MISSING: The Mishawaka Girls

0:00Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. Now listen, there is not a lot of information that has been shared yet in the story I'm about to tell you, which is why it's going to be so brief. But what we do have points to a perpetrator's bizarre and unsettling MO. And I think I know exactly where we can find answers. This is the story of Jules Conner and Casey Monroe.

0:37Thank you.

1:03alone at the home she shares with her sister Jules. Now, when she went to get a glass of water, she was surprised to see the door to Jules' room open and an empty bed inside. Because even though Jules worked a late shift at the dive bar, this place called Harry's over in South Bend, Indiana that night, like, she would normally be home by like one or two in the morning. So it's weird that it's three and she's not. And at first, Jenna tried just calling her a few times. Like, she knew that Jules' car was pretty unreliable. Though, you know, she would have thought that if something had happened, like she would have expected to see a missed call from Jules at some point, like if she got stranded, you know, but you just never know.

1:40So she's trying to call her. When call after call went unanswered, anxiety began to build in Jenna until she physically just couldn't sit still and wait anymore. Like she had to go looking for her sister. Now she tried Harry's, but it was long past closed. There weren't even any cars in the lot when she got there, which at first brought a little bit of relief. Like, maybe she was being a dramatic older sister. Like, if Jules left in her car, maybe she had just gone over to a friend's or who knows. And she felt better, but there was still something sitting in the back of her mind. Like, what if?

2:15What if she was on the side of the road somewhere? Jenna hadn't passed her car anywhere on the road as she had driven two Harry's from their place. But she knew that there was more than one way to get there. So to quiet that last little whisper in her mind, she told herself she would just go home one other route that she knew her sister might sometimes take. She wasn't going to find anything, right? Like that's what she's telling herself, but it would help her sleep. She hoped she wouldn't find anything. But as the couple of shopping strips faded into cornfields and tree lines and the streetlights disappeared, her headlights hit on something that made all of her fear come roaring back till it was like ringing in her ears.

2:56It was Jules' car on the side of the road with the driver's side door open. And when she gets a closer look, she sees her sister's phone, wallet, money, everything is sitting on the passenger seat. But Jules' is nowhere to be found. And you said this was a road she probably would have taken before. Yeah, this is a pretty common route between where the bar was in South Bend and their house in Osceola. And like they grew up in Mishawaka, right in the middle of the two. Yeah, I can like close my eyes and picture the road you're talking about. Like it's the kind of road that you know, like the back of your head if you grew up there.

3:31Right. Now, even though Jenna goes to police and even though the circumstances are fishy as hell, her sister's disappearance doesn't quite get the urgency she knows it deserves. Even the media won't really pick up Jewel's story. But everyone takes notice when just two weeks later, Another young woman from Mishawaka goes missing, and there are eerie parallels to when Jules disappeared. So this is on August 17th. 19-year-old Casey Monroe's car is found abandoned by a family who are on a road trip, and her car is found exactly the same way as Jules. Driver's side door open, all her personal belongings on the passenger seat.

4:12The only difference is her car is found up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and her family says she didn't really know anyone up there. She didn't have any reason to be going up there the day that she went missing. And when the media picks up on this second disappearance, like they're quick to connect the cases, dubbing them the missing Mishawaka girls, since both were from Mishawaka. And even though police have that same inclination, the thing is, they can't find any connection between the two young women other than where they grew up as kids and then how they disappeared. There doesn't seem to be any overlap.

4:42So the cases end up getting worked separately by two different agencies. They're not working together. And so years end up going by without them ever identifying a suspect in either case, much less proving that they're connected. And in that time, no other cases like this, like, cropped up? Like, it's just these two? As far as the police departments are concerned, yes. So maybe whoever took them died or got caught for something else and was in jail or prison, whatever. And by 2019, each family had resigned themselves to a bitter truth. Jules and Casey were probably dead, and whoever killed them probably got away with murder.

5:24But that wasn't an ending that Jenna could accept. She believed in her heart of hearts that there had to be a thread that police had missed, something that connected Jules and Casey. And if only she could find that, she could find who killed them. Now, she knew that no one knew Jules like her, which meant that she needed to get to the one person who knew Casey better than anyone else in the world. Her younger sister, Nick. And what they uncovered together sets off a chain of events that completely changes their lives forever. The thing is, I can't tell you what they found here. Cue crime junkies immediately hating you.

6:07I know, only for a minute, I hope, because what I just gave you, you guys, is not a real case, but the start of the plot to my new mystery thriller novel, The Missing Half, which after the longest wait of my life, is now available wherever books are sold. So please don't hate me. You now have hours more content coming your way. I promise. I finished The Advanced Reader last fall in like one sitting. Dare I say, Ashley, it's better than all good people here. I honestly think it might be. I really think Crime Junkies are going to love this book. Again, The Missing Half has officially hit stores as of May 6th.

6:47You can be the first to solve the mystery by shopping at your local bookstore or at the link in the show notes. And you can also read the full description there. So please go check it out. I cannot wait for you to read this one. Enjoy Crime Junkies.