This is the second episode in a three-part series.

This episode mentions alleged intimate partner violence.

All parties discussed are assumed innocent and less proven guilty in a court of law.

This is the fall line.

Last episode, we introduced you to Suzanne Thames.

Her mother, Patricia Otto, has been missing from Lewiston, Idaho, since 1976.

Suzanne was only three years old when her mother disappeared.

Her sister, Natalie, was five.

And their father, Ralph Otto,

was publicly named by local police as a suspect in their mother's disappearance.

For many years, Suzanne and Natalie believed that their mother had left them, and their father,

who died in 1983, took any answers he might have had to the grave. But now, as an adult, Suzanne has been investigating her mother's disappearance,

and she believes that to do that, she may need to help solve another case, too,

the identification of a Jane Doe homicide victim, discovered in 1978, in another state.

Thank you. in 1978 in another state. When we left off last time, it was May of 1976. Just a few months before Patty Otto's children saw her for the last time. Patty, who was just 24 years old, had moved out that spring.

Her husband Ralph was 42.

Ralph's drinking and their relationship issues had become too much, and they'd begun divorce proceedings.

While Patty was living in her own apartment, she'd had a short, romantic relationship with

an old friend named Randy. He was just around her age. Although it's alleged that Ralph

had numerous affairs, and they were separated when Patty dated Randy, Ralph was extremely upset

about the relationship. That's supported by both his statements to police and our own interviews.

But things were over with Randy by Mother's Day of 1976.

...