5 People Who Disappeared But Would Reappear Years Later

[Music] tanya cash grew up in elizabeth pennsylvania she lived with her father and her stepmother in 1996 she was 14 years old and studied at cornell middle school a 37 year old security guard at the school named thomas hose would befriend tanya thomas would often take her out of her classes to talk to her one day when he caught her skipping classes he kissed her as their relationship grew thomas would convince tanya to run away from her home and come live with him on february 10 1996 tanya gathered her belongings and left her home her parents thought she'd just run away like she had done in the past and didn't report her missing until a week later when she still hadn't returned home due to her history of running away the police would eventually give up the search after just a few days ten years later in 2006 a 24 year old woman named nikki allen walked into a grocery store and told the owner that her name was tanya cash and she was being held captive at the hands of thomas hose and had been since she was a teenager the police arrested thomas after escaping and coming home tanya wrote a book about her experiences called memoir of a milk carton kid the tanya nicole cash story in the book she wrote about her trying ordeal in the beginning as thomas lived with his parents tanya was kept in his bedroom on the second floor thomas went to great lengths to keep tanya hidden she wasn't allowed to leave the bedroom and had to go to the toilet in a bucket most of the time she ate only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with a banana and a can of fago soda pop about once a week in the night thomas would lead her down to a cellar with cold concrete floors to take a shower she said in an interview quote i was fine at first i thought i was in love and felt my sacrifices were a labor of my love for tom soon however the ordeal began to take its toll in 2000 thomas created a new identity for tonya nikki allen and introduced her to his parents as his girlfriend that would be moving in with him after this tanya was allowed to leave the house occasionally with a strict curfew ten years later after she was originally coerced to run off with thomas tonya escaped in 2007 thomas pled guilty to three counts of involuntary deviant sexual intercourse aggravated indecent assault statutory sexual assault interfering with the custody of a child corruption of a minor and child endangerment thomas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison stephen kubachi was a student at hope college a small private christian university near the southeastern shore of lake michigan in february of 1978 stephen ventured out for several hours of solo cross-country skiing he would not return home a day later when he still hadn't returned he was reported missing a massive search was conducted searchers found his skis and ski poles on the beach of lake michigan and footprints on the ice leading up to the lake but none walking away when the rescue crew flew over the area it was reported that his footprints appeared to stop at the frozen water's edge there was no sign that the ice had broken anywhere or any clue as to what had happened to steven later that day his backpack was found in the same general area as his skis no other clues would turn up and it appeared that he vanished into thin air the search was called off soon after then 15 months later on may 5th 1979 stephen walked up to his father's house and rang the doorbell stephen was surprised to know that he had been missing for 15 months he told his father he had very little memory of where he had been stephen said that he had suddenly woken up in pittsfield massachusetts 700 miles from where he went missing lying in a meadow wearing clothes that did not belong to him he also had a small satchel beside him with maps in it none of which were his he said that he felt like he had recently been running his father lived in pittsfield 40 miles from where he woke up other than that he had no recollection of where he was or what happened to him in the last 15 months following his return he refused to speak about his encounter with the media since he had no recollection of it whatsoever he refused to talk to a therapist since he said he didn't have to as he didn't have any psychological problems in 1983 stephen got his masters in linguistics and years later a phd in clinical psychology followed some would say that getting lost ultimately helped steven achieve his goal of helping others find themselves in the 1900s dr william horatio bates was a well-respected ophthalmologist in new york city in august of 1902 william wrote a note to his wife stating that he was called out of town to perform some major operation and that he was quote glad to get so much money for us all he further added in his note that he was in a hurry and would write more details later the note was strange as william was already a wealthy man and his excitement about money seemed odd strangely william wouldn't return home and wouldn't write as he had said so in the note when he failed to return his wife started searching for him william was a prominent mason and his wife would ask for the help of the masonic society to try and find him they distributed his picture around the world soon his wife would receive information that william was working as a medical assistant at the charring cross hospital in london after first being admitted as a patient strangely even though william had a bank account with plenty of money with which he could live in the lap of luxury in london he was reported to be malnourished moreover when his wife arrived in london william couldn't recognize or remember her william however did accept her offer to stay with her at the savoy hotel to rest and to help him recover his memories at the hotel he seemed to have recalled being called away from new york to board a ship and perform an operation on someone with a brain abscess hearing this his wife decided to stay in london to help him recover his memories but two days later william walked out of the savoy hotel and disappeared once more his wife would never see him again she spent the next few years tirelessly searching for him in europe and america until her death in 1907. in 1910 dr j e kelly a good friend of williams would pass through grand forks north dakota there he would run into william working in an ophthalmology practice that he had set up himself sometime after his second disappearance however he still had no memory of his past life kelly convinced him to return to new york and to practice together as partners william married three times after being widowed twice he married emily c liarman his longtime personal assistant william never recovered his memories of his previous life nor what had happened to him after his first disappearance natasha ryan was a 14 year old girl living with her parents in rockhampton queensland in 1998. on august 31st 1998 natasha was dropped off at her school by her mother when she returned to pick her up she wasn't there and she was reported missing to police an exhaustive and extensive search was carried out for her in the month prior to her disappearance natasha had run away from home once aided by her 21 year old boyfriend scott black however she was found two days later scott was fined one thousand dollars in november of 1999 when he pled guilty to willful obstruction of police he was asked if he knew anything about her second disappearance to which he said he did not know anything about natasha's whereabouts eight months after natasha went missing another girl by the name of kyra steinhardt went missing while walking home from school after following several leads police arrested leonard john frazier during natasha's disappearance several women had gone missing the police suddenly began considering the possibility that leonard was a serial killer and may have murdered natasha as well hopes of finding her diminished and she was soon declared legally dead with the belief that she had fallen victim to leonard her family held a memorial service in bundaberg queensland on her 17th birthday in 2001. in 1999 leonard confessed to five murders including kira's and natasha's the confession was believed to have been made in a deal with police to avoid the general population in jail given the dim view inmates have on child rapists and killers then on the 10th of april 2003 as the trial for leonard was underway in brisbane supreme court police raided a house in rockhampton there they found natasha ryan alive hiding in a cupboard it was found that natasha had staged her disappearance and had been living with her boyfriend scott since disappearing on the 31st of august in 1998. during her first year in hiding natasha had no contact with the outside world she rarely left her boyfriend's home and stayed inside with the lights off and the curtains drawn whenever a visitor came over she would hide inside a cupboard for four years they moved a number of times in the cover of night between properties in yapoon and rockhampton she had been living in rockhampton for six months prior to being found in 2003 two days later natasha attended her own murder trial and told the court that she had never met leonard and did not know the witness who stated she had seen her with him before she went missing a jury found leonard guilty of three murders and he was sentenced to three indefinite prison terms on the 13th of june 2003 he died in prison on the 1st of january 2007 in later interviews natasha said that by the time she wanted to reunite with her mother it was too late the lie had become too big so she hid in 2005 scott pled guilty to telling lies to investigators about not knowing about natasha's whereabouts the rockhampton district court sentenced scott to three years in jail for perjury however the sentence was suspended after 12 months a year later natasha was found guilty of causing a false police investigation and was fined one thousand dollars on the 21st of march in 2002 john darwin a teacher and former prison officer went on a canoe trip in the north sea he was last seen paddling in his canoe at sea in kuru and hauntley pool when he didn't return home his wife ann darwin reported him missing a massive search involving police and coast guard was launched stretching all the way from seton kuru to stades the following day his double-ended paddle was found at the sea near seton kuru however no sign of john could be found the search was later called off and jon was presumed dead months later his smash canoe would turn up at the north gar near a spot known locally as the blue lagoon in april of 2003 darwin was declared legally dead his death certificate stated that after going out to sea he probably encountered difficulties as a result of which he died with the help of a death certificate the grieving widow anne was able to claim her husband's 25 thousand pound life insurance policy his twenty five thousand pound teachers pension his fifty eight thousand pound prison service pension as well as four thousand pounds in payouts from the department of work and pensions and a further 137 pounds from a norwich union mortgage insurance policy the total was 249 000 pounds darwin was presumed dead until 2007. in 2007 a man walked into a london police station claiming he was john darwin he told investigators that he had no memory of the last few years he was able to give his name date of birth and personal details but did not remember where he had been anne in the interview said she was overjoyed that her husband was alive however unknown to the darwins police had been investigating his disappearance having received a tip that john might be alive and living in panama soon darwin's story was exposed as a pack of lies when a photograph emerged on the internet of him posing with his wife in 2006 proving that he was alive all along it came to light that jon had faked his death to escape substantial debts from a failed property and a shared business incredibly ann helped him pull this off he along with his wife planned his death to claim life insurance money to pay off the debts that he had accrued according to john after he faked his disappearance he moved to the lake district and would phone anne regularly to see if the coast was clear for him to return home a few weeks later he returned to his home and would stay in an adjacent in-law unit to the family home that the darwin's owned by the day he would sit in the adjacent flat and at night he would creep into the family home through a secret doorway hidden behind a wardrobe the couple lied to their family members throughout the ordeal even their own sons had no idea he was alive he allegedly would stay in the in-law unit whenever family members would visit or if his son stayed overnight meanwhile his wife pretended to friends neighbors and her two sons that her husband was dead as time passed john became more confident and would venture out donning a hat and regularly limping to conceal his identity one time one of his tenants recognized him and asked aren't you supposed to be dead john begged him not to tell anyone and got away with it in 2006 darwin came up with a new plan to move to panama and live more openly he applied for a birth certificate in the name of a dead boy who had been born around the same time as him using the birth certificate he applied for a passport in the name of the dead child john jones his wife told their son she needed to start a new life and would be moving to panama the couple flew to panama on the 14th of july in 2006 where they were photographed by a panamanian property agent and the resulting photograph was posted on the internet they had planned to buy a house there however following a change in panama's visa laws john told his wife that their identities needed to be verified by uk authorities and his alias would not pass this time darwin then decided to go back home and pretend to have been suffering from amnesia however by that time the police were already investigating his disappearance after a colleague of anz had overheard a phone conversation between the couple anne was convicted of six counts of fraud and nine counts of money laundering and was jailed for six and a half years she served three and a half darwin pled guilty to fraud as well as one count of falsely obtaining a passport and was jailed for six years and three months he was released in 2011 after serving half his sentence [Music] you

Channel: Merc Docs

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Rating: 4.9047699 out of 5

Keywords: Merc, famous cases, real story, top 5, top 10, documentary, list, missing persons, jane doe, john doe, disappearance, unsolved, mysterious, unsolved mystery, mystery, mysteries, unsolved mysteries, reappeared, solved, solved disappearances, solved vanishings

Id: dUpxrdg9_Aw

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020