In January of 2020, a landlord in Bracknell, England conducted a welfare check on the two residents of a flat she managed.
One of the residents was 60-year-old Stephen Corfield, who was blind his entire life. His roommate was his mother — 84-year-old June Corfield. The two were described as “reclusive” by neighbors, as they were rarely seen leaving or arriving at the flat.
The welfare check was being conducted because workmen complained that they could not access the flat to complete necessary repairs. The landlord, Charlotte Rolfe, hired a locksmith to open the front door after numerous unsuccessful attempts at contacting the residents.
Upon opening the door to the flat, the landlord — accompanied by a police officer — discovered the weeks-old bodies of both residents in the main room, half dressed, sitting down and facing each other on sofas.
Here’s a quote from the officer who discovered the scene: “As you entered the lounge where you had the two sofas, officers found a female sat in one of the chairs, slouched backwards. To her right they saw a male, again slouched back in the chair with his head tilted forward but to his left hand side. Both plainly had been dead for some time.”
Even stranger, the bodies were found surrounded by ten chocolate cakes, ten cartons of milk, and a handwritten note that read ‘Put memo at the top of the stairs do not come in’ as well as the words 'digital radio bush' and 'China dab'. In between the two chairs were two Bush DAB radios, and each person had a water bottle at their feet. June’s was empty; Stephen’s had a bit of clear liquid still inside. Both bottles were tested for any kind of substance, but everything came back negative and it is believed to just be a drink. Stephen had £1,000 in cash inside his pants pocket. June was said to have been found wearing a top and one sock, and Stephen wearing a shirt, shoes, and socks.
The flat itself was extremely sparse, and all electrical items were unplugged (including the fuse box which was turned off). There were no lightbulbs in any of the sockets. The heater inside the flat had never been used. In the trash can was a newspaper dated December 2, 2019, despite the fact Stephen Corfield was blind. There was no bed, and hardly any furniture.
As the only existing documentation which pictured Stephen Corfield was a passport from 1998, police had to locate June's ex-husband and other son, Malcolm Corfield senior and junior, to identify Stephen through DNA. Both men said June had not seen her former husband in around 30 years and had been estranged from her other son for about 15 years.
Dr Robert Chapman, who carried out post mortem examinations, gave the cause of death for Mrs Corfield, who was 5ft tall and weighed just 33 kilograms (five stone) when she died, as pneumonia and coronary heart disease. The pathologist said that while he discovered a small tumour in Stephen Corfield's brain, his cause of death remained unascertained. Another source states June died of hypothermia.
Alan Blake, assistant coroner for Berkshire, said he believed Mrs Corfield had died first but had to record an open verdict on her son. He believes June died first and Stephen died afterwards because he was unable to care for himself, but this theory can’t be proven.
There was no evidence of third-party involvement and very scant evidence which could point to suicide. The rather cryptic note ending in 'do not come in' which was left would not permit such an inference. There is insufficient evidence to determine whether this was an entirely natural death or whether there was an element of the unnatural about this death. Police are adamant that there is no evidence of forced entry, foul play, or suicide.
What happened to June and Stephen Corfield? Why were they estranged from their family? Why were they not fully dressed, and where are the other pieces of clothing? Why the chocolate cakes? I have so many questions. There’s surprisingly little press coverage of this case.
Edit: There’s some confusion on whether the cakes were surrounding the body or simply in the kitchen. There were radios near the body and water bottles by their feet (tested the liquid but found nothing). Either way, the electricity was turned off so there was no way to refrigerate the cakes and milk. Also there’s basically one article of this case rewritten on other websites, and no other info :(
Sources: one, two, three

This one ended up being way longer to write than I expected, and it's kind of a slow burn, so I'm sorry if it's not a big flashy story like some of the other stuff on this subreddit. It's maybe too early to tell for sure if this is going to become a full-fledged horror story but we're only at session two so far, which is where the weirdness really starts, and even though nothing laughably over the top has happened my nope senses are starting to tingle on this one. I was going to give the DM the benefit of the doubt but the more I thought about it the less I liked how things were handled, so I decided to share it and see what people think.
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I found a group to play DnD 5e with online. One or two of them are new players and the DM said they have some experience running games, so cool. I've been itching to play again and I've pretty much always been the DM in my friend group ever since we first started playing off and on, probably seven years ago, so I wanted to find a table where I could sit back and have fun roleplaying one of the dozen unplayed characters I've rolled up over the years(DMs, you know that feeling).
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So we have a four-person crew starting at level 1. I'm playing a fiend warlock planning on being the face and getting my roleplay on but planning to take pact of the blade so I can still enjoy some combat. I had a pretty solid backstory and I've been looking forward to playing him for a while. There's a sorcerer, a fighter, and a cleric on the team too and they seem ready to roleplay. I think the fighter is the newbie but the sorcerer put some work into their PC's backstory which was cool. Our DM set up what I think is a homebrew campaign set in the Sword Coast. I'm not sure, no campaign books were mentioned but that's not a problem either way. EDIT: the adventure is apparently from the essentials kit. I don't own that and I've never run that adventure so I didn't recognize it. It's not a big deal though, I just wanted to play some DnD.
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The game starts fairly normally as we enter a town in possession of a cart of supplies that an NPC hired us to deliver. The NPC was supposed to arrive before us but is missing. We learn that there have been reports of goblin bandits in the north, plus a gang of Redbrands has been harassing the town, plus a dragon has been sighted in the area, plus our boss has been excavating something nearby. Lots of juicy quest hooks. The other players are a little slow to warm up in the RP, and I've got that DM experience so I'm trying not to shove the party toward the quest hooks or take over all the RP moments, trying to make sure everyone gets to have their time because I don't want to be that guy. I'm not exactly an amazing roleplayer, I think I was just overly excited to get going as a PC. I did try to apologize for jumping to speak first and said more than once I didn't want to speak for the whole party if they had things they wanted to say. Nobody acted like it was a problem.
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Amidst our RPing we decided to investigate the Redbrand hideout but didn't learn much. We went back that night and since I also had the highest dex I tried to stealth up and peek through a window, but I botched the roll and the Redbrands came out after us. We rolled really lucky and killed all but one. My suggested plan was to keep the one and interrogate them. The hideout was a bar and the bar owner came out because of the ruckus to yell at us. I thought it would be clever to use Charm Person to get her to take us inside the hideout, but she made the save and chased us off. We kept the Redbrand until the next day when he woke up from unconsciousness. It was obvious after a little talking that we weren't going to get much from them and I got my spell slot back after the rest so I tried to charm them for information. But they made their save too and we couldn't get anything out of them. The cleric argued convincingly that we shouldn't kill the Redbrand even though they admitted to murdering a citizen of the town, so we left them there in an abandoned house. In the town square we discovered a notice board with even more quest hooks on it, which seemed awesome. I was impressed that the DM had all this laid out. And that's it for session one. Pretty normal to me so far. We had some crap rolls and some good rolls and everybody seemed to be having fun. It was a little short, but that's just part of the challenge of scheduling a bunch of adults to play games. I didn't see anything going wrong just yet.
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Session two is where things got frustrating. We decided to do the easiest-sounding mission and get some extra cash and XP before we went looking for our missing boss. The mission with the smallest reward was to go out of town to a windmill house and bring the old lady who lives there back to the town so she'd be safe from the roaming dragon. I'm thinking maybe we'll fight goblins on the way back as an escort mission and it might tie into the main quest. Turns out when we got there a whole ass manticore was breaking in the door to the house and the DM made us act quickly by saying the door went down and the manticore was going inside after the woman.
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Now, I knew a level 1 party was not killing a manticore under any kind of reasonable circumstances, but I didn't remember exact info because I've never run a manticore and I didn't have the stat block in front of me to cheat because I'm not that kind of player. So I didn't know what else the DM wanted us to do except fight. I was thinking maybe they homebrewed it down to make a level 1-friendly encounter, or the manticore would leave if we hit it enough. Instead it downed our fighter on turn one and then started speaking common to us. The DM said before the encounter that our characters would know what we know about monsters(not my favorite ruling on metagaming but okay), but I didn't know offhand that manticores spoke, so that ruling didn't help much anyway. Our sorcerer managed to negotiate with the manticore and in exchange for literally all of our rations it agreed not to eat the old lady or the fighter. This was the start of my being uncomfortable because letting a party walk into a potential TPK and expecting us to metagame to survive it isn't great(maybe I should've taken note at session 0 when they asked if we were cool with the possibility of characters easily dying at low levels if we made a bad call. Sounds like shifting the blame for building bullshit encounters for a level 1 party in hindsight). We didn't get any kind of history checks or anything to recall this information, and at least one or two of us are first-time players so they wouldn't even have a chance to metagame the solution. I remember the non-first-timers mentioning they were also former DMs and they didn't even remember manticores could speak, so there's that.
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After that fiasco I ran to the house and tried to persuade the lady to come back to town with us, on account of her door being in pieces on the floor and not only a manticore but also a dragon being on the loose. The DM made the lady refuse outright to leave her home and didn't even give me a chance to roll for it. I don't feel like it's polite to ask for rolls from the DM because they're really supposed to decide when it's time to roll based on what's happening. Maybe they expected me to ask, who knows. I didn't get a roll after pleading with the lady three separate ways to come with us, so I said "I guess I'll try Charm Person again since I'm not persuading her." The DM reminded me that the spell would wear off in an hour and it would take at least 2 to walk back to town(this was mentioned during the walk to the house and was not a retcon in the moment, but looking back at it I'm almost paranoid enough to wonder if they decided the distance was 2 hours because they were anticipating me using Charm Person again on this stubborn NPC). I told them I knew that but if I can't persuade her I don't have any other way to get her out of here. So the DM rolls the save and the lady fails, and she comes along with us.
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Fast forward an hour and the spell wears off. We tried to convince the lady to go ahead and walk the rest of the way since we were already this far. Instead she yelled at me for using magic on her and full sprinted toward her house. The sorcerer managed to catch up and tried to persuade her again. They told her people back in town were worried about her and she needed to come with us. The woman said she would be happy to write a note telling everyone she's okay but she refused to go with us, no chance for us to roll a check. We decided to just call the mission a wash and let her go. We'd just go kill goblins the next day.
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One or two of the players got a little salty about the Charm Person use, but I felt like they were mostly joking because the NPC(DM) made such a big deal about it. I got a little frustrated by this point and admittedly spoke out of turn, saying I didn't know how else I was expected to play the encounter because I didn't get a chance to persuade the lady. At this point I just felt like it was a puzzle and I wasn't given all the pieces. Then the DM told me this is the kind of thing that happens when you try to use Charm Person on everyone you meet. Now it's starting to click for me. That statement made me more frustrated and I pointed out that they never gave me a check so I didn't feel like I had any choice. The sorcerer spoke up and said he had noticed too that there hadn't really been that many skill checks in the campaign so far and wanted to know what was up with that(made me feel better and like I wasn't on my own feeling that way at least). The DM said some interactions you're just not going to be able to change someone's mind so there's no need to even roll(I disagree with that ruling too but I'm not the DM). Now I'm borderline mad and say "I guess it was an unwinnable mission then, and that's kind of annoying that we got put up against a manticore that could've wiped us for a mission that didn't even have a good outcome and we didn't get anything out of it." That accusation didn't really get addressed in the moment. Play continued and I stayed silent for most of the remainder of the session. Admittedly I was pouting a little bit but there were only maybe 30 minutes left in the session and there was nothing for my character to do between missions anyway because it's a small town and I'm playing a street urchin with no money or connections to this town. The other players had their own stuff to do and got the chance to do their own thing like crafting and making friends in town, which is great.
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The sorcerer invited my character to go with them and we went to speak to the mayor and try to persuade them to pay us for making sure the old lady was safe. This is when the mayor out of the blue said something that wasn't on the notice board: "if you got a note from her that verifies what you say then I'd be happy to pay you." But we didn't explicitly say we accepted a note from the woman, so we didn't have one, so no pay. Under normal circumstances this would sound more funny than frustrating, but in context it kind of felt like the DM was taking a jab at us for how we handled the encounter. The note comment from the lady just sounded like random roleplaying and we had no reason to think a note would help us, and then when we got to the mayor he said almost word for word what the old lady said about a note, and to me in the moment it sounded like "if you had just played the encounter the way it was supposed to be played you would've gotten paid." So the sorcerer spent the night forging a note(the DM almost didn't let them until finding out they were proficient with a forger's kit, which sounds excessive for a handwritten "I'm alive" note), and in the morning we were paid. And then the mayor gives us some more out of the blue info: "Is she still brewing health potions out there in that house?"
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Queue a stare into the camera lens from The Office. That might've been good info to have when we were practically inside the house and our fighter was unconscious. It was probably unintentional and didn't mean anything but in context it felt like another moment of rubbing salt in the wound. Like if we had approached the encounter the right way we could've gotten all these rewards. And I didn't like that feeling because it had already been made implicitly clear that according to the DM I was the reason the encounter went badly, so it was like saying "he cost the party some good loot" without actually saying it. And that's the end of session two.
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I started out wondering what I did wrong to get that kind of retaliation, because my instinct a lot of the time is to blame myself for things, and I've been working on not doing that. My first conclusion was actually that DnD players must just hate Charm Person and I should drop it, until other players online said "Um, no, that's a DM issue not a spell issue. The spell is in the game exactly for moments like what you tried to do." And the more I thought about what the sorcerer said, the more I realized that in two 3-ish hour sessions maybe two or three skill checks had been made, including my stealths from session one, and I hadn't gotten the chance to make any kind of charisma checks, which is what my warlock was built for. So I *almost* think I'm getting picked on, but it's not gone totally off the rails yet. I'm going to proceed with caution and give it one more session because I do know DMing level 1 sessions is not the easiest thing in the world and I usually skip to level 2 or 3 just so I don't have to do it. In any case I've found a second game to join that starts this week and I'll have a fallback in case I have to quit. I was really excited for my first game as a player in like four years and it sucks that it got weird like this.
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In the interest of being fair, I will say that the DM gave us the XP for the manticore encounter and even rounded it up by like 10 XP so we could go ahead and hit level 2, and that's more fairness than I was expecting from them.
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So if you got this far, am I overreacting? Being unreasonable? Or does this sound like a box of red flags to you too?

Even in the glow of neon lights I could tell he was a funeral director. His dapper suit, slicked hair and mannerly tone was in deep contrast to the lushes who frequented Mandy’s Pub every Friday night. When he slid into the booth beside me there was an air of superiority to him. I didn’t mind, of course, as I was on my fourth Ole’ Fashioned and the numbers he’d told me the day before tumbled through my head like shoes in a dryer.
10,000. TEN THOUSAND. One - zero - zero - zero - zero.
Cash is good, I thought. Cash means alimony free. It was enough to finish my year’s rent. Enough to feed me until next Christmas. Enough to replace my closet of old rags and stained jeans with something fashionable enough to attract a lady. Enough for a decent used truck that wouldn’t whine to life like the one parked out back in Mandy’s parking lot.
However, I didn’t think of any of these expenditures when the funeral director told me the payment would be in cash.
Instead, I thought of my 17 year old daughter, Ally. I could gift her the $10,000 by paying for her tuition into State. Maybe the act would change her mind about not attending college. She would go if it were cheaper, I’d told myself. Ally was prudent about finance and had saved up every penny of birthday and Christmas money she had received throughout her life. I’d seen the wad of cash tucked in a jewelry box and was proud. That’s why I envisioned a CPA license in her future. She could do something great with her life, unlike her old man. And unlike that bitch mother of hers.
A mere 20 minute drive could change my life, I thought.
And I was correct.
Back in the bar, I watched across the table of empty whiskey glasses as the man who had offered me the job fumbled for the words to say. He was nervous, out of his element. He was the director of a family-owned funeral home located in our small community and he, if the rumors I’d heard were true, was in a bind.
I was familiar with his business, Westwood Funeral Home. We used them when my grandmother passed away. They’d been in business that long. Over the years, I’d also attended the visitations of a few friends there as well. Nice place, very accommodating.
“Why’d you call me?” I asked across the table.
“I heard you were ex-military.”
“That’s true, but still not an answer.”
“Tour in Iraq, right?”
“Two,” I mumbled and took a sip. “How’d you get my number?”
“We have many Gold Star Families that use our facilities and I, in a roundabout way, was given your cell number. So, can you do it?”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“I’ll be accompanying you. This situation, well, requires a particular person that can handle tension. From what my contact told me, you’re quite level-headed under pressure. Nothing is more pressurized than war, am I right?”
“I don’t talk about my time in the Middle East.”
“Fair enough. Can you do it? Can you be the driver?” The director withdrew a large envelope from his jacket pocket.
“Half now, half after services rendered, correct?”
He nodded and I rolled the ice around in my drink, the clicking overpowering the soft hum of classic rock from the bar speakers.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “But I want you to answer one question first.”
“What’s that?”
“Is it true everyone at your funeral home quit last week?”
The director’s lips pursed and his eyes studied the table. “Yes. Everyone except me and one new manager. My family wants no part in this.”
“They want no part in what?”
“That question might be better suited for a pastor or priest.”
I then tilted my head back and drained the glass. The director proffered the envelope and I took it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As instructed, I arrived at Westwood Funeral Home the following morning before the sun rose. The director was there, waiting under the loading dock, the faint awning light casting his shadow back to the row of pines in the rear of the property. He’d already situated the hearse to the proper position, trunk open, a gurney kissed to the rear bumper of the vehicle.
The gurney was burdened by a casket.
I parked then approached the scene, tossing my spent cigarette into some loose grave and patting my jeans to double check my essentials: phone, wallet, keys. And Bessie.
My approach startled the director, but when he spotted me he immediately called me over.
“Grab the handle here. No, here. Then hoist it into the trunk.”
“Don’t these things weigh a ton?”
“Let’s go, dammit.”
“I’m not pulling a muscle because you’re irritated, ten grand or not. Go get that fella that still works for you to help us. The, uh, the manager.”
He didn’t have to say anything. His expression gave it away. It was then that I noticed how similarly dressed we were. There was no longer a suit or pair of polished oxfords. He donned a t-shirt, dark stains on the front, and some slacks that were probably as old as the hearse. His hair was unkempt and sweat matted his bangs above his brow. Before me was no longer the dapper director from our bar meeting, but an overwrought man on the edge of a breakdown.
“The manager quit too?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said coldly. “His departure changes our agreement.”
“How so?” I asked, letting go of the casket handle.
“I’ll need your assistance after we arrive at the cemetery.” He pointed into the open hearse to a set of shovels.
“I didn’t sign up for that. What kind of scam is-”
“I’ll double it,” he said. “Twenty thousand dollars cash.”
I grabbed the handle again.
The rollers in the back of the hearse made the heavy casket easy to push in place. The director fastened the bier pin plates so the unit wouldn’t budge during transport then he uncinched the window drapes so they fell over the length of the glass. Wouldn’t want anyone spotting what's inside at a red traffic light. He did this with an uneasy rapidity, like he was in a race or was being timed for our efforts. He grabbed a duffel bag and hefted it into the back near the locked casket.
Oddly, my request to piss in the funeral home’s bathroom was denied so when he dodged inside to “lock up” as he said, I unzipped and went near a small poplar tree. Weird, furtive little man, I thought.
I didn’t care. I was ready for my $20,000.
After the director joined me in the cab, I turned the ignition key and the hearse purred to life. The V8 roared as we sped down Fair Avenue then took the onramp to the highway. The director’s cell phone blared loudly in it’s instructions toward our destination - a cemetery on the opposite side of the county.
“Just follow the GPS instructions,” he told me.
“I know that part of the county pretty well. A lot of back roads.”
“Just follow the instructions.”
I’d lived in the county my whole life - apart from my time in Baghdad, Fallujah and Tikrit - and I’d never known a cemetery to be in the general area the GPS was leading us. Maybe Google knew more about my hometown than I did. Still, the sun started to rise over the hills of pines and the road was clear of any traffic so I gunned it, getting the hearse up to eighty. The director didn’t seem to mind.
Maybe we are being timed for our efforts, I thought.
Of course, the hearse was no workhorse like the humvees we had in the war. Those beasts were of a different breed. A warmongering type, bred to traverse deserts as well as swamps and were often equipped with turret guns and armor. The only weapon the director brought appeared to be a rosary which was curled tightly around his wrist.
The rearview mirror suddenly flashed with light and pulled me from my reverie. The sky was blood-red and growing lighter by the second but the strobing lights from behind dwarfed all illumination from the tree line. The speedometer was pushing ninety when the director noticed and turned around.
“This isn’t good,” he said. “Keep going. Don’t slow down.”
“It’s a cop.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe not to you. Shit, I’m not getting arrested.”
“Don’t,” he said then grabbed the wheel against my tilt onto the road shoulder. The hearse swerved madly.
“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed and pushed him. His rosary looped around my fingers and we were momentarily caught in a holy fingertrap. “I’m pulling over.”
“Keep going. Our mission is more important.” He tried again and I ripped my arm back, releasing the rosary’s snare. Beads scattered on the floorboard and the director grew sullen, upset. The remaining cross, wood-carved and rubbed smooth, was still in my palm so I slung it behind my seat.
I gave him a hostile stare. “Don’t touch the wheel. I won’t get paid if we’re both in jail.”
He tried it again so I pulled from the back of my jeans someone I wanted him to meet. “This is Bessie,” I said and the Colt 1911 gleamed in the early sunlight. “She doesn’t like trouble, understand?”
His expression changed. Once I knew he was back in his seat for good, I returned Bessie and pulled to the road shoulder. The gravel chirped and cracked against the undercarriage until we crawled to a halt.
Luck was on my side that day. The man in uniform who walked up to the window was a friend of mine. We play cards once a month at a mutual friend’s house. Drink whiskey, talk shit about our bosses, all that. Since he was an officer of the law he would always tell the best stories about dumbass criminals. When he sauntered up to the window and noticed the operator of the swerving hearse was a buddy, he took his hand off his pistol holster.
“Chuck?”
I flashed a sly smile. “Morning, William.”
Officer William gave an incredulous laugh. “I’ll be damned. You in the funeral business now?”
“All those stories you told over cards got me thinking. Since you’re a first responder, I figured I’d join the last responders.”
William propped an elbow on the window ledge and got a good look at my passenger. The director had his head bowed and was whispering a prayer.
William looked at the casket. “Little late for that, reverend, don’tcha think?”
“He’s not a man of the cloth. He’s the director at Westwood Funeral Home. This is his hearse.”
“Okay. Well, keep it under seventy, Chuck. I doubt the guy in the back is in any rush.”
Then something stirred.
It’s a rare moment when three people simultaneously learn something. At that moment, I learned that the passenger next to me was some kind of psycho pervert and had invited me to participate in what could land me in the slammer for life. The director learned that I would never look at him the same way again and, had the officer not been there, I would’ve gladly sent him into a grave myself. Officer William learned that he was no longer speaking to a drinking buddy but - due to the pounding and calls for help coming from inside the casket - had pulled over two full-fledged maniacs about to bury a woman alive.
The elbow that had been casually resting on the window ledge was now hinged forward, aiming a Glock 19 to my head.
“Out,” William shouted. “Out of the vehicle, Chuck.”
William’s urgent command took me back to one particularly hot day in Fallujah. Our team was tasked to set up on the roof of a four-story hotel about a quarter-mile down the road. It was an advantageous spot to gather reconnaissance but the route there had plenty of obstacles. Hidden bombs, armed insurgents in spider holes, and blockades troubled our path but we got there without a casualty. When we arrived at the hotel we were met with a flock of elementary-aged children, who had been using the building as a makeshift sleep quarters during the war fallout. They tossed rocks, shouting foreign obscenities to us soldiers who had invaded their land. We’d read all the propaganda garbage their government had been putting out. How we were evil. How we were nothing but murderous invaders. Us proud servicemen were more annoyed than anything else, having three dozen kids tossing rocks gets old fast after fifteen minutes, so we gathered the little ones together to teach a lesson. We lined them up and made like we were about to participate in a firing squad. Obviously, no weapons fired - it was a scare tactic. We were soldiers, after all, not monsters.
But I’ll never forget their faces. Veils of terror. Fear so absolute that tears were unable to form. Lesson learned.
That’s the type of fear I saw on the director’s face as he dropped beside me, our knees crunching into the gravel beside the highway. From inside the hearse, the woman’s shrieks had intensified in urgency. Although the sound was muted by the casket walls and padding, the voice was clearly female and was overcome with emotion. The casket rattled as the interior beatings became more powerful. Had Officer William not had his gun trained on me, I would have punched the director for inserting me into his own wicked revenge plot.
The woman pleaded, “There’s no oxygen in here. I’m about to pass out.”
William oscillated between me, the director and the closed trunk of the hearse. The shrieks from inside continued to beg between coughs.
“Please, help. My head is going numb. No oxygen. Open.”
William pointed to us. “Don’t move,” he said, then walked to the driver side and unlocked the trunk door. The director and I turned, scooting our knees in the pebbles to get a view of what my now ex-friend was about to uncover. From this angle the director was slightly behind me but I could hear his faint sobs. He’d been caught.
Once the trunk was flapped open William called back to us. “How do you get the casket open?”
“An instrument beside the casket,” the director said. “Yes, right there. It fits into a hole on the side. Yeah, right. Now crank it. It unlocks the lid.”
William hadn't finished one rotation before I was pushed into the gravel by the director. Something was different when I tried to regain my balance, something about my waistline. It had loosened.
Three ear-shredding reports went out over the highway and the surrounding pastureland. William slumped against the hearse, grabbing for something not there before falling face first to the ground. Amazed at what happened, I grabbed for Bessie, but she was gone. The director pointed my own weapon at my chest and forced me to my feet. The spent casings sparkled beside his feet.
“This is Bessie,” he said. “She doesn’t like trouble, understand?”
The trunk was closed and seat belts were fastened then we were off toward the cemetery to bury a woman alive. The blue lights of William’s cruiser flashed in the side mirror until we crested the next hill. Rosary beads shuffled under my feet.
When my daughter, Ally, was in elementary school she came home one day with a portrait of our family. Our trio was scribbled in crayon and showed us standing beside our house, next to a sprawling green oak tree that our little Picasso had, for whatever reason, decorated with pink stars. Beside the tree was me. I was more of a circle really, with eyebrows arched at a furious angle. Next was my ex-wife who had in her hand a stylized white carrot. Of course, I knew that this “carrot” was Ally’s best effort at drawing her mother’s favorite wine glass. Then there was Ally, squished under the speech balloons that sprang forth from my ex-wife and I’s mouths and filled with X’s and exclamation points.
The image was a catalyst for a parent teacher conference that ended up in a shouting match for my wife to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She refused.
We divorced the next year.
Ally didn’t deserve the hateful atmosphere she was raised in; she was too good, too pure. I hoped that once I finished the director’s task he’d pay the additional money. It wasn’t greed - no - but quite the opposite. Ally would take a step up in the world after she enrolled in college. For Ally, I’d told myself earlier. Do this for Ally. But how was I to help Ally if I ended up like Officer William?
I kept the hearse to a solid fifty-five miles per hour. Speed slow enough to bide time but fast enough not to alert the gun-wielding maniac to my side who’d not stopped mouthing prayers to himself since our continuation of his “mission”. Miles behind us lay a friend of mine with three bullet wounds in his chest who would undoubtedly be found within minutes by a curious traveler or truck driver. Dash cam footage would be watched and our hearse was not the type of vehicle that blends in with a crowd.
Time was running out for all three people inside the hearse.
“All that money isn’t useful to me if I’m serving life.”
I was ignored.
“Look, you damn psycho, I’ll swerve into a fucking road sign before I let you bury this woman alive. I’m not a monster.”
The director whipped around and howled, “Stop, stop. Please shut up. I demand in the name of God Almighty that you remain silent.”
This didn’t scare me. I’d been around plenty of men that would gut you as easily as shake your hand. People that had ended life and people that had almost gotten their life ended, usually on multiple occasions, without showing the least bit of fear. No, the director saying this didn’t scare me.
What scared me was that after he screamed this demand I realized he wasn’t speaking to me, but behind me.
I peered into the rearview. Yep, still a casket and the woman inside hadn’t said a word since the William incident. That’s when I knew this funeral director had more problems than a vengeful spirit. He was hallucinatory. Schizophrenic.
“Put Bessie down and let me get out. I won’t call the cops, I swear.”
His eyes finally registered me as if he’d forgotten I was there. Sweat had beaded his forehead and soaked the collar of his t-shirt. He was crying.
He mumbled, “Just follow the GPS instructions.”
“I’m not helping you dig when we arrive. I refuse to kill a person.”
“That’s not a person,” he whispered.
His rage had obviously sailed to such an extreme that his wife or girlfriend or whoever was in the box no longer registered to him as human. Just an object. Something to get rid of like trash. “Enough. I won’t kill anyone.”
“Else,” he added, yet his voice was much deeper and seemed to surround the cabin of the vehicle.
“What did you say?”
He stared, incredulously, behind my seat. A grimace overcame his face. “You shut the hell up,” he shouted to the rear. “I was in high school. I didn’t know she was that drunk. You shut the hell up.”
The director faced forward and wept in his cupped hands until his phone told me to turn off the highway onto a thin county road.
By this time I was rattled. In battle there were contingency plans. Even teammates could help force an insurgent response into retreat. But now I was alone, weaponless, unable to understand why this mentally ill man had conned me into a twisted exercise. I thought about slowing the hearse to twenty miles an hour and jumping out, rolling to the best of my ability over the hot abrated asphalt to avoid significant injury then bolting toward the rise where I could lose him amongst the bramble. Or, I envisioned a quick tap of the brakes which may jump start a siege of the director where I wrested Bessie away from him and regained power.
While we rocked back and forth over the uneven road, I steeled myself for what lay ahead and did my best to strategize a plan to save not only my life but the woman trapped in her padded tomb. Nothing materialized.
“Please,” the director whispered to no one, now sobbing uncontrollably. “I just want it to end. I didn’t know how drunk. . . I had a crush on her. Please, stop.”
“I can stop, yes.” I almost smiled at his change of heart. “Let me pull over and-”
“No,” he screamed at me. “Not you. Keep going. Follow the instructions.”
“You’re sick, man. I need to pull over.”
He gave one cursory look to the back then his eyes fell on me. His clammy hand grabbed my forearm and I couldn’t help but return a glance.
“The duffel bag,” he said. “Once you get to the cemetery, look in the duffel bag. I can’t . . . I can’t-”
“We don’t have to do this,” I begged, the shake in my voice now audible. “You don’t have to do this. I don’t know what’s in that head of yours but I do know this: everyone forgives and forgets, ya know?”
“Not everyone,” he whispered, then inserted Bessie into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Late one evening, in Fallujah, we were riding back to base from a low-intensity conflict zone where we briefly gave suppressive fire then mulled around for the next eight hours bored out of our minds. The descent of the sun gave the plumes of smoke rising from bomb-impacted buildings an eerie glow, like red obelisks that had sprouted in erratic fashion throughout the sand. Burning rubble was the chosen perfume of the day and my team was ready to wash the grit from our bodies. The land was flat and devoid of people at that time. An uneasy calm. We were still on our guard but after so much time in the heat our senses had dulled.
We had just come around the corner of a retaining wall when the humvee in front of us rolled over an IED.
Most took to defensive positions while a few of us checked on the wreckage, me included. The IED had turned the humvee apart in ways that were unimaginable: tires were absent, the turret was lodged in the kitchen of a dwelling, the metal chassis was warped and mangled like taffy. But inside was the true horror. If the explosion did that to a military vehicle it doesn’t take a creative person to understand what it can do to the human body.
The inside of the hearse reminded me of what I saw.
A spear of light penetrated through the bullet’s exit hole in the roof. The director leaned limply against the red-soaked seat. His head lolled sideways when I pulled to the side of the road then, when I applied the brake, swept back to face me. The roof of the hearse was still dripping when I jumped out to compose myself. The morning heat had already risen to a stifling level. Sweat beaded from my body as I opened the back door and began twisting the mechanism to open the casket. Apart from the smell of blood, I picked up a tinge of something burning but couldn’t trace it. I was surrounded by pastureland so perhaps a farmer was burning off some tree brush.
“I’m getting you out, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Chuck, thank you,” the woman called.
“Had I known someone was in here, I would’ve called the police.”
“You’re a saint. A true saint.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m a saint,” I said and began unwinding the lid lock. “I’ve sinned plenty.”
“Nonsense. Soldiers at war can’t be at fault for their actions.”
“Maybe. Sometimes a soldier-”
I stopped turning the crank and backed away.
“Chuck? Hello?”
It took a moment for me to replay the last hour in my mind. “How did you know I served?”
“I heard you talking earlier. Please, let me out.”
The burning smell had grown more fierce. A thin ribbon of smoke drifted through the hearse’s cabin so I followed its source. The wooden cross of the rosary, the one I broke and tossed into the back, had landed on top of the casket. It was smoldering and charred, the smoke still trailing off as if it was on a hot grill. I touched the top of the casket but it was cold.
“Chuck, let me out.”
“The director and I didn’t discuss my service on the ride. How did you know?”
“Let me out,” the woman said in a more harsh tone.
“Do I know you?”
Then there was a sniffle. “Daddy?”
I sprinted to the box and placed my palms on the cold surface. “Ally? Honey, is that you?”
“Daddy, please, get me out of here. That crazy man abducted me.”
“Oh my God, hang on.” I regripped the handle but paused before I turned the crank. It was hard to explain. Every fiber in my body pulled toward the circular motion. Just turn the crank, release your daughter, then call the authorities. So easy. But something in my gut denied the use of my arms. I had to be sure. I walked away from the hearse and fished my phone from my pocket then selected the contact. It rang twice.
“Hey, Daddy. What’s up?”
“Ally?”
“Yeah? Can you hear me?”
“Are . . . are you okay?”
“Yeah, just got back from the gym. About to eat some yogurt. Why?”
“Nothing, honey,” I said and stared at the casket that did not contain my daughter. “Just checking up on you. I gotta go but I’ll call you later.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It is now. Have a good day, honey. Bye.”
I was no longer in the mood for conversation. Whoever was in that box knew me. Knew I served. Knew what my daughter’s voice sounded like. This was someone I wanted out of my possession. I made the decision to drive to the sheriff’s office and spill my guts. Tell them everything and let them deal with the one in the box.
After I slammed the back door closed, I hopped into the driver’s seat but my attempt at a u-turn was truncated by a harsh voice from behind.
“Ally is a whore. You know that, right?”
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“So many men. Some as old as you.”
I shoved the shifter in park. “Maybe I’ll let you out of that box so I can put you right back inside it.”
“The men have a nickname for her, “Ally Always”. Ally Always because she always goes down-”
“Shut the fuck up!”
I was outside, ripping open the back door and fumbling with the lever. I was astonished to find I had picked up Bessie.
“I’ll shoot through the box if you don’t-”
“Don’t what? Don’t sympathize with your silly dreams of Always Ally going to college? She got an A in science because she slept with her high school teacher-”
“Shut-”
“-the whole basketball team enjoyed that one party-”
“-the-”
“-all the lies she’s told you over and over again-”
“-fuck-”
“-she’ll be a boozer just like her mother-”
“-up!”
I put finger pressure on the trigger. I braced for recoil. I wanted to empty the magazine into the box. To stop the lies. They were lies, right? They had to be.
But that’s not what happened. A grumbling mechanical noise blasted from behind and over the hill came a man on a John Deere tractor. I refit Bessie into the hem of my jeans and offered a friendly wave in the hopes he would pass. He slowed the equipment down and parked behind me. Shit.
He climbed down from the cab and approached. He was in his seventies, or sixties - a life in the sun had tanned and wrinkled his skin to a breathtaking amount. A baseball cap created a shadow under his green eyes. A wad of tobacco bulged his lower lip.
“Engine trouble?” He asked.
“No, sir, just a little lost. I have kind of an odd situation.” I looked back at the open hearse and the farmer got a peek as well.
“Damn. Dis a funeral procession?”
“Kind of.”
“Who died? God, hope it’s not anyone I know. Lotta folks die when they get my age.”
My attempt at a laugh was pathetic. “I don’t need any assistance. You can get back into your tractor. There’s no problem.”
The farmer gazed helplessly at the casket. Entranced, really. In a burst of energy that took me by surprise, he sprinted to the back of the hearse and started patting the casket. He placed a cheek to a corner and stroked the box like it was precious heirloom.
“Lizzy,” the farmer screamed. “Sweet Lord, God. Lizzy, I’m coming.”
The man attempted to pry the lid off with his hands but the lock was still engaged. I ran to him before he could figure it out.
“Why the hell do you have my Lizzy in here? What is this, some kind of shakedown?” He lowered into a brawling position and showed his fists. “Open this damn thing. Open it now.”
“That’s not your Lizzy.”
“Like shit it ain’t. I can hear her.”
Only, I couldn’t hear anything. The box was silent. Voiceless. Then everything made sense. I had been asking the wrong question the whole time. It’s not who was in the casket, but what?
Before the farmer could make more of a stir, I took out Bessie. He stopped talking but the rage in his eyes gave away plenty. “Call Lizzy,” I demanded. “You’ll find out that she isn’t in the box. Call her.”
I kept my distance and closed the back door. My aim was trained on the farmer as I reentered the driver’s seat. “Call her. Call Lizzy and you’ll find out the truth.”
“I can’t.”
I started rolling down the road, toward the GPS instructions. “Why not?” I called out from the window and pulled the gun back inside.
“Lizzy’s been dead ten years.”
Just a few miles then the cemetery. I exceeded what was a cautious speed down the thin county road trying to remember what had come out of the director’s mouth before it was hollowed out. The shovels. The duffel bag. The fucking thing in the box. The phone blared out instructions and soon I made a hard right onto a dirt drive that led into the woods. Undergrowth hid potholes and lumbered my progression. I thought of the money - at least I had five grand. I thought of Ally. My sweet Ally. I thought of-
“Haifa Salbi. Mother of two. Victim of one,” the voice in the back hissed.
“Who?”
“Baghdad, March 29, 2003.”
My throat began to tighten.
“I heard her screams, Chuck. While you were ripping off her chador, I heard her screams.”
“Shut up.” I blinked away tears.
“You don’t speak Arabic, Chuck, but screams are a universal language.” A turbulent yell echoed around the hearse’s cabin. It was a perfect imitation. It was a yell I’d heard before. A yell I had spent years and countless whiskey bottles trying to forget. My tears fogged my view worse than the collapsing foliage that had erased most of the pitted path.
“She housed terrorists,” I mumbled over my quivering lips.
“You don’t believe that. She was a slave to the Iraqi combatants. A pawn. You can’t lie to me, Chuck. I was there. I know the only weapon you wanted to fire was in your pants.” A discordant, hollow laugh followed.
“You were there? Who are you?”
“I am the one who was always there. When you released that tension on Haifa Salbi. When you traumatized those children in Fallujah. When you hit your ex-wife for drinking too much.”
I slammed my fist on the steering wheel. “How the fuck do you know all this?”
“I was also there when you found that wad of cash in Ally’s jewelry box. Poor, stupid, Chuck. Thinking your daughter saved money from the time she could walk? Ally is a good liar. She gets that talent from you.”
Sunlight burst through the windshield. The foliage had opened into a glade. The small opening in the woods had a short, rusted fence that linked into an oval directly in the center. Inside the fence were a sprinkling of headstones, others merely wooden crosses now rotted into spikes.
“Poor, stupid, Chuck. Ally is a good liar but not as good as she is at spreading her legs. Where do you think that wad of money came from? From men. Many men. Some as old as you.”
I turned and slammed my fist on the casket. “Another word and I’ll burn you alive instead of bury you.”
I spun the vehicle around and backed up to the fence until the fender graced the rusted metal. I hopped out and whipped open the back door then began unpacking the duffel bag. Stacks of cash fell out in my hasty fumbling of it. I guess the director was good on his promise. The only other contents of the bag were a cluster of rosaries, one of which I grabbed and slid in the front pocket of my jeans. The director’s rote behavior didn’t seem so insignificant anymore.
Also inside the bag was a handwritten note.
The note said: “It passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there.”
Under that it gave instructions: “At least six feet of earth must separate it from the sky. Bury in an abandoned cemetery to avoid suspicion. Leave the grave unmarked. Do not believe its lies. Do not concentrate on its truths. It is an ancient one. Adroit in the ways of luring madness.”
The thing in the box spoke. It was the voice of my bitch ex-wife. “Chucky?”
I removed one of the shovels and remained silent.
“I forgive you, babe. You didn’t mean to hit me. It was the PTSD. I know I should’ve stopped drinking years ago. You and Ally were right.”
My head felt numb. “Be quiet. You’re not her.”
“I’ve given it up, babe. Honest this time. I’m ready to be the mother I should be. The wife I should be. Just let me out and we can fix this.”
As much as I resented her, I would have given everything I owned to hear my ex-wife say that. And it knew. Whatever was in that fucking box knew.
“No. You’re not getting out.” I tucked the handwritten note in my back pocket.
“I guess that’s expected. Babe, before you go, can I tell you something?”
Was it about to say it? No way. Unfathomable. No way it could know I wanted my ex-wife to truthfully tell me-
“Why I started drinking? I’ll tell you.”
The shovel felt heavy in my hands. I steadied myself against the tail light, eager, yet, uneager to listen.
“Chucky, my sweet, brave soldier. I started drinking because I was anxious.”
“Anxious?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“Yes. Anxious that you would eventually find out the truth. Ally isn’t yours.”
I slammed the back door shut and regripped the shovel. The rusted fence had bent on one side from a fallen tree and lay flat under a carpet of deadfall. That’s where I gained entrance. I took out the paper and reread it. Six feet. Got it. The soil was fertile and loose, which made digging easier than expected. Still, the process took hours. From the first spade to the last, the thing in the box emitted an eruption of grating laughter, and although it was muffled from the containment of the hearse, it still provoked me into a consideration.
Was it laughing because it lied about Ally? Or because it had told the truth?
A casket is a bitch to move by yourself. Carrying it was out of the question and it wasn’t like I was trying to prevent the damn thing from damage, so I wedged it out of the hearse and it landed with a harsh thud. My legs and back were sore from digging but not too sore to pull the diseased being over the fallen fence and into the cemetery where I propped it precariously against the edge of the hole I’d dug, the depths of which were seven feet, I estimated. One foot more, just to be sure.
To avoid a calamity of the lid breaking open upon impact, I tied some vines, along with my shirt and pants, to the bars across one side. I had to pull the box at a flat angle into the hole so there would be no rotation in it’s venture down. Hoisting the heavy object below was out of the question. Three quick jerks should do it . . . and maybe one quick prayer.
“Don’t Chucky, don’t,” the voice of my ex called out as I wrapped my hands around the cords of cotton threads and vine. “I can give you what you want.”
I gave a good jerk and one corner jutted over the edge.
“Daddy, please,” Ally called. “It’s me. Just open the lid and I can explain everything.”
Jerk two.
The acidic voice returned: “Chuck, you rapist sack of shit. Wife beater, wife beater. I’ve seen your future. After this you’ll turn to the bottle worse than your ex-wife, the one who lied to you about Ally. Do you want to know who her true father is? Open and I’ll-”
Jerk three.
The obscenities that spewed from the locked casket, as I spent the next few hours covering it with soil, were grotesque to say the least. Promises of pain to not only myself but everyone whom I’m close with. Prognostications of violent ends. Sexual depravities that will behad my sweet Ally unless I open the box. The faster my hands went, the quieter the voice became, until the only sounds were the chirping of a nearby cricket and the soft songs of a sparrow.
The only thing more sore than my body was my mind. In my numb state I could only think to return the vehicle and take my cash. And most certainly inhale a few cigarettes from the pack in my truck back in the funeral home’s parking lot. All legal hassles could wait.
The cabin had a rancid stench because of the director’s body in the passenger seat but I rolled the windows down to diffuse it. The return drive was much shorter than the outgoing one. More peaceful. At least, until I turned into the parking lot of Westwood Funeral Home to find a pair of black Cadillacs parked beside my truck.
Unmarked police cars? FBI?
I didn’t care. My thought process was running on an empty tank and my body was too exhausted to run. Goodbye to the money. Goodbye to freedom. Goodbye to Ally.
What I expected was a miniature army to pounce out of the pine forest, guns drawn, demands shouted. What I got was a handful of sharply dressed men who waved me down after I parked the hearse. One opened the hearse door for me and helped me out. They delivered a perfunctory inspection of the dead director but left his body where it sat. One man jumped into the driver’s seat and drove out of sight. With him went the duffle bag of money. Shit.
Another man took me aside, offered me a cigarette from my own pack, and shook my hand.
“You don’t have to worry about anything, sir.”
“The director shot a cop.”
“It’s all taken care of.”
My brain felt like jelly. “What do you mean?”
“Keep living your life. Talk with friends, enjoy your family, go to work. Think of today as, uh, a dream. A lucid dream. Nothing more than a short, bad memory.”
Another pair of suited men exited the funeral home. They pushed a gurney with a body on it. The sheet draped over was mottled with red.
“The manager?” I asked.
“Afraid so. He was an associate of ours given the responsibility of helping with the mission. He was instructed to guard the casket last night until the director arrived then take control of the situation. However, it got to him like it got to the director.”
“Who are you guys?”
“Let’s say that we are guys who are not normally late but were today. For your troubles, we gave you something. It’s in your truck. I advise you get in your truck and leave all this behind you.”
There was no room for argument in his voice, nor did I have the energy for it. I was good at compartmentalizing, something I would most certainly have to do with my most recent actions. But it was over. Finally over. I left and returned home. Stopped in my driveway, I felt under the seat and found a small canvas sack. Inside was fifty thousand dollars, cash.
50,000. FIFTY THOUSAND. Five - zero - zero - zero - zero.
I entered my home and collapsed on the couch. Twelve hours later I awoke to the sound of a buzzing noise. Ally was calling.
“Hey, Daddy.”
My sniffles gave away my crying fit. “Hey, honey. God, it’s so good to hear your voice. Your real voice.”
“My real voice?”
“Nothing. Sorry, I just woke up from a nap. I’m still groggy.”
“Anyways, I called to tell you the good news. Mom’s in rehab. She’s taking it so serious this time. I’ve been crying all day because I’m so happy.”
I sat up on the couch and felt an odd pinch on my thigh. “Honey, that’s wonderful news.”
“I was thinking, if she completes rehab, that maybe we could all be together for my birthday,” Ally said as I battled my quivering lip. “I know you both don’t see eye to eye but it would be nice to see both of you at the same time.”
Another pinch on my thigh. I crept my hand into my pocket.
“Honey, that sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in a long time. Honestly, I’d be nice to see your mother. Despite the bad, there are a lot of good memories between us. Oh, and I have a great birthday present for you,” I said, looking at the sack of money.
“You better keep it a surprise until then.”
“I will. The three of us together, on your birthday. Who’d have thought?”
She sighed. “I’ve told you a million times, daddy. I’ve been praying about this for years. Sure, there’s plenty of bad in the world but that means there’s plenty of good too. Prayer works.”
“Yeah. Maybe it does,” I said as I pulled a rosary from my front pocket. “Maybe it does.”

In more than 75% of homicides, the victim knows their killer; nearly 30% of homicide perpetrators are family members. Among women who are murdered, more than half are murdered by their intimate partner. The force of emotions that exist in familial and romantic relationships are the most powerful that people experience in their lifetimes. Even what appear to be the closest of marriages and the most respectable of families have been known to experience fatal violence going all the way back to Cain and Abel.
This review of Deanne Hasting’s case takes a very close look at the actions and words of Deanne’s fiancé at the time she disappeared. Hopefully another review of the timeline and supporting facts will help lead us to what happened to Deanne. I rely most heavily on the information provided in interviews with Deanne's closest relatives from the ID Disappeared program (Season 8, episode 13 “The Long Way Home”) and The Vanished Podcast Episode 44, because it is the information of those who knew Deanne best or were the closest to Deanne when she disappeared, in their own words that we can listen to for ourselves.
Background
Deanne Hastings (maiden name Crider) was born 2/27/1980 in Pahrump, Nevada. She was a thirty-five year-old mother of three at the time she disappeared from Spokane, Washington on November 4, 2015. Deanne has a history of bipolar disorder, going missing and even attempted suicide. This webpage offers some real insight into Deanne’s struggles as well as an honest and loving tribute from an artist who was Deanne’s longtime friend and more.
Just months before Deanne vanished this seemingly final time, she had been out of touch with all of her friends and family for 6 days. A mostly redacted copy of a June 12, 2015 police incident report I obtained that was initiated by Deanne's eldest son, Hayden states the following:
"Hayden Green called Crime Check on June 12, 2015 at 20:38 to report that he hasn't heard from his mom, Deanne Hastings (listed Deanne Crider), since 6/9/15. Hayden has checked with other friends and family and no one has heard from her, not even her live in boyfriend Mike Tibbetts."
That case was closed when Deanne returned home on June 15, 2015. Apparently no search was conducted, nor was any media attention brought to Deanne’s disappearance on that occasion. Why not? Mike Tibbetts was Deanne’s live-in boyfriend when she went missing in June but apparently Mike was not as concerned then as he was in November.
Deanne and Mike became engaged around two months following her return from that episode and around two months before she disappeared. Did this change in their relationship status affect Mike’s actions in November? In his ID Disappeared interview Mike Tibbetts says: “In her past she would leave for a couple days or different times like that. She would respond here and there to texts and stuff.” Mike has been through this with Deanne before. Does Mike know where Deanne went during the times she disappeared before? According to Deanne’s artist friend, many times she would run to him wherever he was living, or he would come to where she was and they would hide from the world in a hotel. Apparently some of the times like this time, Deanne wandered the streets and made friends with strangers.
This time something kept Deanne from ever coming back to the people who loved her. Deanne had a long history of disappearing and of “episodes” where her mother says in her ID Disappeared interview that she sometimes didn’t even recognize her own daughter and Deanne’s brother Carson also describes Deanne as being like a different person during those times, full of foul and hurtful language. Unfortunately, these episodes had been occurring since Deanne’s later teenage years regardless of being on or off of any medication. Like many sufferers of bipolar disorder, Deanne clearly had a difficult time getting the right dose or combination of medications.
Although her brother Carson and Mike Tibbets refer to “the insurance” and “the insurance company” in their ID Disappeared interviews, the fact is that Deanne was on Medicaid due to her low income and other factors. One of the “credit” cards a person of interest in this case, Randy Riley, was caught using of Deanne’s was not a credit card according to police, but rather her EBT (food stamp) card which he used at a WinCo grocery store. Perhaps they did not wish to cause shame to Deanne (the only shame is that Deanne was denied her medication), but Mike Tibbetts states in his interview on ID Disappeared that he had offered to pay cash for Deanne’s medication so that she could have the preferred one and Deanne was “told” [by her caseworker?] that if they did that, Deanne would be dropped from “insurance coverage”. No one is dropped from private insurance coverage for not using their benefits and paying cash instead. When you go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, you will be charged the full price in cash unless you present an insurance card and nobody cares because you’re paying to have the insurance benefit whether you use it or not and when you don’t use it, that is money the insurance company does not have to reimburse. It is Medicaid recipients who have to demonstrate financial need. Obviously, it is a terrible shame that anyone would deny Deanne the particular medication her physician thought she needed. It may help some people deflect their own guilt and responsibility to spread blame around or feel validated in making political hay of this case, but what is important is finding Deanne.
The Disappearance
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Deanne attends her first day of cosmetology school at Glen Dow Academy just six blocks from where her vehicle will later be found. Deanne spent the latter part of her evening with her now daughter-in-law (DIL) Melanie Green doing her nails and discussing their relationships with the men in their lives, as they frequently did.
9:30 pm
Melanie Green (DIL) goes home after spending the evening with Deanne doing nails and talking about their relationships. Deanne responds to Melanie’s text sometime between 9:30-10:00 pm when Melanie arrived home. Deanne’s last message to DIL says “Love you see you soon”.
10:00 pm
Deanne’s last reported use of her cell phone is a text to her son Hayden telling him that she went to school that day and that she hopes he is proud of her.
10:00-10:15 pm?
Deanne possibly executes a plan to leave the home she shares with her fiancé Mike Tibbetts by distracting him with a handwritten note about going to the store while she made her way to a downtown nightclub. If true, then for reasons known only to her Deanne chose to execute this plan instead of waiting for Mike to return home just a few minutes later and invite him to go with her to the club, or to tell Mike the truth about where she was going.
10:15 -10:30 pm
Mike arrives home from work (he worked 12:00 pm -10:00 pm shifts) and claims he found a note from Deanne inside the home that according to Tibbetts’ words on the ID Disappeared episode said:
“…that she had a good day, and she was just, got done doing nails and she was going to run to the store.”
That is a lot of information in a handwritten note that really only needed to say "Ran to the store BRB”. If Deanne were actually running to the store and coming home, she could have told Mike about her day when she returned. If Deanne actually meant to let Mike know that she was at the store in case he found the house empty when he came home or he wanted anything from the store, she would have text him. Deanne had just been texting her DIL and son minutes before she allegedly picked up a pen and wrote a note for Mike Tibbetts that he has never allowed police to see. Mike maintains that the handwritten note is the last thing Deanne ever wrote to him and that is why he cannot part with it, even though he has known that the note was a complete lie by the 4th day that Deanne was missing at the latest. Mike’s refusal to ever turn over either the alleged note or Deanne’s cell phone in the early days and weeks of the investigation into her disappearance, Mike’s actions are not those of a man who really wants to find out what happened to Deanne. Mike’s memories of the note seem to vary slightly. In this interview published 9 days after Deanne went missing Mike says:
“There was a note that said ‘Ran to store, just got done doing girls nails, had a great day,’"
The article further states: “It’s easy to memorize a simple note, especially when it’s the last time you’ve heard from the one you love.” Except Mike doesn’t “memorize” Deanne’s note. He paraphrases it each time and by February 2016 Mike seems to be remembering the night Deanne left home differently than he reported to police:
“The last thing I heard come out of her mouth was I love you," he said. "She went to the store that night, and I haven't seen her since.”
No mention of any note. The note matters because if it ever existed, it would support Mike’s version of the evening: that nothing at all was amiss between himself and Deanne and that whatever happened to cause Deanne to leave the house that night had nothing to do with Mike because it happened before he got home.
11:30 pm Mike gets concerned that Deanne is not home from the store because it is five minutes away. This would be a market now called Rosauer's Market. Out of concern, Mike says he drove to that store. Mike reports that the store was closed, so he returns home. Why does he drive to the store instead of texting, then calling Deanne’s phone? Did Mike do those things first and then drive to the store? He does not report doing so. This is the nearest market to their house. Most people know what time the nearest market to their house closes. Did Mike really think he would find Deanne at the closed market, rather than assume she must be making a stop some place else by then that was open later? Deanne could have gone to a Walgreens that was open late, or been picking up fast food or a pizza. It is interesting that within an hour Mike is already out on the street looking for Deanne on this night.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
2:30-3:00 am
Mike tracks Deanne’s phone to a parking lot at 919 Sprague in downtown Spokane which is next to The Knitting Factory, a music venue just six blocks from the cosmetology school Deanne attended the morning before. If Mike was able to trace Deanne’s phone using location services, then he also had access to and surely would have looked at her phone usage online to see who she was communicating with besides him before she left their house. Mike should have easily been able to see that there were texts to her son’s and his girlfriend’s numbers in the minutes before he came home. Nonetheless, Mike never actually contacts either one of them himself to ask what Deanne might have said about what she was planning to do that night.
Mike decides to wait by Deanne’s car for the rest of the night. This is an interesting choice considering that the temperature was below freezing that night. Deanne had not been robbed, because Mike found her purse and cell phone secured inside the car. It seems reasonable to assume that Deanne had gone to the club next door and left her purse in the car so she could dance. If Deanne had consumed alcohol, it would be reasonable for her to have gotten a ride home or taken a cab. Mike’s choices seem to prioritize seeing who Deanne might be with when she returned to her car. Mike has claimed that he stayed with Deanne’s car all night in the freezing cold because he wanted to make sure her car did not get broken into with her purse and phone inside. That sounds like a reasonable, too except that after this first night Mike does not call AAA for locksmith service and a tow home. Instead Mike leaves Deanne’s car parked in that same spot in downtown Spokane with her purse and phone inside for *four more nights* beginning on Wednesday.
Overnight
We now know that Deanne Hastings met a grocery store employee of what is now called Yoke's Fresh Market on Spokane-Cheney Road, (known as Latham Trading Company at the time) and that Deanne spent the night with that grocery store employee (GSE). According to the GSE’s information, he met Deanne in front of The Knitting Factory and they went off to party together for the night. In the morning the GSE took Deanne in his car to the grocery store where he worked to purchase cigarettes. The GSE says when he got back to his car, Deanne was gone but she had left her keys behind. He drove around the shopping center, did not see Deanne and left. Deanne was just two miles from home then and she would end up walking most of those two miles in the direction of her home later that afternoon.
7:30-8:00 am
Mike calls Glen Dow Academy to see whether Deanne has shown up for her second day of classes. Glen Dow Academy is located six blocks from where Deanne left her vehicle. Mike must have made quite an impression on whoever he spoke to on the phone about Deanne, because the school owner offered to start making missing person flyers right away instead of minding their own business over an adult staying out all night. Mike says he then began to distribute the missing person flyers all over downtown Spokane. Deanne had been missing less than twelve hours at that point.
Maybe it was reasonable for Mike to call Deanne’s new school and let the administrators know that she had been out all night because Mike was genuinely worried about Deanne’s well being. On the other hand, Mike does not say that he tried calling any hospitals or jails, he does not try going home to see whether or not Deanne has returned there and most importantly, Mike also *does not call* the last two people Deanne Hastings’ phone records would indicate she texted in the minutes before Mike arrived home to (allegedly) find a handwritten note from Deanne about going to the store.
Mike does not go to work during the first twenty-four hours of Deanne’s disappearance. That is how alarmed he is by her being gone overnight this time. It is not clear how Mike accounts for his time and whereabouts during those first twenty-four hours of Deanne’s disappearance other than that he alternately went around the city with missing person flyers, waited at her car and drove the streets looking for Deanne. Every day after Wednesday Mike does go to work.
12:23 pm
Officer Davida Zinkgraf responds to numerous calls for a welfare check requested by strangers in the shopping center parking lot of what is now Yoke’s Fresh Market. These witnesses reported a disoriented and possibly intoxicated/addled woman who had entered a salon and called a woman working there “Mommy", who was now laying on the ground and claiming to witnesses that she may have been drugged, kidnapped and beaten. Deanne would not speak to EMTs or police when they arrived, nor would she give anyone her name or say where she lived although she did tell the ladies attempting to intervene on her behalf that she did not want to go home. When Deanne will not repeat any of the claims about being drugged or beaten to police, does not appear beaten, *refuses to give her name* and then walks away from Officer Zinkgraf, Officer Zinkgraf continues to observe Deanne for another 20 minutes and then reluctantly leaves. Deanne has civil rights and Officer Zinkgraf has an entire city to look after. Deanne is not required to identify herself to police when she is not suspected of any crime. Police cannot detain Deanne for telling wild stories to strangers, nor apparently even for public intoxication because as Officer Zinkgraf explains in the ID Disappeared episode, Spokane does not have a law prohibiting public intoxication. There is also no law in Washington that allows authorities to remand citizens for psychiatric evaluation because of statements by strangers. Civil commitment requires family members to swear out an affidavit that they have observed their family member being a threat to themselves or others. Yes, it is tragically unfortunate that Deanne could not be intervened upon by police and EMT services on the day she disappeared, but hopefully everyone can stop asking how they could have just let Deanne be on her way, because that question has been asked and answered.
12:30 pm
In Officer Zingkraf’s continued observation of Deanne after their initial contact, Deanne enters the grocery store where she uses her debit card to purchase: energy drinks, string cheese, birthday candles, cigarettes and vodka. Mike, who has been out distributing missing person flyers and/or waiting by Deanne’s car, says that he received an alert on his phone that Deanne’s card was used at the grocery store where the GSE works. Did Mike have alerts set on the card for every transaction Deanne made like parents do when they give their teenager a credit card? Mike takes the alert not as notice of potential theft following a crime against Deanne, but as confirmation that Deanne is well and making a purchase. This is why Mike does not rush to the store, he isn’t actually concerned about Deanne’s safety or what has happened to her. He means to see who she is with and confront her. That is why even though Mike apparently believes that Deanne is well and making a purchase, instead of going home he decides to return to/continue to stay with with Deanne’s car. Mike says he believed Deanne would come back to her vehicle and his priority isn’t to get warm or get some sleep, it’s still to see who Deanne is with and confront her. Mike was not going to wait for Deanne to get home.
Sometime after 12:30 pm
Deanne encounters Randy Riley (RR) and his friend “James” on their way to a storage unit RR has rented that is within two blocks of the grocery store where Deanne has just made her purchases. According to both RR and James they hung out with Deanne for a few hours. Storage facility surveillance shows the three of them smiling and interacting in a very friendly manner. The two men are on bicycles. Neither of the men appears to have access to any vehicles of their own with which to move personal belongings, let alone a body (Deanne’s brother Carson confirms this in the Vanished podcast) and none of the trio seem to make any effort to make use of Deanne’s vehicle.
1:30 pm
Storage surveillance shows Randy Riley and Deanne and James leaving the storage facility.
2:30 pm
(information received by police November 25, 2015 three weeks after Deanne disappears and after Randy Riley’s name was released to the media) RR’s landlord who was in the process of evicting him now claims that she remembers seeing Deanne with RR and another man on Wednesday, November 4th near where he claims that he left her and that Deanne was sitting or lying on the ground again.
Another woman who lived near Inland Empire Way believes that she saw Deanne walking with RR and James on I.E. Way and lying on the ground on that day, as well. That witness claims that she was concerned enough to stop and ask Deanne if she was ok, since she was lying on the ground. Deanne told this witness that she was just upset because she was “going through a divorce” and she seemed in control enough of herself that this neighbor moved on. RR does not deny that he was with Deanne on the last day she was seen nor does he deny that he is the last person willing to admit to having seen her.
2:30-4:00 pm
A few hours after Mike learns Deanne used her card at the grocery store, he finally decides to leave Deanne's car downtown and go to that store with Deanne's missing person flyers in hand. There Mike has his first encounter with the GSE in the parking lot outside of the store. The GSE says Deanne looks familiar, but that it's probably not the same girl. It is possible Deanne did not look exactly like her photos on the night she left home because she was disheveled, but it is also possible that the GSE did not want to immediately admit to a frantic man with a missing person flyer of his fiancée who did not appear missing when he spent the night with her. The GSE may have been wary - for good reason - of becoming involved in what appeared to be a domestic situation.
Mike enters the grocery store and asks another store employee if he would be able to look at store surveillance and according to Mike in his Disappeared interview:
“...she said I had to wait and speak with the manager there, so I called the next day (Thursday) and he said I could come in that Saturday and look through it.”
Mike does not report taking the missing person flyers to the surrounding businesses in the shopping center where the grocery store was located, but maybe he did. It would have made sense for him to do so, since he claims he was papering downtown Spokane with the flyers and the shopping center was now Deanne’s most likely last known location. If Mike had contacted the surrounding businesses to leave flyers, he would have been told about Deanne being at the salon calling people “Mommy” and that police and EMTs had been dispatched for the woman on his flyer. Mike would have been told that Deanne was alone and on foot. He would have immediately searched the surrounding neighborhood for Deanne.
At this point on Wednesday afternoon after 2:30 pm Mike puts himself at the grocery store where Deanne made her last purchases. He is less than two miles from where Randy Riley and James claim to have parted ways with Deanne and approximately 1000ft from his home with Deanne. A Google maps search shows that there are very few streets in that area.
The time period from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday deserves a microscope on it, because this is when Deanne actually goes missing. There is one person who according to his own information was devoting himself to nothing else except tracking down Deanne Hastings during that time period and that person is Mike Tibbetts.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Mike finally reports Deanne missing to police on Thursday morning. He then calls the manager of the grocery store where Deanne’s debit card was last used. In the ID Disappeared episode Mike calmly tells us that the grocery store manager told him over the phone on Thursday that he could come in two days later to look through the video. Mike presses neither the manager of the store nor police to review the video surveillance immediately that would either confirm Deanne was using her own debit card, or point to a suspect in her disappearance. There is apparently none of the urgency that Mike felt when contacting Deanne’s school the morning before. Although he has allegedly been putting up missing person flyers all over town since the day before, Mike now seems to easily accept that no one will review the surveillance video until Saturday and he returns to work. Mike has still not called the last two people Deanne’s phone sent and received texts from: Deanne’s son and her DIL, nor does he call Deanne’s mother who lives only an hour away with Deanne’s two younger children to ask whether she has heard from Deanne. Instead, Mike goes to the media for help in *promoting* Deanne's disappearance. Deanne’s mother had to learn that her daughter was missing from Deanne’s brother who lived in Texas, who had to learn that his sister was missing when he was called by a friend in Spokane who saw the news report on tv. That makes no sense if Mike was genuinely concerned with locating Deanne on Wednesday and Thursday. Mike tells interviewers that he didn’t wish to alarm Deanne’s family. That makes no sense when he is attempting to locate Deanne by all of these other alarming means. When Deanne was out of touch with all her friends and family including Mike Tibbetts for what turned out to be 6 days in June according to the above-referenced police incident report, Mike Tibbetts never did report Deanne missing (nor did he launch a frantic search and contact the media), her son did and Deanne's teenaged son Hayden had the sense to contact friends and family before he made such a report to police.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Mike is able to view the surveillance video at the grocery store where Deanne made her purchases. She is alone on video, but clearly disoriented as other witnesses described. Mike does not request police to accompany him to view or take control of a copy of the video.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
6:00 am
Mike gets a call from the GSE who has been following media coverage of Deanne’s disappearance. The GSE now says he thinks Deanne is a girl he spent the night with on Tuesday/Wednesday and he agrees to meet with Mike to answer more questions.
10:30-11:00 am
The GSE meets with Mike and gives him Deanne's keys. Now Mike says he is finally able to retrieve Deanne’s phone and move her vehicle from the parking lot in downtown Spokane. Mike has made no effort in four days’ time to contact AAA or any other method of locksmith/tow service to secure and remove Deanne’s belongings or vehicle from the parking lot where she left it the night she left home. Again, this is telling since Mike originally felt that securing Deanne’s vehicle required him to stay with the vehicle all night in freezing temperatures.
In his ID Disappeared appearance Mike says of his meeting with the Grocery Store Employee:
“He was very not impressive at all.”
It’s hard to imagine in what way the Grocery Store Employee could have been impressive in this case. What sort of a presentation was Mike expecting the GSE to wow him with? Two years after the fact, Mike still shows seething jealousy/disgust on camera that Deanne went home with this... grocery store employee she met on the street outside of a nightclub, when he was prepared to make her his wife. In his ID Disappeared interview Mike says:
“Obviously I asked him if he had gotten together with her or anything like that. He said that he didn’t, that he had a girlfriend and all those things. I just didn’t believe him. He just didn’t, I don’t know. Just something about him.”
Mike seems like his skin is crawling thinking about his fiancée with this man. Who could blame him?
Sometime after 5:00 pm
Mike raises some sort of mini-posse consisting of a couple of friends and they go to the GSE’s house pretending in super-dramatic fashion like he was going to force his way in if he had to, without the police. The GSE cooperates with Mike and no sign of Deanne is found.
December 10, 2015
Randy Riley (RR) is arrested for identity theft. RR admits to using Deanne’s credit/debit cards. RR first states that Deanne gave him the cards to get something to eat. According to RR’s second version of how he obtained Deanne’s credit cards, on November 5, 2015, he was in a truck belonging to a friend who was helping him move belongings from a nearby the apartment from whence RR was being evicted, to his nearby storage unit where he and “James” had hung out with Deanne the day before. RR claims that he came across Deanne’s coat containing her wallet (or at least whatever credit cards and ID she had taken with her when she left her purse and phone in her vehicle) and according to her brother Carson in the Vanished podcast, RR finds Deanne’s coat and shoes and he takes those, as well. RR claims that these items were in the approximate area where he and “James” had last seen Deanne. In an interview with RR in jail with local affiliate KHQ, RR allegedly claims that he disposed of Deanne’s coat and shoes and threw her ID out in downtown Spokane to make it appear that she had been somewhere other than the last place he and his associate James claim they saw Deanne near “the hill”. It should have been easy enough for police to locate the friend with the truck to corroborate the second version of RR coming to have the cards and also whether or not a PIN number was required in order to use the cards.
There is much speculation that because RR is the last reported person to have seen Deanne alive and because he lied at least once about how he obtained her credit cards, that he must be involved in Deanne’s disappearance. A criminal background check shows RR has a history of drug use and theft (but not robbery) in support his drug habit. RR’s only violent offenses are two domestic violence charges which sounds serious, except those appear to be tied to his loved ones’ intervening in his drug use. One of the charges involved a girlfriend and one from 2005 involved Randy’s own Mother, but this coincides with his use of drugs and drug convictions. As of the time Deanne went missing in 2015 when RR was being evicted from his apartment, apparently all was forgiven by Riley’s Mother because she was allowing him to move in with her while he got his feet back under him. That is where police located him living with a girlfriend when they sought him out for an interview regarding the use of Deanne’s credit cards. RR has never been charged with a forcible felony, nor any sex crime. Randy Riley seems to be just your average petty criminal. In his interview with Spokane detectives, RR comes off as not being kind of a dipshit and a weakling who probably sniffs paint, not a sophisticated criminal who anyone else would be willing to assist by loaning him their vehicle, let alone assisting him in disposing of a body. RR got around on a bicycle. If RR lied about how he obtained Deanne’s credit cards, maybe it was just to avoid a robbery charge, which is a forcible felony and a very serious offense compared with anything on his previous record.
Maybe when RR went to go see whether Deanne was planning to come back out of the bushes and continue walking with him and James, he did tussle with her or otherwise removed the cards from Deanne's coat pocket. James maintains that he has no idea how RR came to have Deanne’s credit cards and he was never on video with RR using the cards, so however the theft and use of the cards came to have happened, it does not appear to be any conspiracy between RR and James.
What if Deanne did lose her coat in a struggle with someone else? Maybe someone who was known to be desperately looking for her all over town, who may have felt betrayed by Deanne falling off the wagon and staying out all night?
The Relationship Between Deanne Hastings and Mike Tibbetts
“Within a couple days of meeting her, I knew she was the one.” - Mike Tibbetts, ID Disappeared interview
Within a couple of days of meeting Deanne Hastings, Mike Tibbetts could not possibly have known what being in a committed, longterm relationship with her might entail. Mike Tibbetts was overwhelmed by Deanne’s beauty upon meeting her and he intended to possess her and be her answer to everything.
Mike continues:
“We got along great. I think we had one argument about wheat bread and white bread... which one to buy. I mean other than that we rarely ever fought.”
Mike is being disingenuous and attempting to seriously mislead us for his own purposes. Mike says he thinks (maybe) he and Deanne had “one” argument. So according to Mike’s information, he and Deanne had anywhere from zero to one argument, but if they did have one argument instead of zero, then Mike recalls that the subject matter of that argument was “about wheat bread and white bread… which one to buy.” To be clear, “rarely ever” fighting is not the same thing as maybe zero to one time arguing about purchasing bread. Mike is trying to convince us of a lie that he only needs to convince us of if he has other lies he needs to convince us of.
Amanda Ladd (Deanne’s longtime best friend) shared text messages with police that show Deanne had been telling her best friend for weeks that she wanted to leave Mike. In texts shown on the episode of the ID Disappeared episode, Deanne says she is “done” and that she believed Mike was drugging her. When confronted with this information, Mike then admits that in the weeks before her disappearance, Deanne was hearing voices and thought neighbors and an ex-boyfriend were breaking into their house, drugging the water supply and/or trying to kill her and she even accused Mike of being in on the conspiracy. Deanne does not mention the neighbors or an ex-boyfriend to Amanda Ladd, only Mike. None of what Mike ends up describing is within the realm of everything being “fine” prior to Deanne’s disappearance, anyway. Why didn’t Mike take Deanne to a hospital or at least make an appointment with her doctor if he believed she was hearing voices and accusing half the people in her life of conspiring against her instead of just him?
Deanne’s now daughter-in-law Melanie Green (DIL) states in her ID Disappeared interview that although she never witnessed any fights between Deanne and Mike, Deanne would regularly text message her DIL using a “girl code” they had about doing nails, for when she needed to talk about the relationship troubles with Mike that she was having. What were the nature of Deanne’s issues with Mike that she confided in her DIL about? Melanie Green never mentions wheat bread OR white bread.
Mike wants us to believe that even when Deanne went missing for 6 days in June and had to be reported missing to police by her son because no one including Mike had heard from her for days, that he and Deanne did not exchange any words of argument. Mike wants us to believe that when Deanne accused him of drugging her and even trying to kill her, that his and Deanne's conversation(s) about those issues were less dramatic than a conversation over whether to purchase wheat or white bread. Mike wants us to believe that even when he was able to confirm that Deanne had just spent the night with another man - who Mike says he does not believe was honest when he told Mike that he and Deanne had not "gotten together” - that Mike was going to be ok with that. An honest answer from Mike Tibbetts would have been that he and Deanne had many ups and downs in their short, whirlwind relationship due to Deanne’s ongoing issues with bipolar disorder, that they had been at odds many times before and that this “episode” could have very well ended their relationship had Deanne not gone permanently missing. Instead, Mike chooses to be completely dishonest and that is a huge red flag in a case like this.
Artist Michael Carini of San Diego, CA was a longtime friend of Deanne’s. On the previously linked webpage where he pays tribute to Deanne, he says she had recently contacted him and said that the relationship she was in with Mike was “unhealthy”:
“Shortly before her final disappearance in 2015, she contacted me and told me she had to get out of her current relationship because it was unhealthy. Deanne was known to tell stories and bend the truth, but I felt the sincerity in her voice. She had been clean and sober for a long time and really seemed to be turning her life around.”
January 2016
Randy Riley’s friend James who had walked with RR and Deanne on the day she disappeared and who was not charged with any crime related to her disappearance or the use of her cards, contacted Amanda Ladd via the Missing Deanne Facebook page to say that he wanted to speak with anyone who wanted to speak with him about Deanne and that he would tell them anything they wanted to know. He claims he does not know Randy very well and James stuck to his same story: Deanne went up the hill to relieve herself, Randy went to check on her for several minutes and then returned ALONE and the two men proceeded on their way. According to Deanne’s brother Carson’s account of the phone call, James tells Deanne’s brother words to the effect of “I can’t believe she didn’t make it home, she was so close to home, she was going to walk up the hill. I can’t believe she didn’t make it home.” James seemed genuinely desperate to reassure Deanne’s family that whatever happened to Deanne did in fact happen after he and Randy Riley left her on the hill near the home she shared with Mike Tibbetts.
***THEORIES CONTINUED IN COMMENTS DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT***
What do you believe is the most likely scenario and why?
https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/disappeared/full-episodes/the-long-way-home
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06XVPC24T/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s8
http://www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/2016/9/5/episode-44-deanne-hastings
https://www.trace-evidence.com/the-vanishing-of-deanne-hastings
https://www.kxly.com/spokane-man-searching-for-missing-fiance/
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/missing-in-america/loved-ones-still-searching-answers-deanne-hastings-disappearance-n479876
http://charleyproject.org/case/deanne-marie-hastings

"Please... I just need to know what happened to my son..."
Eli had seen a lot in his life. He'd dealt with all sorts of seedy types. Hell, he'd been shot a time or two. But there was no defense in his arsenal against a crying mother. Adding to that, she grabbed his shirt and started crying into his chest.
He knew she couldn't afford his fee, but... he was rather trapped. He could do one pro-bono job... Nothing wrong with that.
"Alright. I'll look into it. Tell me what you know. The last time you saw him, the last place he was, age, appearance... anything that could be useful."
She sat back, taking just a second to compose herself slightly, "Six... six months ago. H-he was supposed to pick up milk from the store and he went out with his friends instead. We had a... We had an argument. He left so angry with me... And I haven't seen him since..." She paused as another wave of sobbing threatened to overwhelm her.
"I understand this is hard, but I need any information you can provide. Anything that tells me how to find Eric." Eli gave her a smile that felt as fake as it probably looked, "Did you go to the police?"
"I-I did... they came back a day later with this picture. Here... let me..." Mrs. Bryan stood and walked over to the kitchen table. She pushed aside the stacks of 'missing' posters and pulled up a small photograph. She hurried back to Eli, pressing the small item into his palm, "They said he left. That this picture is all there is and all there needs to be. This picture... this is not my son. My son has red hair, and this boy has black hair. My son is... bless his heart... a little heavyset... but this boy is as skinny as a rail. Mr. Thorne, he's sixteen. He's top of his class and dating the class president. He just got a new job. He wouldn't just leave."
"And even if he had, why wouldn't the police bring him back?" Eli nodded, "Interesting. This class president... any chance Eric just ran away with her for a while?"
"No. Eric isn't like that. He would have said something. I already reached out to her family. Mr. Thorne... their daughter is just as worried as I am... but her parents... they said I've never had a son and they hung up on me. I've known them for years. They knew my late husband. They were at the hospital when Eric was born... They know I have a son."
Eli took a sharp breath. That was something he'd seen before. The police not searching for a missing underage boy was strange, but could be easily chalked up to lazy or dirty cops. Close family friends forgetting the boy entirely? That wasn't natural. That was very unlikely to be a cop on the take.
It was more likely to be something far worse. But he couldn't himself think about that.
Eli sat forward and "Mrs. Bryan, do you know where your son would have gone for the groceries? Somewhere that I can start looking?"
"Tom and Alva's on North Cherry. I can find you the address so-"
"No need. I actually shop there myself. Killer prices on produce." Eli stood and sighed, "Look... I'm not here to give you false hope. I will find out what happened to your son... one way or another. But I... I can't promise that I'll be able to bring him home."
She nodded her understanding and tried her best to keep it together, but as Eli pulled on his hat and coat, he could hear her sobbing behind him. Without looking back, he left the house.
******
Eli stood on the corner of North Cherry and West Haverford. Tom and Alva's, the little mom n' pop's drug store, was standing there, quiet and ignored by most. A few kids played on the corner nearby; not promising. A very shady-looking individual with a hoodie stood on the corner across the street from him; a potential witness. A police car rolled by every twenty minutes on the dot; more potential witnesses. He saw nothing on the street itself, which was not a surprise as Eric had disappeared six months prior. Turning to look at the storefront, he noted a security camera pointed at the door; a potential witness in its own right.
Eli pulled out his notebook from his coat pocket and clicked his pen, "Security camera... drug dealer... police..."
Eli turned and walked through the front door of Tom and Alva's and removed his hat. Ah, that familiar jingle of the bell always brought a little smile to his face. Aisles of chips and snacks made the place look like it had little more variety than a common gas station, but it was hard to deny that small-town feel the store gave off.
The only thing he didn't like to see were the prices. Two whole dollars for a bag of chips that small? How did anyone afford things in that town!? Their produce was priced fine but... that was no small amount. Or maybe it was. Things seemed to be more expensive without anyone caring. Plus, it seemed that money was either worth less or everything was worth more. Inflation was stupid.
He looked to the counter. It wasn't Tom or Alva manning the cash register. Just some young lady. Perhaps eighteen, nineteen... cute as a button with sheer boredom in her eyes.
"Excuse me, miss. My name is Elias Thorne and I was wondering if-"
"What are you supposed to be?"
"I'm a private investigator."
"You realize the 30s happened ninety years ago, right?"
Eli looked down at his clothing. The old trench coat, the white button-up and black vest, five-o-clock shadow on his face... even the Sinatra hat he held... yeah... he did look a little out-of-place in the modern day. Appearing to be in his mid-twenties didn't help his case any.
Eli looked up at the shopkeep and shrugged, "My mom said I looked like a very handsome man. Now, I have some-"
"You some sort of noir detective?"
"Yes... I'm... some sort..." Eli shook his head, "Miss, I really need to see your security tapes. The camera out front. I think it may have seen a crime six months ago, and-"
"Footage is deleted every month." She shrugged, "You're fresh outta luck. The gun store across the street deletes theirs every year. You might have some luck there."
"Obliged."
Eli left the little store and returned his hat to his head, grumbling the whole way across the street about irritating shopkeeps who wouldn't let him finish a damn sentence. Thankfully, the young woman had been observant enough to notice the external security camera on the gun store, aimed out at the street. He made his way into the gun store. Bars on the windows; that was a great sign. Guns of all sorts lined the unlocked cases. Hunting gear rested on the racks with ammunition sitting on the shelves. A portly, middle-aged man stood behind the counter.
"Excuse me, sir. My name is Elias Thorne-"
The shopkeep scoffed, "That's not a real name."
"It's on my driver's license." Eli rolled his eyes, "Look, we can talk about my name later. I need to see your security footage from six months ago. I believe it may have witnessed a crime."
"Sure thing. Where's your warrant?"
"Oh, I'm not with the police. I'm a private investigator. I'm looking into the disappearance of a young man named 'Eric Bryan'. Do you mind if I take a look at those tapes?"
"They're not on tape. Digital. And you won't be seein' them without a warrant. I know my rights."
"And I can see several things going on here that are terribly illegal. Maybe the cops will ignore it, but if I bring up that you have guns in unlocked cases with ammunition just sitting out... Well, even if the cops don't want to do anything, the newspaper will have a hell of a time writing up an article about your little shop." Eli walked up to the counter, "Now... how about those digital things?"
******
Eli looked through his notebook as he walked toward where he left his car. Young boy matching the rough description of Eric Bryan that he had gotten from Mrs. Bryan left Tom and Alva's. There had been a black, unmarked panel van. The license plate had been easily read from the camera. Six, clearly-armed men had thrown another man in the back of the van and taken notice of Eric Bryan when he had screamed. Eric had been forced to join them in the van.
One of those men... he looked sick. Unnatural. Like his skin was too loose to fit on his deformed skeleton.
That man had been playing with something he shouldn't have been.
He pulled out his new phone from his pocket. The damn thing had no buttons. He stabbed at the screen with his finger, putting in the short passcode his assistant had helped him with. He needed information he couldn't ask around about. Thankfully, his business partner had some connections at the police station.
His business partner, Howard Malone, had always been a strange man, stating that he liked to keep Eli around because weird things always happened when Eli was present. He'd been kind to Eli, though. Kind enough that Eli was more than willing to not ask questions about what Howard had been reading when Eli walked into his office once and he slammed the book down under his desk in a hurry. Although, that was probably less about how kind the man had been and more about Eli not wanting to know what Howard read when he was alone.
Contacts... 'H'... 'Howard Malone'. He hit the button that looked like a phone and pushed it up to his ear.
An older, husky voice answered, "Howard Malone, Private Investigator and part-time birthday clown. Which one might you be inquiring about today?"
"Howard, I know my name pops up on the screen thing when I call you. You know it's me."
"Elias! Haven't heard from you in a while. Kinda thought you'd gotten on the bad side of the wrong people." Howard laughed, "After what happened on Pine Street last week, I'm surprised to hear from you. How are you today?"
Pine Street. Another case he'd solved. It had started as something about a corrupt local politician that had gotten a man laid off, and ended with the politician taking potshots at Eli with a shotgun. It wasn't the first sticky situation Eli had escaped from, and the man had wound up in prison. Granted, he had been arrested for tax evasion, not attempted murder, but Eli had learned to count his victories where he could. He hadn't quite figured out how the guy had known he was coming, but that was a case for a different day.
"I need to have a license plate looked into. Can you pull some strings with Doris down at the station?"
"Of course I can pull some strings for you. Just a fair warning, she's not going to be particularly happy that it's you coming to see her, so I might leave that little detail out. If you send me the plate, I'll send it ahead to her and have her ready for you."
"Alright, I'll read it to you. Got a pen?"
"I'm babysitting my niece. No, I don't 'got a pen'. Just text it to me."
"Just find a pen."
"Elias, you gotta learn how the technology works at some point. Hell, I'm twenty years older than you! You should be teaching me!"
"Stuff it, Howard." Eli groaned, "There's a kid here. I'll just hand him a quarter to show me how it's done."
"One quarter isn't as much as you think."
"I'm doing it anyway."
******
Fifteen quarters, one irritated kid, and a twenty-minute drive later, Eli pulled up in front of the police station. His car, piece of junk that it was, broke down as soon as he stopped. That was probably a sign that he needed a new one. Maybe if he hadn't done the job pro-bono, he could put that money toward a car that was able to drive for more than five miles.
He pulled his coat back to look down at his holstered .45 M1911. Walking into a police station with a gun on his hip was likely not a good idea, even if he had a concealed carry permit. On the other hand, he had the permit for that one, even if the permit was registered to a fake name. Maybe it would be fine. If they saw the unregistered .38 snub on his left hip, though... perhaps he would get in trouble for that one.
He decided to hold on to his weapons. Leaving them in a car that couldn't lock was just asking for trouble. He got out of the car and walked across the street to the station. It was a decently-sized building of brick, with a big, bright 'Police of Haven City' sign on the top. Squad cars lined the street, looking a lot sleeker than he remembered them. He made a special note of the black truck about a block away. Two men sat in the truck, both watching him intently.
Eli walked through the front door and walked up to the counter. The officer behind the desk eyed him up and down and reached for the stack of incident reports.
"Mr. Thorne. Your partner called ahead and said your business needed to speak with Doris. Why are you here?"
"I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd come visit. I'm sure Howard will be along shortly." Eli removed his hat, "Any chance I could wait for him downstairs with Doris? I'm having trouble reaching him."
"Fine. But you better make it quick. I don't need a repeat of last month on my head."
"It's really not my fault that she had that vase. What the hell was a vase doing in a police station anyway!?"
"Just go through the damn door. I'll buzz you in."
Eli walked away from the counter, sticking his hands in his coat pockets. He waited at the door to the stairs until he heard the buzz and walked through. Descending down the stairs, a pang of nerves hit him. He never liked being underground, even if it was a basement. Always made him uncomfortable. Maybe that was why he was more on edge the month before.
He rounded the corner into the records. Doris, a woman with glaringly-red hair and leopard-print glasses, sat at her desk, sorting through papers. She had a file sitting to the side with a pink note attached to the top, bearing Howard Malone's name. Eli walked around to the front of her desk and cleared his throat.
"Doris." He tapped his fingers on the file, "Is this for Howard?"
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"I need the information for a case. Missing boy. Eric Bryan."
"Eric... Is that the same 'Eric Bryan' that that woman keeps calling us about?"
"One and the same." Eli started to slide the file from her desk, "I'm just going to take this and go. No need for any unpleasantness."
Doris's hand slammed down on top of the file, "Don't even think about it, Thorne. Howard called for that license plate to be run, and the information is for his eyes only. You better be on your way now or I'm calling upstairs to have them send Officer Brown down here to straighten you out again."
"Ha! Brown is on vacation in Maui this week. He sent a postcard to the office. Shows what you know." Eli chuckled, "Alright, Doris... Just let me take the file."
"I need to hear an apology."
"I'm sorry about the fire."
"You are responsible for more than that."
"A woman cried in front of me this morning because her son is missing. I need this information to find out what happened."
"Fine." Doris moved her hand, "Asshole."
"Obliged."
"And because I thought it was Howard coming to pick up that file, I left a little note in there that you should ignore."
Eli flipped the file open to see a handwritten note. Eli blushed, grabbed the note, and slapped it back down on her desk, "Doris! What would Mister Roberts think!?"
"You're lucky I don't pull your address and give it to Mr. Roberts for what you did last time you were here."
"Aw, I didn't know you cared so much. I gotta say, you seem angrier than that wizard-guy I interrupted in the middle of a ritual."
Doris's eyes got wide.
Eli let out an incredibly awkward, completely and clearly fake laugh that held no joy. Doris laughed uncomfortably and looked down at her desk.
Eli flipped through the file, "This is just one piece of paper with an address."
"That's all there was on the plate."
"Anything about Eric Bryan?"
"I have to keep putting in another file each time that woman calls. I've looked into it before, and there's nothing in our system about that woman having a child. I just can't believe she's so desperate that she hired you. Guess she really has snapped."
"Doris, you're a treasure. Don't ever change."
"Go to hell."
"That's the spirit."
******
Eli closed his car door and threw the file on the passenger seat. He flipped it open to read the address and struggled to get his phone to call Howard. Voicemail. Great. He scrolled up through the 'contacts' list until he reached 'C'. Chase Meyers, his assistant, was just some young kid who needed the income. He wasn't much for investigation, but he had a passion for helping people. It was almost inspirational. He had outright refused to take the job offer until Eli promised him that they weren't going to be following cheating spouses around Haven City snapping pictures. Good kid.
"Chase here."
"Chase, it's Eli. I need you to do that thing you do with computers and get everything you can on an address."
"Sure thing. Text me the address."
"Chase..."
"Oh, right. Read it out to me, then."
"1890 East Providence Drive."
Eli fought with his car as the clicking of a keyboard sounded in his ear. With a small burst of relief, the car rattled to life.
"Chase, I need to put you on speaker. How do I do that?"
"Hit the button that says 'speaker'."
"There's no button."
"On the screen. It's an icon with-"
"Got it." Eli set the phone in his lap and started to drive. He listened to Chase type rapidly as his car pushed forward. He leaned back in his seat as the car rattled along. Maybe a rattling sound wasn't the best sound for an engine to have. It was probably fine, though. He wasn't a mechanic, so he couldn't decide that the car was busted on his own.
That black truck was behind him. It was a distance of about two cars... but it was there. The driver was talking into a phone. Bald man. Sunglasses. Dark skin. The passenger pointed at Eli's car. Brown hair. Pale skin. Bright orange jacket.
"Chase, I've got a tail. Anything you can see before I have to hang up?"
"Yeah... It's an old abandoned factory and... just... It looks like there are a lot of invoices from a "Happy Farms Butcher Shop" to that address. Several shipments of... of meat. I mean, beef, chicken, pork... all that stuff. Whoever lives there, they were really hungry."
"Or 'whatever' lives there." Eli muttered, "What do you mean 'were really hungry'?"
"Well, it looks like the last invoice was from six months ago. Eli, there are some posts online warning about gang activity near that address. Bodies turning up nearby. People missing. Drugs all through that area... but all of that stopped six months ago, too."
Eli felt a cold shock run through his heart, "Thanks, Chase. I'll go check it out."
"It looks like it might be dangerous, Mr. Thorne. Do you want me to call Mr. Marwan?"
"No thanks. I've got this one. Let... Let Sam know where I'm going to be, though. If I don't give you a call by midnight, send him in."
"You got it, Mr. Thorne."
Eli pulled over into a parking lot and fished the map out of his glovebox. He unfolded it and rested it against the steering wheel. East Providence was a thirty-minute drive across town. If his car could survive the trip, it wouldn't even be a problem. He just needed to-
Something tapped on his window.
He looked up to see a man in a bright orange jacket. He was tapping on the window with a gun. Eli was suddenly feeling quite cooperative. The man motioned for Eli to get out of the car, and Eli obliged.
"Boss got a call that you're sticking your nose where it don't belong." The man muttered, "So, we're gonna go someplace nice and quiet and have a little chat."
"Well, I do like nice and quiet places."
Eli eyed the gun in the man's hand as the other one started patting him down.
"You're quite friendly." Eli muttered.
The man felt down Eli's hips, stopped, and pulled back the right side of his coat to reveal the .45 M1911 on his hip. He pulled the gun out of the holster and stuck it in the back of his pants. He patted down Eli's legs and then moved up toward his left hip.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. I never cross-draw." Eli chuckled.
The man quietly pulled back the left side of Eli's coat and removed the .38 snub, holding it up for Eli to see.
"Well... except for sometimes." Eli shrugged.
The man grabbed Eli's left arm all the way down, then moved to his right arm, stopping at his forearm.
"What's this?"
Eli raised his left arm and pulled his sleeve down, revealing a leather and steel brace, "I injured my arm a bit ago. The doc said I had to wear this. I don't know why. I'm no doctor."
The man shrugged and pulled a black bag from his pocket. He unfurled it, took Eli's hat, and pulled it over Eli's head.
******
Eli would have complained about the bag over his head, except that it was remarkably thin, and he could see almost everything. That was likely something those two morons were unaware of. He recognized the street signs around him as they went. These guys were taking him in the direction of East Providence Drive. That was convenient. Or quite bad if people really did keep disappearing around there.
The building they approached was an old factory. What it produced, Eli couldn't tell. It looked run down and dirty. The fence had a 'no trespassing' sign that Eli's drivers ignored completely. He could see a small bit of smoke coming from one of the stacks. Perhaps the place wasn't as abandoned as Chase had believed.
Eli was shoved from the truck as both men escorted him toward the door. They stopped before entering, pulling his arms behind his back and securing them with handcuffs. That would be a minor complication.
They pushed him through the door and he stumbled, almost falling to the ground. He caught himself and tried to look around without moving his head as much as possible. Empty metal vats were all around him, lining the walls. The floor was concrete with drains running in the middle. The lights were at that perfect fluorescent flicker that made him mildly nauseous.
He was pushed into a much larger room, one lined with tables manned by people packing bags of what looked like a very illegal substance. There were stairs to his right leading up to the second floor. Four men and two women in that room had guns. A man and one woman stood to the left of the door Eli was quickly approaching. The rest stood near the stairs. The rest of the people were very clearly unarmed. Potential slaves. Potential employees. Hard to tell.
A quiet, terrible, almost musical shriek came from the basement, and everyone shuddered.
They walked him past that room and into a much smaller one, decorated by only a single chair and a series of pipes. He felt a fleeting wonder cross his mind about why bad guy groups always seemed to have rooms like that to bring their kidnap victims.
Eli was shoved down into the chair, his arms looped around the backrest. One of his captors pulled the bag from his head and discarded it on the floor.
Clawing, growling, sloshing noise rose from the drain under Eli's feet.
"Well, if you wanted some alone time with me, you could have just bought me dinner." Eli grumbled, "So... what's this all about?"
"The man we work for got a call-"
"That I'd been snooping, yeah." Eli rolled his eyes, "But... what was I snooping in that bothered him so much?"
The men said nothing, just stood there with their guns drawn and pointed at him. The door behind them opened up and a man walked through. He wore ordinary street clothes, but he looked wrong in every way. His skin looked like a deflated balloon. His bones were shaped at odd angles. Strange markings lined his skin, some tattoos, some healed wounds. His breathing was wet and ragged, though he didn't look to be in pain. His pale skin had splotches of color, as if he had paint all over him.
"You must be Elias Thorne. I've got a source that says you're looking into the disappearance of a kid that doesn't exist."
"Right, yes, and I'm sure that me looking for the Easter Bunny would also piss you off?"
"Easter Bunny..." The ragged man laughed, a shrill, piercing noise, "Elias, I think you've stumbled onto something you don't need to be concerned with."
"You know, part of me was thinking the same thing until your goons threw me into a truck." Eli shrugged, "It took me under a day to find a path that led to this location. I thought for a minute that it would mean dirty cops, but... we both know it's something more... unnatural." Eli sat up and leaned forward as much as he could, "What kind of books do you read, sir?"
The man's eyes narrowed with seething hatred, "Utah, find out what he told the cops and then put two in his head and take him downstairs. I'll be upstairs reading my books. Come get me when it's done."
The man named Utah stepped forward. He was the one who had taken Eli's weapons. That was good. Eli tried his hardest to focus on the positive and ignore the sound of scratching coming from just under his feet.
The boss and the man in the bright orange jacket walked out of the room, leaving Eli alone with Utah. Utah cracked his knuckles and stood over Eli, smiling down at him, "You're gonna tell me everything. We can do this the easy way or hard way."
"Oh, easy way of course!" Eli squirmed over, "I'll tell you exactly what you want to know."
Utah lowered his hands a little, a look of confusion on his face.
"See, when I was about... oh... nineteen or so, I went to Susie Miller's pool party." Eli moved his left arm a little, "Started out as some underage drinking, but then it turned into a game of truth or dare, and you would be surprised where that ended up! I mean, running from the cops on a bicycle at two in the morning in only my long johns and a tiara."
Utah's fist flew out, cracking Eli across the face. Eli spit blood from his mouth and looked up at Utah, retaining his grin.
"What do you think you're talking about?" Utah grumbled, "What did you tell the cops? What did you find!?"
"Asshole! I was getting to that! Eventually." Eli twisted his arm a little more, "See, there were a few things I learned that night." Eli shifted his right arm just a little bit... almost there, "One thing was that you never do truth or dare with Susie Miller's friends. Another was that if the police ask why you were doing something strange and unexplainable, say nothing or risk looking as mad as a hatter." Eli smiled as he got the right position, "The last lesson I got... was how to escape from a pair of handcuffs with a thin blade."
There was a quiet pop and Utah opened his mouth to shout.
Eli jumped up, driving the blade mounted on top of his right forearm into Utah's throat.
"You really should have taken the brace from me." Eli hissed, "You think this is the first time I've been grabbed? I've learned a lot about how to get out of tricky situations. I've got lock picks hidden in my watch, knives hidden across all my clothing... I tell you, I really appreciate the engineering possibilities in this day and age. By the way, I never told the cops anything. You could have let me go about my day, and you'd still be alive in the morning. Any last words?"
A quiet, strained gurgle escaped Utah's lips.
"Well put."
Eli dropped Utah's body and knelt down, picking up his hat and returning it to its rightful position on his head. He grabbed his M1911 and holstered it. After sliding the .38 back into its holster, he picked up Utah's gun. He figured he had about two shots from that before people paid too much attention. Six people in the next room would try to kill him. He could handle that. He'd been in worse situations.
A content, unearthly wail issued from the drain.
Eli looked down to see that Utah's blood was flowing down into the drain. He knew what waited in that basement. He'd seen one before. Rare, deadly, and able to disappear someone in every conceivable way. The perfect pet for a career criminal.
Eli shook the thought from his head. He ejected the magazine from Utah's firearm and pulled the slide back to eject the last bullet. He wouldn't be needing it. He dropped the gun and walked up to the door, drawing his M1911.
Eli thrust his leg into the left door, turning sharply to his right. He fired two shots. One hit the man, one hit the woman. He heard shouts from the people in the room.
He rounded the door and fired two more times, killing two of the armed men before they could react.
The remaining woman lifted her weapon and held the trigger down.
Eli dove behind a support column as bullets rained into the concrete. He'd been on the receiving end of that kind of gun before. Three seconds of continuous fire and it would be empty.
One.
Two.
Three.
The shots stopped.
Eli rouned the column and fired one more shot, dropping the woman.
The man fired back at Eli rapidly, missing each desperate shot.
Eli fired once and didn't miss his target.
Six bullets. His gun held seven, plus the one in the chamber. He was down to two.
He fired both into the air, shouting for the people to run. Not a single one disobeyed.
Eli ejected the magazine and grabbed the one from his coat pocket, sliding it into place and cocking one into the chamber. Seven more bullets. He crossed the room quickly, heading up the stairs. He peeked through the metal door at the top. Two men stood at the end of the hallway with their guns aimed at the door Eli was behind. Eli tapped the glass and waved.
Bullets reduced the window to shards of glass immediately.
Eli bounced up from his hiding place behind the metal door and fired two clean shots.
He pushed the door open and walked down the hallway. Five rounds remained in his gun.
"Mark! Shawn! What's going on out there!?"
Eli ran at the door the two men were guarding and kicked it open.
The ragged man was reaching for a revolver on his desk.
Eli fired one shot, ripping the man's hand in half. The ragged man fell to the floor and crawled quickly into the corner, screaming and crying about his hand.
Eli sized up the room quickly. Redwood paneling, green carpet like a lawyer's office, and a rich mahogany desk with one open book on top. A couple file cabinets, a couple guns here and there. No guards in the room at all.
"Shut up!" Eli lifted the gun to aim at the ragged man's head, "Let me be clear about one thing: I will kill you for kidnapping me. But I need to know what part you played in Eric Bryan's disappearance. I need to know if I'm going to be killing you for that as well. Because I think I know what happened, I just want to hear you say it."
"A-aren't you going to arrest me?"
"I just killed eight people after being kidnapped without calling for backup. Do you really think I'm a cop? Now, tell me about the boy. He disappeared six months ago after you and yours threw him into a van. I want to know what happened."
"I-It was a year ago... th-this thing appeared... when... I was reading that book... speaking the words..." the ragged man pointed at the open book on his desk with his good hand, "And it... it appeared."
Eli walked slowly to the desk, looking down at the book. Strange symbols composed the main body of work. Words and notes in English were scrawled into the margins. Eli had seen these before. Not that book specifically... but books, formulas, and strange objects like it.
"Looks like someone was dabbling in magic." Eli let out a soft chuckle, "Trust me. That's a mistake. Playing with forces you don't understand... it turns you into something. It makes you not what you were. Something less than human that believes it's more than divine. But you summoned something... didn't you? Something hungry."
"It ate... it ate one of my men... His friends... no one remembered him after that creature..." The ragged man whispered, a few tears running down his face, "A-at first... it was satisfied by meat I ordered in... but... it was so desperate to eat... to eat men... I kept reading... The power in that book... a man could become rich with it. It was DeMarcus... he tried to get me to stop... and that... that boy saw it..." The ragged man tried to push himself farther into the corner, "So... we brought... We brought him back here..."
Eli gritted his teeth, "You fed a sixteen-year-old boy to that thing in the basement."
"It was just a matter of convenience... It wasn't... I would never kill a child! I just... I could use that thing... better for business than leaving a body-"
"I'm going to burn this place down with that thing still inside." Eli readjusted his aim, "I'm going to tell that woman that her son was murdered and his body disposed of. And you? You're going to rot in hell for what you've done."
"Not what I've done... what... What that thing did... what that book made me do!"
"But you opened the book."
"Please, man... I don't..." The ragged man looked up at Eli in terror, "Who are you?"
"I'm just a man who doesn't belong here." Eli shrugged, "Nothing more. Nothing less. I've seen things that would make your toes curl. Magic. Wizards. Monsters..." Eli let out a dry chuckle, "Monsters exist. But you know that, don't you? That's what you've got in the basement."
"I didn't know... that book was... I never thought of what it might be... of what it might do... But it told me things... things about the world... things about what lives around us... things hidden in the shadows... things hidden in plain sight..."
"In my life, I've found one great mercy in this world. Most people never put together all of the disparate facts that reveal the reality that we live in. Monsters, magic... They chalk it up to hallucinations and madness. They all live in a small room surrounded by darkness and they are so afraid to ever open the door. They try so hard to explain everything away with science and mental illness. One day, though... that door is going to be flung open. The world will see what waits in the dark, and they will not take kindly to it."
"Please... I have money... two million in the safe there. It's unlocked right now... just take it and let me go..."
"Well, thanks. I'm going to be giving that to the boy's mother, though. Well... most of it. Turns out, I probably need a new car." Eli shook his head, lowering his gun, "Oh, before I forget, who was it that tipped you off about me?"
"I never got a name... I just... He told me where you were... what you were up to... He said he just wanted to borrow my book for a little bit... that he collects them... That you wouldn't approve... that it benefited both of us..."
Eli gritted his teeth. A man who hid books Eli would disapprove of and would benefit in more ways than one if Eli was suddenly not part of his business.
Seemed like Eli would be having a chat with Howard Malone.
Eli raised his gun, "Any last words?"
"I didn't... I didn't harm the boy. It was Utah. He-"
Eli pulled the trigger three times.
​

Any feedback and whatnot is appreciated!

In more than 75% of homicides, the victim knows their killer; nearly 30% of homicide perpetrators are family members. Among women who are murdered, more than half are murdered by their intimate partner. The force of emotions that exist in familial and romantic relationships are the most powerful that people experience in their lifetimes. Even what appear to be the closest of marriages and the most respectable of families have been known to experience fatal violence going all the way back to Cain and Abel.
This review of Deanne Hasting’s case takes a very close look at the actions and words of Deanne’s fiancé at the time she disappeared. Hopefully another review of the timeline and supporting facts will help lead us to what happened to Deanne. I rely most heavily on the information provided in interviews with Deanne's closest relatives from the ID Disappeared program (Season 8, episode 13 “The Long Way Home”) and The Vanished Podcast Episode 44, because it is the information of those who knew Deanne best or were the closest to Deanne when she disappeared, in their own words that we can listen to for ourselves.
Background
Deanne Hastings (maiden name Crider) was born 2/27/1980 in Pahrump, Nevada. She was a thirty-five year-old mother of three at the time she disappeared from Spokane, Washington on November 4, 2015. Deanne has a history of bipolar disorder, going missing and even attempted suicide. This webpage offers some real insight into Deanne’s struggles as well as an honest and loving tribute from an artist who was Deanne’s longtime friend and more.
Just months before Deanne vanished this seemingly final time, she had been out of touch with all of her friends and family for 6 days. A mostly redacted copy of a June 12, 2015 police incident report I obtained that was initiated by Deanne's eldest son, Hayden states the following:
"Hayden Green called Crime Check on June 12, 2015 at 20:38 to report that he hasn't heard from his mom, Deanne Hastings (listed Deanne Crider), since 6/9/15. Hayden has checked with other friends and family and no one has heard from her, not even her live in boyfriend Mike Tibbetts."
That case was closed when Deanne returned home on June 15, 2015. Apparently no search was conducted, nor was any media attention brought to Deanne’s disappearance on that occasion. Why not? Mike Tibbetts was Deanne’s live-in boyfriend when she went missing in June but apparently Mike was not as concerned then as he was in November.
Deanne and Mike became engaged around two months following her return from that episode and around two months before she disappeared. Did this change in their relationship status affect Mike’s actions in November? In his ID Disappeared interview Mike Tibbetts says: “In her past she would leave for a couple days or different times like that. She would respond here and there to texts and stuff.” Mike has been through this with Deanne before. Does Mike know where Deanne went during the times she disappeared before? According to Deanne’s artist friend, many times she would run to him wherever he was living, or he would come to where she was and they would hide from the world in a hotel. Apparently some of the times like this time, Deanne wandered the streets and made friends with strangers.
This time something kept Deanne from ever coming back to the people who loved her. Deanne had a long history of disappearing and of “episodes” where her mother says in her ID Disappeared interview that she sometimes didn’t even recognize her own daughter and Deanne’s brother Carson also describes Deanne as being like a different person during those times, full of foul and hurtful language. Unfortunately, these episodes had been occurring since Deanne’s later teenage years regardless of being on or off of any medication. Like many sufferers of bipolar disorder, Deanne clearly had a difficult time getting the right dose or combination of medications.
Although her brother Carson and Mike Tibbets refer to “the insurance” and “the insurance company” in their ID Disappeared interviews, the fact is that Deanne was on Medicaid due to her low income and other factors. One of the “credit” cards a person of interest in this case, Randy Riley, was caught using of Deanne’s was not a credit card according to police, but rather her EBT (food stamp) card which he used at a WinCo grocery store. Perhaps they did not wish to cause shame to Deanne (the only shame is that Deanne was denied her medication), but Mike Tibbetts states in his interview on ID Disappeared that he had offered to pay cash for Deanne’s medication so that she could have the preferred one and Deanne was “told” [by her caseworker?] that if they did that, Deanne would be dropped from “insurance coverage”. No one is dropped from private insurance coverage for not using their benefits and paying cash instead. When you go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, you will be charged the full price in cash unless you present an insurance card and nobody cares because you’re paying to have the insurance benefit whether you use it or not and when you don’t use it, that is money the insurance company does not have to reimburse. It is Medicaid recipients who have to demonstrate financial need. Obviously, it is a terrible shame that anyone would deny Deanne the particular medication her physician thought she needed. It may help some people deflect their own guilt and responsibility to spread blame around or feel validated in making political hay of this case, but what is important is finding Deanne.
The Disappearance
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Deanne attends her first day of cosmetology school at Glen Dow Academy just six blocks from where her vehicle will later be found. Deanne spent the latter part of her evening with her now daughter-in-law (DIL) Melanie Green doing her nails and discussing their relationships with the men in their lives, as they frequently did.
9:30 pm
Melanie Green (DIL) goes home after spending the evening with Deanne doing nails and talking about their relationships. Deanne responds to Melanie’s text sometime between 9:30-10:00 pm when Melanie arrived home. Deanne’s last message to DIL says “Love you see you soon”.
10:00 pm
Deanne’s last reported use of her cell phone is a text to her son Hayden telling him that she went to school that day and that she hopes he is proud of her.
10:00-10:15 pm?
Deanne possibly executes a plan to leave the home she shares with her fiancé Mike Tibbetts by distracting him with a handwritten note about going to the store while she made her way to a downtown nightclub. If true, then for reasons known only to her Deanne chose to execute this plan instead of waiting for Mike to return home just a few minutes later and invite him to go with her to the club, or to tell Mike the truth about where she was going.
10:15 -10:30 pm
Mike arrives home from work (he worked 12:00 pm -10:00 pm shifts) and claims he found a note from Deanne inside the home that according to Tibbetts’ words on the ID Disappeared episode said:
“…that she had a good day, and she was just, got done doing nails and she was going to run to the store.”
That is a lot of information in a handwritten note that really only needed to say "Ran to the store BRB”. If Deanne were actually running to the store and coming home, she could have told Mike about her day when she returned. If Deanne actually meant to let Mike know that she was at the store in case he found the house empty when he came home or he wanted anything from the store, she would have text him. Deanne had just been texting her DIL and son minutes before she allegedly picked up a pen and wrote a note for Mike Tibbetts that he has never allowed police to see. Mike maintains that the handwritten note is the last thing Deanne ever wrote to him and that is why he cannot part with it, even though he has known that the note was a complete lie by the 4th day that Deanne was missing at the latest. Mike’s refusal to ever turn over either the alleged note or Deanne’s cell phone in the early days and weeks of the investigation into her disappearance, Mike’s actions are not those of a man who really wants to find out what happened to Deanne. Mike’s memories of the note seem to vary slightly. In this interview published 9 days after Deanne went missing Mike says:
“There was a note that said ‘Ran to store, just got done doing girls nails, had a great day,’"
The article further states: “It’s easy to memorize a simple note, especially when it’s the last time you’ve heard from the one you love.” Except Mike doesn’t “memorize” Deanne’s note. He paraphrases it each time and by February 2016 Mike seems to be remembering the night Deanne left home differently than he reported to police:
“The last thing I heard come out of her mouth was I love you," he said. "She went to the store that night, and I haven't seen her since.”
No mention of any note. The note matters because if it ever existed, it would support Mike’s version of the evening: that nothing at all was amiss between himself and Deanne and that whatever happened to cause Deanne to leave the house that night had nothing to do with Mike because it happened before he got home.
11:30 pm Mike gets concerned that Deanne is not home from the store because it is five minutes away. This would be a market now called Rosauer's Market. Out of concern, Mike says he drove to that store. Mike reports that the store was closed, so he returns home. Why does he drive to the store instead of texting, then calling Deanne’s phone? Did Mike do those things first and then drive to the store? He does not report doing so. This is the nearest market to their house. Most people know what time the nearest market to their house closes. Did Mike really think he would find Deanne at the closed market, rather than assume she must be making a stop some place else by then that was open later? Deanne could have gone to a Walgreens that was open late, or been picking up fast food or a pizza. It is interesting that within an hour Mike is already out on the street looking for Deanne on this night.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
2:30-3:00 am
Mike tracks Deanne’s phone to a parking lot at 919 Sprague in downtown Spokane which is next to The Knitting Factory, a music venue just six blocks from the cosmetology school Deanne attended the morning before. If Mike was able to trace Deanne’s phone using location services, then he also had access to and surely would have looked at her phone usage online to see who she was communicating with besides him before she left their house. Mike should have easily been able to see that there were texts to her son’s and his girlfriend’s numbers in the minutes before he came home. Nonetheless, Mike never actually contacts either one of them himself to ask what Deanne might have said about what she was planning to do that night.
Mike decides to wait by Deanne’s car for the rest of the night. This is an interesting choice considering that the temperature was below freezing that night. Deanne had not been robbed, because Mike found her purse and cell phone secured inside the car. It seems reasonable to assume that Deanne had gone to the club next door and left her purse in the car so she could dance. If Deanne had consumed alcohol, it would be reasonable for her to have gotten a ride home or taken a cab. Mike’s choices seem to prioritize seeing who Deanne might be with when she returned to her car. Mike has claimed that he stayed with Deanne’s car all night in the freezing cold because he wanted to make sure her car did not get broken into with her purse and phone inside. That sounds like a reasonable, too except that after this first night Mike does not call AAA for locksmith service and a tow home. Instead Mike leaves Deanne’s car parked in that same spot in downtown Spokane with her purse and phone inside for *four more nights* beginning on Wednesday.
Overnight
We now know that Deanne Hastings met a grocery store employee of what is now called Yoke's Fresh Market on Spokane-Cheney Road, (known as Latham Trading Company at the time) and that Deanne spent the night with that grocery store employee (GSE). According to the GSE’s information, he met Deanne in front of The Knitting Factory and they went off to party together for the night. In the morning the GSE took Deanne in his car to the grocery store where he worked to purchase cigarettes. The GSE says when he got back to his car, Deanne was gone but she had left her keys behind. He drove around the shopping center, did not see Deanne and left. Deanne was just two miles from home then and she would end up walking most of those two miles in the direction of her home later that afternoon.
7:30-8:00 am
Mike calls Glen Dow Academy to see whether Deanne has shown up for her second day of classes. Glen Dow Academy is located six blocks from where Deanne left her vehicle. Mike must have made quite an impression on whoever he spoke to on the phone about Deanne, because the school owner offered to start making missing person flyers right away instead of minding their own business over an adult staying out all night. Mike says he then began to distribute the missing person flyers all over downtown Spokane. Deanne had been missing less than twelve hours at that point.
Maybe it was reasonable for Mike to call Deanne’s new school and let the administrators know that she had been out all night because Mike was genuinely worried about Deanne’s well being. On the other hand, Mike does not say that he tried calling any hospitals or jails, he does not try going home to see whether or not Deanne has returned there and most importantly, Mike also *does not call* the last two people Deanne Hastings’ phone records would indicate she texted in the minutes before Mike arrived home to (allegedly) find a handwritten note from Deanne about going to the store.
Mike does not go to work during the first twenty-four hours of Deanne’s disappearance. That is how alarmed he is by her being gone overnight this time. It is not clear how Mike accounts for his time and whereabouts during those first twenty-four hours of Deanne’s disappearance other than that he alternately went around the city with missing person flyers, waited at her car and drove the streets looking for Deanne. Every day after Wednesday Mike does go to work.
12:23 pm
Officer Davida Zinkgraf responds to numerous calls for a welfare check requested by strangers in the shopping center parking lot of what is now Yoke’s Fresh Market. These witnesses reported a disoriented and possibly intoxicated/addled woman who had entered a salon and called a woman working there “Mommy", who was now laying on the ground and claiming to witnesses that she may have been drugged, kidnapped and beaten. Deanne would not speak to EMTs or police when they arrived, nor would she give anyone her name or say where she lived although she did tell the ladies attempting to intervene on her behalf that she did not want to go home. When Deanne will not repeat any of the claims about being drugged or beaten to police, does not appear beaten, *refuses to give her name* and then walks away from Officer Zinkgraf, Officer Zinkgraf continues to observe Deanne for another 20 minutes and then reluctantly leaves. Deanne has civil rights and Officer Zinkgraf has an entire city to look after. Deanne is not required to identify herself to police when she is not suspected of any crime. Police cannot detain Deanne for telling wild stories to strangers, nor apparently even for public intoxication because as Officer Zinkgraf explains in the ID Disappeared episode, Spokane does not have a law prohibiting public intoxication. There is also no law in Washington that allows authorities to remand citizens for psychiatric evaluation because of statements by strangers. Civil commitment requires family members to swear out an affidavit that they have observed their family member being a threat to themselves or others. Yes, it is tragically unfortunate that Deanne could not be intervened upon by police and EMT services on the day she disappeared, but hopefully everyone can stop asking how they could have just let Deanne be on her way, because that question has been asked and answered.
12:30 pm
In Officer Zingkraf’s continued observation of Deanne after their initial contact, Deanne enters the grocery store where she uses her debit card to purchase: energy drinks, string cheese, birthday candles, cigarettes and vodka. Mike, who has been out distributing missing person flyers and/or waiting by Deanne’s car, says that he received an alert on his phone that Deanne’s card was used at the grocery store where the GSE works. Did Mike have alerts set on the card for every transaction Deanne made like parents do when they give their teenager a credit card? Mike takes the alert not as notice of potential theft following a crime against Deanne, but as confirmation that Deanne is well and making a purchase. This is why Mike does not rush to the store, he isn’t actually concerned about Deanne’s safety or what has happened to her. He means to see who she is with and confront her. That is why even though Mike apparently believes that Deanne is well and making a purchase, instead of going home he decides to return to/continue to stay with with Deanne’s car. Mike says he believed Deanne would come back to her vehicle and his priority isn’t to get warm or get some sleep, it’s still to see who Deanne is with and confront her. Mike was not going to wait for Deanne to get home.
Sometime after 12:30 pm
Deanne encounters Randy Riley (RR) and his friend “James” on their way to a storage unit RR has rented that is within two blocks of the grocery store where Deanne has just made her purchases. According to both RR and James they hung out with Deanne for a few hours. Storage facility surveillance shows the three of them smiling and interacting in a very friendly manner. The two men are on bicycles. Neither of the men appears to have access to any vehicles of their own with which to move personal belongings, let alone a body (Deanne’s brother Carson confirms this in the Vanished podcast) and none of the trio seem to make any effort to make use of Deanne’s vehicle.
1:30 pm
Storage surveillance shows Randy Riley and Deanne and James leaving the storage facility.
2:30 pm
(information received by police November 25, 2015 three weeks after Deanne disappears and after Randy Riley’s name was released to the media) RR’s landlord who was in the process of evicting him now claims that she remembers seeing Deanne with RR and another man on Wednesday, November 4th near where he claims that he left her and that Deanne was sitting or lying on the ground again.
Another woman who lived near Inland Empire Way believes that she saw Deanne walking with RR and James on I.E. Way and lying on the ground on that day, as well. That witness claims that she was concerned enough to stop and ask Deanne if she was ok, since she was lying on the ground. Deanne told this witness that she was just upset because she was “going through a divorce” and she seemed in control enough of herself that this neighbor moved on. RR does not deny that he was with Deanne on the last day she was seen nor does he deny that he is the last person willing to admit to having seen her.
2:30-4:00 pm
A few hours after Mike learns Deanne used her card at the grocery store, he finally decides to leave Deanne's car downtown and go to that store with Deanne's missing person flyers in hand. There Mike has his first encounter with the GSE in the parking lot outside of the store. The GSE says Deanne looks familiar, but that it's probably not the same girl. It is possible Deanne did not look exactly like her photos on the night she left home because she was disheveled, but it is also possible that the GSE did not want to immediately admit to a frantic man with a missing person flyer of his fiancée who did not appear missing when he spent the night with her. The GSE may have been wary - for good reason - of becoming involved in what appeared to be a domestic situation.
Mike enters the grocery store and asks another store employee if he would be able to look at store surveillance and according to Mike in his Disappeared interview:
“...she said I had to wait and speak with the manager there, so I called the next day (Thursday) and he said I could come in that Saturday and look through it.”
Mike does not report taking the missing person flyers to the surrounding businesses in the shopping center where the grocery store was located, but maybe he did. It would have made sense for him to do so, since he claims he was papering downtown Spokane with the flyers and the shopping center was now Deanne’s most likely last known location. If Mike had contacted the surrounding businesses to leave flyers, he would have been told about Deanne being at the salon calling people “Mommy” and that police and EMTs had been dispatched for the woman on his flyer. Mike would have been told that Deanne was alone and on foot. He would have immediately searched the surrounding neighborhood for Deanne.
At this point on Wednesday afternoon after 2:30 pm Mike puts himself at the grocery store where Deanne made her last purchases. He is less than two miles from where Randy Riley and James claim to have parted ways with Deanne and approximately 1000ft from his home with Deanne. A Google maps search shows that there are very few streets in that area.
The time period from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday deserves a microscope on it, because this is when Deanne actually goes missing. There is one person who according to his own information was devoting himself to nothing else except tracking down Deanne Hastings during that time period and that person is Mike Tibbetts.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Mike finally reports Deanne missing to police on Thursday morning. He then calls the manager of the grocery store where Deanne’s debit card was last used. In the ID Disappeared episode Mike calmly tells us that the grocery store manager told him over the phone on Thursday that he could come in two days later to look through the video. Mike presses neither the manager of the store nor police to review the video surveillance immediately that would either confirm Deanne was using her own debit card, or point to a suspect in her disappearance. There is apparently none of the urgency that Mike felt when contacting Deanne’s school the morning before. Although he has allegedly been putting up missing person flyers all over town since the day before, Mike now seems to easily accept that no one will review the surveillance video until Saturday and he returns to work. Mike has still not called the last two people Deanne’s phone sent and received texts from: Deanne’s son and her DIL, nor does he call Deanne’s mother who lives only an hour away with Deanne’s two younger children to ask whether she has heard from Deanne. Instead, Mike goes to the media for help in *promoting* Deanne's disappearance. Deanne’s mother had to learn that her daughter was missing from Deanne’s brother who lived in Texas, who had to learn that his sister was missing when he was called by a friend in Spokane who saw the news report on tv. That makes no sense if Mike was genuinely concerned with locating Deanne on Wednesday and Thursday. Mike tells interviewers that he didn’t wish to alarm Deanne’s family. That makes no sense when he is attempting to locate Deanne by all of these other alarming means. When Deanne was out of touch with all her friends and family including Mike Tibbetts for what turned out to be 6 days in June according to the above-referenced police incident report, Mike Tibbetts never did report Deanne missing (nor did he launch a frantic search and contact the media), her son did and Deanne's teenaged son Hayden had the sense to contact friends and family before he made such a report to police.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Mike is able to view the surveillance video at the grocery store where Deanne made her purchases. She is alone on video, but clearly disoriented as other witnesses described. Mike does not request police to accompany him to view or take control of a copy of the video.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
6:00 am
Mike gets a call from the GSE who has been following media coverage of Deanne’s disappearance. The GSE now says he thinks Deanne is a girl he spent the night with on Tuesday/Wednesday and he agrees to meet with Mike to answer more questions.
10:30-11:00 am
The GSE meets with Mike and gives him Deanne's keys. Now Mike says he is finally able to retrieve Deanne’s phone and move her vehicle from the parking lot in downtown Spokane. Mike has made no effort in four days’ time to contact AAA or any other method of locksmith/tow service to secure and remove Deanne’s belongings or vehicle from the parking lot where she left it the night she left home. Again, this is telling since Mike originally felt that securing Deanne’s vehicle required him to stay with the vehicle all night in freezing temperatures.
In his ID Disappeared appearance Mike says of his meeting with the Grocery Store Employee:
“He was very not impressive at all.”
It’s hard to imagine in what way the Grocery Store Employee could have been impressive in this case. What sort of a presentation was Mike expecting the GSE to wow him with? Two years after the fact, Mike still shows seething jealousy/disgust on camera that Deanne went home with this... grocery store employee she met on the street outside of a nightclub, when he was prepared to make her his wife. In his ID Disappeared interview Mike says:
“Obviously I asked him if he had gotten together with her or anything like that. He said that he didn’t, that he had a girlfriend and all those things. I just didn’t believe him. He just didn’t, I don’t know. Just something about him.”
Mike seems like his skin is crawling thinking about his fiancée with this man. Who could blame him?
Sometime after 5:00 pm
Mike raises some sort of mini-posse consisting of a couple of friends and they go to the GSE’s house pretending in super-dramatic fashion like he was going to force his way in if he had to, without the police. The GSE cooperates with Mike and no sign of Deanne is found.
December 10, 2015
Randy Riley (RR) is arrested for identity theft. RR admits to using Deanne’s credit/debit cards. RR first states that Deanne gave him the cards to get something to eat. According to RR’s second version of how he obtained Deanne’s credit cards, on November 5, 2015, he was in a truck belonging to a friend who was helping him move belongings from a nearby the apartment from whence RR was being evicted, to his nearby storage unit where he and “James” had hung out with Deanne the day before. RR claims that he came across Deanne’s coat containing her wallet (or at least whatever credit cards and ID she had taken with her when she left her purse and phone in her vehicle) and according to her brother Carson in the Vanished podcast, RR finds Deanne’s coat and shoes and he takes those, as well. RR claims that these items were in the approximate area where he and “James” had last seen Deanne. In an interview with RR in jail with local affiliate KHQ, RR allegedly claims that he disposed of Deanne’s coat and shoes and threw her ID out in downtown Spokane to make it appear that she had been somewhere other than the last place he and his associate James claim they saw Deanne near “the hill”. It should have been easy enough for police to locate the friend with the truck to corroborate the second version of RR coming to have the cards and also whether or not a PIN number was required in order to use the cards.
There is much speculation that because RR is the last reported person to have seen Deanne alive and because he lied at least once about how he obtained her credit cards, that he must be involved in Deanne’s disappearance. A criminal background check shows RR has a history of drug use and theft (but not robbery) in support his drug habit. RR’s only violent offenses are two domestic violence charges which sounds serious, except those appear to be tied to his loved ones’ intervening in his drug use. One of the charges involved a girlfriend and one from 2005 involved Randy’s own Mother, but this coincides with his use of drugs and drug convictions. As of the time Deanne went missing in 2015 when RR was being evicted from his apartment, apparently all was forgiven by Riley’s Mother because she was allowing him to move in with her while he got his feet back under him. That is where police located him living with a girlfriend when they sought him out for an interview regarding the use of Deanne’s credit cards. RR has never been charged with a forcible felony, nor any sex crime. Randy Riley seems to be just your average petty criminal. In his interview with Spokane detectives, RR comes off as not being kind of a dipshit and a weakling who probably sniffs paint, not a sophisticated criminal who anyone else would be willing to assist by loaning him their vehicle, let alone assisting him in disposing of a body. RR got around on a bicycle. If RR lied about how he obtained Deanne’s credit cards, maybe it was just to avoid a robbery charge, which is a forcible felony and a very serious offense compared with anything on his previous record.
Maybe when RR went to go see whether Deanne was planning to come back out of the bushes and continue walking with him and James, he did tussle with her or otherwise removed the cards from Deanne's coat pocket. James maintains that he has no idea how RR came to have Deanne’s credit cards and he was never on video with RR using the cards, so however the theft and use of the cards came to have happened, it does not appear to be any conspiracy between RR and James.
What if Deanne did lose her coat in a struggle with someone else? Maybe someone who was known to be desperately looking for her all over town, who may have felt betrayed by Deanne falling off the wagon and staying out all night?
The Relationship Between Deanne Hastings and Mike Tibbetts
“Within a couple days of meeting her, I knew she was the one.” - Mike Tibbetts, ID Disappeared interview
Within a couple of days of meeting Deanne Hastings, Mike Tibbetts could not possibly have known what being in a committed, longterm relationship with her might entail. Mike Tibbetts was overwhelmed by Deanne’s beauty upon meeting her and he intended to possess her and be her answer to everything.
Mike continues:
“We got along great. I think we had one argument about wheat bread and white bread... which one to buy. I mean other than that we rarely ever fought.”
Mike is being disingenuous and attempting to seriously mislead us for his own purposes. Mike says he thinks (maybe) he and Deanne had “one” argument. So according to Mike’s information, he and Deanne had anywhere from zero to one argument, but if they did have one argument instead of zero, then Mike recalls that the subject matter of that argument was “about wheat bread and white bread… which one to buy.” To be clear, “rarely ever” fighting is not the same thing as maybe zero to one time arguing about purchasing bread. Mike is trying to convince us of a lie that he only needs to convince us of if he has other lies he needs to convince us of.
Amanda Ladd (Deanne’s longtime best friend) shared text messages with police that show Deanne had been telling her best friend for weeks that she wanted to leave Mike. In texts shown on the episode of the ID Disappeared episode, Deanne says she is “done” and that she believed Mike was drugging her. When confronted with this information, Mike then admits that in the weeks before her disappearance, Deanne was hearing voices and thought neighbors and an ex-boyfriend were breaking into their house, drugging the water supply and/or trying to kill her and she even accused Mike of being in on the conspiracy. Deanne does not mention the neighbors or an ex-boyfriend to Amanda Ladd, only Mike. None of what Mike ends up describing is within the realm of everything being “fine” prior to Deanne’s disappearance, anyway. Why didn’t Mike take Deanne to a hospital or at least make an appointment with her doctor if he believed she was hearing voices and accusing half the people in her life of conspiring against her instead of just him?
Deanne’s now daughter-in-law Melanie Green (DIL) states in her ID Disappeared interview that although she never witnessed any fights between Deanne and Mike, Deanne would regularly text message her DIL using a “girl code” they had about doing nails, for when she needed to talk about the relationship troubles with Mike that she was having. What were the nature of Deanne’s issues with Mike that she confided in her DIL about? Melanie Green never mentions wheat bread OR white bread.
Mike wants us to believe that even when Deanne went missing for 6 days in June and had to be reported missing to police by her son because no one including Mike had heard from her for days, that he and Deanne did not exchange any words of argument. Mike wants us to believe that when Deanne accused him of drugging her and even trying to kill her, that his and Deanne's conversation(s) about those issues were less dramatic than a conversation over whether to purchase wheat or white bread. Mike wants us to believe that even when he was able to confirm that Deanne had just spent the night with another man - who Mike says he does not believe was honest when he told Mike that he and Deanne had not "gotten together” - that Mike was going to be ok with that. An honest answer from Mike Tibbetts would have been that he and Deanne had many ups and downs in their short, whirlwind relationship due to Deanne’s ongoing issues with bipolar disorder, that they had been at odds many times before and that this “episode” could have very well ended their relationship had Deanne not gone permanently missing. Instead, Mike chooses to be completely dishonest and that is a huge red flag in a case like this.
Artist Michael Carini of San Diego, CA was a longtime friend of Deanne’s. On the previously linked webpage where he pays tribute to Deanne, he says she had recently contacted him and said that the relationship she was in with Mike was “unhealthy”:
“Shortly before her final disappearance in 2015, she contacted me and told me she had to get out of her current relationship because it was unhealthy. Deanne was known to tell stories and bend the truth, but I felt the sincerity in her voice. She had been clean and sober for a long time and really seemed to be turning her life around.”
January 2016
Randy Riley’s friend James who had walked with RR and Deanne on the day she disappeared and who was not charged with any crime related to her disappearance or the use of her cards, contacted Amanda Ladd via the Missing Deanne Facebook page to say that he wanted to speak with anyone who wanted to speak with him about Deanne and that he would tell them anything they wanted to know. He claims he does not know Randy very well and James stuck to his same story: Deanne went up the hill to relieve herself, Randy went to check on her for several minutes and then returned ALONE and the two men proceeded on their way. According to Deanne’s brother Carson’s account of the phone call, James tells Deanne’s brother words to the effect of “I can’t believe she didn’t make it home, she was so close to home, she was going to walk up the hill. I can’t believe she didn’t make it home.” James seemed genuinely desperate to reassure Deanne’s family that whatever happened to Deanne did in fact happen after he and Randy Riley left her on the hill near the home she shared with Mike Tibbetts.
***THEORIES CONTINUED IN COMMENTS DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT***
What do you believe is the most likely scenario and why?
https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/disappeared/full-episodes/the-long-way-home
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06XVPC24T/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s8
http://www.thevanishedpodcast.com/episodes/2016/9/5/episode-44-deanne-hastings
https://www.trace-evidence.com/the-vanishing-of-deanne-hastings
https://www.kxly.com/spokane-man-searching-for-missing-fiance/
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/missing-in-america/loved-ones-still-searching-answers-deanne-hastings-disappearance-n479876
http://charleyproject.org/case/deanne-marie-hastings