Parents Worst Nightmare

"Your daughter is missing," is probably the worst thing you can hear over the phone.

Missing? What do you mean missing? And then the nightmare begins. You find out not only has she been missing for two days but you're just now hearing about it. Not only is she missing but she's not even where you thought she was. You find out in the process that she lied to you. She told you she was going one place and was actually 500 miles away spending Spring Break with friends at the beach unsupervised. Sex, drugs, alcohol--all the things you had warned her about had transpired but the worst thing...your baby girl is missing.

The detective on the other end of the phone tells you she has been missing for two days. It takes 48 hours before an official report can be made. It also took two days for the group of teenagers she was with to decide to call the cops.

In the meantime, booze and drugs have been flowing so the memories of those teenagers might be a bit unreliable. Time lines skewed, details blurred, and all the while your baby girl is gone. Vanished. No trace.

Barb was getting ready for work when she first got the phone call that her youngest daughter Sadie was missing. Sadie had gone on a spring break trip with a friend's family. Barb had even spoken to the mother of the girl to confirm. Lies. All lies.

The officer said, "Her friends say she's been gone since Tuesday night."

"It's Friday morning. She's supposed to be home later today. What do you mean?" Barbs asked.

Sadie had been drinking with her friends at a hotel party. She had then gone to a few night clubs and returned to her hotel with two of the six friends. She said she left her debit card at a nearby bar and was going to walk there to get it. She never comes back. The bar still has her debit card. She never made it there.

Questions: How did she get into a bar? She's underage. Who is she with? How did this happen?

Hours go by and that turns into days.

Missing. Vanished. No trace.

Posters, pleas on television. What can we do?

You want to get your hands on her friends. Those lying little pieces of shit. They let your baby go two days before calling the cops. Time is crucial.

The cops tell you to be patient. Cases like this are hard to crack. Vacation towns like this have an influx of new people constantly. Everyone is coming and going. It's hard to pin down witnesses, evidence. So far no one knows anything.

Her room is exactly how she left it. The same pink sheets are on the bed but the scent of her shampoo is no longer present on the pillow. Now the room just smells stuffy. It's dusty. Everything remains untouched.

You go through anger. Fear. Sadness. Guilt. Nothing helps.

Suspects. Leads. Those kinds of things consume you. You're always wondering what happened. If only you knew. If only you could get some closure.

Poor Barb. Sleepless nights. Her husband, Larry, had started drinking. He wasn't much help.

Police interrogated one of the boys on the trip. He says he had given Sadie some drugs. Maybe she overdosed and her friends disposed of the body in a panic.

Another rumor: Sadie had been flirting with a guy she met at the pool earlier in the day. He was supposed to meet up with her later in the motel room. He never showed. Maybe she had bumped into him. Maybe he knew something. The police track down the kid and question him. His parents aren't stupid and lawyer up pretty quickly.

A surveillance video emerges and shows your daughter walk through a parking lot. A white truck immediately appears in the video. Police trace the tag number to a registered sex offender. He is questioned and denies ever seeing your child. He has an alibi for the hours that follow.

Her cell phone is traced. She tried to make a call to an unknown number. A number that has since been identified as a 'burner' phone. A pre-paid probably purchased at a gas station. Who's phone number is this? The phone last pings about an hour after she allegedly went missing in a town over an hour away.

The case goes cold.

Then there's a break. An inmate starts talking. An inmate who was once a college athlete who was heavily using drugs tells a story of a girl. A girl he says was gang raped and tortured. Her body was dumped off a boat into the ocean. He knows who did it.

More investigations. More interrogation. More speculation and rumor but no resolve.

Another tip claims your daughter is being trafficked online. The tip brings forward an ad on an internet page where sex is bought and sold. Motel rooms. Hourly rates. Young girls for hire. The image on the specific ad could possibly be your daughter. She's older and the hair is darker but it's only a side profile so its hard to say for sure.

The waiting. The hoping. The praying.

Six years go by without an answer. Her friends are college graduates, getting jobs, moving on. You see an announcement in the local newspaper where one of the girls from the trip is getting married. Everyone is going on with their lives while your baby is missing. Vanished. Gone forever.

You'll never have answers.

Barb and her husband divorce. She's still searching. She won't give up hope. Larry wants a death certificate. He says Sadie is dead.

She's probably dead. But maybe she's alive. She might be out there somewhere.

Every time the phones rings, it could be news. Every time an unidentified body is found anywhere within a 1,000 mile radius you hope maybe its closure.

It's truly a parents worst nightmare.