When someone mysteriously disappears, we all hope that their families and loved ones find
answers.
Even decades old cases can be resolved, but sometimes cases that need to be solved never
get the pieces needed to conclusively resolve them.
Number 5
In 2009, the McLemore family were facing a challenging time.
Gracie McLemore was extremely ill with scleroderma and, in April, her condition took a turn for
the worse.
The family was already very close, and her mother and daughter, Alyssa, were both caring
for her.
Alyssa also had a daughter, who was a few months shy of her second birthday.
On April 9th, Alyssa received a phone call from her grandmother, saying Gracie’s condition
had worsened.
Alyssa said she would come home.
Alyssa never made it home.
Her mother passed away three days later.
Alyssa didn’t attend the funeral.
Her family has no idea where she is.
The circumstances surrounding Alyssa’s disappearance are extremely creepy.
Her family realised the day she vanished that something was wrong and tried to contact authorities,
but were told they needed to wait 24 hours.
The following evening, someone made a 911 call from Alyssa’s phone.
The call only lasted 10 seconds, but the dispatcher heard a woman screaming for help before the
line went dead.
They were unable to trace the call, but were fairly certain it came from the Kent area
of Washington, where Alyssa lived.
Whether the woman calling for help was actually Alyssa has never been confirmed, but it was
her mobile number.
In the time between her call from her grandmother and the 911 call, multiple witnesses saw Alyssa
near Kent Des Moines Road and Pacific Highway South.
It’s an area relatively well known to be frequented by prostitutes.
The witnesses saw Alyssa talking to a white man, between the ages of 50 and 60, in a green
pick-up truck with out of state license plates.
One witness claimed it looked like the two knew each other.
Alyssa had been arrested for prostitution in the past, but it seems unlikely this was
what she was doing on the day she vanished, as she would have been on her way to see her
very sick mother.
There have been no further sightings of Alyssa and her family believe something terrible
happened to her.
They say she wouldn’t have abandoned her family, especially not her daughter, who was
with Alyssa’s boyfriend and the child’s father at the time of Alyssa’s disappearance.
Authorities believe someone knows what happened to her, and are hopeful someone might come
forward with information.
As the years go on it seems less and less likely, but there is hope this could someday
be explained.
Alyssa is described as a bi-racial woman of African American and Native American decent.
She was between 5ft3 and 5ft6 when she vanished, and weighed roughly 360 pounds.
She had brown hair, but would often dye it blond, and had a scar on her abdomen.
Anyone with information should contact Kent Police Department.
Sources: https://thehueandcry.com/alyssa-mclemore https://www.mommalovestruecrime.com/2020/02/the-disappearance-of-alyssa-mclemore.html
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/a-kent-woman-called-911-then-disappeared-that-was-10-years-ago-her-family-and-police-want-to-find-her/ https://charleyproject.org/case/alyssa-angelique-mclemore
Number 4
On March 31st, 2004, Skye Lynn Budnick told her parents she was going to visit a friend
who lived nearby.
She took her laptop and left the house.
It was the last time her family would see her.
Skye lived in central Connecticut, where she studied Japanese Culture at the state university.
But when her parents started searching for her four days after she was last seen, they
would soon realise Connecticut wasn’t the place they were going to get answers.
Her parents reported Skye missing on April 4th.
After doing this, they were able to access her email, where they discovered she had booked
a one-way trip to Japan, leaving on April 1st.
The unexpected trip out of the country was strange enough, but Skye hadn’t packed any
clothes with her, hadn’t taken a mobile phone, and only had her laptop with her.
She had also withdrawn $800 from her bank account shortly before she vanished, but that
wouldn’t last her very long.
Skye’s family had reasons to fear the worst.
She was suffering from mental health problems, including depression.
It was a condition that ran in the family, but Skye refused to see a doctor about it.
She said it was something she needed to deal with on her own, but it didn’t appear like
her mental health was getting any better.
She would often talk about no longer wanting to be alive, and said if she saw the cherry
blossoms in Japan she would be able to pass away happily.
Her school work wasn’t going great, either.
She would often sleep through morning classes, and missed a deadline to apply to study in
Japan as part of the university’s study abroad programme.
The only reason she was staying at the school was to remain part of the anime club.
Skye had spent much of her teenage years alone.
She was extremely shy and didn’t make many friends, which only continued after she went
to university.
The one friend she did have, they fell into an argument the week before Skye vanished.
It was this friend that a note was written to.
Her family found the note saved in the drafts folder on her email account.
It was never sent, and there was no information about when the note was written.
Even if the note wasn’t recent, it’s fair to say Skye wasn’t in a good frame of mind
when she travelled to Japan.
Her family followed her over there to try to search for their missing loved one.
For about a week after she arrived in Japan, Skye had done typical tourist things, like
visiting hot springs.
The last day she was seen, April 7th, she said she was travelling to Sapporo.
She was never seen after that.
Search teams searched the mountain side for Skye, but turned up nothing.
It’s possible she’s still in the mountains, but just hasn’t been found.
If that’s the case, it’s possible decades will pass before the mystery is solved.
However, there is also a chance Skye is still alive, or at least lived a while longer after
she was last seen.
The cherry blossoms she wanted to see typically occurred later in the month.
It was an event that Skye had mentioned many times, so it’s possible she had spent more
of the month.
Another more hopeful theory is that she started her life again in Japan, and is figuring things
out herself, like she always said she would.
Skye was 21-years-old when she vanished.
She had brown hair, blue eyes, and was 5ft6in.
Anyone with information that could solve this unsolved disappearance should contact the
US Consulate in Sapporo Japan.
Sources: https://www.caseremains.com/post/skye-budnick https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4666523&page=1
https://letsfindthem.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/what-happened-to-skye-lynn-budnick/
Number 3
LaResha Walker has been missing for more than 20 years, and her disappearance may never
be solved.
She vanished in peculiar circumstances on November 19th, 1999, after an argument with
an unknown person.
The day LaResha went missing was mostly normal.
She spent time with her family earlier in the day, then dropped her two-year-old son
off with her sister.
LaResha had an appointment to see a mechanic in Nashville, early the following morning,
and her sister was watching young Rayvon overnight so she didn’t have to wake him up early
or take him with her.
After dropping her son off, LaResha returned to her home nearby.
She called her father between 9.30 and 10pm.
They chatted for a while, and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
Her family grew concerned the following day.
Nobody had heard from her and she hadn’t come to pick up her son.
Her sister, LaKisha went to visit her home and found the screen door locked.
When she went inside, she found nobody was home, but all the lights were on and the stereo
was on, playing music at an extremely loud volume.
Other than the fact there was nobody in, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong.
LaKisha turned down the volume on the radio, turned off the lights, and left.
The following day, there was still no sign of LaResha.
Now her family was extremely worried and contacted the police.
A search of the house found what LaKisha found, that nothing was out of place.
However, they did also discover that the clothes LaResha had been wearing earlier that day
had been left behind.
This confirmed he had come home, and that she had gotten changed at some point.
It’s not known if LaResha’s family were able to determine what she changed into.
Talking to neighbours also revealed some important information.
LaResha had only been living in the apartment for a month or so, and her neighbours didn’t
know her well enough to intervene when they heard her arguing with someone the night she
vanished.
No description of the person she was heard arguing with, even whether it sounded like
a man or a woman, have come to light, nor has details of when exactly it ended.
Along with LaResha, her car was also missing from her home.
LaResha drove a 1995, red four-door Oldsmobile, which had a large scratch on the drivers’
door, and the license late 419-ABG.
The car, and LaResha, have never been found.
Tragedy struck years later when, in October 2016, LaResha’s mother also went missing.
Wanda Walker had spent years searching for her daughter to no avail.
On October 5th, she too disappeared on her way to work.
Wanda had stopped part-way there after her car overheated, but her boyfriend came out
and put oil in the car.
He was able to solve the situation and Wanda went on her way.
She never showed up for work and a week later her car turned up in an ally near her home.
There were signs of a struggle and police believe someone may have taken Wanda’s life
there.
Police don’t believe the two incidents were connected, but it’s possible foul play was
responsible for LaResha’s creepy disappearance.
Sources: https://charleyproject.org/case/laresha-deana-walker https://charleyproject.org/case/wanda-faye-walker
https://www.reddit.com/r/coldcases/comments/kklcwr/the_disappearance_of_laresha_deana_walker_and_her/ https://ourblackgirls.com/2020/03/08/laresha-walker-her-mother-wanda-walker-disappear-17-years-apart/
Number 2
In November 2002, Joshua Guimond was a junior at St John’s University in Minnesota, where
he was studying political sciences.
He was known as a high achiever, and was involved in extra curricular that he hoped would help
him achieve his career goals.
But on the night of November 9th, he was enjoying himself at a card party at a friend’s dorm
on campus.
Between 11pm and midnight, he left the party to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t come
back.
His friends assumed he had made the three minute walk to his own dorm room, which was
also on campus.
They tried to call his room, but got no answer and thought he must have gone straight to
bed.
The following day, Joshua was supposed to meet with the rest of the mock trial team
for practice, but he didn’t show up.
Nobody was able to get hold of him.
When nobody had heard from him by the following day, his friends contacted authorities and
he was reported missing.
Unfortunately, Josh’s case quickly went cold.
There was no sign he had returned to his apartment on the night of the party, but also no sign
of a struggle on campus.
It was as if he had disappeared into thin air.
There was a lake on campus, and police for a while worked with the belief he had fallen
in the lake while drunk.
His friends claimed he wasn’t intoxicated when he left the party, but it still would
have been possible for him to lose his footing.
However, searches of the lakes by both police and private divers have turned up nothing.
Joshua’s father believes something much darker happened to him.
Joshua left behind his glasses and contact lenses, as well as his credit cards.
If he had voluntarily disappeared, it would have been strange to do so without his glasses.
His father believes he was abducted for unknown reasons, but police found no sign of a struggle
on campus.
Strangely, not long after Joshua vanished, files were erased from his computer hard drive.
Whether this was automatic or done by someone is unknown.
Police were able to recover the items and found that some of it was about making fake
ID cards.
As Joshua’s case has been cold for almost 20 years now, it’s possible the disappearance
may never be solved.
But it’s also possible someone out there knows what happened that night.
Joshua was between 5ft10in and 6ft tall at the time of his disappearance, wearing a hooded
sweatshirt and jeans.
Anyone with information should contact Stearns County Sheriff’s Department.
Sources: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/03/16/father-of-missing-st-johns-student-josh-guimond-files-lawsuit-against-stearns-county-in-search-for-answers/ https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/09/16/it-can-be-solved-17-years-on-search-for-st-johns-student-josh-guimond-continues/
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/11/08/15-year-search-missing-st-johns-student-yields-frustration-few-answers https://charleyproject.org/case/joshua-cheney-guimond
Number 1
The disappearance of Iraena Asher was both extremely strange and extremely sad, and is
a case that may never be solved.
Iraena was a 25-year-old trainee teacher and part-time model who vanished in what was possibly
a manic episode in the early hours of October 11th, 2004.
She was last seen walking towards the ocean on a beach in New Zealand, but her body has
never been recovered, something those familiar with the area found very unusual.
Iraena had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder years earlier, but it was a condition she
was managing at the time she vanished.
A few days before the incident, she had been visiting family.
Her family knew all too well the signs that Iraena was approaching another episode.
Most notable was how hyperactive she would get.
But there was nothing like that leading up to when she vanished.
She had however recently broken up with her long-term partner and had started a new relationship.
It was this new boyfriend who she had been with earlier in the day on October 10th.
They were at his home with another couple, but Iraena started acting strangely.
He left at her request, but Iraena stayed for a while longer.
Multiple people came and left the house.
At least one person who had visited had been using illicit substances, and it’s not known
if Iraena had taken anything.
At 9m that evening, she contacted police and said she felt unsafe and was being pressured
into things she didn’t want to do.
But police didn’t think this required them to make sure she was ok and they instead sent
a taxi to bring her home.
The taxi ended up going to the wrong address and Iraena fled the house, wearing only Ugg
boots, underwear and a sweater.
Iraena was next found by Julia Woodhouse and her teenage son who were driving home.
Julia was concerned about the young woman, and invited her back to the lodge she ran
with her partner.
Iraena agreed and went back with them.
Julia was under the impression Iraena may have been coming down after taking an illegal
substance, and she seemed to be in some mental distress.
When police were mentioned, Iraena asked for them not to be called, and Julia agreed.
She and her partner helped get Iraena cleaned up and gave her a dressing gown to keep warm.
They agreed to take her home in the morning.
But, just after 1am, when everyone else had gone to bed, Iraena fled from the house.
The couple went after her to make sure she was ok, but found the discarded dressing gown.
She was next seen about half an hour later by two men walking their dogs.
She was naked, as far as they could see, and stood under a street light near the beach.
She seemed to be talking to someone, then bent down and kissed the ground.
Iraena ran towards the sea and the two men lost track of her.
Even with a torch, it was too late to see where she had gone and they figured she had
likely just gone skinny dipping.
Julia called police after Iraena fled from the lodge and a search effort got under way
that night.
The effort focused on the beach where she was last seen, which was particularly rough
that night, but in a way that made it more likely anybody would have been washed ashore
than taken out to sea.
Nobody ever showed up, though an inquest found she had likely lost her life in the water.