The Disappearance of Angela Hammond: A Small Town's Darkest Night

In April 1991, the peaceful town of Clinton, Missouri, was shattered by the mysterious abduction of 20-year-old Angela Hammond. What began as an ordinary phone call between a couple soon spiraled into a nightmare, as Angela described a suspicious man approaching her at a payphone. Moments later, she screamed, the line went dead, and Angela vanished without a trace.

In this episode, we explore the chilling details of that fateful night and dive into Angela’s life—her dreams, her family, her relationship with fiancé Rob Schaefer, and the town’s desperate search for answers. With haunting evidence, uncorroborated sightings, and a string of unsettling theories ranging from a serial killer to a possible case of mistaken identity, the mystery surrounding Angela's disappearance continues to haunt Clinton to this day.

Join us as we unpack one of the most baffling cases in true crime history. What happened to Angela Hammond? And why, after over 30 years, does this case remain unsolved?

Subscribe and listen as we dive deep into this tragic case that left a community heartbroken and forever changed.

Transcript

Angela Hammond (00:00)

Imagine this, your girlfriend, sister, mother, or friend is on the phone with you.

One moment she's telling you about her plans for the evening, and the next she's telling you that she's scared and that the man approaching her is the reason. Seconds later she screams, you hear a man's voice and the line goes dead. That's what happened to Angela Hammond on the nights of April 4th in 1991, and her disappearance would change the lives of every resident in Clinton, Missouri forever.

shattering the small town's sense of perpetual safety that they'd taken for granted all their lives.

It's a one of a kind case, like something out of a horror movie. Angela's disappearance is just one of those cases. The kind of case that leaves you infuriated because there are just no answers, no reason, and the seemingly random and senseless nature of her abduction is the stuff of nightmares.

It's one thing to hear of an unsolved case with plenty of evidence, a handful of suspects, or at least some kind of motive behind it all.

There's a little sense of relief if you can at least create a theory to focus on,

just believing a narrative, whether that might be true or not, lets you play into the very human need to create order, to believe that there's rhyme and reason to the world around you. But for Angela, there was none of that. Nothing makes sense. Nothing ties into anything. It's just a giant mess of question marks.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the PIC True Crime Podcast. I'm Mike. I'm Heather. And I'm Bree

Angela Hammond (02:12)

With that said, let's start at the beginning and have a quick look at who Angela was and all of the amazing things that were waiting for her in the near future.

Angela Marie Hammond was born in Kansas City on February 9th, 1971. Angela's parents, Marsha and Christopher, were experiencing some financial difficulties and the decision was made to move to Clinton, Missouri to be closer to Marsha's parents when Angie was four. The little family, despite their money problems, was a happy one and Angie was absolutely adored by her parents and grandparents.

Clinton is a very small place. Most of it is taken up by farmland and woods. Back then, it only had around 6 ,000 residents. It's the poster child for small -town America, even to this very day. But just because it's small and all of the inhabitants knew each other, doesn't mean that there's any shortage of people passing through.

The surrounding wilderness has frequent hunters coming and going throughout the hunting seasons, and the nearby lake is a popular place for boaters and holiday goers.

The trails are used by serious cyclists who come there especially to train in off -road conditions, and hikers come to see the sights along the abandoned railway line that snakes through the forest. I tell you what, it is a very beautiful place and I sure wouldn't mind going camping there for a week or two.

Angie thought so too. According to her family, she ran and climbed and explored every corner of Clinton. She was just a jolly and lively child who did well in school and always had plenty of friends who just couldn't resist her endless enthusiasm for life. Every interview and account of her sounds like she was such a happy kid. Like nothing could get her down and there was never a dull moment when Angie was around.

Even when her parents divorced later on, she didn't lose that spark. The separation was amicable and Christopher moved only a two hour drive away. So he saw his daughter and younger son often and attended all of their school events and birthdays.

Angie never considered moving in with her father during high school, even though she was given the choice, and he lived in a much bigger town than Clinton. Angie loved the place so much that she enrolled in college that was only a 35 minute drive from her hometown. This also allowed her to work part time at a bank while she pursued her higher education. It's around this time that Angie and Rob Schaefer begin dating. She was 19 and Rob was 18.

Angela Hammond (04:38)

Rob was a star football player and had plans on joining the military like his father did before him once he finished his final year of high school. To say the two hit it off is an understatement. Angie and Rob were both funny, smart, popular, and it's actually surprising that the two similar personalities hadn't fallen in love ages ago.

A few months into their relationship, and Rob shared the news that they were expecting a baby. Despite their age and their future plans, both of them were over the moon about the news.

Angie was certain that with the help of her mother, grandparents, and even her father a few towns away, that she'd be able to complete her studies, be a mother, and get settled with the love of her life. And Rob felt the same way. He withdrew every penny out of his savings account that he'd accumulated throughout the years of taking odd jobs and bought a diamond engagement ring.

In January 1991, Rob got down on one knee, ring in hand, and told Angie that he'd always take care of her.

Angie was as proud of that engagement ring as she was about their highly anticipated first child together. A month later, the two moved into a trailer home together and Angie celebrated her 20th birthday. According to everyone who knew them, the pair were happy.

Money was tight and there were lot of preparations to make for the arrival of the brand new baby, but that endless optimism that we talked about earlier seemed to fuel them.

I want to stress just how excited they were. That's going to become important soon. Rob could have gotten cold feet when he heard that he was going to be a father, but instead he used all of his savings to buy Angie that ring and to make her his wife. Both sides of the family and all of the friends who stated that they were happy and in love. Was it perfect? No. But neither of them needed their lives to be absolutely perfect for things to be good and full of joy.

They certainly had a good support system and both were going to continue their future plans with the help of the people around them. On April 4th, 1991 and

On April the 4th, 1991, was four months pregnant and just starting to show a hint of baby bump. She and Rob spent the afternoon at Angie's mother's, Marsha's, house for a family barbecue. Marsha Hammond still lived in Angie's childhood home 20 miles outside of town. So it would have taken them about half an hour to drive from the town to Marsha's house and about half an hour to get back.

Angie and Rob stayed long enough to help clean up and left sometime between 9 and 9 .30. Rob needed to get back to his parents' house by 10 because he'd promised to babysit his younger brother until his mom came home from work.

Both of them were at Marcia's house and multiple witnesses reported that they were in good spirits. Neither one of them had been drinking and Rob babysitting his little brother also checked out.

Since they were driving Angie's car, she dropped him off. It seems that Rob's car was already parked at his parents' house for some reason because he refers to the car as my car during interviews.

were planning on meeting up later when Rob's mom got off work and then they'd return to Marsha Hammond's house outside of town and spend the night there.

And since his car was already at the Schaeffer residence, Angie wouldn't have to come pick him up.

He'd meet her where she was when his mother returned, giving Angie the opportunity to pick up one of her best friends, Kayla Engerman, and they drove around to kill some time until Rob was done.

small town cruising. Man, that takes me back.

I never got why small town kids could spend hours and hours just driving, like not going anywhere. Is it still a thing or is it just something that old people used to do?

Hey there, watch who you're calling old. We just didn't sit around on our phones all day. And kids still do it in the back country now. Once they get their own car driving, even if you're not going anywhere, feels like you're chasing freedom, man.

Kayla and Angie didn't just drive around aimlessly. They did go to the town square where young people usually hung out, hoping to run into someone they knew. There just wasn't much going on and no one was out, so they didn't stop anywhere. And Angie ended up dropping Kayla back off at her house only an hour later. Then Angie drove to the nearest payphone, still in the center of town, in front of a supermarket in just seven blocks away from Rob's house.

The supermarket in the Schaeffer's house was almost a straight line from each other, with the highway running between the two locations, to give you an idea of the layout. Anyway, she calls Rob from one of the two phone booths on his parents' landline at about 1123 p

Angie was pregnant and had been with family all day and understandably she was tired. When Rob picked up his parents phone, she told him that she just didn't feel up to driving all the way out to her mother's house again and that she was going to go ahead and head back to their trailer and go to bed until he got home. They continued to chat for about another 15 minutes or so and then things got weird.

What transpired next, according to Rob anyway, was that Angie said that there was a truck that was driving by very slowly and it was making her nervous. It drove past her several times more slowly each time.

Rob asked her to describe the vehicle and the driver to him. Angie said that she'd never seen the car before and it was a green 1960s or 70s pickup truck with a very unusual decal in the back window. The entire window was covered in a picture of a fish jumping out of the water. It was too dark to see the driver from where she was standing. She kept describing the scene to him in real time as it was happening.

Angie's mild concern turned into downright fear when the truck pulled in next to her car and the driver got out and went to the second phone booth. But he only stayed in the booth for a few seconds before going back to his truck. Rob suggested that the man was probably lost and wanted to call for directions, but he was just trying to calm his fiance. In truth, Rob was concerned by now too. Angie wasn't the type to get spooked easily, so if she was nervous,

He was sure that she had good reason to be. The man pulled out a flashlight from the passenger side of his truck and appeared to be looking for something inside with the light. Rob suggested that the other phone probably was out of order and that he might be waiting for Angie to wrap up her call so that he could use it.

On the other side, Rob heard the booth door open and Angie asking the man if he needed to use the phone. The male voice on the other side said no. And both Angie and Rob finally agreed that the whole situation was fishy.

Angie said that he was a white man wearing overalls and a dark baseball cap. He had a mustache and a beard, black framed glasses, and that he was pretty filthy. A few seconds later, in the middle of their conversation, Rob hears Angie scream in surprise in the man's voice saying, I didn't need to use the phone anyway.

And when Rob heard her scream and the man's voice practically against the receiver, he dropped the phone and ran out of the house, got into a car and sped towards the payphone, leaving his brother unattended. He made it to the highway in less than two minutes. When he got to the highway, he saw green pickup trucks beating past him, away from the payphone and in the opposite direction from where he was heading.

When the truck streaked past him, Rob could clearly see Angie in the passenger seat, leaning toward the driver, evidently struggling with him.

As they drove past, Rob heard her yell out his name. Rob threw the car in the reverse and made a U -turn and chased after them for approximately two miles. But the green truck kept going faster and Rob was struggling to keep up.

At one point, the truck made a hard right into the downtown district and when Rob attempted to follow it, his car's transmission blew out and it came to a dead stop. Incapable of going any further,

Rob attempted to run after the truck on foot, and as it disappeared into the night, he managed to catch two more details. The truck's entire back window was covered by a decal of a fish jumping out of the water, just like Angie had described on the phone. But Angie hadn't mentioned that it was in fact two -toned, green with a white top. Rob caught some damage to the front fender of the truck and even managed to make out an

X and a Y on the license plate.

Unfortunately, the truck was as dirty as the description of the driver because the rest of the plate was obscured by dirt. And if you believe Rob's account, that was the last time Angela Hammond was ever seen or heard from again. Okay, you guys, before we get into the investigation, I think you have some burning questions to ask.

I definitely do. The whole way this plays out bugs me. Let's take this from the top. Why stop at a payphone in the first place when Rob's only a few blocks away? It's almost easier just to drive to Rob and tell him or maybe even crash with him until his mom got back.

I looked that up because it bothered a lot of people too.

There were three or four different trailer parks in Clinton and there isn't any concrete information about which one they lived in.

So it's possible that their home was closer to the payphone and it just happened to be on her way home, making it convenient to stop. And Angie's friend, her mother, and everyone who knew her said that she stopped there to make calls all the time from the payphone. The couple didn't have a landline at their trailer yet, so it really wasn't out of the ordinary for Angie.

Okay, but why 15 minute conversation? She's supposed to be tired enough to go home, but she decides to keep standing in a phone booth that probably has chewing gums stuck to the walls and beer bottles strewn all over the place? I'll understand her letting him know real quick, but not for the amount of time that they kept talking. Could the phone call be corroborated? Yes, police -

proved that the police cleared Rob in the first week. He was never really a suspect.

I have a feeling they just got caught up in the conversation. I mean, you know how young people are. They can stay on the phone for hours.

I mean, it is easy to get sidetracked once you get going. It's possible that they were young and in love and there isn't much more to it than that. checks out too. According to their loved ones, they were over the moon about each other, just like any other high school couple. My biggest concern was why he was so relaxed about the car that kept circling the booth.

I want to believe it was small town complacency. I feel like a lot of what we think are discrepancies are because we live in a different time. Clinton had almost no crime at all. Even with the hunters and lake visitors coming and going, there are hardly any crimes outside of domestic disputes shoplifting on the record during that time.

You hear this kind of a thing a lot before the 90s. Kids playing alone in the woods, being sent to the store to buy cigarettes for their parents. People just were more chilled back then. And in a place like Clinton, I can see people getting too relaxed,

writing off suspicious activity too easily.

That bugs me though. A lot of this can be written off as human error. It feels like Rob's feeding us a story, like a made -up thing. I can see why people think he lied. It was a little too clean. Random stranger kidnaps a girl in the middle of the night from a phone booth, no license plate. Yet the car and the guy is described in very explicit detail.

And how does he recognize Angie in the night when the truck's speeding past them? Rob says she was struggling with a driver, even called out to him. Mind you, if she's occupied with the driver trying to escape, how did Angie recognize Rob from a speeding car in the dark? Not to mention how the abductor was able to drive a truck.

At a high speed, while controlling a fully grown woman on the passenger seat, probably trying to claw his eyes out. The prevailing theory seems to be that the street was well lit or that the light just hit right. Maybe everyone's senses were just so heightened in the heat of the moment. I mean, who knows? The guy was going so fast that Angie couldn't just jump out of the car. That could have killed her.

Maybe he had a weapon, maybe he'd done this before and he just knew what he was doing. Whatever the case, it's too neat for a lot of people to stomach. You aren't the only ones getting the ick from Rob's story.

Was the damage to the transmission confirmed too? Yes. When Rob first made that U -turn, something went wrong. Remember, everyone was driving sticks back then. It's actually not that hard to burn out a transmission when you're speeding and not gearing up when and how you should. Driving a stick is somewhat of an art. It would have been easy for him to do some serious harm to that car if he was in a rush and his nerves were frazzled. The next sharp turn, taken with as much speed as his car could go at,

just exasperated the damage.

I want to agree with the public that there are too many things that everything seemed to work out perfectly for the abductor while too much went wrong for Rob and Angie. But everything about the story that could have been corroborated has been proven true. The time of the call, the length of it, the damage to the car and how it happened. I think if he was lying, something would have been proven false. And these aren't small details either. Burning out your car, phone records, timelines and locations.

all fit Rob's story to the letter, except the green truck. It's driver and Angie. So where are they?

Well, after Rob tried to run after the truck on foot and realizing it was fruitless, he ran back up the road and flagged down a motorist who took him to the police station.

When he got there, the police were understandably suspicious about his, let's say, theatrical story. But when he took them out to where his car still stood broken down and Angie's car left abandoned at the phone booths, they took it a little bit more seriously.

There were officers searching the streets 40 minutes after the abduction.

The abductor still had one hell of a head start though, but at least this isn't one of those cases where the police just dropped the ball. They were searching less than an hour after it occurred.

At five that morning, the town's one and only detective came in and got the investigation going farther than just patrol car searches. You're kidding. Just one detective? What can I say? It's a really small town and there was barely any crime back then. But he did do his job right. He confirmed everything that he could from Rob's account, clearing him in just a few days. And he got 250 volunteers together to search Clinton.

the surrounding woods, the lake, and everywhere they could think of.

Officially, the report says 250, but a lot of the townspeople were going out on their own too. Farms and small holdings checked their properties and teenagers were racking up a lot of miles searching for the green truck, both inside Clinton and out.

They even got a helicopter in to aid the search. Flyers were put up in Clinton and every surrounding town in the nearby area. Parsons brought in a sketch artist, even though Rob hadn't seen the guy in the green truck because in that instant he only caught a split second glimpse of Angie. But he did have a secondhand account from Angie for the sketch artist to go off of. And let me tell you, this sketch is absolutely terrible.

no baseball cap, no black rimmed glasses. The sketch showed a long -faced man with long dark hair,

even though Angie never mentioned his face shape or the length of his hair. There was no beard and mustache on it, and quite frankly, the artist just took a shot in the dark and came up with something for the sake of producing a sketch, it seems.

There's just no way that that sketch can be produced from someone who'd never actually seen the suspect himself.

But wouldn't that be, you know, damaging to the investigation? Everyone's out looking for a guy who looks like this and the real culprit gets a free pass. Even if it's corrected later, the damage is done. Those first 48 hours when the news is still fresh to the public is the description that's going to matter the most. and I agree. And so does everyone who's covered this case. Detective Damon Parsons also knew that they were in over their heads.

He called up the Missouri State Police hoping to get a description of the truck and Angie out farther than he could with their limited resources. Parsons did a whole lot on that first day, and I've got to tell you, it's a relief to cover a case where the police genuinely seem to be doing the best job they can. Angela Hammond's disappearance was taken very seriously, and they threw everything they had into finding her. Christopher Hammond, Angie's dad,

arrived and he and a lot of the townspeople were very vocal about the fact that they were suspicious of the fiance.

I don't blame them, it's an outrageous story.

But Rob sat down for every interview with police, sometimes multiple times in a day, and he never changed his story. He corrected them when they added false details to the sequence of events hoping to get him to slip up. He also agreed to a polygraph, which he passed. And everyone who knew Rob and Angie were insistent that he'd never do anything to hurt Angie. The two were clearly in love with each other. After those first few days until Rob was finally cleared,

Just about everyone in town who had doubts before, including Christopher Hammond, changed their minds and were now sure that Rob was telling the truth. Besides the police clearing of him, Rob was a stand -up guy. And you kind of get a good sense of his character when you watch the short interview on Unsolved Mysteries. He looks and sounds like a good kid, steady and with a sense of responsibility, just like everyone describes him.

You're usually pretty skeptical about people, but you're painting him as innocent before we've even reached the theories at the end. I mean, isn't that a bit premature?

Authorities did their due diligence. Everything checks out, and everyone in that town, no matter how cynical they were, they backed Rob all the way. Now, when the parents who usually need to have someone to blame are just as supportive of the guy, I want to believe him too. Marcia, since the very beginning, was on Rob's side, and Christopher, once he got over the shock, he was too. It was a wild series of events, sure, but...

I think the kids telling the truth and I believe the police were wise to focus on other leads instead of wasting time trying to shake down an innocent guy. Everyone wanted to bring Angie home and looking for a scapegoat was just going to waste valuable time. The Clinton Police Department had their hearts and sights on the right way forward. I'll give them that. Well, I mean, you are the most cynical of all of us. If you're sold on Rob being innocent.

I'd put my money on that too. Parsons cleared Rob and then he went a step further. He got the FBI involved.

Parsons wasn't taking any chances, No. And he was already following up on leads when the FBI stepped in. Mike, would you get into the FBI and Parsons' findings for us?

Angela Hammond (24:38)

Where's the evidence going to take us from here?

Sure thing. By then, Parsons found two witnesses who also saw the dirty green truck with a fish poster on the back window driving around the supermarket, driven by a man who matched the description that Rob got from Angie.

I think that's why Rob has taken off the suspect list. There were two solid witnesses to back up the only detail that they hadn't been able to confirm. That green truck.

It's not like it would be hard to miss with that huge decal all over the back window, but the FBI weren't going to be so trusting. They came in and called Rob in again, as well as an ex -boyfriend of Angie's that she had dated while she was still in high school. The ex's name was Bill Barker.

The FBI was ruthless in the way that they interviewed these two, doing everything they could to shake them up.

The feds considered that Angie might have been cheating on Rob with her ex and the baby she was carrying could belong to Bill

and that either Rob found out and killed her or the two guys teamed up to do it.

They insinuated that the broken down car was planted there, which wouldn't be too hard to pull off, I guess. After more polygraphs and a total of eight hours of interviews, even the FBI concluded that Rob and Bill were innocent of any wrongdoing. And now they were back to square one, a missing pregnant woman and no suspects.

The FBI did have better resources than Clinton's little police department, and with it, they put out a search for the green car.

The state had 1600 vehicles that Angie's and Rob's description parameters.

Parsons went out to take a look at a lot of those trucks himself, but between Clinton's police department and all of the might of the FBI, every single one of those trucks was cleared.

Authorities were concerned about this being a serial killer

because four months before Angie's disappearance in January of 1991, there were two other women that went missing under similar circumstances. And both kidnappings happened an hour's drive from Clinton.

The first was 42 year old Trudy d'Arby She worked the night shift at a convenience store. A few minutes before she was supposed to close the doors at 10 p she phoned her adult son and asked him to come over to the store so that she wouldn't have to walk to her car alone.

She told him that there was a man hanging around in the parking lot and he made her very nervous. But when Trudy's son arrived 10 minutes later, Trudy was gone and so was the man she had talked about. Her car was still in the parking lot and the doors to the store were wide open with the register inside emptied out.

Two days later, her body was discovered 15 miles away from the place that she worked, naked, assaulted, and with two bullets in her head.

A month after that, another woman went missing from a convenience store. Cherryl-Ann Kenney was 38 years old and her shift was supposed to run until midnight.

But the night had been slow, so she told the janitor to clock out early and that she was going to close up once the only customer, a young adult male, made his purchase. The next morning they found Cheryl's car in the parking lot, but no Cheryl.

She'd cashed up, activated the alarm, and locked the doors. But somewhere between the doors in her car, she just disappeared. Cheryl's never been found.

Kenneth McDuff, the serial killer who was confirmed to have killed nine people, possibly as many as 14, during that time was looked into. But it's highly unlikely that he was in Clinton area at that time. Another serial murderer, Larry DeWayne Hall, was also looked into, but that didn't turn up any connections either.

McDuff and Hall both like to dangle potential victims in front of the police faces to avoid their execution dates, so if either one of them had a part in Angie's disappearance, it's almost certain that they'd have used it to get an extension on their inevitable

deaths.

So it's unlikely that McDuff or Hall are responsible.

A few years later, the murder of Trudy d'Arby was solved. Two men called Marvin Chaney and his half -brother, Jessie Rush, admitted to robbing the store, kidnapping Trudy, and subsequent assault and murder.

There's been no evidence to suggest that they had any involvement with Angie or Cherryl-Ann Kenney's abduction. They liked to work together and Angie's case only had one suspect. Neither was known to drive trucks and didn't fit the description very well either. Tommy Lynn Sells, who was an even worse killer than McDuff, if that's even possible, is more likely candidate.

Definitely responsible for 22 murders, though he claims to have killed as many as 70 people. Sells killed kids, boys, and girls. Women of all ages, and some of his murders happened in Missouri.

He fits the description, dark hair, beard, and had a habit of being unkempt and

Sells also drove a few trucks in his time and on the occasion he wanted to steal something to drive, it would always be a pickup truck.

Again, this was a guy who wasn't shy about admitting to his murders, but he never admitted to Angela's disappearance. So who knows?

Frustrated and with no leads or any movement in the case, Angie's disappearance was picked up by Unsolved Mysteries in 1992 with the hopes of reviving the missing woman's story to the public that were beginning to forget about the perplexing abduction of a pregnant girl.

Unfortunately, that didn't shake any concrete loose. Every tip was followed, going even so far as Canada. Pretty bright and vivacious Angie and the green pickup truck were just gone and no one could figure out why.

Besides a few threads on true crime discussion boards and the YouTube video every now and again, Angie's case stood stagnant for exactly 30 years. Until 2021, when police made an announcement. They'd received a tip from an informant that stated that Angie was an unfortunate victim of mistaken identity. Okay, so this is a bit of a tangent. The man who came forward was

found out to be leaking information to the police by a narcotics ring back in 91. They sent him a letter in the mail postmarked for April 4th, 1991, the same day that Angie went missing. The letter was written using magazine cutouts and mentioned the informant's wife and daughter by name as well as the guy's court number.

And get this, both of them were living in Clinton, Missouri at the time, and Daughters name just happened to be Angela too.

Here's a quote from that letter. We know where your foxy daughter is at. She will see us soon. Tell your wife our deepest sympathies and her further loss. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a threat to me. Me too. A lot of people feel this is a coincidence, even if the letter and the informant side of the story was proven to be true. And we'll get into that part.

of it in the theories. But the police took it very seriously. The informant's daughter was around the same age and apparently she bore a striking resemblance to Angie. But there's no mention whether or not this strange evidence led them anywhere. The only update on the case happened in 2009 when police alluded that they had DNA evidence that was linked to the case.

They never said what it was or where they found it or whether or not they would own someone's tail because of it.

But since it's been 15 years since that announcement, I doubt anything's come from it because it's been radio silence since then.

It could be that there was more at the phone booth than we realized. Nothing mentions any word of what they found at the scene except that Angela's car was abandoned there. It's not like they had a whole lot to go on, so it would make sense that they kept what little they had close to the chest intentionally.

I'd think so too, but that's it. That's everything that's ever been released to the public as of now.

Angela would have been in her 50s now, probably a grandmother to the children of her unborn baby. Rob eventually did join a branch of the military, got married, and had a family of his own later. The Hammonds still see him often, and they consider Rob as much of a part of their family as they did back then. Marcia still lives in the house that Angie grew up in.

Clinton residents kept their children close and out of the streets after dark for a few years after that, but eventually they slipped back into their sleepy small town vibes. Life went on for the rest of the world, but Rob and the Hammonds lost a little bit of themselves in April 91. Angie's spark was gone, and she took a little light away with her when she disappeared.

It feels so anti -climatic. mean, just a car and a missing girl and then nothing other than a few half -baked leads that go absolutely nowhere. I can understand the internet's frustration over this. It's so unfinished, so unexpected and bizarre.

And the theories aren't much more coherent either. They're all over the place. So let's start at the most obvious.

The FBI's assumption that Rob, the ex -boyfriend, or a combination of the two had something to do with it? Most people in the true crime community don't think it's Rob. The handful that do say he moved on too quickly and that was suspicious. But I don't believe that to be true personally. But what do you all think?

Neither do I. Rob was cleared by the police, the FBI, and the most critical people of all, small town folk who love to judge and gossip. But they all believed in his innocence. I can understand why you are on his side from the start.

And to me, him moving on isn't suspicious at all. He's a 19 year old kid, his whole life ahead of him. If anything, him getting a wife and kids later, wanting to be a family man is more proof to me that he wouldn't have done this. He's human. He's got to be happy and find love.

I'm more curious about the insane amount of killers that were active during that time in the state of Missouri. It never ceases to amaze me just how many evil people seem to pop up when crimes like this happen make you realize how many sickos actually live around us.

Well, when you really look into it, McDuff and Hall are unlikely suspects. Sells is a little more concrete because he fits the general description in his very varied victim profiles. He also chose victims at random, but he liked to break into people's houses and kill them inside or abduct them from their beds.

He's a very unusual serial killer. Just the mention of his crimes in passing when we researched Angie's case disturbed me deeply. But I don't think it's him. He likes to brag too much. He would have used Angie to buy him some time and to play with the cops. He really liked to string them along. But the two guys that murdered Trudy warrant a deeper look.

They had other accomplices in their crimes over the years and during his incarceration, one of the brothers, Marvin Chaney, wrote letters to another prisoner that he had befriended. In the 13 letters overall, they chatted back and forth about two other murders and leaving their bodies in remote locations.

One of those murders is suspected to be of a woman named Diana Braungardt, who disappeared from the store she worked at four years before Angela's disappearance. The circumstances are almost identical to Trudy d'Arby's, except Diana's still missing to this day.

Police are sure that Chaney killed her too, but they can't say for sure if the second woman in the letters refers to Trudy or Angela.

Chaney took women on quiet nights at places that were relatively public and readily available, and he abducted them when the opportunity arose. It's almost certain that Chaney was a serial killer and his .O. matches Angela's disappearance. But the truck can't be tied to him. Sure, Chaney could have stolen a car, but a green truck with a fish decal was never reported stolen in the year prior to the incident.

The truck is the snag in this whole thing, every time it poses a problem. The thing was pretty obvious, even if the picture was taken off the window. The color is unusual.

I'm surprised that there were more than a thousand in the state to be honest. Red, white, black, blue, any other color is sure, but not a lot people opt for a green color unless it's a Ferrari and you want to be obnoxious.

I think it belonged to the abductor and he hid it after the fact. That also makes me think he was from out of the state. No way to tell because they never got the complete plate. Possibly one of those seasonal hunters or hikers.

That brings us to the next theory, one of those regular out of town visitors. Here's the thing, the route that the guy took when Rob chased after him is pretty significant.

I'm not sure if the police was thinking the same thing, but the internet sleuths mapped out the town and there were not a lot of ways to get out of that town quick if you didn't know the place. On that side of town, you only had three ways to get out. Up the highway, straight out of town, but that would have taken the longest and it's a straight line.

down the highway but that led to a marina so he had to have gone straight into a body of water and I doubt he'd own a boat with a crummy truck and the hygiene of a pirate or that right turn he took. That turn going into the downtown area is the quickest way to get to the woods.

It's only a few blocks and you're basically home free with more dirt roads leading into the forest than there are to count. If he got to the woods and knew where he was going, he could have easily evaded the police.

But that means it's truly a crime of opportunity. That Angela just happened to be at a phone booth and some disturbed guy was hanging around waiting for any woman to use the phone. That makes this infinitely more complicated. Without being able to link that call to anyone, it's completely up in the air. And it means that this person acted alone for their own gain.

Not human trafficking like some people suggested. Trafficking rings are usually a very organized network that requires multiple individuals who target people whose routines they can map. And Angela was out of her routine. This was just a random night for her too. She wasn't going to and from classes, going for usual morning jog,

or anything that would suggest that the person would expect her to be where she was at that time of the night. It all feels random. Her day was random. The location was random. So it makes sense that the attack was one of opportunity and not a planned event.

Unless it's the people who threaten the informant guy. That is the only lead that has at least some circumstantial evidence. What? A note made from cutout magazine clippings? Yes, it is too much of a coincidence. The daughter and Angie are both around the same age.

They're both petite and look alike. They just happen to share the same name. And the date on the letter was the exact date of her abduction. I'm sorry, but in a small town like Clinton with only 6 ,000 residents, that's just too much of a coincidence.

But the person would have had to have followed her. The town was quiet that night. She'd have noticed that a green truck was tailing her.

But would she really? I mean, okay, hear me out. Let's say for a second that the narcotics ring hired a hitman, an addict who owed them money. It wouldn't be hard.

The addict would ask around town, a small town, for a girl named Angela. The popular girl with plenty of friends probably would be the one that came up first.

She fits the description and he might have known that she used that payphone, that her fiance's parents lived close by, that their trailer was in the area. There are a million reasons why he'd case out the highway. Everyone in Clinton needs to cross the highway to get from one end of the town to the other. So it's a good, good middle point. And when she drives around with her friends, they probably got caught up in conversation just like Angie and Rob did on the phone.

and never even realized that somebody was riding their back.

And now you lost me. I was with you on the coincidences, there are just too many to ignore. But if that were the case, then it would make more sense to learn her routine.

She went to college and worked a part -time job. It's much easier and safer to plan an attack around a routine rather than on a whim on a weeknight when she normally wouldn't have been out and about. It's the unplanned nature of Angie's movements that throw this off from being a planned attack, and they would have realized that they've got the wrong girl soon enough and let her go.

There's no use getting blood on your hands if the mistaken victim has nothing to offer you and no knowledge of the circumstances to implicate you anyway. Easier to drop her off on a road a few miles away and be done with it.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but come on, I hate the absolute senselessness of all of it. If it's not a serial killer, it's almost never just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a creep just happened to be out on the prowl for an opportunity.

Who says the guy hadn't done it before? It's a bold move to try and abduct a whole adult human in front of a grocery store and then keep her contained in a moving car. I actually think it's highly unlikely that it was this person's first time doing this. It's too ballsy for a guy who doesn't know what he's doing. So you're thinking like one of the serial killers like Hall or Sells?

I don't think so. They would have owned up to it. Like it's been said, they like to play with the authorities too much to let the opportunity pass up.

It's thought that there are up to 50 active serial killers in America at any given time, and we aren't even aware of them at all. 50? Come on, that's an exaggeration, isn't it? That's according to the FBI's stats and analytics, anywhere between 25 and 50, and that's by today's standards. Back between the 60s and 80s,

There was a huge serial killer boom, much more than there are today. It could totally have been someone who was, like you put it, prowling to catch someone off guard and he wanted it to be as unplanned as possible. His plan was for it to be unexpected and without any ties to the victim. It's unfortunately a perfect crime.

Bree's right, there are dozens of serial killers out there right now, and we don't even know they exist. Probably hundreds of unsolved murders that will never be tied to anyone.

Alright, alright. I think that we can all agree that there's three most likely theories. The Crime Syndicate, Marvin Chaney, and an unknown killer who was waiting for a victim to come by and that just happened to be Angie. And that killer...

was probably a man who frequented the town for hunting, camping, or hiking, but didn't live there permanently. So he'd been familiar with the area, but not the people. Rob, the ex -boyfriend, and human trafficking are all off the table. Chaney and his half -brother is the least likely of the three main theories. The truck, physical description, and the fact that the brothers work together just makes a little less likely.

If it were the narcotics ring, then they killed Angie and dumped her body somewhere when they realized they had the wrong person. If it was Marvin, well, he didn't exactly have a track record with keeping his victims alive. And an unknown killer would have probably done the same. There's no shortage of places to hide a body. No matter how you look at it, Angie was probably killed that night or soon after, and her body is...

probably still out there somewhere in that vast wilderness. Unless she's been a captive all these years. Let's hope not. I think that might be even worse than being killed. I mean, remember, that would mean that she gave birth alone. I doubt that a killer would have kept her around when he realized that she was pregnant and he'd have a baby to deal with soon. Let's just hope that her end came quick.

That's the best case scenario here that she and her unborn child didn't suffer.

But everyone else did suffer. Clinton's never quite forgotten about the disappearance of Angela Hammond. Even now, the mystery still comes up every now and then when the night is slow and the beer is cold at the bar.

Those that stayed in Clinton remember her at school. Her mother won't leave the house just in case a miracle happens and Angie walks back into her childhood home.

Even Rob, his wife and kids live just an hour's drive away. And Angie? Well, we'll probably never know what happened to her. But the internet never forgets. She and the green truck are cemented in the threads of Reddit. Her disappearance is a tale of legends on crime discussion boards and the validation for her parents when they warned their daughters to never walk.

around alone at night. The stranger danger that's drilled in the kids from kindergarten, Angela's terrible fate, whatever that might have been, is proof that monsters lurk in the shadows and no matter what we do, they'll always be there waiting for an opportunity to strike.

Unfortunately, we aren't leaving you with answers today, and we'll probably never get them either. So we'll leave you instead with a warning. The creepers and the predators are never far away. Don't go out alone. You never know when they're going to strike.

See you next time, hopefully with a case that has a happier ending.

or an even worse one because my partners in crime and I just love a good mystery and we know you do too.

So don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Thank you for joining me and my PICs and we will see you next time with more True Crime.