Lindsey Baum
In early summer of 2009, recently divorced Melissa Baum moves her two children, Joshua and Lindsey, to the small town of McCleary Washington from their previous home in Tennessee. McCleary had only 1500 residence, and was thought to be a very safe area.
They settled in quickly! The kids made friends and became familiar with the town, frequently playing at the park and just enjoying the small town atmosphere.
Ten year old Lindsey wanted to go ask her friend, Micayla, if she could have a sleep over that night. When she left the house her brother was with her, however on the journey there they had an argument over the bike, a rather intense one according to people who saw and he went back home while she continued on to the friends. She made it there, however Michaela’s mother said she couldn’t have a sleepover, so around 9:30 Lindsey left their house making the journey back home, she was afraid of the dark so she was hurrying home, she should have been able to make it before the sun set at 9:45. Several people saw her on her journey, so we know she made it at least half way back to her home.
However, she never made it the full way back home. Lindsey had recently got at cell phone, her mother called all the numbers in the phone looking for Lindsey, concerned because it wasn’t like her to be out after dark. Eventually around 11pm the Melissa called 911 to report Lindsey missing.
All efforts were made to try and find Lindsey, search parties went out searching the entire area. Search dogs roamed the area, and in the following weeks fliers were handed out to every person that would take one. Everything was done to keep as many eyes as possible on the lookout for the missing 10 year old girl. However no sign of anything was found. No evidence to even provide clues of where to look next.
Going on the little bit of eerie things that could be found out, there were tiny bits of informations released! Apparently there had been a few strange things happening shortly before Lindsey went missing. A few weeks before, she watched the movie Taken with her family, and inquired if things like that really happened. While at the park with a friend, a man had come into the girls restroom while they are were in there. He didn’t actually do anything, but it seemed strange. Also, a week before the girls thought that they might have been being followed by a white car. Most disturbing of all, just the day before she went missing, Lindsey said that she felt like something bad was going to happen to her.
Lindsey’s family never gave up, they continued looking, searching, and hoping Lindsey would be returned. This continued for years, until May of 2018 when it was officially released that Lindsey’s DNA matched remains that had been found in September of 2017 in Eastern Washington, around 170 miles away from where Lindsey had been taken. Even finding some remains, it wasn’t much, it was a partial skull, nothing else has ever been found.
While many were crossed off quickly, the list of persons of interest started off at a whopping 40 possibilities.
After the abduction her brother, Josh, went back to live with his father. His father has never been pointed at, I assume he can prove he was in his home state of Tennessee at the time… but he isn’t talked about a lot.
Theories: That she was a runaway, it isn’t super common thought, and the cops ruled it out pretty quickly as she didn’t take her phone, any money, was afraid of the dark, just doesn’t seem super likely for her.
A stranger abduction… or possible stalker. Cases of this are pretty rare, but it is possible in this case she was taken by someone she didn’t know! There isn’t enough evidence to rule it out and she had seen the weird white car she felt like was following her, plus the strange bathroom incident.
An unnamed man living on the outskirts of town, whom had previously been accused of sexual assault and had had several strange conversations about Lindsey, but no evidence was found at his home.
The Emery Brothers, three elderly brothers who lived about 30 minutes away. The brothers home was covered in child porn, and they had on of lindsey’s missing fliers in their home. They also had some writings about satanic sacrifices in their home… they weren’t arrested for Lindsey for lack of evidence but did get in trouble on other chargers. They were turned in by their niece who went to the house to clean.
Tim Hartman. He was a local jewelry store owner. He admitted to “unintentionally” giving false information on where he was when she disappeared. He initially said he was out of town that night which turned out to be very untrue. Not only was he in town, but he had joined in the parties searching for her, even given Melissa a ride at one point around 1am when she was looking for Lindsey.