My Sixteen-Year-Old Daughter Vanished for Eight Days—Then Her School Found a Hidden Phone With a Video of My Boyfriend Meeting Her in Our Garage at Midnight
The first time I watched the video, I was convinced I had invited the wrong man into my home.
My sixteen-year-old daughter had been missing for eight days.
Police had no real leads.
Her friends swore they knew nothing.
Her father claimed he hadn’t heard from her.
And then her high school found an old phone hidden behind a loose panel in her locker.
There was only one video saved on it.
The footage showed my boyfriend standing alone with my daughter in our garage at 12:16 in the morning.
She was frightened.
He was blocking the garage door.
Then he opened the trunk of his car and pulled out a sealed storage box.
Whatever was inside made my daughter stumble backward.
Seconds later, she ran into the house.
The recording abruptly stopped.
But the note taped to the phone was worse.
It was written in my daughter’s handwriting.
Mom, if something happens to me, watch this. He tried to erase it.
For eight days, I had been begging God to bring my daughter home.
Now I was wondering whether the man who had spent those same eight days comforting me knew exactly where she was.
My name is Rachel Monroe.
I was forty years old when my daughter disappeared.
And until that week, I had thought the hardest thing I would ever survive was my marriage.
I was wrong.
