Charissa "Hazel Grace" Caster Part 1: Chaos Puzzle
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Patients loved her. She worked in the youth facility. She was all of their favorites. The adults loved her. She was just extra caring and extra warm. She had so many co-workers from all the different hospitals she worked at worried about her and caring about her. She's not just someone that should be ignored. Nobody should. Everyone deserves to be cared about and searched for.

Her car was found in Squim, Washington, California.

I actually don't know if she had ever been to Squim prior to all of this. I do know that she loved Twilight and Forks, Washington is pretty close to Squim.

32-year-old Carissa Castor was last seen in July 2024, and her disappearance is shrouded in a chaotic series of events. Law enforcement became involved when some of her belongings were discovered scattered along a roadway in Edmonds, Washington. Then, her car was later found abandoned, approximately 50 miles away near Sequim, Washington. It was later revealed that Carissa had been recorded on video, picking flowers in the area.

And that's the last confirmed sighting of Carissa Castor. As her loved ones realized that Carissa was missing, they sprang into action, searching the area where her car had been found. Yet there was no sign of Carissa. Determined to piece together the puzzle, they began retracing the events of the weeks and months leading up to July 2024.

Carissa's loved ones created a chat group so they could share the fragments of information they each had from their interactions and conversations with her. As the details came together, a chilling picture of her life in the weeks leading up to her disappearance began to emerge. But what does it all mean? And how does it help them find her? I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 478 of The Vanished, Carissa Castor's story, part one, The Chaos Puzzle.

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By 2024, Carissa Castor had made Washington State her home, though she had spent most of her life in Kansas City, Missouri. She pursued her dream of becoming a mental health nurse, a career she was deeply passionate about. Driven by a strong desire to help others, Carissa moved to Washington, a place she had always longed to live.

While most of her family and many of her friends remained in Kansas City, they stayed in frequent contact with her. Carissa was committed to her relationships, always making time to check in with loved ones. In Washington, she also built a close-knit group of friends who were able to witness the events leading up to Carissa's disappearance and have since played a pivotal role in filling in the gaps once Carissa vanished. We spoke to Carissa's mother, Rachel, who shared insights into her daughter's early life.

She was born in Phoenix. From the time she was five, she had always lived in Kansas City. So she's the oldest of four. I had her when I was only 17 years old. She's just a force. That's the only word I can think of to describe her. She is bigger than life. She just has this presence and just a big personality. I learned so much from her and from being her mom.

because she just loves life. Everything about her was just pure joy. She walks in the room, I'm here, and you can't miss that she's there. Always very talkative. When she would be at home, she would always be kind of the center of our family and very kind, extremely high-performing, brilliant, smart. She knows a little bit about everything because she's well-read and she

She seeks after knowledge. Growing up, because I think she's so smart, a lot of times she didn't even attempt to try to fit in. This is who I am, and I'm not going to change who I am for anyone. She did a lot of musicals and theater. She has an amazing voice. She studied to do opera for a while, but I think she lost interest in it.

Carissa was the type of person who stood out in a crowd. She always knew that she wanted to go into a career field that gave her the opportunity to help others. It was important to Carissa to give back. Rachel said that it took her a bit of time to figure out exactly which path she wanted to take, and eventually she settled on becoming a mental health nurse.

So when she was about 16, we were part of a very conservative group of people. She wanted to give her life to service, being a missionary or something where she felt like she was very focused on changing the world. Her thing was, I want to be someone who makes the world a better place. I'm a social worker. I've worked in mental health for 25 years. And funny

Funny thing was she was talking about being a social worker and I said, no, don't be a social worker because almost all social workers have to work two jobs. When she was, I think, probably 18, she got a job in the CNA and she worked with elderly and dementia patients. She loved it. She decided she wanted to be a nurse, but focus on mental health. Particularly, she wanted to work with endocrinologists.

individuals that had severe PTSD or personality disorders. Also, the nursing came into it because she's such a free spirit. She's very much her own person. I'm going to live my life and do my life the way I want to do it. And one of her goals was to travel a lot and to see the world and to have a big life, big

big adventures. And she knew that nursing would probably be an opportunity to not only make a good living for herself, but actually be able to travel while she did it. And mental health nurses are actually in pretty high demand. She went to school. She worked really, really hard to do it. I mean, she was so, so smart, but focusing on doing her schoolwork and stuff was a little bit harder for her.

Part of her nursing school was she had a contract. The school paid, but she had to work for them for three years. So once she finished with nursing school, she had to work for the research hospital here for three years, which she worked in the adolescent psychiatric unit before she left to do her traveling. While in nursing school, Carissa met Angie, who would later become one of her closest friends. Here's Angie.

I remember we were sitting in the hall right before classes. I was talking about one of my best friends and his upbringing, and he's gay, and his mom wasn't supportive of him. A couple of weeks later, she said, I knew when you made that statement that you and I were going to be best friends. So that's kind of how we started talking, and she was always very bubbly and outspoken. She was definitely...

I'm Carissa, and this is who I am. If you don't like it, then don't talk to me. After graduating from nursing school, Carissa and Angie followed separate paths. Yet they made a conscious effort to nurture their friendship and stayed in touch on a regular basis.

Carissa and I either hung out or spoke or text multiple times every day. We didn't have to physically see each other to have a really tight relationship. How was your day? And keeping in contact that way. We also spoke with Tristan, another close friend of Carissa's, whom she met while living in Kansas City. They bonded over their shared dream of moving to the Pacific Northwest, and eventually both made the move to Washington.

We met through mutual friends and we were involved in a religious community in Kansas City. They kind of had a Bible study group with her grandma and then we met through her grandma. She's very outgoing, very personable, really funny, smart, artistic, very loving, very caring, really into social justice and always wanting to help people.

We both always talked about wanting to move here, and she was going through nursing school for many years. When we both lived in Kansas City, we always just kind of dreamed about moving out here. I wasn't sure if she was ever going to make it out here, but then once she became a travel nurse, she was able to move here, and she was pretty excited.

Tristan said that one of Carissa's main inspirations for pursuing a career in the mental health field was her own experience with bipolar disorder. After being diagnosed years earlier, Carissa committed to a structured treatment plan that made a significant difference in her life. Recognizing how much it had helped her, she felt a deep desire to support others in their own journeys.

I remember when she first got diagnosed with bipolar years ago when we all lived in Kansas City. She was kind of insecure about it and took a while to tell me and opened up about her diagnosis. And everybody that was in her life was just supportive of her. But she was very responsible with taking her meds and everything.

If she felt she was in a manic episode, she would reach out to her doctor and adjust the medication. And she was going to therapy throughout the years. She even once told me that she needed to always be on her meds and that she needed a stable, kind of not sure if she wanted to move to Washington for a minute because she needed stability for her mental health. She didn't know

Angie shared that throughout the years she knew Carissa. She was always diligent about taking her medication. As a fellow nurse, Angie was someone Carissa would often confide in when her medication changed. Angie would keep a close eye on Carissa and offer feedback if she noticed anything unusual.

Being a psych nurse, she was very aware of her meds and what she needed to take. And she was very well controlled. She'd tell me when she'd go down on whatever med it was. I could tell when there was a change because she'd get hyper-focused on something. And then I would call her out and go, are you sure that decreasing that med was right? Because I feel like you're kind of going off the edge a little bit because you're hyper-focused on something. And

And she'd be like, oh, I didn't even realize that until you said that. You know what? That's right. I feel like I probably am getting a little manic. But she didn't really realize it unless you called her out on it. But I could always tell when she was kind of not as stable as what she was.

Carissa was always aware of her needs and limitations, and she surrounded herself with a supportive network of friends and family who cared for her just as deeply as she did for them. In 2022, Carissa left Kansas City and moved to Washington. Eager to build a new life, she embraced the opportunity with excitement. It was there that Carissa met Ash, who would become one of her closest friends in Washington. We also spoke with Ash, who shared how Carissa had a profound and positive impact on her life.

I was in an abusive relationship. Whenever Carissa and I met, we actually met via Tinder looking for new friends. I would consider her one of my best friends. She helped with my healing journey, really inspired me a lot to become the person that I am today, especially because whenever we met, she was sober and I'm sober now. It was after her move to Washington that Rachel said Carissa met a man named Henry, and the two began dating.

She went to Washington. It was June of 2022. When she got there, she had a contract with one of the local hospitals and worked on their psychiatric unit. And then I think she worked with them for a year. And that's when she met the guy that she started dating there. His name's Henry.

Carissa had a passion for traveling and exploring new places, which made working as a travel nurse the perfect fit for her. Leading up to her disappearance, she and Henry traveled frequently, even returning to Kansas City to visit Carissa's family.

They went to Europe, August, September, October of 23. And then she took a contract in Albuquerque, New Mexico at a children's psychiatric facility, December, January, February, March. So four months she was there. And then...

They traveled more and they actually came out. It was April. We all met in Orlando and we rented a house there and stayed together for a week. And then they traveled a little more and then they came up and stayed with us for three weeks in May. During this time period, Tristan wasn't seeing much of Carissa. But when they later reconnected, Carissa filled Tristan in about Henry and it all sounded wonderful.

At first, everything seemed normal. She seemed happy. I heard she was in Kansas City and then Florida. And then they finally returned to Washington where he has his house here and his mom. And she kind of just filled me in about all their travels. But when she talked to me, she made it seem they were happy together. She wanted me to meet him and everything.

told me they were planning on buying land together and having a farm and talking about adopting kids and animals. And I just thought she was really happy with him. I didn't know anything about him. In hindsight, Rachel reflects on that final visit with her daughter and recognizes that something was clearly off. She now sees subtle signs that the relationship between Carissa and Henry may not have been as healthy as it seemed or as Carissa had wanted them to believe.

hindsight, now that I'm looking at it, I could see that there was a change in her. There was a little bit of brokenness in her spirit. Her personality wasn't as big. And I think now I know that the relationship she was in, I think there was a lot of control going on that I was not aware of. She's my oldest. And I've learned sometimes you

You can make certain statements and then you have to release them and allow them to make their own decisions. But none of us saw this huge thing like, oh, this is abuse. But we could see, oh my gosh, they don't ever leave each other's side. They're never apart. I never saw any overt abuse, but then there were certain things that would happen. We had a discussion because I've worked in domestic violence before too, and I said, these

These are the things we need to look for. And I always tell her, don't forget who you are. Don't forget your value because she's just so amazing and kind and good. She wouldn't ever do anything to hurt anyone. I think we started to see some really unusual behavior, but it wasn't, well, this is abuse. It was like a little bit of an insecurity and I've never known her to be like that.

After Carissa left Kansas City, Rachel began to notice things becoming increasingly strange. Their communications became less frequent, and it seemed as though Carissa only wanted to talk when Henry wasn't around.

They left here beginning of June and they went to visit his family in Iowa. So his mother spends her time between Iowa and their home in Washington because they have a big family home that they kind of all live in in Edmonds. During that time, Carissa, she sent me a text. Henry's mom has stage four cancer and she's really sick. I was like, oh my gosh, call me. Let's talk because we talked.

every day. And that's another thing that I started to notice. When she was with him, she was calling me less. When she would be at work, she would call me on her lunch break. She would call me when she was driving home.

But when she was with him, she started to call us less. She would send us little messages. But then after they went back to Washington and his mom was coming back to Washington to start getting treatment for her cancer, Carissa was supposed to start another contract in July. So about that time, I started to hear from her less and less. I actually text, hey, how are you doing? Call me.

I would call her and I would go to voicemail. When she left Kansas City, her youngest sister, she had her location at all times. So we knew where she was. For Tristan, Carissa's descriptions of her relationship with Henry painted a picture of perfection, with plans for a bright future together. However, there was something unsettling about the way Carissa communicated.

It was a little bit weird because she kept wanting to talk to me on the phone, but we would schedule a time to talk and then she would cancel. And that happened several times. And I just thought it was weird that me and her hadn't talked for months. We were just texting and couldn't really get her to talk on the phone. And now looking back, I feel like it was a boyfriend. She couldn't talk around him or something.

Ash said that she noticed red flags with Henry from the start. There were moments when Henry didn't realize Carissa was on the phone with Ash, and during those times, Ash witnessed some troubling behavior.

Henry, she started dating about, I think it was a year and a half, two years ago. I had met him two times whenever they first started dating because Carissa was super excited about him. She really liked him. But I talked to her about this too. I clocked a lot of red flags because he was trying to move the relationship really quickly. I mean, he would love bombing her. It was really apparent to me. The first time I met him, I was like,

The first time I met him, the only thing I can remember really is he made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. There was just something really off about him. Since all of this has happened, it only confirmed my feelings about him. Carissa had filled me in on what was going on behind closed doors. So one of the first things she wanted to do was whenever she got back to work was also go back to school, work her way up.

Whenever she was with Henry, it slowly became very apparent that she was not going to be allowed to do that. I had noticed not only a switch up in her communication with me, she could only call me whenever he wasn't around. And there were several occasions whenever she did call me, he didn't know that she was on FaceTime with me. He would start yelling at her, saying hurtful things, and then realize that I was on the phone and then completely switched up his demeanor.

During this time, Rachel didn't even have an address for Carissa and found herself several states away in Missouri, anxiously wondering what was truly happening in her daughter's life. Eventually, Rachel reached a breaking point and told Carissa that she needed her address or she would have no choice but to call the police to check on her.

I told her, I need your exact address. And if you do not call me, I'm going to call the police because you are not answering my text. And then she finally did answer. She said, yeah, we're just really stressed and I'm taking care of his mom and she's really sick. Then she said, Henry's been so angry. He's just so angry right now. And I said, well, Carissa, what do you mean he's so angry? And she said, because his mom...

He's wanting her to do all these natural treatments and she's wanting to go the more traditional route to get cancer treatment. We just had this discussion about the medical care and she said, I know, I know. Okay, I got to go. I got to go. And then that's the last real conversation I ever had with her. That was in June, June 10th, around there.

After that conversation in June 2024, Rachel heard little from Carissa, and when she did, something seemed off. Then, in July, the police arrived at Rachel's home in Kansas City with news that would change everything.

It was, I believe, July 30th. It was 2 o'clock in the morning. The police came to our door and they had found a pile of a bunch of her belongings. They said there was a camera and they said there was a lot of things there that led them to believe that maybe there was a violent act that occurred. They said because of how the items were found on this really off-the-road place, it was

It was near Edmonds where Henry lives. And so that was July 30th. And they searched for her in that area. They didn't see her. But they started a missing persons case that night. I talked to the Edmonds detective. So ever since then, he's been the one who's been in charge of her case. And then her friends started to put out Facebook posts all over just for missing persons. Have you seen her?

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Carissa's family and friends were thrown into a panic. What was happening? Where could she be? With many of her closest friends and family living out of state, they couldn't simply start searching for her. Rachel recalled that it wasn't long before more unsettling news came in. Carissa's vehicle had been found abandoned.

A couple of days later, her car was found. It was in the middle of nowhere, basically, in Squam, Washington, which to get there, you have to go across on a ferry. I've never been there, but it's explained to me that it's kind of a rural area, very small town, and her keys were in there. It was full of everything she owned. The only thing that seemed to be missing was her phone and

and her laptop and maybe another bag. Tristan couldn't think of any reason Carissa would have been in that area where her car was found. As one of Carissa's friends living in Washington, Tristan decided to go out to the area to help search for her.

We've never been there together. I didn't even know that was there. Her and I, we've done a lot of road trips and camping and hiking around the areas, but me and my husband went out there. We stayed for the weekend and tried to, I was passing out flyers, hanging them up wherever I could. And we walked the area and it was not an area that really led to anywhere. You

You could only go so far up, and then it was private property, and people's houses were kind of all around. It's just surrounded by residential houses. If you kept going on that road, it ended into people's houses. Across the river, there was other houses, and then if you went the other direction, I guess you could walk down the road, and then there was actual hiking trails. Those were pretty wooded.

So if she had walked to those trails, she could have kept walking for who knows how long. But there was a search group, nonprofit, that looked for three days, and I'm pretty sure they walked to those same areas. After Carissa's belongings and vehicle were recovered, investigators informed Rachel that Carissa had been captured on surveillance video in the area where her car was found. This marked the last confirmed sighting of Carissa Castor.

The officers told us there was one legitimate sighting of her. It was on an officer's camera. He had had contact with her. I believe it was July 28th. He came in contact with her because she was sitting in someone's yard picking flowers. And I guess she had been there all day. And it was in the middle of nowhere, basically. It wasn't like a city or something. And when he came across her, he said she obviously was not well. I think he tried to convince her to

to maybe go to a hospital to get checked out. But he said she didn't seem to be based in reality, yet he couldn't convince her that she left the yard. And she said that her husband was coming to pick her up. And I mean, she doesn't have a husband. Honestly, I don't know if she was thinking someone's going to meet her. But her location and phone, I think, have been off since maybe July 23rd, somewhere around there.

The area surrounding Carissa's vehicle was searched, but Rachel said no trace of Carissa was ever found, leading her to question whether her daughter had left the area.

The sheriff's department and I guess a bunch of other police departments in that area came. They did a ground search and they searched using drones and the dog, but they weren't able to find her. They said there were a few sightings of someone that was out there just carrying a sleeping mat and a backpack and nothing else. I mean, the weather gets pretty chilly there at night, even in the summer. And then...

Recently, the Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project did search that area for her for three days. They did an extensive ground search. The guy who does it, he's amazing. And they took out dogs. They took out cadaver dogs. I've actually talked to Port Townsend.

People said they saw her there. I talked to an officer who basically, he said it's a very small area. He told me he had her picture up, so if he ever saw her, and he said they had some reported sightings, that every time they've gone out, it hasn't been her. It's been someone else. The Edmonds Police Department, that's where the missing persons case started.

Because her car was found in Squim, they started searching too. And then the surrounding police departments also were searching for her. Rachel mentioned several reported sightings of Carissa in the areas surrounding where her car was found. Tristan followed up on some of these leads, but was left feeling that they were likely cases of mistaken identity.

I'm not sure if any of those sightings were actually her. We met somebody out there that was like, yeah, I saw her and I showed them multiple pictures and they're like, no, never mind. That's definitely not her. So it's really hard to say if any of those sightings were accurate. But if she was in the city at all, going anywhere, just due to her personality, I think she would be hard to miss. She's very friendly and outgoing.

Angie recalls feeling a glimmer of hope at first when the sightings started coming in, but more often than not, it felt like they were chasing a ghost.

Somebody had said, this looks like the girl you're looking for. And I can't remember the exact words, scantily clothed, maybe I want to say missing a shoe or shoeless, walking the streets of the typical homeless hangout. And then there was a sighting of possibly saw her on this bus route that was supposedly a free bus.

bus route, but there's still no actual pictures. And all of us were like, these people that are spotting her, can't you take a picture? Because it was, hey, we think it's this girl, but nobody would follow with a picture. So was it her? We have no idea. But some of the things, she had a bum knee. They were like, it kind of looks like maybe she's got a shoe off and she's kind of limping. And we're like, what?

Well, with a bum niche probably is one thing. The clothes that she's wearing is the clothes that she has because we knew all of her belongings were still in her car. There were searches around her car. And then I think maybe one search where this possible sighting was, but it was, have you seen this person? No. Okay, bye.

With Carissa's belongings scattered across the roadway in Edmonds, Washington, and her car found roughly 50 miles away in Squim, it was hard to make sense of what had happened and where they should be looking. Had Carissa discarded her things along the road herself? Had she abandoned the car? Or was someone else involved? These questions swirled in the minds of Carissa's loved ones. Determined to find answers, they began retracing their steps, reviewing conversations, and comparing notes.

Earlier, Rachel had mentioned that Henry had pushed for his mother to try alternative cancer treatments. Rachel learned that at some point Carissa stopped taking her medications, and she began experimenting with alternative treatments for bipolar disorder.

She had been diagnosed as bipolar when she was 20. We were very aware just because she had struggled with depression when she was a teenager. And then when she got to about that age, she was having a really hard time with mood regulation. Right away, she got on mood stabilizers and antidepressants, and she was going through therapy. And

And so she was very consistent about taking medication. And then it was during that time that when I was with her before, I felt her mood was pretty low. I was saying, are you taking the medications like they're prescribed? Are you seeing your psychiatrist?

She always said, yeah, I'm taking my medications. I'm taking my medications. We found out later she had completely stopped taking any of her psychiatric medications because of Henry, because he didn't think she should be taking them. And instead, she was using THC and microdosing mushrooms, which she was not qualified to do. And neither was he. During that time, it's when things started to go really, really wrong for her.

Something about Carissa too is she had started her nurse practitioner and she had a lot of different friends that had programs. They were social workers or nurses. They also were offering alternative treatments. They're offering the traditional medicines, but also offering microdosing or other treatments. I've

I'm learning there's so many modalities to wellness, but it also has to be done under someone who is educated and you have to have it under themselves.

the treatment of a physician or someone who's trained. So that was actually one of her goals to set up a place of healing for children who've experienced trauma, but offering many modalities of healing. I think a lot of times we can have these wonderful dreams and goals, but it takes just a little bit of someone's mind being unwell for this really great idea to go in the wrong direction.

I think we found out later because my youngest daughter talked to Henry a few times to ask him some questions. He's not actually that well himself. I think it had been nine months, a lot longer than we thought. I think it was when she was in Europe. During that time, maybe she had stopped taking medications.

After their conversation about Henry's mom's cancer diagnosis, Rachel hadn't heard much from Carissa, but she attributed the silence to Carissa being busy caring for Henry's mother. It wasn't until after Carissa had disappeared that Rachel began to reflect on the sequence of events, and it became clear to her that something was seriously wrong.

So that was my last logical conversation that I had with her, where I felt she was in touch with reality. She was still present with herself. In my mind, I was, oh, well, she's busy with Henry's mom. I understand.

you just know in your heart when things aren't right. But she has a sister that's 22 and then a brother that's 17. She communicated daily with them, actually with all of us. With them, they would send each other TikToks or they would Snapchat every day. And that was still going on. She hiked, even before she met Henry, oh

almost every day when she had her days off, she would take pictures of every place that they went. That stopped during that time. And I was just thinking, oh, his mom's sick. So they're doing this. I mean, in my mind, that was where I went. But this is just not her. Because you have your child in their whole entire life. You talk to them every day or you have some sort of communication every day. Then it's very unusual for it to stop all of a sudden.

In the days leading up to her disappearance, the distance between Carissa and her family in Kansas City began to widen. They were now relying upon her phone's location to keep tabs on Carissa, but that abruptly stopped one day in late July.

It was a break with reality. There's no other word for it. She was refusing to talk to myself or her siblings because she thought there was some conspiracy going on. But we still had her location on. A few times a day, I would have her sister check where she at, where she at. It was the 23rd of July that her location was turned off.

A recurring sentiment shared by Carissa's loved ones was that they didn't know Henry very well. When Carissa and Henry had visited Kansas City shortly before Carissa went missing, Angie had the opportunity to meet Henry. It was during that visit that Carissa confided in Angie that she had stopped taking her medication, which deeply worried Angie about Carissa's well-being.

We would find at least a day to hang out because it was kind of brief when she was here and she was trying to see friends and family. So I only met Henry once when she came back last year in the summer. I remember talking to her. We went on a hike and Henry came. He ended up going and reading a book so we could just talk. Nothing stood out that I was, I don't like him. I

I don't want to say I was protective of her, Carissa, but I remember when I met her, she was just so trusting of everybody. I'm one of those people that, man, you got to earn my trust. I don't just trust. When I met him, I was just, yeah, there you are. I didn't like him. I didn't not like him. He was just kind of there. I remember her saying, oh my gosh, guess what? I got off all of my psych meds. And I remember saying,

oh my gosh, do you think that's a good idea? Because you have been on them for so long and you're so well regulated, almost like you know better than to be off of all of your meds. She said, it's so great being in a healthy relationship. I'm in a great place. I can work and I have time off and I can focus on me. I said, I'm really happy for you, but

I'm also very concerned and worried that you got off of everything that you've been on for multiple years. She said, no, it's great. I'm in such a good place.

I'm sleeping well. I said, I really feel like you should talk to your psychologist about that. Are you sure that's what you want to do? She said, yep, I feel great. I said, okay, I'm happy for you, but I'm concerned for you. Like I said, she was on for multiple, multiple years. And then he came around. I very much think she didn't entertain that on her own. She didn't just decide one day, you know what? I'm not going to take any of my mental health meds and this is going to be great because I

Because that just wasn't her. She knew better. It seemed that Carissa may have framed her reasons for stopping her medication differently depending on who she was talking to and what each person might consider a valid justification. When she spoke to Tristan before traveling, she mentioned that she was saving her meds to ensure she had enough while out of the country. Like everyone else who cared for Carissa, Tristan began to feel increasingly concerned.

She talked about wanting to not completely go off her meds, but technically.

but take a lesser dose because she knew she wanted to travel around different countries and stuff, and she was worried that she wouldn't be able to get her medication there. It was pretty concerning because she was taking less and less to save up her pills, so when she traveled, she would have enough. That's the only thing she ever told me. She never mentioned completely getting off of them, but then in the summer leading up, she was...

telling me that she was off all her meds and that she wasn't bipolar anymore. I just kind of found it concerning because she's always been really adamant that she needs her meds or she kind of loses control and things get really bad for her. So the fact that she was saying that was like, I don't agree, but I didn't want to say anything to her to upset her. I just kind of let

listened and she was just not herself. She was talking really fast and talking in circles and she would become kind of obsessed about one thing and then she would talk about that constantly and then she would move on to something else and it was all very confusing.

After Carissa confided in Angie that she had stopped taking her medications, Angie kept in touch with her, hoping to find the right moment to encourage her to seek the help she needed. Angie acknowledges that Carissa had mentioned exploring holistic approaches to mental health treatment in the past, but what was happening now felt far more extreme.

She was taking prereqs for psych holistic NP schooling. She wanted to try to help people other than meds. I remember her saying, I go to work and I try to help these people and I don't have anything else to offer them other than me talking to them and meds. I would love to be able to start my own business, animals and nature, helping people to heal and

incorporate natural things she thought would help her, but she didn't tell me what she was trying to take or that she was taking. I don't know that she would, I mean, obviously she wasn't in her right state of mind, but THC, I don't

I don't want to say she was against it, but for herself, she was worried about that because she didn't want to pop positive for a drug test and get her license taken. Because I had talked to her about a THC cream. She said, oh my gosh, I could never do that. My anxiety would get me. I would be so worried that I would drug test and test positive for that and then get my license taken and not get into MP school. THC and marijuana, unless she was for

forced to take it, I don't see her going that way. Carissa also confided in Angie about her concerns for Henry's mother and the potential cancer treatments that might help her. As their conversations continued, Angie began to learn more about Henry's behavior during this time.

His mom got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And at the time I worked on the floor, I will say we dealt with pancreatic cancer quite often. So she was asking, what about the surgery? Do you think she would be a good candidate for XYZ surgery?

And then she would say, man, he's really starting to snap at me. He tries to start arguments with me over nothing. He's struggling so much. So at the time, having been in contact with family members of loved ones that had pancreatic cancer, it happens to be whoever is in front of you, you discharge your partner.

I said, well, yeah, I'm sorry that he's doing that. He sounds like most of the family members that I have contact with that he happens to be taking out on you because you're in front of him. Because he's doing that.

because he can't cure mom's cancer. She said, okay, that makes sense. It kind of sounded like he started being angry at cancer. And then she started sending me screenshots. And from what I understand, she didn't send them just to me. She was sending them to multiple friends, but bruises on her arms, scratches on her neck. I said, what? That's not appropriate that he's putting his hands on you. I remember one of her friends had told me

She was on FaceTime with Carissa and Henry had happened to come in the room and I don't know what he said, but she kind of was like, shh, I'm on FaceTime. You can't talk like that in front of them when I'm on FaceTime. Shortly before Carissa disappeared, she reached out to Angie to share that she had finally ended her relationship with Henry.

She immediately told me what happened after they broke up. So she broke up with him. So I met him early summer and she went missing in July. So I feel like it was not even a month. I think she went to a friend's house.

In the weeks leading up to her disappearance, Carissa confided in several people about the alleged abuse she had endured at Henry's hands. After breaking up with him, she sought refuge with her friend Ash, who lived nearby. Meanwhile, Rachel, back in Kansas City, was working to coordinate resources to support Carissa.

There's a lot more story to what happened. A week before she left his house, I started to get messages from her where I knew she was very unwell. She was obviously very, very manic, not reality-based because she was making statements. Most of it was kind. I'm going to save the children. I

I need to get money and I'm going to save the children. I'm going to build these houses for the children, but I need to go now and I need to do this. At some point, she sent me some texts saying, I have to escape from Henry. I'm going to get out of here. So I called her and she's extremely manic. I escaped. I made it. I'm out of there. And I was like, wait, wait, Krista, what's going on?

And then she started making statements that were horrendous. It was hard to tell if it was reality or if it was part of her mania, including that he had held her hostage and raped her repeatedly. Very, very big statements about things that he had done to her. I worked in mental health long enough to know a lot of times when someone is in a manic episode, the statements that they're making...

can be somewhat based in reality, but a lot of times they can be grandiose and not reality based at all.

It was so hard to tell. My whole goal was, let's try to get you somewhere safe and try to get you some help. So she went to her friend, Ashes, and I called their crisis mental health. I work in emergency mental health with families. So I had the benefit of the knowledge. They went out and met with her, but she was able to present very cognizant and very logical when they were there. At that point, she wasn't a danger to herself or others.

It's not illegal to have psychosis. It's when the psychosis gets to the point where you're saying, I'm going to harm other people or I'm going to harm myself. She has enough knowledge where she was able to, I think, mask it for short periods of time.

And then when they left, she went back to her rantings. And a lot of the talk was she's going to destroy Henry. She was full of a lot of anger, but also righteous anger. She was going to fix everything. Very, very grandiose. And she wasn't sleeping. And

And then Ash, her friend, also said she was using large amounts of THC, which a lot of times if someone is already extremely psychotic, it can exacerbate that and make it much worse. And then her friend Ash had to ask her to leave. That was around July 23rd. After she left, I talked to Ash and Ash said, yes, she's very unwell. We told her we're happy to help her if she can go to the hospital and get on medications.

And she said she was definitely presenting as manic. However, sometimes trauma can look like a manic episode. One time when I was trying to talk to her about taking her medications when she was at her friend Ash's, she got really upset. And I said, why don't you come home? And she's like, no, because if I come home, you're going to stick me in a facility. That's not what we want to do. We want to help you. We want you to be safe.

During the brief time Carissa stayed with Ash, a mobile crisis unit was called to the home to connect her with much-needed resources. Ash hoped that this would be the intervention her friend desperately needed, but unfortunately Carissa left before her appointments were due to begin.

I knew that there was something up with her behavior, but she's bipolar. And I knew that given the circumstances with Henry and experiencing abusive relationships myself, I knew that something could have been up, but I didn't know that she was off her meds. But she called me about a week before she ended up at my house. This was at almost midnight, which wasn't really weird for

For our friendship, we always had that relationship with each other. Whatever you needed at whatever time, I'm there. I've got you. And she came over to my house and we ended up going to Golden Gardens. She ate for the first time in a week because he was withholding food from her. She was telling me about everything that was going on. And I was like, Carissa, this is abuse. You don't deserve this. You need to get out.

It was in that moment that basically I told her, you'll come to my house. We'll get you set up with therapy, help, because very clearly this is a very traumatic experience. This is not just something that you can just walk away from and forget. The mental health evaluation was one of the crisis groups in Seattle that came out to the house to try to set her up with therapy and medication and stuff. Because while she was staying with me, it became increasingly less

clear that we didn't have the resources to help her the way that she needed to be helped. And she got set up with a social worker. It was four days out whenever she left my house that she was supposed to be set up with someone who would take her to and from appointments and medication and therapy appointments. As time went on, Angie could see Carissa's condition worsening. But being so far away, she felt powerless to intervene in any meaningful way.

We still had contact, but her messages were off. She would send me silly little screenshots here and there of things, but then she would mass screenshot things between either her and her mom or her and another friend. It didn't even make sense. She'd be like, look, they're trying to make me change to what they want me to be. And they're trying to tell me what to do. And they're just totally trying to get out of my life. I,

I said, no, that's not what they're saying. So she was staying with her friend for a little while and she would send me messages. Carissa was a night shift worker, so she would stay up all night long when she wasn't working. There was one time that she was in the kitchen and she...

And she was blaring her music, cooking, and her friend's like, this is your temporary place. I need you to be respectful while you're here. And I understand that you work nights, but we're trying to sleep. She totally took it. She's kicking me out. She hates me. I said, that's not what that message said at all. She's just asking you to be respectful.

And she'd kind of snap back at me. She never, ever, ever would snap back at me. She'd be like, I understand that you see it this way, but I see it this way. And we talked through it, but we never had arguments. She said, no, you don't understand. And she was trying to kick me out. Have you been talking to her? And maybe you're on her side and not my side. I said, no.

Whoa, where is this coming from? Once again, are you sure you're okay? You don't want to get back on some of your meds? I could tell she was not herself.

As she was kind of going off of the deep end, it wasn't even a conversation between us anymore. It was mass screenshots. I'm talking hundreds of screenshots in a day. I said, where is this even coming from? But it was always somebody's out to get me. Somebody's being mean to me. They're trying to plot against me. And that was never her because like I said, she was very trusting of people. At this point, I'm more than positive she was manic.

At 24, I lost my narrative, or rather it was stolen from me. And the Monica Lewinsky that my friends and family knew was usurped by false narratives, callous jokes, and politics. I

I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. So I think listeners can expect me to be chatting with folks, both recognizable and unrecognizable names, about the way that people have navigated roads to triumph.

My hope is that people will finish an episode of Reclaiming and feel like they filled their tank up. They connected with the people that I'm talking to and leave with maybe some nuggets that help them feel a little more hopeful. Follow Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Reclaiming early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

What's up, guys? It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season. And let me tell you, it's too good. And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay? Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation. And I don't mean just friends. I mean the likes of Amy Poehler, Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox. The list goes on. And now I have my own YouTube channel.

So follow, watch, and listen to Baby, This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch full episodes on YouTube and you can listen to Baby, This is Kiki Palmer early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery. And, uh, where are my headphones? Because, uh, it's time to get into it. Holla at your girl! Before Carissa left Ash's home, Ash accompanied her to the hospital to document the alleged abuse Carissa had endured prior to leaving Henry.

So in the meantime, she had gone to the hospital and they had done a SANE exam with her because she had reported that he had held her hostage and raped her repeatedly. And again, I've talked to the officers. They feel the same way. We just don't know what is reality and what isn't.

I do know something happened to her in that relationship. I think there was a great deal of coercive control and abuse, but I don't know what was real and what wasn't because of her mental health.

Since Carissa was off of her medication and exhibiting erratic behavior, her loved ones outside of Washington were left uncertain about what was true and what may have been part of her mental health struggles. However, for Ash, there was no doubt about what Carissa had said happened because Ash could see it with her own eyes.

We went to the hospital and she did a sane kit, which if you're not familiar with what that is, it's a rape kit. Some of the stuff that he did to her was completely dehumanizing. I mean, it's all dehumanizing because it's abusive, but there was a lot of stuff that I wouldn't even wish on my worst enemy. We were at the hospital for 13 hours. I was the person who had to take notes for her. I listened to her and took notes of what she was telling me. Whenever she got to my house, she was covered in bruises and

and dirt, had twigs in her hair, and her hair was so matted. This was weeks. This wasn't overnight. This was weeks of him doing shit to her. I was doing a lot of reading about bipolar psychosis because whenever she was at my house, the only way I can explain it is she was there, but mentally she was not there anymore.

He had pushed her into psychosis. And one of the things that I had read about bipolar disorder is traumatic events, especially extremely traumatic events, can absolutely push you into a psychosis. And that's where she was at.

Because there was a lot of talking and riddles, not making sense. A lot of everybody is out to get me and I can trust no one. He did a heavy number on her. By the time she got to my house, she was not in a good state.

In an unexpected turn, Carissa shared with Angie that she decided to change her name from Carissa to Hazel Grace. Although Carissa disappeared before she could take any official steps to change her name, she confided in Angie that the decision was rooted in the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father. Changing her name was a way to begin healing and to shed the identity tied to the name her father had given her.

She reached out to her biological dad and she actually sent me these screenshots. She had said,

I reached out to my bio dad. I actually called him out on some of the sexual abuse that I endured through him. He was like, just admit it, just admit it, just admit it. And he had responded back with any of the shenanigans that went on between you and I was fully mutual. I said, what? How does he call out a little kid saying it's mutual? That's clearly not mutual. And

And after that, she had said, you know what? He's the one that named me. I don't want my name anymore. I don't want to have anything to do with him. Please don't call me Carissa anymore. Every time somebody calls me Carissa, it just, it kind of eats at my soul or hurts my heart because he shouldn't have the say-so over me anymore. And that's when she changed her name to Hazel Grace.

For Rachel, it was clear that Carissa was struggling to process multiple traumas while in crisis and off of her medication. It was a perfect storm of circumstances that ultimately culminated in her disappearance.

So many things happened during a short period of time. She started to say she hated where she came from and who she was. She reported to me her biological father is in Phoenix. We left Phoenix when she was about five. We moved to this area to be with my family. She has a brother that's 18 months younger than her, and they have the same father.

I met him when I was very young, but he's not a healthy person. Very narcissistic, I can say. I think that's a really good way to put it. Very abusive. We left Phoenix to get away from him and his family. It was not a good place for us. We had traveled back a few times and she had had contact with him a few times throughout her life. Unfortunately, we

because Carissa and her brother wanted to get to know their biological father. I did allow visits, but I would take them to Phoenix and stay with them a week before she disappeared. She reported to me that her biological father had sexually abused her. I can say that I believe that actually happened because of the kind of person he is. Also, she had had a friend report that to me when she was a teenager. But

But when I talked to her about it, when she was probably about 14, she denied it. But I had a strong belief that that was probably accurate because she was so psychotic. It was hard to tell what was reality. She also said she had visions of all these things that were going on. So I think there's

There's always a little bit of reality there. And then I don't know what wasn't. There was quite a bit of conversation that went on between her and her father. And she sent me screenshots. And he proved to be just as horrible of a person that I thought he was. Also, after she went missing, her

Her sister had posted something about her on Facebook and her biological father basically put on my 22-year-old daughter's Facebook post, her sister was a crazy, all these cuss words, and she deserves to get lost. She was accusing me of all these crazy things, horrible, horrible statements to make to a sister whose best friend is missing. There was a lot going on at one time.

She was really going through a lot and suffering greatly. When we learned that Carissa wanted to change her name and had chosen Hazel Grace, we wondered if this was part of her mental health spiral. However, Tristan clarified that this was something Carissa had mentioned long before Henry came into her life, and she stopped taking her medication.

She had been wanting to change her name for a long time, so I wasn't too surprised at that, but not sure if it had anything to do with her mental state. I'm kind of conflicted because I want to respect that if that's what she wanted, I wouldn't want to go against that, but everybody in her life is still calling her Carissa.

Ash faced the difficult decision of asking Carissa to stay somewhere else, but it was only meant to be temporary, just until she could start her medication and therapy again. Carissa seemed hopeful about returning to her treatment, but Ash also noticed that her desire to help others was veering into an extreme and concerning direction.

My roommate who has two children, we had discussed it. And we were like, is there anywhere else that you can stay until you get on medication? You're welcome to be here once you're on medication and in therapy and stuff, but we don't have the resources. I mean, she was in bipolar manic psychosis, so she wasn't sleeping. She wasn't eating. She was in and out of the house. And we have animals and children and the doors were unlocked and shows were left on.

I've worked with kids for the past decade. One of the things that she said to me is, this is the perfect place for me to be right now because you can handle me. I'm basically a kid again. And she kept talking about her Green Goddess Foundation that she wanted to start, which was a mix of holistic and Western medicine, try to help people with CPTSD and a lot of trauma so that they can live healthy lives again. She kept talking about wanting to save the children of the world.

There was a lot of decoding that I had to do while she was at my house. Whenever she was talking about the children, she was talking about people who had gone through like a lot of trauma. It was very manic, but in a way that was kind of wanting to like go on vigilante-y almost. I want to be a feral woman and I'm going to help everyone who has had trauma. And I'm like, I hear you. And also, Babs, we have to get you back to baseline. You

You're not at baseline right now. I know that you feel that way because you've been pushed into a manic bipolar psychosis, but we got to get you back to stable baseline. She was both excited to begin back with the therapist, her healing journey and stuff, and also not wanting to take medication and not wanting to do treatment. And I'm fine. I'm good. What are you guys talking about? And she would kind of flip-flop between the two.

which I think was partially her trying to reckon with the fact of what had actually happened and what she was going through. That's not me getting mad at her because given the circumstances, it makes sense to why she was there mentally. We just didn't have the resources. So we asked if she could go stay with a friend. She told us she was going to go stay with her friend, Tristan. Whenever she left my house, she was only supposed to be gone for like four days. And then that four days was within whenever she went missing.

Carissa had told Ash that she was planning to stay with Tristan, though Ash later learned that that wasn't true. Rachel shared more about what she knows of Carissa's movements after leaving Ash's house.

After she left Ash's house, she turned off her location. I guess she made plans. She has a lot of different friends there that hike. She had made plans with her friends to meet up to camp and hike. They were together for a day. She was very grandiose. After that, the last time anyone saw her, that there was a legitimate sighting was, I think, the 28th. So she disappeared after that.

From their text messages and phone calls, Angie could tell that Carissa was acting increasingly unstable, and it seemed to be getting worse with each conversation.

She had reached out to me and said, you know what? I feel like I just need to disappear for a while. I need to get away from everybody in order to heal. People are out to get me. I just need to get in my right head. And I said, please do not do that. And if you're going to do that, it does not have to be me. I don't care who it is, but please tell somebody where you're going to be. And that was maybe...

a week and a half before she went missing. Each time she texts me or whatever, I'm like, man, this is not the Carissa that I met. This is a completely different person. She had told me, Henry's mom sent me some money to kind of help me get over the hump. She sent me $1,000 and then she's supposed to send me a little bit more money. And I said, well,

wow, that's really nice. She doesn't have to do that. And I had even said, did you ask her for money? Because the Chris I know would have never asked an ex-mom for money. And she was like, no, she offered.

She just wants me to get back on my feet. She said she was going to send me $500 again. And then she had texted me, hey, Henry's mom is backing out of this money that she told me she was going to send. And she had told me I ran out of money. I need to be able to pay my way. And she asked me if she could borrow $1,000. She knows very clearly I do not loan money. That's a very quick way to not be friends anymore.

And I said, if you really need it, I'm not giving you $1,000. I could give you like $100 if you really need it. She said, oh my gosh, that'd be great. And I said, well, it can't happen today because I'm at work. Call me, text me on Monday, which would have been tomorrow. That Monday, she never called me. She never texted me. By Monday night, I even told my husband there's something wrong. I haven't talked to Carissa. There's something wrong.

And then by Wednesday, Hannah text me, have you heard from Carissa? And I said, oh no, what's going on? I still have my text to her. Are you okay? You haven't reached out to me this morning. What's wrong? Please get ahold of somebody.

Tristan and Carissa had been trying to make plans to see each other for some time, but Carissa kept canceling, leaving Tristan feeling frustrated and uncertain about what was going on. Carissa finally followed through, the week before she went missing, making Tristan one of the last known people to have seen her.

I met her at the park a couple days before. It was on a Thursday, and I think I heard that she was missing into the next week. We had been trying to meet up for months. She kept canceling, and I was kind of getting frustrated, wondering what's going on. She wanted to meet up before. My husband and I were camping and didn't have service, so we ended up missing each other, but

she actually drove out to the area where we were camping and asked if we could meet up with her. And I didn't realize at the time she didn't have a place to live. She was living with her friend Asher. And she didn't tell me any of this, but I guess things kind of went south there. And I know Asher wanted her to be on her meds and in therapy in order to live there. And Carissa ended up leaving. She was pretty upset. But

But at the time, I didn't know any of this until afterwards. So I think I would have, looking back, tried even harder. But I didn't know. She showed up over an hour late. She even texted me. She's like, I'll be there in five minutes. I have to stop at the gas station. And then after that, it was even another 30 minutes. So when she arrived, she was like, sorry, I had a altercation at the gas station with some guy. And

And I thought that was weird. And I asked, what happened? She's like, I don't want to talk about it. And that doesn't really seem like her either. She was not okay. She was just kind of really dirty. She hadn't been showering. Her hair was kind of matted and just did not seem herself.

Tristan carries a deep sense of regret for not doing more on the day he last saw Carissa at the park. She was clearly upset, feeling misunderstood by those around her who weren't fully believing her or encouraging her to seek help. Tristan didn't want to invalidate her feelings, but he can't shake the memory of Carissa driving away that day and the profound sense of unease that came over him. One thing that sticks out to Tristan about the conversations he had with Carissa was that she mentioned plans to meet up with Henry.

She was telling me that she was never going to talk to him again. I begged her not to meet up with him again. She told me that she was going to bring somebody with her to get some money from him. And I know his mom had given her some money and she told me that he took it or was hiding it. And there was this back and forth between them about some money that

the mom was giving her so she would be able to leave. And she said she was going to meet up with him, but that she would bring her friend. And I'm not sure if she ever did that or not. She felt betrayed by the fact that people were not believing her, that she didn't need the meds and she wasn't bipolar. And she felt like they were all against her.

I didn't want to say anything like, oh, you know, you should be on your meds. Maybe I just kind of let her say anything. She was in a really bad mental state, but I didn't know what to do or I hadn't been in contact with her family or other friends other than Ash after the fact, but

I just didn't know what to do. I just think back to the last time I saw her and we were leaving the park and I followed her car up to, there was a roundabout and she went right and I went left and I just thought, wow, I just felt so strongly that I should just follow her. And I didn't know where she was staying. I just wanted to follow her. I didn't.

Tristan was deeply worried about Carissa that day, unsure of how to help without pushing her away. He waited, hoping to hear from her, but then received a phone call from a friend. No one could find Carissa. Ash actually messaged me on Facebook saying that the cops showed up at her family's door. I thought that was really weird. They said they found some of her belongings on the side of the road, and I'm still confused about that.

During this time, Ash believed that Carissa was safe and staying with Tristan, but that wasn't the case. She was also stunned when she received a phone call. Carissa had disappeared.

I get a phone call, I think, two, almost three weeks out from her leaving my house. Her uncle had contacted me and had asked if I had heard from her. And I was like, no, which isn't abnormal for her because she is kind of spotty with communication. But to completely go silent on her entire support system is abnormal.

I think initially we started looking in Edmonds. I started posting stuff on social media along with several other people. And then we started having people reach out and give us tips where she was last seen. Her car was found in Sequim, Washington.

Her belongings that were found that initially sparked the missing persons report was in Edmonds, two totally different areas of Washington. I mean, she does like camping. She likes hiking, so it's not abnormal for her to go out to those areas. I actually don't know if she had ever been to Squim prior to all of this, but I do know that she loved Twilight and Fort Washington is pretty close to Squim.

And this is where we'll pick up next week. We know that Carissa was reported missing after her belongings were found scattered along a roadway in Edmonds, Washington, in late July 2024. Her car was later discovered about 50 miles away, abandoned in Squim.

Law enforcement video captured her picking flowers in the area, and there were reported sightings of Carissa, but none of them have been confirmed, leaving many questions about why she would have been there, and whether it was Carissa who had discarded her belongings and vehicle.

In the lead-up to her disappearance, Carissa was spiraling, sharing bits and pieces of information with various friends and family members. Once everyone learned that Carissa had disappeared, they began comparing what they had been told, trying to piece together what may have happened to her. Several key events stood out. Carissa claimed her boyfriend had abused her. She broke up with him and went to the hospital to have a rape kit done to document the abuse.

She also told friends that she planned to meet up with her ex to get some money, though no one knows if that meeting ever took place, something that has left her loved ones deeply concerned. Carissa also shared that she was planning to change her name to Hazel Grace. Ash, one of Carissa's closest friends in Washington, was with her when a mobile crisis unit set her up for mental health appointments. Carissa left Ash's home with plans to return after starting her medication again, but she never came back.

What transpired between that time and her disappearance remains a mystery. Next week, we'll dive deeper into Carissa's case, what happened after they initially realized that she was missing, and the ongoing search efforts to find her. If you have any information about the disappearance of Carissa Castor, please contact the Edmonds Police Department at 425-771-0200.

He actually admitted to me via text message, because Henry kept messaging all of us within her support system to get information out of us, where she was, what was going on with the investigation. I ended up talking to him and tried to keep my cool as much as possible, but he admitted to, and I quote, performing exorcisms on her and weaning her off for her medication. Then publicly has told people that that was her choice.

That brings us to the end of episode 478. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this series. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook.

You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of Carissa's story. Thanks for listening.

If you like The Vanished, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

Hey everybody, we have some exciting news that we want to share. If you want to go on an adventure with Generation Y, we'd love for you to join us. January 26th through the 30th, 2026, we'll be sailing from Miami to the Bahamas on Wondery's first ever true crime cruise aboard the Norwegian Joy.

Aaron and I will be there to chat, hang out, dive into all things true crime, and we're thrilled to be joined by some familiar voices in the true crime podcasting world. Surti and Hannah from Red Handed, Sashi and Sarah from Scamfluencers, and Carl Miller from Kill List.

Super excited to hang out with them too. We've got some cool activities, interactive mysteries we can solve, testing our forensic skills with a blood spatter expert, and so much more. So for some sun, fun, and just the right amount of mystery solving, come join us. Ready to jump on this seriously epic adventure? Book your cabin right now at ExhibitCCruise.com.