In late May of 1985, police and Larry Sarhat met with a social worker, a quote-unquote expert of sorts regarding family patterns caused by a loved one's drug or alcohol addiction. I don't know why

they chose this expert considering that no one ever said Ada had substance abuse

issues. But by this point they had begun to explore the possibility that maybe she left on her own

Ada and Ed's youngest son Jeff remembers that being common speculation

I think there are a lot of people just wondered if she took a breather from the family or something along those lines.

After three hours of going over everything, that was the expert's opinion.

He believed that Ada had been planning her escape for years, but that she made her final decision about a month before. This is episode 5. Did she choose to leave? The expert thought that Ada's personality traits, combined with her family's dynamic,

would have led her to feeling alienated. He thought that she probably took off with a younger male companion to a secluded place where she felt safe.

He didn't think she was going to return on her own and he suspected that she'd probably be in hiding for a long time.

He also speculated that Ada was behind a bizarre tip

that Elkhart authorities received a couple of months before.

You see, before she ever went missing,

this would have been in late March or early April that year

Detective Art Kern had gotten a mysterious phone call from a woman reporting that a friend of hers

overheard a conversation between two people, one of whom was a businessman

from Elkhart.

And allegedly, this businessman said that he was planning to kill his wife and that he had

started working out at the YMCA to build up his strength in case he went to prison.

But this caller said that she was too afraid to reveal anyone's identity.

Not her friend that heard this, not the businessman, not even her own.

Now I don't know what sparked Kern's memory of this, but when he told the expert about this

call and the caller herself who he thought was a white woman

...