What was your experience with the police officers
that showed up?
[Michael] They had pinged her phone.
It was out of state and it was in Missouri.
Wow.
How the hell was her phone in Missouri?
Yeah, why is her phone in a different state?
Was it located?
It was found the next morning on the side of, I believe
it was like an on-ramp or an off-ramp.
Does your mother know anybody in Missouri?
-No one. -Was there any part of you
that was thinking your mother could have possibly
just walked away? -Absolutely not.
I think something went very bad, and it...
may have cost her her life.
-[theme music playing] -[Pamela] I was born in Chicago.
I grew up in Chicago.
This is my city.
I spent 20 years as a Chicago PD,
missing persons detective.
But when I retired, the work never stopped.
This job never leaves you.
And my mission now is to return to the cases
that others left behind.
And find that one clue that can finally break the case.
[Pamela] Most missing persons cases are solved within a few hours,
but others can drag on for years.
And when the missing is an adult, the answers can be
even harder to find.
On September 25th, 2019, 53-year-old Erica Thompson
mysteriously vanished from Brookfield, Illinois...
[reporter] The light outside of Erica Thompson's home
is still on.
That she hasn't been seen or heard from in weeks.
[Pamela] ...leaving behind a trail of cryptic messages --
He received a text and it read, "It's me time,
it's time for me."
...tumultuous relationships --
She did not pick the greatest men.
I like the bad-boy type of thing.
...and disturbing clues.
I looked down and there's a bracelet.
What condition was the bracelet in?
[Dana] It was broken.
[Pamela] Now, six years later, her family seems
no closer to finding answers.
[Dana] I don't know where she is.
The hardest part of all this is we can't find her.
And the questions swirl.
Was she running away to start a new life?
"I am off to do some huge soul-searching
to see if I have one and where I put it."
Or had something from her past come back to haunt her?
[Struck] He got arrested for domestic battery
and Erica was the victim,
I think something went very bad,
and it may have cost her her life.
[Pamela] In 2021, the Cook County Sheriff's Office
set up a missing-persons unit to look at cases
in the greater Chicago area that had stalled.
Erica's case was one that had recently popped up
on their list.
You know, when a child goes missing, everybody's looking.
When an adult goes missing, it's a totally different story.
Days can get past you before anyone notices
that this might actually be a missing-persons case.
Erica lived in Brookfield,
a small suburb just southwest of Chicago.
Today, I'm meeting with Erica's son, Michael.
I'm gonna get Michael's point of view
as to what happened to his mother.
And I also wanna know what was going on in her life,
leading up to her disappearance.
So, Michael, it's been six years.
I know you have a lot of questions.
Tell me about the last time you spoke with your mother.
So, the last time I talked to my mom was
through text throughout the day of September 24th of 2019.
I was texting her for a couple days about some packages
that I had being delivered over there, but by October 1st,
I haven't heard from her for several days
and she was not responding to any of my text messages.
-And that was unusual? -Very.
So me and my girlfriend at the time
ended up going over there the next day.
[Pamela] Did you notice anything unusual?
Yes, her car wasn't there to begin with, which already
gave me a bad feeling, and then the back door,
the sliding glass door, was open.
The central AC unit is directly next to the door outside,
and it was running at full strength,
and that was very unusual.
Because she would never do both at the same time.
[Michael] She was very big on saving money.
It wouldn't make any sense.
And you go into the house.
[Michael] It was very bizarre.
The kitchen table takes up a lot of space in the room,
so it's usually pushed up against the wall,
and it was strewn out into the middle of the floor
on a diagonal angle. -What was your next move?
I started dialing her boss.
He said she had not been at work for a couple days.
Was she typically the type that would go to work
every single day? -Yes.
And her boss did mention to me he received a text
from my mother one of the days that she did not
show up for work.
And it read something strange.
Something like, "It's me time. It's time for me."
It wasn't articulate. Didn't make sense.
What was your mother's state of mind at the time
of her disappearance?
She was doing a lot of self-reflecting.
She had broken up with a boyfriend,
I believe, in April. -[Pamela] OK.
-Was that difficult for her? -Yeah.
She was depressed and she was upset with herself.
-[Pamela] OK. -[Michael] Her relationship with him
had caused a lot of whiffs between
herself and her sister,
herself and her mother, me and her.
So, you've mentioned the ex-boyfriend.
What was going on in her life with him?
[Michael] Chet.
-She had met him at a local bar. -How long had she known Chet?
It's been a couple years.
I'm not entirely sure the full length.
Did they have a good relationship?
No.
Why do you say that?
From an outside perspective, it seemed like there was
a lot of narcissism and manipulation.
I think anything he does would be to serve himself
and not with the intention of caring for my mom.
My mom would isolate herself.
I think he was responsible for that.
Do you think your mom realized what he was doing?
Yes.
I think it took her a while, but she had broken up with him
and she was picking back up on the relationship with me
and the rest of the family and stuff.
After Chet, did she get involved with anyone else?
No, no. He was the last one.
[Pamela] OK.
So, you contacted work. What did you do next?
[Michael] I decided to go to some of the local places I know
she would stop in at to ask around if anyone had
seen her recently.
But they hadn't seen her in a while.
OK.
At around 6:30 PM on October 1st,
Michael called the Brookfield PD
and filed an official missing-persons case
for his mother.
What was your experience with the police officers
that showed up?
The detective wasn't overly concerned.
That the police had to entertain the idea
that she could have just up and left on her own.
And then within a couple hours, I got a call back.
They had pinged her phone.
It was out of state, and it was in Missouri.
Wow!
So, what are you telling the police at this point?
That she is missing.
Yeah, how the hell is her phone in Missouri?
Yeah, why is her phone in a different state?
Was it located? What did it just pick?
It was located the next morning.
It was found on the side of, off of a highway.
I believe it was like an on-ramp or an off-ramp.
And if I do remember correctly, one of the detectives told me
that it was in a bag.
[Pamela] Mm.
Does your mother know anybody in Missouri?
No one.
[Pamela] She had no reason to be in Missouri?
[Michael] No.
Was there any part of you that was thinking your mother
could have possibly just walked away?
Absolutely not.
I think something went very bad,
and it may have
cost her her life.
This is a really strange case.
Erica vanishes,
the house is left open,
her car is missing,
and her phone is in Missouri.
Was she taken?
Or could she have walked away on her own?
I want to know more about this boyfriend.
I want to know more about what was going on in her life.
People keep secrets, and sometimes you need to dig
deep to find the truth.
[Pamela] In the days after Erica's son Michael reported her missing,
a Brookfield PD canine team found no trace of remains
in her home.
The dogs tracked Erica's scent to her driveway where her car
was usually parked.
But from there, the trail went cold.
Begging the question, did Erica leave on her own
or was she with someone else?
Michael believes someone is responsible
for her disappearance, but I know all too well
that families often jump to the worst conclusions
because they cannot imagine a loved one simply walking away.
Michael just sent me this email that Erica sent to her sister
Dana just six days before she went missing.
And it says,
"Slowly over the past few months, I have looked at myself
"trying to figure who I am, what I have become.
"Somewhere in time, I broke.
"I do understand I have caused great resentment.
"Somewhere something happened and I have quit being human.
"I do not feel joy or happiness. Not sure when, if I ever did.
"I hope you find the best in yourselves.
"You deserve far better from life.
"I am off to do some huge soul searching
to see if I have one and where I put it."
This is truly her breaking inside.
She was in a lot of pain.
Reading this, you gotta ask -- "What was her mindset
"at the time? Could she have run away?
Could she have harmed herself?"
Erica's disappearance devastated her family,
especially her mother Bonnie,
who has not left her home or received visitors
in the past six years.
She's never spoken with police or the media,
but she and her partner Velma have agreed
to a phone call to tell me more about her daughter.
-Hi, is this Bonnie? -[Bonnie] Yes, this is Bonnie.
[Pamela] Hi, Bonnie. This is Pamela.
I appreciate you taking my call.
I know that you knew Erica better than anybody.
And I just wanna get a clear understanding
of what Erica was like.
[Bonnie] Erica was very talkative.
-She was very smart. -[Pamela] Mm-hmm.
[Bonnie] She was very kind and sweet, to a fault,
to some extent, you know?
She would help people all the time.
What can you tell me about the last exchange
that you had with Erica?
[Bonnie] We were texting on the 25th of September, 2019.
And I think we stopped texting about 10:30 at night.
At 10:30 PM?
[Bonnie] Yes, that's accurate.
So how was Erica mentally when you guys were
communicating before she disappeared?
[Velma] I'm Bonnie's partner, Velma. Can I say something?
[Pamela] Yes, of course.
[Velma] I've known Erica for 21 years.
She was self-reflecting about, you know, about some things
that happened to her in the past with some men,
and she was wanting to change and be better, but she was fine
on the 25th. She sounded fine.
So at this point in September, she and Chet were apart.
-The relationship was over? -[both] Yes.
[Pamela] What was that like for her?
[Bonnie] It wasn't easy.
What was he like?
[Velma] I got a bad vibe about him when I met him.
I didn't like him.
[Bonnie] He wasn't like personable at all.
[Velma] And then we had Googled him and found out he had been
in and out of jail.
He had set his ex-wife's apartment on fire.
The whole apartment building went up in flames.
At the time, luckily, nobody was in there.
-And he went to jail for that? -[both] Yeah.
[Velma] And then he got out on parole from it,
and then Erica met him in 2017.
[Pamela] She knew this, and she was still dating him?
[Velma] She was giving him the benefits of the doubt,
you know, thinking, uh, people change, you know.
[Pamela] Mm-hmm.
And where was Chet when Erica disappeared?
[Velma] We heard that, uh, Chet was in Texas
when Erica went missing.
[Pamela] OK. Was there a guy before Chet?
-[Bonnie] Yes. -What was his name?
-[Bonnie] Brad? -Brad.
What can you tell me about Brad?
[Velma] He did tell us that he was a bit controlling.
[Pamela] Brad was controlling.
[Bonnie] Yeah, 'cause she told me that he got her
grump all the time
At one point, it was her birthday and I went
over there and she was out of her mind.
She couldn't even hold her head up.
I've never seen her like that, ever.
I just know there are women that are always needing a guy.
That is, I think, Erica.
Speaking with Bonnie and Velma, it seems like Erica
was the kind of person who would get involved
with the wrong men.
And if there's one thing that I've learned,
the kind of men who prey on women like Erica
can be more dangerous than family could ever imagine.
I'm going to meet my former partner, Joe Struck.
While I've been doing interviews, Joe's been pulling
records on Chet and Brad.
He also has a report from a contact at CPD
about security footage of Erica's car driving
around town the morning after her family last heard from her.
So basically,
I got one report that discusses her car.
-Mm-hmm. -And it basically says
that they got video of it from the 26th of September.
It says that at approximately 7:25, they see the dark-colored
Nissan Juke, which is her car,
the scene stopping at the stop sign located
on Westbound Monroe and Maple Street in Brookfield.
[Pamela] Wow. The last time she
spoke with her mom was September 25th
at night.
[Struck] And they observed a male white subject wearing
a white button-down collar shirt with a black object protruding
in his pocket.
[Pamela] So a man's driving her car?
-[Struck] Correct. -She's not.
-A female is not driving the -- -No.
We sent the videos to this tech guy at CPD
who was able to clear up the videos some, but not enough
to make any kind of positive ID.
[Pamela] OK.
What other reports were you able to come across?
[Struck] Well, I have criminal histories on Chet and one
of her older ex-boyfriends, Brad.
Now, Chet's the guy that was -- he was a truck driver.
I mean, he's a violent guy. He's a registered sex offender.
When he was in his 20s, he home invaded some woman,
raped her... -Wow.
[Struck] And then in 2010, he was charged with setting
his ex-wife's house on fire. -[Pamela] He's not a good guy.
-[Struck] No. -So what do we know about Brad?
Brad had two domestic violence
arrests.
In 2013, he got arrested for domestic battery
and Erica was the victim.
He was drinking a lot and he attacked her.
And then in 2015, he had another domestic battery
with Erica as the victim, but then she didn't show up
in court. -So it got tossed.
So it got tossed, yeah.
That is interesting because her mom did say
that she didn't know Brad to be abusive,
but this girl evidently didn't tell her mom
about the two domestic batteries.
[Struck] Yeah.
She apparently doesn't pick her significant others
too well. -No, she doesn't.
Two allegations of domestic abuse with Brad,
a registered sex offender and convicted arsonist,
and Chet.
And now we have an unknown male driving her car after she was
last heard from.
At this point, you've gotta ask yourself,
who else could have entered Erica's life?
Could there be a man more dangerous
than her two previous boyfriends?
[Pamela] The year after Erica Thompson's mysterious disappearance,
news reports revealed that Brookfield Police Detectives
had filed 115 reports on her case
and followed numerous leads, but they've never confirmed
that a suspect has been interviewed.
They've also made no mention of either of Erica's
ex-boyfriends or that an unknown male
had been seen driving her car.
So what's in these 115 reports?
Who were they looking at and why?
I'm going to meet with Erica's sister, Dana, who had firsthand
interactions with both of these guys.
She and Erica have been estranged for years,
but have reconnected right before Erica's disappearance.
Dana, I had an opportunity to look at this email
that Erica wrote to you.
She's apologizing profusely for bad behaviors.
And she was trying to regroup, trying to find herself.
And I wanted to ask, I know that she sent this to you,
and was there a reply that you had?
-Yes, I replied. -So, would you like to share?
I don't even know if I can read it.
Would you like for me to?
Yeah.
So this is your reply. "Erica, I love you.
"I want so much for you to get better.
"I'm wishing for nothing but healing,
"hopeful thoughts for you.
"You've put up with so much crap from the exes
"and worked so hard to get where you are.
"You're so smart, beautiful, intelligent.
"It would be a good time for some healing.
No one can fix you but you. You've got this."
And that's really beautiful.
The good thing about this is that you were able to send this
to her before she disappeared. -[Dana] Yeah -- she replied.
But that is the last email I received from her.
It's clear that your sister Erica surrounded herself
with some sketchy, you know, questionable fellas.
-Yeah. -[Pamela] But before we get
ahead of ourselves here, before Chet,
there was Brad.
Now, what was Brad like in her life?
Brad...
was very outgoing, energetic.
You know, we had a Fourth of July at her house.
[indistinct chatter]
He was fun. It was nice to get along with.
But after a while,
their relationship ended up rocky.
Did you know that he was abusive to her?
[Dana] There were a couple of instances where she
had told me that he choked her or had his hands around her neck
during an argument. -'Cause apparently
at two separate instances, he was arrested.
I wasn't aware of it.
She never told me that police were called to her house.
[Struck] So when did they break up, her and Brad?
Her and Brad? That probably was 2015.
So do you think that around 2019 he could have been
around and been involved with her being a missing person?
No, no.
He wasn't around.
I did look on Facebook and found that he was
in New Jersey, and he had been for several years before this.
What can you tell me about her most recent
boyfriend, Chet? -She met him at the bar.
[Struck] She met him in, like, 2017, right?
[Dana] Yes, somewhere between May and July.
I have video of me in her backyard with her,
and she was on the phone the whole time with him.
[indistinct arguing]
And then we learned about his background, arson,
sex offenders registry. -[Pamela] Mm-hmm.
And she was trying to convince us
that he deserved a second chance.
So eventually they broke up. How did that unfold?
It may have been around April or May, maybe May, that she had
gotten him out of the house. -[Pamela] In 2019?
-[Dana] Yeah. -Was that the end of it?
I didn't think so.
He may have been out of the house, but he would
still come back. He would still come around.
-[Pamela] For what? -[Dana] For laundry or a shower
because he was supposedly living in his truck.
So he was trying to, like,
hang on to every little thread he could.
[Dana] Yeah.
She gave him an ultimatum
because he was on a sex offender registry
and needed to register.
Registered sex offenders are required to keep
their addresses current with law enforcement.
At the time of Erica's disappearance,
Chet was registered at her home.
She was going to file paperwork for evictions.
-And he knew she was serious. -Yes.
And she would have been adamant about it,
and that would have ticked him off, I imagine.
Do you think that she was afraid of him?
Yeah.
She had cameras set up around her house and her driveway,
the front door, and the backyard that monitored
the perimeter of her house, pretty much.
But after she went missing, we found out that
her camera footage was deleted. It was not there.
Somebody had to have manually gotten rid of it.
What were you thinking at that point?
[Dana] I thought immediately that it was Chet.
[Pamela] While it sounded like Chet was out of Erica's life,
it's clear he was not.
And if there was an ultimatum, that's the kind of thing
that could set off someone with a history of violence.
But if Chet was out of town, who was driving Erica's car?
Could Chet be responsible for her disappearance?
[Pamela] At first, it wasn't clear how much Erica's ex-boyfriend,
Chet, was still in her life.
But we've since learned he was very much still in the picture.
So the big question for me is, where was Chet
when she disappeared?
We have an unknown male driving her car.
But we've also learned from Erica's mom that Chet was
allegedly in Texas at the time she was reported missing.
But we have not been able to confirm that.
We've reached out to Brookfield PD,
but they've turned us down for an interview.
But they are reviewing our request
to access the case files.
So what did police know?
Were they looking at Chet or someone else?
Dana told me her cousin Scott was in touch
with law enforcement
and even did some of his own investigating,
and found information that he thought could be valuable.
So how did you get involved with the police?
Dana gave me the lead detective's information.
We spoke on the phone for about 45 minutes.
Did the police ever give you any idea
of what they were focusing on?
He said they were looking at it as a kidnapping.
A kidnapping?
-[Struck] Did he tell you why? -He didn't expound on why.
I didn't ask questions.
I was shocked when he said, "kidnapping,"
but it made sense.
And then I found an article.
It says, "Heyworth, a police chase involving
"a kidnapping suspect from Chicago ended peacefully
"late Friday.
"The driver tried to elude the police.
He went off-road and he got stuck in a ditch near Route 51."
It's about two hours and 15 minutes away from here.
It says, "He was inside the truck for several hours.
"The SWAT finally forced their way into the truck,
"smashing a window,
and they filled it with pepper spray."
-And he gave up. -[Pamela] And what date is this?
[Scott] October 4th.
I do have a friend that works for that Illinois tollway,
and he knew that I was having this issue with my cousin.
He took this snapshot of a truck that came in
through the pound close to where he works.
I believe that's Chet's truck.
And this truck was involved in this high-speed chase.
Did the detective ever give you any information
on that day? -No, actually none.
There was nothing for about two years until they finally
told us that they found her car.
-[Struck] What did they tell you? -[Scott] They told us
they found it down in central Illinois
in Ten Mile Creek.
But do not release it. "Don't tell anybody.
Don't tell the media. Don't tell your friends."
And then there was no more communication until we had
the meeting at the Brookfield Police Department in August
of 22. -[Pamela] Mm-hmm.
And that's when they told us that they hit a brick wall,
quote unquote.
You haven't tried to reach out and talk to 'em?
No, and I was extremely disappointed,
but we understood.
And there hasn't been too many updates ever since.
[Pamela] From talking with Erica's family, one thing is clear.
Brookfield PD kept this investigation locked down.
They shared little with the family and even less
with the public. I can understand why.
One wrong detail slipping out
can derail an entire investigation.
But now, for the first time, Brookfield PD is
opening their files.
And after weeks of waiting, we finally have
the police reports in hand.
It's a massive 400-page document.
It's redacted, but it's obvious investigators were focused
on one main person.
He's a truck driver and registered sex offender.
It appears they're talking about Chet.
According to this document, on the day that Erica was
reported missing, which was October 1st in 2019,
Chet does have a conversation with the police.
It looks like they have a brief call, and then they have
a more detailed conversation the next day.
-[Struck] On October 2nd? -Yeah.
He stated that he was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
And he's telling the detectives the last time he spoke to Erica
was on the 28th of September through a text message saying,
"Hey, asshole, I'm behind you."
They asked him where he was when the message was sent.
And his response was, now get this, he was in Missouri
between Springfield and Joplin. -Where the phone was found.
[Pamela] Mm-hmm. So the officers asked him,
"Well, why would she be right behind you?"
And he stated that she had been talking to him about going
to Missouri to buy meth, which is total bullshit.
And according to this police report, the GPS shows
that on 28 September 2019, he was at the Walmart
in Springfield, Missouri.
He is seen walking into the Walmart by himself.
He buys some alcohol.
He makes a money transfer to a gentleman in Mount Vernon.
Then it goes on to say, "Erica's cell phone was found
inside of a Walmart bag on the side of the road."
[Struck] That really wouldn't mean much normally, but if you
throw in the fact that he just went to a Walmart
and he bought liquor there, so he had a Walmart bag.
And it's in the same town where the phone was found.
[Struck] Right.
[Pamela] And then three days after, she's reported missing.
[Struck] They spot that truck leaving the gas station.
That's when that whole chase thing happened.
[Pamela] Yes, right here.
According to the reports, the truck was
thoroughly searched.
But there's no indication if police found any evidence
of Erica having been in that truck.
According to court reports, Chet was convicted
on weapons charges.
He was sentenced to six years in prison
and was paroled in 2023.
But there is no mention
of charges related to Erica Thompson.
The question for me now is, where was Chet
when Erica disappeared?
And that's precisely what I'm going to ask him.
[Pamela] When I began investigating Erica Thompson's disappearance,
the possibility that she simply walked away from her life
or harmed herself was very real.
But the more I learned about Erica,
the clearer it became that she was a woman at a crossroads
that had chosen a new path,
a path with its own risk,
because it's when a woman severed ties
with a volatile man that life is most dangerous.
And while Erica had supposedly broken up with Chet
months before she vanished,
it wasn't until, allegedly, she threw him out for good
that things appeared to take a truly dark turn.
Every registered sex offender must keep their current address
on file.
Chet is currently out on parole
and registered at a large halfway house.
It's right up the road here.
Gaining access to this building is doable, but getting Chet
to speak is a whole different challenge.
There he is right there.
[Struck] He drives either a black Harley
or a orange pickup truck. -Would that happen to be it?
[Struck] That would probably be it right there.
It's an old bike too, yeah. So he's probably here.
-[Pamela] Hello, how are you? -[man] Good, how are you?
[Pamela] Great.
We just visited Chet's halfway house.
They knew him. They knew him.
They knew who we were looking for.
One guy said, "Oh, let me go knock on his room door."
He said he usually answers it for him,
but he did not.
[Pamela] I'm sure he doesn't wanna talk to us.
I did leave my name and number. I'm not gonna give up.
I wanna talk to Chet.
[siren wailing]
[Pamela] There's a point in every case when you feel that you're
out of moves.
You need that one thing that could push a case forward,
If you keep working those relationships,
those connections,
and if you shake the tree long enough,
something is gonna fall out.
And today, we've got that something.
-Hey, Joe. -[Struck] Yeah.
You know the report that you got from CPD
about Erica's car being driven by someone else
the morning after she was last heard from?
[Struck] Yeah, her Nissan Juke or something?
[Pamela] Yes.
Well, Brookfield PD just released some
surveillance video from that morning.
[Struck] What does it show?
[Pamela] There are two videos here.
So in the first video, you can see at 7:25 AM,
Erica's Nissan Juke is seen on video cameras
driving on a street near her home.
[Struck] That's the video that's CPD enhanced, right?
Yes.
And you can actually see inside the vehicle,
there's a white male. And I wonder if this is Chet.
[Struck] You have the report in front of you?
'cause I think there was a description of Chet
from his court appearance on the 25th.
I do have that.
[Struck] Have it here, too. It says, at 10:05, redacted,
he's seen entering through the main doors
of the courthouse.
He's observed to be wearing a white button-down,
short sleeve collared shirt.
It appears he's got a black cell phone in his chest pocket.
[Pamela] It looks like he's got on a white shirt
with something black in his pocket here.
Yeah, this guy fits Chet's description
from the day before when he was in court.
[Struck] So, basically, we have a video of Chet driving the car.
And there's a second car here as well.
A white Dodge Stratus right behind it.
There's also a second video here from the gas station.
Now, in that video, I can see the white Dodge Stratus.
It arrives at about 8 o'clock AM.
And it looks like Chet is getting out.
There's a guy in a black sweatshirt.
He looks like he's been waiting there for Chet.
[Struck] So, the video near her house is at 7:25,
and the gas station is about 8 o'clock.
So in basically a half hour, the Juke just disappeared.
Yes, and they all end up together in the Dodge Stratus.
[Struck] Can you see who else is in the Dodge Stratus?
Not enough to identify them, but yes.
There are two people who eventually get out.
The driver is a female wearing a purple hooded sweatshirt,
and there's a guy wearing a black T-shirt who gets out
on the passenger side.
So, after watching this video,
it's very probable that this is Chet in her car.
And there is no sign of Erica anywhere.
[Struck] Right, and that's the last time we see the car
until a year later when it's in some creek
down in Central Illinois.
[Pamela] This video is shocking to me, and it's a game changer.
It appears that Chet is driving Erica's car
at the time of her disappearance.
And there's two other individuals here
who may have information about this case.
For years, this family had suspicions,
but now they have facts.
Fact one, we have video of a man we believe to be Chet
in Erica's car the morning after she vanished.
Fact two, according to police reports,
Chet was in Springfield, Missouri
when Erica's phone was left on the side of a road.
Fact three,
Chet was making purchases in a Missouri Walmart
just before Erica's phone was found in a Walmart bag
just a few miles away.
I have to commend the Brookfield PD.
From what I see, they left no stone unturned in this case.
But they still need help.
I believe this new information is the shot in the arm
that this case needs.
Someone knows who these individuals with Chet are
on the morning of the 26th.
Someone knows about Chet's activities
between September 25th and October 4th.
And finally, someone knows where Erica Thompson is.