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Unsolved

Season Two: A toddler’s death, a tangled trail

Unsolved

USA TODAY and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

True Crime

3.9792 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2017

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Coming Aug. 30: Authorities quickly ruled the death of 2 ½-year-old Michelle Manders an accident. But there were shortcomings in the investigation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigates: Did Michelle wander off in the middle of the night? Or was she kidnapped?

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:05.8

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0:15.3

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0:19.3

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0:23.0

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0:28.9

terms apply i went to put her in her her her bed and as i put her in bed, she grabbed me around the neck so tight.

0:39.8

And she said she loved me, and I said, I loved her,

0:42.3

and I actually had to take her hands off my neck.

0:44.6

She just, she's never done that before.

0:47.2

In October 1981, Michelle Manders disappeared from her bedroom

0:51.2

in the middle of the night.

0:52.8

She was two and a half years old.

0:54.8

And then the next day I remember it was morning.

0:57.0

My mom was screaming in the house, tearing closets apart, going crazy.

1:02.9

As the minutes and hours tick away, Watertown authorities concede their hopes are diminishing

1:08.2

of finding two-and-year-old Michelle Manders alive and unharmed.

1:12.4

This morning, her father told us he is convinced his daughter was kidnapped from her bedroom.

1:17.8

Michelle was missing for 22 days.

1:20.2

Then, her body was found tangled in some brush on a riverbank, about two miles from her home.

1:25.8

We have no idea how long the body was in the water or how long it was there.

1:32.1

And I was unwilling to close the case as an accident and told him that it would remain open,

...

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