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Dateline Originals

Dateline Missing in America – Ep. 25: Marked with an X

Dateline Originals

NBC News

True Crime

4.6773 Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It was the early morning hours of May 20, 2017, and 15-year-old Sophie Reeder should have been in bed. Instead, she had slipped out of her house in the River Oaks neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale and walked off into the hot, humid night. Two security cameras recorded some of Sophie’s movements over the next several hours. One recorded her walking past a neighbor’s house as she started her journey; another recorded her walking along a busy road near her home at 2 a.m. In that video, a police cruiser passes the 5-foot-1, 100-pound teenager and doesn’t slow down or stop. Sophie is seen wearing a short black dress, high-top sneakers, a leopard-print fake fur coat, and headphones. They are the last known images of her. Seven weeks after Sophie’s disappearance, police executed a search warrant at an apartment in the area where her phone last pinged. Three convicted felons were staying at that address. Josh Mankiewicz talks with Sophie’s father, Patrick Reeder, her aunt Kirsten Milhorn, reporter Brittany Wallman of the Miami Herald, and Sergeant Don Geiger of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. The FLPD is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for credible information that leads to the recovery of Sophie Reeder. Anyone with information about Sophie’s disappearance is asked to call the Fort Lauderdale Police Department at 954-828-6677 or email [email protected]. This episode was originally published on July 15, 2025.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It was 1245 a.m. when Sophie Reader started her journey, slipping out of her house and into a

0:11.5

syrupy Florida night. At 2.16 a.m., a security camera recorded her walking along Davy Boulevard

0:19.2

in South Fort Lauderdale.

0:22.0

She was wearing a short black dress, a brown fur coat, headphones, and high-top sneakers.

0:30.3

Sophie Reader was 15 years old, and that video is the last known image of her on May 20th, 2017, the day she disappeared.

0:42.4

Patrick Reeder is her father.

0:44.8

Patrick, I can't imagine how difficult this has been for you.

0:48.3

Yeah, it's like a living nightmare.

0:50.0

A living nightmare.

0:50.7

You got to deal with it every day.

0:53.1

Police would later discover where Sophie went on her middle of the night walk.

0:58.5

The mystery they have not solved is what happened after she arrived.

1:03.7

She got there after that long walk.

1:06.0

Yeah.

1:06.6

What does that tell you?

1:08.1

That puts us in the vicinity to start the investigation.

1:10.8

We call it a last scene point.

1:12.3

It is not a place for a 15-year-old in the dark at all.

1:18.1

That's a reporter who dug into Sophie's case.

1:21.4

I just always think about how she had that date circled on her calendar.

1:25.0

A May night in 2017.

1:31.1

Could that mark on Sophie's calendar be the key to solving her case? Sophie's aunt is on a mission to uncover the truth. If she's alive,

...

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