Replay: Joan Bernal Part 2
The Vanished Podcast
Audible
4.5 • 15.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2026
⏱️ 93 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joan Bernal's episodes originally aired in October 2020. In December of 1988, Joan Bernal, her husband, and their children had plans to leave their home in Joliet, Illinois, and head to Texas to visit her husband’s family for the holidays. Things didn’t go as planned, and they weren’t able to bring Joan’s children from a previous marriage due to custody issues. According to Joan’s husband, Gil, they decided to make the trip anyway. He later told investigators that Joan became upset during the drive and that he dropped her off near a bus stop in McAlester, Oklahoma, and gave her cash so she could return to Illinois. The plan, he said, was for Joan to pick up her other children and then fly to Texas to meet them. Joan Bernal has never been seen or heard from again.
Over the years, this case has been marked by conflicting accounts, unanswered questions, and lingering uncertainty about what truly happened to Joan. Investigators and Joan’s loved ones have wrestled with whether she could still be alive, whether foul play was involved, and why no verified trace of her has ever surfaced.
Update:
In December 2025, 37 years after Joan Bernal was last seen, the case took a significant turn. A Will County grand jury returned a sealed indictment charging Joan’s husband, Gilbert Bernal, with first-degree murder in connection with her disappearance. Stay tuned through the end of Part 2 for more details on the recent developments in this case.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Joan Bernal's episodes originally aired in October 2020. At the end of 2025, there was a major |
| 0:06.9 | development in her case. Stay tuned to the end of this episode for an important update. |
| 0:20.0 | I do think that my dad does love me. |
| 0:22.9 | I think that his love for me is 100% true and real. |
| 0:27.8 | And a lot of what I'm saying I have said to him, |
| 0:32.8 | there is goodness in my dad. |
| 0:35.2 | I know that's hard to understand or accept or realize or anything. There is goodness in my dad. I know that's hard to understand or accept or realize or anything. There |
| 0:40.2 | is goodness in him. He does have a good heart, but he has this anger that I have spent countless |
| 0:51.1 | hours in my life trying to understand where it comes from. |
| 0:55.6 | Why is it so intense? |
| 0:57.3 | Why can't he get a hold on it? |
| 0:59.2 | Why can't he control it? |
| 1:01.2 | He just can't. |
| 1:02.7 | He's just walked around with this anger for forever almost. |
| 1:07.7 | And when it comes out, it's like it's a completely different person. He can't, |
| 1:12.5 | he can't control it. He can't get a hold on himself. Now that he's older, you know, like he can't |
| 1:18.6 | really act on it anymore. He's, he's not the, you know, young whippersnapper he used to be. |
| 1:24.8 | On December 9th, 1988, Joan Brunel and her family were preparing to leave their home in |
| 1:31.3 | Joliet, Illinois, headed toward Texas to visit her husband's family for the holidays. Things didn't |
| 1:38.2 | go as planned, and they were only able to bring one of their children, the youngest, Sarita. |
| 1:45.0 | According to Joan's husband, Gill, they left the following morning, and Joan asked to be let |
| 1:50.2 | out of the car in Oklahoma. She wanted to go back home and try to get her children from a previous |
... |
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