And Then They Were Gone

Asha Degree was a bright, talented, happy 9-year-old living with her parents and brother in Shelby, North Carolina. She was an excellent student and the star of her basketball team. Surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, there was no shortage of love in Asha’s life. But in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, Asha took her backpack that she had packed wi

On January 29, 1992, Byron Page was getting ready to go to college and take his driver’s exam. He had already been accepted into several schools, with more acceptance letters on the way. That afternoon, the 17-year-old decided to take the bus to his favorite movie and music store in West Hollywood, California. He never made it. Despite being a promising student with no issues in

Today’s story is one about intimate partner violence. According to her family, friends, and police and court records, Mamta Kafle’s husband, Naresh Bhatt, was abusing her. He hid her documents, destroyed her phone, threatened to give their baby to social services, and physically abused her. Throughout it all, Mamta remained a kind, caring friend and a mother whose baby was her

On November 20, 1987, Louis and Susan Zaharias had an argument. By this point, fights weren’t uncommon for the couple, who had been married for six years. Susan was a stay-at-home mom with two small children who was feeling isolated while her husband worked long hours far away. But this day was different. Susan was acting paranoid, and not like herself. After a violent altercatio

On August 2, 2024, Manassas Park Police visited the Virginia home that Mamta Kafle shared with her husband, Naresh Bhatt. They were there to perform a welfare check because Mamta didn’t show up to work at UVA Health Prince William Medical Center on August 1, and her colleagues were concerned. Naresh allegedly told police that Mamta had disappeared before, and that he didn’t wan

Introducing…World of Secrets: The Apartheid KillerIntroducing a NEW investigation from the BBC’s World of Secrets podcast: The Apartheid Killer. All the victims were black and the youngest was just 12 years old. Some relatives are still searching for the graves. They were killed during a three-year bloodbath in the 1980s, in the South African city of East London – by one pers

Disappearances can happen in an instant. On April 19, 2016, 16-year-old Tyler Christensen went on a jog. He wanted to get a short run in on his way to a youth group meeting. But Tyler never arrived. After Tyler’s family realized that he was gone, they assumed something terrible must have happened to him. After all, he was a happy kid, living in Edmonds, Washington with a loving f

It was a scene straight out of an action movie: specifically The Bourne Identity. On September 16, 2008, the captain of a Staten Island Ferry saw a woman floating face down in the Hudson River, near the Statue of Liberty. Horrified and thinking they found a dead body, two deckhands jumped in a rescue boat and went to her. When they reached the woman, one picked her up by her ankles

On August 1, 2018, 28-year-old Samantha Sayers was ready for an adventure. An experienced hiker, Sam decided to drive two hours away from her Seattle home and tackle Vesper’s Peak. The hike was supposed to only be a day trip, so when darkness fell with no word from Samantha, her boyfriend, Kevin Dare grew concerned. Worried that she was injured, he drove out to the trail. But ins

Though our podcast focuses on unsolved missing persons cases, over the course of the last four years, we’ve seen movement on many of the cases we’ve covered, including some resolutions. This week, we’re going to revisit a few of the missing people whose stories we’ve told on this podcast and give you updates on what’s going on in their cases today. In this episode, we're