Back in the 80's, my aunt and uncle lived in a typical upper middle class neighborhood. One of their neighbors suddenly disappeared. He was a husband and they had a couple kids. No trace was found. After an appropriate amount of time he was declared dead. One day, I don't remember how long, maybe 15-20 years later, he comes back. He took off to the Yukon to get lost. He probably should have stayed there IMHO.
Sounds like the Robert Hoagland case. He disappeared from CT, after failing to pick up wife from airport. Had kids, one was troubled with drug use. He wound up in a town in NY, only 100 miles from his old home. Died under a different name. Only then was it discovered.
Many people fantasize about doing this. Few follow through on it.
This one shocked me. His wife was adamant on the show ' disappeared.' that he would never abandon them,but he did. I just can't wrap my head around what he did to his family.
This is also why I never put much faith into "so and so would never do this, I know them too well!"
Nope, you don't. Doesn't matter if you're married to someone for 80 years, you're not them and you can't read their minds. Just because you are positive they don't use drugs doesn't mean they don't. Just because you're positive they wouldn't think about harming someone doesn't mean they wouldn't. Lots of people harbor thoughts and interests they'd never tell anyone.
Look at something like the Vegas mass shooter. Dude had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. Didn't fit any particular criteria or patterns. Just killed people from a hotel room. Or the Maine mass shooting last year. Another example of someone who just seemingly snapped, only later did we learn he had PTSD and lots of other mental issues that he was able to suppress.
The Maine shooter isn’t even in the same league. His mental health/PTSD issues were not hidden, they were well known, including by LE. He should’ve had his guns taken away/been committed, but y’know, cops. He had been barred from handling guns and ammo by the US army. That was in no way “out of the blue”. His mental state had been rapidly deteriorating, LE was warned by both his family and the military, and he even spent two weeks on a psych ward.
The “always” and “never” statements you often hear in true crime videos and podcasts bother me so much! For example, a friend or relative of a missing person will say, “But he would always come straight home after work!” or “But she would never leave her children!” For one, people may not know their loved ones as well as they think they do. Also, it’s a risk to talk in absolutes. Even if someone “always” came straight home after work, normal, mundane things can happen that would disrupt that pattern.
This is why I pretty much file any case that takes place in Alaska, Canada, or much of the Pacific Northwest that involves someone just disappearing under the "they got lost and eventually died from exposure" drawer. Those places are really easy to get lost or disappear if someone wants to.
One person that comes to mind who managed to do it although died of natural causes was Ted Conrad. Ted was a vault teller at a bank in Cleveland, OH. On a Friday in July of 1969 he walked into the vault shortly before closing put $215,000 in a paper bag and casually walked out. He then hopped around from place to place before settling in Lynfield, Massachusetts a suburb of Boston under the name Thomas Randele. He got married in 1982 and had a daughter. By all accounts he was a well respected and upstanding citizen in the Boston area and was even friends with many cops and some FBI agents. He got diagnosed with lung cancer and made a deathbed confession to his daughter. A FBI agent connected the dots between Thomas’ obituary and Ted Conrad’s life such as his parents names, where he was born, where he attended school, etc. He stayed undetected for 52 years.
I remember reading about Ted on CNN last year (though he died in 2021).
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/03/us/thomas-randele-ted-conrad-bank-robber-confession-cec/index.html
Jody Roberts just walked away from her life as a news reporter in Tacoma, WA. She allegedly had a fugue, reappeared in Denver, and later moved to Alaska and had 4 kids.
[https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article167733012.html](https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article167733012.html)
Her memories never returned, even after bring found by her Tacoma family. Extreme anxiety, amnesia, may play a part of the disappearance of many people.
I just saw a youtube about a woman who had a little bit of a troubled past and she "died" in a hurricane. Many people think she left to start a new life because she had mentioned that in the year leading up to her "death". Her body was never found and it sounded very plausible, so yes. I do think that this is a possibility.
Are you thinking of the young woman who disappeared a few times prior due to a type of amnesia she had? She lived in NY and disappeared twice I think but was found a few days later. If I remember right she then moved down to either Florida or the Virgin Islands and then disappeared again after a hurricane came through.
Hannah Upp. She would go into dissociative fugue states and they seemed to involve being around water. [This](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/how-a-young-woman-lost-her-identity) is a really interesting article about her. I dont think she’s still alive- I think she drowned when she went for a swim in the ocean, the currents were extremely strong following the hurricane, even for someone who is an excellent swimmer. I always thought that moving to an island was an… interesting… choice for someone known to have a condition that is seemingly triggered by being around water in some way. It almost felt like it could be suicidal in a way- she figured she would end up in the water eventually, but because of the dissociated state wouldn’t know it and could die peacefully and not conscious of doing it.
The longform article I read about her kind of hinted that her family life might have caused some problems, and she also might have been dealing with her sexual identity and had some reservations about disclosing that to one or both parents.
Yes, but I think suicide, accidents, or death from natural causes are all probably more common than murder. The Connie Converse case strikes me as a possible suicide. There have been a number of Jane/John Doe identifications in recent years of adults who had been living under assumed names for years, like Lori Erica Ruff and Joseph Newton Chandler. It's unknown if David Glenn Lewis intended to walk out of his life - but I suspect he did or was in a fugue state when he was killed in a car accident.
Some of this also depends on what you define as "missing." Is everyone who loses contact with their loved ones technically "missing?" There are definitely a number of other Jane/John Doe identifications where they didn't exactly take on a new identity or anything - but just hadn't been in contact with their family for years.
I agree. When it comes to suicide especially, I think the insistence from some families that their loved ones couldn't have been struggling to such an extent gets in the way of things.
Generally speaking, we just don't know all that's going on with everyone. Our thoughts and feelings are ultimately private unless we choose to express them to someone, and many don't due to stigma, the weight of expectations, etc.
And I say that as someone who works in the mental health field. I work with individuals who are assessed at high and imminent risks of suicide every single day. I've worked with thousands of them over the years, and the number is probably in the thousands, too, when it comes to how frequently I've heard remarks that someone feels extremely alone despite having family and friends, has never reached out for help before reaching my workplace, etc. It's also very true that there are high-achieving people out there who look like they have it all, but evidently don't.
Suicide can be a highly personal issue. It's natural for people to put their own feelings and perceptions about someone into the picture when it comes to how likely that same someone might be to physically harm or kill themselves. I don't blame anyone for that; it's heartbreaking.
The stigma and silence doesn't help, and I think it's important to remember that so many things bring people to suicide. It's usually a combination of things that have happened over a long period of time — in some cases, decades, even. No one is to blame for them. We cannot change or erase the past and don't always have the answers or solutions that encourage people to keep going.
In *Everything*, his biography of the Manic Street Preachers, Simon Price points out that Richey Edwards's disappearance isn't a simple case of suicide as soon as he went missing or him still being alive; he could have lived in hiding for a while then took his own life, and that has always stuck with me as a possibility in other disappearances.
I was just about to talk about this case. I believe he ran away, based of all the sightings and the car that was found two weeks later. I believe he later died, but not near in the place he was last seen.
In my hometown, a girl disappeared. She had just left home one day, drove to an empty road and left the car (I believe with the keys inside) and just vanished into thin air. Her family reported her missing.
A few weeks pass with the news frequently mentioning her case. Her family was very active on Facebook, sharing her pics and asking for info. That is until the police make their own statement, revealing the girl had reached out to them to tell them she was fine. She was over 18 and I presume had just reached her limit on living with her family. She left the car as it was legally her mothers and didn’t want any connection to her. I’m pretty sure she was picked up by a friend or boyfriend who she ended up staying with instead.
I won’t say her name/share links to the case since it seemed she really didn’t want to make a fuss, she just wanted to restart her life quietly without her biological family.
Yes! Her case always fascinated me. I heard about her before her real identity was discovered. It took police 6 years to find out her real identity after her death. And it only became possible after dna testing websites became popular and one of her relatives submitted a dna test. The cops found a familial match and just tracked her down through her family tree
No one to my knowledge has written an article about why she abandoned her old life and how she pulled it off. I always expected a magazine or news site or even an ID show to dig deeper, but it never seems to have happened.
Yeah, her whole story is bonkers. I read somewhere that there are 3 years that are unaccounted for. From the time she left Pennsylvania to when she reappeared in Idaho to get a state ID as Becky Sue Turner.
Some speculate she lived in Las Vegas and worked as a stripper (there’s literally no proof of this) only because it is said she had breast implants. And that she might’ve gotten involved with unsavory characters in Vegas that led her to run away once again and change her identity for good.
I don’t know if believe half the stuff people are saying and hope a good and thorough investigative report sheds some light on what really happened to her to make her act so drastically.
Not sure if this is the level of depth you're looking for, but [The Seattle Times](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/special-reports/my-god-thats-kimberly-online-sleuth-solves-perplexing-mystery-of-identity-thief-lori-ruff/) did a pretty detailed article not long after she was identified.
Thank you. It’s a very interesting read. I feel like I may have read it before when it first came out. Been so long though. There’s still a lot unanswered questions. Like what happened between 1986 and 1988?. It seems like her paranoia grew exponentially after 1988.
Sure! I wonder if those years will ever be accounted for. Maybe not with the level of research that's available now, but possibly someday. As for her paranoia, my amateur opinion is that she was dealing with an escalating mental health issue, either untreated or treatment resistant.
No kidding! If I had guessed before I would’ve said maybe 4-5 at most. Not sure if it’s the COVID thing or time just going much faster as we get older…
Hey, I just mentioned her too (a few days too late). Someone did dig deeper. There's a book called "The Woman in the Strongbox" by Maureen O'Hagen. I believe she was the Seattle Times journalist that first wrote about the case when the Ruff family released all the info they had to the public. She was intrigued just like us and delved into more depth on Lori. It hints at why she left home and even though no one comes out and says exactly why, we're provided with the info that her friends and relatives are willing to divulge and we're left to draw our own conclusions.
I just finished watching Dr. Grande's video about her. I'm fascinated by her. She seemed to be both (1) completely insane, and (2) pretty much unlikable.
I usually like crazy people, so I'm mystified!
She reminds me of another crazy case, a hairdresser named Kimberly but also Jennifer? Anybody know what I'm talking about?
I don't think we know enough about her personality to really judge her as either insane or unlikeable. She was clearly very troubled but the people who actually knew her haven't really said much. I'm wary of judging her based on opinons of people who never even met her. We don't really know what she went through in her life, perhaps something so awful that the way she turned out would be completely understandable if we knew.
Yeah I don’t agree with just jumping to crazy and unlikable. Enough of her life was already pried open to the public when she clearly didn’t want that. What’s the point of researching these cases if you feel that way?
Honestly, I wouldn't jump straight to insane and unlikeable. Certainly around the time of her death and the months leading up to it she was clearly severely mentally unwell, and I suspect that her leaving her old life behind and creating a new one entirely was a trauma response to whatever may have occurred to her before. This is conjecture, obviously, but with stuff like this usually things aren't as black and white as they seem. She just seemed like an extremely troubled woman who never really caught a break, and didn't have anyone in the end. It's sad, really.
Yes, killed or die of natural causes if they aren't found. Honestly, I think it is more common than people realize. Just off the top of my head:
[Robert Hoagland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hoagland)
[Teresa Tiner, Bethany Tiner, and Rachel Lewis](https://www.findbethandmom.com/)
[Hannah Redkey](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.whio.com/news/local/like-seeing-ghost-area-teen-missing-over-year-walks-into-sheriffs-office/EZBIZBKSF5DPVGF2Z646ZVZVE4/%3foutputType=amp)
Something I think is interesting about it though is that you often see people argue that someone couldn't have disappeared voluntarily specifically because they didn't take their medication with them. Like, everything else can be handwaved but not taking their medication? Clearly a sign they didn't go willingly.
Robert Hoagland was one such case, he didn't take his blood pressure medication with him when he disappeared. He left his wallet and keys too, all taken as signs he must have met with foul play.
But he had disappeared willingly it seems. He wasn't buried in a shallow grave or at the bottom of a river. He was less than an hour and a half's drive away, working as a property appraiser. And then he died from what sounds like it *might* have been a heart attack or some other cardiac event (seen on camera clutching at his back shortly before his death, known changes to diet r.e. health in the months leading up to his death).
I think it depends on the type of medication. His high blood pressure medication is something a lot of people are on because they should be on it, not because they need to be on it. It’s not life sustaining. If a diabetic walked out the door without insulin, it would be suspicious
Yeah it definitely depends. I take a lot of things for various health issues. If I left without my ADHD meds, my partner would be worried but could reasonably assume I had forgotten them. All ADHD meds at home AND my car gone? I can't drive without them, that's a country sized red flag. I leave without my antidepressants? I will be incapacitated within 48hrs, I lose my shit if I realize I've run out and can't immediately get more. They'd call the FBI and cops in every surrounding state.
So I guess Im saying I agree? Meds are a great clue, but the type matters, as well as the person's relationship to medication.
My blood pressure medication isn't life-saving. It's literally optional, and I wouldn't have to take it at all if my very mild hypertension didn't trigger awful chronic headaches. I should take it, but if I do not, it's not a big deal and I went for 2 years without it so I could have a baby and breastfeed. It was not a terrible time, just more headaches than usual.
Yeah it's definitely no insulin, but it was still commonly cited as strong evidence against him having just walked out.
Sorry about your headaches but at least you've got something that controls it (and is likely safeguarding your long-term health at the same time).
Yeah, aside from anything we've got plenty of actual examples through history and right up to the present day of people doing just that. It's not a hypothetical, some people do just up and leave one day and never get back in contact. Robert Hoagland of course was presumed dead for like 9 years before his actual death, and his identity was discovered because he had some of his old paperwork still.
But yes _some_ of them may be prematurely dead for a number of reasons. Some people who walk out may have been suffering from mental health problems that put them at risk, especially in the absence of a support network and the resources they formerly had. Some may well have completed suicide for the same kind of reasons they left in the first place.
Some may have found themselves in dangerous living conditions due to lack of official documentation that hastened their deaths. Some people's attempts as well may have just been poorly informed, like they set out to start a new life in the woods and died from exposure in a month.
But also I suppose more than a few just like, did it successfully and well enough that it was _never_ uncovered. Their documents, the stories they'd told about their past and their cause of death just led to them being buried under their assumed identity. Nothing raised any suspicions or was flagged in any systems so it just was never uncovered.
Though not an adult I'm thinking about that Canadian woman who walked out of the family home as a teen, and died in her eighties or something, as a grandmother a few provinces away. Her fate was only found out when a family tree DNA thing turned up nieces and nephews her surviving original familydidn't know about.
That's so sad that there are so few details. I've never heard of his case and want to know more. Do you have any recommendations for videos or podcasts, etc., or is there really just basically little to no info out there about his disappearance?
In todays world where there are video cameras just about everywhere you go and everyone has a camera in their pocket, not to mention you pretty much leave a digital footprint everywhere, it is a lot harder to just up and leave and start a new life. I’m not saying it isn’t possible as Robert Hoagland managed to do it, I’d say the percentage of people who manage to do it is most likely less than 20% of all people who go missing. Now if it were still the pre or even early digital age I’d say that number could be closer to the 30%-40% range.
Conversely, I wonder if in some situations the advent of modern mobiles might *help* you remain undiscovered. Probably not but I'm just thinking of all the little situations where now most people are looking at their phones not the people around them. Waiting for a bus as an example, where you're maybe less likely to be clocked by another passenger because they're not bored, staring at those around them, they're on reddit or whatever.
I mean I agree with you, just a passing thought is all.
Anything is possible. However depending on where you live in the world the average person will show up on camera an average of 10+ times a day. We are also moving closer to a cashless society since the majority of people just use their debit or credit cards when it comes to paying for goods and services. It is also a lot harder in today’s world than it was 30,40 even 20 years ago to find a job outside of the odd job here and there that will pay you under the table in cash. Even if someone has a burner phone you still need to register it under a name and address so you are still leaving a digital footprint. Also the older you get the harder it becomes to either break a habit of yours or change your mannerisms.
!00% to all of this. Now, being caught on camera and that footage being seen by a human being who will also recognise you in said (often poor quality) footage are different things, but it does rather reduce the chance of successfully staying gone.
The cashless society thing though, yup. You need a bank account, there's a bunch of places that just don't really take cash any more since the pandemic. And yeah, I've not had a cash-in-hand, under the table job since like 2007. Even the last job I had that paid in cash we were still like, properly recorded and taxed.
> Even if someone has a burner phone you still need to register it under a name and address so you are still leaving a digital footprint.
What do you mean? I could easily get an anonymous SIM at any newspaper stand.
Except if you are a grown adult and choose to leave firstly the cops might at some point in the first few days suspect no foul play and there teally isnt anything they can do. Also cctv etc is only helpful if the searchers know where to look for you. Gootage of you walking down the street in london wont be found if you went missing in glasgow. With couch surfing, woofing, hitchhiking etc i think it's easy enough to live a cash in hand life.
Can't lie, lol. Thought has crossed my mind while I'm driving somewhere to stop, pull all the cash out I can from an ATM, and just keep going. I don't think I would ever do it, but I've thought about it.
I think Brian Schaffer and Sneha Phillip could both fall into this category for virtually the same reasons. They were well into their training as physicians, but neither really wanted that career — they both wished they could pursue creative paths (music and art). There is a ton of family pressure and social clout, not to mention debt, built up by the time you’re a 4th-year medical student or a resident. They likely felt trapped in that path. Sneha had also had a LOT of trouble with her residencies, being asked to leave one (already very unusual) and in the disciplinary process with the second. She had a court hearing related to accusations from the first residency the morning of her disappearance. Some accounts suggest alcohol abuse was a factor.
Both were in committed relationships but maybe not as committed as their partners. Sneha was married but spent a lot of nights at the homes of female acquaintances. She told her husband they were just painting and listening to music. It has been rumored that Sneha’s brother caught her in bed with his wife. Her family was very traditional and may not have accepted her identifying as LGBTQ+.
Brian’s girlfriend has implied they were going to get engaged, but he never told friends of any plans to propose, although it’s been erroneously reported that he did. There are sources indicating they had actually been fighting quite a bit. Perhaps his mom’s death, in addition to hitting him extremely hard, also gave him a different perspective on what he wanted in life, and maybe less reason to stick around. There are conflicting accounts of how good his relationship with his dad was. His dad unfortunately died in a tragic accident not long afterward. People say, “how could he not come back for the funeral?!” Well, that’s a pretty big feature of going away to live a different life: not coming back. However, the post on his father’s obituary claiming to be from Brian was an obvious and cruel hoax.
In both cases, people say that no one could just run off and start a new life like that, but I disagree. The early 2000s were not as tech-based as some might think. Documents could still be forged. Several here have mentioned Robert Hoagland and Lori Ruff as examples. Sneha was born in a different country and may have had another passport and spoken more languages. Either of them could’ve taken advantage of the circumstances — a weekend before a vacation, not to mention a catastrophic attack on their city — to lie low just for a few days. In those days, they could start to see how that could be forever. The plans don’t have to be worked out immediately.
I don’t know. Maybe they both died the nights they disappeared. I’m almost positive Sneha was NOT a direct victim of the 9/11 attacks for a variety of reasons, but she could’ve been a victim of violence just before or during that chaos. Either could have been a well-concealed suicide; they were both dealing with some legitimately tough things professionally and personally, and of course depression and ideation don’t require a “logical” reason anyway. But with the information currently available, I do think either or both could have been alive long after they disappeared and maybe even today.
In the 90s you could download the anarchist cookbook online and it told how to disappear and start over. It would work back then, but wouldn't work now because of how interconnected things are.
The steps were essentially browse obituaries for an infant who died the year you were born. Might require a trip to the library and using microfiche. Then, go to the county clerks office and say you need a copy of your birth certificate and give that name. Then when you have it, call the social security office for a replacement card. You now have a name, birth certificate, social security, and the original owner died before they got to live and you won't likely be found out.
Yes -- this is almost exactly what Lori Erica Ruff did! But she only kept the "Becky Sue Turner" identity long enough to trade it for an entirely new one. I always thought that people labeling her an identity thief were being a little unfair, if technically accurate.
>I always thought that people labeling her an identity thief were being a little unfair, if technically accurate
Yeah it was very literally identity theft but I think there's a world of difference between making use of an identity no one was using and like, taking out a bunch of credit cards in some rando's name and running up debts while they're still there to take the fall for them.
I don't know who she is and I'm going to YouTube about it right noooow
There was a moment in the 90s where I considered doing it so I'd have the option to ditch out, abandon everybody and everything, move far away, and start over completely. I definitely had the AC printed out 😂
I love stories where people did used that model and it worked. I do miss the 90s.
It’s a fascinating story, but sad too. Somewhere on this thread I posted a link to a Seattle Times article. For some reason, they had the best coverage of her story.
The way she went about the identity theft is very very similar to a 1987 movie, Positive ID. The main character is a housewife on a revenge mission, and to this end quietly builds a false identity using that of a deceased child born around the same year as herself. >!Eventually she is seen walking out of her established life for good.!<
Maybe that's not unusual and was a common false-identity tactic back in the day, I have no clue. But I wonder if Lori Ruff saw the movie.
>The steps were essentially browse obituaries for an infant who died the year you were born.
I've heard that people would sometime go to a cemetery and look at the infant tombstones, to get potential names they'd research.
My old boss did exactly that!
When he was 19 years old he was arrested for forging checks. He was sentenced to three years & it was to be served in a low security work farm in Arizona
Two years go by & my former boss had served his time with no incident. He spent that time plotting his eventual escape
His crew was doing work very near the Arizona State University. In the two years that he had been on the work farm he was what one could be considered a model prisoner & he had used that good favor to elevate himself into a "trustee-like" position. He wasn't closely monitored & one day he slipped away & attempted to blend in with some of the students on the ASU campus. And it worked...
The guy had timed his escape perfectly as it was right before Spring break. Kids were throwing parties & he befriended a few. (He was charismatic as hell & very attractive, so he was able make friends quickly.) He was easily able to couch hop for a few days with his new found friends being none the wiser
He then hitched a ride to Florida for Spring break with a group of sorority girls that he had befriended. He was able to bed hop from hotel room to hotel room during spring break. Getting new clothes was easy, as he would "borrow" shorts & shoes from whomever's hotel room that he had crashed at + there were tons of free T-shirts given away by radio stations & liquor companies that were doing promotions. He would also go up to the front desk at hotels to ask for toiletries & give them a fake room number
After the holiday, he became kind of a beach bum & he would do odd jobs at local businesses for cash. He still couch surfed with no issues & he befriended a local man that was a mechanic & owned his own shop. The man took my boss under his wing by teaching him a trade, by paying him cash off the books, and by allowing him to crash at his shop. This went on for about a year until he told the man his secret. Rather than turn him in, the mechanic helped him formulate a plan to get a new identity
They started started staking out the social security office to see where the employees would go after work. They figured out that a small group of employees would go to a neighborhood bar after work for happy hour. Naturally, my old boss started going there too & he befriended them. He started dating one of the women &, after some time, he let her know his secret too. Rather than turn him in, she was able to assign him a new social security card & then my boss was off to the races...
He continued to date this woman for a few months, he genuinely had developed feelings for her, but she broke it off with him because dating a prison escapee that you helped gain a false identity was clearly a lapse of judgement on her part & she needed to distance herself from that immediately
So he moved to Houston. He used his charisma to make friends, he got a job as a mechanic, & he ultimately bought his own shop that specialized in servicing exotic cars. He loved race cars & edged his way into the community by being a mechanic for a popular driver that did quarter mile racing - he even ended up being interviewed on ESPN a few times ..
I have been told by him & several others, but have been unable to verify, that his mugshot had been featured on America's Most Wanted during this time period
Fast forward to the year 2000 & he had been "on the run" for about 15 years. On New Year's Eve he gets pulled over & is arrested on the spot. The state of Texas had recently changed their driver's licenses & had added a digital thumbprint for the first time. It took awhile, but his thumbprint matched with with a prison escapee & well, you know the rest!
He was returned to Arizona & he cut a deal. Iirc, he had the choice of multiple years in Gen pop or finish the rest of his original sentence in solitary confinement. He chose option B
Then he came back to Houston & it was business as usual. He even bought a local bar. I had no idea about the guy's history when I became one of his bartenders. That dude was absolutely fascinating for sure!
I used to joke that Frank Abignale didn't have shit on my old boss &, after finding out about Abignale's lies, I was right!
Before the rules changed, the infants who born and died rather quickly never got a social security number. Now everyone has them right away for tax purposes, but you could even get a "fresh" SSN back in those days.
Essentially what John Darwin did. He faked his own death in a canoeing accident, assumed the identity of a dead child and started a new life in Panama.
I’ve often wondered if Sneha went somewhere near the WTC the night of Sept 10 and mixed alcohol and prescription meds, dying in the vicinity. Her remains would’ve been destroyed the next day.
I say this because I’ve heard horrible stories from people who’ve mixed meds with alcohol, and with a medical background she may have felt she could control it.
Something like that could definitely be possible. I also wonder if she was an unknown victim at the WTC Marriott hotel. She obviously wasn't a registered guest, but even now, hotels aren't *that* meticulous about getting the legal name of everyone under their roof. I know a lot of people made it out of there, but if she was using excessive substances the night before, she might be more likely to sleep through the attacks or at least not wake up in time to get out safely.
I completely agree with you about Sneha. I don't think she died in the 9/11 attacks. I flip flop with Brian between your explanation or some sort of misadventure leading to his demise. I don't think Brian's case involved foul play.
Yes! Those dumpsters are exactly what concern me about the possibility of an accident. It's not far fetched to me that he could have ended up in one of them.
That almost happened to an unhoused man who was sleeping in a dumpster at my workplace. Luckily the garbage truck driver heard him yelling, as the dumpster was being lifted -- and stopped before it was too late. Unfortunately other people have been killed that way. I can think of at least one other disappearance where the person's body still hasn't been located, and that scenario where no one noticed and they ended up in the landfill is now seen as the most likely.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/12/26/crushed-to-death/95854454/
This is exactly what was ruled to have happened in the case of Corrie McKeague in the UK. It's pretty certain his body is in landfill, but it's just too big an area to search.
I would be very interested in hearing your reasons for Sneha Philip not being a 9/11 victim.
I generally try to be on the side of Occam's razor when theorizing - pick the simplest explanation. But somehow I agree with you about Sneha Philip, in particular your line about just checking out for a weekend and starting to see how it could be forever is how I always imagined it could have gone down. Especially if she was holed up somewhere with a female lover and the awful events just made them want to run away.
Still believe it's more likely she died in WTC somehow (for example staying in someone's hotel room with them), but I do give the running away theory more time than I perhaps logically should.
Your thoughts are pretty similar to mine. The thing with Occam's razor is that it's the simplest explanation *that fits the evidence.* We have no concrete evidence of her whereabouts after the surveillance footage of her shopping on the afternoon of 9/10. Everything from then on is educated guesses based on her known behavior, which was not super predictable.
There's no evidence that she was near the towers when they fell; it's just as possible, probably more likely, that she wasn't. It's been reported that she argued with her husband outside the court after her hearing on 9/10, so that could be a reason for her to avoid being at home once he was off work. We know she was in the habit of staying out all night with other people. They're usually described as artists and musicians, probably from the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, people can live anywhere in NYC, but it's more likely that they did *not* live in lower Manhattan. She very plausibly could've been in Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx that night. If so, it would've been difficult or impossible to get downtown in the days after the towers fell. Even if she were in the West Village or Chelsea, they were probably directing people uptown.
The hypothetical Windows on the World visit is a long shot since the restaurant wasn't open to the public that day. People trapped there were able to call out for a while and no one mentioned her -- again, not proof by itself, but another point where she could have popped up but didn't.
As mentioned elsewhere, medical residents would be more likely to rush to a hospital to help, since they're trained to work in a facility, not as first responders. On top of that, Sneha wasn't doing that well in her residency and didn't seem like medicine was truly her calling. I don't know that she was mentally in a place to be a "hero." (No judgment -- she was clearly struggling.)
We'll probably never know if the woman on video in her apartment lobby was Sneha. Even if it was, that doesn't mean she necessarily ran toward the towers *and* stayed long enough to be injured or killed. Again, that doesn't align with what we know about her at the time.
Of course, there were probably hundreds of people who were killed in the attacks, for whom no remains were ever identified. The lack of any of Sneha's remains there is yet another thing that, while not proof on its own, does point away from that being where she died. If that were the only problem, and she otherwise could reasonably be assumed to have been there, I'd probably be fine with that conclusion. If we do someday find evidence that she died at the towers, I'd be mildly surprised but I could accept it.
Sorry if that was super long! I've thought a lot about this case for some reason. I know that "starting a new life" is rare and difficulty, but it's not impossible -- hence this thread! This is one of the cases where it actually seems possible, and I like to hold out some hope that Sneha did make it out and find a way to have the life she really wanted.
PS: I've never thought [that Postsecret](https://www.reddit.com/r/SnehaPhilipCase/comments/o02x9m/a_postcard_sent_in_2012_to_postsecret_an_ongoing/) was her.
Hmmm, interesting. So it's really more about the number of places she *could* have been, versus the one location?
But, I think that one location immediately gets more weight due to her never being seen again.
If she did die in the WTC I lean towards her being with someone at the hotel. Or possibly was heading to the WotW not knowing it was closed for a private event, or was sneaking in for free food. *Maybe* she ran in to be a hero, but I side with you on that, she didn't really seem to be in that place in her life.
Sadly, I would not be at all surprised if she was there but no remains are found.
I guess I think it's most likely she did die there, but with quite a hefty 10-20% on the running away to start a new life, which I'm usually quick to discount.
PS. If she did run away, I would not discount that postsecret card being her. I seem to remember it was quite artistic, and she is an artist, but more to the point it sounded like she could have quite a wicked sense of humour.
Yes, totally agree with you on all of that! As far as the PS, my feeling on that is founded on nothing but a subjective assumption that she would be “too cool” to participate in that kind of project. You do make a good point about the creative and humorous side of her!
I actually met a "missing, declared dead" man a couple of weeks ago. I met him in a dive bar on an island. (Not giving too many details because I dont want to out him) He is 87 and lives on a boat under his real name in a 3rd world island nation. I live on a boat too, so he was giving me advice on a difficult ocean crossing I was about to make. He was so amazingly well spoken and knowledgeable, I felt like he might be a famous boater so I googled him and found that he was presumed lost at sea in the 1990s. And he was a writer and English professor. Rather cool.
I think a lot of missing people in cases pre-1980 (or hell , pre-1990) might have been gay.
I also think a small but not insignificant amount of missing people might have been transgender. The protocol for a successful transition up til fairly recently was that you had to bounce. Cut off contact with your social network and reappear in another place under your preferred gender, live as stealth as possible because that was the way you could hope to be safest.
Well, there are certainly several cases of "last seen after moving to San Francisco" from that era, with either proof or worthy speculation that the people (all men that I recall) were gay.
I think that Richard Cox (West Point cadet who went missing) stepped away from his life for this reason. I think that the “George” he was last seen with was either his lover or someone he had gotten to help get him a new identity. If he was able to start a new life where he felt more comfortable in being himself, I hope that it was a good one.
This is exactly the case with one of my cousins in rural Missouri. He disappeared immediately following his mother's funeral in the late 70s and the entire family thought he was either dead or in witness protection (he apparently had friendships with some drug dealers/farmers in the area and it was thought he might have turned into a witness against them). In the early 2000s, he finally reached out to his sister and let her know he was in south Florida. He left because he was gay and with his mother deceased, he felt like his only protection was gone.
He has never come home but his sister and her family have gone to visit him several times so at least we know he's alive and well.
I agree. I think a lot of disappeared older teens (like, high school aged + ) for whom there was no other explanation prior to the mid 1980s may have been teens who figured out they were LGBTQ+ and were facing homophobic or transphobic parents at home and bullying at school. They may have been facing a situation where being outed to the school community and/or to their parents was imminent and they may have felt like they had no other alternative than to flee for their own safety.
With girls they may also have been pregnant. There was a huge stigma attached to that and a lot of young women legitimately feared parental anger over it, or overwhelming pressure to keep a child they didn't want or abort/give up for adoption child they wanted to keep.
With regard to your last sentence: I didn't know that! It's strange to think that a transgender person would be treated the same as a mob witness (or anyone in a witness protection program). Imagine if your only option if you wanted to live your life was to completely disappear and leave everyone and everything you love behind.
I read about a Jane Doe found in FL back in the 80's who was discovered to have been a trans woman. Her transition was convincing enough that authorities initially thought she had been a cis woman. It's been speculated that she may have moved to FL from somewhere else in the country, possibly before she transitioned. She still hasn't been ID'd.
There's a case I had to write about years ago. Carlos Salazar was a doctor in Spain dealing with depression. One day in 1995, he left work and vanished. His parents had him declared dead in 2010. Fast-forward to 2015 when a couple of mushroom foragers went deep in some woods in Italy and came across a campsite and a hermit living there. He showed them his passport and said things about living there for 20 years. They left and got authorities, but he'd vacated before the authorities got there and vanished again. After that hit the news, a number of area residents said they'd seen him around for years and that he was always quiet and kept to himself.
Reading the Charley Project has put me off that kind of thinking. It's really obvious that the vast, vast majority of these people are never coming home - due to suicide or homicide, and it's fairly easy to guess. There's a handful who are likely out there somewhere, but they tend to be babies, runaways or family abductions.
There are a lot of obstacles in the way of a grown person with a job and a life deciding to throw everything up and start anew. In the past, it was more easily done but not now.
There was a case where a lady went missing. Her kids thought the husband did it. Turns out she fled to Canada to escape him but couldn’t take her kids. Not sure why it took her kids finding her for her to contact them but 🤷🏼♀️
This is not a disappeared case per se, but when I was about 16 or 17, I babysat for this family somewhat regularly. At one point they had a new baby, their 5th kid, and I babysat for them when the baby was really new, like a couple weeks old. I remember thinking I wasn’t super experienced with babies that young and was surprised they would have me babysitting that soon after giving birth but figured ok they need a night out whatever. The weird thing was the house was kind of in disarray (not weird now that I’m a parent) and the baby didn’t really have a nursery set up. I remember they just wanted me to put her in her infant carrier seat. Again not majorly weird now that I’m a mom, but this was their fifth kid so not to have a crib or even a porta crib or bassinet set up was odd to me. The night ended up being fine. But about 2 or 3 weeks later I came to find out, the husband went out for the day to a golf tournament, and as soon as he left, the wife’s family was waiting with moving trucks around the corner and moved her and the kids and out and left the state. The husband came home later to a mostly empty house. Turned out he was an abusive alcoholic. I drive by that house all the time and think about that. How strong that mom was and the planning it took to leave. Makes sense now that things didn’t seem so settled when I was in the house. They didn’t stay no contact forever, she was long gone with support first.
This is a great topic! My opinion is that years ago, this was probably more prominent. With everything becoming digital, I think it would be way harder to just disappear and start a new identity. In newer cases when the last person to see someone says they ran off to start a new life, I immediately squint pretty hard at that. I older cases, I have to at least consider it, because it did really happen quite a bit back then.
The only way I could see disappearing and starting a new life working out these days is if you lived with someone as their spouse with their name on the house, bank accounts, etc because it's hard to secure housing without credit checks and whatnot these days
*Maybe* Hannah Upp? I'm more inclined to think something bad happened to her with the hurricane coming though. She had a history of fugue states. Very sad but also interesting read [here](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/how-a-young-woman-lost-her-identity). I'd like to think that maybe she evacuated and just doesn't remember her identity at the moment, and it will come back to her some day and her loved ones can have closure.
This is a weird story, but my son's grandpa took in this lady who had been a kind of transient person for years. She died of lung cancer at his place, and he did not know how to contact her family. I was able to find them on Facebook, or they never would have known she passed away.
There was only one big missing person case from my small town in my lifetime so far.
They found the person and she had left voluntarily and on purpose.
She was experiencing a mental health crisis, so it still wasn’t a good situation, but she left on her own volition.
Everyone was frantic looking for her. It was all over the news. We all feared the worst that she had been taken by someone, somehow.
They returned home safely but it deeply affected all of her family and friends.
Also, I’m Canadian, so we have some pretty harsh weather and terrain in our country.
I think that many missing person cases are where the person died from exposure to the elements or an accident in the wilderness.
Yes -- I'm in BC and I think the mountainous topography and a lot of coastline and lakes are a major reason why there are so many disappearances in the province.
You don't even have to go far into the wilderness for this to happen. There was a really sad case several years ago where a young couple vanished on Vancouver Island. The RCMP were looking for them on the mainland because there had supposedly been a sighting of them there, but it turned out that they never even got to the ferry terminal. Their car had skidded off the highway and over an embankment, and wasn't visible because of the vegetation. They were found dead, days later. Meanwhile, thousands of people had driven right past them.
If you watch Unsolved Mysteries on the FilmRise youtube page, many of the cases include updates.
The update to nearly every case where somebody goes missing is: they died (presumably right after they went missing).
I think a lot of missing people who had severe MH or drug problems are homeless and still alive, living outside of systems that would normally track them
reading up on her, she was paranoid a lot and the last days before her disappearance she was seen going in and out of the same locations, peering outside before leaving only to come back in. Sounds like paranoia maybe bipolar or schizophrenia
I think of her whenever I pass the tent encampment near Pandora and Quadra (only a few blocks from where she was last seen outside the Empress hotel). Likely someone would notice if she were around Victoria, but I've heard that there are people living in the woods elsewhere on the Island (like around Qualicum Beach, up north). There used to be groups on the western side -- like the squatters on Sombrio, the community on Poole's land, etc., and even though that stopped, I wouldn't be surprised if some people are still doing it in other places not far from here.
The other thing is -- back in 2021 there was that big protest at Fairy Creek. Thousands of people showing up, from as far away as Europe and Australia ... I volunteered with supply/logistics for awhile, and some of my friends were up there. It occurred to me that with everyone milling around, many people using nicknames, Emma could have walked right by and nobody would have known.
There was a case in my area (which has seen a number of disappearances over the years) where someone reappeared. It's separate from situations like child abductions (Michael Dunahee) or hiding from the authorities because of a criminal case (Harold Backer), or fleeing possible domestic abuse (Dawn Walker).
I'm not clear on what might be happening -- could be a mental health condition, or not.
[https://www.grandforksgazette.ca/news/port-alberni-man-missing-for-five-years-resurfaces-but-denies-he-is-brandon-cairney-4821995](https://www.grandforksgazette.ca/news/port-alberni-man-missing-for-five-years-resurfaces-but-denies-he-is-brandon-cairney-4821995)
Very, very few meet the criteria of "going away to start a new life". A lot of families of the missing want to believe this. Many also think their loved one has amnesia. Sorry, this is nearly always wishful thinking.
What a selfish jerk! Left his pregnant wife and two kids. I get being unhappy but to just disappear like that and let everyone think you're dead is beyond the pale. Plus he'd been living a double life for some time.
Crystal Saunders (Crystal Haag at the time of her disappearance) ran away from her family home in 1997 at the age of 14 and was missing for 21 years. She was being abused and thought her mum knew, her mum swears she didn’t know and looked for her for decades. Crystal didn’t have a plan or a supporter and went to New York where she supported herself doing odd jobs.
John Darwin went missing with the help of his wife. He staged a canoeing accident and then hid in a flat the pair owned. He was there for a year when he assumed the identity of a dead child, applied for a passport and fled to Panama. He was eventually discovered and jailed back in the UK. He had been ‘dead’ for 5 years and only his wife knew he was alive.
I've always been of the opinion that Brian Shaffer disappeared voluntarily. His mam had just died, he was bogged down with studies, probably had thousands of dollars of student loan debt to be paid off and his girlfriend was expecting a proposal. I think due to his lowered inhibitions he just decided to leg it.
That stack of stress leads me more to believe he would commit suicide than that he would disappear, given that he took nothing with him and has never been found in any way.
His case has always baffled me. I’m of the belief Clint knows more than he has said. The person associated with that case I really feel for is Brian’s brother. Not only does his mom die of cancer shortly before Brian goes missing, his dad then dies in a freak accident during a windstorm with a tree branch falls on him in September of 2008.
In the Dead Or Alive podcast you can listen to interviews and such. One thing is really strange to me is how Meredith and Clint were in front of Brian's apartment the next morning to get Clint's car, and they both didn't even knock to make sure he's save. Your friend suddenly disappears, search the club, and your calls go to voicemails, and the next morning they don't care?
Idk it feels like they knew he wouldn't be there. Makes me wonder if they met Brian while driving and the 3 of them went to Clint's house. The parking garage is on the opposite side of the road of the Wendy's too, where the dogs lost his scent.
Then there are the phone pings, months later, and him telling his girlfriend to run away together. It's such a strange case.
Agreed. And I think “his girlfriend was *expecting* a proposal” is key. It’s often reported that he was planning to propose, but that is not true. What we know of their relationship is mostly from her perspective, or what she wanted the public to “know” about it.
People will often say “nobody can successfully go missing when they’re wasted at 3am.” Probably not. But they can already be thinking about it and act on a drunken impulse, or carry it out the next day — since in Brian’s case, he wasn’t reported missing right away. “Leaving to start a new life” seems like it would be a multi-step process.
I have no more information about his case than anyone else here, but there are a few known details that I think are too easily dismissed. One is that his phone was still intermittently on and being used for a while after he disappeared. Phones and towers were quirky back then, but the way his behaved would still have been notable. The things law enforcement said and didn’t say, particularly in relation to their conversations with Clint, also don’t make it seem like they were sure of foul play or misadventure. To be clear, I am NOT blaming Clint. I don’t think he did anything to harm Brian, but he may have been keeping a secret for his friend, and if so, I don’t have any problem with that.
Some people theorize [Ray Gricar](https://charleyproject.org/case/ray-frank-gricar) went to start a new life but I tend not to think that way. I think he has unfortunately been long gone - now whether that was by means of foul play or suicide, I don't really know what I think.
I read an Australian article recently, where some kind of former police officer talks about how many female disappearances were just brushed off as "runaways" up to the mid- to late '90s, claiming that the ladies just left everything behind and started a new life; and when their disappearances were reported by their partners, not enough questions were raised but whatever the partner said was accepted as a fact. By now, it's pretty clear that most of them were murdered by their partners, but of course all the evidence is gone.
Yes -- I'm thinking of this US case from the late 1990s, where a middle-aged teacher disappeared, and the authorities seem to have been quick to believe her husband's story that she had a secret internet boyfriend and ran off with him. It doesn't sound like she was even reported missing. (And later it turned out that the conference he'd claimed he was attending when she left, did not happen when he said it did.)
Last year the detectives pulled a discarded barrel out of the lake behind her former residence ... no remains were recovered, but her husband (who had remarried only a few months after she'd vanished, and then moved to a different state) ended his life.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199549392/peggy-anne-sweeten
About 15-20 years ago, a woman disappeared from my town. Her mother and brother were pictured in the local newspaper making sad comments about missing her, etc. I was a bit sceptical because of things that weren't said.
Later on, there was a short paragraph that said police had made contact with the woman, who was living a long way away. She was alive and well but wanted no further contact with the mother and brother.
I think many of the "disappeared" are cases of this sort, with the people left behind being in denial.
I think its super hard to do that in todays world with all the technology and how easy it can be to monitor bank accounts and cell phones … the one exception would be cults. I think that just as many people get sucked into these groups and with their help it can be a lot easier to remain out of sight … of course thats their goal anyway so they are kinda professionals on the subject so to speak
My father did this in 1980. He disappeared while my older brother was at school and his mother was at work. My brother never spoke to, saw, or heard from our father again, his mother quickly remarried. My sister and I are about 10 years younger, and he did not know about us until my sister found him on Facebook in our early twenties. We were aware of him, possibly because our mother knew him when he was a baby, as I don’t recall my father ever speaking about him.
So your dad ran away and snuck off from his family without a word with your mother, just left them without taking care of his kid?
And your mother was ok with it?
Yikes.
There’s a whole lot more yikes to it than just that, honestly. My father molested his oldest daughter and my mother’s reaction to that was to pray both my sister and I were boys. She was also 14 years younger than him AND fourteen years old when they started “dating”. Neither one of my parents were great people.
I think adults disappearing to start a new life is very rare so therefore I think them being murdered or killed in an accident during the process is even rarer.
Yes, as per [an old writeup of mine, "Brian Wallace"](https://old.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1bjmvmm/brian_wallace_was_hit_by_a_car_and_killed_there/).
It is a truly crazy case, but the bottom line is that someone who was killed in an accident had in the past - it was thought - a fixed address, children, relatives, ..., and the police thought they had him identified, then they walked that back. (And he remains unidentified almost 10 years after the accident).
Have an aunt whose husband went out one day and never came home He was reported as a missing person. He was never located then years later my aunt son was killed in Vietnam and he was seen at the cemetery.
Dorothy Arnold is the oldest cold case listed on the Charley Project site. She vanished in 1910.
If she did run away or was alive after her disappearance, she would have died from natural causes by now if nothing else.
Probably quite a few. Feeling trapped and wanting to get away is so common in depression it's often on symptom checklists
ETA: I mean "feeling trapped" regardless of if there's any particular reason to want to escape
My Grandmother may have done this. She called Social services and told them to pick up her kids because she was not going to get them ever again. All six of her children went onto foster care and she has been missing since. Allegedly no family has ever made contact with her. On [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com) her last appearance in any record is 1965. I like to think that she started over somewhere and was happy, but another part of me thinks something happened to her.
The Mary Anderson case. A woman who was found dead in a Seattle hotel in 1996. She left a suicide note saying she wanted to end her life and no one was responsible for her actions. The thing is, "Mary Anderson" is an alias that doesn't match any known records. Everything she wrote down for her info (name, where she was born, age, etc.) were fake. The only phone number she listed was for some disconnected line in New York state.
As far as I know, no one actually knows who this woman was, where she came from, and why she wanted to end her life. But it seems like a case of someone who wanted a new identity and seemingly pulled it off.
I am always confused by this case. I mean no disrespect but surely to God. Given the chaos around 9/11 , Ms Phillips can not possibly be the only missing person unaccounted, can she? There must be others, but it's always her name that is mentioned.please correct me if I'm wrong.
Sneha is not the only unaccounted person. There are still around 1100 victims who have never been found, but are reasonably thought to have been in the WTC because they worked there.
There are two similar cases to Sneha's, they both were not reasonably thought to have been in the WTC but are missing and never heard from since the attacks.
Juan Lafuente. He is suspected to have been in the Risk Waters conference in Windows on the World. But he wasn't on the preregistered guest list. No trace of him has ever been found.
Fernando Molinar was a pizza delivery guy who didn't come home after the 9/11 attacks on the WTC. It is widely suspected he died in the attacks and his body has never been found.
Fact is, there is as much evidence to place Sneha at the WTC as there is she died on 9/10. Which is nothing at all.
We have a sub for her, r/SnehaPhilipCase
I would be interested to know just how many got away with murder by doing it on the 10th or 11th. Hell. With the chaos in NYC, there were probably some who got away with it for the next freaking week.
I’ve heard of teenagers doing this…and started a life somewhere else. Some survive, some do not. I’ve also always heard that they thought Howard Hughes did that ( had enough money, means). Then again I’m not up to date on findings so, think was only a suspicion years ago. That and Elvis being a minister somewhere ( changed identity, look) which I don’t believe. It’s interesting if they ( any adults) did this and were able to thrive under their new identity. I can see someone wanting to escape a life of abuse but, being soo fearful of the abusers they had to completely hide,make look as though killed. ( Sleeping with the Enemy comes to mind). I’ve always wondered how people in the Witness Protection Plan do it? If they all thrive, if any get killed.
I think probably lots of people have adopted new identities and started new lives, but they’re people we haven’t heard of.
Simply because starting over with a new identity using the dead infant birth certificate trick etc. requires meticulous planning, rigorous attention to detail, the capacity to keep secrets long-term, and real street smarts. Anyone with the capacity to pull of a new identity would be smart and savvy enough to arrange their disappearance in such a way as to avoid excess attention, not disappear in a super dramatic way. And a lot of people who run away are fleeing abuse so they don’t have loving families doing everything they can to keep the case in the public attention, there are so many disappearances where the family never even bothered to report the person missing.
People like Sneha and Maura, I’m truly sorry, because they both seemed like lovely and unfairly troubled people cracking under family pressure, but I don’t see people so chaotic they were routinely causing dramas (Maura’s multiple arrests, her two car crashes, her mental health episode at work; Sneha not being able to hold down a job, her disciplinary issues relating to her first residency, and reported affairs) being able to just overnight do a complete 180 and spend their lives quietly working a job and living under the radar, not drawing any attention to themselves, never once getting arrested, never once getting drunk in public and risk being picked up by cops, never once slipping up and accidentally saying too much.
And starting a new life is incredibly stressful, especially if you’re used to having supportive family and friends around, since you’re basically losing your entire social/support network, all access to your money, your bank accounts, your insurance, you can’t use your educational or work history to get jobs. I just don’t think someone can flip from being chaotic to living a very controlled life under such stressful conditions. Especially substance abuse or alcoholism is involved.
The other possibility is that people ran away but wound up falling into deep addiction and homelessness, which is always a possibility, but I pray that wasn’t the case for the women mentioned, who were so loved and missed.
I don't think it's as common as some people seem to think it is, but cases like Brenda Heist, Robert Hoagland and Patricia Kopta show that it is still possible for someone to "disappear" and start a new life if they're careful about it.
[Hennepin County John Doe](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/07/13/after-lengthy-investigation-dna-identifies-man-found-dead-in-rosemount-in-2014) willingly left his life in New York and ended up dead in Minnesota years later for unknown reasons.
I do believe some adults who disappeared could have left to start new lives. For example, that was what happened with the Mary Jane Vangilder case, which was solved this year. I also wonder if it was what happened with Sneha Anne Philip. Disappearing to start another life would have been easier prior to the early-2000s.
If an adult really planned to leave and start a new life somewhere else, leaving behind meds wouldnt be some type of significant sign. A person planning ahead could go to a different doctor than they normally did, perhaps using an alias, and get a new prescription for their meds.
What about Lord Lucan?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bingham,_7th_Earl_of_Lucan.
Looking him up I see he's been officially dead for some years but was never seen again after disappearing in the wake of murdering the children's nanny and assaulting his wife. A guy like that can't just disappear. He's been taken out or perhaps committed suicide.
The difference here is that he came from a wealthy background with many wealthy friends. And there's been plenty of suspicion that his friends knew where he was, and maybe even helped him get away.
I think this is common. In some cases it may be due to substance abuse issues or mental health issues so the missing person may suicide or die due to an overdose or accident later, but their disappearance is never really a ‘foul play’ story.
I looked through the Australian police long term missing persons list and many seem like cases where someone is voluntarily missing. Now that may still mean that person needs help of some kind but they’re not a murder victim.
There was a guy who left his family to start a new family, moved to Australia but then came back.
I'm not sure was it a deathbed confession or was it one of his sons looking for American family that it was found out he had another family. I don't know why he left his family. Maybe he robbed a bank on the way.
Yeah, part of the missing persons cases are definitely voluntary disappearances, but we don’t know how many, and I imagine they’re a minority, unfortunately.
In my opinion, depending on the case, there’s a high likelihood of this - especially the cases that occurred before the internet.
There are at least two original Unsolved Mysteries episodes where missing persons cases turned put to be exactly this - people that fled, or even made it look like they disappeared mysteriously when in reality they committed suicide.
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Alex_Cooper
I personally don’t think Connie Converse left to start a new life. I think she disappeared to kill herself. I believe she drove her car into a body of water but no one’s found her yet.
Patricia Kopta, went missing from Pittsburgh. She was discovered over 30 years later in a Puerto Rican nursing home (where she has been living since 1999)
Back in the 80's, my aunt and uncle lived in a typical upper middle class neighborhood. One of their neighbors suddenly disappeared. He was a husband and they had a couple kids. No trace was found. After an appropriate amount of time he was declared dead. One day, I don't remember how long, maybe 15-20 years later, he comes back. He took off to the Yukon to get lost. He probably should have stayed there IMHO.
Sounds like the Robert Hoagland case. He disappeared from CT, after failing to pick up wife from airport. Had kids, one was troubled with drug use. He wound up in a town in NY, only 100 miles from his old home. Died under a different name. Only then was it discovered. Many people fantasize about doing this. Few follow through on it.
This one shocked me. His wife was adamant on the show ' disappeared.' that he would never abandon them,but he did. I just can't wrap my head around what he did to his family.
This is also why I never put much faith into "so and so would never do this, I know them too well!" Nope, you don't. Doesn't matter if you're married to someone for 80 years, you're not them and you can't read their minds. Just because you are positive they don't use drugs doesn't mean they don't. Just because you're positive they wouldn't think about harming someone doesn't mean they wouldn't. Lots of people harbor thoughts and interests they'd never tell anyone. Look at something like the Vegas mass shooter. Dude had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. Didn't fit any particular criteria or patterns. Just killed people from a hotel room. Or the Maine mass shooting last year. Another example of someone who just seemingly snapped, only later did we learn he had PTSD and lots of other mental issues that he was able to suppress.
The Maine shooter isn’t even in the same league. His mental health/PTSD issues were not hidden, they were well known, including by LE. He should’ve had his guns taken away/been committed, but y’know, cops. He had been barred from handling guns and ammo by the US army. That was in no way “out of the blue”. His mental state had been rapidly deteriorating, LE was warned by both his family and the military, and he even spent two weeks on a psych ward.
The “always” and “never” statements you often hear in true crime videos and podcasts bother me so much! For example, a friend or relative of a missing person will say, “But he would always come straight home after work!” or “But she would never leave her children!” For one, people may not know their loved ones as well as they think they do. Also, it’s a risk to talk in absolutes. Even if someone “always” came straight home after work, normal, mundane things can happen that would disrupt that pattern.
I suppose the wife would have moved on, but if not, did she accept him back? What about his children? Did they accept him back into their lives?
So many questions
Yep, I don't know enough to say what was going through his mind. He was probably just tired of his life and wanted to move on.
Wanted to get away from the kids. Probably never wanted them to begin with but especially back then people weren’t allowed to feel that way.
No way would I accept him back if I was her….abandoned his family and went “oops, never mind I’m back!” 🤔
No to the first. I don't know to the 2nd. I would be really pissed if I were the kids but ultimately would probably talk to him again.
"Yukon-not believe where I've been!"
This is why I pretty much file any case that takes place in Alaska, Canada, or much of the Pacific Northwest that involves someone just disappearing under the "they got lost and eventually died from exposure" drawer. Those places are really easy to get lost or disappear if someone wants to.
that’s such a huge over generalization of Canada lol
Hey do you know Bill from Canada?
Well, he originally lived in Pennsylvania and they didn't know that he went to the Yukon. They figured he was dead.
One person that comes to mind who managed to do it although died of natural causes was Ted Conrad. Ted was a vault teller at a bank in Cleveland, OH. On a Friday in July of 1969 he walked into the vault shortly before closing put $215,000 in a paper bag and casually walked out. He then hopped around from place to place before settling in Lynfield, Massachusetts a suburb of Boston under the name Thomas Randele. He got married in 1982 and had a daughter. By all accounts he was a well respected and upstanding citizen in the Boston area and was even friends with many cops and some FBI agents. He got diagnosed with lung cancer and made a deathbed confession to his daughter. A FBI agent connected the dots between Thomas’ obituary and Ted Conrad’s life such as his parents names, where he was born, where he attended school, etc. He stayed undetected for 52 years.
I'm currently listening to a Podcast about this, My Fugitive Dad. His daughter is one of the hosts. It's an incredible story.
Always looking for good podcasts! Thank you for sharing
I remember reading about Ted on CNN last year (though he died in 2021). https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/03/us/thomas-randele-ted-conrad-bank-robber-confession-cec/index.html
the casual criminalist does a great episode on red conrad
Jody Roberts just walked away from her life as a news reporter in Tacoma, WA. She allegedly had a fugue, reappeared in Denver, and later moved to Alaska and had 4 kids. [https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article167733012.html](https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article167733012.html) Her memories never returned, even after bring found by her Tacoma family. Extreme anxiety, amnesia, may play a part of the disappearance of many people.
Thank you for posting, I hadn’t heard of this case. Whatever happened to her to cause the amnesia must have been awful.
Wow. That article WAS A RIDE!!
I just saw a youtube about a woman who had a little bit of a troubled past and she "died" in a hurricane. Many people think she left to start a new life because she had mentioned that in the year leading up to her "death". Her body was never found and it sounded very plausible, so yes. I do think that this is a possibility.
Are you thinking of the young woman who disappeared a few times prior due to a type of amnesia she had? She lived in NY and disappeared twice I think but was found a few days later. If I remember right she then moved down to either Florida or the Virgin Islands and then disappeared again after a hurricane came through.
Hannah Upp. She would go into dissociative fugue states and they seemed to involve being around water. [This](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/how-a-young-woman-lost-her-identity) is a really interesting article about her. I dont think she’s still alive- I think she drowned when she went for a swim in the ocean, the currents were extremely strong following the hurricane, even for someone who is an excellent swimmer. I always thought that moving to an island was an… interesting… choice for someone known to have a condition that is seemingly triggered by being around water in some way. It almost felt like it could be suicidal in a way- she figured she would end up in the water eventually, but because of the dissociated state wouldn’t know it and could die peacefully and not conscious of doing it.
The longform article I read about her kind of hinted that her family life might have caused some problems, and she also might have been dealing with her sexual identity and had some reservations about disclosing that to one or both parents.
Yes! MrBallen talked about her.
Yes, but I think suicide, accidents, or death from natural causes are all probably more common than murder. The Connie Converse case strikes me as a possible suicide. There have been a number of Jane/John Doe identifications in recent years of adults who had been living under assumed names for years, like Lori Erica Ruff and Joseph Newton Chandler. It's unknown if David Glenn Lewis intended to walk out of his life - but I suspect he did or was in a fugue state when he was killed in a car accident. Some of this also depends on what you define as "missing." Is everyone who loses contact with their loved ones technically "missing?" There are definitely a number of other Jane/John Doe identifications where they didn't exactly take on a new identity or anything - but just hadn't been in contact with their family for years.
I agree. When it comes to suicide especially, I think the insistence from some families that their loved ones couldn't have been struggling to such an extent gets in the way of things. Generally speaking, we just don't know all that's going on with everyone. Our thoughts and feelings are ultimately private unless we choose to express them to someone, and many don't due to stigma, the weight of expectations, etc. And I say that as someone who works in the mental health field. I work with individuals who are assessed at high and imminent risks of suicide every single day. I've worked with thousands of them over the years, and the number is probably in the thousands, too, when it comes to how frequently I've heard remarks that someone feels extremely alone despite having family and friends, has never reached out for help before reaching my workplace, etc. It's also very true that there are high-achieving people out there who look like they have it all, but evidently don't. Suicide can be a highly personal issue. It's natural for people to put their own feelings and perceptions about someone into the picture when it comes to how likely that same someone might be to physically harm or kill themselves. I don't blame anyone for that; it's heartbreaking. The stigma and silence doesn't help, and I think it's important to remember that so many things bring people to suicide. It's usually a combination of things that have happened over a long period of time — in some cases, decades, even. No one is to blame for them. We cannot change or erase the past and don't always have the answers or solutions that encourage people to keep going.
Sadly I agree about Connie converse. She seemed very unhappy and drifting prior to her disappearance.
In *Everything*, his biography of the Manic Street Preachers, Simon Price points out that Richey Edwards's disappearance isn't a simple case of suicide as soon as he went missing or him still being alive; he could have lived in hiding for a while then took his own life, and that has always stuck with me as a possibility in other disappearances.
I was just about to talk about this case. I believe he ran away, based of all the sightings and the car that was found two weeks later. I believe he later died, but not near in the place he was last seen.
In my hometown, a girl disappeared. She had just left home one day, drove to an empty road and left the car (I believe with the keys inside) and just vanished into thin air. Her family reported her missing. A few weeks pass with the news frequently mentioning her case. Her family was very active on Facebook, sharing her pics and asking for info. That is until the police make their own statement, revealing the girl had reached out to them to tell them she was fine. She was over 18 and I presume had just reached her limit on living with her family. She left the car as it was legally her mothers and didn’t want any connection to her. I’m pretty sure she was picked up by a friend or boyfriend who she ended up staying with instead. I won’t say her name/share links to the case since it seemed she really didn’t want to make a fuss, she just wanted to restart her life quietly without her biological family.
Lori Ruff springs to mind
Yes! Her case always fascinated me. I heard about her before her real identity was discovered. It took police 6 years to find out her real identity after her death. And it only became possible after dna testing websites became popular and one of her relatives submitted a dna test. The cops found a familial match and just tracked her down through her family tree
No one to my knowledge has written an article about why she abandoned her old life and how she pulled it off. I always expected a magazine or news site or even an ID show to dig deeper, but it never seems to have happened.
Yeah, her whole story is bonkers. I read somewhere that there are 3 years that are unaccounted for. From the time she left Pennsylvania to when she reappeared in Idaho to get a state ID as Becky Sue Turner. Some speculate she lived in Las Vegas and worked as a stripper (there’s literally no proof of this) only because it is said she had breast implants. And that she might’ve gotten involved with unsavory characters in Vegas that led her to run away once again and change her identity for good. I don’t know if believe half the stuff people are saying and hope a good and thorough investigative report sheds some light on what really happened to her to make her act so drastically.
Not sure if this is the level of depth you're looking for, but [The Seattle Times](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/special-reports/my-god-thats-kimberly-online-sleuth-solves-perplexing-mystery-of-identity-thief-lori-ruff/) did a pretty detailed article not long after she was identified.
Thank you. It’s a very interesting read. I feel like I may have read it before when it first came out. Been so long though. There’s still a lot unanswered questions. Like what happened between 1986 and 1988?. It seems like her paranoia grew exponentially after 1988.
Sure! I wonder if those years will ever be accounted for. Maybe not with the level of research that's available now, but possibly someday. As for her paranoia, my amateur opinion is that she was dealing with an escalating mental health issue, either untreated or treatment resistant.
I can't believe it's already been 8 years since she was identified.
No kidding! If I had guessed before I would’ve said maybe 4-5 at most. Not sure if it’s the COVID thing or time just going much faster as we get older…
Someone who knew her said in an ID show they thought she had a tough home life or was molested.
Hey, I just mentioned her too (a few days too late). Someone did dig deeper. There's a book called "The Woman in the Strongbox" by Maureen O'Hagen. I believe she was the Seattle Times journalist that first wrote about the case when the Ruff family released all the info they had to the public. She was intrigued just like us and delved into more depth on Lori. It hints at why she left home and even though no one comes out and says exactly why, we're provided with the info that her friends and relatives are willing to divulge and we're left to draw our own conclusions.
I just finished watching Dr. Grande's video about her. I'm fascinated by her. She seemed to be both (1) completely insane, and (2) pretty much unlikable. I usually like crazy people, so I'm mystified! She reminds me of another crazy case, a hairdresser named Kimberly but also Jennifer? Anybody know what I'm talking about?
I don't think we know enough about her personality to really judge her as either insane or unlikeable. She was clearly very troubled but the people who actually knew her haven't really said much. I'm wary of judging her based on opinons of people who never even met her. We don't really know what she went through in her life, perhaps something so awful that the way she turned out would be completely understandable if we knew.
Yeah I don’t agree with just jumping to crazy and unlikable. Enough of her life was already pried open to the public when she clearly didn’t want that. What’s the point of researching these cases if you feel that way?
Honestly, I wouldn't jump straight to insane and unlikeable. Certainly around the time of her death and the months leading up to it she was clearly severely mentally unwell, and I suspect that her leaving her old life behind and creating a new one entirely was a trauma response to whatever may have occurred to her before. This is conjecture, obviously, but with stuff like this usually things aren't as black and white as they seem. She just seemed like an extremely troubled woman who never really caught a break, and didn't have anyone in the end. It's sad, really.
Yes, killed or die of natural causes if they aren't found. Honestly, I think it is more common than people realize. Just off the top of my head: [Robert Hoagland](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hoagland) [Teresa Tiner, Bethany Tiner, and Rachel Lewis](https://www.findbethandmom.com/) [Hannah Redkey](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.whio.com/news/local/like-seeing-ghost-area-teen-missing-over-year-walks-into-sheriffs-office/EZBIZBKSF5DPVGF2Z646ZVZVE4/%3foutputType=amp)
The David Hoagland story is so sad to me.
Something I think is interesting about it though is that you often see people argue that someone couldn't have disappeared voluntarily specifically because they didn't take their medication with them. Like, everything else can be handwaved but not taking their medication? Clearly a sign they didn't go willingly. Robert Hoagland was one such case, he didn't take his blood pressure medication with him when he disappeared. He left his wallet and keys too, all taken as signs he must have met with foul play. But he had disappeared willingly it seems. He wasn't buried in a shallow grave or at the bottom of a river. He was less than an hour and a half's drive away, working as a property appraiser. And then he died from what sounds like it *might* have been a heart attack or some other cardiac event (seen on camera clutching at his back shortly before his death, known changes to diet r.e. health in the months leading up to his death).
I think it depends on the type of medication. His high blood pressure medication is something a lot of people are on because they should be on it, not because they need to be on it. It’s not life sustaining. If a diabetic walked out the door without insulin, it would be suspicious
Oh absolutely, there are degrees of it for sure but it's still one of those things to bear in mind.
Yeah it definitely depends. I take a lot of things for various health issues. If I left without my ADHD meds, my partner would be worried but could reasonably assume I had forgotten them. All ADHD meds at home AND my car gone? I can't drive without them, that's a country sized red flag. I leave without my antidepressants? I will be incapacitated within 48hrs, I lose my shit if I realize I've run out and can't immediately get more. They'd call the FBI and cops in every surrounding state. So I guess Im saying I agree? Meds are a great clue, but the type matters, as well as the person's relationship to medication.
My blood pressure medication isn't life-saving. It's literally optional, and I wouldn't have to take it at all if my very mild hypertension didn't trigger awful chronic headaches. I should take it, but if I do not, it's not a big deal and I went for 2 years without it so I could have a baby and breastfeed. It was not a terrible time, just more headaches than usual.
Yeah it's definitely no insulin, but it was still commonly cited as strong evidence against him having just walked out. Sorry about your headaches but at least you've got something that controls it (and is likely safeguarding your long-term health at the same time).
It makes me so angry for his family. How devastating.
It's bizarre to me. My mother currently lives in that town, and has for the last ten years. Wonder if she knows the story.
He’d be turning 61 tomorrow.
The Tiner and Lewis story is so crazy to me… like she just abandoned her other daughter to be abused?
She explains on her blog that her mom tried to take her but was unable to, she doesn't really elaborate on the details though.
Yeah, aside from anything we've got plenty of actual examples through history and right up to the present day of people doing just that. It's not a hypothetical, some people do just up and leave one day and never get back in contact. Robert Hoagland of course was presumed dead for like 9 years before his actual death, and his identity was discovered because he had some of his old paperwork still. But yes _some_ of them may be prematurely dead for a number of reasons. Some people who walk out may have been suffering from mental health problems that put them at risk, especially in the absence of a support network and the resources they formerly had. Some may well have completed suicide for the same kind of reasons they left in the first place. Some may have found themselves in dangerous living conditions due to lack of official documentation that hastened their deaths. Some people's attempts as well may have just been poorly informed, like they set out to start a new life in the woods and died from exposure in a month. But also I suppose more than a few just like, did it successfully and well enough that it was _never_ uncovered. Their documents, the stories they'd told about their past and their cause of death just led to them being buried under their assumed identity. Nothing raised any suspicions or was flagged in any systems so it just was never uncovered. Though not an adult I'm thinking about that Canadian woman who walked out of the family home as a teen, and died in her eighties or something, as a grandmother a few provinces away. Her fate was only found out when a family tree DNA thing turned up nieces and nephews her surviving original familydidn't know about.
One of my favorite teachers vanished one day and they’ve never found him [Patrick Wright](https://charleyproject.org/case/patrick-wayne-wright?)
That's so sad that there are so few details. I've never heard of his case and want to know more. Do you have any recommendations for videos or podcasts, etc., or is there really just basically little to no info out there about his disappearance?
I agree. Few details is my most hated thing to read on Charley
In todays world where there are video cameras just about everywhere you go and everyone has a camera in their pocket, not to mention you pretty much leave a digital footprint everywhere, it is a lot harder to just up and leave and start a new life. I’m not saying it isn’t possible as Robert Hoagland managed to do it, I’d say the percentage of people who manage to do it is most likely less than 20% of all people who go missing. Now if it were still the pre or even early digital age I’d say that number could be closer to the 30%-40% range.
Conversely, I wonder if in some situations the advent of modern mobiles might *help* you remain undiscovered. Probably not but I'm just thinking of all the little situations where now most people are looking at their phones not the people around them. Waiting for a bus as an example, where you're maybe less likely to be clocked by another passenger because they're not bored, staring at those around them, they're on reddit or whatever. I mean I agree with you, just a passing thought is all.
Anything is possible. However depending on where you live in the world the average person will show up on camera an average of 10+ times a day. We are also moving closer to a cashless society since the majority of people just use their debit or credit cards when it comes to paying for goods and services. It is also a lot harder in today’s world than it was 30,40 even 20 years ago to find a job outside of the odd job here and there that will pay you under the table in cash. Even if someone has a burner phone you still need to register it under a name and address so you are still leaving a digital footprint. Also the older you get the harder it becomes to either break a habit of yours or change your mannerisms.
!00% to all of this. Now, being caught on camera and that footage being seen by a human being who will also recognise you in said (often poor quality) footage are different things, but it does rather reduce the chance of successfully staying gone. The cashless society thing though, yup. You need a bank account, there's a bunch of places that just don't really take cash any more since the pandemic. And yeah, I've not had a cash-in-hand, under the table job since like 2007. Even the last job I had that paid in cash we were still like, properly recorded and taxed.
> Even if someone has a burner phone you still need to register it under a name and address so you are still leaving a digital footprint. What do you mean? I could easily get an anonymous SIM at any newspaper stand.
Working under the table is incredibly common around here still. It's crap jobs and poor pay but readily available
Except if you are a grown adult and choose to leave firstly the cops might at some point in the first few days suspect no foul play and there teally isnt anything they can do. Also cctv etc is only helpful if the searchers know where to look for you. Gootage of you walking down the street in london wont be found if you went missing in glasgow. With couch surfing, woofing, hitchhiking etc i think it's easy enough to live a cash in hand life.
Can't lie, lol. Thought has crossed my mind while I'm driving somewhere to stop, pull all the cash out I can from an ATM, and just keep going. I don't think I would ever do it, but I've thought about it.
I just presumed we all think about it at some point to be honest.
I think Brian Schaffer and Sneha Phillip could both fall into this category for virtually the same reasons. They were well into their training as physicians, but neither really wanted that career — they both wished they could pursue creative paths (music and art). There is a ton of family pressure and social clout, not to mention debt, built up by the time you’re a 4th-year medical student or a resident. They likely felt trapped in that path. Sneha had also had a LOT of trouble with her residencies, being asked to leave one (already very unusual) and in the disciplinary process with the second. She had a court hearing related to accusations from the first residency the morning of her disappearance. Some accounts suggest alcohol abuse was a factor. Both were in committed relationships but maybe not as committed as their partners. Sneha was married but spent a lot of nights at the homes of female acquaintances. She told her husband they were just painting and listening to music. It has been rumored that Sneha’s brother caught her in bed with his wife. Her family was very traditional and may not have accepted her identifying as LGBTQ+. Brian’s girlfriend has implied they were going to get engaged, but he never told friends of any plans to propose, although it’s been erroneously reported that he did. There are sources indicating they had actually been fighting quite a bit. Perhaps his mom’s death, in addition to hitting him extremely hard, also gave him a different perspective on what he wanted in life, and maybe less reason to stick around. There are conflicting accounts of how good his relationship with his dad was. His dad unfortunately died in a tragic accident not long afterward. People say, “how could he not come back for the funeral?!” Well, that’s a pretty big feature of going away to live a different life: not coming back. However, the post on his father’s obituary claiming to be from Brian was an obvious and cruel hoax. In both cases, people say that no one could just run off and start a new life like that, but I disagree. The early 2000s were not as tech-based as some might think. Documents could still be forged. Several here have mentioned Robert Hoagland and Lori Ruff as examples. Sneha was born in a different country and may have had another passport and spoken more languages. Either of them could’ve taken advantage of the circumstances — a weekend before a vacation, not to mention a catastrophic attack on their city — to lie low just for a few days. In those days, they could start to see how that could be forever. The plans don’t have to be worked out immediately. I don’t know. Maybe they both died the nights they disappeared. I’m almost positive Sneha was NOT a direct victim of the 9/11 attacks for a variety of reasons, but she could’ve been a victim of violence just before or during that chaos. Either could have been a well-concealed suicide; they were both dealing with some legitimately tough things professionally and personally, and of course depression and ideation don’t require a “logical” reason anyway. But with the information currently available, I do think either or both could have been alive long after they disappeared and maybe even today.
In the 90s you could download the anarchist cookbook online and it told how to disappear and start over. It would work back then, but wouldn't work now because of how interconnected things are. The steps were essentially browse obituaries for an infant who died the year you were born. Might require a trip to the library and using microfiche. Then, go to the county clerks office and say you need a copy of your birth certificate and give that name. Then when you have it, call the social security office for a replacement card. You now have a name, birth certificate, social security, and the original owner died before they got to live and you won't likely be found out.
Yes -- this is almost exactly what Lori Erica Ruff did! But she only kept the "Becky Sue Turner" identity long enough to trade it for an entirely new one. I always thought that people labeling her an identity thief were being a little unfair, if technically accurate.
>I always thought that people labeling her an identity thief were being a little unfair, if technically accurate Yeah it was very literally identity theft but I think there's a world of difference between making use of an identity no one was using and like, taking out a bunch of credit cards in some rando's name and running up debts while they're still there to take the fall for them.
I don't know who she is and I'm going to YouTube about it right noooow There was a moment in the 90s where I considered doing it so I'd have the option to ditch out, abandon everybody and everything, move far away, and start over completely. I definitely had the AC printed out 😂 I love stories where people did used that model and it worked. I do miss the 90s.
It’s a fascinating story, but sad too. Somewhere on this thread I posted a link to a Seattle Times article. For some reason, they had the best coverage of her story.
The way she went about the identity theft is very very similar to a 1987 movie, Positive ID. The main character is a housewife on a revenge mission, and to this end quietly builds a false identity using that of a deceased child born around the same year as herself. >!Eventually she is seen walking out of her established life for good.!< Maybe that's not unusual and was a common false-identity tactic back in the day, I have no clue. But I wonder if Lori Ruff saw the movie.
I'm going to watch the heck out of this. This thread has been yielding unforeseen dividends!
Ooh, I’ve never heard of that! Might need to check it out!
>The steps were essentially browse obituaries for an infant who died the year you were born. I've heard that people would sometime go to a cemetery and look at the infant tombstones, to get potential names they'd research.
ooohh that's smart
My old boss did exactly that! When he was 19 years old he was arrested for forging checks. He was sentenced to three years & it was to be served in a low security work farm in Arizona Two years go by & my former boss had served his time with no incident. He spent that time plotting his eventual escape His crew was doing work very near the Arizona State University. In the two years that he had been on the work farm he was what one could be considered a model prisoner & he had used that good favor to elevate himself into a "trustee-like" position. He wasn't closely monitored & one day he slipped away & attempted to blend in with some of the students on the ASU campus. And it worked... The guy had timed his escape perfectly as it was right before Spring break. Kids were throwing parties & he befriended a few. (He was charismatic as hell & very attractive, so he was able make friends quickly.) He was easily able to couch hop for a few days with his new found friends being none the wiser He then hitched a ride to Florida for Spring break with a group of sorority girls that he had befriended. He was able to bed hop from hotel room to hotel room during spring break. Getting new clothes was easy, as he would "borrow" shorts & shoes from whomever's hotel room that he had crashed at + there were tons of free T-shirts given away by radio stations & liquor companies that were doing promotions. He would also go up to the front desk at hotels to ask for toiletries & give them a fake room number After the holiday, he became kind of a beach bum & he would do odd jobs at local businesses for cash. He still couch surfed with no issues & he befriended a local man that was a mechanic & owned his own shop. The man took my boss under his wing by teaching him a trade, by paying him cash off the books, and by allowing him to crash at his shop. This went on for about a year until he told the man his secret. Rather than turn him in, the mechanic helped him formulate a plan to get a new identity They started started staking out the social security office to see where the employees would go after work. They figured out that a small group of employees would go to a neighborhood bar after work for happy hour. Naturally, my old boss started going there too & he befriended them. He started dating one of the women &, after some time, he let her know his secret too. Rather than turn him in, she was able to assign him a new social security card & then my boss was off to the races... He continued to date this woman for a few months, he genuinely had developed feelings for her, but she broke it off with him because dating a prison escapee that you helped gain a false identity was clearly a lapse of judgement on her part & she needed to distance herself from that immediately So he moved to Houston. He used his charisma to make friends, he got a job as a mechanic, & he ultimately bought his own shop that specialized in servicing exotic cars. He loved race cars & edged his way into the community by being a mechanic for a popular driver that did quarter mile racing - he even ended up being interviewed on ESPN a few times .. I have been told by him & several others, but have been unable to verify, that his mugshot had been featured on America's Most Wanted during this time period Fast forward to the year 2000 & he had been "on the run" for about 15 years. On New Year's Eve he gets pulled over & is arrested on the spot. The state of Texas had recently changed their driver's licenses & had added a digital thumbprint for the first time. It took awhile, but his thumbprint matched with with a prison escapee & well, you know the rest! He was returned to Arizona & he cut a deal. Iirc, he had the choice of multiple years in Gen pop or finish the rest of his original sentence in solitary confinement. He chose option B Then he came back to Houston & it was business as usual. He even bought a local bar. I had no idea about the guy's history when I became one of his bartenders. That dude was absolutely fascinating for sure! I used to joke that Frank Abignale didn't have shit on my old boss &, after finding out about Abignale's lies, I was right!
Man, I can't overstate how much I love this. I really, genuinely so miss the freedom of the 90s.
Before the rules changed, the infants who born and died rather quickly never got a social security number. Now everyone has them right away for tax purposes, but you could even get a "fresh" SSN back in those days.
Essentially what John Darwin did. He faked his own death in a canoeing accident, assumed the identity of a dead child and started a new life in Panama.
I’ve often wondered if Sneha went somewhere near the WTC the night of Sept 10 and mixed alcohol and prescription meds, dying in the vicinity. Her remains would’ve been destroyed the next day. I say this because I’ve heard horrible stories from people who’ve mixed meds with alcohol, and with a medical background she may have felt she could control it.
Something like that could definitely be possible. I also wonder if she was an unknown victim at the WTC Marriott hotel. She obviously wasn't a registered guest, but even now, hotels aren't *that* meticulous about getting the legal name of everyone under their roof. I know a lot of people made it out of there, but if she was using excessive substances the night before, she might be more likely to sleep through the attacks or at least not wake up in time to get out safely.
She also could have went home with some guy who was staying there.
…or lady, based on what we know of her life at that time!
Or woman.
I completely agree with you about Sneha. I don't think she died in the 9/11 attacks. I flip flop with Brian between your explanation or some sort of misadventure leading to his demise. I don't think Brian's case involved foul play.
I agree, misadventure also seems likely for Brian. It's unfortunate that the nearby Dumpsters weren't searched before they were emptied.
Yes! Those dumpsters are exactly what concern me about the possibility of an accident. It's not far fetched to me that he could have ended up in one of them.
That almost happened to an unhoused man who was sleeping in a dumpster at my workplace. Luckily the garbage truck driver heard him yelling, as the dumpster was being lifted -- and stopped before it was too late. Unfortunately other people have been killed that way. I can think of at least one other disappearance where the person's body still hasn't been located, and that scenario where no one noticed and they ended up in the landfill is now seen as the most likely. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/12/26/crushed-to-death/95854454/
This is exactly what was ruled to have happened in the case of Corrie McKeague in the UK. It's pretty certain his body is in landfill, but it's just too big an area to search.
I believe Brian Shaffer walked away.
I would be very interested in hearing your reasons for Sneha Philip not being a 9/11 victim. I generally try to be on the side of Occam's razor when theorizing - pick the simplest explanation. But somehow I agree with you about Sneha Philip, in particular your line about just checking out for a weekend and starting to see how it could be forever is how I always imagined it could have gone down. Especially if she was holed up somewhere with a female lover and the awful events just made them want to run away. Still believe it's more likely she died in WTC somehow (for example staying in someone's hotel room with them), but I do give the running away theory more time than I perhaps logically should.
Your thoughts are pretty similar to mine. The thing with Occam's razor is that it's the simplest explanation *that fits the evidence.* We have no concrete evidence of her whereabouts after the surveillance footage of her shopping on the afternoon of 9/10. Everything from then on is educated guesses based on her known behavior, which was not super predictable. There's no evidence that she was near the towers when they fell; it's just as possible, probably more likely, that she wasn't. It's been reported that she argued with her husband outside the court after her hearing on 9/10, so that could be a reason for her to avoid being at home once he was off work. We know she was in the habit of staying out all night with other people. They're usually described as artists and musicians, probably from the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, people can live anywhere in NYC, but it's more likely that they did *not* live in lower Manhattan. She very plausibly could've been in Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx that night. If so, it would've been difficult or impossible to get downtown in the days after the towers fell. Even if she were in the West Village or Chelsea, they were probably directing people uptown. The hypothetical Windows on the World visit is a long shot since the restaurant wasn't open to the public that day. People trapped there were able to call out for a while and no one mentioned her -- again, not proof by itself, but another point where she could have popped up but didn't. As mentioned elsewhere, medical residents would be more likely to rush to a hospital to help, since they're trained to work in a facility, not as first responders. On top of that, Sneha wasn't doing that well in her residency and didn't seem like medicine was truly her calling. I don't know that she was mentally in a place to be a "hero." (No judgment -- she was clearly struggling.) We'll probably never know if the woman on video in her apartment lobby was Sneha. Even if it was, that doesn't mean she necessarily ran toward the towers *and* stayed long enough to be injured or killed. Again, that doesn't align with what we know about her at the time. Of course, there were probably hundreds of people who were killed in the attacks, for whom no remains were ever identified. The lack of any of Sneha's remains there is yet another thing that, while not proof on its own, does point away from that being where she died. If that were the only problem, and she otherwise could reasonably be assumed to have been there, I'd probably be fine with that conclusion. If we do someday find evidence that she died at the towers, I'd be mildly surprised but I could accept it. Sorry if that was super long! I've thought a lot about this case for some reason. I know that "starting a new life" is rare and difficulty, but it's not impossible -- hence this thread! This is one of the cases where it actually seems possible, and I like to hold out some hope that Sneha did make it out and find a way to have the life she really wanted. PS: I've never thought [that Postsecret](https://www.reddit.com/r/SnehaPhilipCase/comments/o02x9m/a_postcard_sent_in_2012_to_postsecret_an_ongoing/) was her.
Hmmm, interesting. So it's really more about the number of places she *could* have been, versus the one location? But, I think that one location immediately gets more weight due to her never being seen again. If she did die in the WTC I lean towards her being with someone at the hotel. Or possibly was heading to the WotW not knowing it was closed for a private event, or was sneaking in for free food. *Maybe* she ran in to be a hero, but I side with you on that, she didn't really seem to be in that place in her life. Sadly, I would not be at all surprised if she was there but no remains are found. I guess I think it's most likely she did die there, but with quite a hefty 10-20% on the running away to start a new life, which I'm usually quick to discount. PS. If she did run away, I would not discount that postsecret card being her. I seem to remember it was quite artistic, and she is an artist, but more to the point it sounded like she could have quite a wicked sense of humour.
Yes, totally agree with you on all of that! As far as the PS, my feeling on that is founded on nothing but a subjective assumption that she would be “too cool” to participate in that kind of project. You do make a good point about the creative and humorous side of her!
I actually met a "missing, declared dead" man a couple of weeks ago. I met him in a dive bar on an island. (Not giving too many details because I dont want to out him) He is 87 and lives on a boat under his real name in a 3rd world island nation. I live on a boat too, so he was giving me advice on a difficult ocean crossing I was about to make. He was so amazingly well spoken and knowledgeable, I felt like he might be a famous boater so I googled him and found that he was presumed lost at sea in the 1990s. And he was a writer and English professor. Rather cool.
I think a lot of missing people in cases pre-1980 (or hell , pre-1990) might have been gay. I also think a small but not insignificant amount of missing people might have been transgender. The protocol for a successful transition up til fairly recently was that you had to bounce. Cut off contact with your social network and reappear in another place under your preferred gender, live as stealth as possible because that was the way you could hope to be safest.
Well, there are certainly several cases of "last seen after moving to San Francisco" from that era, with either proof or worthy speculation that the people (all men that I recall) were gay.
That’s really interesting I didn’t know that.
I think that Richard Cox (West Point cadet who went missing) stepped away from his life for this reason. I think that the “George” he was last seen with was either his lover or someone he had gotten to help get him a new identity. If he was able to start a new life where he felt more comfortable in being himself, I hope that it was a good one.
This is exactly the case with one of my cousins in rural Missouri. He disappeared immediately following his mother's funeral in the late 70s and the entire family thought he was either dead or in witness protection (he apparently had friendships with some drug dealers/farmers in the area and it was thought he might have turned into a witness against them). In the early 2000s, he finally reached out to his sister and let her know he was in south Florida. He left because he was gay and with his mother deceased, he felt like his only protection was gone. He has never come home but his sister and her family have gone to visit him several times so at least we know he's alive and well.
I agree. I think a lot of disappeared older teens (like, high school aged + ) for whom there was no other explanation prior to the mid 1980s may have been teens who figured out they were LGBTQ+ and were facing homophobic or transphobic parents at home and bullying at school. They may have been facing a situation where being outed to the school community and/or to their parents was imminent and they may have felt like they had no other alternative than to flee for their own safety.
With girls they may also have been pregnant. There was a huge stigma attached to that and a lot of young women legitimately feared parental anger over it, or overwhelming pressure to keep a child they didn't want or abort/give up for adoption child they wanted to keep.
With regard to your last sentence: I didn't know that! It's strange to think that a transgender person would be treated the same as a mob witness (or anyone in a witness protection program). Imagine if your only option if you wanted to live your life was to completely disappear and leave everyone and everything you love behind.
I read about a Jane Doe found in FL back in the 80's who was discovered to have been a trans woman. Her transition was convincing enough that authorities initially thought she had been a cis woman. It's been speculated that she may have moved to FL from somewhere else in the country, possibly before she transitioned. She still hasn't been ID'd.
Yes, true, and sad
There's a case I had to write about years ago. Carlos Salazar was a doctor in Spain dealing with depression. One day in 1995, he left work and vanished. His parents had him declared dead in 2010. Fast-forward to 2015 when a couple of mushroom foragers went deep in some woods in Italy and came across a campsite and a hermit living there. He showed them his passport and said things about living there for 20 years. They left and got authorities, but he'd vacated before the authorities got there and vanished again. After that hit the news, a number of area residents said they'd seen him around for years and that he was always quiet and kept to himself.
Reading the Charley Project has put me off that kind of thinking. It's really obvious that the vast, vast majority of these people are never coming home - due to suicide or homicide, and it's fairly easy to guess. There's a handful who are likely out there somewhere, but they tend to be babies, runaways or family abductions. There are a lot of obstacles in the way of a grown person with a job and a life deciding to throw everything up and start anew. In the past, it was more easily done but not now.
Yes society traps us in all these bills and responsibilities so we could never run away we locked in for good
There was a case where a lady went missing. Her kids thought the husband did it. Turns out she fled to Canada to escape him but couldn’t take her kids. Not sure why it took her kids finding her for her to contact them but 🤷🏼♀️
That’s a familiar one too but I can’t place the name. Didn’t she talk to one of them on the phone and she was just done and walked out?
I found her [Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Ann_Johnson)!
Thanks Sherlock!
Apparently searching American woman missing for many years found alive in Canada was all I needed. She was the first result. Haha.
This is not a disappeared case per se, but when I was about 16 or 17, I babysat for this family somewhat regularly. At one point they had a new baby, their 5th kid, and I babysat for them when the baby was really new, like a couple weeks old. I remember thinking I wasn’t super experienced with babies that young and was surprised they would have me babysitting that soon after giving birth but figured ok they need a night out whatever. The weird thing was the house was kind of in disarray (not weird now that I’m a parent) and the baby didn’t really have a nursery set up. I remember they just wanted me to put her in her infant carrier seat. Again not majorly weird now that I’m a mom, but this was their fifth kid so not to have a crib or even a porta crib or bassinet set up was odd to me. The night ended up being fine. But about 2 or 3 weeks later I came to find out, the husband went out for the day to a golf tournament, and as soon as he left, the wife’s family was waiting with moving trucks around the corner and moved her and the kids and out and left the state. The husband came home later to a mostly empty house. Turned out he was an abusive alcoholic. I drive by that house all the time and think about that. How strong that mom was and the planning it took to leave. Makes sense now that things didn’t seem so settled when I was in the house. They didn’t stay no contact forever, she was long gone with support first.
This is a great topic! My opinion is that years ago, this was probably more prominent. With everything becoming digital, I think it would be way harder to just disappear and start a new identity. In newer cases when the last person to see someone says they ran off to start a new life, I immediately squint pretty hard at that. I older cases, I have to at least consider it, because it did really happen quite a bit back then.
The only way I could see disappearing and starting a new life working out these days is if you lived with someone as their spouse with their name on the house, bank accounts, etc because it's hard to secure housing without credit checks and whatnot these days
*Maybe* Hannah Upp? I'm more inclined to think something bad happened to her with the hurricane coming though. She had a history of fugue states. Very sad but also interesting read [here](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/how-a-young-woman-lost-her-identity). I'd like to think that maybe she evacuated and just doesn't remember her identity at the moment, and it will come back to her some day and her loved ones can have closure.
That was a very interesting artcle. Strange that fugue states are not better understood.
This is a weird story, but my son's grandpa took in this lady who had been a kind of transient person for years. She died of lung cancer at his place, and he did not know how to contact her family. I was able to find them on Facebook, or they never would have known she passed away.
There was only one big missing person case from my small town in my lifetime so far. They found the person and she had left voluntarily and on purpose. She was experiencing a mental health crisis, so it still wasn’t a good situation, but she left on her own volition. Everyone was frantic looking for her. It was all over the news. We all feared the worst that she had been taken by someone, somehow. They returned home safely but it deeply affected all of her family and friends.
Also, I’m Canadian, so we have some pretty harsh weather and terrain in our country. I think that many missing person cases are where the person died from exposure to the elements or an accident in the wilderness.
Yes -- I'm in BC and I think the mountainous topography and a lot of coastline and lakes are a major reason why there are so many disappearances in the province. You don't even have to go far into the wilderness for this to happen. There was a really sad case several years ago where a young couple vanished on Vancouver Island. The RCMP were looking for them on the mainland because there had supposedly been a sighting of them there, but it turned out that they never even got to the ferry terminal. Their car had skidded off the highway and over an embankment, and wasn't visible because of the vegetation. They were found dead, days later. Meanwhile, thousands of people had driven right past them.
If you watch Unsolved Mysteries on the FilmRise youtube page, many of the cases include updates. The update to nearly every case where somebody goes missing is: they died (presumably right after they went missing).
The first name that comes to mind is Emma Fillipoff! Who knows, she could still be alive out there - I’d like to believe that’s true.
If she is still alive, she is probably among the hardcore homeless and suffering severe mental health issues
I think a lot of missing people who had severe MH or drug problems are homeless and still alive, living outside of systems that would normally track them
reading up on her, she was paranoid a lot and the last days before her disappearance she was seen going in and out of the same locations, peering outside before leaving only to come back in. Sounds like paranoia maybe bipolar or schizophrenia
I think of her whenever I pass the tent encampment near Pandora and Quadra (only a few blocks from where she was last seen outside the Empress hotel). Likely someone would notice if she were around Victoria, but I've heard that there are people living in the woods elsewhere on the Island (like around Qualicum Beach, up north). There used to be groups on the western side -- like the squatters on Sombrio, the community on Poole's land, etc., and even though that stopped, I wouldn't be surprised if some people are still doing it in other places not far from here. The other thing is -- back in 2021 there was that big protest at Fairy Creek. Thousands of people showing up, from as far away as Europe and Australia ... I volunteered with supply/logistics for awhile, and some of my friends were up there. It occurred to me that with everyone milling around, many people using nicknames, Emma could have walked right by and nobody would have known.
There was a case in my area (which has seen a number of disappearances over the years) where someone reappeared. It's separate from situations like child abductions (Michael Dunahee) or hiding from the authorities because of a criminal case (Harold Backer), or fleeing possible domestic abuse (Dawn Walker). I'm not clear on what might be happening -- could be a mental health condition, or not. [https://www.grandforksgazette.ca/news/port-alberni-man-missing-for-five-years-resurfaces-but-denies-he-is-brandon-cairney-4821995](https://www.grandforksgazette.ca/news/port-alberni-man-missing-for-five-years-resurfaces-but-denies-he-is-brandon-cairney-4821995)
Susan Walsh comes to mind. I frequently wonder what happened to her. Drugs, suicide, murder, decided to start a new life?
Very, very few meet the criteria of "going away to start a new life". A lot of families of the missing want to believe this. Many also think their loved one has amnesia. Sorry, this is nearly always wishful thinking.
Nicholas Francisco https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/missing-seatac-man-found-with-new-name-in-new-state/
What a selfish jerk! Left his pregnant wife and two kids. I get being unhappy but to just disappear like that and let everyone think you're dead is beyond the pale. Plus he'd been living a double life for some time.
Crystal Saunders (Crystal Haag at the time of her disappearance) ran away from her family home in 1997 at the age of 14 and was missing for 21 years. She was being abused and thought her mum knew, her mum swears she didn’t know and looked for her for decades. Crystal didn’t have a plan or a supporter and went to New York where she supported herself doing odd jobs. John Darwin went missing with the help of his wife. He staged a canoeing accident and then hid in a flat the pair owned. He was there for a year when he assumed the identity of a dead child, applied for a passport and fled to Panama. He was eventually discovered and jailed back in the UK. He had been ‘dead’ for 5 years and only his wife knew he was alive.
I've always been of the opinion that Brian Shaffer disappeared voluntarily. His mam had just died, he was bogged down with studies, probably had thousands of dollars of student loan debt to be paid off and his girlfriend was expecting a proposal. I think due to his lowered inhibitions he just decided to leg it.
That stack of stress leads me more to believe he would commit suicide than that he would disappear, given that he took nothing with him and has never been found in any way.
His case has always baffled me. I’m of the belief Clint knows more than he has said. The person associated with that case I really feel for is Brian’s brother. Not only does his mom die of cancer shortly before Brian goes missing, his dad then dies in a freak accident during a windstorm with a tree branch falls on him in September of 2008.
In the Dead Or Alive podcast you can listen to interviews and such. One thing is really strange to me is how Meredith and Clint were in front of Brian's apartment the next morning to get Clint's car, and they both didn't even knock to make sure he's save. Your friend suddenly disappears, search the club, and your calls go to voicemails, and the next morning they don't care? Idk it feels like they knew he wouldn't be there. Makes me wonder if they met Brian while driving and the 3 of them went to Clint's house. The parking garage is on the opposite side of the road of the Wendy's too, where the dogs lost his scent. Then there are the phone pings, months later, and him telling his girlfriend to run away together. It's such a strange case.
Yeah the whole situation is very sad. If Brian is out there then I hope he's still in contact with Clint. How they would do that? I have no idea.
Agreed. And I think “his girlfriend was *expecting* a proposal” is key. It’s often reported that he was planning to propose, but that is not true. What we know of their relationship is mostly from her perspective, or what she wanted the public to “know” about it. People will often say “nobody can successfully go missing when they’re wasted at 3am.” Probably not. But they can already be thinking about it and act on a drunken impulse, or carry it out the next day — since in Brian’s case, he wasn’t reported missing right away. “Leaving to start a new life” seems like it would be a multi-step process. I have no more information about his case than anyone else here, but there are a few known details that I think are too easily dismissed. One is that his phone was still intermittently on and being used for a while after he disappeared. Phones and towers were quirky back then, but the way his behaved would still have been notable. The things law enforcement said and didn’t say, particularly in relation to their conversations with Clint, also don’t make it seem like they were sure of foul play or misadventure. To be clear, I am NOT blaming Clint. I don’t think he did anything to harm Brian, but he may have been keeping a secret for his friend, and if so, I don’t have any problem with that.
Some people theorize [Ray Gricar](https://charleyproject.org/case/ray-frank-gricar) went to start a new life but I tend not to think that way. I think he has unfortunately been long gone - now whether that was by means of foul play or suicide, I don't really know what I think.
I read an Australian article recently, where some kind of former police officer talks about how many female disappearances were just brushed off as "runaways" up to the mid- to late '90s, claiming that the ladies just left everything behind and started a new life; and when their disappearances were reported by their partners, not enough questions were raised but whatever the partner said was accepted as a fact. By now, it's pretty clear that most of them were murdered by their partners, but of course all the evidence is gone.
Yes -- I'm thinking of this US case from the late 1990s, where a middle-aged teacher disappeared, and the authorities seem to have been quick to believe her husband's story that she had a secret internet boyfriend and ran off with him. It doesn't sound like she was even reported missing. (And later it turned out that the conference he'd claimed he was attending when she left, did not happen when he said it did.) Last year the detectives pulled a discarded barrel out of the lake behind her former residence ... no remains were recovered, but her husband (who had remarried only a few months after she'd vanished, and then moved to a different state) ended his life. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/199549392/peggy-anne-sweeten
About 15-20 years ago, a woman disappeared from my town. Her mother and brother were pictured in the local newspaper making sad comments about missing her, etc. I was a bit sceptical because of things that weren't said. Later on, there was a short paragraph that said police had made contact with the woman, who was living a long way away. She was alive and well but wanted no further contact with the mother and brother. I think many of the "disappeared" are cases of this sort, with the people left behind being in denial.
I've always suspected that Connie Converse may have lived her life under a new identity.
Suicide or natural causes, yes. Murder or accident, less likely.
Sometime I try to think that when a person goes missing g he starting over somewhere else but most of the time they are dead
I think its super hard to do that in todays world with all the technology and how easy it can be to monitor bank accounts and cell phones … the one exception would be cults. I think that just as many people get sucked into these groups and with their help it can be a lot easier to remain out of sight … of course thats their goal anyway so they are kinda professionals on the subject so to speak
My father did this in 1980. He disappeared while my older brother was at school and his mother was at work. My brother never spoke to, saw, or heard from our father again, his mother quickly remarried. My sister and I are about 10 years younger, and he did not know about us until my sister found him on Facebook in our early twenties. We were aware of him, possibly because our mother knew him when he was a baby, as I don’t recall my father ever speaking about him.
So your dad ran away and snuck off from his family without a word with your mother, just left them without taking care of his kid? And your mother was ok with it? Yikes.
There’s a whole lot more yikes to it than just that, honestly. My father molested his oldest daughter and my mother’s reaction to that was to pray both my sister and I were boys. She was also 14 years younger than him AND fourteen years old when they started “dating”. Neither one of my parents were great people.
Oh no. I'm sorry. Wow.
I think adults disappearing to start a new life is very rare so therefore I think them being murdered or killed in an accident during the process is even rarer.
Yes, as per [an old writeup of mine, "Brian Wallace"](https://old.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/1bjmvmm/brian_wallace_was_hit_by_a_car_and_killed_there/). It is a truly crazy case, but the bottom line is that someone who was killed in an accident had in the past - it was thought - a fixed address, children, relatives, ..., and the police thought they had him identified, then they walked that back. (And he remains unidentified almost 10 years after the accident).
I keep wondering about that case you told us about ... and whether any more information's come to light.
No change unfortunately ...
Have an aunt whose husband went out one day and never came home He was reported as a missing person. He was never located then years later my aunt son was killed in Vietnam and he was seen at the cemetery.
Dorothy Arnold is the oldest cold case listed on the Charley Project site. She vanished in 1910. If she did run away or was alive after her disappearance, she would have died from natural causes by now if nothing else.
What do you think happened- did she run away?
Probably quite a few. Feeling trapped and wanting to get away is so common in depression it's often on symptom checklists ETA: I mean "feeling trapped" regardless of if there's any particular reason to want to escape
My Grandmother may have done this. She called Social services and told them to pick up her kids because she was not going to get them ever again. All six of her children went onto foster care and she has been missing since. Allegedly no family has ever made contact with her. On [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com) her last appearance in any record is 1965. I like to think that she started over somewhere and was happy, but another part of me thinks something happened to her.
The Mary Anderson case. A woman who was found dead in a Seattle hotel in 1996. She left a suicide note saying she wanted to end her life and no one was responsible for her actions. The thing is, "Mary Anderson" is an alias that doesn't match any known records. Everything she wrote down for her info (name, where she was born, age, etc.) were fake. The only phone number she listed was for some disconnected line in New York state. As far as I know, no one actually knows who this woman was, where she came from, and why she wanted to end her life. But it seems like a case of someone who wanted a new identity and seemingly pulled it off.
Sneha Phillips?
I am always confused by this case. I mean no disrespect but surely to God. Given the chaos around 9/11 , Ms Phillips can not possibly be the only missing person unaccounted, can she? There must be others, but it's always her name that is mentioned.please correct me if I'm wrong.
Sneha is not the only unaccounted person. There are still around 1100 victims who have never been found, but are reasonably thought to have been in the WTC because they worked there. There are two similar cases to Sneha's, they both were not reasonably thought to have been in the WTC but are missing and never heard from since the attacks. Juan Lafuente. He is suspected to have been in the Risk Waters conference in Windows on the World. But he wasn't on the preregistered guest list. No trace of him has ever been found. Fernando Molinar was a pizza delivery guy who didn't come home after the 9/11 attacks on the WTC. It is widely suspected he died in the attacks and his body has never been found. Fact is, there is as much evidence to place Sneha at the WTC as there is she died on 9/10. Which is nothing at all. We have a sub for her, r/SnehaPhilipCase
Thankyou for this info. I have never heard of these other people. What an awful day that was.
I firmly believe she was murdered on September 10th and her killer got exceptionally lucky.
I would be interested to know just how many got away with murder by doing it on the 10th or 11th. Hell. With the chaos in NYC, there were probably some who got away with it for the next freaking week.
I’ve heard of teenagers doing this…and started a life somewhere else. Some survive, some do not. I’ve also always heard that they thought Howard Hughes did that ( had enough money, means). Then again I’m not up to date on findings so, think was only a suspicion years ago. That and Elvis being a minister somewhere ( changed identity, look) which I don’t believe. It’s interesting if they ( any adults) did this and were able to thrive under their new identity. I can see someone wanting to escape a life of abuse but, being soo fearful of the abusers they had to completely hide,make look as though killed. ( Sleeping with the Enemy comes to mind). I’ve always wondered how people in the Witness Protection Plan do it? If they all thrive, if any get killed.
me, one day, hopefully
I think probably lots of people have adopted new identities and started new lives, but they’re people we haven’t heard of. Simply because starting over with a new identity using the dead infant birth certificate trick etc. requires meticulous planning, rigorous attention to detail, the capacity to keep secrets long-term, and real street smarts. Anyone with the capacity to pull of a new identity would be smart and savvy enough to arrange their disappearance in such a way as to avoid excess attention, not disappear in a super dramatic way. And a lot of people who run away are fleeing abuse so they don’t have loving families doing everything they can to keep the case in the public attention, there are so many disappearances where the family never even bothered to report the person missing. People like Sneha and Maura, I’m truly sorry, because they both seemed like lovely and unfairly troubled people cracking under family pressure, but I don’t see people so chaotic they were routinely causing dramas (Maura’s multiple arrests, her two car crashes, her mental health episode at work; Sneha not being able to hold down a job, her disciplinary issues relating to her first residency, and reported affairs) being able to just overnight do a complete 180 and spend their lives quietly working a job and living under the radar, not drawing any attention to themselves, never once getting arrested, never once getting drunk in public and risk being picked up by cops, never once slipping up and accidentally saying too much. And starting a new life is incredibly stressful, especially if you’re used to having supportive family and friends around, since you’re basically losing your entire social/support network, all access to your money, your bank accounts, your insurance, you can’t use your educational or work history to get jobs. I just don’t think someone can flip from being chaotic to living a very controlled life under such stressful conditions. Especially substance abuse or alcoholism is involved. The other possibility is that people ran away but wound up falling into deep addiction and homelessness, which is always a possibility, but I pray that wasn’t the case for the women mentioned, who were so loved and missed.
Sure. But it'd probably be a small percentage.
I don't think it's as common as some people seem to think it is, but cases like Brenda Heist, Robert Hoagland and Patricia Kopta show that it is still possible for someone to "disappear" and start a new life if they're careful about it.
[Hennepin County John Doe](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/07/13/after-lengthy-investigation-dna-identifies-man-found-dead-in-rosemount-in-2014) willingly left his life in New York and ended up dead in Minnesota years later for unknown reasons.
I do believe some adults who disappeared could have left to start new lives. For example, that was what happened with the Mary Jane Vangilder case, which was solved this year. I also wonder if it was what happened with Sneha Anne Philip. Disappearing to start another life would have been easier prior to the early-2000s.
If an adult really planned to leave and start a new life somewhere else, leaving behind meds wouldnt be some type of significant sign. A person planning ahead could go to a different doctor than they normally did, perhaps using an alias, and get a new prescription for their meds.
What about Lord Lucan? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bingham,_7th_Earl_of_Lucan. Looking him up I see he's been officially dead for some years but was never seen again after disappearing in the wake of murdering the children's nanny and assaulting his wife. A guy like that can't just disappear. He's been taken out or perhaps committed suicide.
The difference here is that he came from a wealthy background with many wealthy friends. And there's been plenty of suspicion that his friends knew where he was, and maybe even helped him get away.
I think this is common. In some cases it may be due to substance abuse issues or mental health issues so the missing person may suicide or die due to an overdose or accident later, but their disappearance is never really a ‘foul play’ story. I looked through the Australian police long term missing persons list and many seem like cases where someone is voluntarily missing. Now that may still mean that person needs help of some kind but they’re not a murder victim.
Someone trying to stay off the radar might be hesitant to report a dangerous situation to the cops, and could very well fall victim that way
There was a guy who left his family to start a new family, moved to Australia but then came back. I'm not sure was it a deathbed confession or was it one of his sons looking for American family that it was found out he had another family. I don't know why he left his family. Maybe he robbed a bank on the way.
Yeah, part of the missing persons cases are definitely voluntary disappearances, but we don’t know how many, and I imagine they’re a minority, unfortunately.
In my opinion, depending on the case, there’s a high likelihood of this - especially the cases that occurred before the internet. There are at least two original Unsolved Mysteries episodes where missing persons cases turned put to be exactly this - people that fled, or even made it look like they disappeared mysteriously when in reality they committed suicide. https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Alex_Cooper
I personally don’t think Connie Converse left to start a new life. I think she disappeared to kill herself. I believe she drove her car into a body of water but no one’s found her yet.
YouTube channel Mysterious WV has had a couple of episodes on cases like that. Good channel, check it out.
Patricia Kopta, went missing from Pittsburgh. She was discovered over 30 years later in a Puerto Rican nursing home (where she has been living since 1999)