence of Diane. And the detective tells her they may need her to come look at some stuff.

But there's no official confirmation that it ever happened. Interestingly, someone left a comment on one of the Pasco County Sheriff's Facebook posts about this case, which they make from time to time, like just to generate new leads. And the comment said quote, Gary Evers, who owned the motel near New York Ave, had taken a photo of her and put it with his collection of other exploitive pics. The police found the picture after they arrested him for murder years later. I believe she stayed at the motel end quote. Now, I didn't find this in any of the media covered on the case. So that might not be true. There is also another rabbit hole of speculation online that you can really run wild down about whether maybe Coral Sands Motel had either previously been called

Starlight or was owned by like an LLC called Starlight, something like that. Yeah. One of the Reddit threads on this case is full of comments about how police weren't able to trace that Starlight phone number back to the person or business who owned it. Again, I went back through the actual media coverage to look for that for like what police said about this lead and where it took them. But there is honestly nothing. Just people assuming they followed it up and found nothing. Yeah, it seems that way. Now, the actual media coverage has Mildred recounting the call. And then there's this line about how she called back and got no answer remember. So like, I have to think Mildred shared all of that with police when it happened. And if she didn't get an answer,

call tracing is not new technology. Like that was definitely happening in the 90s. So Right. Again, I know we said we'd move on, but I go back to this. Surely police had to have traced the call to somewhere or someone. And if that someone was Gary Evers, I mean, that would be a good reason to put him on their radar way back in 98. But again, police never confirmed a connection. It was only Deborah who shared this with the media. And if there was a connection between Coral Sands and this mysterious Starlight or between Gary Evers and Diane, I'm not sure we'll ever know. Because Gary died in prison back in 2012. And it turns out the guy he killed, that Todd guy, wasn't even one of the men who robbed him and assaulted his partner that night.

I mean, that's a cautionary tale against vigilante justice if I've ever heard one. Absent any other solid leads, Gary Evers is the best we've got for a possible bad guy in this case. Given Diane's bipolar disorder in general and her lack of medication when she disappeared in particular, she could absolutely have trusted the wrong person at the wrong time. Most people assume she is dead, including her family. And based on the circumstances of her case, people think there is foul play involved. We have talked on this show about mental illness many times over the years and about bipolar as well. But if the information Dr. Claire O'Donovan shared with us taught me anything, it's how misunderstood bipolar disorder is and how misunderstood people

with bipolar can feel as a result. I mean, manic episodes are a great example. I mentioned before mania impacts people's behavior, their decision making, their judgment. It's all about adventure seeking, pleasure seeking in mania. As Dr. O'Donovan said, there are no consequences in mania. Except, I mean, we all know all too well, there are consequences in real life. And sometimes they are serious life changing consequences, piles of debt, injuries or illness, fractured relationships. Losing custody of your children. Exactly. I mean, it also has to be so terrifying too to realize or be confronted with everything you've been thinking or feeling, knowing. None of that was real, that your own brain had created this completely separate reality that

was totally completely indistinguishable from real life. Like, to me at least, that's so much scarier than like a boogeyman around the corner. I mean, I couldn't agree more. I mean, the human brain is so powerful. Honestly, listening back to our conversation with Dr. O'Donovan and hearing her talk about the experience of mania and especially psychosis in mania, it has given me a whole new appreciation for how difficult bipolar disorder can be. And for how people who have bipolar disorder, like how they have to operate through the world and even for everyone around them who's trying to support them and help them. And I truly hope that by telling Diane's story, by talking about mental illness, frankly, openly and honestly, in private with our families and

friends, but also in public too, like on our platform like this, I hope that we're helping make this community, our crime junkie community, this safer, more supportive, more welcoming place for everyone. And I really want our listeners to know that you're not alone. There are people out there with this same diagnosis who have felt exactly what you're feeling, who have lived how you are living, people who see you and get it 100%. We actually have a friend, Sarah, who consulted with us for this episode, and she has bipolar disorder. And again, I want to make it normal to talk about this. So Sarah actually agreed to share her story with you. So if you're listening to this on release day, which would be Monday, head over to our Instagram, which is our handle

is crime junkie podcast. Or if you're listening later, you can go to our Facebook page to hear about her experience with bipolar disorder and the measures that she takes to protect her mental health. And listen, we know that this is a very difficult and personal subject to talk about. But I kind of want to, I want to put it out there. I want to encourage you guys that if you're comfortable with it, we want to hear from you too. There is power in talking about this, in hearing all of our voices and realizing that we're not alone. So whether it affects you directly, or if you have supported a loved one who's battling, we encourage you to share your stories with us. Yeah, and we'll actually be reposting some of your experiences to empower others to do the same.

All you have to do is tag us in your Instagram story at crime junkie podcast and follow along with us this week to hear from others. Let's unite our crime junkie community and really work together to de-stigmatize mental health conditions together. Yeah, you guys, I have so many people in my family who suffer from mental health, myself included, I go to therapy, I'm on anxiety medication. And what is so interesting to me is I've heard my sister say it, I've heard my husband say it, is I thought I was the only one like I put on this face because no one's talking about it. And it feels so lonely. But you guys, we said the stats at the beginning, half of people in their lifetime will experience mental illness. That is a lot of people. It is normal to not feel normal

all the time. And if the signs or symptoms of bipolar sound familiar to you, if you recognize yourself or someone you love in Diane's story, please, please reach out for help. Call your healthcare provider, check online for resources in your area, you know, reach out to local not-for-profits and support groups, call a friend or a family member, like please, please reach out because you or the person you love are not alone. And if you're looking for more mental health information or support, the National Alliance on Mental Illness provides a toll-free helpline open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time. You can reach them by calling 1-800-950-6264, or you can reach them by email at info at N-A-M-I dot org. N-A-M-I volunteers are there to provide

general mental health information as well as specific resources like treatment options and support groups. There is also crisis support options available if you need them. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-TALK, that's 1-800-273-TALK, or you can text hello to 741741. We're going to put all of that information in our show notes and it will also go on our website as well, so it'll be there if you need it. As of this recording, Diane's disappearance is still unsolved. If you have any information that might help Diane's mother, sister, and children answer the questions that have lingered now for more than two decades, you can reach out to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office or call Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay

at 1-800-873-TIPS. Again, you can find all of those resources and our source material for this episode on our website, that's crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with another brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an audio chuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?