This is the third episode in a three-part series. This episode discusses alleged intimate partner violence.

It includes discussion of recovery scenes and autopsy. Listener discretion is advised. All parties

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

This is the fall line.

Over the past two episodes, we've covered the 1976 disappearance of Patricia Paddyato,

a 24-year-old wife and mother from Lewiston, Idaho. Her husband, Ralph Otto,

was publicly identified by police as a suspect in her missing person's case. But there wasn't

enough evidence to formally charge him, not with anything directly related to Patty. And when

Ralph died in 1983, so did the chance to further question him about Patty's disappearance.

His young daughters, Natalie and Suzanne, were raised by his sister.

Natalie believed in her father's innocence and wanted to find Patty.

She began research into Patty's case that would span the rest of her life.

Until her death in 2006, Natalie tracked down files, dental records,

court transcripts, interviews, anything and everything that you could think of, and she amassed it all

into a huge collection of evidence. Now, her sister Suzanne uses that same wealth of information,

plus what she's gathered on her own, but toward

different ends. She's not trying to prove Ralph Otto's innocence. In fact, she believes that he is

the strongest suspect in her mother's disappearance, and she's been trying to retrace his

steps since that night in August to discover what became of Patty.

Patty Otto has received a fair amount of media coverage more than most people featured on

our show. Much of that press is a direct result of the work of her daughter Suzanne and the

advocates at Light the Way and Mel Jedderberg, who's been advocating for another case, an unidentified

...