Have you ever known somebody who vanished?
If so, what happened? Were they found?
When my uncle was in his 20s, he had a girlfriend who was a complete flake. She was very pretty and had a good sense of humor when you'd actually talk to her, but in general she was very aloof, tense and there was something off about her. By the time she was mid 20s, she'd already dropped out of three different college courses because she couldn't commit. She got a job in a factory, but complained constantly that it was boring. According to my uncle, she was always depressed and talking about how much she hated her life.
One night, she went out for some fresh air in the front garden, and didn't come back. All her stuff was left behind.
This was the early 90s, so no CCTV cameras. My uncle is known for his terrible temper and at times it seemed like his girlfriend was tense around him, so when she first went missing her family accused him of doing something to her. There was no evidence of a struggle or anything strange, so a missing person's report was filed but nothing came of it.
She was missing for 4 years, then one day, completely out of the blue, she turned up at my uncle's house to say she wanted her pet hamster back. It had been dead for two years, and when my uncle told her that, she shrugged and walked off. He chased after her and asked why she vanished, and her response was, "I don't have to stay here if I don't want." Then she walked away, never to be seen again. My uncle SWEARS this happened and even told the police, but nobody else saw her that day.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | May 24, 2023 2:54 PM
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The uncle lied. Perhaps OP lies and this is an EST.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | December 25, 2022 4:03 PM
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A very nice, kind woman I worked with disappeared from the grocery store parking lot one day. Her head was discovered more than a month later, but the rest of her body was never found. It was horrifying, and so terrible for her poor family. Her husband had been one of my teachers, and I went to high school with their daughter.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | December 25, 2022 4:03 PM
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OP is lying. I think R3 is, too.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | December 25, 2022 4:15 PM
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A very good friend of mine did. He lost his high perch in publishing and disappeared. I miss him terribly.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | December 25, 2022 4:22 PM
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I'm amazed in this day and age with all the available search services on the internet........ how there are some people in your past that are no where to be found. PIcking up and taking off..... Imagine back in the day how relatively easy that was to do...
by Anonymous | reply 6 | December 25, 2022 4:32 PM
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R5, what do you think happened to him? Were the police ever involved? With a high perch, he had some savings or investments. Is he the novel-like character who actually disappeared and is living in comfort in some remote location?
by Anonymous | reply 8 | December 25, 2022 4:39 PM
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Was he is book publishing in the US R5 and if so, when did this happen?
by Anonymous | reply 9 | December 25, 2022 4:48 PM
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R3 here -That was the god's-honest-truth. :(
by Anonymous | reply 10 | December 26, 2022 2:42 AM
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R8, R9 He was high up in publishing in NYC when the economy crashed in 2008. He tried to pivot to another career (I maintained his website). His mortgage went underwater and he vanished. His family doesn't know where he is either, they contact me occasionally.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | December 26, 2022 2:23 PM
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^^ The Olivia Newton John boyfriend apparently did something similar?
by Anonymous | reply 12 | December 26, 2022 2:34 PM
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Thanks R11. Are you able to say or hint to the company he worked for? Only asking because I’ve been in publishing for decades and I maybe I could help.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | December 26, 2022 2:45 PM
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r13 I hope your job isn't as a proof reader.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | December 26, 2022 2:50 PM
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Uncle is hella sus. This looks like a job for Reddit.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | December 26, 2022 2:52 PM
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R13 He was working in the YA department of a major publisher. I'm afraid to think about what happened.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | December 26, 2022 4:09 PM
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I hope she had her bunny slippers on..
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 17 | March 29, 2023 8:31 PM
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Yes. Her name was Sue Storm.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | March 29, 2023 8:32 PM
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A friend’s father disappeared after a suspicious auto accident when my friend was 7 yrs old. He was located alive in Mexico 25 yrs later by an investigative journalist. He faked his auto accident to indicate foul play to instead start a new life in another country. Leaving behind a wife and 6 children (all minors).
by Anonymous | reply 19 | March 29, 2023 8:36 PM
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OP does your family eat baked ziti. She was probably permanently put six feet under by some fat fuck in tube socks.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | March 29, 2023 8:40 PM
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My aunt got married when she was 14. She has 6 kids. She ended up taking all 6 kids and leaving her husband because he was abusive. She was super crazy religious and wouldn’t let her kids watch the magic show at my 8th birthday because magic was evil and a thing of the devil.
Eventually, she put her kids in foster care. Then she disappeared.
We are in Seattle. One day, my other aunt got a call that my missing aunt was down in Alabama in jail. She was found sleeping in a ditch. And she had amnesia.
Just like Emma Samms!
by Anonymous | reply 21 | March 29, 2023 8:45 PM
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I know someone reported to be dead under mysterious and sudden circumstances. No one ever came across a death certificate or obituary, the family didn’t hold a funeral, and a friend of the deceased person’s parents reported that they seemed surprised when the friend offered condolences.
The person was in a job that potentially put them in contact with organized crime, and was also a bit of an isolated oddball in general. While I believe they are most likely dead, I wouldn’t be shocked to hear they disappeared somewhere, perhaps for safety reasons.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | March 29, 2023 8:47 PM
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This isn't someone that I know - it's a story of a depressed and suicidal nurse who was treated by famed hypnotherapist Milton Erickson back in 1956, and what happened next. (I love Erickson teaching tales, so I though I might post it, as it came to mind)
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 23 | March 29, 2023 8:53 PM
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You can smell the ESTs from here, and I could be standing next to a hog confinement and do so.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | March 29, 2023 8:55 PM
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Yes. We have a cousin that's been missing for like 20 years, now. Most of the family has written her off as dead because she's a known drug addict and had apparently fallen off the wagon shortly before just disappearing. Her sister had been killed as a pedestrian by a police car and the cops (LAPD) were never held accountable for her death because she was "jaywalking." Her sister was also a known crackhead and was panhandling at the time she got killed. Thus, more incentive for LAPD not to give a fuck.
Needless to say, she didn't handle any of it well, at all.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | March 29, 2023 8:59 PM
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Quick question - I've been on DL for yearscbut I've never understood the EST thing. Is it an acronym?
by Anonymous | reply 26 | March 29, 2023 9:00 PM
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R26 Yes, it's an acronym. Please someone answer this question, because I've also been wondering. I think it stands for extravagant or exaggerated storytelling/storyteller, but I could be wrong.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | March 29, 2023 9:03 PM
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I believe it stands for Elaborate Scenario Troll
by Anonymous | reply 28 | March 29, 2023 9:04 PM
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I've known plenty of people I wished would vanish.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | March 29, 2023 9:17 PM
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I don't know anyone who has vanished, but I'd love to vanish a d start a new life over.
How do people do it? It must take planning and resources, yet people seem to just disappear into thin air with nothing. They can't all be dead.
How do they do it in 2023 without trace?
by Anonymous | reply 30 | March 29, 2023 9:17 PM
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Once. But it didn't last long.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | March 29, 2023 9:24 PM
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My Grandad went missing in January 1947. He turned up floating in Manchester docks 4 months later, badly decomposed. The Inquest recorded an open verdict. That was 20+ years before I was born and it was rarely mentioned.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | March 29, 2023 9:36 PM
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EST = Erotic Story Time and was at first mostly used to call bullshit on those "I fucked my hot neighbor" threads. Most often seen in conjunction with the Sure, Jan gif.
Back on topic, one of my dad's sisters left her husband and took the kids with her in the 70s and was never seen again. Her daughter reconnected with the family as an adult. She said she found our family when searching for her birth mother, who gave her up when she was like 5 or 6. The last place she was known to have been was New Mexico.
When my dad died, a woman who looked like her attended his funeral and left before the wake. My sister tried to corner her, but she managed to slip out the back of the funeral home.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | March 29, 2023 10:21 PM
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[quote] Have you ever known somebody who vanished?
Well I did but then they vanished so I have no idea!
by Anonymous | reply 34 | March 29, 2023 10:30 PM
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My childhood “girlfriend” - daughter of family friends - disappeared one summer after her sophomore year in college. I participated in an unsuccessful search party. Her body was later found hanged, a result of suicide. Her only sister, 7 years her senior, had died of leukemia had died at roughly the same age.
by Anonymous | reply 35 | March 29, 2023 10:33 PM
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My cousin's grandma vanished into thin air a couple years ago. I'm from a small-town. There are many trails in the area and lots of space for hiking. The old lady went for a walk a few years back and was never seen. Some speculate that the devil took her. Other sane people from the town say she may have fallen over the cliff which leads right into a body of water.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | March 29, 2023 10:49 PM
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Ooo very interesting thread I’m glad you started it op
by Anonymous | reply 37 | March 29, 2023 10:59 PM
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Guy I went to high school with. Knew him socially (we were both in garage bands) but didn't think about him after graduation. Ten years later, I'm dating a guy and went to dinner with him & his close friend. We were having small talk & asking about our histories in town. She mentioned her older brother graduated from the same school I attended but graduated a year later. I got excited momentarily when she said his name, and told her I remembered him! Then she said that after he graduated, he just left one day. She & everyone else haven't seen or heard from him since. This was twenty years ago.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | March 29, 2023 11:12 PM
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My turds vanished after I shit. I pulled a lever and the water took them down a hole in the floor. I’ll never see em again.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | March 29, 2023 11:20 PM
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R28 There are always a couple of idiots on here who question the veracity of people's stories. That’s their pathetic life. They live in disbelief that anyone's story could even remotely be true.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | March 29, 2023 11:26 PM
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A female friend's aunt is a missing person that received a decent amount of attention in our local area (which is Bumfucke, pretty much). The aunt disappeared in the 70s when she was a teen, a few years before my friend was even born. She has been missing for over 45 years now, no trace of her. Some think she ran away but others believe she was killed by an older man that she was supposedly involved with.
There was even a thread about it on a reddit true crime forum
by Anonymous | reply 41 | March 29, 2023 11:29 PM
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A friend’s older brother got into trouble with their parents for having stolen some money and left and never came back. This would have been in the mid-80s. After he disappeared her parents never spoke of him again, as if he never existed. At the point I knew her he’d been gone over 20 years.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | March 29, 2023 11:49 PM
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I have an Aunt that vanished about 10 years ago? But it's probably because we haven't looked for her or reported her missing, she's always been a cunt and none of us like her.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | March 30, 2023 12:16 AM
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Long ago I ordered this survivalist-type book on "How to Disappear". It was really poorly-written. On the last page it said "here is one of the places you may find where you can hide out" and it was a picture of Montezuma Castle in Arizona.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 44 | March 30, 2023 12:27 AM
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Yes. I barely knew his third wife and had met him about a year before he disappeared. He had dumped wife #3 after less than a year, married #4, and got into tax trouble. He was a successful businessman, supposedly worth tens of millions of dollars back in the 90s. He disappeared. Law enforcement seemed to think either he'd fled the jurisdiction or committed suicide. Days later his body was found in a burned-out car, apparently confirming a suicide.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | March 30, 2023 1:07 AM
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EST = Elaborate Scenario Troll.
I’ve found the spirit of EST to hold quite true — you just pay attention to how much detail and the types of detail, your bullshit detector gets stronger by the day. Sometimes by the fucking hour.
by Anonymous | reply 46 | March 30, 2023 1:14 AM
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About 6 months after I came out at 21, I met and fell head-over-heels in love for the first time with a seemingly great guy. We went out for a few months during which I began to realize he had a boatload of mental health issues. I stopped seeing him when I learned he was sleeping around. Less than a month later, while on vacation on the east coast, he disappeared. I only knew because it was reported in the newspaper. He made the whole top section of the 'Life' section of the Saturday paper, complete with 5 x 7 photo. This was because his sister was a reporter and pulled some strings to use him as the background on a story about missing people. He turned up just before Thanksgiving and looked me up at my college-who stupidly gave him my contact information as I had moved-security wasn't that great and this was almost 40 years ago. He showed up unannounced at my door. I was so stupid I started seeing him again but the stories about what had happened while he was missing were impossible to believe and it ended. Now I'm getting tired of the unbelievable stories the guy I'm seeing NOW is telling me. If he wasn't so good in bed I'd do the smart thing and dump him. Apparently I'm not too smart.
by Anonymous | reply 47 | March 30, 2023 1:27 AM
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Um... so why did you order THAT particular book, r44? Any EST story to share?
by Anonymous | reply 48 | March 30, 2023 1:56 AM
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It has ALWAYS stood for Elaborate Scenario Troll and nothing else.
by Anonymous | reply 49 | March 30, 2023 2:00 AM
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Coworker's daughter disappeared 4 years ago, last seen near a bridge. Her case was never taken seriously by police because drugs and reckless behavior were suspected to be involved. My coworker continue to fight for her to be found to this day, but she knows the likely outcome.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | March 30, 2023 2:03 AM
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R25 This enrages me. I'm so sorry your family has never gotten justice. LAPD are lying, corrupt sacks of shit. The only department more corrupt is the NYPD, but they may be on equal footing. I had a personal experience with LAPD after getting lost as a tourist in the early 2010s. Homophobic trash.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | March 30, 2023 2:09 AM
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When I was a schoolgirl in turn of the century Australia, one teacher & several of my classmates vanished whilst we were on picnic at Ayers Rock. The only one anyone cared about was a hot blonde called Miranda.
by Anonymous | reply 52 | March 30, 2023 5:30 AM
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Something about your uncle sounds a bit off.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 54 | March 30, 2023 5:50 AM
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So you’re gonna copy your uncle, OP? Or are you gonna move on with it all, & be happy, because you chose to be yourself?
by Anonymous | reply 55 | March 30, 2023 6:02 AM
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I do. A good friend in colleges boyfriend disappeared in1991. He didn't show up to pick her up for a date. I don't know who called the police, her or his parents. But they came to interview her in the dorm, didn't make her come to the station.
Turned out he had withdrawn all of his money from an ATM, so the police didn't treat it as a missing persons case. They closed it and declared that he disappeared of his own volition.
She was amazingly calm about it. I think she knew he vanished himself and she wasn't that upset, more angry.
It's been over 30 years so I have no idea if he ever re-emerged or what. I can't even recall his name.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | March 30, 2023 6:14 AM
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You’re such a liar r39/erna. Those turds disappear into your mouth!
by Anonymous | reply 57 | March 30, 2023 6:26 AM
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1.) I never met him, but a friend once mentioned no one in her (fucked up) family except her was ever interested in finding out what happened to her older brother. He was borderline schizophrenic, dropped out in the 1970s and became a drifter. He COULD still be alive, but they all assume he’s dead. Last heard from in New Orleans or somewhere.
2.) Another friend’s niece was adopted from Eastern Europe and showed behavioral issues even as a child. Same sort of disappearance story as No. 1, but this girl’s parents would be contacted by a hospital every few years when she was checked into a psych ward and she’d list them on forms. But they’ve heard nothing in the past decade or so and assume she’s dead.
PS: I feel bad because I never liked this little girl when I’d meet her at weddings, etc. She was weird in an abrupt way.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | March 30, 2023 6:36 AM
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Anne Milbauer. Don Craig. Nurse Maxine.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | March 30, 2023 9:40 AM
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I lived in Japan for many years and entire families "vanish" all the time. In fact, there are services that help Japanese disappear. There was a dentist, his wife, and two kids whose house was suddenly vacant one day in my neighborhood. I. heard the dentist was deep in debt and so purposely vanished, never to be seen again.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | March 30, 2023 11:01 AM
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[quote]EST = Erotic Story Time
I think it's hilarious that r33 has spent 20 years thinking that EST means "Erotic Story Time." You must have been SO confused nearly every time someone accused a poster of an EST.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | March 30, 2023 11:38 AM
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He killed her and the hamster, which he had stuck up his ass.
by Anonymous | reply 62 | March 30, 2023 11:51 AM
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The Datalounge has become a regular missing persons center. Over 60 people reported missing in this thread alone, 2/3 of them in the past 24 hours.
by Anonymous | reply 63 | March 30, 2023 12:04 PM
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[quote] The Datalounge has become a regular missing persons center. Over 60 people reported missing in this thread alone, 2/3 of them in the past 24 hours.
Quick someone call Keith Morrisson
by Anonymous | reply 64 | March 30, 2023 10:26 PM
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Chuck Cunningham and Judy Winslow.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | March 30, 2023 10:41 PM
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Most of them swims with the fishes.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 66 | March 30, 2023 10:44 PM
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Yes. And I was suspected of his murder. Four months later they found him. Suicide.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | May 20, 2023 11:47 PM
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I knew the husband of someone who vanished. The case was shown on "Unsolved Mysteries" many years ago. She was kidnapped in Panama City, Fla. from the parking lot of a hotel, with her 2 kids in asleep in the back seat. Her body has never been found.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 68 | May 21, 2023 12:13 AM
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Not a person, but a dog.
Sometime in the 1960s, an aunt's dog disappeared, she assumed it was taken from her backyard in Brooklyn, where the dog sometimes stayed and was always safe. This was years before homes had surveillance cameras and dogs had microchips.
Her dog was a mutt, since it wasn't a pedigreed dog or am kind of show dog, who would take a dog which wasn't worth anything, except to the owner who loved it.
About 3 years later, the dog was at her front door. My aunt was in shock. She took the dog to the vet, he said, everything was fine, whoever took the dog cared for it.
My aunt didn't have any enemies, she couldn't figure who would take her dog, she was even more baffled that the dog was returned. A few relatives joked that the dog was abducted by aliens.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | May 21, 2023 8:54 AM
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That’s utterly scary, R68. Chills to my marrow. R69, that is a very strange story.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | May 21, 2023 9:27 AM
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Yes - Shelly Miscavige. But the LAPD said my claim was unfounded.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | May 21, 2023 10:14 AM
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Has anyone thought to check the cabins down by the river?
by Anonymous | reply 73 | May 21, 2023 10:18 AM
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I have twice.
It was much easier before the internet, but it's still not impossible.
There's nothing particularly interesting about my situation. There aren't going to be any true crime podcasts concerning me. I'm sure most people who think of my younger self at all think I must have died by now given my former "party lifestyle."
But most people just get on with their lives. Nobody is searching for me. I have no arrest warrants out or anything dramatic like that.
I might have made a few mistakes vanishing for the first time, but I got all those problems ironed out when I did it the second time.
The truth of the matter is, there are plenty of people like me. It's a personal choice. It's not some big mystery or drama for the most part.
by Anonymous | reply 74 | May 21, 2023 11:06 AM
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R51 doesn’t know his law enforcement. NYPD is more incompetent, full of lazy fucks, rather than truly corrupt. LA County Sheriff’s Dept. is much worse than LAPD or NYPD.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | May 21, 2023 11:17 AM
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My aunt’s husband just didn’t come home one day, and was never heard from again. Their daughter was around 5 or 6 years old. This happened way before I was born. Eventually, my aunt did some sort of legal thing that allowed her to remarry after my cousin was grown, and aunt has been happily married to that husband for many years.
About 15 years ago, the first husband showed back up. I don’t think he ever contacted my aunt, but he did reach out to my cousin. She told me that he wanted forgiveness and to have a relationship. While she did forgive him, she wasn’t interested in having any sort of relationship going forward. I don’t talk often to her, so I don’t know if that’s still the case.
I could tell it was painful for her to talk about, so I didn’t ask the questions I really wanted to ask. She did say he had more children, and had been living just a couple of states away. I wanted to know HOW he did it—how do you work and not get found when authorities are looking for you?? Did he leave to be with whatever woman birthed his kids? What about his relatives on—did they know? Did he marry the other woman?
by Anonymous | reply 76 | May 21, 2023 11:17 AM
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I worked with a woman whose husband went out for milk, he never came back home. This happened sometime in the 1970s. I worked with this woman in the 1990s.
Their marriage was rocky, she figured he planned his escape, that he likely went to live with another woman and that was it. Thankfully, for her, she wasn't dependent on him supporting her and their daughter, this woman always worked. The Brooklyn brownstone she lived in was passed on to her from her late parents, it was long paid for.
Years later, her adult daughter saw him walking down 5th Avenue in Manhattan, she immediately recognized her father, he had very distinctive features. The daughter looked directly at him and he saw her. Since he left when the daughter was a baby, he didn't recognize her.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | May 21, 2023 11:18 AM
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My nephew vanished in South Africa. After searching for him for a couple of years, my family gave up. A few years after that, his skeleton was found by hikers in a shallow grave which had been dug up by animals. The mystery was never solved.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | May 23, 2023 12:55 AM
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R76 Approx how many years was the birth father out of your cousins life before he initiated his return.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | May 24, 2023 2:54 PM
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