MISSING: Angela Green 52:39

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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about a woman who vanished from her home in a Kansas suburb, leaving behind only her husband's web of lies and a mystery that has been haunting her loved ones and baffling police. This is the story of Angela Green.

When Catherine Guo's phone rings on Thursday, February 13th, 2020, she's excited to see a Kansas area code. It must be her younger sister, Angela Green, finally ready to reconnect after months and months of silence.

But that excitement turns to concern the moment she hears someone sobbing on the other end of the line. And it's actually Angela's 19-year-old daughter, Ellie. And between the tears and staggered breath, Ellie tells her that Angela has died of a stroke.

Now, Catherine is reeling. I mean, Angela was only 51 and seemingly healthy. So Catherine asks, well, when did this happen? Like, it must have been so sudden. And she's really confused when Ellie says the 16th. But it's the 13th. It's not even the 16th yet. Yeah, that's why she's so bewildered. But Ellie then clarifies, no, this didn't just happen. Angela died on July 16th of last year.

Seven months ago? Mm-hmm. Why didn't they tell her back then? Well, Ellie says that her dad, who was Angela's husband, Jeff Green, insisted on keeping it a secret.

So this news is such a shock to her system. Catherine literally feels like she's having a heart attack. So she hangs up and tries to pull herself together. She's trying to process everything, but the facts just aren't adding up. So this nagging thought crosses her mind. What if the stroke story is just a cover up? What if Jeff wanted to keep her death a secret because Angela had taken her own life?

You see, Catherine knew that her sister had been dealing with mental health issues for years. Now, she was never formally diagnosed with anything because she wouldn't see a doctor, but her family noticed signs of severe anxiety, depression, and mood swings. So this idea, it didn't come out of nowhere. It's not super far-fetched. But Catherine doesn't want to speculate, so she asks her daughter, Michelle, to do some digging.

And Michelle told our reporter Nina that she was just as stunned as her mom, maybe even more so, because she'd actually been talking to her cousin Ellie plenty of times over the past seven months. And not once did Ellie let on that anything was wrong. I mean, they even were talking about Angela sometimes.

When did Catherine or Michelle last speak to Angela, though? It's been a long time because Catherine and Angela, I mean, they used to be super close. They had actually immigrated to the U.S. from China at different times, but ended up both living near each other in Kansas. But I guess Catherine and her family eventually moved to New York. And after that, the sisters kind of just drifted apart over the years.

So their actual last conversation was in the fall of 2018. And then after that, Catherine had tried reaching out several times, but Angela just never responded, which wasn't even weird. Angela was kind of known to avoid calls, especially on her low days. So yes, Catherine had been like a little hurt over the last couple of years, but not surprised when she didn't hear back. Like she knew her sister. And as for Michelle, she hadn't spoken to her Aunt Angela in years as well. But

They did have a special bond when she was a kid. And so now, I mean, she's invested in trying to find out what happened. And she starts by calling her cousin, hoping to make sense of this whole story. So when they get on the phone, Ellie explains to Michelle that this whole thing began with an argument last June. But really, it started when she left for college in 2018.

Angela had been struggling with her daughter's growing independence. Like, she hated the whole empty nest thing, especially because Jeff was in that nest with her. Like, so now it was just the two of them at home without their daughter around as a buffer, which she had kind of become. So maybe not the happiest of marriages. Not at all. So Ellie going away for college had upset Angela. And then she was even more distressed in early 2019 when Jeff announced his impending retirement.

Issues she already struggled with intensified. And Jeff wanted her to get psychiatric help, but he knew that she wouldn't go for it. And the whole situation really reached a boiling point on Thursday, June 20th.

So Ellie had recently returned from studying abroad, and Angela wanted her to stay close to their Prairie Village home that summer. But Ellie had her own plans. I mean, friends, boyfriend, the usual. And on that day, this fight broke out between Angela and Ellie. And Angela was so angry that she kicked Ellie out of the house, which she had never done before. So Ellie goes to stay with her boyfriend and his family, figuring that her mom was going to, you know, eventually calm down and then call to apologize.

But the only parent she ended up hearing from was Jeff. And over the next couple of days, he told her that he was looking into getting Angela psychiatric care, which, again, is an idea he floated before.

And then on Sunday, June 23rd, he said that Ellie could come back home because he had gotten Angela committed to a mental health facility. Committed against her will? That was the insinuation, yeah. So Jeff basically explained that he tricked her into going to the grocery store where he says she was then forcibly removed from the parking lot. And actually, like, it's best to hear from them. But I got some text messages that Jeff actually sent to Ellie. Can I have you read this one?

It says, quote, End quote.

So that's the message that she got. And again, he's telling Ellie that she can come back home, but she decides she's going to just keep staying with her boyfriend and his family instead of going back to the house. But she did want to see her mom.

However, Jeff warned against that because he said that when he went to visit her, she tried to get physical, whatever that means. And he wanted Ellie to just wait until her condition kind of stabilized. And to avoid her going on her own, Ellie says that he wouldn't even tell her where the facility was located, like the one that Angela was taken to. Now, the problem is she never saw her mom again.

Instead, a couple of weeks later, on July 16th, Jeff told her that Angela had died of a stroke at the facility and staff had found her dead that morning. And just like he had asked her before, he asked Ellie to keep this a secret from the rest of the extended family, mostly because he said it was just too raw for him. Like he wanted a chance to emotionally process it before everyone else found out.

But after days and then weeks and then months, Ellie couldn't take it anymore. She had been carrying this heavy secret around for what feels like forever, and he still hadn't said anything. I can't imagine trying to carry the weight of that secret while you're grieving. I know. You can't process anything. Like, was there...

Even a funeral or anything? No. No. I mean, Ellie doesn't even know where Angela's remains are. Oh my God. And every time she tried to find out more, her dad just shut down, claiming he was too distraught to discuss it.

So for a long time, she was trying not to push him too hard. I mean, she always trusted her dad and taken what he said at face value. But after seven months of this, she just couldn't do it anymore. And she started feeling guilty for keeping this secret. She felt also frustrated with her dad for keeping even more from her. So that's what finally brought her to call her aunt. Like she was looking for help at that point.

And lucky for her, Catherine's daughter, Michelle, her cousin, is going to be good help. You see, she's a lawyer. So while Ellie might not want to push, pushing is like Michelle's full-time job. And the whole story just sounds too far-fetched to her, especially about Angela's supposed commitment. Because, like, between the legal, ethical, and safety concerns, like, she doesn't see how something like that could happen the way he's saying that it did.

I mean, maybe if it was like an emergency, but he didn't say it was an emergency. Yeah. He said it was like the actual plan to do the whole parking lot ruse. Exactly. And I know there are a few different ways to involuntary commit an adult to treatment facilities in Kansas specifically, none of which involve snatching someone out of a parking lot.

And all of which leave a paper trail of court hearings or medical screenings or law enforcement involvement. Right. You usually need something to, like, back up the reason it's involuntary. Yeah. So Michelle knows this, too. And she's like, OK, I'm going to find this paper trail and we're going to figure out what actually happened and where she went. And she's like, let's start with the most simple thing. Let's get Angela's death certificate. So she instructs Ellie to get a copy so they can at least figure out where she died. That's going to give them a starting point.

But the next day, Friday, February 14th, when Ellie checks with the Vital Statistics Office, she learns that there is no death record for her mother. Not in the entire state of Kansas. Which only leaves three bizarre possibilities.

One, Angela died outside of Kansas, but like why would she have been placed in an out-of-state facility? That doesn't quite make sense. Two, she died in Kansas, but somehow law enforcement was never notified, which also makes zero sense given the scenario that Jeff laid out. Yeah, she would have been in a facility. They would have had to notify their laws about this. Or three, Angela is still alive.

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The next morning, Saturday, February 15th, Catherine calls Jeff. Now, she doesn't want to throw Ellie under the bus, so when he doesn't pick up, she just leaves a kind of vague message like, hey, it's important, give us a call back. And that very day, kind of feeling empowered by the support of her aunt and cousin, Ellie decides to meet up with her dad, ready to get to the bottom of all of this. Now, when they talk, he sticks to his claim that Angela died in Kansas and even says that her ashes are at their house.

But when Ellie confronts him about the missing death certificate, Jeff starts kind of backpedaling. He says, oh, you know, I need to double check the certificate to see where she died. So he has one? He says he does. Does Ellie tell him that the rest of the family knows about Angela now? No, no, no, no, no.

And he's aware that, like, Catherine's trying to get a hold of him for some reason. But as far as he knows, she's still completely in the dark about everything. And he, at least, is intent on keeping it that way. Is it just Catherine he's keeping out of the loop? Or is it still everyone? I would say he's more, like, selectively secretive. Like, he doesn't mind Ellie's circle knowing, like, her friends and boyfriend, like, as far as I know. And his family, they know that her mom died. His own family knows secretly.

something happened, although it's not clear what exactly, but he's pretty adamant about keeping it from virtually everyone else, like from Angela's relatives, even to his colleagues at the federal courthouse where he worked in IT. Like, of

Apparently, there's this one time where him and Ellie were at his retirement party in December of 2019, and she just like mentioned it and he got like super pissed. Which you kind of have to if his wife isn't at his own retirement party, but...

But she's hopeful that maybe her dad will at least be able to get the death certificate. Again, they need this like starting point. Now, meanwhile, Michelle realizes that Jeff is just going to keep avoiding them. But if he won't talk to them, surely he'll talk to the police. So she calls the Prairie Village PD. She kind of explains the situation and she requests that they do a welfare check at the Green's house, which they say they'll do.

And later that day, she actually gets a call back from the officer. And they've been to the house and they're like, wow, you know, you sure had it wrong. Angela's not dead. No way. Yeah, Michelle's like, wait, what are you talking about? And they say that Jeff told them Angela's completely fine. She's just out with friends enjoying the long President's Day weekend. She'll be back on Monday. No big deal. What? Yes. Like, Michelle's jaw is on the floor. I mean, same deal.

didn't they have any of the context going into this? We need more than Jeff's word. And also, that's the point of a welfare check, right? Like to physically see the person that you're checking on to make sure they're okay. Exactly. I know they had some context. Like I know Michelle had told them what Ellie relayed to her, that according to Jeff, Angela had died last July. He wanted Ellie to keep it a secret. Right.

But Michelle's calling them from New York, so it sounds like they're just thinking, you know, here's this distant relative who must have gotten the wrong story, a game of telephone, literally. Plus, I guess, you know, at this point, they don't have a reason to be suspicious of Jeff. Like, he doesn't have a criminal record. And officers tell Michelle he was calm and cooperative when they showed up. He even let them do a quick, like, walkthrough of the house, showed them his hunting rifle when they asked if he had any weapons.

So they left thinking maybe this was just some weird family miscommunication or something, a complete misunderstanding. But when Michelle's hearing this, she's like, absolutely no. Like, that is no. Yeah, I'm with Michelle. This doesn't sound like a bad game of telephone. This is sounding just straight up wrong. And even if it sounds like a bad game of telephone, if someone's like, hey, I think this person might be dead...

Wouldn't that be like, we definitely have to put eyes on this person? You would think. And even the story that he's telling, for the people who know Angela, this is downright absurd. She doesn't really have any friends. I mean, her idea of socializing is neighborly chats while she's outside gardening, not weekend getaways. I mean, she rarely leaves the house at all. And when she does, it's almost always with her husband or daughter.

So Michelle's, I mean, she's still on the phone at this point. She's like, listen, you need to talk to his daughter. Like, if you think that I'm getting things confused because I'm out here in New York, talk to her. She is there. So she connects police to Ellie. And Ellie must be floored when she finds all this out. That's an understatement. I mean, she has been trying to accept her mother's death since July. And then suddenly her dad's claiming to police that her mom's just like alive and well.

So after police talk to her, they're even baffled because this no longer feels like a miscommunication. Family in New York having wrong information? Maybe. But daughter who lives in town thinking her mom is dead for seven months, something is up.

So at Michelle's urging, officers keep an eye on the Green's house over the next couple of days. But she thinks that they dropped the ball, that they should have been more proactive and pushed Jeff to explain himself. I mean, maybe they thought this whole situation was just too bizarre to be real. Like, we'll keep an eye on it, but like, this seems bonkers. Maybe, but Angela never shows up, so...

So on Tuesday, February 18th, Ellie goes to the station to file an official report. And she lays it all out. Not just Jeff's shifting narrative, but other events that, in hindsight, are now deeply unsettling.

For instance, right after Angela was supposedly committed, Jeff went on a major cleaning spree with bleach and Clorox wipes, but just like in the kitchen and bathroom. At the same time, he asked Ellie to sort through her mom's belongings, deciding what to keep, what to throw out.

Ellie thought he was just, like, decluttering while her mom was away, but she found it odd when he suggested hanging Angela's photos around the house for the first time ever so that they could remember the happier times. So he's, like, memorializing her. Yeah, and this was before he told Ellie that she supposedly died.

Now, Jeff's been pretty quiet since he and Ellie talked on Saturday, but he finally calls her while she's actually at the station making this report. And police record it. And guess what? He has a new story. He has a new story. And if you thought that the initial two were head scratchers, you're going to need to break out a map, a compass and a GPS, maybe even a star chart for this one.

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Paramount Plus, a central plan only. Separate registration required. See Walmart Plus terms and conditions. So remember how Jeff was urging Angela to get psychiatric help? Well, he says that after their big blow up, he laid down the law. If she didn't do it on her own, he would make it happen. He claims he started looking into commitment options. But then out of the blue, he got a call while he was at work that Angela was already at a hospital getting a mental health check.

Problem is, he just can't remember who called him or which hospital they called from or like any of the basic details. And actually, that call that got recorded, well, we got that from Michelle.

I got a call that she was being evaluated and I couldn't see her until, I guess it was the following weekend. So I made plans to kind of go down, set aside time. I didn't make any plans to do anything other than, okay, when I find out that I can come see her, I'll go see her. And where was that? Well, that I need to...

Jeff claims that he later got another call informing him of her death.

And I'm like, "Oh my God," and it's crazy time. And I can't hardly think straight. And it's like, "Okay, let's do a cremation because I don't know what kind of arrangements we're going to be able to make her house soon." And so then I got a call that someone was going to come by the house and pick up money for the cremation.

When was that? Who came by for the cremation?

Oh, I don't know. Male, about 45. A man, Caucasian, dark hair. That's all I can remember from my back when. How much money was it? It wasn't much. It was $1,500, which is about right for a probation, so...

I'm sorry, we talked about it a little bit before, but, like, these things have paper trails. These things have processes. There's, like, official things that need to be done. And nobody, like, shows up at your door, like, can I have $1,500 and I'll trade you for some ash? In cash. It's so weird. None of it makes sense. And he's saying that he went as far as to cremate her, clearly believing she's dead, and then turns around seven months later or whatever...

tells the cops that she's just out with friends when they did that welfare check. Like, why not say she's dead if this whole cremation interaction or whatever actually happened? Well, that's the thing. After Ellie said there was no death certificate, Jeff said that he began to question his own story. I know, I know. So he's like, I remember seeing someone who could have been Angela in the neighborhood a few months ago, and sometimes things in the house are out of place like they've been moved.

So, I mean, I think he's saying, like, oh, I guess, like, I, you know, I was told that and I believed it, but maybe I was wrong kind of thing. But the real kicker was this. And where are the ashes at now? Well, that's the other thing. I got the urn back and there's no, I didn't check it until just this past weekend. And I thought, should I open the urn? You know, so I finally did. I opened it up and it's empty. So there were no ashes in it. So, yeah.

Okay, I really cannot handle how wild his new version of events is. Yeah, he must realize how improbable this is all sounding. So on this same call, he switches things up yet again. He says, okay, the truth is Angela just kind of disappeared one day while I was at work.

And then he said he concocted this whole parking lot slash mental health story to protect Ellie from a harsh reality. I didn't want you to think that she had run off with some stranger to do something and, um...

I thought it would be... Well, Dad, you know I want the truth. Yeah, and the truth is that she kind of disappeared. I didn't want you to think that she'd run off and gone somewhere.

So what exactly is he saying actually happened? Because first she died, then she didn't die. Maybe she actually did. No, maybe she disappeared. She might still be in the neighborhood. I don't know where she is. I am beyond lost, Ashley. Everyone is beyond lost, Britt.

Basically, his final answer is he doesn't know what happened. The end. Okay, start with that? A simple IDK would have made this so much easier. Yeah. To Angela's loved ones, this idea of her taking off with a mysterious stranger is even more far-fetched than all the other scenarios.

But there's something in Ellie that can't help but wonder if her mom did leave on her own. I mean, she knew her parents weren't happy. The trouble had started pretty early on in their relationship, almost from the time Angela's own parents set them up. Like, her parents had actually met him through a friend while visiting Catherine in the 90s, and he was this

divorced, nice guy. He was smart, soft-spoken. And at the time, Angela was living in China and he lived about 10 minutes from Catherine, but often actually traveled to China for business. So it seemed like an ideal situation and they introduced him to their other daughter.

And Angela and him began doing this like long distance relationship through calls and letters. They went on a date when Jeff visited Beijing. And in July of 1998, when Angela was 30, she moved to the U.S. on a K-1 or fiancé visa. She stayed with the Guo's for a few months and everything seemed to be going well. But then something changed. Angela spent most of her wedding day in tears and she told Michelle she didn't want to live with Jeff.

She found out that he was actually 46, not in his mid-30s like he had originally claimed. And despite his trips to China, he couldn't actually speak any Chinese. So there was this huge language barrier. And according to Michelle, they both had bad tempers, but in different ways. Angela was more explosive, while Jeff's anger was more insidious, like a quiet simmer. He

He often described Angela as quote-unquote crazy to their families, but Michelle says that he was controlling and manipulative.

Actually, when Catherine recommended that Angela open her own bank account, like when she got to the U.S., Jeff discouraged her, claiming that she'd be monitored by the government. But at the same time, he didn't give her access to his bank accounts either. And she didn't work outside of the home. So when she needed money, she had to ask him for it. Which is totally isolating. Mm-hmm. And things just deteriorated over time.

The happiness Angela felt at Ellie's birth in 2000 was marred by what seemed like undiagnosed postpartum depression. She became more isolated, even from Catherine. She felt betrayed when the Guos relocated to the East Coast in 2003. And even though they still talked, like I said earlier, they weren't nearly as close as they used to be.

And unsurprisingly, Ellie grew up very sheltered. School was top priority with strict rules, no playdates, no sleepovers, or even a cell phone until her senior year of high school.

By then, Jeff and Angela were kind of living separate lives just under the same roof, and they mainly communicated through their daughter. Was there any physical violence? Well, Ellie told Michelle that Angela had slapped her before, and she sometimes threw things in anger, like once she had hurled a plate at Jeff and actually cut his head.

but mostly the conflicts were verbal. I guess I should have been more clear. I kind of meant on Jeff's part. I didn't realize that Angela had gotten physical with them. Yeah, she had. Jeff's abuse was more psychological. But no matter what, even amongst the abuse, what Ellie said is that she knew her parents loved her. And for Angela, it was beyond love. Like, her entire life revolved around Ellie. So that's...

That is all to say, the idea of her leaving her daughter behind by choice for everyone who knew her was inconceivable.

And setting aside the emotional aspect, Angela was a nervous driver. And even though she had a car, that car's still at the Green's house. So is her passport, her ID, her purse, her wallet, her flip phone. Oh, and get this. Over the years, she had actually managed to sock away thousands of dollars by kind of skimming a little when she could from the household funds that Jeff would give her. And she confided in Catherine once that she was doing this because she wanted a safety net for herself and Ellie.

So now that she's gone, Catherine, like, passes this info on to Ellie, who ends up finding all of this hidden cash. Which, if nothing else, I mean, yeah, leave her passport, her ID, her purse, her wallet, her phone. She would take that cash. Right. I mean, this is what she was saving it for. But if she was experiencing a mental health crisis, maybe the usual rules don't apply? That's true. But...

Even assuming she just left everything behind, her daughter, her car, her savings, that doesn't explain Jeff's behavior about this. You know what I mean? And the deeper Angela's family digs, the stronger their suspicion grows that she met with foul play at Jeff's hands. And Ellie, at this point, just wants the truth. Did you hurt mom? No.

No, I wanted to get her help, get the doctor to find out what the issues could be that she had that could get taken care of through talking to a psychiatrist. I was thinking it was more of a medical thing.

Investigators at Prairie Village PD have never seen a case like this before. I mean, show me an agency who has. But they're convinced that there's only one person who holds the answers as to what really happened to Angela, and that's Jeff. So as Detective Sergeant Adam Taylor told Nina that same day, February 18th, they decide it is time to put him in the hot seat.

Right away, police run into a problem trying to get answers from Jeff. He won't open up to them. Literally, like, will not open the door and let them in. Yeah, when they show up, he kind of just, like, cracks it wide enough to hand them a business card for a lawyer, Paul Cram. And then he closes the door in their faces.

When Michelle hears about this, she does some online sleuthing to find out who this Paul Cram guy is. Well, it turns out he's an experienced criminal defense attorney who's handled some high-profile cases in the area. In fact, when she Googles homicide lawyers in Kansas, Paul's name is the first one to pop up.

So talk about an uphill battle. No one has seen Angela in eight months. They've got a huge time gap to bridge and almost none of the key pieces of evidence that typically guide these types of investigations. No financial transactions, no employment records, and no real digital footprint either, except for her flip phone, which Jeff had started using himself back in June. Well, and you said like she didn't have that many friends either. So even people that she would normally check in with don't exist. Right.

Yeah, there's no clubs, groups, or churches. Like, her circle was limited to Ellie and Jeff. And that's not much help since Ellie was under the impression her mom was dead and Jeff was the one giving her that impression.

Now, there were those neighbors, again, who'd like see her in passing, but they tell police that they honestly figured she went back to China when they stopped seeing her out gardening. Why China? Well, Michelle says it's more about, like, I think cultural assumptions than anything grounded in reason. But, again, they don't know Angela. If they did, they would know she hates traveling. Once she was in the U.S., that was it. She never went back, not even to visit her family. So, why?

They've got nothing. Yeah, nothing. They even check with Homeland Security. They confirm that Angela hasn't left the U.S. using her passport, which, again... Her passport that's at home, yeah. Right. There's absolutely no record of her in any local mental health facilities or domestic violence shelters either. And there are no death records in any state whatsoever.

But just in case anyone was believing those early stories, they decide to check Jeff's phone records too. And...

Surprise or maybe not a surprise, they don't show any calls to hospitals or mental health facilities. And remember that mysterious empty urn that someone supposedly dropped off? Yeah, the one that's going to live rent-free in my brain for the rest of my life? Yeah, well, bank records show he bought it online soon after he told Ellie about Angela's supposed death. Like, as a prop for his story? Maybe? Maybe.

I mean, Ellie sends Michelle a photo of it. Here's where it gets wild. So it's this like red and black urn, which were Angela's favorite colors.

So Michelle's like, hmm, I'm just going to look into this. She's like, Google's red and black urn. And there it is, literally that exact one at the top of the search results. So both the urn and his lawyer were found like top result on Google. Wait, speaking of his lawyer. So according to Michelle, investigators find out that Jeff actually paid him like this $5,000 retainer fee shortly after making a cash deposit. And where do you get that cash from?

Well, when Ellie rechecks her mom's hiding place, money gone.

All the money that Angela squirreled away is actually funding Jeff's defense? That is her family's assumption. But yeah, I don't know if Ellie ever confronts him about that piece. But over the next few weeks, she does challenge him on a lot of other things, specifically a lot of his, like, conflicting details. And she does this as detectives listen in. Basically, it's the next best thing they have to questioning Jeff themselves.

And I wish I could tell you that these conversations clear up some confusion, but it seems like every time they talk, Jeff just piles on even more BS. Like, he claims he didn't alert the police when Angela disappeared because he wasn't concerned at first. Like, he says she left for a few days before and then come back, and he figured, you know, she's an adult. She can handle herself. And on one hand, he's like, oh, her behavior is so concerning. I'm going to have her committed. Yeah. Yeah.

And on the other hand, he's like, actually, no, she's a grown up. She's fine by herself. I don't need to worry about her. Yeah, but without her money or her car or her ID. And like he knows she can't just go get money. Like he's the gatekeeper of the money. Right. And all that aside, like, dude, at some point she didn't come back. Like what's your excuse after she's gone for more than a couple of days if this is your story? Yeah, it seems like he kind of mashes up all his stories.

She did go off on her own, but then he falls back onto, I got a call from a random person who said she died story. Shocker. Yeah, just listen to this. But you can't tell me anything about that call or who called you or where or anything. No, because I was very busy at that particular point in time, so I didn't worry about it because I knew that information would come in different ways eventually.

But you would excuse yourself from work. Like, whenever I call you, you excuse yourself from work. Well, it depends on what's going on. Most of the time, there's not a... But it's like, mom's dead. Why would you not excuse yourself from work? You would go into the other room and you'd talk to me. And somebody doesn't just show up to your house with an urn. And I know you, and you're not going to agree to pay $1,500 in cash. Like, you will ask all the questions that you can before you hand over any amount of money.

Well, it was... You can say that you are emotionally whatever in a place of turmoil and grief and whatever, but you would still ask all the questions that you needed to. No, not necessarily. No, no.

Okay, and just to be clear, his grief is so intense he can't talk to his own daughter or even inform his sister-in-law. But he didn't feel the need to excuse himself when he got this horribly intense news. Brett, he was busy. Like, what do you want from him? Oh my god. Listen, the thing is, even if she is alive, he doesn't seem particularly interested in finding her.

I'm telling you that I need your help emotionally and also to find her and you're running in the opposite direction. If you want to talk to me, then go and talk to the police or hire a PI. Instead, you've hired a criminal defense lawyer to save your ass. She left. She left. So I don't feel that I need to go chase her.

She wants to come back and talk about something. That's fine. I'm gonna talk to her about it. But I'm not gonna go out looking for somebody who left. You're trying to stick me into a story like Cinderella and the Prince, where I need to go out and find Cinderella. No, I'm sorry. She left. See ya. She made it very difficult. She made it very clear that she did not want us around.

He says they can pursue some reasonable steps to locate Angela, but he's not going to go, like, pound the pavement looking for clues. And he gets irritated when Ellie keeps circling back to this same unpleasant topic. Will you get into the police station tomorrow with me? No. With the attorney? No. No, I'm not going to get into...

You're not going to get into finding her. You're doing a cross-examination like you have been on just about every phone call. Taking things and turning them around and twisting them. No, I don't turn anything around. I told you I don't like that and I don't appreciate it either. You know, the support and the way that you treat another person goes both ways. Me to you and you to me. Well, I have not been supported very well. And I just want to analyze things and maybe you're not used to me

analyzing everything or getting upset with you but this time I have a lot of reasons to. And then you wonder why I don't want to call you and have long conversations. I don't mind calling you and finding out what's going on discussing things. Yeah not discuss the elephant in the room. If all you want to do every single time is just talk about mom and what I should or shouldn't be doing I don't like doing that.

I just want to know where she is because that's the biggest problem. I'm not going to pretend my life is perfect. I don't have an answer for that. I had an answer. I tell you, as soon as I do have an answer, I'll let you know.

This is maddening to listen to. I know. Was he always this closed off with Ellie? No, I mean, this is really foreign territory to her. I mean, they discussed her mom plenty of times before this whole thing really began. Angela's family thinks that the catalyst for whatever happened was that last big argument. They suspect...

that she and Jeff got into some kind of altercation sometime after she kicked Ellie out that night. Because there's really no other motive to speak of. At least, not that we're aware of. Like, there's no affairs. It doesn't appear that Jeff had any financial incentive. I don't think Angela had life insurance. I mean, it's unlikely he knew about her secret savings at the time. So...

Rewinding to June of 2019, and I think understanding what led up to that fight and like the hours after it is crucial. According to Shawnee Mission Post reporter Celia Hath, Ellie had just capped off her freshman year at the University of Kansas with a month-long study abroad trip in Italy.

And despite not being home much since starting college, she planned to spend the summer at her parents. Which Angela was probably thrilled about. Oh, I'm sure she was. But she was also, like, resentful about the Italy trip to begin with. Because Jeff had okayed it behind her back, and they didn't even tell her about it until, like, the very last minute because they knew that she wouldn't approve.

So she's still a little bitter about this. And then you have the ongoing issues we kind of touched on. Things were already somewhat tense when Ellie got to their house at around 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 20th, after a day out with her friends and boyfriend. And this is just a quick side note. Actually, most sources say it was June 19th because that's what was initially reported. But when Ellie later reviewed her text messages, she realized it was actually the 20th. So if you see that online, you're digging. That's why.

Anyway, so on the 20th, Angela and Ellie get into it, or really Angela got into it because Ellie wouldn't dream of talking back to her parents. It just, you don't do that in her house. In fact, Ellie and Jeff usually waited out confrontations with Angela, like kind of weathering a temporary storm. But this time, that strategy didn't work.

During an interview with retired detectives Chris McDonough and Mike King, who host the Profiling Evil YouTube channel, Ellie described it as a roller coaster, like just when you thought it was over, like it would ramp right back up again. And according to Ellie, Jeff tried to defuse the situation, but it just escalated. And based on her phone records, it looks like Angela kicked her out at around 7.30 or 7.40-ish that night, which is when she went to meet up with her boyfriend.

And then at 8.03, Jeff text her and said he also left home for the night, said he was going to be at his brother and sister-in-law's place about 15 minutes away. And it seems like they made plans to meet there, but ultimately Ellie decided to stay elsewhere, I think with her boyfriend. Does Angela's family think that something happened before Jeff went to his brother's place?

Or later? They don't know. Police confirm that Jeff was at his brother's that night. But Ellie and Michelle are convinced that at the very least, his brother and sister-in-law know more than what they're saying. And detectives also think that's a possibility. Especially because of something Ellie's aunt, Jeff's brother's wife, told her when she first notified them about reporting Angela missing.

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Start a show together with your included Paramount Plus subscription. Walmart Plus members save on this plus so much more. Start a 30-day free trial at WalmartPlus.com. Paramount Plus is central plan only. Separate registration required. See Walmart Plus terms and conditions. The first thing she says to Ellie when Ellie says she reported Angela missing is that Jeff should get a lawyer because a quote-unquote accident might have happened. That seems specific. Yeah. Yeah.

So investigators interview them. Detective Sergeant Taylor won't say much about that interview, but according to Michelle, they tell police that Jeff informed them that Angela died of a medical issue in her sleep at home.

What number are we up to with versions of this story? Like 10? Sure. Let's say it was an accident. If that's the case, where is Angela now? Why isn't she listed as a dead person in the vital statistics records? And what's with all the stories? Why all the deception? Yes. And that's what everyone's trying to figure out.

So on Wednesday, March 11, more than 100 officers and cadaver dogs searched two key places, the Greens residence and this industrial site about 20 minutes away where Jeff has a storage unit and a trailer for working on cars.

Now, that industrial site alone is like a mammoth task. 36 acres, including a quarry and a sprawling pond. And to make it more complicated, 30 feet of dirt had already been dumped there from a nearby courthouse construction project. So police have to do this grid search. They bring out divers to scour the water. But there are no signs of Angela there.

They have a little more luck at the house. I mean, there's nothing that outright incriminates Jeff in her disappearance, like bloodstains or evidence of a struggle, you know, from months ago, not that there would be. I was going to say, could have been cleaned up in the past over six months. With the bleach and the Clorox? Exactly. Anyways, so there is another big red flag, though, that Ellie had told detectives to be on the lookout for.

So it's kind of strange. There's this beneficiary designation form for Jeff's retirement account. Based on what we could piece together, Jeff wanted to remove Angela as his beneficiary. But apparently he needed her signature for that or for something related to it. Now, this is in September of 2019. And since she wasn't around, he asked Ellie to forge it. And so she did.

And so what I think is interesting is that he obviously wouldn't need Angela's signature at all if she was dead. Right. And back then, he was still supposedly so confident that she was, right? So, like, why bother with the forgery? Just prove she's dead. You just, like, contact the life insurance place or retirement place and say, like, hey, this person died. Here's the death certificate. I know. And that gets cleared off and you can list somebody else. So...

I guess, can he face any kind of criminal charge for doing this? I mean, I'm sure he could for, like, forging an official document. But what the charges are, what he would be facing, whether they're even, like, looking at pursuing that, Detective Sergeant Taylor won't say. Like, he won't discuss it at all.

But I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. Like, I mean, when you're looking at a case that's like this big, you have a missing person. This is very small potatoes. Yeah, and strategically, sometimes it makes sense to hold off on those like small charges. So I don't know what their plan is. But just to be clear, removing her as a beneficiary...

That doesn't do anything for him or really anyone as long as he's living. Correct. So again, that's what I'm saying. It's not like this proves that he had something to gain. It's just weird and it feels more like this to-do list item when you know your beneficiary is no longer actually around. I don't know. It's just sus, but it's far from incriminating. And again, they can't even prove Angela is actually dead, let alone that she's been murdered.

So even with the FBI and Kansas Bureau of Investigation involved, which they are at this point, the trail is cold. According to Celia Hacks reporting, by mid-July, a year after Angela's so-called death, detectives are at a standstill after running down more than 200 leads. And that's when Ellie and Michelle decide to take a different route, and they reach out for media help.

They connect with Sarah Turney from the Voices for Justice podcast and even Dr. Phil, who gets the profiling evil host on board. And that is what finally cracks open a lead that had eluded police for a while. You see, back in November 2019, Jeff had purchased a second home, this fixer-upper near Ellie's College in Lawrence, Kansas.

The plan was for Ellie to live there while she was in school, but she never moved in. So, of course, detectives wanted to check the place out. But since Jeff had purchased it months after Angela was thought to have gone missing, they couldn't get a warrant approved. Not even after Ellie made a disturbing discovery in the yard of that house.

She found a pile of dirt with what appeared to be black plastic underneath the surface, and it was marked by a cement block and Angela's favorite flowers.

Jeff told Ellie that he had transplanted bulbs from her mom's garden in Prairie Village to quote-unquote honor her there. I'm sorry, when was this? Well, Ellie found it in May that year, but I don't know when he actually did the planting. So this was weird enough that I guess Dr. Phil's crew had Ellie send them soil samples for a round of private testing.

And they say that cadaver dogs indicated on the presence of human remains in all three samples that they put before them. So with that, investigators can finally get their warrant. And on Wednesday, December 23rd, they head to Lawrence with an anthropologist and crime scene techs to dig up this yard. But unfortunately, for some reason, there are no cadaver dogs available that day. So they're going in with their own hands and noses, like no dog help.

Investigators sift through the dirt by hand, but they do not find anything. And they even do their own soil tests. And the results from the stuff that they collected are negative for anything sketchy. So Detective Sergeant Taylor told us that he's confident there has never been a body buried in the areas they searched, that nothing.

The soil there hadn't been disturbed in a while. Then what was up with the area that Ellie found? Well, I mean, I think the dirt was messed up there, but I don't think it was, like, severely disturbed because there was no evidence of someone digging or anything like that. And so that's pretty much it. Bleeds occasionally trickle in, but they don't amount to much. Detectives visit Jeff from time to time. He's still got his attorney on retainer, so they don't really ask him anything. They just...

talk to him, hoping for some kind of reaction. But dude is like a brick wall. He politely hears them out and then sends them on their way. All along, Ellie and Michelle worked tirelessly to keep Angela's story alive. Michelle's TikTok videos about the case have exploded, which has helped get the attention of reporters. They even work with private investigators. They consider launching a wrongful death lawsuit against Jeff.

But ultimately, they decide against it. Why? I think they're afraid that it will just complicate an open case. Plus, to do that, Ellie would need to have her mom declared legally dead before pursuing that. And the thought of a long, traumatic court battle is just like... Against her own dad? I mean, I don't know what I would do. It makes it even more complicated. So what are the next steps here? Well...

Well, Michelle and her family have really lost faith in the investigation, but police say that they haven't given up. When Nina spoke with Detective Sergeant Taylor in November, they were analyzing digital evidence from Jeff's electronics, although they hadn't found anything relevant yet, at least nothing that they told us about.

They also recently assigned a new lead detective, hoping maybe fresh eyes might shake things up a bit. But there are really only two main possibilities that they're focused on. One is finding Angela alive, although her family feels certain that she's not. And the other is pursuing a no-body homicide case, which would present a unique set of challenges. According to Tad Tobias, a former federal prosecutor and expert in the field, the conviction rate for no-body homicides

is actually higher than the overall murder conviction rate, but they're also less likely to even make it to trial in the first place. So, like, I mean, if they're going in, they're going in with some really compelling evidence. I was going to say, it doesn't really surprise me that the conviction rate is higher because you need so much more, like, concrete evidence. Yeah, based on Tad's tally, it's happened fewer than 600 times in the U.S. Wow. And that's in over more than two centuries. Wow.

But Detective Sergeant Taylor told us they're just not there yet in Angela's case. So if they do decide to move forward in that direction in the future, would they be looking to charge Jeff specifically then? No, not necessarily. Detective Sergeant Taylor says that they're not closing the door on other possibilities. Though that being said, I don't know if there are any other persons of interest. They never named anyone to us.

We did try to reach out to Jeff and his lawyer for this episode, but they didn't respond to any of our requests for comment.

Now, Jeff and Ellie aren't in contact anymore. She moved to Colorado for school and decided to just stay there after graduation. And she really actually stepped back from all of the media spotlight in 2022. Like it was too much. It became too draining for her. And there was even a point where Michelle took a break for a while. But when we reached out to her, she told us that our message came at just the right time because she wanted to talk about it again.

She's hoping that the renewed interest might reignite the investigation and bring the answers her family has been so desperately searching for. And thanks to a PI that she's been working with named Steve Ridge, there's a $25,000 reward for information about Angela's disappearance. Steve is actually offering it out of his own pocket.

So if you are the one who has that information, please contact the Prairie Village Police Department at 913-642-6868. You can also call the Crime Stoppers Tipped Hotline anonymously at 816-474-8477.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? No!

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Walmart Plus members save on meeting up with friends. Save on having them over for dinner with free delivery with no hidden fees or markups. That's groceries plus napkins plus that vegetable chopper to make things a bit easier. Plus, members save on gas to go meet them in their neck of the woods. Plus, when you're ready for the ultimate sign of friendship, start a show together with your included Paramount Plus subscription. Walmart Plus members save on this plus so much more.

Start a 30-day free trial at walmartplus.com. Paramount Plus is central plan only. Separate registration required. See Walmart Plus terms and conditions.