I was born in a small town in Illinois, and many of my family still lives in that area.
Recently, there was what appeared to be a simple, tragic car accident after a holiday party. The husband died in the accident, but the mystery is - what happened to his wife? Here is one of many threads to this story.
Basically, the woman vanished.
My cousin is one of the people on the search and rescue teams, and they are totally perplexed. “It is like an alien abducted her or something…” he said.
There are about three footprints in the heavy snow, indicating the wife got out of the car. They even found one of the slippers she was wearing (had taken off her high heels for the drive home) and then - nothing. No additional footprints, no body, no nothing! Just those three footprints leading away from the car. She did not have a jacket or coat, and the weather was very cold and it had just recently snowed quite a bit.
The have search about a 4 mile square radius of the rural accident scene and found no body, no other clues or indication she made it any further than those few steps.
Did someone pick her up and take her somewhere?
It has been close to a week. She has made no contact to her family - and she has four kids, aging in ranges from 15 to 4 years old.
No indication of family problems.
Alcohol, speeding and heavy snow most likely the cause of the original car accident, but otherwise - what would normally have been a simple, tragic car accident, has turned into a hunt for a vanished woman.
They are going to widen the search, once the weather changes and they can go further, but even with helicopters flying low in the area - trying to search from above and even using the helicopter to blow away snow in some of the larger drifts, they have found nothing.
I read about this a few days ago. Maybe she died from exposure and got covered in snow?
She could have walked pretty far trying to get help. I hope they find her.
Things have changed since my family left Mass. Dad always carried a blanket in the car. Everyone had jackets, gloves etc. If we broke down or got stuck in winter we were ready.
That was the first theory, but the three footsteps and then nothing is perplexing.
Plus, they have covered about 4 miles all the way around so far - granted, snow is deep, but still, how far could she have gone by foot? Plus, she was wearing a bright, red dress, so even if a bit was sticking out of the snow, should be easy to see by air or by foot.
The newest theory is someone may have picked her up - and not taken her to a hospital - still, they will continue the search, but now have to go even further.
Most of the guessing does not seem to include the cause of the accident. It seems very strange to me. The car seesm to have backed into a pole at a very high speed. Almost as if it had been forced to stop quickly and then spun around.
I think whoever caused the accident took her; and maybe taking her was the reason they caused it.
It seems clear that she must be badly hurt, the poor lady.
What a sad and puzzling story! It’s pretty darn rare for a woman to leave her children behind willingly. More likely she wondered off after being hurt in the crash though I hope this is not the case. But which would be worse? Her leaving her children behind or she wandered off, dying from extreme weather exposure?
If you’ve ever suffered a head injury resulting in amnesia, it’s a bit easier to understand what might have happened to this woman. I was kicked in the head once by a horse. I was way out in the back of a 40 acre pasture when it happened. I was out trying to catch my gelding who had become part of the broodmare band. I wasn’t told that they’d just turned out a new mare one day prior who was an absolute Bitch! The rest of the herd was terrified of her, for good reason. I was on the ground for about 20 minutes before I woke up and I had absolutely no idea where I was. I can still remember turning around in a circle, looking in all directions trying to figure out things. It was so scary! I finally saw the top of the barn in the distance and started walking that way. I don’t remember making it to the barn but everyone said I calmly walked in saying over and over " a horse kicked me, a horse kicked me…" I knew that much, anyway.
I do remember vividly the FEAR I felt because I couldn’t figure out where I was, who I was, how I’d gotten to where I was, etc. It felt exactly like a dream, very surreal. If this is what happened to this woman and she didn’t recover enough to make it to safety… I do hope they find her soon…
I read that her footprints led to a road , guess that was wrong. There was similar story in New England but only the car driver was in the car and she went missing after a wreck.
IMO, she is under the snow, not too far from the car. They have searched as far as 6 miles for her, but, I don’t think they have been using the right kind of dogs. Weather can also make it more difficult for a dog to catch her scent.
Being under the snow makes sense except for the lack of footprints. I think it’s pretty hard to move around in fresh snow and not leave a footprint trail.
I just wanted to add that I also read that footprints lead to the road and that one of her “slippers” was found inside of one of the footprints. I wonder if it’s possible that she was able to walk up to the road and followed the road for awhile before heading towards “something” that caught her interest…the power plant perhaps?
Years ago (2006) I was following the story of a family (The James Kim family) who became snowbound in the wilderness and after a couple days the husband took off to try and find help. His body was found days later. He had died of hypothermia and had no incapacitating physical injuries according to the autopsy. It turns out he had managed to walk over 16 miles in the snow and very rough terraign wearing just tennis shoes and other light articles of clothing.
So, I guess it is possible for someone (perhaps Tanya) to be fueled with so much adrenaline and trying to get help for her husband and herself to be able to walk a long distance before succumbing from hypothermia and/or internal injuries.
I assume they looked along the road for her or also for footprints that led off the road.
But sometimes it can be hard to find stuff. There was a case in Oregon where a woman drove off the road down a hill and she was found alive/injured in the car but it took 4 or 5 days. Took the cops a long time to notice the tire tracks in the dirt off the road.
We had a local case where a car went off I-95 into a swamp and it was completely under water. The cops eventually found that car but the people were long dead.
True enough, I wonder what “evidence” was destroyed when the other vehicles arrived at the scene of the accident? Could they have destroyed the footprints that were on the road? Is it possible that the snow plow might have come through and plowed the road?
I recall the case of the lady that was found 4 or 5 days later (at least I think so), it seems like the King County Sheriffs office took a lot of heat from this one because they didn’t request this lady’s cellphone records in a timely manner.
Ever wiped-out in snow and ice? Getting backwards is real easy to do. I find nothing odd about striking backwards.
Reportedly, the husband was sober, leaving the party. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t mildly impaired, though, and on bad roads you don’t even need to be mildly impaired to lose it. I’ve spun out stone-cold-sober when hitting a friction transition line between packed snow and ice.
I’m in the camp of “wandered off in a daze to find help, succumbed along the way.”
Tragic on any number of levels.
The Mystery will cease when the snow melts. She’ll be dead in a spot that makes complete sense in hindsite, and people will scratch thier heads and say, “Gee, I’m shocked we didn’t find her sooner”.
I grew up where it snows heavy. Every couple years, someone would go missing and not found till the spring. Usually right in the middle of the search area. Hell, one year, two guys got caught in a small avalanche. Everybody knew where they were and they still didn’t surface till May.
If you have not seen it, this is a bit like the plot of the movie Misery. In the movie a famous author wrecks his car in the snow and a woman pulls him out and takes him home. She is a nutcase and a really big fan of his. She holds him hostage to force him to write another book. It’s based on a Stephen King story.
I think the most likely hypothesis is that she’s nearby and they simply haven’t found her. But I’m going to add another more dramatic hypothesis anyway… What if someone picked her up to help her, then she passed out or died in their car, the person panicked and dumped her?
You’re right, that’s too unlikely. However, I do remember someone here on the boards saying that well-trained first-responders are trained to ask “Who was in the car with you?” because head trauma victims tend to give bad information if you ask “Were you alone?” or “Was anyone with you?” So that would fit my highly improbably hypothesis: someone tried to help, didn’t realize there was another victim then whisked her away. Bu by now a good samaritan would have come forward I’m sure, unless they lost her somehow. Okay, silly hypothesis.
Here in Canada such things have happened (edt; people being found close by despite a thorough search). And accident victims wander the wrong way often enough. There was a little old lady who was actually rescued after rolling her car in a ditch. She wasn’t seriously hurt, but she got disoriented in the snowstorm, went the wrong way - she was headed toward a farmhouse, but got turned around - passed out in the middle of a field. She was found alive under a couple inches of snow. Officials said the insulating effect of the snow may actually have helped her survive because it essentially covered her like a cold blanket in the storm. IIRC, she recovered from hypothermia.
I used to drive that route to work everyday. There is nothing but farmland in the area and very few buildings. The snow was not deep enough to bury her at the time. I do think it is possible that she waked a great deal farther than people may think, but my personal opinion is that someone picked her up, might have even been the person who caused the original accident.