Where is Patti Adkins? Ohio woman vanishes after secret trip

patty Atkins packs a sexy new nightie in her overnight bag and then heads to the auto plant for her final shift before what she thinks will be a romantic vacation with a co-worker she was last seen clocking out of the auto plant at 19 seconds after midnight 19 seconds after the witching hour patty rushes to the parking lot she doesn't want anyone to see her drive off with her secret boyfriend they are going to go to Canada she climbs into the bed of his pickup truck and hides underneath a roll-up cover patty what are you doing you know better the truck speeds away into the darkness of the midsummer night and patty is never seen again like she disappeared now Patty's family is left to ask the horrifying questions did she vanish to start a new life she wasn't going to Canada to leave us forever or was she murdered the mystery of the missing single mom casts a dark cloud over Marysville Ohio a small town with planes trains and automobiles as in car factories this is where patty went to work after high school working as a shift supervisor for the local Honda manufacturing plant she was stunning your sister yes she was how would you describe your relationship with your sister very close especially as adults my sister and I were only a year apart so she only lived 30 minutes away when she lived in Marysville so we talked on a regular basis so tell me about patty as a mom patty was a very good mom loving mom she loved makayley with all her heart doted on that little girl like nothing else and who wouldn't dote on a girl is adorable as makayley now an adult studying for her PhD in behavioral neuroscience Michaela is a cute name do you know the origins of Michaela why you were named Michaela there was a bar and Marian called Michaela so you were named after a bar and it seemed everyone at the Honda plant loved Pattie who was up for a big promotion we were actually working side by side colleague and best friend Heidi Knight says Patti had a thing for one particular guy on the assembly line because you worked there you knew him as well right I knew of him because he didn't work too far from where I was at in the beginning that they were just really close friends they played cards together they worked in the same area I could tell that it was becoming more than just friends what did she like about him very outdoorsy and as was she she liked the outdoors when did you first hear about someone special in her life probably I was around Thanksgiving of 2000 that the armorer were having a conversation with her what did she say she was talking about the fact that she actually had an interest in somebody from more work the same shift that she did but there was just one problem with Paddy's new squeeze from the night shift Mary married with children she was hesitant to tell me about that because she knew I wouldn't approve of that but you know she really liked talking with him and he understood her was she in love with him did she want there to be more to this relationship yes I mean she spoke of like you know that she felt like she was connected to him she wanted to maybe move away from Marysville live out in the country have more kids so I think she definitely foresaw a future with him but she did say that his wife couldn't know about her forever that she knew who patty was she knew who she was from work and that's why they I don't think they did see each other outside of work or anything there weren't like meetings and anything clandestine going on outside other than that she would go to his shop maybe to get her a car worked on Marsha says the auto repair shop was the boyfriend's side business and she says that business prompted patty to start loaning him money so he could eventually divorce his wife the whole reason that she started loaning him money was so that he was the reason he said he wouldn't leave is because of his business and he would lose everything she would get half of that so I wanted to buy it out when she told you that she was giving him money what was your reaction well my reaction development was not great but she was sure that this was just preparing for their future how much money did she give him and did she give it to him in cash and checks how did it so cash everything was cash about $90,000 maybe a little more 90 grand a lot of coin for a single mom to buy her boyfriends freedom but patty was lovestruck and her sister says she excitedly talked about her very first getaway with her lover at a cabin in Canada he knew this little place that they were going to go and it was going to be a remote area she was excited because she was finally getting away with her love yes yes and like I said they didn't spend really spend time together outside of work or anything like that so it was sort of the opportunity to all the things that she'd been sacrificing for you know waiting that actually everything was coming to fruition so before work patty put her cats in the kennel and arranged for Makayla to be taken care of where was McGahan Makayla yes I got her in the middle of the week she was with her dad from the start of shutdown to the middle of the week and I had her from the middle of the week until Sunday but the boyfriend apparently carpooled with another guy so patty described a plan that sounded like it could come from a spy movie she would jump into the back of the pickup truck hide under the cover so the boyfriends buddy wouldn't see her then after he was dropped off she would get into the passenger seat and be whisked away to the cabin do you cringe when you envision your sister climbing into the back of that pickup truck and hiding yes I do I really really do cuz you just want to shake her and say Patti what are you doing you know better does any of this plan when you look at it now the fact she had a hide in the back of the truck that she wasn't supposed to bring clothes they were gonna buy it they were going to a place where they wouldn't be able to communicate it's like the perfect setup yes it was it was too perfect Patti Atkins thought the married man she fell for was the one even though she was number two she had mentioned that his marriage wasn't what he had dreamt it was going to be she believed that she was going to have a relationship with him after he left his wife that she was happy and that's what she wanted him so when Patti revealed a clandestine plan to hide in his pickup truck so they could secretly leave work and get away for a week alone in a remote cabin her sister Marsha was skeptical when you found that out what's your opinion of this if at that point he was supposed to be leaving his wife why did she still need to hide she told me how much she trusts him she said to me he would never harm a hair on my head when Patti didn't return in time to attend a family barbecue her sisters feared the worst what time was she supposed to arrive they were supposed to get back late Saturday night so I started to call her in her house late morning probably called a hundred times I think numerous times left voicemails on her answering machine the later it got the more you called yes so it's Sunday night she hasn't arrived late afternoon I think is when I started calling his house his house the house were patty secret lover lived he moonlighted as an auto mechanic closed myself as being a potential customer his wife had said he wasn't home so did that make you think well made me think they just weren't back the minutes turned into hours and the hours turned into horrible thoughts for Marsha so she called again and this time he answered so you finally get him on the phone I did I had spoke to many basically denied knowing my sister and he was Patty Oh patty like just like he didn't know who she was cuz I said you know I've never met you I've never spoken to you but I'm patty sister you know I know she was to go away and he cuz I got I don't know what you're talking about when I got off the phone I called my brother and I told him that she's dead what I just I just I knew Laura for the minute that man said he denied knowing my sister that she was dead now in full panic mode Marsha and Patty's BFF Heidi Knight from the auto plant go to her house looking for clues we had found actually like bands for money she had in her closet that it would be like hundred dollars and stacks of money was it money or just the bank just the band's so when I found out my thought was oh my god he has killed her little did her sister know patty had been lending money to her lover those bands presumably wrapped the wads of cash an estimated 90 grand that's a crazy amount of money that's a lot of money I guess what I'm trying to figure out is yes patty was a good saver and had money but she started getting into trouble herself as far as I mean when you have to take out a second mortgage or you've got to take loans out against yourself to give it to your boyfriend that's now becoming kind of desperate absolutely she was financially sound from what the friends and her sister and family said she was financially sound up until the point she started giving this money to her boyfriend after the house search Marsha says she called the boyfriend again in the middle of the night and asked him point-blank did you kill patty his wife answered the phones well what did they say well he was like what do you mean like no I mean you know can we just work together and what the wife was asking why I thought that he had murdered and what supposedly was supposed to happen but did you say to the wife your husband and my sister were about to take off and he's leaving you did you say that to her I said that so seriously they were supposed to go to Canada she's been giving him money they're supposed to you know he's supposed to be buying out this business but what she called very yeah they were both calm if you call me at 3:00 in the morning and I don't know what's going on and you tell me that my husband had a plan to run away with a co-worker and that she's been giving him money and that he's leaving me I'd be pretty upset yes you would think despite their steadfast denials it seems others that the plant did know about the affair more people knew about their relationship then I think even she was aware of people that worked with her would see that they were obviously growing close and knew that they spent time together and that they did talk all the time and I knew that there was something more there so for him to say that there never was an affair is a lot right oh definitely the alleged lies the money bands a missing sister all signs that are flashing red for Marsha so she called the Union County Sheriff's Office Sheriff Jamie Patton was the chief investigator at the time and there's been no trace of her like no credit cards no cell phones no activity whatsoever isn't that kind of weird very very much we believe that she did not go missing on her own free will and detectives were about to discover why that seemed to be the case the last time Patti was seen alive she clocked out of work at just after midnight detective Jeff Stiers tells me that when Patti climbed into the bed of the pickup truck she left behind a huge clue we don't even know if she left the parking lot we assume she did we found evidence in the back of the truck underneath the tonneau cover that evidence that we found were her cat hairs from her cats but her cats were not inside the truck right her tests were not inside the truck so how the cat hair get on there well if you remember prior to going to Honda that day they took the animals to the kennel the cat hairs would have been on padding and on the bag that she took with her and you know conclusively that those cat hairs belong to Patty's cat and Patty's cat only the results from the lab stayed that yes you heard right cat DNA ties patty to the boyfriends truck bed what else did you find in the vehicle did you find any blood evidence the only thing that we're confirming to the public is that the cat hair was confirmed to be Patty's the additional evidence that has been processed we're not revealing any of the results of that at this point but prosecutors David Phillips is there was a small amount of blood as far as evidence of homicide no will you tell us much more about the blood whose blood it was what does it indicate at this point right now releasing that information is it an important part of the investigation it's obviously a fact so what's the bottom line who is the person of interest we keep coming back to the fact that this individuals name keeps coming up that makes him a person of interest and someone were very interested in and to be clear the person you are making a reference to as a person of interest is the man she called her boyfriend yes what do you think happened to patty I think she was murdered patty Atkins has been missing ever since the moment she climbed into the bed of her secret lovers pickup truck when you think about how happy she was in that moment about what she thought she was going into and then he juxtaposes that with what likely happened to her that's hard that's really hard because I do think she was sincerely happy the family had patty declared legally dead they now speak of her in the past tense she had an infection us laugh and that's probably what I miss most about hers because I can't remember the sound of her laugh anymore it's it's gone I can see her face I can picture her smile I think I've lost the sound of her laugh and I missed that Patty's sisters her daughter Mikayla the Union County Sheriff and the prosecutor all believed her married boyfriend possibly had something to do with her disappearance is this a homicide or a missing-persons case this is a homicide case how did it change from missing persons to homicide patty Atkins has been gone for a substantial period of time the fact that she had a daughter the fact that she had appointments the fact that she had pets and boarded those pets the fact that she was in line for a promotion at her and her work that doesn't appear to be a person that would just disappear and the boyfriend is the only person of interest so you believe patty was murdered until we learned otherwise yes that's that's how we were looking at the case do you think he killed her I believe he had something to do with it we're still looking for that missing piece in the puzzle that will help make this case so to try and find that elusive puzzle piece investigators search the boyfriends property using cadaver dogs he voluntarily gave consent the cadaver dog did indicate in an area outside of a barn addition that he was adding on to his body shop there was some excess concrete that was poured outside of that barn addition fresh concrete yeah it was fresh concrete it was excess after he poured the hosts it was left on the concrete truck is what he told us and we brought in a backhoe and dug that whole area we did not locate anything detectives say they did however find gifts that patty reportedly gave him what kind of gifts are we talking about a Harley Davidson phone she had purchased while she was on vacation we also found a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt his wife at the time had stated that she had no idea where this Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt can from Patti's sister Jeannine told investigators she witnessed patty find that t-shirt at the Hard Rock Cafe in Miami but what detectives didn't find any evidence that the estimated $90,000 patty pulled out of the bank ended up in the boyfriend's account we had a forensic accountant go through his accounts and no money was found for what a year year and a half he was taking this money from her it might have been at the beginning where you know what he wanted to be with her then after time he decided that he wanted to stay with his wife and now what am I going to do I've got all this money and I don't pay her back or am I gonna get rid of her that's the question that we have and Marsha claims Patti gave her secret boyfriend a hard deadline to pay up she had told him you know in July you have to start paying back part of this you have to start putting back money back in because she had taken some of it from her 401k so she didn't want to get the penalty on that what could be the possible motive if money's involved if she began to seek to get the money back you could lead to issues in his marriage it could lead to other issues and we provided a mother investigators put Patti's lover on the polygraph and asked about their alleged relationship he did show deception in the polygraph would you say he failed the polygraph I would tell you that he was deceptive in the polygraph and what's his story what's his statement he had no relationship with her whatsoever he barely knew her other than as an associate at Honda another associate the boyfriend told cops he clocked out from the Honda plant at midnight and got home at 2:30 in the morning he claims he and his rideshare buddy stopped at Burger King and were in line for 45 minutes we spoke to the manager at Burger King he stated that 18 dollars worth of business was done from midnight until 1:30 in the morning he stated that longest that somebody would have had to wait in line was 10 to 15 minutes but both men said that story right both men gave that story of 45 minutes if he left work at midnight but didn't get home until 2:30 in the morning what was he doing all that time that's a good question so he would have had ample time to get rid of patty but again there is no hard evidence that ties the boyfriend to Patty's disappearance for me I think just being able to find her to have a proper service for her or whatever would be the best and also getting answers from him would help me the most I think what do you need answered just why at this point I think it all smells cold he was able to go so long like it's what holding details so to help makayley answer those questions i drove through the flat farmland of ohio looking for the man investigators say is the person of interest because authorities won't publicly name him neither will crime watch daily so this is the house where the Person of Interest lives the person who we believe last saw paddy alive we just saw him go into the garage so I'm gonna knock and see what he has to say so Anna Garcia from crime watch daily we want to talk to you about paddy you're the last one to have seen her alive tried to get some answers he really didn't say much more to us than he did to police or to the family of paddy we called his lawyer for a comet but he never got back to us remember he's never been named a suspect and he's never been charged in connection with Patty's disappearance the fact that patty has never been found and may never be found continues to weigh heavily on this close-knit family it's really easy to talk about the case and things like that but when you want me to talk about my sister makayley that's hard I'm so proud of her her I mean but I feel for her because she doesn't have her mom here not having a mother if you anyone can imagine it's not an easy process I can only thank my family and the support system that I've had from being young to now to being where I am now helping me become successful or where I am at this point in my life I have a box full of pictures that she took whether that's when you're on vacation or like her childhood my childhood that I help us doubt that quite frequently to look through it it was hard for you to sit down and talk with us yes just all of these unanswered questions it makes it very difficult to find closure my mom guided 29 years old I'm 23 right now and I can't imagine thank you I just know to not take life for granted you're just an amazing young woman I think I'm glad you handled this better than I did it's very hard to understand this case we've brought in former chief prosecutor and defense attorney Bob yaki to break this down what's gonna be the key for prosecutors to nail down the person of interest after all mister you know I think shows like this Chris you know a lot of times witnesses don't come forward because they believe somebody else will do it some are scared if they can be properly motivated that's one thing the second thing is I would have that evidence that blood evidence in particular reevaluated I would have a new set of eyes because I've seen this happen a lot of times you get pigeonholed and sometimes you get too focused so a new set of eyes looking at the case can come up with potentially a different theory or an a piece of evidence that was overlooked before that's about it right now because prosecuting a 15 year old homicide without a body tough business Handy's reporter boyfriend was interviewed by police and denied even knowing her what does that do to the kid you know a good homicide detective and a good homicide prosecutor know one thing sometimes people lie to cover up something else not necessarily the murder I've seen it happen in cases that I've done where they try to cover up gambling debts or drug-related activity or try to cover for their wives not knowing that they were having an extramarital affair so lying certainly puts me in the red in terms of I don't believe the person but I have to wonder if there's another motive they're trying to cover up even if there was probable cause to make an arrest how difficult is this okay well now you're gonna get into the Bob Bianchi philosophy of prosecution and what I would always do with my staff or even when I was a homicide prosecutor is if I believed the person did it and I believe that I have probable cause and I didn't think I had really strong evidence go to trial at least give the jury an opportunity just try to find some justice and even if it's a not guilty then at least we fought the good fight Bob Bianchi thank you as always for being here with us on this case if you have any information on patty Adkins disappearance you're urged to call the union county sheriff's office at 1 9 3 7 6 4 5 41 10

Channel: True Crime Daily

Views: 2,209,263

Keywords: Patti Adkins missing, Patti Adkins Marysville Ohio, Crime Watch Daily, True Crime Daily

Id: qnRUgs5ASUs

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2019