Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcasts.

This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence against children.

Some of it is really hard to hear.

In Akron, Ohio, two little girls went missing. The first disappeared in January of 1995.

Then, almost exactly a year later, the second girl was taken.

The response was almost identical in both cases.

The family searched for hours believing the girls might have taken a wrong turn or lost track of time at a friend's house.

Eventually, though, they had to admit their worst fears and call the police to report the girls

missing.

From A&E, this is cold case files.

I'm Brooke, and here's the illustrious Bill Curtis with a classic case, abandoned houses.

When she made me that promise in the look in her eyes to tell me that she would be back before it got dark, I believed her. On a winter's night, 13-year-old Melissa Thomas promises her mother she'll be home before dark.

Darkness falls, and there's no sign of Melissa.

Family and friends hit the streets of West Akron.

Just searching, looking, you know, asking questions, stopping people on the street and, you know, doing whatever we could to try to find her.

After hours of searching, Sonia Merchant calls police.

Actually, I took a report from her, but still the grandmother was who the...

The next day, Officer Bertina King gets the case and recognizes the name immediately.

She stops first at the home of Melissa's

sister, the last person to see Melissa. We're at 710, Westerly Road, Apartment F. This is where I took

the missing persons report on Melissa Thomas. Went all through here, knocking on some doors,

asking anybody I see, do you know who Melissa is?

...