The 2004 disappearance of Patrice Endres is a cold case explored on Netflix's recent Unsolved
Mysteries reboot. Nearly 20 years later, no one is any closer to finding out the truth.
What details got left on the cutting room floor? This is the untold truth of Patrice
Endres' mysterious disappearance.
If you haven't seen the Unsolved Mysteries episode, here's a quick recap: On April 15,
2004, Patrice Endres' day began like any other. It was a typical Thursday. She had several
appointments at her hair salon, Tamber's Trim 'n' Tan in Cumming, Georgia, a small town
about 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta. She had just finished up one of these appointments
at around 11:30 A.M. and was ready to heat up her lunch in the salon's microwave.
Endres was a well-known member of the community, and her shop had stood for several years already.
As far as anyone knew, she didn't have any enemies. No one seemed to particularly dislike
her, and her shop was never the site of any kind of trouble or crime.
"She'd just come up to you and throw her arms around you and just be, y'know, she was just
always like that. She just loved everybody."
So it's very odd that, sometime between one client leaving at 11:30 A.M. and her next
appointment showing up at noon, Patrice Endres disappeared in broad daylight. Endres' noon
client couldn't find her anywhere on the premises, so they called the police, who came out and
also couldn't locate her anywhere in or around the hair salon. This was just the tip of what
would turn out to be a very weird and confounding iceberg.
"I picked up her skeleton, I mean her head, and carried it around for awhile."
There are a few interesting details about the cold case that the Unsolved Mysteries
episode cut out. One was an eyewitness who claimed that, on the morning of Patrice Endres'
disappearance, she saw a white van parked outside of the salon, and she also spotted
an unknown male. Police brought her in for questioning.
She described the man and his van in great detail, and she even worked with a police
sketch artist to come up with a composite sketch. The authorities had their first suspect,
and began distributing flyers and other materials with the sketch. They even had it aired on
the news, in case anyone who knew him might be watching.
Then, something entirely unexpected happened: The witness completely recanted her testimony
and said she made the whole thing up. Investigators were naturally frustrated that they had spent
so much time and money on what seemed to be a dead-end lead. The witness was subsequently
charged with providing false statements, according to the Forsyth County News. These events raise
a lot of questions. Why did the witness make up this story, and how did it go so far?
According to Unsolved Mysteries, two other witnesses also saw a vehicle outside of the
shop, a car, not a van. How did these accounts compare to the false testimony? Was the witness
telling the truth, but someone or something forced her to recant her testimony and claim
she lied?
As Unsolved Mysteries detailed, two serial killers are still suspects in the case, despite
their stories pretty much falling apart. There's Jeremy Bryan Jones, who claimed he killed
Endres and dumped her body in Sweetwater Creek. But, as the Forsyth County News puts it,
"...the subsequent discovery of her body some 70 miles from the creek and the fact that
Jones failed to provide specifics other than what had been reported on the news, quashed
any belief he was her killer."
Jones ultimately recanted his confession. Then there's Gary Michael Hilton, also known
as the "National Forest Serial Killer," who committed a string of slayings in North Carolina,
Florida, and, yes, Georgia. All of these acts took place in national forests, hence the
moniker.
But here's a detail that Unsolved Mysteries left out: An outdoorsman, Hilton was a consultant
on a straight-to-video 1995 film called Deadly Run, which revolves around a serial killer
who stalks his female victims in the woods. According to producer Samuel Rael, the whole
plot was actually Hilton's idea. Rael, also a lawyer, had Hilton as a client and acquaintance,
and when Rael mentioned that he wanted to make a serial killer movie, Hilton brought
up the idea of the killer using a large forest as his hunting ground, according to CNN. It
wasn't until Hilton's capture in 2008 that Rael realized that Hilton's idea wasn't just
a story, but a preview, of sorts, of what he planned to do.
"I'm a hunter, Nancy. A damn fine hunter. No woman ever tells about one of my little
holidays!"
Police had good reason to suspect Hilton in the death of Patrice Endres. He had previously
killed Meredith Emerson, a woman hiking with her dog in the Chattahoochee National Forest
in 2008, where he also disposed of her body. The woods where Endres' body was found were
part of this same national forest, about 50 miles away. However, this, too, turned out
to be another dead end. While still technically a suspect, police couldn't find anything definitive
connecting Hilton to the disappearance and killing of Endres.
Patrice Endres' disappearance and death isn't the only long-unsolved cold case in the area.
In 1997, an 11-year-old boy named Levi Frady also went missing, and his remains were found
in the same woods where Endres and Meredith Emerson, the victim of Gary Michael Hilton,
were found.
On October 22, 1997, Levi Frady went to a friend's house after school. He never came
home. After visiting with one friend, Levi headed to another friend's house from there
to eat dinner. He tried to call home to tell his family of his plans, but his mother was
in the bath and couldn't answer. He was supposed to be home by 6:30 P.M., and when he didn't
arrive, his mother and twin sister went out looking for him. They found his bike on the
side of the road but assumed he'd left it there and continued on foot, planning to grab
it later.
The following morning, Levi still hadn't come home. Later in the day, hunters found human
remains in a forest in Dawson County, Georgia, 19 miles away from where Levi disappeared,
according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He had been shot twice in the chest and once
in the head, and then left for dead. It is unknown if the case is linked in any way to
the Endres case, and police have never indicated that it is, but the similarities are worth
noting.
If you have information about the Patrice Endres cold case, call the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation Tip Line at 1-800-597-8477.
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