- 1 year ago
This century has seen the resolution of several prominent missing person cases. Let's find out which. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we’re looking at the heart-wrenching disappearances we feared would never be resolved.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's an embrace more than 40 years in the making.
00:02I love you. Thank you for all your prayers.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the heart-wrenching disappearances we feared would never be resolved.
00:12Detective Mark Janney with the Code Case Unit spent more than a hundred hours interrogating the man he calls a monster.
00:20Eitan Pates.
00:21It was on every milk carton.
00:23I remember hanging out on the pier, on Bank Street, on the village, just hanging out with my friends,
00:27and the airplanes would go by with the banners.
00:30Eitan Pates, you know, little boy, I mean, it was just everywhere.
00:33On his first solo trip to the bus stop, Eitan Pates vanished.
00:37His teacher noted his absence from school, but did not notify the principal.
00:41When he failed to return home later that day, his mother alerted authorities, and a massive search effort ensued.
00:47However, there was no trace of Pates.
00:49Do you think your son is still alive?
00:51I believe he's alive, and I will continue to do so till we get some answers.
00:55But answers would be a long time coming.
00:57His disappearance helped spur the creation of the missing children movement.
01:01Pates' face was one of the first to appear on the missing children milk cartons of the 1980s.
01:06Decades later, in 2012, a man named Pedro Hernandez confessed to killing Pates.
01:11Hernandez, who worked at a bodega near the bus stop at the time of Pates' disappearance,
01:15was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison.
01:19Hernandez didn't speak in court, but his defense team emphatically denies he had anything to do with Eitan's disappearance.
01:28What happened to Mike Williams would have stayed a mystery if his best friend,
01:32and wife's secret lover, hadn't started talking.
01:36When Mike Williams went missing during a hunting trip in 2000,
01:39investigators determined he likely drowned as the result of an unfortunate accident.
01:43His abandoned boat was found floating in Lake Seminole, but after an extensive search, his body was not recovered.
01:49Unsatisfied with the conclusion, his mother pushed for a new investigation.
01:53So what are my other alternatives?
01:56If he didn't drown in the lake and he didn't get eaten by alligators, did he walk off?
02:02Officials reopened the case in 2004.
02:05Suspicions soon settled on Williams' widow, Denise, and her new husband, Brian Winchester.
02:10Shortly before the ill-fated hunting trip,
02:12Winchester had helped Denise take out a life insurance policy on Williams.
02:16In 2017, Winchester, who was already serving time on kidnapping charges, revealed the location of Williams' body.
02:23In 2019, Denise was convicted for her role in Williams' murder.
02:27Winchester received immunity for aiding investigators.
02:30Coworker Ketchum says the arrest validates most people's suspicions.
02:35I think we saw this day coming.
02:38For over 50 years, she was nameless, her case unsolved.
02:42This was one of our oldest cases, definitely.
02:46In the late 1960s, Sandra Young went missing from Portland, Oregon.
02:50She was never seen alive again.
02:52A short distance away on Savi Island, a Boy Scout troop leader made a horrifying discovery.
02:57A body buried in a shallow grave.
02:59For 54 long years, Young's family had no idea what happened to her.
03:04Meanwhile, the body found on Savi Island remained unidentified.
03:08Thanks to genetic genealogy, the connection between the two cases was finally established.
03:13DNA testing confirmed that the unknown murder victim was Sandra Young.
03:17While Young has finally been located, little else is known about her disappearance or her tragic death.
03:23In 2018, the Oregon State Police Medical Examiner's Office received a federal grant
03:28that allowed them to use modern DNA technology,
03:31which helped them construct this approximation of what the girl would look like.
03:36Fritzl had become obsessed with his daughter.
03:39He spied on her and demanded to know where she was at all times.
03:43For 24 years, Josef Fritzl held his daughter Elisabeth captive in the basement of this home in Amstetten, Austria.
03:50During her imprisonment, Elisabeth gave birth to seven children, all fathered by Josef.
03:55When one of the older daughters fell deathly ill in 2008, Fritzl agreed to take her to the local hospital.
04:01Eventually, Fritzl permitted Elisabeth to visit her ailing daughter.
04:05The eldest of the cellar kids, 19-year-old Kirsten, became seriously ill,
04:10and remarkably, Fritzl agreed to call an ambulance, her first time ever outside.
04:16It was her first time seeing the outside world since 1984.
04:21The story Fritzl provided didn't sit well with hospital staff, who ultimately contacted the police.
04:26He later confessed to luring his daughter to the basement and imprisoning her there.
04:29To conceal the crime, Fritzl declared Elisabeth a runaway
04:33and forced her to write letters claiming she did not want to be found.
04:36It's now this monster who's facing the rest of his days locked away.
04:42As you know, there's never been a body recovered in the investigation involving Zeb Quinn's disappearance.
04:48The Asheville Police Department is committed to leaving no stone unturned.
04:51In January 2000, after finishing work, Zeb Quinn went to see a vehicle with his co-worker Robert Jason Owens.
04:58They drove separately. According to Owens, Quinn received a page, abruptly sped away, and disappeared.
05:04His car was found several days later in a restaurant parking lot.
05:08The headlights were on, and a puppy was in the back seat.
05:10Someone had drawn a kiss and an exclamation point on the back window in pink lipstick.
05:15Nothing. No clues that could lead to an arrest. No hints of whether he is dead or alive.
05:22There was no sign of Quinn.
05:23A breakthrough came in 2017 when officials charged Owens with Quinn's murder.
05:28The exact circumstances are unknown, but a love triangle may be at the heart of the case.
05:33At the time of his conviction, Owens was already serving life for killing Christy and Joseph Codd.
05:38At this point, investigators have called his arrest a major break in the case.
05:44I feel very confident in the strength of the case.
05:46Brittany Drexel.
05:47And then Brittany says, OK, Mom, I'll see you tomorrow. I love you.
05:51Those were her last words to me.
05:53On the evening of April 25th, 2009,
05:56Brittany Drexel went missing from the busy Main Strip in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina,
06:00and was never seen again.
06:02A few days prior, without her mother's knowledge or consent,
06:05Drexel had traveled from her home in Shiloh, New York,
06:07to visit the popular vacation destination for spring break with some friends.
06:11Security footage showed Drexel arriving at the Blue Water Resort around 8 p.m. to visit a friend,
06:16and then departing a short time later.
06:18Because Ms. Drexel didn't make it to the corner of that video,
06:22but she was in the other video, and she was on the phone at this point,
06:24but not on the phone at this point,
06:26they were able to pick a very narrow, less than a minute time frame that something happened to her.
06:31Brittany seemingly vanished into thin air somewhere between the Blue Water Resort and her hotel.
06:36Thirteen years later, in 2022, Raymond Moody, a convicted sex offender,
06:40confessed to kidnapping and killing Drexel.
06:43He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
06:46Today marks the beginning of a new chapter.
06:49The search for Brittany is now a pursuit of Brittany's justice.
06:56Investigators canvassed neighborhoods by air and on the ground
07:00after 10-year-old Catherine and 12-year-old Sheila disappeared.
07:03When Catherine and Sheila Lyon disappeared on their way home from a Wheaton, Maryland, shopping center,
07:08their fate remained a mystery for over 35 years.
07:12On the day they vanished, the sisters went for lunch at a popular pizza joint located in the shopping center.
07:17Eyewitnesses saw them talking with a man outside the restaurant before they went inside.
07:21They were later spotted making their way home after the meal, but they never arrived.
07:26Just as a thing, maybe they could be up here or something bad like that could happen in my family
07:29or somebody in my family be involved in something like that, period.
07:33Yeah, that scares me.
07:34By 2013, the case had grown cold, but authorities hoped to breathe new life into the investigation.
07:40News of a significant development broke in 2015
07:43when convicted sex offender Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. was indicted for the murder of the Lyon sisters.
07:48He later pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.
07:52Today, convicted sex offender Lloyd Lee Welch shuffled into the courtroom here in leg irons.
07:58Baby Holly.
07:59I just wanted to hug her. I just wanted to get up and hug her so bad.
08:04But it was Zoom and you can't.
08:06When Dean and Tina Klaus relocated with their daughter Holly to Texas in 1980,
08:11they hoped for a fresh new start.
08:13A few months later, they were gone.
08:15Their whereabouts remained unknown until 2021.
08:18Advances in DNA technology helped match Dean and Tina to two unidentified murder victims found in 1981 just outside of Houston.
08:26What I noticed upon uploading Tina's DNA immediately was kind of what we call gold, you know, in this business.
08:33A very high match.
08:34With the couple's fate solved, one big question remained.
08:37What happened to Baby Holly?
08:39After further investigation, authorities found her alive and well in Oklahoma.
08:43She was raised by a pastor and his wife after three women, one of which was likely Tina Klaus, mysteriously left Holly in their care.
08:50The Klauses may have joined a cult called Christ Family before they were killed, which compelled them to give Holly away.
08:56She was missing in plain sight.
08:58She had no idea that she was missing.
09:00Shocking across the board.
09:03She reaches the road.
09:04A gray car pulls up.
09:06A stranger rolls down the window.
09:08And his hand shoots out and I just feel numb.
09:12It was broad daylight when JC Dugard was kidnapped on her way to the bus stop.
09:16She wasn't seen again for 18 years.
09:19Her family continued efforts to find her, but hope for a positive outcome grew smaller every year.
09:24It was not a day that I didn't cry.
09:27I felt like there would never ever be a day that I wouldn't cry again.
09:31Her rescue came when her kidnapper, Philip Garrido, visited UC Berkeley with two pale and sullen girls to request permission to hold an event.
09:38His behavior and the state of the girls aroused suspicion.
09:41It was later discovered that he was a registered sex offender in violation of parole.
09:46More unsettling details emerged when Garrido was forced to report to the parole officer.
09:50Dugard had been imprisoned in appalling conditions in Garrido's backyard, and the two girls with him at UC Berkeley had been Dugard's daughters.
09:58The secret compound was so well concealed, law enforcement officers did not find it during searches of the property in 2006 and last July.
10:08Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.
10:13You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
10:17If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
10:23Elizabeth Smart
10:2514-year-old Elizabeth Smart ripped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, missing for nine months, until a remarkable turn of events.
10:33In the dark of night, Elizabeth Smart was roused from sleep by a knife-wielding intruder.
10:38Her sister, Mary Catherine, who shared a room with Smart, lay frozen in fear and pretended to be asleep.
10:43Brian David Mitchell held Smart captive for nine months.
10:47During that time, Smart went on several public outings with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee.
10:51He had a big cable bolted onto my leg, which was strung between two trees with a lock, she said.
10:57He had the key around his neck.
10:59They forced Smart to wear a veil and headscarf to hide her identity.
11:03Mary Catherine eventually recognized the kidnapper's voice as that of a man who once did some work on the family's home.
11:09A sketch of the man was featured on America's Most Wanted, and some of Mitchell's family members recognized him.
11:14Mitchell and Barzee were soon apprehended, and Smart was reunited with her family.
11:19I eventually came to a point where I was like, okay, one day, somehow, I'm going to survive this.
11:25I'm going to get back to my family.
11:26Which one of these chilling cases affected you the most? Let us know in the comments.
11:31Check out these other clips from WatchMojo, and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
Be the first to comment