Hey, prime members, you can listen to the vanished ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

Music.

He was left in Bios, December 21, 2002. We left heard from him by phone in 2003. And I'm assuming that my thoughts at that time were

that he was in Peoria at that time. I'm the woman he was with as a

they left Kiwani and moved to a rural town and then from there they just got that call and then he was gone.

And no one heard from him since, not Social Security, not the IRS, nobody has heard from him since.

And then they got that weird anonymous letter that was tied to no return address in September of 2003. In the letter he said he met the rich woman that was going to take care of him.

He was going to change his identity and disappear and basically I hate my whole family. You guys are all terrible. I never want to see you again. Don't try to contact me.

And I'm going to go live in Texas under a new name with this random rich woman. You know, hear from that. I'm like, there's no way Clinton wrote that.

In early 2003, 29 year old Clinton Washburn called his parents and he was angry. The whole thing ended up being a misunderstanding that they worked out during that phone call.

But after that, they stopped hearing from Clint. Months later in September of 2003, they received a type letter allegedly from Clint. It stated that he found a rich woman to marry.

He was going to take her name and they would never find him. Clint's parents were crushed by this letter and they didn't know of any way they could reach their son. The letter had no return address.

Believing their son wanted no contact and hoping that maybe someday he would change his mind, Clint's parents did all they could do. They waited.

They thought that perhaps he would call or show up at the door, but it never happened. Clint's father passed away in 2018.

And his mother Margie thought for sure he would turn up at that time, but still no word from Clint.

It was after that that Margie decided to report her son missing, more than 15 years after that letter arrived in the mail.

What they came to learn was that there was no trace of Clint since 2003. And the more they found out, the more disturbing things became.

Amarissa and from Wondery, this is Episode 376 of The Vanished. Clint and Washburn's story.

Clint Washburn's story is different from most other stories we have told on The Vanished. His family believed for many years that he had left voluntarily and wanted to be estranged from their lives.

Is it possible that Clint is out there somewhere alive, living under a new identity? Or was that letter a cover story for something more sinister?

And whoever wrote it just wanted his family to think that so that they wouldn't keep looking for him. If that was the plan, it worked, at least for a very long time.

We're going to begin by taking a look at Clint's life. Was he someone who would have chosen to walk away from his life and never look back?

...