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E226: April Andrews
3.7k Plays8 months ago
Fifteen-year-old April Andrews told her mom that she was going to make a short trip down the road to the church clothing sale. It wasn’t too far; it seemed safe to make the walk, especially in their small town of Pea Ridge, Arkansas. But April never made it home, nor had she made it to the sale. What happened to April Andrews?
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Transcript
Introduction to Pea Ridge and April Andrews
00:00:00
Speaker
Pea Ridge in the heart of the Ozark Mountains is known for many things. It's known for being the site of the Pea Ridge National Military Park, which commemorates one of the largest civil war battles west of the Mississippi River. The park encompasses over 4,300 acres and includes a self-guided tour route with exhibits about the battle. The town's downtown business district is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
00:00:23
Speaker
The name pea ridge comes from a combination of the physical location of the settlement of the town across the crest of a ridge of the Ozark Mountains and from the hog nuts or turkey peas that had been originally cultivated by Native American tribes centuries before a European settlement. A place of breathtaking beauty shrouded in whispers of mystery but beneath the surface of this idyllic landscape lies a darkness, a chilling secret that's haunted a small town for over 17 years.
00:00:51
Speaker
a vibrant teenager who vanished without a trace from Pea Ridge, Arkansas. This is the story of April Andrews.
Podcast Introduction: 'Coffee and Cases'
00:01:33
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement. So justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:01:52
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because, as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
Casual Podcasting Setup
00:02:10
Speaker
Okay, so I'm just going to preface this episode, y'all, by saying
00:02:17
Speaker
You hear a baby in the background. This is totally unprofessional, but that's what it is. We roll with it. Yeah. We tried to record, but my baby just wasn't having it. So he's now sitting with me in my bed because that's where we're recording today. So yeah, welcome.
00:02:37
Speaker
Maggie and I are not fans of the cry it out method. So we just added them to the show. Yep. So we have a tiny baby sleuthound as you wrote. Also, what the heck are hog peanuts? You know, I'm not 100% sure. Hog peanuts is an edible underground fruit that can be eaten raw or boiled. Okay, listen, neither of those sound appetizing.
00:03:07
Speaker
Hog peanuts or turkey peas? That sounds gross. Is a shelled garden bean. More like a shelled garden bean than a peanut. Ooh. As you know, Allison and her listeners
00:03:21
Speaker
There are lots of cases that we cover where there is an abundant amount of research for us to read. I know you've had some that's had several hundreds of pages and it can be really overwhelming. And then there are some cases that we cover that the research is sorely lacking or the same research appears over and over again. Right.
00:03:40
Speaker
And that is the case for the story we're talking about today. So there isn't a ton of different research on the case, but I feel like those cases deserve coverage almost even more than the ones that have a ton of research on them because they deserve the awareness brought to them too. So let's talk about the case of April. Okay, I'm ready.
April Andrews' Disappearance
00:04:07
Speaker
It was November 18, 2006, and 15-year-old April was just like any other teenager. She was a whirlwind of energy. She had all these big dreams that she wanted to live out. Allison, she loved most everything that
00:04:22
Speaker
a 15 year old teenage girl would like. She loved music. She loved spending time with the few friends that she had. She loved any time that she could almost kind of escape the life that she had lived. She seemed for the most part relatively happy with similar worries that most 15 year old kids would have. Okay.
00:04:46
Speaker
Now, you said she's from a place called Pea Ridge, so I imagine that's pretty small of an area. Is that why she kind of liked to escape it? I think that is part of it. I also think, yeah, it is small, like almost 8,000 people in the 2020 census.
00:05:07
Speaker
And of course I'm, I'm picturing my sleuth hand as you're talking, because even though she was very young when we started this podcast, she is now 15.
00:05:17
Speaker
And so, yeah, so I know what a 15 year old is like now, people. It's not always pleasant, but I love her. But I think that was kind of it. Like she was just a typical 15 year old. You know, sometimes they just want anywhere but where they are.
00:05:38
Speaker
And she did have friends. Everything that I read used the words few friends when talking about April. She seemed to be one that was bullied in school a lot. Some kids picked on her.
00:05:56
Speaker
So she had very few people that she trusted or would turn to. She did tell a couple people that she felt that she was a burden to her family, specifically she reported that she worried she was a financial burden to her family because her dad had died a few years before her disappearance. And so April's mom was the loan support for their family. And I think she just kind of felt that on like a deep level and felt that maybe sometimes she could be in the way.
00:06:26
Speaker
And you know, I think it breaks my heart that she feels that way, but I think by her saying that to the people that she trusted shows an awareness that a lot of teenagers don't have to think about the impact that they're having on other people. But that makes me very sad because obviously as moms, we know
00:06:52
Speaker
There's nothing that my daughter could do that would make her a burden to me. I mean, even when I'm at the height of being frustrated, I would never. She's never a nuisance or a burden. And I'm sure April's mom felt the exact same way.
00:07:11
Speaker
But on that fateful November day, her mom stated that she had told, or April had told her rather, that she was going to a local church because they were having a clothing drive.
00:07:24
Speaker
And she was wanting to see what clothes they had at the church that they were giving away. And this little simple errand going to the church for clothes really hit a part of my soul when I was reading it. You know how you've, have you ever had, you've read something and you're like, Oh,
00:07:42
Speaker
That unlocked a long forgotten memory. That's kind of what happened with me because I forgot that my church when I was growing up had this trailer across the road and I think at one point the pastor maybe had lived there when the church was first built and then they turned it into a closed closet.
00:08:05
Speaker
and people could come there to get free clothes and I can remember helping mama work in the clothes closet and then at some points we would get my clothes from there my play clothes and things like that and so I really was like oh that struck a chord with me yeah I remember this now
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, ours had something similar and now a lot of schools do something like that. We have something like that at our high school, a little boutique where it's donated clothes. And I'm talking some of them are designer clothes that were donated where students can go and shop for free.
00:08:43
Speaker
that's awesome and get outfits so yeah i mean this fits with how she felt like she was a financial burden so this move this errand actually makes a lot of sense to me why she would go do that yeah i think so too and she made her way after she tells mom hey i'm gonna go to the church closet so and so she makes her way to peerage church of the nazarene which was actually very close to king line apartments where she lived
00:09:11
Speaker
I Googled it. And if you were walking, it would be just about a 20 minute walk. So for a 15 year old, I would think the mom would have been, you know, totally fine with sending her on a 20 minute walk to church. Plus we're in a small town. Yeah. And small towns tend to operate differently, you know, so we, we, we trust a lot more people in the town because everyone knows everyone. Yeah.
00:09:39
Speaker
We know though that she never arrived to that closed cell. When April's mom realized that something was wrong later that afternoon, she immediately contacted the police. In fact, she went ahead and filed a missing persons report that afternoon when April never returned home. But as you can probably guess,
00:10:01
Speaker
The initial response from police was far from what we would consider ideal. I was hoping, because it's
Police Response and Criticism
00:10:09
Speaker
a small town, that maybe it would be different, but obviously not. Alas.
00:10:17
Speaker
The Pea Ridge Police Department, a lot of sources said, was a little inexperienced, maybe even a little understaffed, and they actually went ahead and classified April as a runaway. Oh my gosh! That just, in a lot of cases, especially the ones we cover, obviously, they just waste precious time in those critical early hours of any type of investigation or disappearance.
00:10:42
Speaker
And I guarantee you, I guarantee you somebody in the department was thinking, and I'll be honest, I understand why they thought being a runaway could be a possibility given
00:11:02
Speaker
if they had knowledge of the bullying, if they had knowledge of the comments of her saying that she felt like she was a burden. But my guess is that when April's mom called police to file their report, they didn't know any of those things yet. Oh, no, they didn't.
00:11:18
Speaker
And so that's where my anger, my mama bear anger kicks in because I wouldn't understand if they thought her running away were a possibility if they had known those things. Or if she had done it before. Right. But for a mom to call in and them to think in a small town that some 15 year old just decided to run away without money, without any resources, doesn't make much sense.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah, it can be frustrating. And I think it would be especially frustrating for the family because I think those hours initially afterwards, you know, where police would be searching or, you know, Amber alerts would go out or whatever, and there's just nothing happening. Yeah. I think that would be agonizing. Oh, absolutely. And there's not a lot about
00:12:16
Speaker
what could have happened between her apartment and the church. We really
Eyewitness Account and Family Doubts
00:12:22
Speaker
only have one true lead that I read and it came from a very young witness, an eight-year-old girl, actually ended up telling police or claiming to police that she had seen April talking to a man in a beat-up, older model, full-size, single-cab brown pickup truck.
00:12:42
Speaker
Obviously, I don't think she was that specific. I think they got to that eventually, you know? Yeah. But she said that the truck just pulled up beside of April and she talked to this man and the girl went on to tell police that she willingly got into the vehicle. So she watches April willingly get into the truck and that the truck drove in the direction it would have if it were driving out of town. Hmm.
00:13:11
Speaker
So this single little fragile piece of evidence was really the only thread investigators had to cling to. Of course, like you said, we have to take it with a grain of salt because this is an eight-year-old. Now, eight, we would hope that there would be some understanding of the need to tell the truth.
00:13:33
Speaker
But there could have been details forgotten or something like that. And we don't even know what angle this girl saw it from. Right. And so what maybe looked willing to a young child maybe wasn't. And she probably didn't hear the whole conversation. I would probably at 15 willingly have gotten into a stranger's vehicle if they were like, I will kill your mother if you don't get in this car. Or
00:13:59
Speaker
if yes absolutely or if even they said because we don't know if this is someone who she did know from town
00:14:09
Speaker
or didn't know. But even if a stranger pulled up, and this is one of the dangerous things that, you know, now with grandkids, I have this plan. So Maggie, you can use this plan too. But is that a lot of times kids don't think rationally, especially in a situation that's high tension. And so if somebody pulled up, even if it's a stranger and they said, I need you to get in, your mom's in trouble.
00:14:38
Speaker
Or something like that. There's no rational part of a child's mind that says hold up wait I don't know you so how do you know my mom and know that I'm my mom's child and Start making those things all you think is my mom needs me my mom's hurt you know and so you you trust that person and so
00:15:03
Speaker
I've heard, I saw this somewhere that said with your kids, with your grandkids, whatever it is, come up with a password, a secret word that only you guys know. So then if anybody came and said, hey, your mom sent me to come pick you up or your mom's in trouble, their first response should be, if this is somebody they don't know, what's the secret word?
00:15:32
Speaker
and then they would say like, they would know it's like strawberry vines or something like that. Exactly. So if they know the secret word, then this kid knows, okay, my mom told that to them, I can trust them. But if they don't know the secret word, then they know not to go anywhere with this person. And that's the most brilliant thing. Other than if your car's running out of gas or if you think you're in trouble, change the voicemail on your phone to your location.
00:16:01
Speaker
That's also brilliant. If your phone's about to die, like let's say you run out of gas and your car won't start, so your phone won't charge, change your voicemail on your cell phone to say, you know, I'm at mile marker 17 on this road.
00:16:20
Speaker
Who thinks of these things? Because I never in my life would have thought of that. Those two things are the biggest tips that I think I've read since we've started podcasting that I would tell everybody to try to implement.
00:16:33
Speaker
But anyway, back to what I was saying, this child, we don't know what the person in the truck said to her, so we don't really know her vantage point either of the witness, and was it really willing? Right. So even this one lead, other than now there being a vehicle that we have a decent description of, that's about it. Yep.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yep. And really, even still to this day, that's really about it. Wow. According to the threefold advocate at John Brown University student newspaper,
00:17:14
Speaker
Corporal Mitch Brown, I don't know why that was just so hard for me to say, Mitch Brown, peerage schools resource officer spoke with April not long before her disappearance. And this was kind of what I was hinting at earlier. But in an interview, he had said that April was quote, very proud of herself, said that she was doing better, she was focused on school, things were getting better.
00:17:37
Speaker
He also believed that April would have to be really comfortable with an individual to get into the car with them. So if she willingly got into that truck, he's saying it would have had to been somebody she knew or was comfortable with or else she wouldn't have got in there. He said, quote, I don't believe she was the type of girl to get into a stranger's vehicle.
00:18:03
Speaker
I was going to ask that. I would imagine most teenagers would not.
Impact on Pea Ridge and Investigator Disappearance
00:18:10
Speaker
So I feel like there's enough kind of skepticism in a teenager, especially like a level headed teenager that they, I think it would have to be somebody that they would know to get in the vehicle with them. And I know we're still talking about a case that was 18 years ago. God, but imagine I did like, that sounds surreal to me. Eighteen years ago, should be like, not 2006.
00:18:34
Speaker
But I feel like there's at least a lot more awareness of the dangers in the world, even in the early 2000s, than when you and I were kids. So yeah, I don't think that she would willingly get in with somebody she didn't know unless, like I said, this stranger said something.
00:18:55
Speaker
like a comment, something along the lines of, I need your help, your mom's hurt or something like that. And April's half-sister Tanya said that she didn't think that April would run away.
00:19:08
Speaker
She said, and this is kind of piggybacking on what you just said, but she said, quote, I could never see her leaving home and not contacting her mother. She said that in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. And she also said, quote, she has always stayed very close to her mother. I really do believe something happened to April. She just wouldn't have run off without a word or at least a phone call.
00:19:30
Speaker
end quote. So even she is saying she wouldn't run away but then that almost connects with what you're saying unless the person that stops said you know something's wrong with your mom hurry and get in and she just in that moment has a little lapse of judgment perhaps. And I could be wrong about this. I almost feel like
00:19:52
Speaker
This is a complete blanket statement generalization. I will admit it going into it. But part of me feels as though there's a huge difference between a 15 year old and maybe an 18 year old. I think an 18 year old and I've taught both of those ages. You've had both of those ages. An 18 year old is more of the
00:20:20
Speaker
I'm an adult. I can take care of myself. Independent. A 15-year-old is much more of the, I need to try to stand on my own two feet, but I still need mom. Independent. Like I'm going to kind of fake it. Yeah. And so I understand that there might be a 15-year-old who thinks that they can run away and live life on their own. From what you've told me, it doesn't sound like
00:20:48
Speaker
April because even if she felt like she was a burden and run away at some point you realize I still need mom. Yeah. So much harder than I thought it would be any moment. Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
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00:22:50
Speaker
And sadly, days would turn into weeks and then months and now years. And you know, that initial fear and peerage morphed into kind of a suffocating dread. Parents are holding their children closer, playgrounds grow silent. April's disappearance was just basically this long shadow that was a constant reminder of just the vulnerability that lurked beneath the surface of this peaceful town.
00:23:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. We've said, even though a lot of crime that we cover happens in small towns, there's still an expectation of safety, of community that would protect you in a lot of ways. What's crazy is, so
00:23:42
Speaker
This, when I was researching, I was like, oh, this is kind of like Bardstown-esque. So April goes missing. And then in a crazy twist, another disappearance rocked the community of Pea Ridge. Well, I wasn't expecting you to say that.
00:24:00
Speaker
The case Allison grew super strange because the lead investigator, the initial first lead investigator, Sergeant Cirilla Doyle of the Pea Ridge Police Department disappeared herself on October the 27th, 2008. So like two years later. And when she disappeared, she left behind her identification, her cell phone, her vehicle, and other personal property that was inside the park.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah. Now, did she have a reason to... leave? Okay, so...
00:24:39
Speaker
yes okay according to reports she was last seen alive buying a bus ticket at this local gas station and then later in 2018 so 10 years later her skeletal remains were found in iowa but her daughter would later be interviewed and she said quote i kept hoping she would come home like i saw in the news a couple months ago in new york 40 years missing and she was found i kept hoping that that would be my mom one day
00:25:09
Speaker
It wasn't. The daughter Danielle said that after her father died, and when he went to like a diabetic coma, her mom just kind of lost all hope. I know, it's traumatic. This is sad.
00:25:25
Speaker
So the dad dies after going into a diabetic coma months before her mom's disappearance. Just months before. Yeah. And so she said after that, so the death of the dad, her mom became suicidal. And so they think that this was just her committing suicide. She left to do that.
00:25:50
Speaker
The daughter said in that same interview quote, we have some closure, but there's always going to be a wonder of how did she get there? What happened to her? They don't even know exactly how long she'd been dead. They say at least five years, but maybe the whole time she'd been gone, she'd been dead. So they just have a bunch of questions still, which is sad. But in her investigation, they stated that there was no indication of foul play.
00:26:15
Speaker
And so they're pretty sure that it was suicide because she had talked about the method that she would have committed suicide. So there was a lot of planning. Yeah. I just think, and it's just to me a huge coincidence. Yeah. I mean, are there people who believe that? Oh yeah. Yeah. And there is a lot of people that believe that.
00:26:46
Speaker
The Benton County Sheriff's office, which inherited April's case from the peerage police department in 2012 in greater part because it had more resources and manpower than the peerage police department. Doesn't think that there's a connection between Doyle, the original lead investigators, disappearance and death and April's case.
Investigation Theories and Challenges
00:27:08
Speaker
But like we said, there are a lot of people and a lot of speculation by some that they could be connected. Okay.
00:27:17
Speaker
Benton County Sheriff's Office CID Detective Lieutenant Hunter Petre. The case lead regrets not being able to interview Doyle while she was alive concerning
00:27:28
Speaker
the events around the night when she responded to April's disappearance and the efforts that took place afterwards. They just said in the log that I read that the report on April's disappearance. So that initial report was very vague. There wasn't a lot of information. They didn't canvas the apartment complex in that initial investigation, which I think is a big gap. Yeah. Bananas.
00:27:56
Speaker
He does go on to say that he thinks this case is solvable, though it's been how many years now, you know? Right. And he said, unlike most cold cases that go cold, because there are no leads, he said this wouldn't necessarily be notated as a cold case because he said in that same interview that they still get tips on April's case and that they take each tip seriously and follow up on every one. But despite the fact that they're getting tips,
00:28:24
Speaker
There's no real breakthroughs in her case, especially if we're saying that the biggest lead we have is that eight year old siding that brown truck. And it's been all these years and there's not something bigger that's broken through. Right.
00:28:42
Speaker
So despite the fact that no connection has been made in April's disappearance and the death of Sergeant Doyle, you know, those dark theories and whispers do come about that try to connect the two together. So a lot of people are saying maybe she was on the verge of some breakthrough or that she maybe had evidence that could have been particularly tarnishing to one group of people perhaps.
00:29:12
Speaker
Do I get then why there are some out there who want to connect the cases and thinking that maybe she was onto something and was silenced?
00:29:24
Speaker
But what we do know, and that is that she was on the case that she has since passed, that comment that you made about her report being vague, obviously these other officers, they're not thinking, okay, I need to treat this with urgency going to this initial investigator to fill in these gaps while she's still alive, especially if she's a younger person.
00:29:49
Speaker
person. But that is sad because that means it's even harder in April's case to get to justice, to get to answers, because the one person who may have had some of that information to fill in those gaps is no longer here to do it.
00:30:09
Speaker
And I wonder if we consider the initial investigation vague because they were investigating it as if she were a runaway, not a missing person. Right. So it may not technically have been vague because I'm assuming those are investigated differently. Yeah, I would imagine so. And there are actually still some agencies I read that list April as a runaway, but almost everywhere she is now classified as a missing person. So they have switched that.
00:30:39
Speaker
I was able to find in my research that suspects in April's case have been identified though. I didn't read names, but there are apparently suspects. Okay. And the investigator said, quote, it's very difficult to prosecute a case without a body. If you just have witnesses or people talking, that's not good enough. Our hope is that we can find her either alive or deceased.
00:31:06
Speaker
and bring some closure to the family one way or another, end quote. And obviously that's the goal, I think in all of these types of cases, is giving the family some type of closure. Again, according to that student newspaper that I quoted earlier, when asked what he would say to those aforementioned suspects, should they be reading, watching, or listening to any of his interviews, he went on to say, quote,
00:31:32
Speaker
actually hope they're watching and if they are then they should know this that we are not going to rest. We're not going to stop searching for April. We are not going to stop talking to people. We're not going to stop approaching them. We're just not going to quit. This case will not rest." End quote. I love that. Got her too.
00:31:55
Speaker
I mean, I think I would never be brave enough to be a police officer or like any type of investigator like this. But for those of you that are, I love when you are brave enough to say, I mean, the truth, like we will find you. Yeah. I hope you're listening to this. I hope you're watching this. It's my job to find you. I'm not going to quit. I will find you. Right.
00:32:17
Speaker
Like that one police officer, what's his name, the one we love? Detective Coycocks. We talked about him in several cases, but specifically I interviewed him for Bill and Peggy Stevenson. Yes. Awesome. Awesome human being. I feel like he is the. Epitome. Yeah, that's who you want to be. If you're going to be an investigator, you want to be him. If I'm a family, that is the investigator I want.
00:32:46
Speaker
Agreed. So Allison while there is very little to go on I do want to discuss with you some possible theories and just kind of get your take on the case and what you potentially think could have happened.
Community Appeal for Information
00:33:01
Speaker
So obviously we could say runaway because that is the initial classification by the peerage police department but
00:33:09
Speaker
I personally believe it seems unlikely that April would be a runaway given that she had never tried to run away before. And other than the one statement to the school resource officer where she had said she kind of felt like a burden to her mom, she didn't really seem upset or have any problems at home. And honestly, like working with kids.
00:33:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm as sad as this sounds I think a lot of kids feel at times that they're burdens to their families when obviously they're not right but you know, I think a lot of them kind of jump to that conclusion, especially if there's Something else kind of going on at home and we know that they had a lot that they were dealing with at home with the passing of her dad and her mom being the main financial support right so I do think
00:34:02
Speaker
that would be a normal feeling for her to feel. I don't know that she really would have acted on that though. And with her family not supporting the runaway theory, then I'm also inclined not to support the runaway theory.
00:34:18
Speaker
There are some that believe that she, or most I should say, that she was abducted. This is probably the most widely considered theory because we have that witness of April talking to the man and she gets in the truck.
00:34:34
Speaker
Looks like it's driving out of town. A lot of people say that that strongly suggests foul play So there are two types of abductions that people kind of go back and forth So with the first possibility, they're saying that it was a stranger that abducted her. So, you know, there are a lot that speculate that there might have been a
00:34:59
Speaker
maybe like a connection to that area or a local connection. Like somebody's coming to visit a family member. Yeah. Specifically with the quickness in which April entered the truck with the stranger, it raises the question,
00:35:17
Speaker
Could this have been a stranger? Could it have been somebody she knew? Okay, so I don't know and then there's another possibility that people say she was a targeted targeted abduction and this to me
00:35:31
Speaker
I think would be more likely with, especially with the fact that she willingly got into the vehicle. I feel like it would have had to have been somebody that she was more comfortable with to get into the car with them. And so then I believe if it's not random, right, then this was planned and she was definitely a target rather than just a random abduction.
00:35:58
Speaker
Then there is the possibility that her disappearance is connected with Doyle's death. And there are some that speculate that there's a link between April and Sergeant Doyle, the lead investigator. So there are theories there that range from was Doyle similar to Embart Sound uncovering information that could have potentially put her in danger. Cause that's what they say with the police officer there.
00:36:23
Speaker
But there's not really any concrete evidence just like in the Bart Sound theories to support that theory that she was uncovering something and was close to a breakthrough and she was kind of taken out. So I don't know. What are your thoughts? Okay. In trying to process all of this, I do not think that she was a runaway and that is primarily because
00:36:53
Speaker
If she had planned on running away, then this whole truck you're telling me is just happenstance. Yeah, exactly. That she would have had to have called somebody and then somebody who nobody else recognized to come and pick it. I just don't see that happening. And in 2006, if this case was 1996, then maybe I could say, oh, she was probably hitchhiking. But in 2006, I think if you asked your daughter,
00:37:23
Speaker
She would probably know what hitchhocking is just because of us working on the podcast right like if we asked a random 15 year old Hey, what's hitchhocking? I don't know that many of them would actually be able to you're right. I don't know if they would It's not a common occurrence now. Yeah in the same way that it was so in my mind Abduction seems the most likely and I do I'm not saying it wasn't targeted but I do believe that
00:37:54
Speaker
It's likely that this was someone who maybe was a stranger to her, but did have that local connection, as you mentioned, and here's why I said that. I do feel like the description of the truck was at least specific enough to where if you're in a small town, somebody would say, oh, that sounds like Billy's truck. And because no one came forward that we know of, that we know of.
00:38:20
Speaker
to say those comments makes me feel as though this wasn't out of towner, but because it is a small town, I imagine it wasn't the destination of a lot of people. No, it could have been someone driving through and they take this opportunity. They see a young girl driving down the side of the road, but then you've got to concoct a pretty good story pretty quickly if you're going to get someone to get in the vehicle with you.
00:38:49
Speaker
In some ways I feel as though definitely an abduction. Like you said, they're driving, they see a random girl, they stop, they talk for a minute, and she's like, yeah, I'm running away from home. And he says, hey, help in. I mean, that could be it too. It definitely could be. There has to be a connection between April and this truck in some way for her to willingly get in. Whether they say they know someone she knows, whether they say
00:39:19
Speaker
a make believe story that someone is in danger. She needs to get in so they can help or whether she had an initial plan to run away and now she has a means to, there's a connection. We just need to figure out what that connection is. Agreed.
00:39:37
Speaker
So many years have passed, yet April Andrews remains missing. The Benton County Sheriff's Office has taken over the investigation, but significant leads have been scarce. April's family now lives in a constant state of limbo, their hope flickering with every passing year.
00:39:52
Speaker
But here's the thing, listeners. Cases like this don't just vanish with time. Someone out there knows something. Maybe it's a detail they haven't considered important, a memory jogged loose by hearing April's story. Maybe it's the nagging suspicion they've been ignoring for years. If you have any information, no matter how small, reach out to the Benton County Sheriff's Office. You could be the missing piece that brings April home.
00:40:19
Speaker
The Ozarks hold secrets, both beautiful and haunting. April Andrews' disappearance is a stark reminder that darkness can creep in anywhere, even in the most peaceful corners of the world. Let's not let her story be forgotten.
Listener Engagement and Awareness
00:40:32
Speaker
Let's keep sharing it, keep searching for answers, because for April and for her family, even the smallest glimmer of hope is worth fighting for.
00:40:40
Speaker
Anyone who has any information regarding April Andrews' whereabouts or the circumstances of her disappearance is asked to contact the Benton County Sheriff's Office at 479-271-1008.
00:40:55
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
00:41:24
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.