After spending the night in their cabin, Cynthia and Robert Ross returned to their home on Sunday, November 14, 2004, to an unsettling absence in their house.

Their daughter, Christina, was gone.

Christina, who was on the verge of turning 21, was a no-show at work that day, which worried them. She wasn't the kind of person to play hooky like that.

Notifying the local police department in Nina, Wisconsin, wasn't very promising since Christina was technically an adult. There wasn't very much they could do.

Then, on Monday evening, a call came from the police.

Christina's car was found parked in the Cops Food Center supermarket parking lot. Did the Rosses want to pick it up?

Armed with a spare key, Cynthia and Robert decided to look inside Christina's car. Maybe she left a note that explained where she was.

Deep down though, Robert had an eerie suspicion that something bad was going to happen.

Robert admitted that he had a strange feeling on the way over, that he should open the trunk first, and that she was going to be in there. The police report said.

Robert told Cindy to stand on the side so that Cindy wouldn't see Christina if she was inside the trunk.

Robert popped the trunk open with a remote.

Cynthia would later tell police that at first she thought there was a golf bag in Christina's trunk.

She saw Robert bend over and touch it, then he quickly slammed the trunk shut. The look on his face was one of sheer horror.

Robert came over to her and demanded her cell phone. At that point, Cynthia said she realized that it could be a body, her daughter's body, in the trunk.

She screamed for someone to call 911, while also calling herself.

Robert went back over to the trunk and opened it again, again running his hand over the blue-colored object.

From her vantage point, Cynthia could see Christina's purple windbreaker in the back of the car.

Robert then shut the trunk again, yelling for someone to call 911.

It was November 2004, and the parking lot of a supermarket chain in Mena, Wisconsin, was officially a crime scene.

Please just let me know if it's our daughter. Robert begged the police when they arrived.

He wouldn't get any immediate answers.

But it wouldn't take long before the corner confirmed that the body of the woman inside the car was indeed Christina Ross.

...