A beloved mom goes missing shortly after her stepdaughter disappears - but only one person returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Bonnie Woodward?
Hey, I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of the Crime Scene Weekly, a new show from ABC Audio about the latest headlines in true crime. This week, we're talking about the massive prison break that shocked Louisiana in recent weeks. How did these inmates escape, and was it an inside job? Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.
An all-new 2020 starts right now.
Family secrets are spilling out. I need my daddy. A teenager with a strange demeanor. She's clutching a teddy bear.
How can she be actually 18 years of age? And an even stranger story about her missing mother.
I didn't know Bonnie was going to go missing.
Something happened to her. She didn't just disappear on her own free will. So you knew something was really wrong? Pretty much.
Has she ever disappeared before?
No. Whoever has my sister, please let her go.
Maybe somebody saw her somewhere at a bus station, at a train station, in a cab, at the mall.
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Chapter 2: Why was Heather Woodward missing?
It's a missing persons case that will confound an Illinois community. Flooding seasoned investigators with no shortage of witnesses. These interviews happening in this room right here, focusing on one person, one mother of four, whose sudden and perplexing disappearance sets off alarm bells. It all started at the end of a day shift one afternoon in June.
Bonnie Woodward got off around 3 PM that day. She was working at what was called Eunice Smith Nursing Home here in Dalton. It was a normal day of work for her.
47 years old, worked at the nursing home for over 25 years, I believe, and just a woman who was reliable.
Being a nurse's aide, that's a lot of caregiving. She had it forever.
She loved what she did. She went to work, she worked her shift, and then would come home to her children every night, as well as Gary Wilmorth, who she was dating at the time.
Gary knew that she had some sort of staff meeting after work from 2 to 3, so he really wasn't expecting her home until, you know, 3.34.
That boyfriend, Gary Wilmorth, says he tries getting a hold of Bonnie around 4 o'clock, but his call goes straight to voicemail. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. Everybody was like, she would call if she was five minutes away.
Oh, no, she was, everything she did was on a schedule.
Nobody had seen her. This was very abnormal for Bonnie. She was always in communication with her family.
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Chapter 3: What was Bonnie's relationship with her family like?
Heather was about 17 years old at this time, and Aaron was special needs, and she cared for him every day.
Bonnie is also a devoted grandmother. She grew up as one of nine siblings, so she has a large extended family. What kind of aunt was she?
She was the aunt that took a second to actually listen to you if something was going on. And she had a big personality? Oh, yeah, no, huge personality. Very loving. Her house is where a lot of the cousins all congregated. She had this little case in her living room and she'd have little figurines and random stuff that had dolphins on it. None of it made sense to me, but she loved them.
So she was the social hub?
Kind of, yeah. She kind of liked having everybody around.
So you knew something was really wrong?
Pretty much. With the clock ticking, the Auden detectives start their missing person investigation where you'd expect, at the last place she was reportedly seen.
This is where Bonnie worked?
Yes, this Unismith nursing home.
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Chapter 4: What were the circumstances of Bonnie's disappearance?
Nothing is out of the realm of possibility. How did she know this person?
I mean, mom had to have known the person she got into the car with.
Going into its third day, a baffling mystery is unfolding in Alton, Illinois, a river town outside St. Louis. Nurse's aide and mom of four, Bonnie Woodward, vanishes in broad daylight just before her 48th birthday.
Alton, it's a nice little town. It's situated on the Mississippi River and the Illinois River. It has a vibrant downtown, a lot of history, and it's a great place to live and work.
So with no sign of Bonnie anywhere, her family goes to the media, her older brother tearfully pleading with the public.
I want my sister. Somebody please call us and let us know what's going on. We don't know nothing.
Nobody wanted this case solved more than her siblings.
Whoever has my sister, please let her go.
Bonnie's sister Rebecca and her niece Rachel don't hesitate to join in on the efforts, making the 700-mile drive to Alton from their home in Louisiana. Why were you concerned enough to get in the car and start driving?
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Chapter 5: Who was the mystery man seen with Bonnie?
She never called you back once to say, hey, I'm OK, or don't worry about me or anything like that? No.
With her lack of intent on trying to find Heather, and if she was that much of a mentor to her, why wasn't she more concerned about Heather's whereabouts if she didn't know?
To us, it seems odd. Are you concerned about her welfare? It's odd that she hasn't called you is what I'm a little concerned with.
I believe that she's with somebody. I mean, I don't think that she's off by herself. But I think she just doesn't want to make sure I don't get in trouble or, you know. I mean, she's a smart kid.
Heather's teacher's interview only raises more questions for investigators. Are these disappearances linked? And if so, how? As investigators, you're fairly convinced that she might have had something to do with the disappearance, or at the very least, know something.
We think the two events have to be linked some way. Two missing persons from the same house, one a juvenile and one adult, like, you almost have to believe they're related. Like, it's really naive to think they're not.
After almost a week and no sign of Bonnie, her family's anguish turns pointed, lashing out at that mystery man from the parking lot.
You let my sister go, and I'll come and get her. I want my sister.
I felt like Heather had the answers that we needed. We believed she was the key to finding Bonnie.
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Chapter 6: How did Heather's disappearance complicate the investigation?
And I was planning on coming home on my birthday. That was the plan so I didn't have to go back to Bonnie's house.
I was taken back that how can she be actually 18 years of age.
But she's clutching a teddy bear. Yes.
July 3rd is her 18th birthday, so she's a bona fide adult in the state of Illinois, but she talks more like a, well, I don't want to be insulting, but like a grade school student or a junior high student.
I'm tired. I'm ready for my nap. I need my books. I need my books. I need my books, books, books, books, books.
She showed up at a library. What did you think? That it was absolute s***.
What do you mean by that? Like, why are you showing up at a library? Who brought you? Where did you come from? Where have you been? Something doesn't smell right? Pretty much.
What made the decision that you would go to the library? Why not to the police department or something?
Because I always go to the library. I walk there all the time, and I wasn't comfortable walking to the police station.
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Chapter 7: What did Heather reveal about her time away?
Are they just good Samaritans or something else?
There's maybe more to this than just taking care of Heather.
The trail will lead detectives down these winding roads into truly uncharted territory.
We didn't see that coming from a mile away.
Bonnie Woodward disappeared in Alton June 25th at about 3 in the afternoon after getting off work. Her family members haven't seen or heard from her since that day.
Bonnie Woodward has been missing for over a week. Her boyfriend of seven years, Gary Wilmerth, says he catches glimpses of her in every passing stranger.
There was times I could be at a store, pass somebody on the street, could be the color of their hair. I remember talking to her grandbabies. They said, are you going to bring Grandma back? You got a picture of these little bitty girls looking at me. Where's Grandma? I just thought in my heart she was going to come back. And I wasn't taking no for an answer. She was coming back.
And investigators say they aren't taking no for an answer either. Bonnie's now 18-year-old stepdaughter, Heather Woodward, who also strangely went missing a week before Bonnie, has now suddenly reappeared.
Okay, Heather, we just need to ask you a few things here.
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Chapter 8: What are the latest developments in Bonnie's case?
Your daytime friends can't meet your nighttime friends, because then they'll know you're a liar.
Father is coming to Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus June 13th.
I asked my husband the other day how to turn on the washing machine, and that's how he realized that he had been doing the laundry all these years.
Otsuka Okotsuka, Father, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus June 13th.
Okay, we are recording.
I said, stop it. Just stop doing this. Let me go. Just let me go. I'll do anything you want me to do. Just let me go.
Tonight, a third woman in danger who broke the bizarre mystery of a missing mother. Who's been hiding daughter Heather? And could Bonnie have ended up in the same place? Family members must be chomping at the bit at this point.
It was a needle in a haystack. We had 60 acres of property. We didn't know where to look, what to look for. Nathan, you agreed to walk us through a few areas that are of interest in our investigation. We got a hit on the prints.
And on a scale of 1 to 10 of your suspicion level, where did it go? Yeah, it spiked.
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