“She’s the Only One Missing”

I've learned a lot in 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. Hi, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor, and host of the NBC News podcast, The Drink. And this month I'm grabbing a Hugo Spritz with former reality star, Lauren Conrad, here at The Drink. We love learning about someone's journey to the top, and Lauren and I, we go back to the very beginning of her extraordinary story.

We talk about why she always saw reality TV as temporary for her, the scrutiny she faced in the public eye,

and why she says she'll never watch Laguna Beach again. Hope you'll join us for the drink. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. How quickly the world around them had shifted. How terrifying now.

“What was the source of civic pride in here two days before?”

The famous Bonaville salt flats nearby, I keep her of wild stories, source of speed records and courage and death-defying stunts. Was in all its 30,000 acres just another daunting place to search for a sweet missing girl? Just like the old air base, where last week tourists could gawk at the very place where they loaded the atom bomb into the belly of Yenola Gay.

No pride now, no awe. On Saturday morning, a pink pale sun rose over the Great Basin and West Wendover. 38 hours since anybody had seen Mickey Castanzo. That morning, dozens of volunteers rose themselves and followed the police and their search dogs out into the desert around the town. Among them was a man named Michael Moore, people called him Mick.

Moore was assistant superintendent at the golf course, spent his free time hunting for elk and antelope outside of town. So he certainly knew his way around, knew all the back roads. He figured he could probably accomplish more on his own and with a crowd, so he set off by himself. Toward an area called the gravel pits. He'd taken one of the back roads, noticed that there were some tire marks off the side of the road.

In a place where they wouldn't normally be, tire marks. Correct. It just kind of led off into the field, too. We'd guess the base of the train tracks and then he'd want to go look at it. The turret tracks looked fresh.

“And anyway, who would drive off the road and threw an open fuel to the train tracks?”

So Mick Moore followed the tracks to where they finally peed it out.

And then he got out of his truck for a closer look. And that's when he saw it. There was some sagebrush that had appeared to have been cut and placed over top of an area. And underneath that, he'd noticed what he thought was blood. And Keith Morrison, as this is five miles from home, a podcast from decline.

Episode two, she's the only one missing. She had not slept, not at all. By that Saturday morning, all hope that her precious 16-year-old daughter would suddenly show up, safe, and sound, was and see if Yucca Stanzo's tortured mind, a hopeless delusion. Her prayer was different now.

I was praying with everything I had that we would find her body at that point in my own mind. I participated a little bit in one of the searches, and then I had to come home. And watch the door.

“And watch the door, and they kept saying you have to be home.”

Time flew by, but stood still at the same time. Still, difficult as it was. Silvia obeyed the detective's directed. She stayed home. Just in case by some miracle, the living Mickey turned up. Stayed home and tried to stay sane.

Meanwhile, El Distada Christina was driving round back roads and old party hunts on the cusp of the desert searching for a little sister, because she couldn't sit still. Neither of the new. Not Silvia, not Christina. That just then volunteer searcher Mick Moore was staring at something, a stain that looked like blood.

In an area called the gravel pits.

What was it there in the ground? You couldn't tell. I was hoping it wasn't her.

“He said, "I was hoping it was a buried dog.”

Here's the detective Donald Burnham. What do you think when you got that call?" I thought the worst. Within minutes, anybody who was anyone at the police department was at the gravel pits, peering at that odd clump of sagebrush, sitting atop a bloody mound of dirt.

Disturbed earth is what they called it. And then police chief Ron Sop grabbed a shovel and braced himself, and ever so gently dug you. This is the audio of that very delicate operation. It took just a moment.

We found what we thought was part of a human body.

Did you just uncover the body then? No. No. We backed out of the area and contacted Marshall Crime Unit to come in and exome that area for evidence.

The crime scene investigators from Reno.

“But Reno was 400 miles at eight hours away.”

The CSI team wouldn't arrive until the next morning. To excavate the body and confirm it was truly Mickey or that it wasn't. As police started to secure the scene, a car suddenly appeared on the horizon, cruising slowly along the remote desert road. It was Christina.

Still searching for her sister. I saw the unmarked police car in a truck. Driving on the gravel pit road that I was on the night before. And so I sped up and I went straight to my mom's. And she says they've called off the search.

And I said, I know where she's at. Let's go. And she says, I'm supposed to stay right here. The chief is going to come talk to me. We're staying here.

So she's trying to keep me put. And at this time, I'm a nervous wreck. What was going on inside you? What was I knew that I only twice I wanted to be was I wanted to go and get her. I didn't want strangers to get her.

I wanted to pick her up and take her home. And my mom's just making me stay there. So they waited. The most excruciating weight of their lives. Until the police chief arrived in a squad car

to personally escort Christina and her mom's Celia to the gravesite. As they pulled out the chief took a deep breath and gathered himself before turning to Christina and Celia. Fully dreading what he was about to say.

We have found a body. So we called off the search because she's the only one in Elco County that's missing. And I guess out of hope, I says, well, can you see her?

And he says, no, we can only see a small square inch of flesh. I says, well, then you don't know a term. And he says, you're right, Christina. She's the only one missing. So we're pretty sure a term.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the gravesite. A remote little clearing surrounded by sagebrush tucked up against the set of railroad tracks. And guarded all around by policemen. They're just all standing there.

And I actually even go and get her. What if she's still alive? What if you can help her? And he says, Christina doesn't work that way. The forensic team will be here in the morning.

And I said, in the morning. You're going to leave her out here again all night. And he said, yes, we have to.

“And I remember saying, then I'm not leaving.”

She shouldn't be left with strangers. She says, one of our guys will stay out here. With her, so she's not with strangers. And they made us leave.

To spread the news, first to make a sister DJ who, by that time,

exhausted by the fear and uncertainty, had fallen into a deep sleep. I'm looking up shaking. Cops there. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.

She told me, she says, we found your sister. We think. And I said, well, what do you mean? I mean, thanks. She says, we found a body. I felt numb.

shallow grave was discovered, the contents of which were unknown.

“Because the grave was found outside the city limits,”

the case would now be under the jurisdiction of the Elco County Sheriff, whose office was 110 miles away. And a detective named Kevin McKinney got on the highway and headed off to West Wendover. McKinney was in his mid 40s.

Blonde hair penetrating light blue eyes. No nonsense, sort of guy. As he raised eastward on Interstate 80, he reviewed the possibilities. A young attractive girl inexplicably missing a fresh grave,

a remote location near the freeway. No apparent motive. Elco County has several unidentified homicide victims that have been highway dumps,

but we've never been able to identify

much less, you know,

“investigators to who might have committed this crime.”

Somebody's daughter picked up abused, killed, and left them. In fact, they talk about a possible serial killer that gromes I 80. So with that disturbing possibility running through his head. McKinney eased his SUV off I 80, and onto the dusty desert road

that led to the gravel pits, the bright yellow police take, and a blue tarp covering whoever it was in that makeshift grave. He was greeted by detective Burnham. It was pretty amped up by then. There's a lot of things going through my mind.

Number one, what were we going to find in the grave site. Number two, locating and identifying the suspects. In terms of investigating what happened to her, what was that promotes in your mind. By identifying and apprehending the person,

the person's involved in this.

“As dust fell over the desert that third night,”

a semicircle of police cars and officers kept watch over the grave site. A small pool of light in that big dark desert. It would be a long, grim night of the gravel pits. But a few miles away in her little apartment, Celia Costanzo, exhausted and emotionally drained.

For the first time in three days,

found a slipper of comfort. Thanks in part to the west wind of her PD. Knowing that she had to stay there overnight. Right exactly as she was. They did not let her be alone.

They had already volunteered all their time and energy. And had been up for days with very little sleep as it was. And for them to tell me, we'll all be here. She won't be alone.

May me feel pretty good. As good as you can feel. At least until the rude shocks of the morning to come. I really love the start today. They care about how I feel.

It's the staff on the app. It's the connections you make. 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 like while I'm on this 7,000 steps today.

Start today meets you where you are. Download the start today. Have now on your Avalor Android device. If you miss getting swept away by a story to codospot light 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 the codospot light wherever you listen and start with season 13, the bagpiper and his brother. 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 podcasts.

They drove all night from Reno to get there 400 miles from one end of Nevada to the other. It was early Sunday morning when the team of crime scene investigators arrived at that grim place in the desert.

It spread a chill among the police cars guarding the grave and the officer standing watched farther away on the desert road.

“Detective Kevin McKinney showed the CSI team what they had come to see and they started digging.”

That area is very hard packed, dirt and silt and this spot looked like a freshly dug area. The dirt was loose, a little bit of gravel which was very inconsistent with the normal terrain of that area. So it kind of stood out like a sore thong. The CSI has erected a small tent over the site. And then they started sifting and we were helping and observing.

It was quiet, tense, barely a word was spoken. And the body was uncovered, you know, didn't take very long once it started.

And there was no doubt, no surprise.

It was her Mickey in a shallow grave five miles from home. What was the length when they uncovered that body? What did it look like to you? It was very emotional, the age of the victim and the brutality I guess disturbing would be the word. Mickey was partially naked from the waist up.

She had been beaten and cut and stabbed repeatedly. Several jagged slashes across her face neck, head, the blood loss had saturated the ground underneath her. It was a pretty brutal look kind of personal.

Now there was a significant slash across her jaw.

One across her neck and then what I would call a penetrating wound into her neck. It was murder of a capital M. Detective McKinney, along with the other officers took a good look around, hoping to find something anything that might turn into a clue. Well, there was footprints, tire prints, not really a lot of physical evidence to collect.

But a lot of impression evidence that we could photograph and cast and try and identify who was out there at the scene. It appeared at a single vehicle of coming in and back to into that location and then driven out of that scene. This is Detective Burnham. And there appeared to be a single set of footprints or tread around that area. So as a one person had committed this crime.

“At the period of that time, that was the only thing we had found was one distinct set of footprints.”

We didn't notice any other footprints, not even McKailas. The CSI team tenderly tucked her battered body into a heavy nylon bag for the long trip back to Reno. Where the medical examiner would conduct an autopsy in SWAB for DNA. And the policeman went to Westland over to tell McKee's family. Nice screened.

I just dropped. I just kept screaming. My baby knew her. This is McKee's sister DJ. She's my best friend and someone heard her.

I kept trying to think that she didn't feel much. I didn't want to think she felt much and couldn't help her. McKee's mother Sylvia devastated by the news of having lost her daughter. Now worried she might in a way lose DJ as well.

“The one thing I will never ever forget in my entire life is watching my daughter DJ.”

Scream. This scream I haven't heard from her even as a baby. And fall to the ground. In shock and disbelief and in physical pain because her best friend and her sister was gone. She physically did what I felt like I wanted to do but I couldn't do it because I'm the mom.

I had to keep myself together. I had to be the strong one. Later that same afternoon, police held a news conference and met with a hoard of anxious reporters to make it public. We did find a young female in there. It has been tentatively identified as McKee-la.

Then Sylvia somehow found the strength to step up to the microphone, saying at this point what everybody in town was thinking. Please ladies and gentlemen, this is not over yet. Until the person or person's responsible aircraft to justice.

Why would anybody take McKee-Kastanzo of all people sweet in accommodating and popular McKee to a remote bit of desert and then beater and slasher and stab her and dump her there?

“Where, by the way, one piece of evidence had emerged adding to the horror to take the burning.”

It was a zip tie that was bound around her wrist. One of her wrists. One of her wrists that I personally observed, yes. A clear plastic zip tie, strong and stiff. Just like the ones used to bundle cables or secure a fencing.

It indicated to me that she was restrained and more than likely taken from that school against her well. Somebody kidnapped McKee-Kastanzo. And then murdered her with an almost unimaginable brutality. But who would do that?

And why would they do it?

They were big questions.

“That a tiny little clue sitting at the local high school just might help answer.”

A grainy surveillance video of McKee-Kastanzo inside the school. Moments before she vanished. And she wasn't alone. 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 old new decline, Friday night at 10/9 central, only on NBC. This went over had just one high school, which sits at the edge of town, a one-story brick building with blue trim, nothing fancy.

But certainly serviceable for its 300 students.

When it opened in 1996, one of its state-of-the-art features was a video surveillance system recording 24/7, including of course, that day in March 2011, when McKee-Kastanzo disappeared. So, as the crime scene investigators completed their dismal work in the desert, detective Kevin McKinney got back into his car and... We went back to the school, we obtained some videos surveillance. The school has some cameras in the hallways.

Lots of cameras. Officers and school staff had been scanning through the tapes ever since Mickey vanished. It was tedious and time consumed me. But then, the one behold they found it, a grainy image of McKee herself walking down the hallway timestamp just after 5pm. We did confirm that she'd actually left from the rear of the school.

And then, at the same time, we found out that just prior to her leaving from the back of the school, we saw Cody Patton leave the same doorway. Really? Just a few minutes earlier. Yes. Cody Patton, McKee's childhood jump. His were the very last calls and text messages to her phone before that phone stopped recording anything at all.

So now, detective McKinney backed up the video to the period before McKee showed up on the tape. And there was Cody in the school after school that out, wandering in the hallways. Four different times. We actually saw Cody walking in the hallway in the area of the girl's locker room entrance.

“Why wouldn't he be around the girl's locker room entrance?”

Was McKayla in that? Well, McKayla was at track practice. Oh, so she might have gotten there to get changed. Well, yeah. And we believe he was waiting for her to finish track practice. So, clearly this is somebody who needed to be talked to.

Yes. Especially because of what Cody had told detective Burnham the day before, about seeing McKee leave the school. She was going out to front of him. How sure you were about to do with front of him?

The video surveillance at the school found that Cody Patton was probably the last person of senior to the fact she'd left to the southwest doors and he was in that area. And yet Cody told the detective Burnham, in assisted in fact, McKee left the school through a different set of doors all together. Now why would he say that?

Suddenly, Cody Patton, childhood play made a lifelong friend, was becoming a person of interest.

detectives needed to know a little more about Cody about his character, his background,

“something McKee's mom, Sylvia, knew all too well.”

Cody is a very interesting young man. I saw the good and the bad sides of Cody at the same time. He could turn on a dime. Cody could be the sweetest person in the world. And then turn right around and just not be okay.

Cody has a tough temper. Cody has a hot temper. Also, Cody had been struggling at school. He clashed, often, with his teachers and classmates. He has the measures at home too.

He had a hard time getting along with his parents. This is Cody's fiance, Tony Frodo. After he had turned 18, they had gotten an argument,

and they had basically kicked him out of the house.

When he called you right away, I'm assuming. He let me know, yes. And then we had talked to my parents and everything, and he had come and lived with us. Tony was the youngest of the five Frodo children.

The close-knit Mormon family, deeply devout. Tony was petite, barely five feet tall, to Cody's six foot six. She had dark hair and dark dough-like eyes. The two had been dating for three years. And during their senior year of high school, they got engaged.

Tony was over the moon. He has a really loving side. And he was one to go out of his way and help others out and make others feel good about themselves and everything. They were young, of course, to be planning a marriage just 18.

But Tony's parents Cassie and Claude Frodo supported their daughter's marriage plans. They liked Cody, and now had a vested interest in seeing him succeed.

“So that's why they allowed him to move in, they said,”

when he said he had no place else to go. Separate rooms, of course. Here's Claude. I wanted to extend a hand-toing to help him get through school. This is Cassie.

We became his second family, and we were really invested in his success.

Claude and Cassie Frodo talked to me for almost two hours. They lived in a modest pre-fab house on the edge of West Windover. Claude quiet her and more measured when he spoke. Well, Cassie was high energy, eager to discuss her daughter, Tony, and that relationship with Cody.

Tony and Cody were becoming quite close, and they'd planned to have a future together. This was towards the end of their senior year. Tony at that time was determined to be Cody's savior, as you will. The person that helped him to graduate.

She encouraged him to do a schoolwork.

“She encouraged him to keep on track to graduate.”

She encouraged him to try and be a better person and try to be kind. In fact, the Frodo's convinced Cody to join the Mormon Church, where he was baptized. I really wanted Cody to graduate. I really wanted Cody to be able to join the Marines. I wanted him to succeed.

Sure. You know, if he's going to get married to your daughter. Right. We were trying to steer this into the right direction. But you really cared for him.

Yeah, of course. Yes. He was like a son to me. But when Detective McKinney asked the interview, Cody, it wasn't Claude Frodo, who brought him to the police station, but his actual father, Kit Patton, along with his mom.

And they were joined there by fiance Tony and her parents. His extended family support group. Cody, clocked down in the same white wall room where he'd been interviewed just the day before. And immediately made a quick impression on Detective McKinney. He looked like your average high school student to me.

Tall, lean, clean-cut, polite. He was very self-confident. He'd do it, okay? Yes, sir. All right, Cody.

You kind of want to talk to you about what happened on the third.

At the outset, McKinney was deliberately upbeat trying to keep the tension down. Didn't want to spook Cody. He eased into the interview. Several softball questions. You please, okay, last night.

Down. Well now, I'll put up horrible things to make you remember them.

And in friends, you know, I've never stepped out of the kid.

Took the bullets in the apartments. Then she lived up. When she didn't. So I started worrying because that's not like the kid. For the nice two hours, the Detective McKinney probed and prodded Cody.

Coaxing any new details that might advance the case. Or, eliminate him as a possible suspect. They've got to call back. All right.

“Did you have anything to do with your disappearance?”

No, I'm sorry. Sorry if I give you a thumbs up. Kind of obsessed with the people I spit.

So, who do you think might have been a ball?

Everyone would like to see. Cody was calm, polite. Cooperative, perfectly willing to have his DNA swab. Does he rehash the same story he told the Wendover PD one day earlier? How he'd been calling and texting McKin.

Asking for help to move some car parts. And then saw her leaving the school from a front door. But Detective McKinney knew from that surveillance video. That both Cody and McKinney actually left from the back door. Just minutes apart.

And with that, that obvious lie. Detective McKinney turned up the heat.

“You don't solve a sudden start calling her.”

Okay? You don't all of a sudden start hanging out the school waiting for her to get down with track practice. Something happened that day. She's hanging out to wait for you.

We're in that school four different times after school. You went by the girls locker room three times. Okay? Cody, he did explain this. What's going on, buddy?

You're not being totally truthful with us. Yes, I have. No, you know. But there was no getting around it. Video does not lie.

The video from the school indicates to us that you were waiting for her. Okay? Well, it wasn't because that was a time she disappeared. And that was the time she died. And you were involved.

Oh, it wasn't involved in her death. I know you weren't out. I did not kill McKinney. Then let a detective suddenly dialed back and tried his softer approach.

“Cody, you need to tell us the truth, buddy.”

Cody, we want to help you, buddy. We really do. As you hear, would be so mad that you don't remember what happened? Excuse me. An exhausted Cody took a deep breath and looked away for a moment.

And then said quietly. I just want to say my family. I just want to be with some little bit. Can I take a break from it? Damn, please. Please, all right.

So the detectives left the room and Cody's father kept went in and closed the door for a father's son chat. Unlike any other. Coming up in future episodes of five miles from home. We went back into the interview room and his father told him he needs to tell us why. But it was Cody telling all, but it's true.

But it wasn't. Who really knew? I wanted to tell what really happened because I knew they were not going to get the real story from Cody. All of a sudden, it gave us something to point the case towards other than Cody's acts. And pointing, well, pointing there certainly would be.

She was afraid that she would be the one lying next to McKayliff. She did not follow his orders that evening. Lies coverups and betrayal. Who could have imagined? I was very surprised.

Came out of the blue. I was blindsided. Five miles from home is a production of date line and NBC news. Robert Dean is the producer. Brian Drew, Marshall Housefeld and Meredith Greenstein are audio editors.

Molly DeRosa is associate producer. Adam Gourphane 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.

Hey everyone, I'm Dylan Dreyer, co-host of The Third Hour of Today and Mom to Three Wild Boys.

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 his 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.