Disappeared Season 4, Episode 21: The Vortex

1

Missing Valentine

Forty-two-year-old Patricia Viola is living the life of her dreams. She has two wonderful children and a happy, stable marriage. On February 13, 2001, Pat wakes up, gets the kids ready for school, and then volunteers at the local library. She returns home, briefly calls her mother, and then is never seen or heard from again. Police immediately launch an investigation to determine if Pat was the victim of foul play or if she left voluntarily. Ten years later, a private investigator stumbles on a surprising connection between Pat and a triple homicide that could blow the case wide open.

42 min

2

The Dark Ravine

Mandy Stokes leaves her apartment to run errands on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2007. When she doesn’t return by the next morning, friends and family aren’t immediately concerned, but Mandy’s mother feels that something is wrong. Her intuition sparks a missing person’s investigation by Oakland Police that leads from the apartment Mandy shared with her brother to the cavernous ravine where her car is found abandoned. In a bizarre twist, police transfer the case to the Homicide Unit, and her mother’s worst nightmare begins to unfold as she is forced to consider the possibility that her own son is involved in Mandy's disappearance.

42 min

3

A Father's Quest

Leah Peebles recently moved from her parents’ home in Texas to Albuquerque, NM, for a fresh start after years of struggling with drug addiction. Though she came from a supportive, tight-knit family, Leah had turned to drugs to cope after being molested as a toddler and raped as a teenager. Clean for the first time in years, Leah is eager to start her career as a hairstylist and get her life on track. But just a few weeks after arriving in Albuquerque, she steps out one night for a date and never returns. When the Peebles family feels the police are too slow to respond, Leah’s father decides to take matters into his own hands and hunt for her himself. He discovers Leah has fallen back into drugs and, worse yet, has turned to prostitution to support her habit. Rumors abound and the Peebles fear Leah has fallen victim to foul play. As he traverses Albuquerque’s underworld, seeing things he never thought he would, Mr. Peebles remains determined to search until he can bring her home.

42 min

4

Memory Lane

Amber Gerweck is busy dividing her time between raising her four children and working full-time on a contract with the Department of Homeland Security, when suddenly she stops showing up at work. Police search her apartment, but Amber is nowhere to be found, and evidence alludes to foul play. Only a few hours later, Amber’s vehicle is found abandoned in a parking lot in Georgia, more than six hundred miles from home. A surveillance video from the adjacent Dollar General store reveals Amber walking through the store and purchasing items apparently unharmed, but her parents are terrified. What has happened to Amber since? By the end of the first week, Georgia police mount an extensive search through the surrounding area, but they fail to uncover any clues. A number of weeks pass, and the case begins to go cold. Amber’s parents are devastated. Then, they receive a phone call that changes everything.

42 min

5

Spring Break Nightmare

Colleen Orsborn goes missing after skipping school for a day at the beach. Although the spontaneous, outspoken teen has been known to get into tussles with her mother, she usually leaves a note indicating where she will be, and she always returns home. Family and friends worry that something very sinister has happened, preventing Colleen from returning home. Then, when news breaks that a notorious serial killer named Christopher Wilder can be placed in Daytona Beach the day the teenager went missing, their fears could become warranted. The disappearance of Colleen is a baffling mystery that haunts Central Florida for decades, until one woman uncovers a clue that has been right under their noses for nearly thirty years.

42 min

6

Mystery on Lake Seminole

Jerry Michael Williams is a successful businessman in Tallahassee when he goes on a solo duck-hunting trip to Lake Seminole and disappears. Searchers find his truck, his boat, and his shotgun, but they can’t find Mike. It’s assumed he’s become the victim of a tragic boating accident, but officials are perplexed that his body hasn’t surfaced, because that would make Mike the only drowning victim on the lake who has never come up. Lake Seminole is infested with alligators, and a frightening theory is raised of what might have happened to Mike. Searchers tell his mother that alligators may have eaten him. She doesn't buy that explanation. While she hopes her son is alive, she begins to think he may have been the victim of murder, not misadventure.

42 min

7

Vanished in Vermont

Seventeen-year-old Brianna Maitland found life on her parents’ remote farm boring, so in the fall of 2004, she transferred high schools to be with her friends. But after a short while, Maitland dropped out and couchsurfed with help from friends and boyfriends. With no consistent place sleep each night, it took four days for her family to realize she had gone missing. After numerous searches and an extensive investigation, the Maitlands are left to wonder what really happened to their daughter. Police think it all points to foul play, while others speculate that the teen was taken.

42 min

8

Midnight Walk

Lily Aramburo, a new mother and recovering drug addict, falls back into her old habits with her fiancé, Christen Pacheco. She goes to rehab but is kicked out for failing a drug test. The next day, after smoking crack with Pacheco and two friends, Aramburo walks out of her condo at 2 a.m. carrying two bungee cords. When she doesn’t return, family and friends wonder if she’s committed suicide. Before long, however, suspicions begin to swirl around Pacheco. Now, thanks to the persistence of Aramburo’s loved ones, investigators may be close to unraveling the truth.

42 min

9

The Wedding Ring

Tina McQuaig was a 27- year-old wife and mother. On the evening of March 15, 2000, after work at the hospital, she called her babysitter to say she’s stopping at the grocery store on her way home. That was the last anyone heard from McQuaig. When her car was found four days later, her keys and purse were gone, as if she parked and walked away. As authorities probe McQuaid’s life, they discovered secrets that stun her husband and family.

42 min

10

Innocence Lost

The day after intense stomach pain sends her to the hospital, 22-year-old Jamie Fraley misses an important appointment and is never seen or heard from again. By all accounts, she is happily awaiting the impending prison release of her boyfriend, Ricky Simonds Jr. They plan to get married and start a family together, but investigators find that, while Simonds, Jr. is away, his father Rick Simonds, Sr. has developed more than just a fatherly interest in Fraley. With a violent criminal past, investigators are convinced that Simonds, Jr. has something to do with Fraley’s disappearance.

42 min

11

The Road Not Taken

Nineteen-year-old Ginni Wood embarks on a 1500-mile spring break road trip from North Carolina to Texas to visit her best friend Kelly Gaskins. Wood speaks to her mother upon arrival, but then disappears along with Gaskins and her boyfriend Ervin Williams. Investigators soon realize that Ervin is wanted back in North Carolina on charges of assault and arson. The girls’ families wonder if Ervin is involved in their disappearance, or if he’s a victim himself. When police learn that the three kids may have crossed the border into Mexico, they question where to turn for answers.

42 min

12

Dancing into Darkness

Susan Walsh is not your typical New Jersey mom. During the day, she writes for the Village Voice newspaper and attends a graduate writing program at New York University. At night she works as a stripper in go-go bars, struggling to make ends meet while pursuing her dream of becoming a full-time writer. While her life is not easy, Walsh’s loved ones are shocked when she does not return home after placing a mysterious call on a public payphone. Her unusual life sends investigators in a myriad of directions, but one thing that everyone agrees upon is that Walsh would never willingly leave her eleven-year old son.

42 min

13

Crime & Punishment

When Terrance Williams goes missing after a party with coworkers, his mother enlists the whole family to aid in the search. They locate the young man’s Cadillac in a wrecking company’s lot, having been towed from a cemetery the morning after Williams attended a work party. Witnesses remember seeing him get arrested by the same deputy that had the Cadillac towed, but when family finds no report of an arrest or booking, they feel something is amiss. Then, after a complaint is filed against the deputy, an internal affairs investigation unveils disturbing details that ring eerily similar to the case of another missing man in North Naples. Is the Collier County Sheriff’s Office confronting a coincidence in the extreme, or are they faced with investigating a only person of interest may be one of their own? L

42 min

14

Wrong Side of the Tracks

Jackie Markham, a feisty trucking company manager, picks up a prescription near her home and vanishes. Markham’s friends and family are certain the 51-year-old workaholic would never abandon her responsibilities to her job or her adored children and grandchildren. A boyfriend reports that Markham made a mysterious phone call the night she vanished, warning him that a rival suitor was at her house and drunk. He claims to have raced to her house, but found her gone. The sheriff has his doubts, but then her purse is found in a ditch in a rough neighborhood not far from a serial killer’s lair, and the case takes a much darker turn.

42 min

15

Daddy's Girl

This recovering drug addict has gone missing in Monte Vista, Colorado. Did the pressure of sobriety become too much, or has someone harmed her?

42 min

16

Last Call

Mother of two, Allison Jackson-Foy left a bar after drinks with a close friend and was never seen or heard from again.

42 min

17

Hometown Hero

Local police know Margaret Haddican McEnroe as a hero firefighter, with a fiery temper but strong maternal instincts. So when she disappears from her home, leaving behind her infant daughter alone in her crib, authorities, friends and family are all baffled. How could this loving mother vanish without a trace? It seems unlikely the feisty Army veteran was abducted by a stranger, so the investigation focuses on people she knows. Finally, the FBI is called in and the focus of suspicion narrows down to someone that McEnroe knows very well indeed.

42 min

18

A Soldier's Story

In August 2010, Noah Pippin, a 31-year-old ex-marine leaves his parents’ home in Lake Ann, Michigan headed west to report for drills with the California National Guard. But Pippin never shows up. Investigators pick up a trail that leads them far from California and into the heart of some of the harshest wilderness in the U.S. As time passes and the clues in Pippin’s case grow more ominous, his parents can only wonder what’s driving their son deeper into the unknown

42 min

19

Into the Bayou

Clinton Nelson heads off to Louisiana to get to know his biological father and take a job in the oilfields. The 20 year-old is looking for a fresh start. But 6 months later, the bayou is combed for traces of a man who had been facing enormous pressure.

42 min

20

Little Girl Lost

Disappeared: Little Girl Lost Joey Lynn Offutt, mother of three small children, vanishes after an argument with her on-and-off-again boyfriend. Is she holding a grudge or overwhelmed by motherhood and taking a break? A fiery tragedy leaves loved-ones searching for answers.

42 min

21

The Vortex

In August 2010, diver Ben McDaniel went into “the Vortex” as he had done before, but this time he was never seen again. Rescue divers are convinced that he is no where to be found, so where could he be?

42 min

22

Final Exam

Suzy Lyall never returned to her dorm room after working the nightshift. Could she still be close to campus?

42 min

23

Too Young For Love

Fourteen-year-old Chioma Gray has gotten herself mixed up with a much older boy named Andrew Tafoya. Against her mother's wishes, Chioma keeps seeing him and the inappropriate relationship continues down a harmful path.

42 min

24

Footprints in the Sand

Escort Shannan Gilbert runs screaming from a client's house and disappears in the darkness. Police launch a search through the underbrush. What they find hidden in the weeds sparks one of the most extensive investigations in Long Island history.

42 min

25

Just a Nice Guy

T In January 2000, shy 18-year-old Zebb Quinn leaves his work shift at the local Wal-Mart with an acquaintance to go take a look at a car for sale across town. But when he stops returning his mother‟s pages, she begins to worry. Before long, a police investigation begins and some bizarre evidence surfaces leaving family members wondering whether Quinn could be a victim of foul play.

42 min

26

Hard Life in the Big Easy

Thirty-eight-year-old Dana Pastoria has finally saved enough money reading tarot cards and working as a deli cashier to leave The Big Easy, write her memoir, and try to get custody of her two beloved daughters. She quits her job to pursue her dreams but never manages to get out of town. Three years pass and Hurricane Katrina hits before anyone realizes that Pastoria is missing. It‟s not until the flood waters recede that the truth about her disappearance is exposed.

42 min

27

Missing by Design

Interior designer William "Billy" McGrath is a self-made millionaire who has found success in the Arizona real estate market. But when he abruptly cancels an appointment with his financial advisor, and someone else starts impersonating him over the phone and through email, his friends become concerned. Police check his house, but McGrath is nowhere to be found. His violent ex-boyfriend is about to be paroled and it appears as if he‟s recently changed all his locks. Has he fled town in fear or is something far more sinister going on? Friends suspect foul play and as police follow the clues they discover a twisted scheme indeed.

42 min