Rory

You know, they ask, well, when's the last time you've seen him? Frankly, I said years.

It was his dream job. He would never quit. Nothing added up. Nothing made sense.

We were best friends. We were just always around each other. I could tell something was off. I just haven't heard from Mike for a while. I had texted him at some point in time. He never responded. And then I'm like, what's going on with Mike's Facebook? I go to his page, and he wasn't even my friend anymore.

Clearly, something wasn't right.

It made my stomach sink right away.

Yeah, I should have probably texted Mike more and called him, but we were never much in the text interface. I had my first daughter and I was so consumed in that. It was just not on my mind.

She had noticed that Mike's possessions were there. Clothing was there, his wallet was there, his phone. All that was there.

Lori told her that Mike got picked up in a black SUV one day, never came back. He would never do that to his family or kids. In a vacuum, you're not going to put anything together. But you start getting these other details, clearly something wasn't right. It's those details that made my stomach sink right away.

Stacy and I had been talking. They were getting these weird messages. They'd be kind of short, out of character.

Clearly, something wasn't right.

I wasn't too active on Facebook back then, so I go to his page. And then I had noticed the profile picture had just been updated the month prior to some group of guys in a bar. I had to, like, zoom in and make sure. Like, nobody looked like Mike in that picture.

Clearly, somebody took that picture online and put it as his profile picture.

Just gone. Everybody's hair was raised. You know, what's going on?

You know, they asked, well, when's the last time you seen him? And frankly, I said, years. They didn't take me seriously at first because you're now filing a missing person report years later.

This is a photo of Mike and I. We're at my house that I grew up in. We would just have fun as kids, ride our bikes all day long, and go on adventures, always playing around the neighborhood.

He was great at playing drums. Eventually he learned to play guitar.

We all grew up together. It was around seventh or eighth grade, Mike had a crush on Lori. He wanted to figure out the best way to ask her out. We had come up with this great idea of playing boys to men in the background. So that's how they ended up dating.

I was his best man and this was us together.

He eventually got his commercial pilot license, worked for Piedmont.

When I moved down to Florida, that's when they moved down to Florida.

It was hard to hear Isabel saying those things about her dad, and I kind of feel really bad for her. Everybody that knows Mike knows he had a great relationship with both of his kids.

He was a mechanic. Working at Disney was just his little kid inside, and he loved that job. You know, he was flourishing.

I had no idea the extent of what was going on. I guess that's typical. Nobody knows what's really going on inside the house.

They're getting these weird messages.

Nothing added up. Nothing made sense.

I never heard Mike, you know, scream at Lori or do anything physically. Lori trying to paint Mike into this monster and the abusive person in the relationship. Everybody that knew Mike knew that wasn't the case.

Rory told her that Mike got picked up in a black SUV one day, never came back. And I started putting those pieces together.

God!

No. Can I make a little jokey joke?

And they're like, my name is Mary. Oh, no.

I always feel like somebody's watching me.

Unfair! God damn it.