MISSING: Kerry O’Brien-Krueger

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Hi, crime junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett. The story I have for you today is one I can't believe I've never heard of, but it came to a straight from the investigator who's trying to solve this mystery, and he needs your help. Because the truth of what happened to one Wisconsin woman back in 1989 might be right in front

“of him, into important clues he holds, but he needs the help of our crime junkies to interpret”

them.

One of you might be able to help solve the mystery of what happened to Kerry O'Brien Kruger.

- It's December 1989 in Wisconsin, and with the holidays right around the corner, 19-year-old Molly O'Brien is getting into the spirit. She's spending the chilly night curled up in her Milwaukee dorm room, watching the nut cracker with her roommate and her boyfriend. Suddenly, her landmine rings, and it's her brother-in-law Tracey Kruger, which isn't

strange, he's married to Molly's 32-year-old sister Kerry, and Molly's close with both of them. But what he's asking is on, he wants to know if Kerry is with her. Now Molly spends plenty of time with Kerry Tracey and their three-year-old daughter, but

“it is always at their house, an hour away in Burlington, Wisconsin.”

Kerry doesn't just randomly stop by her dorm room, so she tells them no. And that's when Tracey starts laying it all out, why he's concerned. The night before, this would have been Tuesday, December 5th, 1989. He says that Kerry got this call at around 830 p.m., Tracey thinks it was maybe her manager Jim calling, Kerry works in PR for Gander Mountain, this like hunting and sporting goods company.

And when she hung up, she told Tracey that she had to fill in for somebody the next day at this trade show in Wyoming. And that would have been this day, like the day that he's calling, Molly, Wednesday, December 6th. Now Jim was supposed to swing by and drive them both to Chicago so they could catch an early

flight. Tracey says that Kerry got up super early, left before dawn, like four or four thirty in the morning after a goodbye kiss and a reminder to take good care of their daughter, while she was gone. But a few hours later, after Tracey had gotten their daughter off to the babysitter and

he was at work, he got a message that Jim was trying to reach him. And what Jim said was really weird, because he wanted to know where Kerry was. She had pulled a no-call no-show at work for the first time ever.

“And Tracey says that he's like confused, he's like, what do you mean, where is she?”

Like she's with you in Wyoming. Yeah, but Jim had no clue what he was talking about, because it turns out there was no trade show. And Kerry would know that tracking the trade shows is literally part of her job. Now the more Tracey talks, the sicker Molly feels, because there is one thing that Molly

is sure of, Kerry would never leave her daughter.

So if no one can find her, she's sure, right then in there that's something bad happened. And Tracey tries to keep her calm, he's like, listen, don't worry, maybe she just went somewhere. I'm going to start calling around, I'm going to start checking with everyone. And he's already sounded the alarm to another O'Brien sister, Kathy.

And even though she lives far away in New Orleans, she knows what to do, because she's a prosecutor. So Thursday morning, the moment she hears that Kerry still isn't home, Kathy brings their parents in the loop and instructs them to make Tracey file a missing person's report with the Burlington Police Department, like do it now, do it today. So Kerry's parents bring Tracey to the station where he runs through it all again.

The 11th hour work called the early trip and how nobody can reach Kerry now. But while her family seems to be frantic, officers are like, you know, man, not so much. They put out a bowlough for her, but you know, she's an adult.

Until they realize that space might even be dangerous.

“There's a couple of days later, Tracey brings them a note from Kerry's doctor saying”

that she had been treated for depression, and she might be suicidal. So that is what escalates things, at least enough so that she gets entered into the NCIC database. Now what the doctor's note didn't mention though is the real health problem she had been suffering from over the last year and a half. The viewer unexplained stomach pain, including nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and nobody

could figure out why. At one point her sister Kathy even asked her point blank if she thought she was being poisoned. And Kerry had, like, joke to a friend that maybe Tracey was the one doing it. That's a joke that nobody is laughing at now that she's gone. But at the same time, nobody could look at Tracey and be like, yep, saw this coming.

If he did something to her, it would be a huge shock. I mean, don't get me wrong, their marriage definitely wasn't perfect. Like, before she worked in PR, she was a journalist, which is how she met Tracey. And in the early '80s, they both worked at a local newspaper.

“And the two got engaged fast, then Kerry called it off, I'm sure if, like, this is really”

what she wanted, but Tracey kept pursuing her. And in 1985, they tied the knot. She was already pregnant with her daughter Megan at the altar, which caused a riff with her conservative Catholic parents, especially her mom. But they had patched things up since then, and everything seemed to be fine.

But the couple's relationship had been rocky lately. Kerry had confided in loved ones that she and Tracey weren't having sex, and that he'd been cold and distant. She suspected that he was cheating.

He was always pulling late shifts at the same paper where they met, he ran circulation

and looked work in the dark room. Sometime in the past year, I guess Kerry had drawn a line. Fixed things, or she was going to be done done. And Tracey agreed. He told Kerry that he was seeing a counselor, but then she found out he wasn't.

And when she confronted him, her family says that he deflected claiming that he had a brain tumor, which he did not. Sorry. No, there are little white lies, and then there are big, like, life lies. Right.

If you can lie about a brain tumor, like you're willing to do anything. But the right thing. I agree. Go get out. Kerry didn't.

And as bad as those lies were, there's also a big difference between a line husband and a dangerous one, and to what I was saying earlier, nobody had ever put Tracey in that column. The dangerous column.

Like to Molly Tracey is basically another brother.

She told our reporter Nina that he had taught her how to drive. He was there to cheer her on at her grade school basketball games. And after all that time together, Molly trusted him completely. But even still, his story isn't sitting right with the family. It's just too bizarre.

And every time they poke at it, another whole opens up, including a big one that opens up on Monday, December 11th, when Kerry's family searches the Kruger house for themselves. She received County Investigator Tommy Sherritt, who's working in the case now. When Kerry's family goes to search her house, they see that Kerry's purse and her idea gone.

But damn near everything else she owns is there. Including a bunch of stuff that Tracey said she had taken with her. Her briefcase is tucked under a desk. Her wedding ring is there in this like dish on the dresser. And her curling iron, her new makeup, her stomach medication is there.

She didn't even bring a winter coat just her all weather jacket. And I mean, it's heavy, removable lining is still hanging in the closet. So even though she like brought a coat, she didn't actually bring the part that like keeps you warm. And she's in Wisconsin, she's going to Wyoming and all of this is happening in December.

“Well, but she, I mean, she obviously isn't going to Wyoming, right?”

Like there was no trade show. Somebody invented that trip. But more concerningly of all of the things I mentioned, there is this big brown suitcase that Tracey said she packed. That's in the attic, along with all of her other luggage.

But when Kathy points that out, Tracey kind of backpettles and he's like, no, no, no, she didn't take her suitcase.

Meanwhile, the only money missing is $500 that Tracey says they kept in an emergency

stash hidden in a basement air duct. But say she grabbed the $500 and his suitcase and a light jacket because she was maybe headed somewhere warmer. How did she get there? There is no flight record that they can find in her name.

She didn't take her car and no one saw her leave that morning with anyone. So there is one thing, their next door neighbor noticed a small black car outside her own house at around 4 or 430 a.m. This is about the time that Tracey says she's leaving. And outside of that car, there was this man standing beside it.

But this neighbor can't say for certain whether it was for sure Wednesday, the sixth or maybe it was like some other morning that week.

And importantly, she never saw Carrie yet into that sitting car.

So even if this was the same day, it might not mean anything. And with so little to go on, the question shifts from where Carrie went to whether she went anywhere at all. And her family can't help but look squarely at Tracey for answers. I mean, his story just isn't adding up.

Investigators are fully asking those questions now, too. Problem is, the more times they ask, the more versions they get of the same story. Tracey can't seem to keep straight. Who called Carrie that Tuesday night or what exactly they said? I mean, at one point, he says maybe the trade show was actually in Montana, not Wyoming.

In some versions, her manager Jim was supposed to pick her up, right? But like, in at least one version, Carrie apparently wanted to borrow his truck to get to the airport because her car was in the shop. How would he have gotten anywhere while she was gone?

“Yeah, that's why he said that he couldn't lend it to her.”

And sometimes Tracey, like half remembers hearing a car outside that morning, other times no car, because he was like, you know, sleepy or whatever, and depending on who he's talking to, Carrie was due home anytime from Saturday, December 9th to Tuesday, December 12th. And, listen, maybe you could chalk all that up to a foggy memory. Last minute plans, a husband who is distant and half listening, but here is the real

clincher for me. It's what Tracey's own father tells police, which is that Tracey mentioned to him, Carrie's Wyoming trip on Monday, December 4th. This is a full day before Carrie supposedly even got that late night call telling her that she needed to fill in.

So that alleged Tuesday night trade show call is looking less and less like the start of all of this. And more and more, like something Tracey constructed as he worked backwards to build a timeline of Carrie's movement.

“So can anyone verify if Carrie got any calls that night?”

Well, no, because in 1989, their phone company only itemized long distance calls and Jim's call if it came in would have been local. So that ends up being a dead end, but detectives can still try to pick apart Tracey's other claims about that night to see where else they might find gaps. Starting with Carrie's car.

So Tracey had left her car at the shop in early December claiming that it wouldn't start, but mechanics couldn't find anything wrong with it.

He also told the dealership not to release the car to anyone without calling him first,

even though it is Carrie's car. Now at the time, Tracey had been driving a new Ford pickup and he had told pretty much everybody that that truck was a loner from a buddy. And that seemed to be even what he told Carrie, because the weekend before she disappeared, she and her sister Molly were in the truck with Tracey when he got in a fenderbender.

And afterward, Carrie worried how his friend was going to react to this. Well, come to find out when police run the plates, they learn that Tracey actually bought the truck back in June, in both his and Carrie's name. This is too many lies. Now, when he is pressed on the truck, he said that Carrie did know

“and keeping the purchase secret was her idea.”

Trouble with that is investigators learned that she wasn't with him when he bought it. And so they think that her signature on the paperwork doesn't match her other signatures. So they think it was forged.

And Carrie's family doesn't think that she would have wanted a new truck anyway.

“The crueggers were already stretched thin financially and Tracey had just made it worse.”

Detectives find out after that he had been skipping shifts and padding his time cards. The paper had also recently knocked him from salary to hourly, so he was one warning away from getting fired. Did Carrie know that? I mean, she knew money was tight, but Tracey's job troubles, all the rest of it.

I don't know. Well, where is he going if he's not going to work? Like he said he was like padding his time card and stuff. No idea. But I can tell you and excuse that he leaned on when he wanted out of something.

He would tell people, Carrie is a way for work.

He has to watch their daughter.

Interestingly, a few different people reportedly heard some version of that excuse. And they only learned it wasn't true later when they would apparently ask Carrie like, "Hey, how was Alaska?" and she would be like, "What do you mean Alaska?" She would know idea what they were talking about. So that life was unraveling like before she was even caught.

Yeah. And Tracey actually pulled the same stunt days before she vanished. When Carrie wanted to cancel a December 4th doctor's appointment, he suggested like, "Just tell them that you're going to be out of town." So investigators have every reason to doubt Tracey,

which is why they work backward from the last time anyone besides him saw Carrie. And that would have been Tuesday, December 5th.

Gander Mountain kept its own phone records.

And unlike the phone company, which only log those long distance calls, theirs show that Carrie made a string of short calls home that morning. Now it's not clear why since Tracey was supposed to be at work.

“I mean, maybe that's why she's trying to make sure he's where he's supposed to be,”

which is not at home. Well, you know, maybe that's that or like, the for him going hourly, maybe he, she knew he was home. I don't know, but at some point I do know that he does go to work, because she eventually did reach him at the newspaper.

Now this next bit comes from Tracey, who didn't explain it until after the phone records came to light. But he claims that Carrie asked him to bring over an envelope that she had forgotten at home. So he says he drops it off at her job. But he isn't sure what was in it because it was taped shut. And he can't remember if he left it with Carrie, or if he left it with a receptionist,

except no one from her job remembers him stopping by that day. So like, T. B. D. to all of that. But we know for sure, though, through her co-workers that Carrie is at work that afternoon and didn't leave the office until 530 may be 545, which by the way, contradicts part of the story, Tracey had already given them.

According to him, Carrie got home at 530. And then 5 minutes later, they ate dinner, spaghetti that he'd made earlier. And at 6.05, he had left to run errands. And he can rattle off every stop, hardware store, grocery store, liquor store, two trips to his office. And he was home by 730, Megan was in bed by 8.

And then he took up the trash. And then at 815, he heard Carrie on the phone gushing about how beautiful Wyoming is. I mean, maybe Montana. Yeah. So she then tells him about the trip. So then at 830, he got her suitcase for her from the attic, maybe, but it's fair to them. She shoured packed and then was in bed by like 10.05.

And he's got it down to like, a five minute window. That's like, it's really specific.

“I know, especially for what should have been like a pretty ordinary night, right?”

Right. But then he gets to Wednesday and his black box becomes just like a blur. He sort of remembers Carrie leaving. But he like didn't get up to see her off. Can't tell you the exact time only that it was still dark. Things maybe he heard the back door close.

And that's it, not a word from her sense. So did anyone say how she was at work on that last day? Like, was she upset? Was she happy? Like, was anything like happening in her life? Could they tell? Well, it sounds like it was kind of a crappy day for her.

She had been upset about a mistaken and ad. And a colleague noted that she seemed distracted. And then she left later than usual. Late enough that one of her coworkers teased her about like her watch being broken. But Carrie just said that she'd been busy and told her,

"I'll see you tomorrow." Except, there is no tomorrow. At least not one anyone can account for. Now, when Christmas passes with no word from Carrie, it seems like detectives are coming around to what the family has feared all along,

that Carrie met with foul play and Tracy might be behind it. So as 1989 winds down, they bring their top suspect in for a polygraph.

Carrie's sister, Kathy, babysitting Megan while he is at the station,

“isn't buying that. To her, it is a flat-out act.”

But he takes the test anyway, and the results are inconclusive.

So, they schedule a second test, one for January 5th.

But then Tracy cancels. And they would never get another chance to give him an additional polygraph, because something unbelievable happens. Something I haven't seen play out in any other true crime case ever. Okay, everyone.

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The day after Tracy's never taken second polygraph,

he is at work when he glances at a newspaper article about his missing life. And he just collapses. He's taken to the hospital, but the Tracy who arrives there says that it's 1979, and that the last 10 years of his life are just gone. What do you mean gone, gone, gone, gone, how? The way he tells it in his mind, it is literally 1979.

He's a teenager, which means, "What wife?" He and Gary didn't meet until 1982. And their daughter, "What kid?" Maybe it wasn't born until '86, but it is only that one decade he lost. Everything before, and everything that is to come picking up at the hospital,

he says it's perfectly intact. So, to be clear, you got it, you can repeat if you got it. The only part of his life he can't remember is the part that actually matters to this case, and this missing woman, who he was married to, but doesn't remember. Doctors run a battery of tests, but they can't find any physical cause of this memory loss.

There is no sign of a stroke, nothing. They do notice Tracy seems to think that he's getting treated for a crushed finger,

“like that's why he thinks he's at the hospital.”

And it wasn't injury that he had gotten years earlier. It's like, I don't know, 1979. Literally, it was. But believe it or not, the people evaluating him are mostly in agreement that he's not thinking it.

They think he has what they refer to as hysterical amnesia,

and they're hopeful that his memory will return in time, basically.

And they say it's already starting to, like, a couple stray flashes of him, carry and Meghan, and to one of his counselors, that's exactly what makes it seem so real. Like the way that his memories are surfacing, track so closely, that the counselor believes that he would have had to research, like how this type of memory loss would work for like thousands of hours to fake it so convincingly.

I mean, to be fair, he apparently had a lot of time off of work, so like, but she doesn't, she doesn't think that he's capable of hurting Carrie either. Like to her, he just seems sad and confused by the whole situation. But Tracy himself isn't even totally ruling out the possibility that something happened or he was involved.

What? According to police reports, he tells a doctor that like,

“maybe he was involved in Carrie's disappearance. He just can't remember.”

But it's not like he's confessing. The doctor's read on it is that Tracy is just like afraid of that possibility, because he can't remember. Right. Now, investigators, despite what doctors are saying, like they're not buying a word of this. Medical staff can insist all day long that this kind of amnesia is real, that after something traumatic, the brain can shut down to protect itself,

and police still land in the same place. The timing of this is just too convenient. Yeah. But they put Tracy's hospital stay to good use, and they finally get a search warrant for the house. Wait, what have they been doing this whole time? I don't know why this part took so long, but by the time they get in there, Tracy had already done some redecorating. So, you know, because they waited, he had swapped out their barely-used mattress for a waterbed.

Carrie hated waterbeds. He had talked about getting the carpets cleaned too, but you can't scrub a whole house, and detectives cover every inch with a camera rolling. We actually got the video of this. Now, you don't see much that's like, you know, incriminating, and the walkthrough is almost entirely silent as they pan across a very lived-in house frozen in time, highlighting anything that they think is important, like a hustler magazine that hit newsstands after Carrie vanished,

with an article about a hitman who refused a polygraph, and a couple of shotguns in the basement, one loaded. They also scrape a red sandy residue off the ceiling of Tracy's truck. They grab some documents, and in the bedroom, they peel away strips of wallpaper marked with suspicious, reddish brown colored stains. But more important than what they find is what they can't find.

“So, remember the $500 that Tracy says Carrie took from their emergency stash on her way out?”

That money that they kept in the basement air duct. It's not there. I mean, so that tracks the money isn't there. Not the money. There is no air duct. The hiding spot doesn't even exist, and you know what else is missing? Any sign that Carrie was planning to leave? It is the opposite. There is the decorated Christmas tree. A half finished pine cone reef that she was making, and a long handwritten list of gifts that she

still wanted to buy for everyone, including her daughter Megan. And speaking of Megan, while Tracy has hospitalized, the O'Brien's are trying for temporary custody. But he won't sign off on it. Who's he? Like, Tracy won't sign off on it. Like, he says that he's just a teenage boy

basically, and he needs his parents to help him handle this complicated adult situation. I mean,

“he doesn't even remember having a child. So, why does he have any say in who's taking care of her?”

Where she lives? Amnesia or not? He's still legally her father. And so, by the book of the law, that apparently outrinks anything that the O'Brien's can claim. So, he gets supervised visits, and once he's out of the hospital and back at his parents' place in late January, Megan is with him. Carey's family tries to stay in her life, but the few visits they managed were rare, brief, and honestly awkward. So, within a couple of years, even those stopped.

And they don't just lose Megan. As time drags on, they also lose faith in the Burlington Police Department. And I'm not trying to Monday morning quarterback, but during our reporting, I kept noticing this bizarre dichotomy. On paper, detectives were clearly suspicious of Tracy, but there was a lack of urgency with certain things. As if they had already decided that he

was telling the truth. Like, for instance, a second mortgage they find out was taken out on the

Kruger home in October of 1989. We're talking just like months before she goes missing. And it was taken out in both Carey and Tracy's names. The paperwork was slow, so it didn't hit Carey's social security number until after she vanished. That was a heart stopper, because activity like that, like, could have signal that she was actually out there using it. But then the police like traced it to the loan, and they figured, like, okay, mystery solved. But it seems like they

“breathed past the obvious question. Did Carey actually sign it? Yeah. Did Carey know about it?”

The O'Brien's don't think so. They believe that her signature might have been forged.

But they were probably never know, because Burlington PD didn't pull the documents or even

bothered to talk to the notary. Well, and they had a forgery's suspicion already about the truck paper. Right? Like, why would you not follow up on this? It is baffling. And by the way, the truck is a whole nother problem. Because by the time the department requested those sales documents from the DMV, it was too late. The originals had been shredded. So they were stuck with copies of them. So handwriting analysis were all in conclusive. You generally can't authenticate

a signature off of a copy. Right. You know, like, how hard it was pressed, there's like a lot of like specific things. And paperwork isn't the only thing that was fumbled. A few months after Carey

pullover of this like 16 miles from Burlington. The PJs had two bullet holes near the underarm. And the crime lab determined a gun had been fired at close range. Now Carey's sister thought that the top looked like one that Tracy might wear. And she believed that Carey sometimes wore his pajamas. Although I don't think that was ever actually confirmed to be fair. Either way, that evidence is gone too. There is no record of the blood being tested. And it

“doesn't seem like Burlington, like even kept the evidence. Oh, and you know what else is gone?”

That red sandy substance that police found on the ceiling of Tracy's truck. But this one is different because we know exactly how it disappeared. A detective just threw it out. What? He said he was cleaning house, getting rid of things that police didn't need for the investigation. Okay, don't get up. How would he know what they need or don't need? It's an unsolved case. And it hadn't been tested like literally to be clear. Anything could be important. Anything

could be relevant, you know, to add to this. There is a rumor that that same detective was a family friend of the Krueger's like Tracy's family. So you can imagine how that sits with the O'Brien's. Especially since like I said he tossed it before it was ever tested. And the family had actually lined up a soil expert to test it. So the family lined up the soil expert. Yeah,

because they are basically working the case themselves. They spearheaded search efforts. They

keep an eye on Tracy. Kathy even puts her prosecutor job on hold and moves home for months to run point on this. They hire a PI and carries mom collects thousands of signatures, petitioning the attorney general to move the case to a different agency. And they do get some help from the state. But it doesn't sound like it was much of an upgrade. According to Kerry's sister Colleen, an agent suggested Kerry ran off to join the circus or the ice capates,

because women do stuff like that. You know, actually we've covered a lot of missing person's cases and a lot of those missing persons are women. Have we ever considered looking at like ice capates? We should. We should. I hadn't thought of it. What a brilliant idea from this man. I'm sorry. I'm assuming it's a man. Sorry. But also what? I know. I know. Now listen, tips do come in occasionally. That will get looked at. And there actually was one tip about

Tracy's brother that I thought was interesting. Barely he had been telling people that Tracy quote blue her away. And when police confront him about this, because Yagada, he admits he said it. But he swears. It was just a tasteless joke. He agrees to avoid stress test. And I know it's

“not the most reliable tool. But I think it's worth noting. They ask him if he helped get rid of Kerry's”

body. And if Tracy ever told him that he killed her, he says, no, to both. He passes the first one.

Did you help get rid of her body? He fails the second one. Did Tracy ever tell you that he killed her. Now, this next thing isn't like a tip. In fact, I don't really know what it means. But every so often, something strange lands in the O'Brien's mailbox. Most of it's like harmless junk. But one delivery, they get this fake severed finger. I'm sorry. What? Whether this is a sick prank or a real threat, nobody can say. But even like with this stuff coming in like nothing moves

the needle. So years pass. Tracy and Megan get a fresh start eventually a few hours away. He remarries. Life keeps moving forward for him. While Kerry just stays frozen in time. The O'Brien's have no doubt that she was murdered. But Tracy tells journal times reporter,

“Jane Rider, that he thinks Kerry is out there somewhere. Although he still can't remember”

the disappearance or like anything from the decade before it. So his memory never came back.

but in case you missed it, a stroke was ruled out by the doctors. I don't get how he's saying anything if it's like all a blank. Like how do you know she ran off even if you truly don't even remember knowing this woman. Well with his look memories gone or no memories of his own,

he says that he's relying on what his loved ones have told him. And he basically just doesn't think

that he's capable of whatever they're accusing him of. And listen, his daughter Megan believed that.

“I mean, she still does as far as I know. And listen, honestly, I cannot begin to imagine”

what it's like to walk in her shoes. She declined to speak with us for this episode, which I understand. Because there is no good outcome for her in this case. And it's not a case to her. This is real light. And I just want to give that a moment for everyone. Because I think it's really easy to judge. And that's not what's needed here. And Bethes is your innocent until proven guilty.

I don't want to sugarcoat the facts. But like try to put yourself in someone else's shoes

for just a minute. She is up against a world where most people don't see this case the way that she does and it's not her job to fight. She has to do what is best for herself. And I believe that with every fiber of my being. Like as a mother myself, if I were Carrie, if I were gone, all I would want

“is for my baby to be okay. So Megan has to do what will make her be okay. And listen, she was”

really little when this happened. So I don't know if they were even able to talk to her or any of that. But I know that as she gets older, she does speak with investigators. Because around 2013,

the O'Brien's finally got their wish. A Burlington officer transferred to the Racine County

Sheriff's Office and ultimately took Carrie's file with her. Now unfortunately Carrie's mom didn't live to see it. Neither did her father or some of her siblings. But at least now, there are real resources behind her case and a team ready to dig in. Like Lieutenant Brian Bansak. And if that name rings a bell, it's because we have worked with him before. He's the reason that you are hearing this story. Now he asked if we would cover it. The way he sees it, Carrie's family deserves answers.

So to go back to 2013, one of the first things these investigators do is they go back to the people closest to Carrie. And that means sitting down with Megan. And she tells them that she barely remembers her mom. But she had a childhood full of love with her dad. Tracy was a good

“father, she says. And that's what she has to base things off of. And according to police reports,”

the little her dad did share with her about her mom wasn't good. He told Megan that her mother was cold and uncaring that she got tired of being a parent and walked out. And Megan didn't question it. He rarely brought Carrie up at all beyond that. And Megan didn't push. So most of what she knows, she has pieced together online. Meanwhile, the one consistent in her life was her dad, Tracy. He is the one who took care of her and moved them somewhere new when Burlington got to be too

much. But I will say, that move wasn't random. They landed in the same spot as Tracy's old counselor, that woman who was so sure that his amnesia was real. What? Here is what the Racine County case review report says about that interview with Megan. Quote, Megan said that Tracy had moved to look cross a few years after Carrie went missing to get away from it all. Also, his therapist/friend was moving up there. And he moved up there to be closer to her. In fact, they have homes on the

same piece of property to this day. Megan says she even called the counselor mom for a while. Okay, and homes on the same property? Yes, but it does not seem like they were romantically involved. And just to be clear, she is not the woman that he went on to marry later. They described the relationship more like a surrogate family. But Carrie's family didn't get that kind of place in Megan's life, though. Tracy told Megan that the O'Brien's had stalked in harassed him.

He even claimed that they'd broken in and stole in her mom's wedding ring. But here is the lie we can outright catch him in. Because in 2015, on the 26th anniversary of Carrie's disappearance,

Now, we reached out to Tracy for this episode and he never got back to us. But I want you to hear

him tell his story in his words. So let me play parts of that 2015 interview for you. Okay, everyone. The crime junkie summer collection is now available, but time is running out to shop. These limited time summer favorites won't be restocked. So if you've had your eye on the beach towel, the lawyer tote or a new go-to-tee, now is your chance to grab them before they disappear. Visit shop.audiochuck.com to shop the crime junkie summer collection before it's gone for good.

My impression is that she was just a very wonderful person. Okay, and where did you get that impression from? From friends and family. Okay, so we were with Megan who got in the impression that she was kind of a cold on carrying a selfish person. I'm not sure. I don't know you'd have to ask her.

Well, what we did ask her, and she said that that's kind of the impression that you had given her. Well, I don't know. I'll get her to that and I'm not going to sit myself against her. But everything I know about the case is after the fact, there's nothing I have no memory from before that. So everything has to be returned.

“When you were getting a handleback that that was your reality. What were you thinking?”

What were you feeling about that? Very overwhelmed. Okay, it all. It was all suddenly, even the fact that I had a wife and child was astounding. And do you think that you kind of recalled some of that or is that stuff that you're saying that you only people told you?

Well, after I had the stroke and everything, everything that was never told me was astounding.

Okay, okay, I go just, just baffled, you know, because I simply, I was at that age and I mean, this is all engineered for it's all in the energy. I know. Yeah. I know that it's all in the energy is, but it's been 26 years. I'm sure that you've been asked this question repeatedly through the years. What do you think happened?

“Yes, I've been mentioned before probably times this Sunday, I believe she loves you.”

Why, why would she leave? We don't know looking back and talking to people after the fact that I think there were some psychological issues that she was suffering from. Okay. I think maybe nanopropos and granite compounds cannot diagnose the person without seeing that person or getting opinions from people in the field. They raised that as a strong class before he said, "Yes,

she did have the issue." Okay, but what do you think happened to her after she left?

I mean, she's never used her social security number. She's never used a credit card.

She's never gotten a driver's license. I don't know if, but obviously, if she did, she didn't use that given name. I mean, if it's, at that time it was so easy to do. My feeling is if she were dead, somewhere that body would have shown up in some place or another. Right.

Somewhere there would have to be a body. Now again, we know that doctors confirmed Tracy did not have a stroke in 1990. But that is the story he's sticking with. So investigators decide that they're going to put this to the test. Again, they hand his old hospital records to a new neurologist for a fresh read and she agrees with the 1990s clinicians. No stroke, no medical reason for any of it, but she disagrees in another

part. She thinks that he could be faking. A forensic psychiatrist, those even further, to him, this all sounds like BS. Sure, trauma can do a number on a person. But it doesn't just reset a grown man's memory back to his teens and keep it blank for now decades. And the amnesia

“isn't the only thing back under a microscope. Because Tracy's also still leaning on this idea”

that Carrie was in the middle of a depressive episode. A manic depressive, he said. Right. Though these days, we would call that bipolar disorder. And remember after she went missing,

and she might be having suicidal thoughts, right? Like that's what cranked everything into

“high gear. Well guess what? Apparently, nobody ever asked that doctor if he actually wrote that note,”

because when new investigators go check, he's like, no, definitely not. I never treated anyone

for depression. But Tracy won't let this idea go. Even before he lost his memory, he was telling Carrie's family that she was depressed. And then there's the counselor who would go on to live on the same property as Tracy. Back in 1990, she told police that she had Carrie's diary, and that it showed a lot of anger towards Carrie's family. Her mom specifically, going all the way back to when Carrie was younger. And when is this diary from? That's the thing.

Tracy actually hands the diary over himself, eventually. Like he wants police to have it. He thinks it proves that Carrie was unhappy with her family. But when they look at the diary,

“it's from Carrie's senior year of high school. So we have grown older. But I would love”

your read on this. I just had a senior in high school in my drama. Everything is drama. And I know you know this. We were reading my granite sophomore journal. Oh my god. On the plane, when we were on tour, not senior year, but pretty damn close. And there is literally my favorite part of it.

There's one page that says, oh my god, I have the best day ever. Things are amazing. My life's

going to be amazing. I am like, I am on such an upward trajectory. And you literally turn the page. And what does this thing actually flowers? I. I. Without any reservations. Wish I was dead. In like, Sharpie. It's a lot of money. And then you just turn the page. And you're like, so I was talking to someone so that I said, can you imagine if like, I go missing. And Eric

“takes that to where he's like, obviously, she wanted to die. Like, that's what? It's it's bunkers.”

So the note from the doctor is not real. Strokes rolled out. Stroke is rolled out. The amnesia is now in serious doubt, which to be honest, has been for me since day one. But okay. Yeah. And still, Tracy won't budge from the theory that he has pushed since day one. His wife left on her own. The way I see it, there are two versions of Tracy that cannot be reconciled. One murdered carry, faked amnesia, then raised their daughter on the cruelest possible lie that

her own mom abandoned her. The other is a man who is innocent, but has been unfairly living under a cloud of suspicion ever since she disappeared. But across that divide is Megan, who's slowly reconnected with some of Carrie's siblings. And they have gotten to show her a different side of Carrie, not a mom who got tired of motherhood and left, but one who loved her daughter more than anything. I mean, talk about a rock and a hard place for her. I mean,

either Tracy killed her mom and lied to her her entire life or Carrie really did choose to leave.

Or not so fast, there is a third option that somebody else could have murdered Carrie. And that

might sound like out of the blue, like some kind of Hail Mary Pass, we're like sure anything's possible, right? But is it probable? Well, hold your horses. Because it turns out, there was a man who lived just a few doors down from the Krueger's, who police believe may have been a serial killer. Okay, everyone, the crime junkie summer collection is now available, but time is running out to

shop. These limited time summer favorites won't be restocked. So if you've had your eye on the beach towel, the lawyer tote or a new go-to-tee, now is your chance to grab them before they disappear. Visit shop.audiochuk.com to shop the crime junkie summer collection before it's gone for good. I want to back up because this thread started decades ago, back in January of 1990, we're talking weeks, a month tops after Carrie disappeared.

That is when police got a call from a state parole/probation agent. She had been watching the news segment about Carrie when this familiar face just like flashed across the screen. It was Carrie's close friend and neighbor, this woman named Audrey. And this agent knew Audrey, because she was shocked up with a violent felon on this person's caseload. This 48-year-old man named Philip Andrew

when he shot and killed his own uncle during an argument. Then, according to the Torrance Harrel,

“he abducted a teen at gunpoint. And he got caught, but while out on bond, he tried to rob a”

gas station and shot the attendant who survived. Now, he pled guilty to manslaughter and attempted robbery and got out of prison in the early 1970s. But by the time Phil moved in down the block from Carrie, he was a suspect in five other murders, including his wife. She, his wife, had been killed in what looked like a robbery in Dayton, Ohio in 1988. But police strongly suspected Phil and his nephew, because nothing about the robbery seemed random. Phil's wife managed this fast food

restaurant, and she had been robbed before while making a deposit. And she told friends that she

thought Phil was behind it. So her company moved her to a new location, but then months later, she was dead, shot multiple times in the chest and face. And by the way, no one is pulling this

“stuff out of thin air. Phil's nephew actually admitted to pulling the trigger on what he said was”

Phil's orders. But the confession got tossed out on a technicality. Now, the O'Brien's didn't know most of this back then. The world was a wild place without the internet and your ability to Google your neighbors, but Phil was a hard guy to miss. He was quiet, but he dressed loud. He and Audrey spent time at the crueggers. And Carrie's sister Molly still remembers his three piece suits and the rings that he wore on every finger. But it wasn't Phil's personality that made

the Pearl Officer at Wary, not even his criminal record. It was what Phil did on December 5th, the last day anyone saw Carrie alive. This officer said that when she called Phil, he sounded nervous. And he said that he had to get to Virginia right away to take care of his mother. But then a

“couple of days later, that story shifted. Now it was Ohio and Virginia for like some business deal.”

So Phil left that night, came back within the week, and then spent months bouncing between Wisconsin and other states. Carrie's brother Pat told us that Phil and Audrey even showed up at his parents' house around New Years while the family was deep in the search for Carrie. Now, Phil eventually landed in West Virginia where he married an older woman with serious health problems, sealing the deal with his dead wife's wedding ring, and before long her kids were

convinced that Phil was after the family's money. Allegedly poisoning their mother to get it. And they all noticed the same pattern like she would get violently ill, go into the hospital and recover, and then crash again the moment she came home to Phil. Now, she eventually had a hard attack, survived though, and after Phil attacked one of her daughters, she divorced him. Then he took a job at an adult daycare. Do they call run background? And a 63-year-old woman went missing

from that same center. Phil wasn't on staff by then, but he had worked there while she was a resident, so I mean, they probably crossed paths, which puts him on police's radar for that too. Now, in 2016, Phil got arrested in West Virginia on something totally unrelated, an arson and insurance fraud scheme, and that is when we're seeing county seize their opening. With Phil already in trouble, they make this trip down south to ask him about Carrie face-to-face.

But he's no help. He claims he barely remembers her or Tracy that it was all just so long ago.

Still, he swears he never hurt Carrie, and turns it around on police accusing them of trying to

just like pin another crime on him. But Racine has one last move to play, an extraordinary offer for him. If Phil will show them where Carrie's body is, they will make his arson and fraud charges go away, and they won't charge him with anything related to Carrie's death. That's like two major, get out of jail free car. It's a sweetheart deal. A immunity in Carrie's case is no real gain, right? Like, he's not like charged with anything there, but like to make the fraud and

arson stuff go away. Like, that would be huge for him. But through his attorney, Phil turns that deal down. He says, "Look, I wish I could take this deal. I wish I could help. I would if I could,

door swings shut, or at least on this case, anyway. If he was involved, I think he probably

“would have jumped at the chance to help himself. But if Phil does have any answers about Carrie,”

those died with him in 2025. Which, for law enforcement today, puts them right back where they started. Tracy. As investigators share it told us, every road leads back to him. Carrie's surviving siblings feel the same way. They don't doubt that Phil was dangerous, but to them, he was a red herring, and the real threat to Carrie was inside her house, not a few doors down. And most everyone seems to agree with them, at least the people we spoke with.

They just can't settle on a how or a why. Some wonder if Carrie's flu-like symptoms meant that she could have been slowly poisoned over time. Or maybe there was a fight that boiled over. Her sister Molly overheard them arguing that last weekend, it was low intense.

“Maybe Carrie found out about the truck that was bought in her name, or his troubles at work.”

Maybe she confronted him. But that's all speculation. Her remains have never been found.

So for now, no one can prove what happened or who's responsible. The Carrie's case is still active. Officially, she is a missing person, even though she's been legally declared dead. And since nearly every Tracy related theories centers on his truck or the Kruger's house, that is where investigators have largely focused their recent efforts. They have searched the family's former home, and they've even tracked down Tracy's old-forward pick-up.

They actually brought out the, like, goodest little boy with the best little sniffers to check out the truck. This is a cadaver dog, mind you. His name is Taser. You have a picture of him. I will do you one better. The Sheriff's Office actually gave us the footage of, like, when they brought him out. You can tell how excited Taser is to be on the job. He's, like, circling around the truck.

And right at the front wheel, well, he alerts. He's letting his handler know, like, hey, I can smell human remains here. Lieutenant Vansot called this hit the strongest indication he's ever seen. And Taser does it twice more in the same spot. Meanwhile, cadaver dogs also alerted inside the house. Once in the stairs, leading up to the attic, and then again, down in the basement. And this past January, there was this tip from a guy who used to work for a flooring company.

And that tip sent them back to the same basement. So get a look at this. Around the time, Carrie Vanish, this contractor guy, he was sent to Burlington to Lake Harpit in a basement for Tracy Kruger. When he got down to the basement, he says he saw something odd. There was this, like, fresh patch of concrete about three feet by six feet. And Tracy told him that it was, like, drainage repair. But drain tiles run along the walls,

like, this guy knows. And this was, like, smacked up in the middle of the room. Now, the carpet guy reported this to Burlington PD back in 1991. But they brushed it off at the time, because the company's records dated the job to November 1989, which is nearly a month before Carrie

“disappeared. But here's the thing. Even decades later, the tipster recalls what happened vividly.”

And he still remembers how antsy Tracy seemed to just like get the floor covered. How Megan wandered downstairs and got into his tools. And when he hauled for Tracy to come grab her before she hurt herself, Tracy apologized and explained that he was busy cleaning out his bedroom because he was having a new bed delivered. But Tracy didn't buy the water bed until after Carrie was already gone. Which makes investigators question those company records.

Maybe they're wrong. Maybe in November date is when Tracy, like, first called for an estimate,

or maybe is when he booked the job, who knows? All they know is they need to go back to the basement, which they do. This time, they bring a cadaver dog and ground penetrating radar. The dog alerts in multiple places, including two in the basement. And the radar gets a hit near

Watching it unfold, Lieutenant van Sock and investigators Susan Conley are on pins and needles. Years of bad leads, dead ends, searches that turn up nothing. But like here they are, possibly standing right above Carrie. But when they pull up the carpet, the floor solid. There's no patch. There's no repair. There is nothing that looks like what the man described. So they bring the guy back to the house just to like see it for himself.

And he takes one look and he goes, well, like, well, there's your problem.

“This isn't the basement that I worked in. Then, then sir, what basement did you work in?”

That is the mystery. Everyone's trying to solve right now. It's part of the reason that they were willing to share so much information with us. So we could pass it on to crime junkies.

They think that there might be a house out there that they never knew to look at.

Maybe a relative's place, somewhere that police had no reason to search. If this guy's memory is solid, that slab of concrete is out there somewhere. We just don't know where. Okay, but how does that align with the whole Tracy upstairs clearing out the bedroom thing? Like, I know. That only makes sense if it's their help. I keep spiraling on that. The bed says that he's in the crew or house. The floor says he wasn't both camp be true. Right.

“So Lieutenant-Vensock went and checked the basements at Tracy's parents' house.”

Grandparents' voices started with those. No match. He even said the contractor photos of another relative's house. Still nothing. Wherever that basement is, they haven't found it. So I had an idea. I was like, have him sketched out the layout of the basement. He remembers. And I actually have it to show all of the crime junkies. I need everyone to spread this far and wide. It'll be on the blog post. I'm going to put it on social too. So it'll be easy to share.

Maybe this will jog someone's memory. Because it does not match the crewgirl's basement. So their basement is like a square that is like cordoned off into like four sections with areas of carpet, concrete, and vinyl tile. And the stairs kind of come like right down in the middle of the room. The basement that the contractor remembers is simpler. Like there are just two areas. There is concrete on one side, carpet on the other. The patch he keeps coming back to is inside that

carpet it have. And the stairs aren't in the middle at all. They're like in the very corner with a washer and dryer and sink right beside them. Like I said, I'm going to put these pictures up everywhere. Blogs, social. I need you guys to share them. And I need everyone's help with one more thing. So Tracy's whole story hangs on this idea that Carrie's supervisor or someone called her that Tuesday night. And for years they always thought that those records wouldn't exist. Like the

phone records of that because the phone company only recorded long distance calls. Right. And the manager's call would have been local. He was like right there. Except what they learned recently is that back then the phone company drew its billing lines by municipal boundaries, not the distance. So two neighbors could land in separate zones. And unlike how it was zoned. Yeah. And a call between them could count as long distance. Meaning it would show up on the phone bill. Problem is, I mean,

they can't get the bills anymore. It's been so long. That's not the problem. Note, they actually

still have the bills. The problem is they can't decipher them. Those old bills basically read like

higher glyphics. So they're looking for somebody out there who worked for Wisconsin Bell in the late 80s and know their way around these bills. So if that's you or if you know somebody, this is your time to shine. You could help the Racine County Sheriff's Office solve the case. And they want to hear from you. Actually, they would appreciate any information you have about carry. And so you can call them at two six two nine three zero eight two five four. And you can also call the crime stoppers

“of Racine County if you want to remain anonymous at eight eight six three six nine three three zero.”

Crime junkie is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve. Hey, crime junkies. If you're wondering what to listen to next, I got you. Check out another audio check show park predators. A recent episode is about a couple named Danny and Sue who

left for a camping trip in New York's Adirondacks and never made it home. When Danny's abandoned

another attack happened. And suddenly, the whole investigation became something much bigger. It's one of those cases where every new clue changes what you think you know. For the full story, listen to the Adirondacks on park predators wherever you get your podcasts.