Crime Junkie - MISSING: Mekayla Bali

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

16-year-old Mekayla Bali vanished from a bus depot in her hometown of Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 2016, leaving no trace and no clues as to where she might be now - or why.  There is a $100,000 reward for information leading to her safe return. If you have any information that could help bring Mekayla home, contact the RCMP by phone at 1-844-880-6518 or by email at [e-mail]. To remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.  audiochuck.missingkids.org 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-mekayla-bali/

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and before we jump into today's case, I wanted to remind all of you about an amazing organization that Audio Chuck is supporting this year. It's the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Audio Chuck is doing a big sponsorship with them, but their work is so impactful that we really want to encourage our Crime Junkies to support them in a big way as well, so they can continue doing all that they do. So we have set a goal of raising $100,000 by the end of this year. We are well on our way, but we still need you guys to show up. You guys can donate at audiochuck.missingkids.org. The money goes directly to them. That link is available in our show notes as well. Your

donation goes towards their efforts to help cases just like the one that I'm about to tell you about today. So go to audiochuck.missingkids.org or visit our show notes to give this incredible organization some much-deserved support. So with that, the story that I have for you today is about a 16-year-old girl who abruptly and unexpectedly walked out of the front door of her high school and into the prairie town that she called home, never to return. No one knows why she left, where she was going, or who she might have been trying to see, but the answers to those questions have left police, her family, and friends, and many online armchair detectives scratching their

heads ever since. This is the story of Makayla Bolly. It's just before 4 p.m. on April 12, 2016, and Paula Bolly is at work in Yorkden, Saskatchewan, Canada. It's a totally normal Tuesday, or at least it was a totally normal day, until her mother Margaret shows up. Paula knows as soon as she sees her mom that something isn't right. Margaret has never shown up at her office before, not one time, and she seems kind of rattled, which leaves Paula with a really bad feeling immediately. Margaret tells her that she can't find Paula's 16-year-old daughter Makayla. She'd gone to Sacred Heart High School-like plan to pick up her granddaughter after school and take her to her violin lessons,

but even after waiting outside of the school for like a half hour or more, Makayla never came out. According to Juliet Muir's reporting for NBC News, Margaret went inside to look for Makayla and ended up speaking to a few people who were there, students and teachers, but no one had seen her. And listen, I don't just mean like no one had seen her since school ended. They say that they didn't remember seeing her for most of the day. Right away, Paula starts calling and texting Makayla, but she doesn't get a response, and this is not like her daughter at all. Immediately, Paula's mind goes into overdrive, like, okay, what are we missing? And then she thinks of it. They are missing something. Makayla had that

violin rehearsal at four, but she also had a recital coming up, one that she had been putting in extra practice time for just the night before. So Paula's thinking that Makayla must have just headed to her lesson early, like straight from school to get some extra rehearsal time before it started. Like, that's gotta be it. So they decide to just go there, like to the lesson just to make sure. But Makayla's not there. And that is when Paula starts to officially panic. They go to the school again, where according to Marnie Blunt from Global News, Paula is frantic. Running around the school, I mean, literally even looking under school buses, calling out for Makayla. And in between all of that, she is still calling

her daughter, still texting her phone, still hoping that this is somehow all a misunderstanding. It's not super clear to me what exactly happens next, like if Paula and Margaret go home right away or if they drive around for a bit or what. But I know that somewhere around this point, Paula finds out that Makayla hadn't just been absent for part of the day. She had never been in class at all that day, which is so weird to her and Margaret because, again, Margaret dropped Makayla off that morning right in front of the school, just like always. So we know she was at least on the property. But apparently Makayla had missed literally all of her classes. And as soon as Paula hears that, she gets a sinking feeling in her gut.

Because Makayla just, she isn't the kind of kid who skipped school. She's not prone to dramatics. She's never threatened to run away. And there's no boyfriend who she'd be off with either, like nothing like that. So nothing is making sense. That's when Paula knows that she needs to get the police involved. So she heads home to grab a few pictures of Makayla to give to them. And while she's there gathering them up, she realizes all of Makayla's stuff is still at the house, like her medication, her makeup, her phone charger. And going over and over the possibilities in her head, she has this thought. Paula is a single mom of three. And Makayla, who is the oldest, knows that her mom keeps a cash

fund, like a slush fund, as Paula calls it. And she keeps it in the house. So she starts thinking, okay, if Makayla went somewhere on her own, like of her own volition, some laps in teenage judgment, chances are she would need money. She would have had to take that money with her because there wasn't even enough in her bank account to get very far. So Paula goes to check, sure that she's going to find at least some of that money gone, almost hoping that she does honestly. But all of the money is right there exactly as she left it. And that was the final straw because that same night Paula reports Makayla missing. She gives police the details telling them that Makayla's grandmother, Margaret

dropped off at school, like 8 20 that morning, and that no one has really heard from her since. She says this is strange enough that Makayla hadn't gone to her classes that day, but even stranger that she hadn't been there to meet her grandmother after school. And it's straight up terrifying that she hasn't been answering her calls and texts. Thankfully, police get to work pretty much right away. And according to Alicia Bridges and Victoria Dinn, who wrote about this case for CBC News, the next morning when the file is handed off to an investigator, cops working the night shift had already contacted banks and phone companies and put together a list of names and numbers for Makayla's friends and family.

That same day, police also notify the media and the public about her disappearance. And while the details of the first 24 hours of the investigation are kind of a mystery to me, the public alert itself tells us a few things police uncovered pretty early on. First, they believe she was last seen at a bus station in Yorktown, her hometown. And second, they think that she may either be in Regina, which is just over two hours south from Yorktown, or Saskatoon, which is almost four hours to the west. But the thing is, I'm not so sure the idea of her being in those places is grounded in anything super real, because it seems like police got that almost entirely from talking to her friends. Like, apparently Makayla had

been talking about leaving town in the days leading up to her disappearance, but her friends say it wasn't so much like concrete plans, more like the kind of talk even I used to do, like all the time growing up in a small town. The way Alicia Bridges and Victoria Dinn put it in their piece for CBC was, quote, they used to talk about moving to a bigger city like Saskatoon or Regina, where there were more things for young people and better places to shop, not like the old lady clothes stores at the local mall, end quote. But again, they like all said that kind of stuff all the time. So one of Makayla's friends Shelby tells police that no one really thought anything

of it at the time. It's just sticking out to them now that Makayla is actually missing. But the more the police talk to her friends, the more little things start to bubble to the surface, things that start to point to a theory about what might have happened to her. Shelby tells police that she'd received a text from Makayla just after 10 a.m. on the day she disappeared saying, I need help. Then 20 minutes later, another text saying, never mind, I figured it out. Now, my immediate question here is figured what out? But Shelby has no idea what any of this was about because she didn't actually see those messages when

they came in. She didn't have her phone on her at the time. So she didn't get those messages until she got home from school that day, like five hours later or whatever. And by then Makayla was already missing. Now there's another girl in their friend group. Her name is Oksana and she tells police that she also got a few strange texts from Makayla that day as well. Actually, her text started the day before Makayla's disappearance. That afternoon, so we're talking April 11th, Oksana says that she got a text from Makayla at around 4.30 asking if she could take her to the bank the next day and that this trip was like really important. She had to get to the bank. Now, it's not clear whether

Oksana wrote back or just ignored the messages, but she does tell police that Makayla mentioned having like five grand in the bank. And then what we know is that within about an hour of her sending that message about going to the bank, Makayla actually called her bank to check her account balance and make a $25 transfer. Now the next morning, even before 7am, Makayla was texting to ask Oksana the same thing again, can you take me to the bank? Which Oksana thought was weird, but mostly because the bank didn't even open for another hour, which is what she told Makayla at the time. Now, I couldn't find anything else about their conversation that morning, nor was there anything that really pointed to why she wanted to go

or what was so important. And for police, while these texts are interesting, they don't really give any insight into where Makayla might be right now. About three weeks after her disappearance, the original investigator from the Yorkton RCMP passes the case over to their major investigations team. And right away, they start digging in to try and retrace Makayla's steps, starting from the school where her grandmother said she dropped her off that morning she disappeared. So they start gathering up any surveillance footage they could get their hands on. And it ends up being quite a lot, like literally hundreds of hours of tape. And according to Alex Huffman's reporting for Global News, they're able

to piece together a timeline of her movements on April 12. And let me just say, there were a lot of movements. Now, I myself, I'm a super visual person. And thankfully the folks who run the missing in Canada website created a map of Makayla's path that day, which I honestly just kept out on the screen while I was reading the RCMP timeline. So if you're listening in our fan club app, the map is actually going to come up on the screen for you. But if not, you can see the map on our blog post for this episode. And trust me, you want to look at this thing because she was all over the place in a way that makes no sense. So let's start at the beginning of the day. Makayla was last seen again,

this is April 12. First of all, we know she went to school that morning. Makayla's grandma dropped her off at the school doors at around 10 after eight. And police are able to confirm that because Makayla's phone connected to their Wi-Fi network at 8.08 AM. According to the timeline in the CBC story that I mentioned, which is the most comprehensive piece of reporting on this case, about 10 minutes later at 8.21, Makayla stops to put a binder in her locker. And then at 8.26, she leaves the school through the back doors. Now, there's some discrepancy between sources about where Makayla goes next, or I guess less about where and more about when, like in what order. So again, I'm defaulting to the timeline the

RCMP released in April of 2017, which says that Makayla's next stop is between 8.40 and 8.50 at a local business. Now, everyone but the RCMP says this is a pawn shop, Terry's pawn and bargain, but the RCMP don't provide any names in their timeline. Based on interviews with the shop owner, Makayla came into the shop that morning while he was doing his opening chores and she asked about the value of a silver ring. But he told her that the value of silver is so low that it's not even worth his time to look at, so she left. When they asked him how Makayla seemed, he said she seemed totally fine, not distressed or anything, not even upset, just quiet. So after she leaves the pawn shop, her next stop is the bank.

She actually gets there before it even opens for the day. This is sometime around 8.50 in the morning. Surveillance footage shows her pacing around outside, talking on the phone while she waits for the doors to open. She goes into the bank at around 8.55 and takes $55 out of her account and then leaves. After that, she walks about five minutes to a Tim Horton's coffee shop a few blocks away. She gets there just after 9am, buys a coffee using cash and then sits down at one of the tables just next to the counter. And she spends the next few minutes just drinking her coffee, using her phone, texting, scrolling, whatever. She picks her head up a couple of times and kind of looks around. At one point, she seems

to be checking the entrance door behind her, but most of the time she's sitting there using her phone. But then, about five, six minutes after she sits down, she starts to like take her phone apart. Or at least that's what it looks like. Like she takes something out, puts something back in and then starts using it again. Now, at first, I was thinking maybe she was doing kind of like a hard reboot thing. You know, phones get slow or freeze or whatever. You turn it off, turn it back on, take out the battery, that kind of thing. But at one point, she kind of shakes her phone, almost like she's trying to get something out of it, which to me was really bizarre. So I started digging a little bit more and

there were some theories online, like there was this specific Reddit thread for this case. And the theory there is that Mikayla was taking her phone apart to switch out SIM cards, which allows you to more or less use multiple phones without actually having multiple devices. And I actually tend to think that's likely because here's where things go off the rails for investigators. They can see with their own eyes on this security footage that she is using her phone almost constantly while she's sitting there texting and talking. Now, remember, they had gotten her phone records from her service provider. And I guess these records show some of her texts, but not nearly enough for all of the texting and talking that

they're seeing her do. Like her records don't show any of this interaction that she seems to be having on her phone in this time period, meaning as far as her phone records are concerned, she wasn't having conversations with anyone. Now, the thing is that doesn't necessarily mean multiple SIM cards. There are other ways that she could have been talking and texting without it showing up on her records. And this is actually what police think. They think that she was using apps to communicate mostly. Like Instagram lets you talk and text. Of course, Snapchat comes up a lot. There are other apps like kick, which if you haven't heard of is like WhatsApp. According to a CTV news piece from 2019 kick only identifies

you with a username, which means that you're able to hide your identity from the people you're talking to. And it doesn't track conversations either. Now, Mikaela would meet people online. Honestly, something I used to do when I was in high school. And so using an app like this would have been a way to protect her own identity as she struck up these short lived friendships with strangers. Or it could have been a way to keep these relationships from her mother, who I have to think was the person paying her phone bill. But this very app that she might have used to protect her own identity may have actually worked against her if someone else was using the app to prey on children. So okay, let

me get back to the timeline because it just gets weirder from here. At 9 23am, we see Mikaela get up, hoist this big heavy backpack onto her back and leave the Tim Hortons. And I want to take a second here to mention something that her friends told police that backpack itself is unusual. Her friends say that she didn't usually carry a backpack at all. She actually carried what everyone refers to as a purse even at school. But there's something I think that's important to make note of Mikaela's mom Paula actually clarified for us that it was in fact a messenger bag that Mikaela typically carried. And she even shared with us why she didn't have it with her. Paula said that

the night before Mikaela went missing, while she and Mikaela were chatting, Mikaela actually placed her messenger bag on top of Paula's laundry basket. Now in the midst of tidying up, Paula recalls tossing dirty laundry on top of the basket. So in the morning, when Mikaela was searching for her bag, she couldn't find it because it was covered in laundry. And instead of making everyone late, Mikaela's grandma grabbed the backpack off a coat hook and passed it over to Mikaela to use. So going back to the timeline, Mikaela then leaves the restaurant out the back exit. Like this is not the one that she came in through when she first arrived. But almost right away, she turns around and comes back in through those

same doors. Coffee in one hand, phone in the other. She walks through the restaurant and exits out the other door, the one that she came in through when she got there initially. Again, this is weird to me, but I don't know the area well enough to know if there is a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe she just got turned around. I have no idea. But after she leaves the Tim Hortons, it's not clear where she's going, but a security camera from the local hardware store shows her walking by and then maybe 10, 15 minutes later, walking back in the opposite direction, like back towards the Tim Hortons again, which is where she's going because at 949, she walks back into the same Tim Hortons. Now she is talking

on the phone at this point, and she goes straight into one of those booths and sits down, like doesn't get a coffee or anything else. She hangs up the phone and then spends about ten minutes just kind of sitting there, using her phone, but not necessarily texting. She could just be flipping through apps, pictures, whatever. And she's sitting there for a while. At 10 o'clock, she puts her headphones in and 12 minutes later, that's when she sends that text to her friend Shelby saying, I need help, which to me, this text is even weirder now because she seems totally fine and nothing has really changed from the time that she walked in. So I can't wrap my head around what made her send that text message. According

to that in-depth CBC story, which actually is called, I need help, Michaela is then on and off the phone six times over the next 30 ish minutes. Police don't know who she was speaking to or what she was talking about. At some point, she sends that second text message to Shelby saying, never mind, I figured it out. So whatever she needed help with, I have to assume that whoever she made contact with over the phone offered to help her or fix it or whatever problem she had went away, or she didn't help at all. I don't know. But about 25 after 10, she gets up. She is talking on the phone at this point. She leaves the Tim Hortons. Then a minute later, she walks back in again and sits at the same booth

still on the phone. And she stays talking on the phone for quite a while. And listen, as I was watching this video, I was kind of thinking, you know, was she on hold with an operator or something? Because it seems to me like such a long time to be on the telephone. But the problem is you can see her mouth moving on the tape. So I'm pretty sure she's in like an actual conversation. Though again, police have no idea who she's talking to. And when that call ends, almost right away, she makes another one. And in the middle of this call, she looks around the restaurant, kind of like she's looking for somebody. That's at 1039, which is over 20 minutes since she left and came back again. Now, when police

released this timeline to the public initially, they say that McKayla got up at this point and left the Tim Hortons and went pretty much MIA for over an hour before she's back on surveillance footage again. That's not actually what happened next. What police saw on the tapes, but actually kept from the public at first, is that at this point, McKayla gets up from the booth that she's been sitting at and goes to sit with someone else, an older woman who is sitting alone at another table. According to Marnie Blunt's reporting for Global News, this woman tells police that she didn't know McKayla or anything, but that McKayla had asked this woman for help renting a hotel room. She says she doesn't

know why McKayla was asking for this or specifically from her. And it wasn't even clear what the ask was, like did she need money for the bill or did she need somebody who was old enough to book the room? Based on like the timing of all this, I kind of wonder if this is what she was trying to get help with when she texted Shelby, but I don't know. Anyway, the late lady didn't really get into it with McKayla, she just said no, and then McKayla got up and went back to the booth that she was at before. And McKayla was only at that booth for another minute, and then she's back on the phone before she leaves Tim Hortons. And she does go MIA for a while, until about noon when she shows back up at her high school.

The surveillance video shows her stop briefly to talk to some other students who tell police McKayla was talking about taking a bus to Regina for vacation. Alicia Bridges and Victoria Dinn reported that one of those students says she may have been carrying two phones, but they're not super sure on that point. But after that, McKayla leaves. And there's no more surveillance footage of her. Though police are able to put her at the bus depot sometime around 1215. The woman working the counter tells them that she remembers McKayla asking what time the bus was leaving, which was 5pm. But the weird thing is, she didn't actually buy a ticket. Now connected to the bus depot, there's this diner called the trail stop.

And the people working there put McKayla at the diner just after this and say that she ordered a poutine for lunch. Police think that she left between 1 and 145 from the diner slash bus depot, not on a bus, but on foot. And that is the last time anyone has laid eyes on her. Now this timeline sends me spiraling because to me, her actions seem like those of someone who had plans to leave town. You know, her asking her friends to take her to the bank to get money, the pawn shop, her pulling out cash, even all the time she was spending on the phone, like it feels like she was coordinating with someone somehow. Except if she had made plans to leave town for longer than say a day, like if she was

running off with someone for a few days or a week or forever, you'd think that she would have taken her stuff, her makeup, her meds, her phone charger. But again, Paula found all that stuff at home. And if she did plan to go away, why would she be asking a stranger about running a hotel room? But this hotel room lead at this point, this is the best they got. So police check all the hotels in Yorkton and even in the surrounding areas, but it ends up being a dead end. Now they say they didn't check the hotels in Regina or Saskatoon, partly because they didn't have the resources, but also because they figured it was unlikely she would have been able to book the room herself anyway. So they're

thinking that even if she got a hotel room, it's likely in someone else's name and where do you even start with that? So investigators decide to refocus their investigation and really start trying to hone in on who she might have been talking to on the phone while she's making all of those calls that they seem to have no record of. And they start by talking to some of the guys in Makayla's life. One of those is Makayla's fairly recent ex-boyfriend who she was still friends with. He tells police that he'd actually been chatting with her by text the night before she disappeared, that she had text him to say she was unhappy and thinking about going to Regina for a few days. And I get the sense

that this is like part of a bigger conversation and not just kind of like an out of the blue statement. And it seems like Makayla and this guy texted a lot. He says that he reached out to her when she didn't show up for class that morning and they were texting back and forth during that period of time when police knew that she's like running all over town. Now police rule him out pretty quickly as a suspect. I mean, he was literally at school the whole time that this was happening. So got a great alibi. But the ex isn't the only guy they need to look at. In fact, they learned from him and from her friends at school that there's actually a long list of guys that Makayla would talk to online. Like four of

them that Makayla's friends rattled off easily by name. Shelby says that Makayla would talk to a guy for a few days or weeks or whatever. And then it would be done. And they say that these weren't so much relationships as long distance online friendships. Like they're not necessarily romantic. But at least one of them might have been romantic. Even if the feelings were just one way, because a classmate of Makayla said that like two months before she disappeared, she got this delivery in the middle of drama class. And it was this bouquet of roses. And I don't know about you, but a dozen roses in the middle of high school class would have been like a pretty big deal in my school. Apparently Makayla never said

who they were from, or at least not to the classmate who flagged this for police. But they were able to track down the person who sent them. And while they've never released the details, police have said that they ruled him out of their investigation as a suspect. They tracked down one other guy that she had been talking to someone named Christopher, but he wasn't in Canada when Makayla disappeared. Like he's from the US and was in a completely different country. But just to be sure, CBC reporters, Alicia Bridges and Victoria Dinn even tracked this guy down too. Just to see if he had anything else to say. He was in North Carolina. And while he wouldn't answer questions, he did send them an email which

said quote, all I can provide for you is that she suffered with self harm a few years back. Back then I was helping those who struggled and I encouraged her to fight against self harm and to look towards God. End quote. Now it's worth noting that police say there is no evidence Makayla was suicidal or anything like that. Now the other name that her friends give police is that of this guy named Josh. And this is someone that they say she was talking to online pretty recently, like not long before she disappeared. He's also from out of town and there's not even a last name. So I don't know that they've 100% crossed Josh off the list in terms of persons of interest. So talking to all of these people that Makayla

had met online or in person or whatever, they weren't getting anywhere. But the most compelling lead that they would get is one that starts as a tip. Someone called investigators to say they'd seen Makayla leaving the Yorkton bus station on April 12, not alone, but with a man. He's described as being between 40 and 50 years old, tall, stocky, muscular. And the person who called in this tip was able to describe this really unique tattoo that the man had on the back of his left arm under his elbow. It was of a cross with these red flames coming out of it. Police took this information and went to the public with it, asking them to help identify the man. And someone actually

came forward saying, I think I'm the guy you're looking for. Like it's me. Now he says that he wasn't with Makayla didn't even know Makayla at all. They were both just in the same bus depot at the same time. And he held the door open for her. And it's almost like she walked through that door and into thin air because no one had seen her since. And for months over a year, time just slipped by and nobody knew what happened to Makayla. According to Austin Davis's reporting for the leader post almost a year and a half after her disappearance in August of 2017, police did an extensive search of the woods behind her high school, which is actually the last place they have actual footage of Makayla.

It was walking out of the doors of that high school towards those woods. Now police say that they had actually searched that area before, but not specifically related to Makayla's appearance. And they wanted to do it again, but with that focus. Now they didn't find anything in the woods, but the search itself brought in a few new tips, one of which led to a second search of an area just outside of town. But that search was a dead end too. There have actually been quite a few sightings of Makayla over the years, sightings in Regina and other places close to Yorkton, even in other Canadian cities like Vancouver and Edmonton. People even claim to see her in the US, like in Seattle, Portland and in Washington, places

even as far away as Columbia and Scotland. And police have investigated them all, but not a single one of those sightings could be confirmed. And I know I'm sort of just gliding over the top of those sightings, but I think it's important to take a second and really think about what the last six and a half years have been like for Paula. I haven't lived this myself, but I can very easily imagine the emotional roller coaster families of missing children find themselves on. It's heartache because you're missing your child, but not the kind of heartache where it gets a little better than you can manage it each day, because every time there's a sighting or a tip or an update from the police, there's this hope

that maybe this is it. Maybe today is the day this is the day that's finally going to bring your baby home. And to be honest, I'm not sure I can think of anything more emotionally difficult than that, especially now that I'm a mom. In 2017, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also assisted in this case by producing a video of Makayla's family in hopes that wherever she is, Makayla can see that her family has not given up on finding her. Along with the video in 2018, the organization also generated an age-progressed photo of Makayla where you can see how she would have matured from the time she went missing at

age 16 compared to three years later as she becomes a young woman at age 19. And although it's been four years since that picture was made, it's still a great reference as to what she would likely look like today. The police and Makayla's family aren't giving up hope. At the end of May, 2022, the Saskatchewan RCMP announced a partnership with Washington State Patrol that put pictures of Makayla aged-advanced ones included on the sides of two transfer trucks. This is something that started in Washington back in 2005, and it's called Homeward Bound. What unsolved cases often need most is just awareness, and that's what they're trying to do.

According to the RCMP, this program has featured 32 missing children and youth so far, and three of them have been brought home. And that's what police and her family and friends and everyone who knew and loved Makayla have been trying to do ever since April 12, 2016. Bring Makayla home. She hasn't used her bank accounts since that day. She hasn't been in touch with her mother, her grandmother, her siblings, her friends, or anyone else that police have spoken to. She hasn't even used her social media accounts or her phone, which was turned off just before 7 a.m. on April 13. But there's also no evidence to suggest Makayla met with foul play either, and there are people

who believe that she's out there somewhere. I've been through the Reddit threads on this case, you guys, and there are a lot of people out there who think that Makayla ran away from home and that she's alive and well and doesn't want to be found. There are people on those threads who say that her home life wasn't the best or that her relationship with her mom was rocky. But I haven't been able to substantiate that with any true media sources, any real reporting. And listen, Makayla wouldn't have been the first 16-year-old girl to have a rough go in general. She's definitely not the first 16-year-old to fight with her mom if that's what was happening. And I keep coming back to the things she left behind.

I don't think she planned to stay away, and neither does her mom. But you know what? Because she is out there alive and well, all she has to do is call the RCMP and tell them that she doesn't want to be found. Makayla is an adult now. But here's the thing. I think Makayla was with someone that day. We know she was on the phone with someone. We know she didn't just walk out of the doors of that bus depot and into the upside down. She went somewhere. Again, likely with someone. And we need to know who that someone is. And we need you guys out there listening to help us figure out who that is. And where she is. So if you know anything about Makayla's disappearance, if you were in Yorkden on April 12, 2016 and

think you may have seen something or heard something, if you think you may have seen her somewhere else, even if you're not sure, even if you've been questioning yourself for years, call the police. At 16, Makayla was 5'2", 115 to 125 pounds with long strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. On the day she disappeared, she was wearing jeans, a three-quarter-length burgundy coat and a teal infinity scarf. She was wearing glasses and carrying a blue backpack. She would be 22 years old now. And if she is out there, she may also go by the last name Nebergall. As of this recording, there is a $100,000 reward for information leading to the safer turn of the now 22-year-old Makayla Bali. You can reach the RCMP by phone at

1-844-880-6518 or you can submit a tip by email and that's going to be in our show notes, along with the number for Crime Stoppers. And don't forget, if you want to contribute towards an organization that truly helps kids like Makayla in big ways, you can donate to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at audiochuck.missingkids.org. The money goes straight to them. You can find that link in our episode notes. Any amount will help. For all of our source material and pictures for this episode, you can find that on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media. And next week,

we're taking off for the holiday, but we will be back the week after that. Crimejunkie is an audiochuck production. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?