Darkcast Network. Welcome to the dark side of podcasting.

June 1st, 1997 was Kristen Modafari's 18th birthday. On that day, she flew from her home in North Carolina to California to take a summer photography class at UC Berkeley.

23 days later, she disappeared.

Police initially believed that she left on her own, but her family knew she would never do that.

As the investigation unfolded, plenty of suspects popped up.

The four male strangers she was renting a room from.

A mysterious blonde woman she was seen talking to the afternoon she disappeared, the violent man who called a news station to say he knew exactly what had happened to her.

But despite years of investigations by police and private investigators, the whereabouts of Kristen Modafari, a brilliant, artistic young woman living her dream summer, remain unknown. When a person goes missing, there's a special

kind of pain in the not knowing. I want to tell you the stories of those who never came home.

Today, I want to tell you the story of Kristen Modafari.

I'm Kona Gallagher.

And I'm Ethan Flick.

And this is, and then wife team behind this podcast. Each week, I tell you the story of an unsolved missing person's case.

Ethan doesn't know anything about the case going into the episode and is here to provide his reactions and questions in real time, hopefully asking some of the same ones you have at home.

Today's story really got to me because Kristen seems like the type of person I would have looked up to.

She was smart, independent, and adventurous.

She fell in love with San Francisco during a family trip there in 1994 and decided to pack up and just move out there the summer after her freshman year at NC State. It was such a cool,

brave thing to do, and it's heartbreaking that it ended so tragically for her. Before we get into

Kristen's story, though, we'd like to thank our newest Patreon supporters, Taylor W., Hannah T., Kim Q,

and Martha M.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all so so much.

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