The Vanished Podcast

Heather Caras Part 2: What They Believed All AlongLast week, you learned about Heather Caras’ life, her disappearance, and the trail of confusion that followed. On January 24, 2025, Heather had planned to take her younger son on a special outing after a minor disagreement the night before. According to him, that morning, Heather said she was going outside to start her vehicle, but she never returned. After waiting for some time, he walked to school to tell someone that something was wrong. What followed was a series of strange events. Instead of involving social services, local residents were called in to look after Heather’s children, a decision that struck her friends as deeply concerning. When photos of Heather’s home began circulating, they showed some rooms inside her home in disarray. Her friends weren’t sure whether Heather had made the mess herself, searching for something, or whether someone else had ransacked the house. The next day, one of Heather’s neighbors found her truck parked at Beaver Bay, miles west of her Linton, North Dakota home. The scene was baffling: a trail of footprints in the snow that ended abruptly, and a new pair of shoes, the same brand Heather always wore, left behind, but not a pair her friends recognized. To make matters worse, there were conflicting accounts about her phone. Some said it was found in the truck; others pointed to photos showing her purse and phone still sitting on a counter inside her home. Back home in North Carolina, Heather’s friends tried to make sense of it all. Locals seemed to be pointing fingers in every direction, and sometimes, back at Heather herself. Then came a press release from the Emmons County Sheriff’s Office that left them in shock. It said that Heather “may have previously reached out to an unknown prior acquaintance living out of state to assist in leaving the area and may have taken steps to avoid detection or being located.” To those who knew her best, that explanation wasn’t plausible. Heather was devoted to her sons. The idea that she would simply walk away from them, from everything, didn’t fit the person they knew. Months later, at the end of May, Heather’s remains were found in a field miles from where her truck had been parked. But finding Heather didn’t bring answers. It only deepened the mystery. How had she ended up there, in the freezing cold? Why would she have gone there at all? The medical examiner couldn’t determine the cause or manner of her death. There were no signs of trauma, and toxicology tests indicated that there were no drugs in her system that could have caused an overdose. Her death was ruled undetermined. Yet, despite that uncertainty, the Emmons County Sheriff’s Office publicly stated that the autopsy “confirmed what investigators had believed all along,” that there was no foul play, and that Heather had suffered a mental health crisis. For her friends, that statement felt like a rewriting of history. From the beginning, officials had said Heather left voluntarily with an unknown acquaintance. Now, they claimed this had been their belief all along. It felt like an easy way to close the book on a case that still didn’t make sense. Today, we’re going to explore where things stand now that Heather has been found, take a closer look at her life in the months before she vanished, and the questions that still linger today. If you have any information about the disappearance and death of Heather Caras, please contact the Emmons County Sheriff’s Office at 701-254-4411. If you have a missing loved one that you would like to have featured on the show, please fill out our case submission form. Follow The Vanished on social media at: Facebook Instagram Patreon See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

526

1T 5M

Teekah LewisOn January 23, 1999, 2-year-old Teekah Lewis vanished from New Frontier Lanes bowling alley in Tacoma, Washington. That night, Teekah was there with her mother, Theresa, and several other relatives. She was playing in the arcade when her mother briefly looked away to bowl. When Theresa turned back, Teekah was gone. Panic set in as family members searched every corner of the building, hoping she had simply wandered out of sight, but Teekah was nowhere to be found. Police were called, and despite extensive searches, no trace of Teekah surfaced. Witnesses offered only fragments of clues. One recalled a maroon Pontiac speeding out of the parking lot around the time Teekah disappeared. Another described a suspicious man inside the bowling alley who had followed a child toward an exit that evening. He was able to give a detailed description of the man, including that he had a pockmarked face. Then, more accounts emerged of unsettling incidents involving children at or around New Frontier Lanes, raising the possibility that the bowling alley and the surrounding neighborhood may have been used as a hunting ground by a predator or predators. For decades, those scraps of information were all investigators and Teekah’s family had to go on, but in 2025, Teekah's case finally began to gain momentum. Through it all, Teekah’s mother has never stopped searching for answers. Theresa has worked tirelessly to keep her daughter’s story alive for nearly 27 years, clinging to the hope that someone may have taken Teekah to raise as their own, a far easier thought than the darker alternatives. Today, she wants what any mother in her position would: the truth about what happened to her little girl, and the chance to bring her home. If you have any information about the disappearance of Teekah Lewis, please contact the Tacoma Police Department at 253-287-4455 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST. If you have a missing loved one that you would like to have featured on the show, please fill out our case submission form. Follow The Vanished on social media at: Facebook Instagram Patreon See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

521

1T 7M

Episodes

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

Andre har også lyttet til ...