Most missing person cases are relatively simple, and solved within a few days, if not sooner.
More mysterious missing person cases can go unexplained for years or even decades.
Number 5
On the surface, the missing person case of Luke Joly-Durocher is relatively simple, though
tragic.
He disappeared while intoxicated not too far from a body of water.
In most cases, this would be an open shut case, even if a body was never found.
But police believe there was more to it than that, and this case only gets more mysterious.
Luke was 20-years-old when he went missing on a night out in March 2011.
He was staying with a friend in North Bay, Ontario.
The nearby Lake Nipissing was frozen at the time and a snow storm was due.
Luke and his friends spent the evening of March 4th drinking and, by the time they decided
to go out, Luke was intoxicated.
The group travelled to a bar about 10 minutes away, arriving just before midnight.
Luke was barred entry, but his friends went inside.
It was the last time they would see him.
Rather than head back to where he was staying, Luke wandered along main street.
He was seen on security footage entering a Bank of Montreal location, followed by an
unidentified man.
However, he didn’t withdraw any money at the time.
His bank card would be found a few days later in the snow, and it seemed like he had dropped
it at some point between leaving the house and arriving at the club.
For years, that was thought to be the last place Luke was spotted, leaving open the possibility
that he had fallen into the lake.
Even though it was frozen over at the time, there was a possibility he might have broken
through the ice.
Numerous searches of the water turned up nothing, and police were still following up other leads.
There was a great deal of attention on the unidentified man who followed Luke into the
bank, and some believed he may have been involved in the disappearance.
In 2019, police announced there was a later sighting of Luke.
He was seen by employees at Shooter’s bar at the Voyager Inn, a 30 minute walk from
the bank where he had been caught on CCTV.
According to witnesses there, he had left at about 3:30am, having obtained a ride from
a customer there.
For some reason, police believe Luke met foul play.
The second location was some distance from any significant body of water, making an accident
less likely.
Luke’s father believed he owed someone money, and they had attacked him when he was unable
to withdraw money at the bank, though that wouldn’t explain the later sighting.
Another theory is that he met someone unsavoury while hitch-hiking home.
It’s likely someone knows what happened to Luke.
He is described of having a slim build, standing 5ft8in tall and weighing 150 pounds at the
time of his disappearance.
He was wearing a dark navy jacket, grey t-shirt and dark blue jeans.
Any information should be passed to North Bay Police Service or Near North Crime Stoppers.
Number 4 On July 16th, 1996, Susan Walsh dropped her
12-year-old son off with her estranged husband.
She said she would be gone for half an hour, and she was going to run errands and make
a call at the phone box down the street.
She never came back.
Susan was a freelance journalist.
She had a history of alcohol and controlled substances use when she was at college, but
had gotten herself clean after she graduated.
She had also worked as an exotic dancer, which gave her a unique perspective that helped
her journalistic career.
Her big break came when she wrote a story for the magazine Village Voice about the Russian
mob, exposing illegal acts in some New Jersey strip clubs.
Naturally, writing about a criminal organisation earned her some enemies, and she received
some threats, but at the time it didn’t seem like she was in any danger.
In 1987, she married Mark Walsh, a musician, and they had a son together the following
year.
But by the early 1990s, their marriage had begun to deteriorate and they split for good.
Mark moved into the basement flat of the building Susan lived in.
By 1996, Susan’s life had become messy again.
After 12 years clean, she had started drinking again, stopped taking her bipolar medication,
and was taking anxiety medication.
She was also working in a strip club again.
But she was also doing a lot of work in her journalism career, had done research for a
book on the sex industry by James Ridgeway and Sylvia Plachy, and had appeared in a documentary
about strippers created by her friend Jill Morley.
She had found her passion in speaking up for women who were in this line of work.
Everything came to a halt that July day.
Police would later discover no out-going calls were made at any of the nearby payphones.
At first, Mark wouldn’t let police into the house, but they eventually came in and
discovered the entire month of July had been ripped from Susan’s calendar, possibly to
hide some appointment she had that day.
What happened to Susan remains a mystery.
She was suffering from mental health problems at the time, so some believe she may have
taken her own life.
Others suspect foul play, as they couldn’t see her doing that to her son.
She had believed she was being stalked shortly before she disappeared, and some believe the
Russian mob was after her.
The strangest theory is that her disappearance was due to a vampire cult.
She had been researching real life vampires shortly before she vanished.
It was a strange subculture she was very interested in, and she even dated someone who claimed
to be a vampire for a short time.
Susan was apparently upset when the magazine she worked with rejected her article on the
cult.
Some suspect just writing about them might have angered members of this group, even though
nothing was published.
There was a sighting of Susan some months after she vanished.
A friend allegedly saw Susan get into a black car with a man.
The man was tracked down, but he couldn’t be certain the woman he was with was actually
Susan.
If Susan is alive today, she would be 61-years-old.
At the time of her disappearance, she was 5ft6in tall, weighed 110 pounds and had bleached
blonde hair.
Information on the case should be passed to Nutley Police Department or New Jersey State
Police.
Number 3
Most missing person cases don’t get a large amount of media attention.
Even those that have been cold for decades, leaving the family and law enforcement puzzled
as to what happened, don’t always reach the masses.
This is the case with Carla Elizabeth Losey, who has been missing since 2002.
Not a whole lot of information has been released about Carla’s life, and even less is known
about her disappearance.
She was 20-years-old when she disappeared, living in Columbus, Ohio.
She had family in the area, and was close to her mother and her sister.
She was living at the 40 West Motel, and worked as an exotic dancer at a number of bars.
According to the Charley Project, Carla had previously been arrested for prostitution,
but it’s not known if this was something Carla was still involved with at the time
of her disappearance.
It was New Years Eve when she was last seen.
Like any bar, El Grotto’s where Carla worked would have been expecting a large crowd of
people looking to bring in the New Year.
Carla left her home at 7pm to go to the bar, where she remained until about midnight.
She was last seen by witnesses leaving the bar shortly after midnight.
She was with an unidentified African American man.
No CCTV footage of Carla leaving has ever been made public.
This was where the trail went cold.
What happened to Carla after that remains a mystery.
She may have attempted to travel to Richmond, Virginia, or New York by public transport
or hitch-hiking, but nobody has ever come forward to say they saw her.
Her family believe she may have passed away, but still have not given up hope that they
might find her and get the answers they deserve.
Carla was 5ft6in and weighed 135 pounds when she disappeared.
She was wearing a black dress when she left the bar.
She was Caucasian and of Yugoslavian decent, but could have been mistaken for Latina.
She would be 39-years-old if she is still alive.
Number 2
When one person or a small group of people go missing without a trace it can be disturbing.
But when an entire plane disappears, leaving behind no clues as to how or why something
like this would happen, it’s particularly creepy.
The plane in question was a Boeing 727 with the tail number N844AA.
It’s time in Angola had been nothing but trouble.
The plane was owned by Aerospace Sales and Leasing and had been taken to Angola by a
company looking to take advantage of the civil war there.
The plan was to use the plane to bring fuel to the diamond mines there, but between disputes
with local partners and the volatile nature of the situation in Angola, the deal fell
through.
Now, Aerospace Sales and Leasing were repossessing the plane.
That was where Ben Padilla came in.
Ben was a Florida-based flight engineer who had travelled around the world for work.
He had a private pilot’s license and couldn’t fly the plane himself.
But when Ben arrived in Angola to work on the plane in November 2002, it was in no condition
to be flying anywhere.
Ben’s job was to get it ready to be flown to South Africa, where there was a new buyer
who wanted it for its engine.
Ben had hired a man named John Mutantu from the Republic of the Congo as a helper and
had arranged with a local flight crew to fly the plane to South Africa when it was ready.
Progress was going well, until May 25th, 2003.
At around 6pm local time, Ben and John boarded the 727.
Onlookers were amazed when the plane began taxiing for take off.
The tower at the airport was unable to get a response from the 727 as it took off without
permission, leaving behind the flight crew that were supposed to be onboard.
Maury Joseph, president of the company that owned the plane, was notified of its disappearance
by the Angolan flight crew.
He contacted the US embassy in South Africa and asked his wife back in the US to contact
the FBI.
International alerts were issued to try to locate the 727.
It shouldn’t have been able to fly with just two people onboard, even if both of them
were qualified, which wasn’t the case.
There was a fear someone else had been onboard and had hijacked the plane with the intention
of crashing it.
But there was no such act.
The 727 disappeared without a trace.
It’s likely, if the plane was hijacked, it crashed into the ocean somewhere and hasn’t
been recovered.
Alternatively, it may have been taken over by smugglers.
A burned out 727 was discovered in the Sahara desert in November 2009.
It was determined the plane had landed safely, it’s cargo had been unloaded, and the plane
had been set ablaze.
There have been other alleged sightings of the plane, but none have been confirmed as
the missing N844AA.
There have been no such sightings of Ben and John.
Even if the missing plane is found, there’s a chance this mysterious missing persons case
won’t be solved.
Number 1 The disappearance of Brandon Lawson is one
of the most mysterious unexplained missing person cases.
It’s been more than eight years since he vanished in Texas, and his family are no closer
to finding the answers they need for closure.
Brandon was 26-years-old at the time of his disappearance.
He was an oil field worker, which resulted in long hours and put a strain on his relationship
with his finance, Ladessa.
But in August 2013, Brandon was looking forward to starting a new job, which should have left
him with more time to spend with Ladessa and his four young children.
But Brandon was also dealing with other issues.
He had a history of using illegal substances and, though he had been clean for about six
months, he had recently started using again.
On August 8th, 2013, Brandon and Ladessa got into an argument about Brandon’s relapse,
as he had been trying to get substances from his brother Kyle earlier that day.
According to Ladessa, Brandon was tripping and started flipping out.
He left the house just before midnight and started the three hour drive to his father’s
house in Fort Worth, Texas.
At around 12:30am, he called Kyle.
He had run out of gas on Highway 277 and needed Kyle to bring some.
However, Kyle was waiting to get paid, so decided to go to where Brandon said he was,
get money, then go and get gas.
Kyle drove to where Brandon said he would be.
His girlfriend and their young son was in the car with him.
When they arrived, there was no sign of Brandon.
His truck was there, parked erratically at the side of the road.
The doors were all open, and Brandon’s keys, phone and wallet were missing.
Kyle called Brandon again, but the signal was very bad and Kyle couldn’t make out
what he was saying.
When Kyle asked where Brandon was, he said he was right there.
While they were talking on the phone, a police officer pulled up.
Brandon told Kyle “one time, run!”, which Kyle later said referred to law enforcement.
Kyle told Brandon he wasn’t going to run, as he hadn’t done anything wrong.
Brandon asked him where his pride was and hung up.
The police officer informed Kyle a trucker had reported Brandon’s abandoned car as
it was parked dangerously.
For the next four hours or so, Kyle drove up and down the road looking for his brother,
but there was no sign of him.
Ladessa filed a missing person report the following morning, and while she was going
through Brandon’s phone records she discovered he had called 911 after asking Kyle to bring
him gas.
The call has been released to the public.
In it, Brandon sounded panicked, and described someone chasing him.
It’s hard to make out what he’s saying, but it sounded like he believed he was surrounded.
He also said repeatedly that he “ran into them” and asked for police to come.
There were also some loud bangs in the background, which some have interpreted as a weapon being
used, but Kyle said it was the sound of vehicles going over the nearby bridge.
Extensive searches of the area where Brandon’s vehicle was abandoned have taken place.
At one point, police believed they found the spot where Brandon had been watching Kyle,
but none of his belongings were ever recovered.
Today, there are numerous theories about what happened in this missing person case.
Given the 911 call, some people believe Brandon stumbled across something he shouldn’t have,
and have even suggested rouge police officers were doing something illegal, although if
this was the case calling 911 doesn’t seem to make sense.
Others have suggested he intentionally vanished, as he had a bench warrant, but again if he
was running from the police, calling for them wouldn’t make much sense.
A more likely theory is that Brandon was simply under the influence of illegal substances,
and succumbed to the elements while on a bad trip.
If this is the case, the numerous searches would have overlooked his body, but answers
could be found with enough searching.
Brandon was 5ft9in and weight 230 pounds at the time of his disappearance.
He was wearing a yellow shirt and camouflage shorts.
Anyone with information on this missing persons case should contact Texas Department of Public
Safety.