Bethany Collins Buckles Part 2: Targeted
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They said they interviewed over 75 people and basically every single person says, yes, I know her, but I don't know what happened to her. I just really, for her mom's sake, really would love to see some closure come around this case. I just wish that there was something more that I could do. Her mom is in so much pain.

I get these emails from targeted individuals like once a month and usually they're like, "I'm gonna prove to you that this is real." Or they just, they're just so happy to have the email address of a journalist that they don't really care that I'm kind of skeptical on the phenomenon. So she was one of those and I try to listen and I try to be empathetic.

She just said that she had confirmation that people were out to get her and then I should feel free to contact her, which I didn't. So that was February 21st, 2021 was the last time I heard from her. I don't even know if I know her name. So I did not follow up and I did not hear that she was missing. What happened there?

Last week you heard part one of Bethany Collins-Buckles' story. You learned about her life, the struggles she faced, and her sudden disappearance just as she was making plans for her mother's Thanksgiving visit. Jolinda had expected to hear from Bethany, but when that call didn't come, she grew concerned.

At the time, Jolinda was in Atlanta, hours away from Bethany's condo in Asheville. She contacted the Asheville Police Department requesting a welfare check. Officers reported back that no one was home and Bethany's car was missing. When Jolinda finally arrived in Asheville, she discovered something even more troubling. Bethany's dog had been left alone in the apartment for days without food or water, which was completely out of character for her. Yet there was no sign of a struggle inside the condo.

Jolinda immediately reported Bethany missing, and the investigation began.

Authorities were able to trace Bethany's phone, which appeared to be moving around the Asheville area after she spoke with her mother. But no one came forward to say that they had been with her during that time. Then, months later, in February 2022, a break in the case came when Bethany's car was found in a grocery store parking lot, not far from her Asheville condo. But the mystery only deepened. Whoever left the car there managed to avoid detection, and no one had seen anything.

This week, we're going to dive deeper into the mystery of what happened to Bethany and explore why she may have been targeted. What were the circumstances leading up to her disappearance? And who may have been involved? We'll examine the details surrounding the car's discovery and the investigation that followed as we search for answers to this puzzling case. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 467 of The Vanished, Bethany Collins-Buckles' story, part two, Targeted.

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When Bethany disappeared, one of the few clues investigators had to go on were the cell phone pings. Jolinda recalled that the phone pings indicated movement in the Asheville area. And intriguingly, they seemed to lead to a specific location on the outskirts of the city. This area became a focal point of the investigation. Later, when Bethany's car was found in February 2022, it was parked in a grocery store parking lot, not far from that same area.

It seemed to reinforce the connection. The pings and the car's discovery in that particular area raised more questions than answers, suggesting that whoever had been with Bethany or had been involved in her disappearance may have had a reason for being there. The police pinged her phone, and they know that she was at a convenience store around 5.45, 6 a.m. on Thursday morning. Now, they know her phone was there.

They don't know it was her for sure. And they know where her phone was the rest of the day. And they know where the last ping was on her phone. The last ping was about 10 miles from where she lived. And on the day that she disappeared, that phone was in an area of town where there was a drug shooting and one drug dealer shot another drug dealer. Again, they don't have any visual evidence that she was there, but she...

but she was in the location where bad stuff had happened. The pinging doesn't end until it's about 10 miles away from her house. The shooting was actually closer to where she lives. The college is on Warren Wilson Road. The turnoff for that road is very close to where the Swananilla Ingalls is. But the last pings

was at the end of Warren Wilson Road, just kind of a long road. And it goes past the college and then on up maybe five miles, not sure. According to the police, the last ping on the phone was near the end of Warren Wilson Road near Three Lakes.

So the phone itself has never been found. It could have been thrown out a window or the battery could have just died. It was not in the car. Her purse was not in the car. They told me that they knew who talked to her last and they told me that they talked to all of those people.

Jolinda briefly mentioned a shooting that occurred around the same time that Bethany mysteriously vanished, a detail that raised even more questions in the investigation. Chris, Bethany's aunt, shared that when she first learned about Bethany's disappearance, she felt helpless, being so far away. Determined to help in any way she could, Chris spent hours scouring the internet for any clues or news that might shed light on what may have happened to her niece.

It was during this search that she came across a local news story about a shooting that had occurred around the same time Bethany went missing. The timing and location of the shooting raised alarm bells for Chris. Could the two events have been connected? Or was this simply a coincidence? Could the shooting hold a key to understanding what happened to Bethany?

I was researching everything I could about what was going on in Nashville at the time that Bethany disappeared. When I realized that there had been a drug bust and there'd been like some sort of shootout within days of her missing. And so I passed that information along to Jolinda and it actually was relevant to what might have happened. They thought she might have been caught in the crossfire. That makes me fearful that maybe...

Maybe she didn't just take off out of fear. Did she get shot and then they took her body somewhere and hid it? Or is that what happened? Nobody found a body. None of this makes sense. And I'm really hoping it doesn't make sense because she got scared and ran away. I'm so hoping that's what really happened. But I'm so fearful that that's not what happened. But nothing really adds up.

When we spoke to Detective Taylor, we asked him about the shooting that Chris had discovered during her search and whether there was any evidence that might link Bethany to the incident. We wondered if she could have been a witness to what happened or if the shooting and her disappearance were somehow connected. He acknowledged that the timing and proximity of the two incidents was something they were continuing to examine as part of the investigation.

I'm not aware that her phone was near a shooting. I could say that there was an acquaintance that Bethany knew that had learned during this investigation, someone that she knew possibly. And that individual had, in fact, been shot. I mean, it was the 18th, I think. But at that time, there's nothing showing that her phone was in that area at the time that that crime occurred.

Bethany's Aunt Chris also told us about another interesting detail. One of Bethany's friends had also disappeared from the Asheville area around the same time. However, unlike Bethany, this friend later resurfaced. This raised even more questions for Chris. Was there something to this, or was it a mere coincidence?

The other thing that's odd is that a good friend of hers, a man that she was friends with that I guess she hung out with, disappeared at the same time. But then he turns up later and he's fine. And it just seems so odd that they both disappeared at the same time, even if they did find him later and he said he didn't know anything about it. Maybe he did. Maybe he helped her. I don't know. I mean, that just seemed like a real weird coincidence.

The timing was too strange to ignore, and it added another layer of uncertainty to an already baffling situation. Jolinda shared what she knew about the man who seemingly vanished around the same time Bethany disappeared.

One of the people that Beth talked to that last day and someone that I knew, I didn't know many of her acquaintances, especially the men, but she had a friend named Rick who was a retired Navy guy. I saw that he had an illustrious career in the Navy, but he ended up dead broke in Asheville. And the first pandemic Thanksgiving year, he and Beth shared a Thanksgiving meal because I couldn't even travel up here that first pandemic year.

The day that Beth went missing, Rick also disappeared. He went to Maryland. Now, Rick didn't have a car. He has a lot of health problems. He's a disabled vet. How he got to Maryland...

where he has relatives so quickly. I don't know. But to me, that was very, very suspicious. Now, he did not seem like the kind of person who would harm anybody at all and was actually very well spoken. But I thought that he had to know something, but that something scared him. And so he ran. And I had his phone number and

And even though the detective had told me not to call him, I was trying to call him. They had found him in Maryland because he got picked up for shoplifting.

and they had the detectives in Maryland to interview him. They didn't interview him in person. And I thought, well, Rick knows me personally. We at least met once. Maybe he'll tell me. I don't think he did anything, but I think he knows. So I had started calling and calling and calling and calling and thought, well, I guess he had a burner and he just threw the phone away and that's not his number anymore. And then I asked,

I asked the detective about it, and he said, oh, he died in September. I won't ever be able to ask him those questions I wanted to ask. Last week, you learned about Bethany's ongoing struggles with her mental health and substance abuse over the years. There's an aspect of this story that we need to explore more deeply, and it could be a crucial piece in understanding Bethany's behavior and the events leading up to her disappearance. One of the key things we learned was that before Bethany vanished,

she began exhibiting signs of paranoia according to melissa bethany confided in her about some unsettling thoughts and fears she had things she believed were happening to her melissa concerned for her friend took steps to reassure bethany and ensure that these fears were unfounded but it was clear that something was weighing heavily on bethany

It was paranoia a lot on her side. Not that I'm a doctor by any means, but I'm only speaking of what I've seen from other people I've known that have a diagnosis. Towards the time when she disappeared, she was showing signs of paranoid schizophrenia. And she was afraid.

of the government overall. And that really peaked a lot in her last year, I would say. She was involved in a lot of these Illuminati Facebook groups, and she was listening to a lot of fringe podcasting. And she had a really weird affectation, for lack of a better word. And she

This started, I guess, probably six months to a year before she disappeared. She thought that someone was breaking into her house and cutting her hair in the middle of the night. And I don't mean a little. She said that someone had shorn her in her sleep, but there were never any signs, if that makes any sense, of her hair being cut.

So it was just this really strange, paranoid delusion. And she mentioned that she thought someone was trying to break into her house. But I helped her pay for like five security cameras, tried to do everything I could to try and prove to her she was safe.

And nothing was ever caught on the security cameras. I have several friends who work for the Atlanta Police Department that I even let her talk to, to try and sort through exactly what was going on.

Jolinda was aware of Bethany's increasing paranoia, and it deeply troubled her. As a mother, she watched her daughter's mental state deteriorate, and the weight of it was overwhelming. Jolinda did everything she could to help, even arranging for her to stay at an inpatient facility, hoping that a structured environment might offer her the care and stability she desperately needed. Despite her efforts, Bethany's resistance to seeking help made the situation even more heartbreaking.

Sometimes she was incredibly depressed. At this point in her life, she would tell me that she no longer considered suicide because she knew it would be too difficult for me. It seemed to me that Beth was kind of a three-day cycler, and she typically was angry. When she was manic, she threw things. She broke things. She was like a bull in a china shop. Her mental health was deteriorating in

And that she was becoming paranoid. She thought people were following her. She was convinced the government had her under surveillance. Covered all the windows and vents in the condo with blankets. Put security cameras in the condo because she was certain people were coming in there stealing things.

trying to harm her, cutting her hair, raping her. She could show me a video and say, this is a video of somebody sexually molesting me, but it wasn't. There was nothing in that video. I don't know what she thought she saw, but it was her sleeping. She would be sleeping restlessly, tossing and turning, but there was no other person there. She was part of that same system where she was getting medication before, is

It's called Family Preservation. They have a mobile mental health system that you can call and request, but the person has to request it. But I spoke with them many times. She spoke with them.

But when they would get there, she would refuse to go, even if she asked them to come. And Family Preservation, their psychiatric unit, she was still going there to get her medication. And she did have access to group therapy that I believe she was supposed to be going to, but she had been going to it for so many years that she...

got where she wouldn't go. She said, it hasn't done me any good so far and I just don't want to go anymore. The Asheville police, I believe Beth also called them a lot on what she believed to be emergencies. There's somebody in my apartment, but there really wasn't. And they had stopped responding to her request for help because of that. During COVID, I had located a place in Atlanta that had been recommended to me who would do a sliding scale based on her income and

And it had a very, very good reputation for dealing with dual diagnosis situations. But you had to have had the vaccine. And she refused to get the vaccine because she believed the government was putting microchips in it.

Melissa was aware that Jolinda was doing everything in her power to help Bethany, including trying to get her into a treatment facility. Melissa told us that she suspects that Bethany may have used the COVID-19 vaccine as an excuse to avoid seeking help. But deep down...

Melissa believed that the real fear driving Bethany's resistance was the fear of being stigmatized, of being labeled, judged, or misunderstood because of her struggles with mental health and substance abuse. Melissa knew that Bethany, despite her resilience, had always been sensitive to how others perceived her, and this fear seemed to be preventing her from accepting the help she so clearly needed.

When she was going to go to that facility in South Georgia, they wanted to do a full mental health assessment and she did not want to do it. And she kept fighting with her mom about taking the mental health assessment. And I had...

even told her that I have taken a full mental health assessment before trying to explain to her that I did this, nothing bad happened to me. And I think that it would help you because if there is something that they need to know, you'll be able to get treated for it.

But she always refused to take the full assessment. She and I, I think when we were a little younger, like in high school, there was a real stigma that was associated with mental health and mental health disorders. I was diagnosed when I was 14. And my parents, I'll never forget them even talking about it. Then we're concerned about the fact that it would end up on my permanent record and be like a huge stain.

and that I'd never be able to get into a good college. I mean, it's kind of silly now when you think about it in later life. Sometimes that stigma that might have been there might have prevented her from wanting to do that. I think she felt she was somehow giving up some part of her rights or her privacy by doing that. And she might think that that might be used later to put her into an institution or something else. Whether she wanted to talk about it or not,

or not. I don't think sometimes you can talk about things rationally, if that makes any sense, if you're in that place. And I feel like she was in that place. When we spoke to Melissa, she shared an interesting piece of information that sent us down a rabbit hole. She, as I mentioned, had gotten involved in

in kind of some of these extreme podcasts and things like that. She had been listening to a podcast about gang stalking. It's this whole idea where a group of people dislike someone and they start doing things to a person. So maybe it's leaving stuff outside their house or showing up at their house, messing with their mail, messing with their house, whatever. But it's a coordinated group effort.

Prior to her disappearance, she went on to a podcast and gave an interview about the gang stalking and what she was experiencing. She shared the link with me when it did come out and talked about it.

told me about it because she said she was hoping that it might help someone else. So she wanted to get the word out. And it is still up. It's called the failed state update. Episode 31, conversation with a targeted individual. But I mean, this interview is in her voice. You'll get to hear her talk about her experience, which I think will be helpful to your project.

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Melissa told us about Bethany's interview on a podcast, where she discussed something unsettling, her belief that she was a targeted individual. This revelation immediately caught our attention, sparking a deeper dive into what Bethany may have been experiencing in the months leading up to her disappearance. Was there more to her claims? Did Bethany truly feel that she was being followed or watched? Or was this part of the paranoia she had been struggling with? The more we looked into it, the more questions arose.

Melissa was able to forward us emails that Bethany had sent this podcast host. In early December 2020, just under a year before she went missing, Bethany sent an email with the following subject line, boy, have I got a story for you. The message went on to say, I'm a former public school teacher living in the western North Carolina mountains. I

I preface this with the fact that I am not mentally ill, for what I have to tell you is very strange and unbelievable. I had a spiritual awakening about four years ago and have been gang-stalked ever since. Do the research if you're not familiar. I have had to. It is startling, vicious, and calculated. Yes, some people who say this is happening to them are unstable, but I am not. This is unfortunately my reality, and I have verifiable physical proof.

One of the brilliant designs of the government program is to make the targeted individual appear insane and for others around them to dismiss their cries for help because the actions taken are so bizarre and inconceivable. Who does this, you say to yourself? Local law enforcement is no help, mainly because most of them are complicit if not involved. I am serious. I need a PI but cannot afford one. Nothing I've done has worked, and I'm

and I am in hell, but it would make a great story. I am a published writer, but feel I am too close to the story and too nerve-wracked right now to do so. I need your help. What this needs is exposure. It's the only way to conquer the evil bullshit. I want to help others too when I'm done, because most people become so paralyzed and unable to help themselves. Come on, give it a try. You will be fascinated and may have a chance to help people in the process. Call me.

Bethany had reached out to Joseph Flatley, who goes by Lenny, a journalist, author, and podcaster, known for his in-depth reporting on what he calls the culture of American decline. Lenny's work has largely focused on topics like misinformation, cults, and radical politics.

At first, we assumed that Bethany had appeared on a podcast that was promoting conspiracy theories. But what we quickly learned was more complex: Lenny's approach to these subjects wasn't to propagate unfounded beliefs, but rather to chronicle the rise of such ideologies and explore their cultural and psychological impacts. Intrigued by this, we decided to reach out to Lenny, the host of Failed State Update, to understand more about his work.

and how he ended up getting involved in reporting on the very subjects that Bethany had seemed to embrace in her later years. I helped start a website called The Verge, which is a website that I've been using for a long time.

which was a technology lifestyle site. But I was a feature editor there and I got to kind of assign stories to myself, just whatever I was interested in. Most of my work is, I would say it's more like conspiracy adjacent. Cults and conspiracies, just whatever I find interesting. I was just fascinated by conspiracy theories and saw that they were becoming more important. You know, I'm just interested in this stuff and made a little niche for myself.

According to Lenny, it was a common thread in his work to hear from people like Bethany, each sharing their personal story about believing they were a targeted individual. He noted that these individuals often feel isolated and unheard. Many of them find themselves drawn to platforms like his to share their experiences. Lenny emphasized that he doesn't judge or dismiss their stories, but rather listens carefully and documents their accounts as part of his broader exploration into the psychological and societal forces that fuel these beliefs.

I get these emails from targeted individuals like once a month. I'm going to prove to you that this is real or they're just so happy to have the email address of a journalist that they don't really care that I'm kind of skeptical on the phenomenon. So she was one of those. And it's just really sad.

I feel strongly that they need some empathy, but also even giving them a little bit of a voice, even though they're clearly going through something that's not real. I think that can be valuable. Maybe it is because it put you and I in contact. You know, you want to listen and you want to be friendly, but you don't want to engage to the point where you're egging them on or encouraging something unhealthy. But as far as Bethany goes, I'm looking through, it looks like, looks

Looks like we started texting when she emailed me and we made that initial contact. So I guess that was a little standoffish, but she texted me some pictures, a picture of her ear with a big slice out of it. I don't know if she cut herself. A picture of some chicken wings, which I guess proved something. A chain lock for her door that was broken and conspiracy theory literature. That was like a flurry of texts over one or two days. And then

We recorded the interview. And then she touched base with me a few days later, just to tell me that she liked my podcast. And then she hit me up a few days after that to ask me if I knew any agents, because she wanted to write a book about her experience. And I was like, yeah, I can't help you with that. And then the last I heard from her was 21st of February 2021. So yeah, so I didn't hear for all January and all February. And then she sent me an update. I

I know there's a possibility that you think I'm mentally ill and that is understandable. And then she just said that she had confirmation that people were out to get her and then I should feel free to contact her, which I didn't. So that was February 21st, 2021 was the last time I heard from her.

What was particularly surprising when we contacted Lenny was that he had no idea Bethany was missing. In fact, he hadn't even known her real name. When she initially reached out to him, Bethany used the name Rowan. Lenny explained that their communication had stopped months before her disappearance, and he hadn't heard from her since.

Bethany was featured on the Failed State Update podcast on December 10, 2020, in an episode titled Conversation with a Targeted Individual. In this episode, she openly discussed her experiences and beliefs about being targeted, led

Lenny generously gave us permission to air clips from the episode to help our audience gain a deeper understanding of what Bethany was going through, directly from her own words. At the beginning of the episode, Lenny provided a brief background on the concept of targeted individuals. He also addressed some of the ethical concerns that come along with airing stories like Bethany's. His careful consideration of these issues set the tone for the conversation that followed, ensuring that Bethany's story was presented with both compassion and respect.

In the following clip, you'll hear Bethany describe herself and explain how she first began to feel that something sinister was happening in her life. I live in Asheville, North Carolina. I come from a good home, you know, where you learn your manners and people are nice to each other and I'm well-educated. I was a public school teacher for almost 10 years. I got out of that to go into real estate right before the market crashed. And right now I'm just a freelance writer.

A lot of pressure. You said in your email you had like a spiritual experience. Right. I've had a spiritual awakening. Awakening, you would call it. So tell me, when did that happen and how did that play out? About four years ago. I've always been different and I've always felt like I didn't really fit in. I have friends and I'm a friendly person and I like people, but deep down, I never really felt like I fit in. I just started...

seeing things differently. And it was even like colors looked differently. And I prefaced this with saying I do not have any severe mental illness, all respects to people who do, but I do not. And I started doing research. I just was hungry for knowledge. I wanted to know how the world worked and why the world worked the way it does. I wanted the truth. Then weird things started happening at my house.

And it's just gone from there. Well, the first was Footprints in the Snow in the winter went from the back of my yard to my kitchen window. Two sets, a male and a female, it looked like. I called the police and they did nothing about it. They didn't even send anyone out. And I didn't really think much of it. I just thought, well, that's really weird. But I mean, what do you do?

Right. Then things started happening in my home, like things would go missing or things would appear that I knew were not mine. This sounds crazy, but stuff was being put into my shampoo to bleach out my hair and stuff like that. And so I'd have to go buy new shampoo every time I washed my hair. And I've had to do that now for like three years. It's a pain in the ass.

And then the haircutting started. This happens when I'm asleep and it's terrifying. Oh, they killed my dog too. My dog was poisoned. When was that? That was last January. What was your dog's name? Lily. She was a lab pit bull mix. She was the sweetest dog, the best temperament. I miss her a lot. She did not deserve to be pulled into this.

So let me kind of get it straight. So you experienced this spiritual awakening. Could you tell me more about that? I'm trying to understand that so I can kind of make the connection between that and what else you're experiencing. Right. I found out things like I'm an empath.

and an indigo child, I found great comfort in the fact that, oh, okay, well, I'm not the only one. My connection to the divine has grown, and I feel this overwhelming sense of almost discomfort with society. Something's not right. We're being lied to. So that's when I started doing research.

on anything imaginable. It started with 9-11. And I'm not talking like really conspiracy rabbit hole kind of things. I'm just talking educating myself.

One of the things Lenny does with great delicacy in his interview with Bethany is ask skeptical questions in a way that doesn't dismiss or invalidate her perception of reality. Instead, he frames his questions thoughtfully and gently, encouraging her, and by extension, the audience, to think more critically about what she's experiencing. His approach isn't confrontational, but rather probing, helping Bethany reflect on the possibility that her beliefs, while deeply felt, might need to be examined from different angles.

Having the spiritual awakening and then going on a spiritual quest, it sounds like. How did that lead to more... Because, you know, 9-11 and stuff like that, that's conspiracy theories. That's more... I don't know if I associate that with spirituality as much. I understand that. I guess I feel this underlying...

sense that I have some kind of purpose. And I just wanted to educate myself, get the real information if that's even possible anymore, because a lot of the things that I learned, you cannot find anymore on the internet after they did that censorship sweep. What's an example of something that...

I looked into flat earth. I'm not saying I'm a flat earther, but I did open my mind. That's what I call it. Critically think I don't know everything, but I do know that reality is not what they tell us it is. So do you,

Do you have any answers or any inklings of what reality is? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying I'm a prophet or I have the answers. I'm just saying, hey, I'm this girl struggling here, trying to find the answers, and I just want to be left alone. You're on a search.

Right. And yes, I get ridiculed and people, oh, you're a conspiracy theorist nut and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, the facts are right in front of you. Here are the facts. Who's saying that kind of thing? Just people on Facebook. If I put something up or family members, anybody really I try to talk to. No, some of them. I do find some kindred kind of people, but it's rare. It's sprinkled here and there.

In an effort to understand why Bethany might have felt targeted by the government or some nefarious group or individual, Lenny asked her to reflect on when she first began to notice the signs that led her to believe she was being watched or targeted. By encouraging her to revisit the beginnings of those experiences, Lenny hoped to gain insight into the factors that may have contributed to her sense of being targeted, allowing the audience to better understand how her beliefs evolved over time.

So when did the gang stalking start? I think the footsteps up to the window. So how does that work? You're investigating this stuff, and were you aware of gang stalking before it happened, before you started seeing these things? No, I kind of stumbled upon it, and...

And sat with the information like, oh, that's weird. That would really suck for the people. Then as time went on and weirder things happened to me, I put two and two together. I thought, wow, this may really be what's going on with me. Right. Is this gang stalking still going on? Has it gotten worse? Yes. Oh, it's gotten worse. Yes. Well, tell me about that. It's horrible. Okay. My left ear.

has been sliced. Strange things like I'll buy a 12 pack of Coke, put it in the refrigerator. Two days later, they're all gone. And I know I've only had three and I live alone. I just have a friend over here right now. One morning there was a bag of chicken wings on my couch. I don't eat chicken wings. No one had been here. The chain lock on my door had been ripped off from the inside.

I was documenting for a while, but then my documentation notebooks would disappear. There's so many things, just psychological torture, basically, to try to make you think you're going crazy. I think it's possible that I might have stumbled onto something that I shouldn't have seen, or people like me are just not wanted in society because we think for ourselves and we're critical thinkers. I did have a man come up to me at a gas station and say to me,

Hey, we hung out before. How are you doing? And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. Well, yeah, I came over to your house. I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. And he goes, oh, yeah, that's right. They are erasing your memories because you are a live wire.

During his conversation with Bethany, Lenny made an interesting observation. He pointed out that in his experience, most of the people he has spoken to who believe that they are targeted individuals can usually trace the events back to a specific event or a particular person, something that they believe set everything in motion. But when it came to Bethany, she couldn't seem to identify any clear trigger. She didn't have a defining moment or individual she could point to as the catalyst for why she believed she was being targeted.

It also raised even more questions about the psychological and emotional factors at play. I thought you'd contact me, actually, because I did a story about gang stalking a few years ago. It's on my website. One of the guys I talked to could pinpoint specifically, I worked for this company, and I was in the security section, and I pissed off my boss. The surveillance started revenge to get back at him for some reason.

So that's pretty common with gang stalking victims to have like an idea of where the harassment is coming from. Do you have any theories or ideas or anything? I'm not really sure. I'm still formulating some. I just want it to stop and I'm angry and I'm not going to stay silent because that is what they bank on, that you stay quiet. It's so traumatic what they do to you. You don't know who you can trust.

Lenny asked Bethany if she had confided in her friends or family about what she was experiencing. Her response shed light on the growing isolation she likely felt as her beliefs deepened. Bethany explained that over time, she had become more reluctant to share these feelings with those close to her. The more isolated she became, the harder it likely was for others to understand or intervene, which may have further fueled her sense of paranoia.

Have you been out to your family or friends about this? My family knows a little bit. And I recently put something on Facebook because I'm just I'm tired. I'm angry. I'm tired of being quiet. I don't know what else to do, Lenny. I mean, awareness and education and exposure is the only thing I can think. I mean, you just sound like you're very lonely in this. I am.

I'm very lonely. Has it been worse? Has your experience or even just your mental state, you know, how you're handling things been worse since COVID? Yeah. I'm blessed that I have familial support, especially right now going through this. So I'm a fighter and I'm stubborn as hell. Good. And I'm resilient.

You can hear more of Bethany's interview on the Failed State Update podcast. One thing that was particularly striking was that Lenny described Bethany as an outlier among those he's spoken to.

What's really interesting is when you get into this concept, it's some sort of delusion that Bethany had. That's not like a diagnosis. That's a symptom of something else. The reason I'm interested in that topic of the targeted individual specifically, and Bethany is kind of an outlier because most of them, unless you talk about their experiences as a targeted individual, do not seem disordered at all. They come across as totally, I guess I'll use the word normal, just kind of very straightforward, misguided.

maybe a little smarter than most people because they've been studying this stuff. It's not until you get to the topic of whatever their delusion is, you realize, wow, something's not adding up. And that's why a lot of people believe their stories because they're so credible in every other area of their life.

That's why it's a little taken aback by Bethany. There's a book called Suspicious Minds. It covers this topic of delusion, how delusion works and how it's not necessarily as dramatic as what Bethany described. It's a fascinating topic.

As a society, we've witnessed a significant rise in conspiracy theories in recent years. And much of this can be traced back to the role the internet plays in shaping and amplifying these beliefs. The vast online spaces where people can find communities that validate their suspicions and fears creates an environment where these ideas can fester and grow. That led us to a compelling question. Would Bethany have become so deeply immersed in these beliefs if she hadn't stumbled upon online groups that reinforced her sense of being targeted?

We asked Lenny for his thoughts on how the internet and online communities have contributed to the proliferation of such beliefs, and whether that may have played a role in shaping Bethany's experience. Well, the targeted individuals, instead of looking at them as delusional or looking at them as mentally ill, which all that plays into it, but it's a subculture. It's an internet culture. People, they meet online, they communicate, they learn the language, they learn

the conspiracy theories or, you know, in their mind, the knowledge or the theory of who's stalking them and why. So people who are sick get online. They discover this like vast literature, the government targeting people, and they use that to like visualize

verify or ratify their experience. They're like, oh, people have been writing about this for 20 years. My texts, she's sending me screen captures of bloodlines of the Illuminati, which is like a famous conspiracy book from 1995. So she's actively researching on the internet, looking for things to verify what's happening to her or prove in quotes what's happening to her. All these people are finding themselves on the internet and their families can't do anything for them.

So yeah, I mean, definitely people getting together on the internet and having these conversations and forming groups.

I don't know how to quantify it. I just know that it's become like a category of influencer. The same way that any topic has influencers on social media that spread the gospel of whatever sneaker you're into or whatever band you're into or whatever people are doing on TikTok. There are targeted individual influencers, people who think they were targeted and people who just believe...

in the phenomenon. I think if you are really being targeted by the government, you wouldn't be going online and looking for people in Reddit. I think that the targeted individual community is a community, and it's a very specific group of people who are not being targeted, but go out of their way to look for proof that they're being targeted and create these conspiracy theories around it. Joel Cohen, who wrote that book, Suspicious Minds, told me,

If you think the government's beaming you with mind control waves and you're experiencing voices in your head, you're delusional. If you think that it's happening to somebody else, you're a conspiracy theorist.

conspiracy theories and delusional thinking, they're hand in hand. So I don't know how to quantify if there's more conspiracies or more people are believing in them. I think there's been studies that have said that there's actually not more conspiracy theorists. It's just that we're more aware of them.

So I don't know. But I do know that they're a permanent part of American culture in a way that they never were before. And they probably always will be now. But I will say that I do feel strongly that, you know, if you're going to like judge somebody's story, anybody's story, you need to look at it individually. I mean, I feel at the core conspiracy beliefs and

Targeted individual beliefs are a symptom of something. Not 100% sure of what it is. I have my theories. But whatever it is, it's a symptom of some collective sickness that is not going to be resolved if we ignore it or we make fun of the people that are into it.

We often cover missing persons cases where mental health is likely a contributing factor. And in many of these cases, we hear from loved ones who could see the person spiraling out of control, but felt powerless to intervene, unless the individual was a direct danger to themselves or others. It's an incredibly helpless feeling, one that those close to Bethany experienced firsthand. They tried to help, but they couldn't.

But their efforts were unsuccessful. When Bethany appeared on Failed State Update, Lenny listened intently to her story. And it made us wonder if he had ever interviewed the people who were close to the individuals who believed they were being targeted, to see what it's like for family and friends who see these changes unfolding, but feel so limited in their ability to step in or help.

They didn't want me talking to the people around them and the people around them didn't want me talking to them. I would have loved to have talked to their parents or talk to their brother or whatever, but that just wasn't in the cards.

Someone being a targeted individual or claiming to be one isn't really a story. What made Bethany interesting to me was just the window for people into how she was thinking. I wouldn't really have thought about it again until you came to me. And it's like now you have the story, which is her family and friends are worried about her and trying to figure out where she vanished to.

While it's clear that Bethany truly believed she was being targeted, her loved ones were never able to find any tangible proof to substantiate her claims. They even went as far as to install multiple cameras at her condo in an attempt to capture any suspicious activity, yet no evidence ever materialized. One of the things Lenny said that really stood out was his belief that these situations won't be resolved by ignoring them or ridiculing the people who believe they're being targeted.

He emphasized that dismissing their experiences only deepens their isolation. When we spoke to Detective Taylor, he confirmed that throughout the course of the investigation, they found no concrete evidence to support Bethany's claims of being targeted.

We were never able to substantiate anything like that. I mean, she had actually filed a couple of reports making that sort of allegation that somebody was spying on her or doing something to her or came into her apartment or whatever. But we could never corroborate any of that.

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While there's no proof to support Bethany's belief that she was a targeted individual, her growing paranoia seems to have made her vulnerable in other ways. Over time, her distrust of institutions intensified, particularly the government and financial organizations.

Jolinda shared that not long before Bethany disappeared, she received a significant settlement from a car accident. Rather than depositing the money into a bank account, Bethany was convinced that it would be safer to keep the cash at home. In many ways, her belief that she was being targeted likely made her more vulnerable.

Beth had been in the middle of a car accident in August, maybe. That wasn't her fault, but it totaled her car nevertheless. She got a personal injury lawyer and she sued them and got $39,000. It was 50 and then the lawyers took their part. She bought two safes to put that money in because she didn't trust banks and she

And she got that money in October. And the two boxes for those safes were there. They were small safes. She could carry them, but they were heavy. The two safes were not. So if there was anything that didn't seem right to me, that didn't seem right.

Could someone have targeted Bethany for the money she believed was safer at home? That's a question that lingers today. Jolinda shared that those safes have never been found. And what about those cameras that Bethany had in her apartment? Did they capture someone leaving with those safes? Jolinda told us that unfortunately, by the time she made it to Asheville, the window of time that those cameras held onto footage had closed. So if someone had been caught on camera, the footage was lost.

We asked Detective Taylor if Bethany's apartment and vehicle were forensically searched.

We obviously definitely did forensic search of her vehicle after we found it. We searched her apartment, but I wouldn't call it a forensic search per se, I guess, just because we know she had left there. We did not feel that she actually went missing from there or that she was abducted from there or anything like that. I mean, there wasn't an obvious sign of there was no blood in the vehicle or anything like that. I don't want to say yes or no either way.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, we treated it as though it was, and that's why we forensically examined it.

Who knew about the money Bethany had stashed away in her condo? That's a critical question, as it's possible that someone close to her may have been aware of the cash. JoLinda firmly believes that there was one man in Bethany's life who knew about it. Given the timing of her disappearance and the fact that the safes and the cash were never found, it's hard not to wonder if this person played a role in what happened to Bethany, or if they may hold some key information that could shed light on her disappearance.

Now, she herself told me that this guy who was really an ex-boyfriend, but I think he was hanging around because he knew she had cash. And I think she called him AJ. She told me that AJ carried them into the condo. She told me, and her friend Jeannie knows about this. She had given this man either five or $10,000 to invest in something for her. And

And then she wanted the money back and he wouldn't give it to her. And Jeannie said that Beth was very angry and very determined to get her money back. Now, the police interviewed this man. They told me he's clear. They don't think he had anything to do with it. I disagree. And Jeannie disagrees.

We had also hoped that the condo where Bethany lived may have some security cameras that could offer some clues, perhaps capturing Bethany or someone else carrying the safes out of the apartment. Unfortunately, Jolinda shared that the condo complex didn't have any security cameras in place. Melissa, who spoke to Bethany often, was one of the few people who seemed to have a window into what Bethany was experiencing in the days leading up to her disappearance. Melissa recalled Bethany mentioning someone she had been seeing around that time.

She was getting a lot of money from me for the work she was doing, and she also did have the settlement. And then all that cash went missing. But she had some really questionable people around her. She and I had multiple conversations about the people around her before she went missing. Some of the bad players that were a part of her situation. She had a married boyfriend, and his wife...

was coming near her property. She had mentioned that she had had drugs around her and that they had brought drugs. I had tried to explain to her that it's one of those things that you can't backslide like that. If you ever have an addiction issue and you get clean, it's not the kind of thing that you can just pick up and do that again when you want to and then stop. It

If you have an addiction, you have to make the decision to stop that addiction altogether all the time. Those were some of the conversations that she and I had had.

One recurring theme that several people mentioned when reflecting on Bethany's life was the turbulent nature of her relationships with men. Jolinda believes these struggles may trace back to a deep emotional wound, the loss of her father at a young age. In many ways, Jolinda thinks Bethany was always trying to fill that void, searching for connection and love in the wrong places. These relationships often seem to send Bethany into a downward spiral, triggering a series of emotional and mental health challenges.

Melissa was particularly concerned about some of the men Bethany had been involved with. She knew that certain relationships were unhealthy for Bethany, and she tried to gently encourage her to recognize her worth. Melissa reminded Bethany that she deserved so much more than the toxic dynamics she sometimes found herself in. She would be in a relationship with anyone to be in a relationship with.

She and I had, I mean, honestly, I'm very strong personality type in general. So I have a tendency to preach a little bit too much just because I'm worried about someone's well-being. And because as a woman, you know, if you've ever been in a bad relationship, you bought that T-shirt, you've had that experience and you have that

hard time watching someone else go through an experience like that. When you've already bought the t-shirt, sometimes we do the best that we can as women to help other women and just make them kind of like wake up and see things. And I think that sometimes she just had this desire so much to be loved and cherished. And I don't think that she was getting that from the relationships that she was in. I feel like most of the time, a big part of that too, was the fact that she was

pursuing men that were already married or otherwise spoken for. And so for that reason, she couldn't get the level of attention she was looking for. Could one of Bethany's relationships have turned sour and played a role in her disappearance? It's a question that looms large as we piece together the details of her life in the days leading up to her disappearance. Jolinda shared more information about the results of the search of Bethany's vehicle.

The detective told me that, unlike on TV, he said getting a good fingerprint is actually unusual and that they were not able to get any good fingerprint out of the car. Now, did they get some DNA? Yes. The state crime lab where DNA's been, and this was 2021, so we're still pandemic going on, and the state crime lab is behind schedule. They were behind schedule before the pandemic ever started, and

And they will only allow you to send five samples at a time. And then you're going to wait at least six months before you get any results from it. Send off five and wait, wait, wait, and then say, nope, we didn't get any hits. There's nothing going on with that. I don't know how many they sent. Eventually they do.

They did get a hit. There was a pair of underwear in the car, women's underwear in the car. It had Beth's DNA on it and it had a male DNA. The male DNA was in the system and they did interview him. I mean, all they tell me is he said he knew Beth and that yes, he had had sex with her, but that he didn't know where she was. And that's all they would tell me. And that's the only useful DNA that I'm aware of that

That's also the same thing that they have told me about ever since they said they've interviewed over 75 people. And basically, every single person says, yes, I know her, but I don't know what happened to her. They moved the case from missing persons to homicide. They still have the car and told me, you know, it's evidence and it's going to stay in the forensic garage or wherever it is.

While the DNA may initially sound like a significant breakthrough, it doesn't provide any definitive answers. What does it really prove? That this person had sexual contact with Bethany at some point, which he admitted. But that doesn't necessarily mean he harmed her, or that he played a role in her disappearance.

Melissa said it's been defeating. Each time they think they've found something that could be the key to solving this mystery, it always seems to fall short of providing the answers they need. The DNA may be a piece of the puzzle, but it's still unclear how it fits into the bigger picture of what happened to Bethany.

No, it's definitely not a smoking gun. But at the same time, it leads to bigger questions. And that's one thing that I think is really frustrating about this particular case is that there is not a lot of follow up that seemed to have happened with some of those questions, if that makes any sense. It seems like there's a lot that is still open and undone and unsorted. It's hard to know why this has not been dug into a little bit deeper.

The lack of concrete evidence in both Bethany's car and her apartment has left Jolinda and investigators desperately searching for any clue that might explain what happened to her. One of the biggest unanswered questions is where her car was during the months it was missing, before it was found in a grocery store parking lot, just a short distance from where Bethany's phone last pinged. Detective Taylor noted last week that he didn't believe the car had been parked there the entire time,

He had personally checked that area, and the store manager confirmed that the car hadn't been there until February. However, Bethany's friend Christy is left wondering why someone would have kept the car for so long, and what prompted them to finally abandon it.

It's a long time because usually it shows up quicker, but that's a long time. It's almost like, did they do something to her and then leave town with her car and then come back and dump it or what? Hide it in a garage somewhere and then dump it.

When we spoke to Detective Taylor, we asked him if there was any evidence to suggest that the vehicle had been removed from the Asheville area and then later returned. Had it been detected by any license plate readers, either in Asheville or elsewhere? He explained that the car never showed up on any plate readers, although he noted that in 2021, there were limited plate readers in the Asheville area. After Bethany's apartment was searched, Jolinda took it upon herself to carefully go through what was left behind, hoping to find some hidden clues.

Among the items Bethany left behind were a couple of laptops, but no one's been able to access them due to the heavy encryption. This has been especially perplexing to Jolinda, as she never believed Bethany was particularly tech-savvy. The encrypted laptops remain an ongoing mystery, one of the many unanswered pieces in the puzzle of Bethany's disappearance.

They did not search the condo until January. And of course, she disappeared in November. I kept wondering, why aren't they searching the condo? And those were homicide detectives who came. I wasn't allowed in, but there were three of them. They brought some stuff out and took it off, but not a whole lot. And I have no idea what they took. I think they took the sheets off the bed. They'd

They took the laptop. I did find some list of numbers and I passed those on to the police. She had two or three laptops and I passed those on to the police. They're password protected, but generally tech people can get around that when they're going to do a forensic analysis of a laptop.

They told me they hadn't been able to get in the laptop. I don't know if she knew somebody who might have done that. What I do know is that I maintained a Best Buy total tech support membership so that she could take her electronics because she had so much trouble operating them. There was always something she couldn't make work right about her phone. I mean, there were some simple things that even I know how to do that she didn't.

Sometimes in the cases we cover, the missing person can be just as much of a mystery as their disappearance. Melissa shared that after Bethany vanished, she began to realize that some of what she had been told wasn't actually the truth. It's been incredibly difficult to untangle this web, trying to separate what she once thought was real from what was truly happening in Bethany's life.

She wasn't honest about the fact that she was using. She had told me because, I mean, I had been paying for her to see a specialist, a doctor who was responsible for helping people get sober, and also to see a mental health therapist. They were billing me. I was really disappointed and surprised when she did go missing because I was under the impression that we were in a completely different place.

In part one, you learned that Bethany had a history of panhandling in the Asheville area, a behavior that over time made her somewhat notorious within the local community. But one of the key questions that still lingers is, why was Bethany panhandling? Melissa couldn't understand it. After all, Bethany was earning a steady income through her work.

and her mother, Jolinda, was covering her expenses. So why would she resort to panhandling, especially when she had other financial support? This contradiction has left those who knew her struggling to understand why Bethany was doing this. If you go back and if you look at the first few posts that were made after her disappearance, even by like the local news media, there's a lot of hate posts.

A lot of this effed around and found out kind of stuff. There's a lot of that. She had been panhandling. She had gotten in trouble for aggressive panhandling and been arrested several times for it in Asheville, which, again, I don't really understand because...

she was getting paid well, that always left me with a lot of questions, understanding why or how or anything else, unless she was handling something else.

We had kind of started trying to add up things that didn't make sense. Well, she was making $6,000 a month from the work that she was doing from me. And I mean, that's not a king's ransom, but that's still really good for a writer who is working 20 to 25 hours a week. She didn't have any bills. Her mom paid for her food. Her mom paid for her rent.

And so the only thing that I could figure is that it was all going to an addiction or to a boyfriend. I never understood the why. I just can't begin to guess. The aggressive panhandling that she was actually arrested for did involve verbal altercations. And I didn't know...

about it until she you know was arrested for it and asked her at that time why what she had conveyed to me was that she needed more money again i couldn't understand but when i asked her about it she just said well i needed more money i need to cash then i was like what

like, but why? I just paid you. I don't understand. She was like, well, you know, I just needed cash. And there was never any reason or follow up beyond that. Towards the end, things just didn't really make a lot of sense. There were a lot of excuses and not a lot of clear answers. And I feel like she was hiding a lot from the people around her near the very end.

Many social media comments from locals speculated that Bethany may have been targeted by someone she angered through her panhandling. Some commenters suggested that she had messed around with the wrong person and paid the price. On Reddit, an account claiming to be her ex-husband posted, "'I used to be married to her. She was a monster and probably messed around with the wrong person and found out.'" And later added, "'She's dead. She wasn't smart enough to just disappear off the grid. She hung out with the lowest form of humanity she could find.'"

We reached out to this account for more information, and we heard back from him last week on the day that Bethany's first episode was released. He said, All I know is that she ran with some very shady characters. From what I was told, she gave her boyfriend dealer several thousand dollars that he was supposed to pay back, but instead he broke up with her. My guess is that she went to get revenge, maybe even threatened to tell the police, and he either killed her or had her killed. This is all just speculation based on limited information.

While at first it sounded as though his comment could have been about the panhandling, it seems that he believes it was someone closer to Bethany. Detective Taylor told us that as of now, there's no evidence to support the theory that Bethany's disappearance is connected to her panhandling. She had struggled with that sort of thing. There's no question about it. I mean, we had some complaints on her, but I mean, we don't have any reason to believe at all that that had anything to do with her disappearance.

In part one, Detective Taylor explained that investigators were able to track Bethany's phone data, which showed the device moving through the Asheville and Swannanoa areas leading up to her disappearance. At some point, the phone powered down or went dead, and it's never been recovered.

Well, I mean, obviously it's still missing. We searched the general area as best we could. I mean, it was, like I said, this tower was right off the interstate. I mean, we just kind of walked shoulders of the interstate for it, but, you know, didn't find it at all. We do have the phone records, though. The people she communicated with, you know, obviously we talked to them.

But none of them say that, yes, she was actually here at this specific time. And we know who, for the most part, she was communicating with during those hours in question. But we don't know for certain who she was actually with or where specifically she was. General areas in the East Asheville, Swan and Ola area or whatever, but as far as specific locations, we don't know that. That makes it difficult.

I can say, you know, we've been able to talk to everybody, but they're generally pretty vague on what they tell you. Although no one has been publicly named a person of interest in Bethany's disappearance, Detective Taylor did confirm that there are individuals being closely examined as part of their ongoing investigation. While he couldn't share specific details, he emphasized that they are pursuing leads and continue to look at all angles in an effort to uncover what happened to Bethany.

Yes, I would say, but I can't go into any other detail about who those individuals would be or why.

A small glimmer of hope remains that perhaps Bethany made the choice to disappear on her own. Could her growing paranoia have led her to leave, taking her stash of money with her in an attempt to escape what she believed were threats? For Bethany's Aunt Chris, this remains a possibility she clings to. Despite everything, Chris hopes that Bethany is out there somewhere, choosing to live on her own terms, even if that means severing ties with everyone she knew.

Jolinda had mentioned that Bethany had become very paranoid. The point I was trying to make to Jolinda was this drug bust that went down was after four years of the police surveilling these drug lords. And if Bethany was running in that crowd, there might not have been so much paranoia for thinking people were watching her. She may literally have been people watching her. She may have been part of the surveillance.

My hopeful thoughts were that Bethany started to see this drug bust coming and left. Really felt like somebody was coming to get her. Maybe she tried to disappear. I mean, that's what I'm hoping we'll find out is that she got scared and ran away. Probably not. I think that's wishful thinking, but it's a possibility. And now I just learned recently that she actually had some funds that disappeared at the same time. So...

And Bethany's really, really smart. That's one thing you got to know about her. She was genius level smart, who would know how to dot the I's and cross the T's. If she really wanted to go and get lost where nobody could find her, she would know how to do it. She would absolutely have known not to take a phone.

Melissa explained that during their talks, she spoke of wanting to go off-grid in Costa Rica. While this could have just been a passing thought, it made Melissa wonder, was Bethany planning to escape? And if so, did her paranoia push her toward that decision?

It really surprised me when she did disappear because I always thought she would turn up. I always thought they might find her in Costa Rica. She even spoke some about going to live off grid in Costa Rica and things like that. This is something that I even mentioned to the police several times that they might actually want to check Costa Rica because she had been exploring the possibility of living off grid there.

And I've known a lot of people who actually have left the U.S. for Costa Rica, and it has not been that challenging for them. Not saying that she would do that, but I did mention that several times to the police as they were following up on Leeds.

Earlier, Jolinda shared that Bethany's case has been reclassified from missing persons to homicide. Naturally, we were left wondering if investigators had uncovered any evidence pointing to foul play. When we spoke to Detective Taylor, he clarified that while they have not yet found concrete proof of a homicide or foul play, they're treating Bethany's case as a potential homicide.

I can't say positively that there's foul play involved, but we are definitely treating it as though there is, just because of the fact that she's had no contact with her mother at all during this time. It's highly unusual. We've tried reaching out to the public numerous times. When she first went missing, we did news releases, and then we did another one at the one-year mark, and then we did another one at the two-year mark. To be honest with you, we just didn't get any response. I mean,

I mean, definitely somebody knows something, I think, but we're still strongly working the case and we're just trying to find closure for her mother. I mean, and she knows that the outcome is likely not going to be good, but she still wants answers, you know, just to know what happened with her daughter. And so I think that's the biggest thing is me. Obviously, we want to solve the case or figure out, you know, what happened, but we just want to help her mother at this point.

Jolinda first reached out to us in April to inquire about Bethany's story being featured on the show, and we spent several months conducting interviews and gathering information to piece this series together. However, just as we were gearing up for production, the western region of North Carolina was struck by Hurricane Helene in September, causing widespread catastrophic damage. Asheville and Swannanoa were hit particularly hard.

If you had been following the news, you may recall seeing harrowing images of Swannanoa submerged under floodwaters. Helene was officially declared the most destructive hurricane in North Carolina history. Governor Roy Cooper called it the deadliest and most damaging storm to ever hit North Carolina. Most of us watched in disbelief as entire mountain towns were wiped away by flooding and landslides.

And in the immediate aftermath, our social media feeds were flooded with desperate pleas from people trying to find loved ones who had vanished in the chaos. Communication in the area was cut off, and for a time,

We lost touch with Jolinda. It wasn't until late October that we were able to reconnect with her. She said, a bad hurricane event in the mountains was certainly unexpected. It has been a difficult experience, and I'm one of the fortunate ones. No close family member or friend died. Being totally cut off from communication for more than two weeks was bizarre. After I could receive texts again, I discovered that I had been reported as a missing person. No one could get in touch with me.

Although I live in one of the hardest hit areas, our little town center survived, unlike Swannanoa, a community less than five miles from my house that was totally destroyed. There's still a vast amount of destruction all over western North Carolina. I contacted Kevin Taylor, the APD detective assigned to Beth's case. As

As soon as I could to ask if search and rescue teams would collect human remains if they saw them. I fear that they will never be found, after the force of the water or mudslides displaced them, from wherever they might be, and washed them downstream, scattered them, reburied them under 20 feet of mud. Or maybe moved them where a thigh bone or skull might be more easily seen. These are terrible thoughts when people are here mourning the dead, and search teams are still looking for the missing.

When communication was finally restored, it came as a shock to Jolinda to learn that she had been classified as a missing person, just like her daughter. Jolinda couldn't help but reflect on how things had come full circle. But instead of focusing on her own circumstances, Jolinda's thoughts immediately returned to Bethany and the impact of the storm on the search efforts.

When we spoke to Detective Taylor, he acknowledged that the hurricane had temporarily diverted resources to disaster relief, but reassured Jolinda that the investigation into Bethany's disappearance was resuming.

I mean, everybody here thought it was safe. We knew a hurricane was coming, but not what actually the extent of it was. I mean, there's no question that this past month or six weeks or whatever it's been now has affected our time and resources that we would normally spend on cases we were currently working on. I mean, because everything just got redirected to disaster recovery, relief or assistance, whatever.

Anything, you know, associated with it. So I guess in that sense, it has an effect on the investigation. But I mean, once we get through that, you know, we're kind of at that point now where we're getting back, we can get refocused on these cases again.

At the end of this story, Jolinda voiced a deep fear that people will remember Bethany for her struggles rather than the person she truly was. She wants her daughter to be seen for her talents, her intelligence, and the potential she had, not just for the difficult chapters in her life.

She had a lot of potential. Beth did write a lot of poetry, but a lot of it is very indicative of the kind of mental struggles as well as you could actually see how she's trying so hard and

and how she really wants her life to be different and fuller picture of who she is rather than just the miseries of her last 10 or 15 years. And I don't want anybody to get to the end of it and think she got what she deserved.

So what happened to Bethany Collins-Buckles shortly before Thanksgiving in 2021? We know that the last time Bethany spoke to her mother, Jolinda, was over the phone, as they discussed their Thanksgiving grocery plans.

Bethany promised to follow up the next day, but Jolinda never heard from her daughter again. Days passed and Jolinda, growing concern, requested a welfare check. It was then she learned that Bethany and her vehicle were both gone. Investigators traced Bethany's phone, following its movements after she had spoken to Jolinda, and it showed her phone moving around the Asheville and Swannanoa areas before suddenly going silent.

Investigators reached out to those who had been in contact with Bethany leading up to her disappearance, but no one reported having seen her. Everyone was stumped, and the case grew colder by the day.

Then, in February 2022, a surprising break came when Bethany's vehicle was discovered in a grocery store parking lot. While the car contained a male DNA sample that led investigators to a possible suspect, it wasn't enough to prove any connection to Bethany's disappearance or suggest foul play. One of the biggest mysteries still remained: where had the car been for all of those months, and who had left it there? Leaving everyone — investigators, friends, and family — still searching for the truth.

Many have speculated about what could have led to Bethany's disappearance. Some people have wondered if she may have been targeted for the money she had hidden away. Money from a car accident settlement that she was keeping at home instead of depositing in the bank. The money disappeared with Bethany, and the two safes she stored it in have never been found. Could someone have known about her stash and seen an opportunity? But even with that theory, no one can say for certain that it played a role in her disappearance.

Above all, those who love her want Bethany to be remembered for more than just the challenges she faced in her final years. They want people to remember her for her talents, her creativity, and the joy she brought to those who knew her. Jolinda, Melissa, and others are desperate for people to see past the stigma surrounding her struggles with mental health and understand that at her core, Bethany was so much more than the worst time in her life. They don't want her to be defined by the darkness she battled, but by the light that they saw within her.

The question remains, what really happened to Bethany Collins-Buckles, and will the truth ever come to light? If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Bethany Collins-Buckles, please contact Detective Kevin Taylor from the Asheville Police Department at 828-259-5945.

I think recently on TV they ran, on WLOS, they ran something about her again. She's still missing and no other leads. Somebody knows. I mean, somebody knows. Somebody was with her. Somebody knows what happened. Several people probably know. I can't believe we haven't found anything. No body, no purse, no... I just can't believe she's still missing. A lot of people think, "Oh, she crossed paths with the wrong person." You know, that's panhandling.

I don't think that's what happened. I really don't think she was at the wrong place at the wrong time with that. You know, I feel like there's more connected with maybe that shooting, a bad drug deal, or that's how I feel like it's more involved.

Isn't that so weird? Or a grocery store, no one sees anything on video. I just don't understand. I don't think they're that lucky. But I mean, and as we all know, you see, there's also multiple cameras, a bank or whatever, catching cars on video. Why are we not having any of this?

That brings us to the end of episode 467. 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. We'll be covering a case from Nevada. Thanks for listening.

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