With all the different cases that the FBI works on, it is not surprising that many of them end
up on their list of cold cases as there often just aren’t enough clues to bring the case to a close.
In some of the more mysterious cases, the details are so few and the circumstances so strange,
that there is a very good chance that they will remain cold cases forever.
5. Shanna Peoples
FBI agents, along with the Geneva Police Department,
the Geneva County Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigations are working together to
try and solve the cold case of the disappearance of Shanna Peoples from Geneva, Alabama.
19-year-old Shanna, who has a slight learning disability, was last seen after she left her
boyfriend’s house on the 8th of September 2011, just down the road from where she lives. The last
time that she was spotted was in the area of 303 North Morris Street where she was riding her bike.
She was on her way to a nearby shop where she was going to buy some candy and soda,
but she never returned home and she has not been seen or heard from
since. On that morning, one of her friends went to her house to visit,
but when they arrived they found the house’s front door open and Shanna missing.
Shanna takes daily medication for her disability and this
was found to have been left behind in her house. It is believed that,
at the time, she was wearing white denim Capri pants, a green top and flip-flops.
She is a tall woman, just shy of 6 feet with sandy blonde hair
and brown eyes. She also has a distinctive birthmark on the inside of her leg
just above the knee, though it is unclear which leg it is on.
Her father, Elvis McKee, has stated that investigators don’t know any more than
they did on the day that she disappeared and they fear that she may have been a victim of foul play
as police are usually able to find missing young people within a few weeks,
but in Shanna’s case, it has been over ten years since she disappeared.
Anyone who has information on Shanna’s whereabouts is urged
to contact the Geneva Police Department at (334) 684-2777
or 911.
4. Austin
Bennett Tice
40-year-old Austin Bennett Tice is an American freelance journalist
and veteran of the US Marine Corps and in August of 2012,
he was in Syria, reporting on the civil war that was taking place there.
His father stated that, after leaving active duty as a Captain, Tice was hearing reports from the
area, but that none of the sources were reliable due to a lack of journalists on the ground.
He felt that the civil war was a story that the world needed to hear about
and so, he decided to enter the country in May of 2012 to start reporting for McClatchy,
The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets. He travelled through central Syria,
filing battlefield dispatches before finally arriving in Damascus in July.
Thanks to his reporting, his Twitter account gained 2,000 followers, but on the 11th of August,
his tweets stopped. It later came to light that he had been abducted
and at first, there was no word from either Tice or his captors.
But then, in September of that year, a 47-second video was released showing Tice blindfolded and
bound. A US spokesperson would later state that they believed Tice to have been taken
by the Syrian government, as no group in Syria had claimed responsibility for his detainment.
In April of 2018, the FBI raised their reward for information on his
whereabouts to 1 million dollars, since they believed that he was still alive.
In November of that year, Robert O’Brien, who is the US Special Presidential Envoy
for Hostage Affairs, asked Russia to use their influence to secure Tice’s release,
but the Syrian government stated that they didn’t have any information on his whereabouts.
His family remained hopeful that he would be returned home and pleaded
with then-US President Donald Trump to negotiate his release,
but they then found out that not everyone was as anxious to get him back.
Through an excerpt in the book “The Room Where it Happened”, written by former National Security
Advisor John Bolton, they learned that Trump had repeatedly pushed for hostage exchanges,
but Bolton and former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, saw it as “undesirable” as
it would affect other policy goals, such as keeping a certain amount of troops in Syria.
In 2020, the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. installed a “Freedom Clock” at their
headquarters that marks the amount of time that has elapsed since Tice was abducted 9 years ago.
3.
Amanda DeGuio
In May of 2014, Amanda DeGuio (dee goo yo)was spending time with her two daughters,
her sister and her mother on a vacation to Disney World. On the 27th of May,
they made their way back to her mother’s house, where she was staying with her children.
Less than three weeks later, while her daughters were staying with their father,
she mysteriously vanished and since then, her disappearance has become an FBI cold case. It was
noted that she didn’t take her cell phone, credit cards or any additional clothing with her and her
family says it is very out of character for her to stay out of contact for extended periods of time.
Police have since stated that there is a warrant out for Amanda’s arrest
as she is a suspect in a crime that was committed
a week after her family last saw her when she picked up prescription medication
in someone else’s name at a pharmacy. She is wanted for identity theft and receiving stolen
property. Amanda had previously pleaded guilty in an unrelated case concerning retail theft.
Late in 2014, a witness came forward and stated that she saw Amanda a few weeks prior,
but had no further information on her location. Upper Darby Police Superintendent, Mike Chitwood,
has stated that they have done everything they possibly can to locate Amanda,
but that they have had zero leads as to where she might have gone.
He added that there is no evidence of foul play and so, it is presumed that she disappeared of
her own free will. Her sister, Nicole, stated that Amanda suffers from mental health issues
and also has a substance addiction that occurred after she had complications while giving birth.
Nicole added, however, that Amanda was 100% sober while they were at Disney World and
that she seemed genuinely happy at the time. She had been talking about getting a new job,
that she wanted to start dressing nicely and that she wanted to get her teeth fixed.
In February of 2015, a woman contacted Nicole and told her that Amanda had phoned her in September
to ask for a ride. She hadn’t heard from her in the months prior to that but on that day,
she saw her in a second floor apartment where she was living with a man
in his 40s and at the time, she seemed to be doing fine.
The Upper Darby police have stated that the case is still
open and anyone who has any information can contact them on (610) 734-7677.
2. Lori Ann Boffman
FBI investigators have been working on the case of the mysterious disappearance
of Lori Ann Boffman since she went missing in 2006.
On the 4th of August of that year, Lori had just won $1,000 in the lottery and decided
to have a party for her daughter the next day before she had to return to college.
During that night, Lori was accompanied by an unidentified man to a grocery store
where they ordered food for the party. The total cost of the food was over $500
and she was supposed to return to the store the next day to collect it.
The following day, Lori arrived at the party, but she had not gone to pick up the food yet.
Her family noticed that she was acting strangely,
but they assumed it was due to her new diabetes and anti-anxiety medications.
At some point, Lori left the party to drive a friend home, after which she was to return
again. Her family said that when she left, she seemed unusually upset and had been crying.
The friend later told police that Lori was driving erratically and too fast and she
asked her to stop the car so that she could get out. That was the last time anyone ever saw her.
On the 6th of August, her 1992 Mercury Sable was found abandoned on the lawn of the town’s library.
It was noted that the car had picked up damage as it had left the road,
travelled through a residential yard, hitting a swing set before crashing
into the library’s wall. The engine was still running and the driver’s door was still open.
Inside, police found Lori’s glasses, medication and money, leading them to
believe that she hadn’t just run off. People living near the library reported hearing noise
at about 3 am that morning, which may have been the time of the accident. Since then, however,
no further witnesses or leads have been found and Lori’s case remains an unsolved mystery.
1. Mary Johnson
39-year-old Mary Johnson, an enrolled citizen of the Tulalip Tribes,
was living with her husband in Washington in her sister, Gerry Davis’ house in 2020. At some point,
Mary and her husband suddenly decided to move 40 miles away to Marysville and after that,
she would rarely respond to her sister’s texts and phone calls.
On the 24th of November, the day before she went missing, Mary’s now estranged husband dropped her
off at a man’s house on the northern edge of the Tulalip Reservation. The couple had been having
issues as Mary was worried that he was moving to California with some of her belongings.
The man living at the house, which was along Fire Trail, then drove her to the Tulalip Tribal Court
where she was going to seek legal advice. She spoke to a security guard in the lobby,
but she was told that there weren’t any attorneys available and she left.
She spent the night at the man’s house and the following day,
he was supposed to give her a ride to a nearby church. There,
she was supposed to meet up with yet another man who would drive her to a house near Oso.
A third man, who was also staying at the house, would be getting a ride from the same man.
On the 25th of November, while the two of them waited for the driver to get ready to take them
to the church, they became impatient, angering the driver who told the man to get out of his truck.
Mary and the man decided to walk instead, heading east from the house on 140th Street NW,
also known as Fire Trail Road at around 1:30 pm.
But when her friend arrived at the church, she wasn’t there yet and he drove up Fire Trail
where he saw her walking with the man. He passed them and texted her
saying that he didn’t have enough space in his car for the both of them.
A short while later, she texted him to say that she was almost at the church,
but she never arrived and she has not been heard from since. In the months before her
disappearance, she had been in contact with the man every day, but she has been silent ever since.
The man who she was walking with stopped at a friend’s house along the way
and Mary continued on alone, vanishing forever.
Any tips can be submitted to the FBI Seattle Field Office at 206-622-0460.