Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley Flowers. And the story I have for you today is about a young girl whose innocence was stolen in the very place she was supposed to feel safest in her home.

This case has been on my mind non-stop since I first heard about it and every new detail we learned only made me angrier.

Because you're going to find out that there's really two versions of this story, the one that the public heard about, and the one that actually happened behind closed doors.

And as bad as the public version is, the private one is even worse. This is the story of Selena Mays.

It's Monday morning, December 16, 1996. And in a home in Willingboro, New Jersey, everyone is sitting down for breakfast.

It's kind of a late meal, at least for them. The teens and kids in the house, eight of them ranging from two to eighteen years old, had all been allowed to sleep in that morning until around like nine or ten, which is a rare treat.

But someone is missing from the table, 12-year-old Selena Mays. Her younger half-sister, Noriel, is sent upstairs to wake her.

She goes up, but then comes back down and a few minutes pass, and there's still no Selena.

So Noriel's mom, Selena's stepmother, Yvette, sends Noriel up to get her again. But within a minute, the little girl is back downstairs alone.

She tells her mother that Selena's bedroom is empty, like she's not upstairs at all. So another member of the household, eighteen-year-old Tawana heads up there to see for herself.

Tawana told our reporter Nina that nothing was out of place in Selena's room. Her purse is still there, and Selena never goes anywhere without her purse, so she must be nearby.

But truthfully, she is not upstairs or anywhere else in the house.

Sometimes Selena's dad, Crizanzo Mays, also known as CJ, brings her to work with him. So Yvette calls him, thinking maybe her stepdaughter woke up early, left with him.

But CJ says, no, he hasn't seen her since she went to bed the night before.

That's when Tawana notices that Selena's long, bright red puffer coat is gone.

Taking this as an indication she probably went outside for some reason, she and one of Selena's cousins go out to look for her.

But even as they walk outside, the idea that she would just go take a stroll doesn't seem like a likely scenario.

I mean, it is December in New Jersey. It is cold.

Tawana racks her brain, thinking of where else Selena could be. But there's really not many possibilities.

You see, this is a strict, deeply religious household that revolves completely around church. And the young people don't have much freedom.

They're all part of the gospel of Christ Ministries, this tiny fundamentalist, penicostal church that's run by Selena's paternal aunt, Serita Smith.

According to Jim Nolan's reporting in Philadelphia Daily News, the congregation is made up of several extended families, and they're pretty isolated from the surrounding community.

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