Mickie

>> I believe Anna was in that suitcase.

“>> When a young woman fetishes overseas,”

>> I wanted to come here and just do everything that I can and my power to find my friend. >> You really are in a race against time. >> An all new deadline, Friday night at 10, 9, central, only on NBC.

>> Everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co-host of the third hour of today and mom to three wild boys.

>> I've learned a lot my years as a parent. >> Mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet. >> And I'm not the only one. >> This is my new podcast, the Parent Chat. >> Each week I sit down with someone new for on this conversation and real world advice about parenting.

>> I am over here just like weaning it. >> Hey, I'm just trying not to screw my own kids up. >> I'm not giving you advice on how not to screw yourself. >> Search the Parent Chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. [ Music ]

>> What was she thinking?

“>> As she secretly slipped into a car, wearing just her pajamas,”

her mind determined that she rode down interstate 80 across Northern Nevada.

>> What she could she reveal what she knew? >> She was just 18, tiny, 98 pounds and barely five feet tall. But the story she took with her on that torture drive was she knew going to change everything. >> She came and we talked and we recorded the conversation with her permission, and it was dynamite.

>> The man she had come to talk to was a distinguished attorney. If anyone could advise her surely it would be about the story she said she had to tell. >> It had been eating at me and eating at me. I couldn't sit there and live with myself knowing what I knew. >> And then out it came the whole terrifying story, possibly true,

and possibly a careful and cunning deceit.

>> I was too in shock and I didn't know what I was feeling.

It was like I was in a day. [ Music ] >> So was she said about the thing that happened, about who was there and what happened after and what might happen next. In a small town deep in the American desert.

>> They deserve to be in hell for doing that. >> And there is nothing they can say or do that will make it better. They cannot fix this. >> Some things aren't fixable. Some things are hard to explain.

>> It doesn't make sense. I still wonder to this day why what's the real reason or what even really happened. >> I'm Keith Morrison, and this is five miles from home, a podcast from day-to-eye. Episode one, Mickey. [ Music ]

>> There is a place. A remote, windy place tucked away in a sliver of northeast Nevada next to the Utah border. It certainly see it if you cruise along Interstate 80. Casinos, five of them, flashing away like some Vegas in miniature, a golf shutter too off the highway.

The town of 4,000 are so spilling out onto the surrounding desert. >> And if tempted by a meal or a restaurant or a roll of the dice, if you pulled out that highway, you'd be welcome by a great grinning cowboy for the improbable towering image of one. 63 feet high, garrison, weirdly charming as it waves a welcome.

A giant concoction and neon on steel they call "wind over will" for West Wind over, name of the town. And a reminder of more innocent days.

“>> That's pretty much the only thing wind over was known for.”

>> Her name is Christina. She knows what happened to innocence, knows all too well. >> Now, you know everybody's like, "Oh, wind over. "Oh, do you know that girl?" >> It's a question unfortunately that gets asked because we have a lot of tourists

that come in to be casino towns from all over. And that's what wind over's known for now. >> Yes, even now, all these years later, and how did it begin? >> That memory is as clear as the morning sun on the high desert,

and cold.

[ Music ]

“16-year-old Michaela Costanza, Mickey, is everybody called her?”

Was up early preparing for school.

She was a creature of habit, was Mickey. She stuffed her signature polka dotted black bag full of track here. And then made sure she had her lannard full of keys with her favorite charm, little panda there. While Mother's Celia, a single mom quickly dressed so she could drop

making it school before heading to her hosting job at one of the local casinos. All very routine, except for one little thing. The thing about coming home after school. >> Was she supposed to walk home, which is not a normal thing for her. >> Usually, Mickey would ride home with Christina.

28 years old then, and 12 years older than her little sister. But Christina was out of town, vacationing in Las Vegas with her boyfriend, soon to be husband. Here's Christina. >> I thought that everything was fine.

I mean, everything was normal.

I remember because before we had left me and or my boyfriend would always

pick me Kayla up from school.

“And so we were like, are you sure you're going to have a way home?”

>> This is something you do every day. >> This is something I do every day. And it was the very first time I had ever left my sister. >> Still, it wasn't far to walk. A mile or so in this relatively safe little town.

And Mickey wasn't worried. Not at all. She wasn't the worrying type. She was confident, pretty and popular. It was long dark hair, warm brown eyes, an easy smile.

People seemed to gravitate to her, so their mother is Celia. >> She had a way of looking at life that was just amazing. She was always positive. >> Celia's brown eyes were beaming. And she told me about the youngest of her three daughters.

>> If someone was not so good or it wasn't such a great day, she'd say, it's okay. It'll get better.

“She found the good and everything and everybody.”

>> And Mickey was quite good herself. A super student, a gifted writer, a star athlete. And the leader of the West went over Wolverine track team. And so that day after classes, she hurried to the locker room, suited up in her bright red running outfit.

Laced up her spikes. And headed down to the big oval track for some speed training. There was no mistaking Mickey, fast and graceful. And she glided through her laps in the high altitude there. Long hair flowing, legs pumping, perform near perfect.

After 45 minutes of sprints and stretching, Mickey went to the gym for a week training session. Followed by a quick change of clothes in the girls locker room, and then out the schools back door to walk that mile or so home. It was just after 5 p.m.

Across town, Syria was schmoozing with customers inside the bustling nugget casino. But her mind was on Mickey. And the phone call should be getting from her any minute now. >> Michaela is not your typical teenager. That girl would check in with me all the time.

I'm changing. I'm going to be heading out. The next call I get from her is I'm heading home. >> Always kept in touch. >> Always two of fault.

>> But Mickey did not call. So Syria called Mickey.

>> She'll never not answer me.

It does not matter what she does. She didn't answer. And she's always been like that. And so at a quarter after five, I started calling her phone.

And it rang and rang the first time. >> The sun, orange and anxious, sank behind desert foothills. >> And in the next call, it went straight to voicemail like the phone was off.

And I'm like, okay, this is so not her. >> So Syria, panic rising, called her eldest daughter Christina 400 miles south in Las Vegas. Here is Christina. She said, when's the last time you talk to Mickey?

And I said a few hours ago. And she says, I can't find her. And I said, mom, she's probably at practice. And she says no practice. They ended and she's not home.

And I said, well, maybe she went to the gym. Calm down because my mom's. It was easily upset. You're probably just missing her. >> Christina tended to be the cool head in the family.

She wasn't too concerned.

“>> And I'm thinking maybe for the first time in her life”

she's being a normal teenager. >> Really? >> So you still weren't worried. >> I was trying not to worry. And so my husband's telling me the same thing.

Don't worry until she doesn't go to school tomorrow. He says, if Mickey's being a normal teenager and hiding out, doing something crazy, we both know she'll go to school in the morning. >> Even so, Christina dialed Mickey, fully expecting an answer.

>> And it rang and rang and rang and then went to voice mail. So I left her a voicemail. Mickey, why aren't you answering? Call me back. Mom's going crazy.

So I waited. Nothing. Call my mom back. And I was telling her, calm down. You know, it's went over.

And it's Mickey. She never does anything. It was dark by then. Dark and suddenly cold.

“45 excruciating minutes had passed from Mickey's normal call in time.”

At the casino, Celia could no longer pretend to be calm. >> I was still at work. I had been frantically texting and calling and everything. >> Just getting more and more upset. >> More and more upset because I knew the moment she didn't answer her phone.

The first time something wasn't right.

The second time I knew something was really wrong. >> And with that, Celia dropped everything. And raised home hoping she'd see Mickey on the way or open the door to encounter her smiling face. But the house was silent.

Nobody home. So Celia, heart pounding, hurry to the high school. Check the track, the gym, the locker room. All empty. >> Frantic now.

She roared out of the school lot. Looking to find anybody who knew Mickey.

“>> And they started trying to call herself on and wasn't getting answers.”

And I'm going to the next friend and that friend I just talked to is calling other friends and they're all panicked. >> Because none of them had seen or heard from Mickey either. Celia was bargaining with God by then. And she hurried home again.

Please let her be there. Please. But Mickey wasn't. Only her middle daughter DJ was home. >> And my mom came in.

She said Mickey's not here. So I'm mutately went out and searched for her. Called her friends called my friends. If you hear from Mickey, you need a tell me. And then I called her phone, Rometta said, this isn't funny.

You need to tell me where you are. What's going on. >> Mickey didn't return DJ's call with a bad sign. The two were closed, practically inseparable. Even looked alike.

>> I consider us twins.

We always promised to stick together no matter what.

And to be each other's best friend. If we weren't at the same place, we always had a new where the other was at all times. >> But now nobody knew where Mickey was. So Celia nowhere else to turn called the West Windover Police Department. Would they take it seriously?

It would. And right away, a sign detective Donald Burnham. >> We don't wait to start responding to somebody that's missing. We'll start looking right away. The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be to find them.

Burnham, lean and 30 something. It'd been a cop virtually half his life. Chiseled face, short, cropped, black hair. Round the department, Burnham was known as the quiet one. Cool and circumstance.

And he offered Celia a ray of hope. >> I didn't believe she was dead. I was hoping maybe she was just somewhere and we weren't able to find her at the time. >> That she had just gone off to be with a friend and been irresponsible for once. >> We didn't know whether that was it or if she met with foul play or if she was,

you know, being restrained and held somewhere against her will. >> That evening, volunteers search teams ventured out into the profound darkness beyond the neon glow of the town's casinos. Their flashlights stabbing at vast empty desert. >> There was already over 80 people looking for her and they're all panicked.

>> What did you feel like all this is going on? >> That's a hard question. Scared, upset, panic, worry because it was dark now and it was cold and she had no jacket. >> And Celia waited, waited as a mother would wait on the longest night of her life.

And in the bottom of my heart, I can do something was really, really wrong.

[ Music ]

“>> If you miss getting swept away by a story to code a spotlight is now in its 13th season,”

it's built on storytelling, taking the time to let you melt into it. >> Season 13, the bagpiper and his brother begins on the ice and a quiet Minnesota suburb and unfolds into a bombing and a federal investigation. It's the case I spent years digging into search to code a spotlight wherever you listen and start with season 13, the bagpiper and his brother.

>> I really love the start today app. >> They care about how I feel. >> It's the staff on the app. It's the connections you make. >> But without good mental and physical help, you have nothing.

>> It tells me how to cook to keep myself healthy. >> I look at my having a mic while I'm on this 7,000 steps today. >> Start today meets you where you are. Download the start today, wellness app now on your Apple Android device. Terms apply, see after details.

[ Music ] >> Hey guys, Willie guys here, reminding you to check out the Sunday Sit Down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with the multi-talented Mindy Kaling to talk about her beginnings on the office. Her hit creation running point and her latest series,

not suitable for work. You can get our conversation for free wherever you get download your podcast. [ Music ]

>> That first night, they all agreed.

All the searchers. Mickey Castanzo didn't just wander off. Someone took her. Holding her in town? Maybe.

But somehow it seemed more likely she'd been taken out there somewhere. I didn't what they call. The Great Basin. 200,000 square miles of unforgiving desert. It makes up most of Nevada.

Here are jagged mountain peaks. Deep remote valleys. Sand and St. Rush. And somebody says the middle of nowhere. This is the place.

Early the next morning, volunteers were back,

combing the empty desert around West Wind over. Here's Detective Burnham. There was a large search party that was formulated and they had constructed different groups. The search different areas.

There was a huge turnout of volunteers for the search. Just regular folk in our downtown. In times we all come together and everybody turned out. Among them, of course, was Mickey's sister and soulmate, DJ.

>> And out searching, I remember dropping in the ground. And I said, I really don't think she's alive.

“They're like, "You need to think positive."”

And I said, "I really just don't. This isn't her. This isn't all right." And I just kept calling her phone. >> crying, begging her.

Please answer. Please be okay. >> But it wasn't okay. Downstate at an RV side outside Los Vegas and extensively on vacation.

Mickey's eldest sister Christina tried to do the impossible. Both sleep and persuade herself that Mickey would show up. Safe and sound. Walk up at six o'clock called my mom still no sign of Mickey. So I called the school.

And I'm like, is she showed up for class yet? No. They're still looking for her Christina. And I'm like, "Oh, my God." And at that moment, I knew something had happened.

And I woke up. My husband and I said, "She is not in school." And he said, "Okay, now we worry. What do you want me to do?" And I said, "I don't know."

>> And now, media had gotten wind and descended on little West Wendover. Satellite trucks and news vans with giant microwave antennas sprouted like palm trees. Beaming the fears of Mickey's friends and neighbors

back to Salt Lake City. And nearby towns in northern Nevada. >> I just hope that we find this old girl safe. Yeah, but thought anything like this would ever happen in Wendover. The news made its way south to Las Vegas.

Where Christina was chained to her cell phone trying to figure out what to do. >> And a couple of our friends actually had shown us that Mickey's picture went in the news that she was missing. And she said, "Cristina, nothing bad happens

in Wendover." And I said, "You are absolutely right."

“And I looked at my husband and I said, "Do you need to”

take me home right now?"

And I said, "Cuz nothing happens in Wendover

and something did." And I have to get home.

“And he took his truck and drove me straight home.”

It's about an eight and a half hour drive. He got me home in about six and a half hours. >> Christina and her husband drove all afternoon and into the evening. >> The whole way back home, I kept crying and he would say, "It's okay, you don't even know anything."

And I kept telling him, even if she's just hurt somewhere. It's cold and 24 hours now. That's all I could think. Even if she was just laying somewhere hurt, she wouldn't have made it because it was cold.

I knew that she wasn't okay. >> All the way home, she worried away at terrible ideas. What if some stranger, some traveler, saw her walking home from school and snatched her?

After all, the Casinos depended on the tourists

who pulled off the interstate for a few free drinks and a little roulette, blackjack or whatever. It was no way, Barry, as Detective Burnham said. >> That's not the small plier role community that most people would like to assume.

>> Yes, it's a little place along the road, but it's got stuff going on, right? >> It's got big problems at times, and we do have our share of violent crimes. >> Thus, the fear that some passing motorists

had taken there, because around home, Mickey was what cops call a low-risk victim, not an enemy of the world, a straight arrow, going places, good places. A totally troubled free life.

>> Mickey was the one who was going to do everything I guess he would say the right way. She was going to finish school, and she had such a bright future. She could have done anything that she put her mind to it.

>> Bright, talented, good-looking, talented, the trifecta. >> Yes, she had it all. >> And one more thing about Mickey, she was unusually generous.

Not with money, she didn't have much of that, but sharing herself, said her mother, Shewia. >> She helped everybody. She tutored kids at school.

If she goes to bed at 10 o'clock at night, and you're struggling on homework and this one o'clock in the morning, and you text her or call her because you need help, she will get up and help.

And she'll tell me, Mom, I have to help Jackie. I have to help Havia. We have a project they can't do it. Well, no, no, no, but Mom, they're my friend.

I have to. Havia, by the way, was Havia Trujillo, Mickey's boyfriend. Soft, spoken, polite, young man. The two have been dating for several months.

It seems serious. That's Yelia. >> Mikhaili was not allowed to date until she was 16. Her first real boyfriend is Havia. You would have to see Mikhaili and Havia together

and hear them, and that was her boyfriend. >> In fact, the entire Castanzo family liked Havia, and he was crazy about her. And she could have had her pick-up boys at school, said Sister Christina, but.

>> Mikhaili would never look to anybody else.

She was very happy, and she was very much in love with Havia. >> Now police wanted to have a little chat with Havia. He wasn't a suspect, to least not yet, but he was part of Mickey's inner circle.

“And what did he know about where she was, or if she had been taken?”

So, Detective Burnham had him come down to the police station, where he should have Havia into a small white walled interrogation room. Havia seemed a little nervous. upset too, as his eyes twitched ever so slightly, as Detective Burnham rolled tape,

and started asking questions. >> How should I be directly? >> He's been acting pretty funny, if she's, if something was wrong, she'd be very, she's no more than those pros that. He had their feelings like puts her emotions in here.

>> He's been good at home. >> Yeah, and we haven't had any prongs. >> Pavia said he had no idea where Mickey was, who she was with, or what happened to her. Said he was at work around the time she was setting out from school

to walk home. They checked his alibi, of course, and yes, he was indeed at work just like he said he was. >> I got out and I turned yesterday, and I'm looking for that little person to like,

“I think she's not safe, because if she was,”

she'd know and find other people. >> Pavia seemed to be just as fratically worried as the rest of her family. So they let him go. [MUSIC] >> The wise one way to track down Mickey, or what happened to her,

and to take the Burnham was on it,

Her family told the detective she used that phone a lot.

“The records couldn't tell him what Mickey said or to whom she said it,”

but it would reveal the phone numbers she was communicating with. And the specific times of those calls and texts. And right away, something stood out. At the very time, she left school for that walk home. Here's Detective Burnham.

There was a lot of text and phone calls transpiring just immediately after school and up till just after five. >> And then they stopped. >> The abruptly stopped right at the time that she had left the school. >> But there was more.

And this might matter a lot. Those calls and text messages pinging off the local cell phone tower were all from one number. >> Definitely having communication back and forth. There was something going on. What did you think about that?

>> Very suspicious.

“>> Time to find whoever owned that other phone.”

[MUSIC] >> It was a virtual gold mine, a jackpot of numbers, phone numbers, that had flowed in and out of Mickey Costanzo's personal cell phone. All her calls and texts from the very day and time she disappeared. It was now Friday, day two of Mickey's mysterious disappearance.

Inside the West Wendover PD, Detective Donald Burnham was holed up in his sparsely decorated office. Carefully perusing those pages and pages of calls and messages. His eyes must have been glazing over, scanning what seemed like an endless list of digits chronicling Mickey's constant phone activity. >> And though he couldn't see the content of those messages,

something did jump right out. >> Had to be important. >> Her phone either was disabled or the battery was dead,

but in any manner she never made another phone call or text after leaving that school.

>> And there was something else. Those last calls in and out of Mickey's phone. The ones made just before she disappeared. We're all from one number.

“So Detective Burnham traced the number and found the name.”

>> The last calls were made to a Cody Patton. >> Cody Patton. >> Cody was a classmate of Mickey's, practically a member of the family. So you told the detective or not quite that, but he certainly hung around enough.

Cody and Mickey had known each other most of their lives. >> They grew up together. He was our apartment manager, son. He was always around. >> Not like a boyfriend, since you just a pal, a chum.

>> Her DJ and Cody, they hung out. They were all best friends. >> To the every date, a kill-on. >> No. >> They didn't date, but I'm sure it was probably what I call puppy love.

>> So. >> At 12 or 13. >> Probably 13, 14. [MUSIC] >> But they'd long since moved on.

Cody was 18 now, a senior at Mickey's high school. And he certainly stood out. Big handsome, strapping kids six foot six. With ginger-colored hair and hazel eyes, everybody in town seemed to know him. And he was engaged, well and truly committed.

>> In fact, he'd moved in with his fiance Tony Fratov and her parents. He had Tony played the Mary sometime after high school. And Cody also had a site set on joining the Marines after graduating. So now, a detective burnup wanted to know a little more about that flurry of phone calls and text messages. Cody exchanged with Mickey just before she vanished.

>> I actually went to the school and asked him if he'd come to the police department. Speak with me, which he agreed to.

>> This was actually Cody's second interview with the police.

He was one of many students and friends of Mickey's the cops spoke to that first night. And now that I stay, he looked tired. He seems sad, a little on edge. But with this lifelong friend missing.

To take the burnup started recording. >> It's March 4th, 12 new exactly. I took the stories and don't want to know what's going on. >> Well, the night's 30 minutes Cody reviewed again and again. What he did and where he went, the day of Mickey's disappearance.

Especially during that furry of calls and text on Mickey's phone just before she disappeared. It was the fairly simple story. Cody had returned to school. He said in a white SUV he borrowed from a friend. >> And wanted to use it to pick up some car parts he'd left there.

It was a chore. And he thought maybe Mickey was still around extra pair of hands to help.

So I called her and no answer. She called me back.

“I had left my phone in the car when I was getting some of the party.”

>> They kept missing each other, said Cody.

>> Until around 5 p.m. when Mickey called back and the two finally connected.

>> I said, can you call me? She goes, I can't have to go home. And I said, okay, no worries. But something in her tone on the phone seemed off. Not the usual upbeat Mickey.

She seemed a little upset, said Cody. >> I asked her if she was okay because she had a weird tone of voice kind of like it and definitely, I don't know, sat, mad, type. It was like, you all right? She was beautiful.

It was like, okay, no worries. Then I hung up. >> Soon after, Cody said he packed up the borrowed SUV with those car parts and left the school. >> The last time you've seen that was, well, fine, serious. You've seen that being a school?

>> Yeah.

“>> Fortunately, she was going out the front.”

>> I'll show you where it was, it was where it was from. >> Positive.

>> Sitting down the last known sighting of Mickey could prove crucial.

And Cody was empathic. He watched her walk out the front door of the school and that was the last time he saw her. Burn him, filed that away, and went on listening. After he left campus said Cody, he picked up his fiancé, Tony Frodo, and they went to McDonald's for a bite and to hang out.

And then later, the two drove around looking for Mickey. Because by then, the alert had gone out that she was missing. >> Everybody is out looking and so we went down for a little bit. They crisp crossed much of the town, said Cody. They even drove by Mickey's house.

Didn't see a trace of her, though. They got home a little before 10pm. And now, well, detective Burnham asked the question. >> What do you think about your opinion?

“>> Honestly, I hope she has got a fight with him, boy, for him all of a sudden.”

>> I'm just a friend's asked for something.

>> Do you have any questions for me? >> Yeah, I find it clear. >> At the very time, Cody was pleading with the detective. Search teams were continuing to check every gully and ditch, and hole and hillside, in town and out, deep into the night.

By then, the ghost towns of the little apartment. Seely, it was gripped by a cold, certain day. >> When she didn't go to school on Friday morning, I knew I wouldn't see my daughter. >> Oh, life.

I didn't know how to make things right for DJ, and I couldn't make things right for Michaela and I felt like a failure. It was a prayer. >> By now, what little hope DJ had left was running on fumes. >> And just, the more hour is the win,

the more I search for him than panic. She hasn't called. She hasn't done anything. That's not her, especially not Denise. She sent me a text or something.

I'm fine. But nothing. >> Later that Friday evening, Eldest daughter Christina rolled in after the long drive from Las Vegas. >> I went to my mom's house,

and I told her that I was going to go find my sister. And she was very upset and she was like Christina. They're all looking for her and I said, but I'm going to go get her and bring her home. Even though she's not okay, I will bring her home.

I knew that I was going to find her, and I wasn't going to find her the way we wanted to, but that I was going to bring her home. And out she drove into the ink black desert. Chris crossing miles of remote dirt roads,

surveying all the party spots where West went over teenagers were known to hang out. >> I stopped and looked at any little mound of dirt. That looked weird. I'd stop, maybe that's her.

And I went to the gravel pits. In point of fact, had Mickey been able to call out to her sister at one particular moment during that frantic drive. Christina would have heard her, heard her calling, out there in the dark of the desert.

Next time. >> I went straight to my mom's, and she says they've called off the search. I said I know where she's at. >> What do you think?

You got that call. I thought the worst.

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.

“>> This is not over yet until the person or person's responsibility”

brought to justice. [ Music ]

>> Five miles from home is a production of date line and NBC News.

Robert Dean is the producer.

“Brian Drew, Marshall House Feld and Meredith Greenstein are audio editors.”

Molly DeRosa is associate producer. Adam Gorphane is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

“For NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Rich Cutler.”

[ Music ] >> Hey everyone, I'm Dylan Dryer,

co-host of the third hour of today,

and mom to three wild boys. I've learned a lot my years as a parent. Mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet, and I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, The Parent Chat.

Each week I sit down with someone new for honest conversation and real world advice about parenting. >> I am over here just like winning it. >> Hey, I'm just trying not to screw my own kids up. I'm not giving you advice on how not to screw yourself.

>> Search the Parent Chat on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.