Crime Junkie - MISSING: From a Bus Stop

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

For most of us, heading to a bus stop would be a mindless act. Just a stop before your next destination. But unfortunately for some, it’s become their last known sighting. Today, Brit and I are exploring several unsolved cases where victims have mysteriously disappeared from a bus stop. We’re hoping someone out there has more information as to what occurred before each of those buses arrived…If you have any information about the disappearances of…Korrina Malinoski or Annette Sagers: Please contact the Berkeley County  Cold Case Squad at [e-mail], or call 843-719-4668.Madalina Cojocari: Please contact the Cornelius Police Department at 704-892-7773, or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. If you would like to remain anonymous, please call North Mecklenburg Crime Stoppers at 704-896-7867.Tabitha Tuders: Please contact the Nashville Police Department Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7803, or Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463.Zita Cecilia Gutierrez: Please call the Montgomery County Police Department at 301-279-8000. And if you knew Cecilia, or if you’re someone with the Montgomery County Police Department, please email us at [e-mail]. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-from-a-bus-stop Happy Pride Month, Crime Junkies! Please take some time to check out the following LGBTQ+ Resources:Point of PrideIndiana Youth GroupNLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ JournalistsTrans Journalists AssociationOut & EqualOut On The LakeshoreThe LGBTQ+ Bar Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And happy Pride Month, everybody. Although we're gonna be celebrating all year long. We don't want anyone forgetting just how important this month is. Absolutely. This is such an amazing time to celebrate the LGBTQ plus communities

and to share the love with everyone around you. Yeah, so you can go out and share the love, Crime Junkies. Be sure to head to our show notes for this episode, because we're going to be linking out to a ton of incredible organizations that support the LGBTQ plus community that could use your love and support as well, whether you're looking to donate time, money, even your attention. It's all equally important, not just this month, but all year round. So please just take a minute to go check them out.

And speaking of attention, we need your attention for the cases that we have for you today. Because they are all unsolved, and they all need as many eyes and ears as possible. So the first one I have for you is about a young woman and her daughter connected by more than just blood. When both of their separate stories start near a bus stop at the end of their driveway, you can't help but wonder if whoever made them vanish is a little bit closer to home. On October 4, 1988, the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office near Mount Holly, South Carolina is contacted by a man named Steve Malinowski, who's calling to report the oldest of his

three kids, his 11-year-old stepdaughter, Annette, missing. Steve explains that Annette didn't come home from school that day, so he said he went to look for her, starting with where she waits for the bus, down at the end of their driveway, which is a long driveway, because they live on this 6,000-acre plantation. I guess Steve's the caretaker there, and so they get to live in this house on the property.

And the house is about a half mile back from the road. So they built this almost like shed type thing for Annette to wait for the bus in so she wouldn't be standing out in the elements. So anyways, investigators start trying to figure out if Annette even made it to school. And they speak to the bus driver who confirms that Annette was sitting under the shelter

waiting for the bus. And so the way that this works is that bus actually has to drive past the plantation first to go pick up other kids. And then they circle back and Annette gets picked up on that second pass. So on that first pass, both the bus driver and a student on the bus saw Annette sitting there

with her dog waiting. But by the time it circled back around, which would have been like 15 minutes later, she and the dog were both gone. Is the dog still missing too or did it circled back around, which would have been like 15 minutes later, she and the dog were both gone. Is the dog still missing too, or did it just wander back home? Dog ends up being found about a half mile away on the property. But there's nothing with the dog or around the dog that tells them what happened to Annette. But according to an episode of Up and Vanished, which was one of our main sources for this

episode, there was a note left behind in that little shed that might. When Steve first talked to investigators, he told them that when he'd gone looking for her in that shed, he found this crumpled piece of paper in what looked like child's handwriting that said, quote, Dad, mom came back, I have to go with her. And then it looks like the writer had started to write, tell the, but then it's like crossed out.

And the note continues, give the boys lots of kisses and hugs and also you too. Love, Annette. So I assume mom and dad aren't together? Uh, that's one way to put it. Say more? So, like I said, Annette is technically Steve's stepdaughter.

Her mom, Corina, who goes by Cory, had her from a previous relationship. Her biological dad isn't in the picture. And Cory isn't in the picture at the moment either because nearly a year before, Cory went missing too. What? Yeah, in more than that last scene in nearly the exact same spot, or at least potentially.

So let me tell you about that disappearance. So one day in November, Cory just doesn't show up for work, which was a big deal for her. So her boss drove to her house to check on her. And when he pulled up to the end of the driveway, he was surprised to find Corey's car sitting still behind the gate at the end of the driveway. And he could tell right away

that it had been sitting there all night because it was covered in dew. So boss gets out of the car, he walks around the gate and up to the house where he talked to Steve. And according to an episode of Bring Them Home from ABC News 4, Steve's explanation was basically that Cory had left after they got into some big fight the night before. Had he not seen her car at the end of the drive?

Well, actually, he claims he had. He said he was sitting on the front porch that day before and had seen her drive to the end of the driveway, and then apparently he said she got into another vehicle that stopped by. Now I don't know how the rest of that conversation between the two men went, but I know that Steve contacted the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office and reported Corey missing. And Steve gave investigators pretty much the same story, that they had this argument, she stormed out, and that he saw another vehicle pick her up.

So do we know what this argument was about? Well, potentially it was about an affair that Corey was rumored to have been having, but I can't find any reporting that states that he told detectives that at the time. But I know that this whole affair thing was a rumor, and it was really just a rumor because I also couldn't find anything from anyone actually close to Corey who could confirm that she was actually having an affair. In fact, her brother Leon outright denied it. And it might have been BS altogether because Leon was convinced from the get-go that Corey was met with foul play. He didn't buy the story about Corey just up and leaving her kids.

I mean, one, that just wasn't like her at all. And two, Leon knew the story about seeing a vehicle stop and pick her up couldn't have been true. I mean, like I said earlier, their house was about a half mile from the road and it was in this wooded area. And apparently the driveway itself was pretty curvy. So Leon knows that it actually would not have physically

been possible for Steve to see Corey at the end of it from the porch. Did Steve give any details of this supposed vehicle? Like color, make, model, anything? Well, I guess he specified that it was maybe a van, but I don't think investigators are getting hung up on that because they don't really need made up details because again, they don't think he could actually see it. They agree with Leon. Right.

So long story short, they did a ton of searching for Corey, mostly focusing on the plantation property. But according to Vernon Squires reporting for the Daily Dispatch, they never found any sign of her. And though they were suspicious of Steve the entire time, they could never prove anything happened to Corey, much less that foul play happened at the hands of Steve the entire time. They could never prove anything happened to Corey, much less that foul play happened at the hands of Steve.

But now, all of a sudden, it's like deja vu. They are back at the end of this very long driveway with another person from this same family missing. But I mean, I'll tell you what Corey and Annette's family believes. They never thought Corey left, and so they don't think that she is alive to come back for her daughter. Okay, then what happened to Annette? Well, they think the same thing that happened to Corey, and they think by the same person.

Their family believes that Steve may have wanted to get rid of Annette, and Corey's half-sister Cheryl tells investigators about a weird interaction she had with Steve and Annette shortly after Corey went missing that she feels backs up their claim. She says that a little after Corey's disappearance, she had gone to visit along with her dad, and according to Cheryl, once she got there, Annette, who was 10 years old at the time, wanted to show her something upstairs in the attic. And it doesn't sound like she was super specific about what it was up there that she wanted to show her,

just that she really, really wanted to show her aunt Cheryl something that was up there. But Steve wouldn't let either of them go up there. Now it sounds like it wasn't all that concerning in the moment, but looking back, Cheryl can't help but think that maybe there was something up there. Now it sounds like it wasn't all that concerning in the moment, but looking back, Cheryl can't help but think that maybe there was something up there in that attic that Annette knew about that Steve didn't want her, Cheryl, to see. Like what?

I mean, you could speculate a lot. Some have theorized that Annette knew what happened to Corey, maybe even saw what happened. And then because of that, she became a liability because she's obviously old enough to know really what's happening and be able to communicate what it is she saw. Okay, but Annette disappears a year later.

Like, why wait? Why wait nearly a year to silence her? I don't really know, but I do know that that incident with the attic isn't the only thing Cory's side of the family is looking back on with more suspicion. So there was another time that Cheryl was going to come by and visit Annette and her two brothers, and this is a week before Annette vanished. And at first, Steve seemed totally fine with it,

but then leading up to the trip, apparently he like changes his mind. It seems like all of a sudden he wasn't okay with anyone being around. So they're like, okay, was he trying to keep us from the house for a reason? ANNETTE'S MOTHER GROAN And there's another thing that's not sitting right with the family or investigators. In South Carolina, family can take legal custody of a child after a year if their parent or legal guardian

isn't around anymore. And remember, Annette wasn't biologically Steve's child, so according to that Up and Vanished episode, Corey's family could have petitioned to get legal custody of her daughter after that year was up. Were the other two kids his and Corey's? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And was Corey's family planning to petition custody for Annette? Did Steve even know about that law? So that's honestly a little fuzzy for me. I know that Cheryl wanted Annette to come stay with her for a month shortly before she vanished, but I'm also not sure that they actually knew about the custody law, much less I don't know if Steve knew about it. So the theory is that Annette knew something or saw something maybe and Steve wanted to control what she told

people by keeping control of her. I mean, that seems feasible, but you know, the older she gets, maybe she's spending too much time with Cory's family. She was going to say something, something that might incriminate him. And particularly, he had to do it soon, silence her, do something before they figured out and could get custody of her so she could then potentially testify against him, what have you. Yeah, that's the idea. But there is quite literally no physical evidence that backs that theory up.

I mean, investigators searched the house, they even searched the attic, which seemed so mysterious, but they can't find any evidence that he had anything to do with either Annette or Corey's disappearances. I mean, really, there still isn't even any sign of foul play for either of them. So there's no physical evidence, but there is circumstantial evidence that lends credence to the theory of Steve being involved in some way. And there's no way that the note that Steve found was true,

that Corey just popped by to get Annette, but left the boys. Her family strongly doesn't think so. I mean, it's the thing I keep coming back to. But her family does not think, first of all, that she's alive to take anyone. And then even if there was a world where she was, they're like, she loved all of her kids. There's no way she would just leave the other two behind. Especially because before Corey ever went missing, there were rumors of abuse on Steve's part. I mean, her boss was even aware of the possible domestic violence,

which is one of the reasons why he was so quick to go check on her when she didn't show up for work. And really, Steve didn't treat his kids much better. I mean, it turns out he has a history of neglecting his kids. Like, there was one instance where Annette had contacted another caretaker there on the property and asked him for food because she and her brothers hadn't eaten in three days. And according to that episode of Bring Them Home, the caretaker contacted the Department of Social Services, but Steve was allowed to keep custody of all three kids.

SONIA How recent was this incident to her going missing? TARA I don't know how close it was to Annette going missing, but I know it was sometime after Cory going missing. I don't know how close it was to Annette going missing, but I know it was sometime after Corey went missing. So we're still looking at like a year or so, so relatively recently. Yeah. So while they're not ready to call him a suspect just yet, he was one of the last people to see both Corey and Annette,

and with his history of not treating either of them well, they do end up making him a person of interest in both cases. So he's given a polygraph, and he doesn't exactly make the best impression. He doesn't seem to have much of an emotional reaction to anything. No concern for Annette, for Cory, for what's happening. So even though the polygraph is labeled inconclusive, investigators aren't exactly left thinking that Steve is this concerned, grieving husband and stepfather.

So, they're still looking. They're still kind of, I think, focusing in on him and the property, because a month into Annette's disappearance, there is this huge search of the property that gets underway. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. A month? I know. I don't know what holds—I don't know why it takes so long, because for me, I'm like, okay, like day two would have been nice. Well, and Steve's still living on the property this whole time. There's nothing that says otherwise.

I don't know for sure. Now this search spans the thousands of acres of property, which, I mean, this is a plantation, but it's also like very swampy in some parts or like that's how they describe it like swamp and I think there's like lots of trees or whatever, but they're pouring hours of manpower into this search and they don't find anything that can give them a clue as to Annette's whereabouts. So these swamps, how swampy are we talking exactly? I mean, it's like wetlands.

So you've got ponds, you've got these like marshy bodies of water, and there's water like under the soil as well, so I don't think it's the entire property that's like this, but I know like a decent amount, so when you think about it though, that just makes the search even harder. They could be in a pond, they could be buried somewhere. I mean the possibilities are endless. Okay, so I know it might be unlikely, but what are the chances that both Corey and Annette met with foul play, but not by Steve's hand, just by some totally random person? I mean, this is what I will say. It seems like they looked into all the possibilities because I know they looked into this one.

The area that we're talking about is super rural. So if that happened, there wouldn't have been any witnesses to see it. I think the question is like, could they have been targeted by two different people or by the same person? Because to me, both feel statistically improbable. It's like, okay, is there one person

who a year apart is taking mother and daughter? Who keeps coming back to this place to abduct people? Yeah, seems wild. Right, are two people being abducted from the same location by different people at different times? Also improbable. Also improbable. But the one thing I will say is that investigators can't help but notice that seven months before

Corey went missing, there was another mother and daughter that vanished just 20 miles from the plantation. The story goes that two women, Linda McCord and Sarah Boyd, and Sarah's two-year-old daughter were driving home from a gospel concert when they just vanished. And the only sign that they ever found was their car abandoned on the side of the road days after they first went missing. So at the time, or at least for a brief moment, they thought that they might have a serial killer on their hands who, I don't know,

specifically targets mothers and daughters or whatever. And with how rural and swampy the area was, again, it would have been easy for anyone or a serial killer, whoever, to hide bodies. Okay, but in that case, there's a third supposed victim. They were taken all at the same time. There's a potential carjacking involved. A lot of differences.

And I think the differences are enough that in the end, they don't end up putting much stock into the theory. Even though that case is still unsolved to this day and those three have never been found either. So could Annette have been abducted by a complete stranger and Cory abducted by a complete stranger? Maybe. But what are the odds? Yeah, I don't even know.

But it also feels just as unlikely that Cory just left and then came back for Annette and vanished again considering how close she was with her family. Which really only leaves one option. And that option is Steve. Precisely. But there's no evidence. Which is why, when Steve picks up and moves with his two kids three months after Annette disappears, police can't stop him.

And the timing isn't lost on anyone, because it feels super soon after Annette vanished. But since he's not under arrest for the disappearances, I mean, he's free to do whatever he wants, they can't keep him there. So after he and the boys leave, his track record of stellar parenting just continues. He eventually abandons his two sons and sort of just goes off to start a new life, which side note, this isn't the first time he's abandoned his kids. It turns out this dude had another family

before he even met Cory that he also abandoned. Someone get this guy a world's greatest dad mug. Tell me about it. Now after that, Annette and Cory's cases go cold. Every now and then, there's a little blurb in the paper about Annette, and it's interesting because when her story comes up in the paper, it's listed as a non-family abduction for a little while, despite Steve's status as

a person of interest. And I don't know if that's because like, he didn't technically have like, he never adopted her and she, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know why that is or if there really was a theory that he didn't do it or whatever. Right. You can kind of see him as a family member or a non-family member, depending on how you squint your eyes. Yeah. So, investigators continue to monitor school records, social security numbers, anything they really can to see if Annette or Cory pop up anywhere, but there's no sign of either of them.

That is until about 10 years later, in 2000, when police receive an anonymous letter that claims both Corey and Annette are buried an hour and a half north in Sumter County, South Carolina. Along with this revelation, the note includes a hand-drawn map and everything pointing them to this very specific crossroads. So the sheriff's office in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, go and search this area.

That Bring Them Home episode details how they bring in cadaver dogs, they process the letter for fingerprints, they do pretty much everything they can to try and figure out, one, who wrote this letter, and two, if this tip is actually viable. But ultimately, they're unsuccessful on both fronts.

The physical search yields nothing, and they never find out who wrote that letter. So it ends up going quiet for another 16 years. But when you have nothing else in a case, sometimes time can be your friend. Because in 2016, one of Steve's friends comes forward and says that prior to Corey going missing, he and Steve were taking a ride together on some back road at the Mount Holly plantation where Steve lived.

And they came up to this hill, and Steve, seemingly out of the blue, made a comment that this would be a good place to bury a body. And this friend says he can point to the exact spot where Steve said that and where Steve pointed to. He says it's this remote area and close to a pond. And this is like perfect timing because it's also in 2016

that the Berkeley County Sheriff's Office finally opens its own cold case team. So they're like hearing this tip at a time when they've actually got resources. They've got the people like it is go time. And what's interesting is that as Cory and Annette's cases get reopened, that's when they realize that this tip from this friend isn't the only thing pointing them to a body of water there on the property. It turns out that in the 90s, one of the ponds on the plantation property was drained. Not part of the investigation, it was just like for maintenance or whatever. But during that time, there was this rolled up carpet tied with electrical cord that

got pulled out of the pond. And it was just the carpet, nothing's inside, but it felt strange enough for the new caretaker to call the police. Because this pond was not an area that was easily accessible, like someone wanting to get rid of some trash wouldn't just happen upon this pond and think like, yeah, this is a good place to like, throw my carpet. And according to Ashley Blackstone's reporting for ABC News 4, the fact that it was a carpet rolled up and tied with an electrical cord, of all things,

gave the caretaker just this really bad feeling. But he wasn't even thinking it had anything to do with Cory and Annette. And at the time, I guess, for some reason, 6,000 acres, I have to keep reminding myself is big, police didn't make the connection either. And did they find anything else in the pond? No, no bodies, no personal belongings, nothing. But as investigators are looking back on this now, they're thinking that maybe it was related to their disappearances after all.

Maybe not, but it would be worth checking. And that is if the carpet was still around. But of course, it's not. Got tossed out in the 90s, so there is nothing for them to test. Which is a frustrating blow for sure. I mean, the what-ifs can eat away at the investigation. But either way, that makes two different instances

involving a pond on the property. I'm not even sure if it's the same pond, but still. It gives investigators enough to work with, and they start by the pond Steve's friend pointed them to, and they begin to search the area with the help of the South Carolina canine search team. But they run into an issue pretty quickly. You see, we're talking about a really boggy area.

So there's not just water in the pond where they're searching. There's water that's moving underground, all through different parts of the land. So even if the dogs get a hit on something, there's no guarantee that that body of water or bodies or wherever the dogs are hitting, like there's no guarantee that the scent was there and not like carried from hundreds of yards away. Right, the dogs are just smelling it there now.

Somewhere, yeah. And the dogs do end up alerting to the smell of human remains. So they bring in every resource, at least it seems like it. They bring in this hydrologist to develop this math equation to help kind of narrow down their search. Like, OK, if they snipped it here, and we know the water's moving all these ways, where could it have come from?

I mean, it's kind of wild. And over the course of a year and a half, investigators end up digging about 20 holes on the property, trying to narrow down where Cory and Annette could be if they're there. But dig after dig after dig, they come up with nothing. And where is Steve throughout all this? Florida. Still being a stand-up guy.

I mean, in 2019, he's actually arrested and pleads guilty to an unrelated child abuse case. He ends up serving some time for that. While he's in jail, investigators do try and take the chance to speak with him again about Annette and Corey's disappearances, but I mean kind of the same story. He claims he has nothing to do with it. He doesn't give them anything to work with. But despite his lack of cooperation, this search for answers continues. In 2019, investigators sent some items from the house off for DNA testing. I don't know what those were or what the results were because it's never been reported on and obviously they didn't like bleed to anything.

And that is basically where the story ends, at least the official investigation. But around 2020, a documentary team from Up and Vanished actually tracked Steve down and asked him a few questions. Questions that I had while researching this case. Now I haven't seen any comment on this from investigators, like if these are answers they've had the whole time or if this is new information to them. But Steve claims that the argument he and Corey had before she disappeared was because

he had been drinking too much. So again, it was like rumored about this affair. He's saying it's about drinking too much. And he now says that when she left, she said that she was coming back. He also denies that he ever said anything about seeing her car at the end of the driveway or like seeing someone pick her up in a car at the end of her driveway. Which was the original story. Maybe, right? Like he's saying it wasn't, but then, like, where did it come from? I don't know.

And he also clears up some of that attic stuff. He claims that he'd actually never been up to the attic in that house before, which is why he didn't want Annette going up there herself. So he's like, it had nothing to do with hiding something. I just didn't want my 10, 11-year-old kid, like, up in the attic. So does he still think they're out there somewhere?

KORI NGOLA He does. But investigators still aren't convinced. And neither is Cory's family. The likelihood that they are out there is slim to none. And while it's not impossible, it has been almost 40 years of silence. So if you have any information on the disappearance of Corina or Annette, you can contact the Berkley County Cold Case Squad at coldcases at berkeleycountysc.gov or you can call 843-719-4668. But crime junkies, today's episode doesn't stop here. Corina and Annette's story is just one of several mysterious disappearances that we're gonna be telling you about today. And like Annette, they've all gone missing from a bus stop. Unfortunately, the next few cases don't have a ton of information out there, but

that's exactly why we want to share them. We're hoping this coverage can find its way to someone who has more information about what happened to these victims. So up next, Britt and I are going to take turns telling you each of their stories. It was around 2 p.m. in Cornelius, North Carolina, when two employees of Bailey Middle School showed up at the home of one of their students, Madelina Kojikari, because she hadn't shown up to school since November 21st. Now, they're making this visit on December 12th, so we're creeping up on a month here. So there's lots of reasons to be concerned when these two go knocking.

Even more reason to be concerned is when no one answers the door. There isn't much they could do, though, other than leave a truancy packet at the door and hope that Madeline's mom Diana would get in touch. And a couple days later, it sounds like she does, although there is some conflicting information that the school kept reaching out and maybe that's how they finally connected. Either way, they set up a meeting for the next day by what now would have been the 15th. The plan is for Diana, the school's sixth-grade counselor, and the school resource officer to all get together and talk about what's been causing Madelina's absences and how they can get her back on track. Diana agreed to bring Madelina

along, but come the 15th when she showed, Madelina wasn't with her. When the school employees asked why Madelina wasn't there, Diana had a shocking response. She says Madelina is missing, has been missing, basically since she stopped showing up to school. And this right now, telling them, is the first time she's reporting it to anyone. According to an article in the Charlotte Observer by Callie Cox, Diana said the reason she hadn't reported it was that she was worried about causing a conflict

with her husband Christopher Palmetter, who is Madalina's stepfather. What exactly she meant by conflict isn't really clear, though. And it didn't get any clearer when the police interviewed Diana and Christopher. Diana told the police that the last time she saw Madelina was on the 22nd around noon. But then she changed her story and said it was actually the 23rd around 10 p.m. She also said that night, her and Christopher got into a fight.

Now there aren't a lot of details around what this was over or how heated it got, but she said Christopher left the next morning because he had to make a drive from North Carolina to a family home in Michigan. Although, Christopher would claim he left the night of the fight, not the next morning. So there's some conflicting timeline details on this trip. Now, what this trip was for is a little unclear too. There's some mention in the source material that he had to pick up some items there, but I don't know what those items were, how long this trip had been planned for, or what. Diana told the police that when she finally went into Madelina's room, it would have been around 1130 that morning. She realized her daughter was just gone,

but she didn't do anything. Instead, she waited until Christopher returned from his trip on the 26th to ask him if he knew where Madelina was. And listen, I know we cover a lot of old cases on this show, so just to reorient you, this was in 2022. I don't know if Christopher had a cell phone or not, but the idea that there was no way to get ahold of him in that time seems a little wild in my personal opinion. But anyway, he gets back and says he doesn't know where Madelina is. And at some point, Diana says she becomes suspicious of Christopher, convinced that he had hidden Madelina away somewhere.

But when the police talk to Christopher, he tells them that he's sure that Diana is the one who has hidden Madelina away. He said he asked her repeatedly over the three weeks, 22 days to be exact. But at no point during that time did either of them ever think to contact the police. And if I sound a little angry or frustrated, it's because I am. I mean, this is an 11 year old girl who was who was missing, and to police, it seemed like the only reason someone in a situation wouldn't call them was because maybe they had something to hide. Now, weeks behind and needing all the help they could get, according to reporting by

Blair Schiff, Jesse Pierre, and Emma Correnta for WCNC, the local police decided to bring in the FBI. A search was done of Diana and Christopher's home, but the only two things, at least publicly, that we know came out of the search is that it appeared that Madeline's book bag and some of her clothes were missing. Although there's some indication

this information came directly from Diana. There was also an area in the kitchen covered up with plywood. Christopher told the police that they had intended to create a separate apartment in that area. I honestly don't know what this means or why police have made a note publicly about this area, but it's one of those things if they mention it, I thought it might be worth mentioning to you.

So while the home search didn't appear to give the police clues as to what happened to Madelina, there was a key piece of evidence found in those first few days. Police discovered that the last time anyone saw Madelina independent of her parents was on November 21st. There was a camera on her school bus and it showed her getting off on her stop as she normally did at the end of the day to go home. And after that, no one appeared to have seen Madelina in public again. Nothing they had could prove that Diana or Christopher had anything to do with Madalina's

disappearance, but they could prove that they were negligent parents. So on December 17th, Diana and Christopher were arrested and charged with, quote, failure to report the disappearance of a child to law enforcement, according to the Charlotte Observer. State law in North Carolina requires that a parent file a report within 24 hours. This law was passed in 2013 after the highly publicized Casey Anthony case. That's the case where Casey's daughter, Kaylee, wasn't reported missing for 31 days. So while Diana and Christopher sat in jail, the police continued their search for Madalina.

And that search included a lake near their home. Search boats could be seen on the lake in the morning hours of December 19th. And it doesn't sound like a tip led them to this lake because police posted on their own Facebook page that this search was done out of precaution. But nothing indicates that anything was ever found at the lake. They then returned to Diana and Christopher's home at least one more time in December. But again, nothing that we know publicly came out of these searches. Whatever happened to Madelina, the answers had to be with Diana and Christopher. So investigators got an idea. They started listening to all the calls that Diana and Christopher had made while they

were in jail. And a few interesting things had come out of this. According to another article in the Charlotte Observer, in one call, Diana discusses a theory with her mother that Christopher could have sold Medellinna for money. She also discussed a bag of money and withdrawing cash. Meanwhile, Christopher was telling his brother and sister-in-law that Diana had a lot of cash and he didn't know where it came from.

These calls allowed authorities to get a warrant for bank records, although we don't know what if anything came of that. But police began to wonder if somehow drug trafficking had something to do with Madeline's disappearance. And besides Diana and Christopher talking about sums of money in their jailhouse calls, there was another connection here. Through phone records, not the jail ones, but like cell or landlines or whatever, police discovered a phone call that Diana had made in December before Madalina was reported missing.

The call was to a distant relative who police tracked down and spoke to, and this relative told them that Diana wanted help getting her and Madelina away from Christopher. It sounds like she wanted out of a bad relationship, not shocking. To begin with, doesn't sound like these two had a super healthy marriage, but when police checked out that distant relative's phone records, they found something very interesting. The relative had made several calls to known drug traffickers, and the police made several calls to known drug traffickers, and the police were keenly aware that drug traffickers also often had connections with human smuggling.

And it sounds like the police at least continued to explore this avenue because the Charlotte Observer reported in February of 2023 that a canine dog detected the scent of drugs on Diana's car, which was in police's possession. Nothing about them finding drugs in the car, but they found passports inside in Madalina and Diana's names. The problem is what, if any, of this means in terms of Madalina's disappearance still seems to be unknown, or at least police aren't saying publicly. If there is some kind of drug trafficking connection or smuggling connection, then it makes this a lot more complicated than what police first thought.

In August of 2023, Christopher left jail after his bail was reduced and he was able to post bond, although he was required to wear an electronic monitoring device. In April 2024, Christopher pled not guilty for his failure to report Madelina missing. His trial has been set for late May as of this recording, so more to come. Diana was unable to postpone and continued to sit in jail. At one point, she was charged with drug possession while in jail, but those charges have since been dropped. On May 20th of this year, Diana pled guilty to failing to report her daughter missing.

She was released from custody, having served the maximum time for that charge. She also faces the possibility of deportation back to her home country of Moldova, according to reporting from WBTV. And this could be a problem, because Moldova doesn't have an extradition treaty with the United States. So if something further were to happen in this case, for instance, it's determined that Diana had something to do with Madalina's disappearance and possible death, it could be challenging to get Diana back for prosecution. And if this case didn't already make you want to scream,

one of the WBTV reporters pointed out that when Diana was asked about Madalina's whereabouts on her way out of jail, she seemed to smile and even laugh a little. But no additional charges have been brought for either parent. And I don't suspect there will be until Madelina is found alive or evidence is found that she's not. Leaving this case kind of precisely where it began. With one little girl missing, two parents under suspicion, and the police no closer to finding out the truth. At the time of her disappearance, Madelina, a white female, was 4 feet 11 inches tall, had dark brown hair, and weighed about 90 pounds.

She was last seen wearing jeans, pink, purple, and white Adidas shoes, and a white t-shirt and jacket. Today, she would be 13 years old. wearing jeans, pink, purple, and white Adidas shoes, and a white t-shirt and jacket. Today, she would be 13 years old. If you know anything about the disappearance of Madeline Okochikari in November of 2022, please contact the Cornelius Police Department at 704-892-7773,

or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI. If you prefer to remain anonymous, call the North Mecklenburg Crimestoppers at 704-896-7867. Up next, Asha will tell you about the disappearance of Tabitha Tudors. Tudors Tudors Tudors

Tudors Tudors Tudors Tudors It was sometime after 4 p.m. on April 29, 2003, when Deborah Tudors realized that her daughter Tabitha hadn't gotten home from school yet. And this was odd. Tabitha was always walking through the door of their Nashville, Tennessee home right after

4 p.m. And sure, there are a hundred innocent reasons why Tabitha might have been delayed, but after 20 minutes of waiting, Deborah decided to head up to the school to look for her. By the time she got there, the school was a ghost town and locked up tight, so she went back home and called her husband, Bo, looking for help or maybe even some reassurance that everything was going to be fine. It was around 4.45 that Bo and Deborah decided to go back to the school together, and they started banging on the doors until someone at the school let them in.

They were told that a few kids and a teacher were still at the school. And for like a split second, they might have felt relief. But when they located this group, Tabitha wasn't with them. And even more alarming, the teacher, who happened to be one of Tabitha's, told them that Tabitha hadn't been at school all day. Bo and Deborah called the police at around 6, and to the Nashville police's credit, it sounds like anywhere from 30 to 100 officers responded to the call that night. They were canvassing the neighborhood, going door to door and searching people's yards. And according to an article in The Tennessean by Sheila Burke, no amber alert was issued because the police determined

that Tabatha's disappearance didn't fit the criteria. You see, for that to happen, there needs to be proof of an abduction, not to mention a description of any kind of kidnapper or their vehicle. And it didn't help that despite the strong turnout, in those early hours, police officers were at least thinking that Tabatha most likely had just run away. But even if that is what happened, Tabitha was still

missing. And now that they realized she hadn't even been seen at school, they were even farther behind than they originally thought. So while the search for her was underway, other officers focused some of their efforts on tracing Tabitha's last movements. Deborah told police that she woke up at around 5 a.m. for work. At that time Tabitha was still asleep and Bo told police that he woke up sometime after his wife, and then he went and woke up Tabitha so that she could get ready for school and catch her 8 a.m. bus. And then he too went off to work. Tabitha's older sister Jamie was still asleep then. She'd worked late the night before, so she never talked to Tabitha that morning. So her entire family went about their day thinking that Tabitha had just gotten on the bus.

That bus stop was just a short walk from her home, so it was hard to imagine how anything could have happened. And her family were insistent to the police that Tabitha would not have just run away She had nothing to run away from she was doing well in school She was close to her parents. In fact on the morning of her disappearance She was sleeping at the foot of their bed something that she often did despite having her own room And when police go and search that room it backed up a lot of what her family was saying It didn't appear that Tabitha had packed a bag, no clothes were missing, her makeup was still there, and

even more telling was that what little money she had was left behind in her room too. The only curious clue police found was a piece of paper with her initials TDT and the initials MTL, which they couldn't quite place. Wasn't anyone in her family, did it even have anything to do with her disappearance? A friend or a secret boyfriend? Police didn't know. What police needed more than anything

were witnesses to help fill in their timeline more. And their canvassing of the neighborhood started to pay off because one witness told police that he was driving his kids to school at around 7.55 in the morning when he saw Tabitha on a corner by her house near Lillian Street and South 14th Street. According to an article in the Tennessean by Christian Bottorff and Jay Hamburg, it sounds like this guy either knew Tabitha or was at least familiar with her, making his account pretty credible. And then they found a second witness who told police that she saw Tabitha walking down South 14th Street

towards Boscable Street. And this is important because Tabitha's bus stop was at the corner of Boscable and South 15th Street. So it seems like she was walking in the direction of her bus stop. And there was a third witness who actually placed Tabitha on Boscable just 120 yards from the stop itself. And it's right about here where things get a little fuzzy and potentially where Tabitha disappeared. There was a little boy standing at another bus stop down the street and he claimed to have seen a red car

driven by a black man wearing a baseball cap. And he says that the car pulled up right alongside Tabitha, and he was pretty sure Tabitha got inside the car with the man, because as soon as the car was gone, so was Tabitha. Now, for some reason, police didn't seem to find this boy's story credible. But why is unclear?

I don't know if it's because it's a child, or if there is more that they know that we don't. But search dogs who tracked Tabitha's scent from her house turned around at almost the exact spot the boy claimed Tabitha would have been picked up, indicating that maybe this boy's story was true. Tabitha's family told police that there was no way that she would have ever gotten into a car with a stranger.

Also, the idea that someone would attempt to abduct a child on a weekday morning in broad daylight on a busy street just didn't make a lot of sense to them either. So this meant that if she had gotten into a red car with someone, they felt Tabitha had to have known that person. And when police began to investigate this theory, it wasn't long before they had their first suspect. Tabitha's sister, Jamie, had a boyfriend that fit the description of the man driving the red car. So the police brought him in for questioning. There's a little bit of conflicting information on this boyfriend, though.

So like, for instance, some sources say that he drove a red car at the time. others claim that he didn't even have a car. It's possible both are true, right? Someone could not own a car but still have access to drive a specific one. But I'm just kind of spitballing. I don't know if that's the case here. And maybe the semantics don't matter because police seem to quickly rule this guy out through an alibi. Although, like the car, that too is conflicted with some of the sources claiming he was with a friend, others saying he was at work. And if he was at work, apparently wouldn't leave him much time to get to the bus stop when Tabitha disappeared.

And the boyfriend also took and passed a polygraph. So while their first suspect didn't pan out, the police finally got a lead on a potential second one. They found someone with the initials MTL. It was the son of a family friend. But when they dug deeper, they discovered that the boy was in school at the time of Tabitha's disappearance, so he couldn't have done anything to her, and there's no way to prove that those initials were meant to be his,

or even if they were, what they were supposed to mean. Like from what I gather, there's no way to prove that those initials were meant to be his, or even if they were what they were supposed to mean. Like, from what I gather, there's no indication that there was any secret relationship between Tabitha and this boy. So everywhere the police looked over those first few days and weeks, nothing turned up, including when police took a closer look at Tabitha's 24-year-old brother, Kevin. He was on three years probation at the time of Tabitha's disappearance after being arrested in 2001 for being part of a sex worker ring. Basically, it was his job to drive sex workers to and from their appointments with clients. But obviously, that didn't go anywhere.

Despite him having a criminal background and the nature of it, police determined he wasn't a suspect in her disappearance either. Fast forward to mid-May, that's when police got a tip from one of Tabitha's friends. She told police that Tabitha and her had been visiting some chat rooms online recently. They had gone to the Nashville Public Library and used the computers there because Tabitha's parents didn't own one. So police began to wonder if it was possible that Tabitha had met someone online who then abducted her. So they took Tabitha's friend to the library and she pointed out the computer that the girls had used.

The police had this computer examined by their experts and they did find that Tabitha's username had been used on the computer, but that's all they could find. They couldn't determine what she had specifically done on the computer, which leaves me with so many questions. I mean, I remember chat rooms in the early 2000s. The term catfish wasn't even a thing yet. I mean, I know I didn't even have the faintest clue about what to watch out for. I would have easily fallen for something and maybe Tabitha did too. But they were never able to find anything to prove or disprove that.

By June, police began to look at five sex offenders who lived within a mile of Tabitha's home. One of the sex offenders lived just a little over 700 feet from the house, but it sounds like most, if not all, of these guys end up getting cleared. By the end of June, the police still couldn't even prove with 100% certainty that Tabitha was abducted. And the community, once eager to help find her, had started to lose interest. And some of the blame for that gets chalked up

to the fact that Tabitha didn't live in a nice area and she wasn't from a wealthy family. Her parents couldn't call in favors from prominent people to keep the pressure on and keep her case at the forefront. So as the summer started to wind down, the police attempted to reinvigorate the case in other ways. A wooded area of one of East Nashville's parks was searched,

but nothing was found. And as Tabitha's classmates returned to school, it was only a reminder of who wasn't there when letters were sent home with the students pleading for parents' help in the case. The start of fall continued much like the summer with more leads and more dead ends. Some tips claimed sightings of her

even all the way to here in Indiana. But just as the net began to widen, something significant happened close to Tabitha's home. In September, a man who lived only four miles from the Tudor's house was arrested and charged with the rape of a 17-year-old girl. When police interviewed him, he denied any involvement in Tabitha's disappearance. He claimed he was on a family camping trip at the time. Although it sounds like the police never actually could confirm this alibi. A camping trip in the 2000s would be hard to confirm.

And this lead to would eventually fizzle when the man agreed to take a polygraph and passed. So even though he remained a person of interest, there was no proof to connect him to Tabitha. And once again, police found themselves with nothing. That's when the months began to turn to years and Tabitha's case started going cold. According to an episode of Disappeared that aired in 2018, there was some brief hope in 2008 when a tip came in that the car Tabitha had gotten into might have been green and not red. And police must have been buying the car theory by that point, because I know they

chased this tip for years. But it ends up getting determined in 2016 that this green car tip and the man who might have been driving that car end up getting eliminated as a suspect. I guess the tip, they find out, it wasn't even accurate in the first place and the man had no connection to Tabitha. So it was another dead end. But as recently as August, 2020, there has been some new activity in Tabitha's case. According to News Channel 5, a tip spurred the police and the FBI to search a property about an hour from Nashville.

They were seen digging in an area that was once a pig pen. The property was owned in 2003 by someone police called a person of interest in Tabitha's disappearance. And while there's some information about this person in the press, he has never been charged in connection with Tabitha's case. And it sounds like he had been on their radar for a while, but he's not necessarily a prime suspect.

So whatever their level of interest is in this guy, the tip was credible enough for investigators to take a serious look. I mean, you don't just start digging up someone's property for funsies. But after a two-day search, police acknowledged that nothing had been found. Tabitha's family were back to square one, searching for answers, struggling to find closure, and questioning whether they still had confidence in the police at all. Tabitha's disappearance is still unsolved, and her family continues clinging to the hope that maybe by some miracle she is still alive and out there, but knowing that the reality of that outcome is unlikely.

Tabitha's family deserves to have her brought home one way or another and someone out there knows the truth. Tabitha is white and at the time of her disappearance she was 13 years old, 5 feet 1 inches tall and had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. She weighed about a hundred pounds. She has a birthmark on her abdomen and a scar on her finger. She was last seen wearing a light blue shirt, mud jeans, and Reebok sneakers. And today, she would be 34 years old. If you know anything about the disappearance of Tabitha Tudors, please contact the Nashville Metro Police Department Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7803 or Crimestoppers at 615-742-7463.

Callers to Crimestoppers can remain anonymous. Coming up, Britt is going to tell you about the disappearance of Zeta Cecilia Gutierrez. It was around 9.30 p.m. on August 22, 1980, when a woman who we'll call Amy arrived at a bus stop in Bethesda, Maryland, to wait for her friend to pick her up. She knew her friend, 24-year-old Zeta Gutierrez, who went by her middle name Cecilia, had just wrapped up her shift as a waitress at the Kenwood Country Club four miles away. So she should be able to get to the bus stop pretty quickly. Probably one of the reasons they picked that spot. But as she looked out over the dark roads,

searching for the headlights of Cecilia's 1971 Dodge Challenger, a growing unease built up in her with each passing minute it didn't arrive. Amy called Cecilia's fiance, who we'll call Sam, to see what was going on. Sam was visiting from Pennsylvania, and they had all planned to go out that night. That's why Cecilia was picking her up in the first place. So where was she? Sam said he didn't know, but he got worried that maybe Cecilia's car might have broken down somewhere. So he came and picked up Amy, and they went out and searched for Cecilia together.

Without any sign of her or her car, by two in the morning, they decided they needed to call the police. Police were able to confirm that Cecilia did work at the country club that night, and she clocked out at 9.25. And a coworker saw her car leaving right after, but they didn't actually see her get into the car or see her behind the wheel. So police can't confirm for sure that it was her.

But I suspect it might have been, because later on the 23rd, when the police start searching, they found Cecilia's car. It was pretty close to where Amy had been waiting for her, but near a different bus stop. You see, Cecilia had a second job at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and her car was in the parking lot near the building, a parking lot adjacent to a bus stop. So, detectives surmised that there was some kind of mix-up, and Cecilia went to the bus

stop near where her car was found, and Amy went to the one 500 yards down the street. They didn't see any signs of a struggle at the bus stop by Cecilia's car, so it's possible they thought she took off on her own. And I only say that because for the next three years, I can't find anything else reported on Cecilia's case. Maybe there was more of an investigation? I sure hope there was. But the next thing we get is from a 1983 Washington Post article, where the Montgomery County

detective at the time says, quote, You can either believe she decided to set out on her own and establish a new identity someplace else, or she was picked up and is the victim of foul play. We don't have evidence either way. And honestly, the idea of her setting out to start a new identity seemed unlikely. Cecilia had only just moved to the United States from Ecuador five years prior, and she had two summer jobs to pay for her studies at Montgomery College, just 10 miles north of Bethesda. Plus she had her new fiance.

It just didn't seem like a time in her life she would have run off. But unfortunately, those are all the details we have. I don't know if anything personal was missing from her car or her home, or even if they searched her home at all. I don't know how extensively they searched for her, but it seemed like after 1983, there were no new inquiries into Cecilia's case.

And Cecilia's case hit me hard because it seems like everyone has forgotten about her. But I don't want to. If anyone out there knew Cecilia, or if you're someone in the Montgomery County Police Department, we'd love to work with you to get more coverage for her. You can email us at crimejunkie at audiochalk.com. When she went missing, Cecilia was 24 years old. She was 5 foot even and about 110 pounds. She's Hispanic and had short curly black hair when she disappeared and a slight gap between her two front teeth. I don't have the description of what she was last seen wearing, but she had a silver-colored watch with a silver metal band and a gold

ring with a green marquee's cut stone. Today Cecilia would be 67 years old. If you have any information regarding her disappearance over 40 years ago, please call the Montgomery County Police Department at 301-279-800. Or if you have any information about any of the other cases we talked about today, we'll have each investigating agency listed in our show notes. You can find the source material for all the stories we told today on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. You can also find us on Instagram at CrimeJunkiePodcast. And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode. The Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck?

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