58: MYSTERY | The Unusual Disappearance of Jim McDonnell

Avery After Dark

Avery Ross

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality, True Crime

4.8 • 746 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On a brisk March evening, 50 year old Jim McDonnell mysteriously vanished on a walk home from a friends house in New York. Prior to his disappearance, Jim told his friend that he had a bad headache and the short 15 minute walk home would help him feel better

Anne McDonnell, Jim's wife, called police around 2AM when her husband never returned home. Jim was a church going, honest and devoted husband so detectives immediately ruled out the idea that he ran off. Police believed something terrible must've happened to Jim McDonnell

For 15 years, Anne McDonald lived in limbo. Detectives searched everywhere. Hospitals, morgues but there was no trace of Jim anywhere. In 1976, Anne had Jim McDonnell legally declared dead but still kept hope that one day he could return

And one Christmas in 1985, Anne's doorbell rang. She opened up her door to find her husband Jim standing on her doorstep

But how? What happened to Jim McDonnell that fateful night in 1971? Where had he been the past 15 years? And what finally brought him home?

This case is one of the most remarkable & truly unbelievable missing persons cases in history!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hundreds of thousands of people disappear in the United States each year.
0:20.4	Most are eventually found, but sadly,
0:23.1	a large group remain missing. For 15 years, Ann McDonald lived her life in limbo. Her husband,
0:31.1	Jim McDonald, vanished without a trace on a walk home from a friend's house one evening in
0:36.4	1971. The search for Jim was extensive.
0:40.3	Detectives, friends, and family searched all over for him,
0:44.3	checking morgues, hospitals,
0:46.3	but it was truly like Jim McDonald vanished into thin air.
0:49.3	He was the epitome of a devoted husband.
0:52.3	He was reliable and sensible. For Jim to disappear,
0:56.2	something terrible must have happened. And in 1976, five years after Jim went missing,
1:03.1	Anne made the heart-wrenching decision to have her husband declared legally dead,
1:08.0	although his body was never found. She did this in the hopes that she would gain
1:12.5	some closure and could attempt to move on with her life. But deep down, Anne didn't want to believe
1:18.2	that he was gone. Over the years, she still held out hope that one day, maybe Jim would return,
1:25.2	maybe out there somewhere he was still alive.
1:28.7	In one fateful Christmas, the seemingly impossible happened.
1:33.3	Fifteen years after his mysterious disappearance, Jim McDonald reappeared on Anne's doorstep.
1:41.0	But how? What happened?
1:43.5	Where had Jim McDonald been the past 15 years? And what brought him back home?
1:48.7	It's one of the most unusual and downright remarkable stories to date. Today's true case is one for the
1:55.2	books and also one that has a very happy ending. Welcome back to Avery After Dark. I am your host, Avery Ross. I'm so happy
	...

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