MISSING: Melissa Casias

But hidden in those same scenic landscapes are stories of violence, survival, and life's cut short.

“I'm Delia Diambra, and on my podcast park predators, I uncover the true crimes that happened in the most amazing places on Earth.”

Listen to park predators wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. This in last year, I received an email from a crime junkie. A woman named Jasmine wanted help because her aunt had recently vanished from Tows County, New Mexico,

and no one could agree on what happened to her. But everyone did agree to speak with us, because at the heart of it, they all say they want to know what happened to her.

“Her husband and her daughter think she left on her own. Her other family believes that she was a victim of foul play.”

And I'll be honest with you, I don't know what to believe. Each side believes they're theory so fervently that I'm afraid my recounting of the facts as I know them are going to upset everyone, because even the facts don't make sense. But that usually means that we're missing something, a piece of the puzzle that may be one of you out there hearing this right now might have.

And there is a small chance that missing piece has bigger implications than I could have ever imagined when I first read Jasmine's email last year.

This is the story of Melissa Casias. [Music]

“On the afternoon of Thursday, June 26, 2025,”

18 year old Sierra Casias is working at a coffee shop in Tows, New Mexico. When she steps away to check a voicemail from her dad, Mark, now his tone is tight like something is off. He wanted her to know that he had just gotten a call from her mom's supervisor who told him that Melissa hadn't shown up for work that day. Now to Mark, that seems impossible because he and Melissa both work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is a superintendent. She's an administrative assistant. They share a car and commute together every single day, including that day.

So how could she not be there? But Sierra already knows something he doesn't, which is that Melissa drove the hour and 15 minutes back from the lab after dropping Mark off. So she was there at the house at like 737-45-ish when Sierra woke up that morning, which was way out of the norm, by the way. But she told Sierra that she had forgotten her security badge and since she was back home anyway, she would probably just work remotely or maybe even take the day off. Now Sierra kind of assumes that she had done the latter because she saw her mom for a second time later in the day just before 1 o'clock when she'd stopped by the coffee shop Sierra works at to bring her lunch.

Plus she texted her about a half an hour after that. So all to say like even though her dad seems worried, Sierra wasn't. Now since she's at least had some kind of communication with Melissa in the last hour, Mark asked her to text her mom. And she surprised when that little message bubble turns green. iPhone users know what that means that message didn't deliver like normal phones like off or there is no like regular service something. So she opens up the location app where she can normally see her mom's face pop up.

But this time nothing loads. Melissa's location has just stopped transmitting.

That's when the worry starts to creep in for her because her mom never lets her phone die.

This is all concerning enough that Sierra decides to leave work early to make sure that her mom's okay. And their house is just a few miles away. She's there by like 3.30. The family's white jettah is there in the driveway. Their dogs are outside alone. And that is a little bit odd since they're really protective and usually stick to Melissa like glue. But inside things are even stranger. Melissa's not there, but lots of her stuff is. On the kitchen table, Sierra finds her mom's work phone and badge, her keys, and this small gold chain that her mother and log gave her that she normally wears like every single day.

Then, in the loft area of their house, what connects to her bedroom, Sierra sees a paycheck that she had given her mom that afternoon to deposit for her.

And finally, she goes to her mom's office where she finds Melissa's purse, her wallet, both of her personal cell phones, her old phone, and then the new one that she had just replaced it with.

That backdrop that you see when a device is brand new, except we know these aren't new. And Sierra realizes that they have been factory reset like white queen.

And when she tries to log into Melissa's eye cloud, it seems like the password has been changed. So from the house, Sierra frantically calls her dad. He's not far behind. He'd caught a ride with a coworker, so whatever's going on, they can figure it out together when he gets home. And when he gets there, he walks through the property with a different lens. Mark told us that he is a hunter and a professional outfitter, someone who takes pain clients through back country terrain, so he like knows how to read the land.

And right away, he began looking for signs of a struggle. When Melissa's tough and she's not someone who would have gone down without a fight, if someone forced her out of the house, there would be evidence of it.

“But there isn't. Nothing is missing, and the only thing that catches his eye is an unfamiliar set of tire tracks in the driveway, but they share that driveway with a neighbor.”

Now from what he can tell, he says they're still unknown, maybe not the neighbor's car, but they look like they might have come from a Jeep. Not knowing what else to do, Mark picks up the phone and calls New Mexico State Police Dispatch right around 5 p.m. And that's because they believe it's the ones. Yeah, this is Mark Cassias, you know, and we cannot locate my wife. We haven't heard from her all day from work, who with this morning was the last time I saw her, my daughter saw her around 1 o'clock.

All of this stuff is here in the house, but she's not here, and it's just not like her. She's not called home to check in and take her person or phone, and it looks like her phone is been my daughter says it looks like it's been reset, but you know, so we left all around the house. As you wear on our property, we cannot find her or nothing, and I don't know what to do. So, the car that she was just parked here at the house, the keys are here, the house was locked, everything was here, you know, I mean, she went from the father, she came all.

“The car was here parked in the yard, the keys are on the kitchen table.”

What's her name? I'm Alyssa Cassias. And we called the hospital fee because I mean, you know, there's no one in there, you know, at all, like that because we thought well, maybe it's something happened to her. Her personal interest of someone was able to identify her. And I used that when she took what's her phone.

She didn't take nothing.

That's just being postponed and everything's here and she always takes her stuff with her.

My daughter was trying to attract her location and they always attract each other. But her, but her phone's wife is the thing is when we can't get in, she would never have wiped all the pictures off and all the information off of her phone. Officers are dispatched to the Cassias home, and after getting a quick walk through of the house, they ask Mark and Sarah to lay out their day in detail. Now Mark says that he and Melissa left her work early that morning as usual, and we're talking like early early.

His shift starts at 630 in the morning and they live like over an hour away. Yeah, and Melissa was behind the wheel. And like she always did, she dropped him off at his building at around 615 and then she would drive to her building on campus and park her car there. But today Mark reminded Melissa that he needed to run to the bank at 11, so she agreed to bring the car back to him then. Now what he didn't know is that she turned around and went home. We know Sierra woke up at 745 to find her mom there, which surprised her.

But when Sierra mentions that Melissa's excuse about like being home was like her forgotten badge, Mark says, wait, that can't be right. He had watched Melissa hand her badge to security at the guard check himself when they got to the lab that morning. Mark says that he started calling and texting Melissa at around 1045, but he wasn't getting anything back, which he says concerned him because, hey, they normally talk throughout the day. Be more than needing to go to the bank at 11, like she was his right home, but she seemed to be MIA.

So he eventually asked Sierra to pass along a question to her mom. Should he just find another right home?

“And did they often communicate through Sierra like that?”

No, never, so that stood out even if she didn't think too much of it at the time, but like now it does.

And so Sierra reaches out and she gets a response from her mom, yes, tell him to find a right home. That was at 133 p.m. Not too long after she'd stopped by to bring Sierra lunch. And why isn't she just answering Mark? This is the thing I couldn't tell you.

I mean, I'd be pissed. Well, Mark says that it wasn't unheard of for him to get right home with a colleague.

He just says he makes this plan didn't think much more of it.

“Until Melissa's supervisor called him at around two, saying that she'd been a no-call no-show,”

which he says that is what totally threw him for a loop. Now, on the phone dispatch, Mark had said that Melissa didn't take anything with her. But when he and Sierra actually look more carefully, a few small things are missing. Melissa's toothbrush, her reading glasses, and sunglasses. And most significantly, what they calculate to be a 90 day supply of her thyroid medication.

That doesn't exactly scream foul play. No, but Melissa just leaving without a word to her family does not make sense either. Mark tells police that they were supposed to leave the next morning for a camping trip. And beyond that, Melissa is a devoted mother. Mark has three daughters from a previous marriage, but Sierra is Melissa's only child,

and the two of them are close in a way that is hard to overstate. Especially after Sierra survived a car accident in 2022 that killed her best friend, a girl who had been like a sister to her. It from that Sierra suffered serious injuries and the emotional damage lingered for longer than the physical ones, like it had been a rough few years.

But things were finally looking up. Sierra had just graduated high school. She was set to move to Albuquerque in the fall for beauty school, so she could become an esthetician. And Melissa had planned to run a two-bedroom apartment there to like stay with her for the first couple of months, just to like get her settled.

And Mark told us that he planned to kind of go back and forth. Plus, he tells police that they have a strong marriage.

Melissa has never mentioned wanting to leave him.

Never mentioned wanting to leave the girls. None of them. This just doesn't make sense.

“Right, so why would she walk away from all of that?”

That's the question that hangs in the air as family members who had gotten word about her being missing, start arriving. Like Melissa's parents and her brother, her sister Trudy, and Trudy's daughter, Jasmine. Melissa's parents, Jose and Joanne Mondragon live nearby, although they had been in Albuquerque visiting Trudy that day. But once they heard what was going on from Sierra, they were in the car.

And these are longtime crime junkie listeners, so even in shock, they said that they felt like they were prepared and knew what to do. They worked the phones during the two and a half hour drive to Taos, calling relatives and hospitals, hoping that Melissa would be home safe by the time that they got there. Instead, they pulled up to a property bathed in police lights. And they were told to wait outside away from Mark and Sierra.

Now they don't believe for a second that Melissa left on her own. Something that must have happened.

And they already have someone in mind, Diego Martinez, who is Sierra's ex-boyfriend. Now Diego had been behind the wheel in the crash that killed Sierra's best friend. He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the crash, and according to the family, his behavior became frightening. In 2024, Sierra took out a restraining order against him, citing physical abuse, break-ins, stolen keys, and threats against her and loved ones, including specific threats against Melissa.

“Diego had also sent Melissa sexually explicit text messages, and did Mark and Sierra bring him up at any point too?”

Not that I know of. Still though, from the very first night, Diego's name is already on the table. But before that thread can even go anywhere, something else comes up. Jasmine has been blasting, missing person posts on social media since the moment she understood what was happening. And almost immediately, someone had reached out.

And this isn't just anybody, this is a guy named Lloyd, who has known both Melissa and Mark since they were children. And he tells Melissa's brother that he saw Melissa earlier that afternoon walking along a highway close to her house highway 518 in a spot that is just a couple of miles away. He says that she was wearing a white sweater, and she was kind of like stumbling or staggering. And there was this old blue Dodge truck nearby, sort of lurking. Now, this is where the cohesive story I wish I could tell you fractures right down the middle.

Because from this point on, almost every significant moment in this case is going to come in at least two versions with plenty of contradictions along the way. So let me just lay out the sides for you right now. In one corner, you have Mark and all four of his daughters, including Sierra. I'm going to call them the Cassius household, even though they don't all live there. In the other corner, you have Melissa's parents, some siblings, her niece, Jasmine, some friends. And I'm going to call them the Mondrogons, even though not everyone on that side carries that name.

That they begin to become suspicious.

Not of Diego, who they'd first told police about, but of Mark.

Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not.

“That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Camillion.”

Every Thursday, host Josh Dean, deep dives into a scam, so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it, too. Listen to Camillion wherever you get your podcasts. When that tip from Lloyd comes in, Jasmine rushes to tell police what he saw. They have to check this out. Go to where he saw her. She could be hurt. She could be.

Jasmine doesn't know, but this, at least, is a trail that they can follow, right? But instead of being excited about the lead, Mark immediately shuts it down. He tells officers there's no way that this was Melissa, because she wasn't wearing a white sweater that day. Sierra remembers that she had on a light turquoise top when she saw her like around lunchtime. Okay, she could have changed, and also, he says, Melissa doesn't have a limp.

So, in his mind, the tops neither here nor there, because he's like whoever this woman is, that's like stumbling or staggering, this is definitely not my wife. And, listen, is, and she got hurt, which is like all the more reason to go check it out and make sure it's not her.

“Listen, I know, but like, here's the thing, the biggest WTF moment for me is that police just go along with it.”

No need to check that out. Mark says it's not her moving on. You're kidding. I wish I was exaggerating. I mean, what if she got the limp because she jumped out of a car? I mean, she could have a drug. The girl could have tripped over a pebble while just like out on a walk. Yeah, I could talk about this for hours, and we're going to get into it more later, I promise. But they decide not to look, and in the meantime, that night when the Mondragon's get to talk to Mark,

they're expecting a husband out of his mind with worry. Yeah, instead what they get is anger. Mark tells them that he and Melissa had gotten into an argument that morning before they left for work. He had caught her vaping. They bicker throughout the entire drive to the lab. And when she dropped him off, she told him to find his own effing ride home. We, Mark didn't mention any of that to police. Oh, no. And he doesn't for a while.

But if the Mondragon's account is accurate, it means that Mark knew from the jump that Melissa wasn't planning to drive him home. Not because of anything that Sierra later relate in the day. And on top of that, they say that Mark starts badmouthing Melissa almost immediately. Telling them that Melissa had been on a roll with f-ups lately that she had destroyed their finances,

“accumulating debt, getting backed up on tax payments, and are police searching the place at all?”

Are they just taking all these statements that first night?

No, they actually search. Mark lets police, including leading investigator, Agent Ezekiel Eskivel Matta. He goes through the house and they take photographs. And while there was nothing that stood out to the first responding officer who did that like once over of the place. You know, when you come at it with an investigators eye and you like zoom in, there is more that you pick up on. Like they hone in on a pair of Mark's hunting boots sitting on his and Melissa's bedroom floor next to a fish tank.

Some of the mud on them looks fresh. But Mark insists that he hadn't worn those boots in ages, and he points to what he says is proof of spider web inside. Nobody put their foot in there recently. Except when agents look, they don't see any spider webs. For a man who says that he's been at work at inside all day, fresh mud on hunting boots is a hard thing to explain away.

Then, when agents review the scene photos the next morning, this is now Friday, June 27th. They get more suspicious. Right next to one of those boots is a dried drop of something. Something that looks an awful lot like it could be blood. So when the mongergons and Melissa's friends are out canvassing neighborhoods and hanging out missing person flyers,

Mark goes in to talk to police. Ages put the photos in front of him. They ask him about the stain, but Mark says he's sure that's not blood.

But he's getting more and more agitated as the questioning continues until finally he asked if he should get a lawyer.

And he just ends it right there.

he did not hand it over voluntarily according to what police told us.

“They have to apply for a search warrant to get its contents by doing a forensic download, which that's going to take some time.”

But one thing they're able to do really quickly while he's at the station that day is verify his alibi. The lab confirms that he was at work that day and even his drive home is accounted for because of that coworker who gave him a ride. He confirms that trip. However, that doesn't close anything out. No, it doesn't seem like he could have physically done anything to Melissa. But that doesn't prove that he wasn't involved or that he doesn't know more than he's letting on.

So police get a search warrant for the costiest home. They take Melissa's phones, they take Mark's boots and they run a presumptive test on that stain by the fish tank. Which comes back positive for blood, so they send out swabs of that for further testing.

“Meanwhile, the Mondragon's decide to organize a search party, which kicks off at Melissa's parents' house on Saturday, June 28.”

Now Mark says he didn't even know that that was happening, I guess he stumbled across news of it on Facebook. But once he does, he shows up, not to help them look for his missing wife, though. According to the Mondragon's, he comes to tell them that he's figured it all out and he is sure that Melissa left on her own. He says he'd spend some time going through her paperwork and discovered that their finances were in far worse shape than he had actually realized.

Basically, showing up and saying don't look for her again.

I don't think those words don't look for her came out of his mouth, but he is there to tell them why he thinks she left on her own. He already told them about the finances, though, like he mentioned it that very first night. Right, but now he wants them to understand the severity of it, which he says he is just now finally getting a good grasp of. Though the signs seem to have been there. So starting a couple of years back, that's when Mark says he got this humiliating wake-up call.

He had taken some co-workers out to lunch, tried to pay, and his cards were declined. He looked into it and learned that his checking and credit accounts were overdrawn, and that his savings account had been drained. When he confronted Melissa about it, she told him that she'd use the savings to pay their taxes and explanation that he accepted. But it rattled him enough that he decided to separate their finances. He told us that he'd took over the major bills, like vehicle payments, health insurance, and he left Melissa to handle the smaller monthly expenses.

But by June of 2025, there were at least two huge signs that things had only gotten worse. One, their wages were being garnished, and two, their security clearances at the lab had been suspended because of their deteriorating financial situation. Melissa even had to move work spaces because she no longer had the clearance required for the office where she'd been working.

“How can he claim that he didn't know how bad things were?”

I mean, he's more saying that he didn't realize how catastrophic it had gotten, which is kind of hard for the Montagons to believe, because the couple had been hit with more than a dozen lawsuits or claims over the years. Mostly tied to unpaid debts, business disputes, and like family matters. But he maintains that he was in the dark on a lot of this stuff. That Melissa was like intercepting legal paperwork and hiding letters from attorneys or whatever.

But that doesn't make any sense, like why would she want to do that? I have no idea. But either way, like it seems like all of this financial stuff was coming to a head, because he says that when he confronted her about the wage garnishment and asked how they were going to afford Sears Beauty School, Melissa told him that she had gotten a lawyer, and that they had an upcoming court date to appeal a lawsuit judgment.

But now, he just found out apparently that wasn't true. There was no ongoing appeal. And in all her paperwork, he also discovered that she had applied for a personal loan to cover Sears tuition and been rejected. And based on the dates of things, it looks like she had just gotten that rejection days before she disappeared. Now on top of that, Mark tells everyone that things weren't going well for Melissa professionally.

Besides the clearance issue, she had also been flagged for performance problems at work.

So, Mark's theory that he is telling everyone about is that the pressure must have finally just reached a boiling point and Melissa bolted before it all came crashing down.

But, but, he also predicts that she's going to be home before the weekend is over, because she has an important work meeting on Monday.

Maybe Melissa loves Sierra so much that she left on purpose so that Mark could declare her dead in a few months and then collect her life insurance and like set Sierra up financially. What? Or, maybe she's just hiding out of her best friend's house. Someone should probably check there. So, the theory is everything?

Everything, but foul play it seems. Where is he saying that she actually is, though?

“Where does he think she is like the most likely place?”

I don't think anyone gets like a clear answer about that, that's the thing. To the Mondragon's, the whole thing sounds less like a husband trying to find his wife and more like somebody trying to rapidly workshop explanations. On top of that, while he's coming up with all the ways that she could have just walked off on her own, he finds time to criticize their search effort, saying that they're looking in the wrong places. Places Melissa wouldn't go because she didn't know them well.

And he keeps bringing up his confirmed alibi, even though nobody is asking him about it. So, being the crime junkies that the Mondragon's are, they start recording their interactions with Mark in the one party consent state of New Mexico. Starting with a call that Trudy made to check on Sierra the next day, Sunday. And she shared that recording with us.

We know exactly what's going on, but I'm not telling them shit.

Okay, well, as long as you're sharing that with the police, that's amazing.

Well, you know what I told the cops today, I know we have information. They're not even calling me. I said they're not done there. Yes, today, they would not answer the thing that I fight until they're detected. If you're going to go over there, I said I have a lot of information.

But if I'm going to go there, you're going to start interrogating me again. I'm not going. Well, we need to be concentrating on. We need to be concentrating on finding her. What's that?

We need to find her. Not there, Trudy. No, no, no, I'm saying no. What I'm saying is, it doesn't help if you're locked up at the police station. You need, you need to be out there.

What do you mean? Well, you need to be out there doing. I went over there. I, you know, you don't even told me that this was going on. That this big old search was going on.

“Yes, and I'm like, what the fuck is going on over here?”

I never knew about that.

You, I never knew about any of that.

No one's telling you what you guys are doing. I could be directing and saying, no, focus on this area. Focus like I did today. Okay. People all over that don't make no sense.

Well, we're anyway. We are very open for you to share with us what you want, what you're willing to. Because, you know what? You really do. Awesome.

You have to come skirt. And then I understand that, that they said there was some sort of a drop of blood in your bullshit. There's no blood in here. Okay. Okay.

Okay. The time frame does not match. The only time you could have been hurt by me, because I was identified in Los Alamos. You know, you were at work. Much, much, pretty.

Let me say something.

So maybe you'll understand this.

Yeah. It was just simple. If there was a drop of blood, if there was blood in this house, that means I would have to hurt Melissa before we left to work. Right.

Correct. No.

“That's why they didn't need all the over there when they had me over there.”

I was up in Los Alamos. Obviously, they determined everything. Yes. No. I know you were at work.

Exactly. Melissa was fine. I had one o'clock in the afternoon. Yes. I know that.

You were at work. No. I know that. But they said it had a gallon of blood on the floor. No.

No. Right. No. And it makes sense. This call goes on for a little while longer.

No matter how upset markets truly tries to keep calm. And, you know, she's not being confrontational at all. She is in information gathering mode. She wants to keep him talking. And that's when he says something that catches her really off guard.

Honestly, one of her biggest takeaways is this. And then I changed the box to all the doors that she would have. She cannot come in with a key and grab her something bail. She would have to contact Sarah to open up the thing. We put cameras up and everything too.

Oh. Okay. And you know what? That's a good idea. The cameras?

Because he changed the locks three days after she vanished. Yeah. Why would he even need to do that if she left her keys behind? Dude, that's the thing. Like, I don't think he ever explains that.

I'm like, she left her keys. She couldn't get in anyway. I know. Also, I still don't get where she would go. Like, she didn't take her phone.

It sounds like she couldn't have taken any money. She's got nothing with her. Well, I mean, not nothing. Remember, she will according to Mark and Sierra. She's missing from the house is what her toothbrush, her reading glasses, her sunglasses.

And then that 90 day supply of her thyroid medication. Even that is like a little weird though, right? Like, that's not exactly like a disappearing packing list.

They think that Mark was trying to plant the idea that someone came to get Melissa, pointing

to those unfamiliar tire tracks in the driveway. Remember, as evidence that another man had picked her up. But the thing is, like, he doesn't say who that would be though.

“I mean, is he implying that she, like, left him for another man?”

It's hard to tell what he's saying because Mark has offered a lot of theories over the months about where she might have gone Florida, Arizona, Washington. Maybe she left with the help from a contractor that she was having an affair with. Wait, she was having an affair? No, that's the thing.

Not that anyone knows up. I think he's just guessing. He says, you know, it could have been a contractor or maybe a hunter. She knew or a photographer from Colorado. Sometimes he insinuates to the family that he knows exactly where she is or who she's

with. But he won't give names, which feels so weird to that. And we're to me, even.

“Even the theory that she would leave him for another man in general, though, I can't”

really get my head around from his telling.

Because in his first interview, he told detectives that their marriage was great.

There was nothing wrong there. But that's not what police heard from other people. Some of whom describe Mark as egotistical and controlling. A man who allegedly emotionally and financially abused Melissa. And people have different understandings of Mark and Melissa's finances.

Some say that she was burdened with paying for everything, even though Mark made more money. So sure, she might have been in debt, but like in their eyes, that's really Mark's fault. And yeah, there were lawsuits and stuff, but records show that the majority of those were against Mark alone. Some people even say that the couple had talked about splitting up after Sierra graduated. And Mark had basically said that everything was his.

So Melissa should be ready to just move out. So when Melissa was talking about her plans to stay in Albuquerque with Sierra, it sounded to them more like a marital separation than just like this mom helping her daughter get settled, which is what Mark was saying. And Sierra had just graduated, right?

Like nearly a month before this. So the timing is interesting, which police obviously confront him with. Now initially, he tells them none of this is true. And he told us the same thing, though he acknowledges that Melissa had told people that stuff.

But according to Agent Mata, Mark ultimately confirmed it to police.

Admitted that he had encouraged Melissa to leave if she wasn't happy. I mean, so maybe this is why he seems so confident in this walking away. If you're like, he told her to go. Maybe.

“But then why won't he tell people who he thinks she's with?”

If he thinks that he even has like a sliver of an idea. I mean, here's one of like the stranger parts of this story. Mark starts putting up these mysterious posts like coded language that he says only Melissa could understand. Away to let her know that he's tracking her. How were to wear? I don't know. He is not an easy guy to get a straight answer from.

Well, I'm like thinking back, is he talking about like hunting, tracking like he's like on to her trail somehow? That, yes, and listen, some of her trail that day has already been confirmed by police. Because see his home didn't have surveillance cameras or anything like that. But there were some outside the shopping plaza where Sierra worked. And there is footage of Melissa, a lone seemingly fine going to drop off lunch for her daughter.

At 12.56 pm, Melissa's white sedan comes in hot to a handicap parking spot. Like she bumps into that, I don't know what I want to call the guard variable. You look like parking stuff. Yes, and it's so hard that the whole car kind of shakes so she like backs up a little bit. And then like 10 seconds later, she gets out of the car and calmly starts walking down the sidewalk with a sandwich for Sierra in one hand.

Then another camera picks her up in the plaza. We get a better look at her. She's in that turquoise t-shirt with a sweatshirt or something like that tied around her waist and jeans. And then a minute later, she is back on that same camera walking back to her car. No sandwich anymore, but she's holding a piece of paper in her hand that check that Sierra asked her to cash for her.

Now, the parking lot camera picks her back up getting into her car. But the video cuts off before we actually see her pulling away. So, I don't know what direction she went in, but she had to have made it home after this since her car, her keys, her wallet everything was found. Back there, the house right. But I don't think Mark believes anything happened to Melissa there at the house.

His searches seemed to be more focused in the spot along Highway 518 where Lloyd spotted Melissa.

Okay, so Mark told us that when that lead came in that first night when police were there, he was totally unaware that the tipster was someone who actually knew Melissa. He dismissed it because he didn't want investigators going on this like wild goose chase. Again, I still think the reason he dismissed it doesn't make sense, whatever, but then he says at some point over the first couple of days he learned that Lloyd was the caller. And so I guess by Tuesday July 1st, enough time had passed that he's at least willing to entertain the idea that may be it could have been.

So, he drives out to that stretch of Highway looking for circling birds, which is like a potential sign of human remains. Right, but that means he's now on board with a foul play theory. No.

I know Mark told our reporter Nina that he never thought Melissa met with foul play.

But if Lloyd's tip is true, and if Melissa had been injured or abducted, she wouldn't have made it far from that spot. Like, it's summer, it's hot, remains attracts scavenging birds.

“That's why he looked there on that Tuesday morning.”

Like, you know, in an absence of knowing what happened, maybe everything's possible even if it's not what he believed. Now, he told us that when he went out that way, he happened to see Lloyd outside in his yard, and so he decided to stop by and speak with him. Police still haven't reached out to Lloyd, by the way. This is five days after Melissa was last seen. And when Lloyd lays out what he actually saw, this is when something shifts from Mark.

Because Lloyd says that he never described Melissa as stumbling or staggering when he spoke to her brother.

He tells Mark that Melissa was just there one minute, go on the next. And Lloyd didn't actually see her get into that blue truck that he saw anything like that, but that is kind of the implication that he's making. So does Mark think this was Melissa or not? Well, now he seems more convinced that that was her. And if she wasn't injured or acting odd, it actually plays into his theory that she wasn't in distress.

She just like, left. And what do the Mondragon think? They've always felt like this could have been her stumbling or not. But even if she wasn't stumbling, the Mondragon still believed that she could have been in danger when she was out there. They think everything about this is screaming foul play.

They don't believe for a second that she left willingly.

Every theory that Mark has about her walking away is just that, a theory. And a constantly changing one at that, with no proof. So after this search, when Mark comes to them again, he's like, I've found something that makes me even more positive that she left on her own. I imagine that they're pretty skeptical. But this time, it's not just stories or his word.

This time, Mark has proof. Armed with information from Lloyd about exactly where he last saw Melissa and the blue truck, Mark had taken Sierra out to retrace Lloyd's steps. And in essence, he's trying to retrace Melissa's, not with old school hunting tactics. He was looking for any house with a surveillance camera pointed at the road.

And dude hit paid her.

“He finds a video from a house off of Highway 518 that you have to see to believe.”

The timestamp is 2018 PM on June 26th. When Melissa, alive and well, not stumbling, comes into camera frame. She's alone and walking at a brisk pace, not as if she's scared or anything just purposefully. She's wearing what looks to me like the same outfit we saw her in when she dropped lunch off to Sierra. But now her hair is pulled back and she's carrying a small backpack on her shoulders.

For the Cassius side, this video is proof that Melissa walked away on her own two feet by choice. And Mark told us he wasn't thinking about vindication or exonerating himself at that moment. But it's hard to ignore what this video means that there might be a whole other side to this story. A completely different narrative about how and why Melissa went missing that will have you questioning everything.

Okay, Crime Junkies. You know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not.

“That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Camillion.”

Every Thursday host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre. It will leave you wondering how to take it away with that. It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it, too. Listen to Camillion wherever you get your podcasts.

Video footage emerged that proved Melissa was out of her house and walking down Highway 518 alive and well. Something her husband, Mark Cassius, has been saying since early on. And his version of events reads like a completely different book. Not a shady, callous husband who had his wife killed, but a frustrated one who says that his wife abandoned him and their daughter, leaving behind not so much as a note or explanation.

Even then though, Mark says that some of the allegations against him aren't just misinterpreted. They're downright wrong. So let's go back to that first night when police were there and the Mondragon showed up and told us that Mark was hostile and bad-mouthing Melissa.

Mark told us that never happened.

He says that he didn't speak with them at all that night. He was completely focused on dealing with police. Then there's that argument that we're told he and Melissa had that morning about the e-sigarette, right? He had caught her vaping. It takes him a few interviews to come clean about any relationship issues to police.

But he says that he only withheld that information because he wanted them focused on finding Melissa, not eyeballing him. He also says that this fight or argument wasn't some big blow up, just this like minor, marital spat. And he denies that Melissa ever cursed at him or told him to find his own right home. But didn't that come from him in the first place?

“Well that's what the Mondragon said, that he told them that.”

But when we talked to him, he said no, that's not true, he never said anything like that.

We also asked him about an early theory. He apparently mentioned the one that really rubbed some people the wrong way, right? About Melissa making herself disappear so that he could declare her dead and then get the life insurance money for Sierra. Now Mark, to us never really confirmed or denied whether or not he said that. But what he did tell us is that he knows a person has to be missing for years before any of that becomes legally relevant

anyway. And actually, police come to learn that Melissa didn't even have a life insurance policy anymore. She used to, but that policy expired years ago, though I'm not really sure if Mark knew that. And Melissa's financial records showed just how bad things had gotten.

Investigators find out that she had negative account balances that swallowed up half her paycheck the second they hit.

And maxed out credit cards that she hadn't made payments on in months.

“And let's talk about the physical evidence, like the muddy boots, right?”

Mark says that he had recently asked Melissa to refill the fish tank, which was right above where the boots were sitting. And so he thinks that maybe she might have spilled water and rewetted like old, dried mud that was already on them from like a previous hunt. Which investigators think is plausible and the boots mattered like a lot less once his alibi was confirmed though, right? Yeah, and like the same logic, I think then extends to the blood. If it's even human blood.

We actually still don't know that for sure because what we know is they did that presumptive test. It is blood. Police still didn't have the lab results back when we last spoke to them. But Mark is saying, listen, that could have come from processing game or even from their dog. But either way, it's hard to make it mean much when we now know to your point, Melissa was clearly alive and walking on her own after she left the house.

“Well, and even if it does come back as her blood, like she live there, and there's that, right?”

It's not like it's like this pool or right? So blood and boots put those aside. There's also the tech of it all. Investigators find out that Melissa emailed a coworker the morning of June 26 saying that she'd be late because something had come up with her daughter, Sierra. That wasn't true.

So it seems like Melissa was telling everyone a different story so that she could make herself free that day. Mark, TBD exactly what she said to him in the car on the drive there, but like he seemed to think that she was going to be at work. She told Sierra that she'd come home because she forgot her badge, which she had with her, we know. But she told her job something was up with her daughter. And then what they pull from her phones, this is the detail more than anything else that makes me think Melissa had some kind of plan.

Because forensic download show that both of her phones, they weren't white clean at the same time. The older phone that she had, the one that she'd already replaced, that was factory reset at 802 a.m. And then her newer phone was wiped at 138 p.m. I obsessed over this because my gut tells me that if someone else wiped the phones, I would think that they would have wiped them both at the same time, right?

Realize their mistake and had to come back and wipe the second line.

But like we know that Melissa must have reset the first phone at home, right?

“Because remember, she's there when Sierra woke up at around 7.45, right?”

So the one that she doesn't use, like in my mind, when she doesn't use, or she's not going to need that day, gets reset in the morning. Just get it over with. Then she has her phone through the day as she's like bringing Sierra lunch, right? You can't even say someone else has her phone is like sending these messages. We have her on video, bringing Sierra lunch at 1 o'clock. Then Melissa sent her daughter that last text message at 133. And I mapped everything, like all of that lines up to where if Melissa is at home, when that reset happens at 138, then she could have very realistically left then.

And then, at the spot, she is seen at on Highway 518 on camera at 218. That's all the things that make me believe like it had to be her who reset them. But why did she reset them? This is the thing, I don't know. I mean, there are, I feel like there's two scenarios, right? Like if she reset them two scenarios.

And like in those scenarios, it's her walking away, right? Like so one, she took her own life, in which case I don't know why you would have to wipe all of your devices. I mean, unless you were hiding stuff you didn't want anyone to ever find out about.

“But like when you leave a note for that, like it did to me, this is like if you're, if you're so overwhelmed by like your marriage or your financial situation or whatever, like why would you leave this mystery behind?”

Like so, to me, this doesn't make a ton of sense.

So the second option is she walked away to start over to live somewhere else, be with someone else, whatever that looks like.

And in that scenario, maybe something on those phones would have told people exactly where she was going or like given away a plan that she didn't want found out. And have please pulled her eye cloud data? No, this is where it goes like a layer deeper, they tried. Okay. She didn't just wipe her phones, Apple told them that her back up had been completely scrubbed to like her eye cloud with nothing left to recover.

Like, I didn't even realize that was possible. Is that actually possible? It is. But it's not as simple, right? Agent Ezekiel, Eskabel Mata, says that that level of digital erasure takes intention, like it's more than just hitting a few buttons on an iPhone. So he does think though that like Melissa would know how to do it, or I assume at a minimum could Google it.

This is not like an impossible thing to do, it's like supposed to be your data. You should be able to erase it. Right. So is everyone pretty much an agreement that Melissa is the one that wiped everything? Not necessarily.

No, like the Mondragon's really wanted investigators to geophants, the Kasey is home to see if maybe other devices connected like either to her device or the internet or whatever Google around that time. But Google actually stopped providing that data to law enforcement in 2024. But they're really adamant they don't think that Melissa would have done this. They say that she was very sentimental, like the kind of person who held onto every photo and every memory. And so they can't imagine a world where she would decide to erase all of that.

And really that disagreement over what Melissa would or wouldn't do over who she really was. I think that's really at the heart of everything. Because the tension between the two sides in this case goes way beyond the investigation. Mark and his daughters say that the Mondragon spent years shunning Melissa over her separation from the Jehovah's Witness faith. That they barely knew Sierra didn't even meet her until she was a few years old.

And they claimed that they are only now presenting themselves as people who were like central to her life. But we asked the Mondragon's about this and they totally deny that. They say that Melissa was very present in their lives. There's regular calls overnight visits helping with medical appointments. Melissa had taken time off work to take her mom to the hospital for a knee replacement.

And then she was going to take care of her after that. That appointment was scheduled for June 30th, four days after she vanished.

“But whatever the truth is about those relationships before June 26th,”

the aftermath made everything worse. Mark and his daughters say that the extended family cut them out of the search entirely. With holding incoming tips blocking them from the fine Melissa Facebook page. And launching a go-fun me without ever consulting them. Now the Mondragon say that donations will fund a reward for information leading to Melissa's safer turn.

But Sierra feels like they exploited the tragedy, basically.

And the Cassia side also says that the Mondragon's fueled rumors that Mark was abusive and directly involved in Melissa's disappearance. Both things that he and his daughters vehemently deny.

Directing people to places Melissa would never go, they say.

And they blame her brother for bungling that whole Lloyd tip early on. I mean, the whole stumbling staggering description. Agent Montes says that was the reason investigators didn't follow up, not a contributing factor, the deciding factor. And more than that, according to Mark, Lloyd told him that the blue truck that he saw was a newer model,

not an older one, like the family had originally relayed. So like Mark, Agent Montes claims a chain of bad details that caused them days. But let's be real here, it was still Mark who told police not to check it out in the first place.

“And like, yeah, since when does the missing person spouse call the shots during investigation?”

Like, the responsibility is on the police here. And I completely agree with that. And remember, they didn't interview Lloyd until after Mark talked to him.

And I also have to say, like, a huge part of why I think there is such a great divide between families,

is that the investigation has not felt robust. Like, it leaves each family feeling like enough isn't being done, which leaves so much room for suspicion and speculation. Like, forget the Lloyd of it all, you took Mark's word and didn't talk to Lloyd until after Mark did days later fine. There was this other tip that came in, and I was shocked at how it was handled.

So a couple of days after Melissa disappeared, this tourist was near a church in Taos, New Mexico, when she noticed a man on horseback who appeared to be praying. It was an interesting sight, so she decided to take a photo of him. But then she noticed that he seemed to be crying, and apparently was intoxicated. So she approached him and asked if he was okay.

“And he told her that they had been searching for his missing cousin up in the mountains,”

and that he'd found her body decapitated. Now, I don't know if he gave a name for this so-called cousin before he rode off, and that tour didn't know what to make of that interaction, like didn't have any context. But later that night, she saw a missing person poster for Melissa, and I guess she put two and two together, so she reported the encounter to police,

and gave them a copy of the photo that she had taken. Investigators showed them to Melissa's family, and they weren't related to the man, but they did know him. Her brother recognized the guy as 64-year-old Rick Valeria, known as Wild. He works with horses near a local golf course.

I guess what he drives, a blue, dodge, truck. Agent Mata went to speak with Rick on Monday, July 21st. When did they know about this tip? So that part's unclear. The family seems to think that it was right away,

but Mata insinuates that it was later, which is why they're not talking to him for like a month. But I don't want to get hung up on the police response time,

“because I think the proper thing to get hung up on is the interview itself.”

Because according to police, once they talk to Rick, he admitted that he helped with search efforts, but he denied everything else, so they just dismissed the lead. They think Rick concocted the story for attention. So the Mondragon's actually got the body cam footage of this interview,

this thing that makes them like rule him out, and be prepared to scream. I'm going to play you the entire interaction between Agent Mata and Rick Valeria. So you can make your own determinations about the questions asked, and the answers Rick gave, and the conclusion that those led police to.

It's still daylight when Agent Mata pulls up to Rick's home and calls out to him. Let us stay, please. Mata won't ever enter Rick's home,

and Rick never fully comes outside.

As far as we know, the whole interaction takes place with Rick fully or partially behind his metal gate door. Richard home. Richard, are you doing bro, I'm Agent Mata. Stay police, bro.

Not in any trouble, bro. I'm here just doing so follow up with you. Yeah, we heard bro that you were talking about finding a decapitated body out in the month of roll. So you found a decapitated body without its head there in the month day. Are you sure?

Sure. As I tracked it down to you, bro, the people that heard it took a picture of you on a horse there in the plaza. You're cruising around on your cavayo and rojo. Yeah, but under the lava. Yeah, here, right here in the church bro.

Yeah, no, you find no. I was helping with our sickers over here.

When you were there, I guess.

Oh, what are the days? We're here in the church and rescue. Yeah. Well, we could go. Yeah.

I was helping with them there.

“Yeah, but you didn't find anybody without their head broke, because that's what I'm hearing.”

And that's why I'm here to see what's going on with that bro. No, no, no. Are you sure? Sure, bro. Because I wouldn't be bugging bro of the information, then it's some pretty serious.

That's why I'm here wanting to hear it from you. No, no, no. But another mystery trick. Why would I hear that then? And this is what I heard, bro, that you're cousin to Melissa and she've been missing for a few days.

And you were up in the month, and you were all sad because you found a dead body, what that it's had. And that the head was just tossed there to the side, bro. You don't know where you're just helping with the search. We got it.

I went for the sick. I saw her here. Yeah.

No, I don't even know her.

I'm already getting to her, nothing. Okay. Do you remember what you were doing on a 26th of last month, bro? That's a Thursday. I can tell you another turkey.

Yeah. You're an Albuquerque. And the blue dodges is yours. Yeah. Okay.

“So you didn't go picking up no girls or anything down there on five eight team, bro.”

But another. Okay. No, no, no, no. I'm just trying to sort it out, bro. Because y'all saw his man.

People freaking talk. And your name came up, bro. Your name came up. You had information about a dead body and stuff. So I'm like, okay, well, let's talk, man.

Let's see. Because at the end of the day, I got a job to do. You know, and I just could try to follow up. But everything that I get. No, no, no, no.

Nothing about that. No. Okay. Richard, what's a good phone number for you, bro? Please have questions.

Oh. What have you heard, bro? I'm a little bit older. Actually. Or the hospital.

You said you were helping out, bro. I'm sure you heard something. I heard about that. Yeah. I heard that.

I heard that. Yeah. And we asked our brothers to be here. We found a little there. Yeah.

And I want to not pursue a little there. And I searched your rescue. Mm-hmm. You're saying, uh, we're going to leave the house. Well, you guys are just showing up there.

I remember talking to you. Yeah. Yeah, but you don't know anything about not that body. Not that, bro. Are you sure?

I'm sure. Okay. I'm just checking, bro. Like I said, this information was passed on to me today. And I was like, well, let's go.

Let's go, let's go. Not cut some doors and see what's up. It'll give you a call, bro. Okay. When I'm Mr. Richard, I'll let you get back to it, man.

Gracias. That's it. It's tell me there was a follow-up. Agent Marta says that he did speak with Rick again. At some point, but I don't know what came of it.

And we don't really know much about Rick, even. Old court records from the 90s mentioned multiple DWI charges. I don't see anything violent on his record. But there is some weirdness here, right? That like, I don't know how you can ignore.

“And pieces that deserve, I believe, more investigating.”

I mean, this bizarre statement allegedly about a decapitated body, the odd behavior, the blue truck. I mean, did they look at the truck? Like, what if he hit Melissa? Yeah, there's no looking into the truck as far as I know.

But I mean, like, the idea like him, knowing he has like DWI's hate. I think it's an interesting theory, like Rick related or not. People said that Melissa used to walk on Highway 518 before. Like, is it possible that she was just out there for a walk?

And then some kind of accident happened. Yes, maybe that's possible. But then even in that theory, I come back to the phones. You don't wipe your phones and your eye cloud if you're just going to go on a walk.

So I don't know, this Rick thing, it might be nothing. But this whole interaction that Mata had with Rick, I think this is what casts a shadow over everything now to me, because when they say that a lead went nowhere or that they cleared someone, I question what that means.

Yeah, deep did they really go. Like another example, remember Diego, the very first person that Melissa's family was suspicious of before they ever were questioning Mark. This is Sierra's ex-boyfriend who after the car accident

had like some brain damage and apparently had been making threats sending Melissa like sexually explicit text messages. Well, another agent who worked the case said that Diego wouldn't speak to them at all. But then agent Mata says that Diego did give an initial statement

by phone. And I guess he explained away the explicit text that he sent Melissa. He told police that he meant to send it to someone else. But then when investigators tried to get him to give a formal statement, Diego said that he couldn't make it.

Then he told them that he wanted his attorney to be with him.

But he never said who his attorney even was.

And it doesn't seem like police are pushing. Now we couldn't get in touch with Diego, and I'm not saying that he's involved. I just want to be able to close the loop on some of these things.

Though, for what it's worth, Sierra doesn't think that Diego had anything

to do with her mom going missing. She doesn't see how he could pull something like that off.

“Now for all the things that I think may not have been done,”

I do want to highlight the things that were. Police poured a lot of resources into the physical search for Melissa. They used helicopters, drones, tracking and sent canines all through the dense mountainous terrain around Highway 518. Although, official searches didn't start until days after she disappeared.

But they ran facial recognition alerts across the nation. But today, nothing has ever come of that. And there's been no bank activity, no passport applications in Melissa's name, no drivers license changes, no prescription refills for her thyroid medication, which she needs as a thyroid cancer survivor.

So there is just no trace of her anywhere. But the Cassia side, they do still think that she's out there living a new life. Mark's most-developed theory to date is that Melissa connected with someone through a job that she had applied for shortly before she disappeared, a position with a Los Alamos subcontractor.

He thinks that whoever she met through that process offered to help her escape her financial situation, like gave her a job, helped her disappear. And to Mark, that idea gets some fuel from someone commenting on social media claiming that Melissa is safe in Seattle where that company has ties. Now, investigators confirm that she did apply for this job.

She was even selected for the position.

But the company told police that they never managed to reach Melissa to even extend the offer.

She had already vanished by then. And according to Melissa's sister, Trudy, and Trudy's daughter, Jasmine, they say the position was actually based at the same Los Alamos site that she had already worked at. So she wouldn't have needed to go anywhere for it. Now, there's one more thing that makes Mark certain that Melissa is fine.

It's this weird interaction that Sierra had with a woman not too long after her mom vanished. Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not.

“That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast, Camillion.”

Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam, so bizarre. It will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it, too. Listen to Camillion wherever you get your podcasts.

According to Mark and Sierra, not long after Melissa went missing, this woman and her fiancé, or maybe her husband, show up at Sierra's work at a nowhere. Now, apparently, this woman was a long-time friend of Melissa's, and she and this guy had driven all the way from Colorado to see Sierra,

who didn't even recognize the woman by the way, because if the two of them had ever met at all, it was when Sierra was really little. And that's the part of why this whole encounter is so bizarre. So supposedly, the woman made this 300 or so mile trip to Taos, New Mexico, to give Sierra a $50 high school graduation gift.

Would I feel like you could have made it? Yeah, but while she's there, she makes sure to get a photo of her and Sierra together. And she makes these cryptic comments like, "I have psychic abilities, and I feel like Melissa is fine."

And if your mom really left on her own, she always knows where to find me.

She also told Sierra to keep her visit a secret from Mark, which obviously she did not. So Mark starts thinking, "Maybe Melissa sent this woman as a proxy of sorts to check on Sierra. They were super close. She really loved Sierra.

Hence, the photo, maybe Melissa wanted to know that Sierra was okay three months after her mom vanished into thin air. Now, the kind of strange part to me is that Mark didn't bring this to police right away. He said that he wanted to wait and see if Melissa would contact them. But after like a week goes by, and there is no contact, he finally lets them know.

“I mean, was she in contact with that friend before she went missing?”

Sierra says that Melissa had reached out to this woman with an invite to Sierra's graduation party. But I don't know if that's something that the woman told her or if Melissa had relayed that to Sierra at some point. Okay, and I know Melissa's phone both of them were wiped,

but they can still get call and text records from the cell service provider.

Regardless of the phones were factory reset or not, right?

“Yes, theoretically yes, but last I heard her records.”

And mind you, she went missing June 25. Those records are still under review. So I don't know. Okay, and did they get anything from Mark's phone? Agent Mata told us that there is nothing on Mark's phone that suggests he was plotting against Melissa.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I also don't know like wait, so you know you've been through Mark's phone completely, but not the person who actually went missing.

And I know like right Mark had his physical phone that he has his phone there. And also like I don't know priorities. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know what's going on there.

Obviously they would have to get a warrant from the cell provider, but like all this time later, I feel like we should be able to like have some answers about what was on her phone. Now all in all, Agent Mata's interpretation of all that he has so far, TBD what's still under review is that Melissa probably left on her own.

Police have not officially ruled out foul play, but Mata's gut says that she's alive. Legally, she's classified as missing and endangered because of the risk of her being without her thyroid medication. But it's far as law enforcement is concerned. There's no suspect.

There's no crime scene and no evidence that anything happened to her after that camera caught her on Highway 5 18. But the Mondragon's think that is dead wrong. And the dominant theory among them still is that Mark is somehow connected to whatever happened to Melissa in some way. Though they haven't ruled out other possibilities,

including a random abduction while Melissa was out walking.

“The only thing that they feel certain of is that Melissa would not willingly abandon the daughter that she loved.”

So much without a word. Now Mark denies any involvement. And he got pissed when her reporter Nina asked him point-playing if he killed Melissa. He said that no one has ever asked him that before. No one, not even the police.

I guess not. But considering the interview that we saw in her with Rick, I honestly, that wouldn't surprise me. Okay. I don't know.

I don't usually ask this because normally I can tell. But I'm kind of dying to know what do you think. This one genuinely has me in knots. Like there are very few cases that have me flip flopping back and forth by the day the way that this one does. You cannot argue with that video like she left her house on her own.

She had a backpack. She lied to everyone about what she was doing that day. I do believe that she wiped her phones. It is so easy to look at this and say that she left. Especially the more stories we hear about other women who have done the same.

I feel like mothers have this different societal expectation than father or like men do. And it's hard for us to wrap our minds around a mom leaving. But it does happen, right? Like I brought this up in another episode recently. But there was the case of Brenda Heist who went missing lots of people.

Side-eyed her husband because they were about to get a divorce. And then poof 11 years later she shows back up. Then I don't know if you saw the story that like everyone was recently passing around about that woman in North Carolina. That mom who went missing in like 2001 Michelle. So like her husband reported her missing suspicion fell on him.

Everyone assumed the worst. And then Michelle turned up alive in February of 2026, having quietly built a whole new life somewhere else for more than two decades. So it's not beyond the realm of possibility. So I mean my head's like spinning around all of this too.

But I'm wondering about something that you mentioned earlier. Like if everything was closing in on her, the way people are describing, is it possible she took her own life? And that's the like the one theory that no one seems to really buy into. Like Sierra is willing to believe that her mom left.

But she doesn't think that she would ever do that to her. She thinks that like kind of what I said earlier. Like at least she would have left a note. She's not going to leave them wondering. And I mean if you're still like asking what I think I agree with that.

Right? Like I keep going back to the phones.

“Like I don't think you need to wipe your phone.”

And your eye cloud if your plan is just to take your own life. Yeah, but you also don't really need to do that if you're just walking away. Like just leave them behind. Well unless like I said, there's something on the phones. There's like communications with someone or something that has to do with a plan.

Now I'm about to go way out there for a second.

So stay with me. Have you seen the connections that people are making recently

The ones that are going missing or being murdered.

“So for those who are not in the know, this is something to pay attention to.”

The short version of this is that a handful of US people connected to places like Los Alamos and NASA have either died or disappeared over the last few years. At the time that we're recording this, the running list is at 11. And there's this theory that these are somehow connected to maybe foreign espionage that like countries like China or Russia are targeting people with access to sensitive US technology.

To me that's the least scary scenario. The scarier one is that the call is coming from inside the house or even that private corporations who make a lot of money and energy. Don't want us figuring out an unlock for free energy. And I'm not just pulling this out of a hat on my own.

So a former FBI assistant director named Chris Swecker

has been vocal about the links that these people have.

All mostly connected not directly, but like in the type of work that they do. Now he's not claiming specific knowledge of any of these individual cases,

“but he believes that the patterns are suspicious enough that the FBI needs to stop treating them”

as isolated incidents and start pulling resources to look for links. And the feds are apparently involved now. Newsweek reported that the FBI is investigating the series of cases as of late April. And I bring this all back because Melissa's name has appeared on this list circulating in news coverage of this pattern.

So we reached out to Swecker directly to see if he knew anything beyond what was making kind of like the rounds and the tabloids and stuff. He didn't, but he did clarify that he's not suggesting that all of the cases are connected, which I feel like is like what they were saying.

Which is, yeah, feels confusing.

According to various news coverage, on paper, a few of these cases have already been explained away. A drowning, a murder by a former classmate, cardiovascular disease, a suicide. But Swecker's bigger point was more like, they might not all be connected, everyone counted in this potential group worked near or with sensitive stuff. And he says that foreign intelligence services will go after people in those positions,

even admins, because they like know who's in what meetings. They know who works where they know what schedules look like. Melissa Casillas, that was her role. She was an assistant admin. So what information would she have had access to?

As you can imagine, I don't have the clearance to know that. I don't even know truthfully if police could get clearance to know that. And listen, the timing is weird around when she goes missing. Like we don't have time to go down the whole list. But I'll give you like a few examples.

So you kind of get a sense of what people are talking about online. So on May 4th, 2025, this is a month and a half before Melissa goes missing. A retired Los Alamos employee named Anthony Chavez walks out of his home, leaving behind his wallet, his keys, his cigarettes, car in the driveway, no cell phone. Disappears.

Then on June 22nd, 2025, this is just a few days before Melissa goes missing. Six-year-old Monica Reza went hiking with two companions. At some point, one of her companions was like 30 feet ahead of her. He turns around gestures to show her like which direction to go in. She acknowledges him.

Moments later when he looked back again, she's gone. Has not been seen since. What? Now that was in California, not New Mexico. And Monica worked for NASA, not Los Alamos.

But then you have Melissa going missing, June 26th, and then closer to Melissa's home, William Neil McCastland, a retired Air Force major general who once oversawed the lab that funds work in the same aerospace field that Monica worked in, he goes missing.

February 27th, 2026. Walks out of his Albuquerque New Mexico home with a gun and his wallet while leaving behind his phone and other belongings. And then, poof, gone. Now, you can see this is very tenuous.

But the coincidences have people asking questions. Melissa especially could have been an easy target

“if she had the right information or connections, right?”

Like, she was in a bad financial spot. Someone promises her a new life or a new start. But she's identified as a good target by someone. They see all the trouble she's in. They offer her a way out.

She takes it, leaving her family behind to clean up the mess. Yes. But like, I mean, her family's got to clean up the mess

Like, so I mean, to me, that's not like any less of a reason why she wouldn't have done it.

“And remember her and her husband, they just got their clearance taken away.”

I'm telling you, like, I don't know. And this could, like, begin to explain how she could start over without her idea of her popping up. Like, how she'd get more meds, like she would have this whole new identity. Like, in a way easier way if someone's helping you. Right?

Like, I, no matter what, if she walked away, I think she needed someone's help to do that. But then, come back to the phones.

It's always like the phones for me.

If she walked away, connected to this thing, or not. Why wouldn't she just take her phones and get rid of them? Like, I know, I know you want to keep them. But like, right, like keeping them, keeping them active, tracking. Right?

So, like, factory reset them, but toss them in your bag and get rid of them so far out. Sump them in, in some water, like, put them in, like, in the mountains, like, put them in a dumpster, like, there's something about that part that, like, or even, like, leaving her phones is like, is that, like, a plant? Is this, like, a weird red hair? Why do you leave them?

I mean, I guess unless you want your, like, them to have, like, phones are expensive, you leave them behind because they're free phones. So, you can get, like, conspiratorial.

“But then, you know, you remember that we see her on camera,”

walking alone after the phones are white.

And I don't know, you just keep going around and, like, whatever she's going.

Like, I just, I don't know. I mean, I mean, maybe whatever instructions she got for, why being the phone, like, from, we were saying, Googling it, but maybe from someone, whatever, maybe they said it was better if she left them behind.

So there was, like, no way to track the actual, like, hardware device itself. Maybe, those, and it doesn't have to be connected to all these other cases. In fact, one thing that everyone we spoke to seems to actually agree on, and they're, like, few of those things, they do not believe that Melissa is connected to these other scientists,

or whatever else is going on. Mark told us that he thought that theory was BS. Jasmine does not think it holds up either. And Monta specifically didn't even know anything about Anthony Chavez, who was, like, the one person I mentioned who was connected to Los Alamos directly,

right? But it would be a completely different jurisdiction, because he lives in Los Alamos. And when Monta talked about it, he said, you know, I'll look into it, but he's like, you know, those places are compartmentalized by design.

They're set up, so people only know what they need to know for their job.

“And I think he was saying that implying that it's unlikely that Anthony and Melissa”

were on the same thing over the past, yeah? But I don't, again, I don't know anything about the work that she did. And I highly doubt, I will ever know about the work that she did, because until her clearance just recently got revoked. Like, she, I think was working on, like, high clearance stuff.

So I don't know, like, this missing or deceased scientist thing, it has me down, like, a genuine rabbit hole. Like, I mean, I hope to come back out of it someday with, like, a more complete episode on it. But like, one, it's a hard nut to crack one practically.

Everyone was working on top secret shit. And two, I actually think I've already, like, tripped some wires. And you laugh, but like, genuinely happy Monta,

I'm like, getting my nose in, so this is always my reminder to you

to everyone that, like, I know how to swim. I love my life. I'm as safe as safe can be. So like, if I so much as getting a fender bender right now, it should be considered suspicious.

Like, there was this one scientist who's on this list, Amy Eckridge. And her case is wild. People should go look it up. But she was on a zoom call with somebody that got recorded. And she's like, the reason I stick my neck out is because at least

if my head gets chopped off, people will take notice. If you don't do that, they bury you and nobody talks about it. So in the spirit of sticking my neck out, any crime junkies out there who want to put me in the right direction, tips at audiocheck.com. And listen, while I absolutely believe that something scary

is happening to people who work in aerospace sciences, it's probably not the solution that we're looking for in Melissa's case. Right? Like, if we go, Occam's razor, that would suggest that the simplest answer is likely the right one. Melissa was in a bad financial spy.

She was planning to move away when her daughter went off to beauty school, but the loan application for that had just gotten rejected. What was she gonna do now? She very clearly told everyone different stories about the day that she went missing. Her phones were white. Her eye cloud was white.

And after that, she is seen walking alone down Highway 518. The simplest explanation is that she chose to walk away and did it on her own. And some days I really believe that. But then other days, I'll get a new tidbit of info that makes no freaking sense.

Like, we've been talking to family and reporting on this from months and months and months, but right, as I was finalizing this episode,

You know that friend from Colorado that checked it on Sierra?

“Super randomly with like $50 for high school graduation gift.”

We just found out that police did find a talk to that woman. She denied the entire thing. What? She says she hasn't been to Tows since 2014. She didn't visit Sierra.

Denied even knowing Melissa or Sierra and said that she was confused as to how or why her name was even being brought up in the investigation. Wait, dude, this is what there's like, but what? This is the weirdest thing to me. Now we tried reaching out to this woman, but as of this recording,

we've been unsuccessful. If she hears this, I would love to talk to you. Again, my email tips at audiocheck.com. Wait, so this visit didn't happen? I don't know.

This is like, Mark and Sierra both still say that this thing happened. I just can't get to the bottom of who this woman is.

“Like, did she have ties to Melissa and now she's distancing herself?”

Did she like make up ties to Melissa? And she's connected to something or someone. If you don't believe that this woman, whoever she is, if you don't believe she's lying and you want to say that like Mark made the story up, you have to remember Sierra's in on it.

Sierra's the one who saw her. Like say whatever you will about Mark and Melissa's relationship, Sierra and her mom were so close. I cannot imagine why on earth she would ever make anything like that up. I don't think that that happened.

So are we circling back to the conspiracies here, right? I mean, like, like, across my mind, I don't know what to believe about this woman. I am just hoping she reaches out so we can sort all this out. Again, I mean, we know that like interviews are quick,

maybe they're not thorough, maybe something's lost in translation. We're missing like a very simple explanation. I don't know. Do you think that there's any world where Sierra would protect her dad if he asked her to go along with something?

Like, she's already lost one parent. And if everyone is trying to come down on your dad, and you believe in your heart of hearts that he's innocent. Like, I mean, he asked you to do something. I see where you're going, but like, no, it doesn't seem like she would do something

like that from talking to her. But I will say like, there is something about Mark that I still just can't quite figure out. Like, I've heard you tell this story in as streamlined away as possible. But there were all these rabbit holes along the way that often came from stuff that he said or did that was odd, then ultimately led nowhere.

Because that kind of like unresolved weirdness is all over this case, casting a shadow. Like, for instance, and like, I didn't even get into this earlier, Mark had originally told a story about the morning of the 26th when he and Melissa drove to work that involved them stopping at this particular gas station on their way. And so, in part of like looking from Melissa looking into this police pulled footage,

they were never there, which seems fishy as hell,

except security footage put them both going through the gate at Los Alamos after this, like when she's dropping Mark off at work. And like, we also see her like the rest of the day until. Bring too. Yeah, bring, she brings her daughter lunch.

She's on camera. She's by herself. She seems fine. So it's, it's why I didn't bring up early. Like, it means nothing. But then you're like, well, then where did this even come from? Because you're not talking to Mark like a year later.

Like, it's right when it happened. And animal was to like, what's with him being so defensive and aggressive? Like, I honestly get him acting like that towards us. Like, we flat out asked the guy if he killed his wife. Like, who he believes walked out on him.

But he was like this with her family long before we came along. I mean, do you think her bringing Sierra lunch was like a little way of saying goodbye? Like, we haven't really talked about if that was something normal for her to do. Like, if she brought Sierra lunch often, if it was something that they did together, I assume no, because like she would normally be at work, right?

“Like, she just doesn't go to work today. And that's why she's doing this.”

And so I think it's easy to be like, oh, yes, she wanted to see her one more time. But like, if this was a goodbye, it was the shortest goodbye ever. Like, she is literally in and out giving her this sandwich in like a minute. So maybe maybe she wanted to see her one time. Maybe not like, I feel like this is one of those things you could read either way.

Was this just like a mom doing something nice for her daughter real quick? Because that's just the kind of mom she was. And it wasn't a long interaction because she planned on seeing her later at home. Or was this a goodbye?

One more look at her baby girl who she knew she might never see again.

And then quick glance hurried because she had to get moving before her family started coming home. Then even that doesn't make sense because why would she wait so long to leave? Like, we haven't talked about that. Like, she could have gotten away better head star if she had left in the morning. Right, because no one was like, she had told so many stories to kind of free up the day, explain where she was.

Hey, I am really obsessed with trying to figure out where Melissa was for the rest of the day.

I'm convinced that that has to hold some kind of clue. And interestingly, while we know Geofencing is no longer an option for police like about phone data and who was maybe like around her house, I don't think phone data is totally off the table. Agent Mata says that there was another company who offered to do something similar to Geofencing for a fee about five grand. The agency actually decided against it for now.

They said it was partly over the cost, partly because they don't know how it would hold up in court. If this case ever becomes criminal and I know our listeners are like, show up. I even talked to the family. I'm like, listen, do we need to like fundraise? Do you guys need the fund?

“Like, in my mind, you need to get hold up in court.”

Like, does it give you something when you have nothing? Either an answer or like a non-answer like right to rule something out, right? But I actually think there's like a better option. So it sounds like what they were looking at if it's close to Geofencing is about putting other phones in proximity to hers or like an area. I am more interested in where her phone was before it was white.

And I know that that data is still available. You see, I got schooled recently. I was out in the desert hanging out with some cadaver dogs and they're amazing handlers. As one does. And the woman who was organizing this search, her name is Candice Kooley.

She is a badass. She was always a canine handler,

but after her son Dylan was murdered in 2022, she took her work to the next level. And she created an on-profit called Dylan's legacy after that. And while her work is mostly around dog searches, when you're doing a dog search, you have to figure out where to start your search. Your cadaver search, right? And she learned something that she is now on a mission

to share with every law enforcement officer who will listen because it has the potential to be a huge unlock for investigating cases in the digital age. When it comes to phones, everyone's always thinking about cell phone providers, towers, pings. And yeah, that usually requires a warrant. But by the way, all of those apps on your phone, Facebook, Instagram,

Accuweather, you've been giving all of them permission to follow every step you take if like cookies are accepted, honestly sometimes are doing it anyways.

And that data doesn't just live in your phone.

The companies collected, the companies store it, and in some cases they're sharing it or selling portions of it, which means that it's not private data, right? That means that investigators don't have to rely on cell towers only. They can go to these companies,

“and even though like there's this common belief that you have to have a warrant”

to get that data from those companies, that is not true. So there are other ways to figure out where a phone has been. Now, all law enforcement knows about like getting a warrant, but Candice said that she was surprised at how many agencies she goes into, who are unaware about using exigent circumstances,

which means you contact these companies, claim exigent circumstances, and still get the data without a warrant, because remember the data we're saying is not private. And so this, you can get all of the data points for someone's location, where were they moving?

And that's what Candice is trying to get across. Like, so take Melissa's case, right? We know she had Facebook, Mata could request data from meta, which depending on her settings might include location-related information from that day, which might clear up a lot.

But knowing this case, it also might throw a massive curveball into it.

“Honestly, probably would throw a massive,”

but like at least we would be one step closer to the truth. Now, the thing is, another thing I need to make sure people hearing this mention, if this is a new concept to anyone, especially if you're in law enforcement or have a family who's missing. Even if you get there, right?

Like, even if you do the exigent circumstances, they give you the data. What you'll end up with is this massive pile of data points, likely in some kind of spreadsheet. Now, traditionally, that means that someone has to like sit down,

analyze it, which can take time. I mean, we're still waiting on test results. A year later, to know what blood was in Melissa's heart. I don't have high hopes that police just have like someone on deck to go through data. But good news,

it is easier now than it's ever been. There is a platform called Bad Jabs that lets investigators map phone data from carriers, from Google, Snapchat and more, track phones in real time, and manage the whole legal process in one place.

So I would encourage anyone who's loved one vanished with their phone in the social media age to press their detective to look into this. Maybe it will lead to answers.

And that's kind of where I am with this whole case.

“Every time, I think I have a handle on it, something shifts.”

A new detail that doesn't quite fit, where conspiracy theories sweeping the internet that of course has some kind of maybe tire cast a shadow over this case, because why wouldn't it? It feels like the farther we get out from June 26,

2025, the further we are from any real answers. But I think real answers are there

if we can get more real facts.

We don't know if Melissa walked away from a life that had become unbearable.

“We don't know if someone made sure she couldn't come back.”

We don't even know why she was on Highway 518 on the afternoon of June 26, 2025. We just know that she was there, and then she vanished. We spoke to a lot of people for this episode. Mark, Sierra, Melissa's parents, and siblings

her step daughters, her niece, Jasmine, and some friends, and the two sides of the disagree on almost everything. But strip it all away. And everyone says some version of the same thing. They just want to find Melissa.

“And if she is out there, all they're asking”

is that she lets them know that she's okay. Because no matter which side they're on, that is the part that's eating them alive, the not knowing. So if anyone out there has information about

what happened to Melissa Casillas, New Mexico State Police want to hear from you. There is a reward available for information, and you can reach them at 505-425-6771. And that goes from Melissa too, if she's out there.

How does it check your text? Marilyn, you can send me more shit. Get the fuck out of here. I don't even sort of understand it. I don't even, I don't even sort of understand it.

All right, everybody. Of course it is. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website,crimejunky.com. And you can follow us on Instagram @crimejunkypodcast.

We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunky is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve. Some cases fade from headlines.

Some never made it there to begin with.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons, designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard,

and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.