Buzz
The dawn of 2020 not only marked the beginning of a new year but also a fresh decade. While many anticipate brighter days and a sense of optimism, for others, it signifies yet another year—or even another decade—of grappling with unresolved mysteries that deny them peace.
Countless individuals have experienced the inexplicable loss of loved ones, while others continue to await news of missing relatives that never arrives. This list highlights 10 mysterious disappearances that spark debate and reflection. Yet, amidst the intrigue, we must remember the families left behind, holding onto hope for the safe return of their missing loved ones.
10. Boris Weisfeiler
In December 1984, 43-year-old Boris Weisfeiler had grown tired of Pennsylvania's relentless snowfall. Seeking warmth and adventure, he planned a trip to Chile, eager to explore the scenic trails of the Andes Mountains.
During one of his hikes, it is thought that Weisfeiler attempted to cross a river. The sole trace of his presence was a backpack discovered on the river's edge. Weisfeiler vanished without a trace, and Chilean authorities declared he likely drowned while crossing the river, though his body was never found.
Sixteen years later, the mystery surrounding Weisfeiler's disappearance took a dark twist. Declassified US documents suggested that the Penn State professor might have been killed in Chile. According to the files, a witness claimed to have seen Weisfeiler interrogated at a rural commune before being executed at close range.
This shocking revelation prompted a renewed investigation. By 2012, eight individuals, including police and military personnel, were accused of kidnapping Weisfeiler. However, the case was dismissed in 2016, and all suspects were released.
Weisfeiler's sister was heartbroken by the outcome. To this day, no remains have been found in Chile, leaving Boris Weisfeiler's final fate shrouded in uncertainty.
9. Patricia Meehan
On April 20, 1989, 37-year-old Patricia Meehan was driving on the wrong side of Montana Highway 200 when she collided with another vehicle. The other driver was Carol Heitz, an off-duty police dispatcher.
After Heitz stepped out of her car, Meehan approached her, stared silently for a few moments, then turned away. She climbed over a nearby fence, glanced back at the crash site, and walked off, never to be seen or heard from again.
Following the incident, numerous sightings of Meehan were reported, with claims of her hitchhiking or quietly eating at diners. These alleged encounters occurred primarily in Montana and Washington. It was later discovered that Meehan had struggled with depression and worked various jobs on a Montana ranch before her disappearance.
Alongside police efforts, Meehan’s family initiated their own search for Patricia. They distributed 2,000 flyers and utilized horses and a helicopter to scour difficult terrain. Despite their extensive efforts, Patricia Meehan has never been found.
8. Mayumi Arashi
On September 2, 1994, 27-year-old Mayumi Arashi left her Tokyo home, informing her sister Yoko that she was meeting a friend. When Mayumi didn’t return by the next day, Yoko contacted the friend, who denied having plans to meet Mayumi.
That same day, a note was discovered in Yoko’s wardrobe. It read: “I was going out with A but was betrayed. [ . . . ] I’m sorry.” The note included A’s phone number at the bottom.
Yoko called the number and spoke to “A,” who admitted meeting Mayumi the day before. He expressed that if Mayumi was dead, he hoped the consequence would be imprisonment. Yoko hired a private investigator to monitor “A’s” activities for months. However, the investigator only discovered that “A” had entered the woods on March 9, 1995, carrying two beverages. A police search of the area yielded no results.
Years passed without any updates about Mayumi. Yoko and her father eventually appeared on TV to discuss her disappearance. Behind the father on a shelf was a note attached to the wood that read: “Don’t believe what Yoko says.”
This sparked a wave of speculation among viewers. Despite this strange development, Mayumi Arashi’s whereabouts remain unknown, with no new leads to explain her disappearance.
7. Hannah Upp
It’s rare to hear of someone vanishing multiple times, but Hannah Upp’s case is an exception. Her first disappearance occurred on August 28, 2008, after she went for a run near Riverside Drive in Hamilton Heights, where she resided.
Almost three weeks later, she was discovered floating in New York Harbor. Hannah had no memory of how she ended up there or what transpired during her absence. Hospital tests revealed she had dissociative fugue, a rare form of amnesia that causes individuals to forget their identity, sometimes for years.
Upp vanished again for two days in September 2013 and once more on September 14, 2017, just a week after Hurricane Irma struck the Caribbean. At the time, she was employed at a school in the Virgin Islands.
On September 16, 2017, construction workers located her car on a beach. Inside the vehicle were her clothes and keys. That same day, Hurricane Maria was developing in the Atlantic, bringing further destruction to the northeastern Caribbean.
Sadly, Hannah was never found and remains missing to this day.
6. Patrick Warren and David Spencer
Following a joyful Christmas Day with their families in 1996, best friends Patrick Warren, 11, and David Spencer, 13, spent Boxing Day relaxing at their homes in Chelmsley Wood. In the afternoon, they joined a group of children playing in Meriden Park. Later, they asked their parents for permission to visit one of Patrick’s brothers that evening.
Patrick rode his new Christmas bicycle, while David walked alongside him. They reached a local gas station, where an attendant observed them heading toward a shopping center.
The next day, one of Patrick’s brothers went searching for the boys after discovering they never arrived at their intended destination. Much later, Patrick’s bicycle was found behind the gas station. The boys’ faces were featured on milk cartons as part of a campaign to locate them.
A suspect was finally arrested in 2003, but he was released without charges. Another potential suspect was Brian Field, a convicted child killer who had raped and murdered a child in 1968 and abducted two teenagers in 1986.
In 2006, authorities searched an area where Field had previously disposed of waste, hoping to find the boys’ remains. Unfortunately, the search yielded no results.
As of early 2020, Patrick and David remain missing, and there is little optimism that the case will ever be resolved.
5. Ireland’s Vanishing Triangle
On March 26, 1993, 26-year-old Annie McCarrick, a New Yorker, vanished from Sandymount. She was last spotted near a post office in Enniskerry. Her parents flew to Ireland after her friends raised concerns and spent six months searching for her, but their efforts were in vain.
On July 25, 1993, 39-year-old Eva Brennan left her parents’ home in Rathgar but never returned to her apartment. After two days of silence, her father checked her apartment and found the jacket she had worn on the day she disappeared. Eva was never seen again.
On January 3, 1994, 22-year-old Imelda Keenan informed her boyfriend she was heading to the post office. She left their Waterford City apartment at 1:30 PM. A local doctor’s secretary was the last to see Keenan as she crossed a street and seemingly disappeared.
On November 9, 1995, 21-year-old Josephine Dollard was seen using a payphone in Moone, Kildare. After her call, she entered a car with an unidentified individual and was never seen again.
Between 1996 and 1998, several young women vanished under mysterious circumstances: Fiona Pender, 25, disappeared from Tullamore; Ciara Breen, 17, went missing from Dundalk; Fiona Sinnott, 19, vanished after leaving a pub in Broadway; and Deirdre Jacob, 18, disappeared just meters from her parents’ home.
None of these young women have ever been located.
What connects them? They all vanished within the area now referred to as Ireland’s Vanishing Triangle in Leinster. Authorities concluded that the women were likely murdered and focused their investigation on Larry Murphy, a convicted rapist. Murphy had been charged with an unrelated rape and attempted murder in 2000.
Once Murphy was imprisoned, the disappearances ceased, further implicating him. However, due to insufficient evidence and Murphy’s persistent denials, he was never charged in connection with the vanishings. The fate of the missing women remains a mystery.
4. Lauren Spierer
On June 3, 2011, 20-year-old Indiana University student Lauren Spierer spent the evening at a bar with friends. Her boyfriend, Jesse Wolff, wasn’t with her but exchanged texts with her before going to sleep.
Surveillance footage showed Spierer leaving the Bloomington bar around 2:30 AM, accompanied by her friend Cory Rossman. Witnesses at the bar reported that both appeared heavily intoxicated when they departed.
Rossman and Spierer briefly stopped at her apartment complex before leaving again. They walked through an alley just before 3:00 AM and arrived at Rossman’s apartment, where his roommate, Michael Beth, helped Rossman to his room.
Spierer insisted on returning to her own place and ended up at the apartment of Beth’s neighbor, Jay Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum stated that Spierer left at 4:30 AM and that he last saw her walking south on College Avenue.
Hours later, Jesse Wolff texted Spierer, but a bar employee replied, informing him that she had left her phone behind. Lauren Spierer was never seen again.
In 2015, 22-year-old Hannah Wilson was discovered murdered and abandoned in a vacant lot 10 miles from the Bloomington campus after being reported missing. Daniel Messel was arrested and convicted for the crime. Authorities explored potential connections between Spierer’s disappearance and Wilson’s murder but found no links. To this day, no suspects have been identified, and no new evidence has surfaced.
3. Mikelle Biggs
On January 2, 1999, nine-year-old Kimber Biggs and her 11-year-old sister Mikelle Biggs were eagerly waiting outside their Mesa, Arizona, home for an ice cream truck. Mikelle was riding her younger sister’s bike. Feeling cold, Kimber went inside, returning 90 seconds later to find the bike lying in the road with its front wheel spinning. Mikelle was nowhere to be seen.
Within half an hour, over 1,000 people were searching the streets for Mikelle. However, with no witnesses or leads, the investigation stalled. Only the Biggses’ neighbors and Mikelle’s father were questioned, with the latter quickly ruled out as a suspect.
Years went by with no trace of Mikelle. Then, on March 14, 2018, a reporter contacted Mesa police, reporting that a man had turned in a dollar bill with the message: “My name is Mikel Biggs. Kidnapped from Mesa. I’m alive.”
Kimber Biggs doubted the note’s authenticity, noting that her sister’s name was misspelled. This lead also turned out to be a dead end.
As of early 2020, Mikelle Biggs is still missing. Her sister, now a mother herself, continues to hope and pray daily for Mikelle’s safe return.
2. Anthonette Cayedito
On April 6, 1986, Penny Cayedito returned to her Gallup, New Mexico, apartment after a long day at work. Her three daughters were asleep, and the babysitter left once Penny arrived. Penny stayed up until around 3:00 AM to finish chores before going to bed.
Shortly after falling asleep, a knock at the door went unnoticed by Penny. However, her eldest daughter, Anthonette, heard it and answered. Penny’s younger daughters thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. When the family woke up the next morning, nine-year-old Anthonette was missing.
Penny immediately contacted the police to report Anthonette’s disappearance. One of Anthonette’s sisters suspected their uncle might have been the one knocking, but he was quickly cleared due to insufficient evidence.
Neighbors reported seeing a brown van near the Cayedito home and a man approaching the house. However, the van was never located. A year later, police received an unexpected call from a girl claiming to be Anthonette.
The girl said she had been kidnapped and was being held in Albuquerque. A man’s voice interrupted, asking, “Who said you could use the phone?” before the call ended abruptly. Authorities were unable to trace the call.
Several years later, a waitress in Carson City, Nevada, alerted police after finding a note under a plate that said, “Help me! Call police.” Despite this, Anthonette was never located. Penny Cayedito passed away in 1999 without reuniting with her daughter. The case remains unsolved.
1. Ben McDaniel
On August 18, 2010, 30-year-old scuba diver Ben McDaniel was exploring the underwater cave at Vortex Springs. He attempted to enter a restricted area by tampering with a gate designed to keep uncertified divers out. Two Vortex Springs employees, also diving at the time, noticed his actions. One allowed McDaniel access to prevent him from injuring himself or drowning while trying to bypass the gate.
Two days later, the same employee noticed McDaniel’s truck still parked in the same spot. Concerned he might have drowned, the employee contacted police. Recovery divers thoroughly searched the cave but found no trace of McDaniel. A seasoned diver later confirmed that McDaniel’s size made it impossible for him to have become trapped deeper in the cave.
McDaniel’s parents offered a $30,000 reward for any diver willing to venture deeper into the cave’s dangerous depths to search for their son. One diver may have accepted the challenge, though it’s unclear. Tragically, that diver was later found dead inside the cavern.
Conspiracy theories quickly emerged. Some suggested McDaniel staged his own death to escape personal issues, while others believed he was murdered and his body hidden in an unreachable location. Additional theories proposed he drowned and was buried under sand or that he took his own life by wedging himself into a tight space, ensuring his body would never be recovered.
Ben McDaniel’s whereabouts remain unknown, and the mystery of his disappearance continues to haunt his family and friends.
