The One Hiccup in The Plan

One evening in midsummer, a 35-year-old mother of five children vanished, and no one has seen her since.

She lived with her boyfriend, the father of one child. When questioned, he said the two of them and their toddler went to a family farm and walked around the fields for several hours. After they were back home, he had fallen asleep, and in the morning, when he woke, she was gone.

One problem with his story—it rained that afternoon. It didn’t seem believable that they’d walk around a field for four and a half hours with a toddler.

They found her car, with a flat tire, alongside a parkway with her keys, cell phone, and purse inside.

During the investigation, the authorities learned the boyfriend’s cell phone pinged on towers near the vehicle's location, and he made a phone call to his father.

At first, the boyfriend’s father denied knowing anything about the girlfriend’s disappearance or her car being left on the parkway. Later, he admitted he went to the car and thought his son had done something bad, so he got into the abandoned car, moved the seat forward because his son was tall and his girlfriend short.

In another, perhaps related incident, over a year after his daughter disappeared, someone mysteriously gunned down her father, who had been leading a search for her. He felt certain because the couple weren’t getting along; the boyfriend had killed his daughter so he wouldn’t lose custody of his son.

One of the trial attorneys surmised the boyfriend killed her, then tried to get rid of her car to make it look like she’d left but then got a flat tire on the parkway.

The authorities suspect the boyfriend’s brother, a local police officer, of being involved in the death of the missing woman’s father. They ended his employment because the department believed he hadn’t cooperated with the investigation. The case remains open.

The murder case went to trial with circumstantial evidence. At trial, the missing woman’s cousin testified her cousin had told her she and her boyfriend were going on a surprise date the night she disappeared.

The jury deliberated for a few hours and found the 44-year-old boyfriend guilty. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.

A jury found the boyfriend’s 55-year-old father guilty of conspiracy and tampering with evidence. A judge sentenced him to 17 years in prison.

A commonwealth’s attorney said about the crime,

“If they had not gotten a flat tire, we probably wouldn’t have solved this case. That phone call was the one hiccup in the plan because that phone call was not supposed to be made.”

Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, NBC News, ABC News, Lexington Herald Leader

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