This is the fall line.

Throughout the episode, we will use the mix of redaction and pseudonyms to

emit the names of Monica and Michael's parents, who will be referred to in this

podcast as John and Jane. 28 years ago at the height of a southern coastal

summer, two children disappeared. This is a story with no ending, not yet, but

perhaps there is no beginning either, just a hundred points gone hazy, even in the

memories of those who want to remember the most. There is no media to help them

recall the details, and who's to say if those details are even true. After all,

as in so many cases, there's the official story, and then there's the patchwork

of secrets and recollection in rumors that make up the family's own version. Then

there are the constant uneasy undercurrents. So low down that we sometimes forget

there there. Monica Bennett was 15 years old when she disappeared, and her half-brother

Michael was a newly minted 14. In June of 1989, Monica was a rising junior at

Glinn Academy in Brunswick, Georgia. She was a friendly, funny teenager who'd

had a few boyfriends, including one or two bad boys that weren't really all that

bad. Michael was more circumspect. He was handsome, quiet, one to hang back and

watch to gather information and to process it before he came to a decision. In the

following interview excerpt, Monica and Michael's grandmother Evelyn and their

aunt Wanda will offer what they remember of the children. Miss Evelyn, the

maternal grandmother, is 83. Though she lived in Brunswick, she didn't see them

much. I am their grandmother. Maternal? Yes. Yes. So you're the mother of their

mother. Right. Okay, so let's go back if we can till when they were little. I would

...