Hope Whispers

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Speaker 2 I was just sobbing. Something is wrong.
Something's actually wrong here.

Speaker 3 It's heartbreaking, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 This is a missing person's case. We want to find Angela Green.

Speaker 5 Her father told different stories. She was first told that her mother was taken away, then that she was dead.

Speaker 2 I get more and more suspicious as time goes on.

Speaker 5 I said, I'm gonna call the police.

Speaker 4 They searched the house, they searched his property.

Speaker 3 That's gotta be a very strange thing. Policeman digging in the backyard.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my childhood home has crime scene taped all over it.

Speaker 4 We're just wanting to know his side of the story.

Speaker 5 Did you hurt mom?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 7 You lied to me.

Speaker 6 I'm not lying to you.

Speaker 2 I want to know where mom is.

Speaker 5 We're not going to stay quiet. There is an answer out there somewhere.

Speaker 1 Ellie Green was almost there.

Speaker 1 Adulting, that last stage of growing up, can be difficult for anyone.

Speaker 1 But for Ellie Green, try horrifying, confusing, grotesque.

Speaker 2 I was just trying to live my life and be happy, and it just happened to me. So.

Speaker 3 I wonder what happened after you left that day.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I wonder too.

Speaker 1 Her once shining future, now a cloud of grief and suspicion and lies. And the one person left, the one she counted on, really couldn't be.

Speaker 8 In a situation like this, they look at the

Speaker 8 closest person as the primary suspect.

Speaker 8 I'm the closest person, so I'm the primary suspect.

Speaker 1 A suspect of what?

Speaker 1 For a long time, Ellie had so many questions,

Speaker 1 and then she demanded answers: The dutiful daughter's journey to mother's champion.

Speaker 1 But to begin at the beginning, the spring of 2019, when life was still fresh and all things seemed possible, especially for someone as gifted as Ellie. How many languages do you speak?

Speaker 2 About four.

Speaker 1 How'd you do in high school?

Speaker 2 Valedictorian. Graduated with an international baccalaureate diploma.
4.0 GPA. I don't think it could have gone much better.

Speaker 3 Yeah, apparently.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Ellie credits that to her upbringing in Prairie Village, just outside Kansas City.

Speaker 1 And of course, to her parents, Jeff and Angela Green.

Speaker 2 She is from China and came here in her 20s.

Speaker 5 She

Speaker 2 poured her whole life into me.

Speaker 3 What was it you called her, Tiger Mom?

Speaker 2 Yeah, a little bit, yeah. She taught me...
Banderin and established a strong work ethic in me.

Speaker 1 But then, Angela Green had always been a towering figure, and not just to Ellie.

Speaker 5 I remember she just looked so tall and she was wearing this long black dress.

Speaker 1 Angela's niece, Michelle, was just six years old when her aunt arrived here from China, where she'd done some modeling.

Speaker 5 It looked like as she was walking towards us, like she was like floating towards us. And I just remember thinking, like, wow.

Speaker 1 You were enthralled.

Speaker 5 Yes, definitely.

Speaker 1 On that day, more than 20 years ago, Angela turned the arrivals hall at the airport into a catwalk.

Speaker 1 She was here to marry Jeff Green. The two met when he was in China on business.

Speaker 3 Was she in love with Jeff?

Speaker 5 My mother says that she remembers them being like very flirty,

Speaker 5 and she liked that she was very tall.

Speaker 1 Jeff found work in IT. Angela ran the house, tended her beloved garden.

Speaker 1 Neighbors said she was a fixture there every season.

Speaker 4 The shrubbery out front was always well trimmed and groomed. She'd be out there in the dead of winter when it was snowing, doing all the shoveling.
She really took care of the house a lot.

Speaker 1 And then there was Ellie, their only child. The glue to everything.

Speaker 2 My mom wasn't fluent in English, and my dad didn't really speak any Mandarin, so sometimes I would have to translate.

Speaker 3 That is got to be almost unique to grow up with a mother and father who are never fully able to communicate with each other.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Still, Ellie thought they made a happy threesome. It looked that way to the neighbor, too.

Speaker 4 They were nice, they were quiet, they loved their daughter,

Speaker 4 and you know, that came through in all of her interactions.

Speaker 1 When it was time for college, Ellie stayed close to home at the University of Kansas, only that wasn't close enough for Angela. She seemed to fade without Ellie under her roof.

Speaker 2 She lost weight, and

Speaker 2 I know she had a hard time sleeping, is what she told me.

Speaker 1 So imagine Angela's dismay when after that freshman year, Ellie's summer schedule filled up with a job, a trip to Italy, and a new boyfriend, Zach Krause.

Speaker 3 Sometimes when a person goes away, you kind of know you really want them to come back, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like that? Definitely.

Speaker 1 Ellie didn't notice her mother quietly seething until one day Angela Green let it be known.

Speaker 1 A moment in time. It can't be retracted now.
It was the 20th of June.

Speaker 2 My mom and I got into a little bit of an argument. I don't know.

Speaker 1 She was wrapped up about something.

Speaker 2 I think she was ramped up about what had been going on the last year and how much she didn't really see me.

Speaker 1 It ended badly. Her mom in a fury.
Ellie forced to leave. She called Zach.
How was she?

Speaker 4 She was crying.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's hard.

Speaker 3 Oh, God.

Speaker 4 Being kicked out.

Speaker 3 Kicked out.

Speaker 1 Ellie stayed at Zach's parents, hoping her mom would calm down. Instead, days later, there was a message from her dad.

Speaker 1 It was bizarre.

Speaker 2 I got a text from my dad saying that my mom had been taken to a mental institution in a grocery parking lot forcefully.

Speaker 1 Angela? Some sort of breakdown? Grabbed in broad daylight by medical assistants and whisked away?

Speaker 2 My immediate thought was, how do I get her the clothes she needs, her things?

Speaker 2 Is she being taken care of?

Speaker 1 Yet, when Ellie asked her dad where, he wouldn't say, Did you think that made any sense?

Speaker 3 That you wouldn't be able to go see her?

Speaker 2 He said it was for my own personal good and safety.

Speaker 1 So Ellie did as she was told and waited at Zach's.

Speaker 1 Then, a few weeks later, middle of July, her dad had news.

Speaker 3 Ellie wondered, was it bad news about her mom?

Speaker 1 Had something happened?

Speaker 1 Yes, in fact, something had. Angela was gone.

Speaker 3 Buge shock.

Speaker 2 Yes, the world just kind of came crashing down.

Speaker 1 It would take a while for that shock to subside. What had happened to Angela Greene?

Speaker 1 Maybe it was up to Ellie to find out.

Speaker 2 I walked around and I had my feet on the ground. I would touch things, but it just didn't feel like they were really there.

Speaker 11 We just cried and hugged to try to make some sense of it.

Speaker 4 Just had to be there for her.

Speaker 1 A devastated Ellie gets a curious request from her dad.

Speaker 2 He told me not to tell mom's family.

Speaker 1 What could his reason for that be?

Speaker 1 It was a perfect July evening. Ellie Green was watching Zach, her boyfriend at the time, play Frisbee, and she got a text from her dad.
There was news. He wanted to deliver it in person.

Speaker 2 We pulled up to Zach's house and said

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 Angela died of a stroke.

Speaker 3 I'm sorry. He used Angela, not mom, or yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Ellie crumpled to the ground. Zach went running for his parents.
Sarah is Zach's mom.

Speaker 11 He burst into our room and said, Ellie's mom just died. And we sat straight up in complete shock and we just embraced her and cried and hugged and sat on the couch to try to make some sense of it.

Speaker 3 Where was her father?

Speaker 11 He drove away. He left? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Zach's mom invited him to come to lunch the next day. Over tomato soup, he shared what details he said he could.

Speaker 1 He'd been at work when someone from the hospital called to say Angela was dead from a stroke.

Speaker 11 All he knew was the staff checked on her in the evening and she was fine and by the morning unresponsive.

Speaker 1 It just seemed so sudden, so unlikely. Zach's mom wondered if there was more to the story.
Something Jeff wasn't telling Ellie.

Speaker 11 We did wonder if suicide was involved, if she had Some mental issues going on. We just wondered, could that come into play?

Speaker 1 Maybe Ellie's Ellie's dad was protecting her somehow.

Speaker 3 Well, you saw them in the same room together having lunch.

Speaker 3 Did you see closeness? Did you see like a typical father-daughter relationship?

Speaker 11 Yes, you could tell he really loves her. And you could tell that he

Speaker 11 was worried about her.

Speaker 1 Ellie was in shock.

Speaker 2 I walked around and I

Speaker 2 had my feet on the ground. I would touch things, but it just didn't feel like they were really there.

Speaker 1 She couldn't stop thinking about her mom, how selfless and committed she'd always been. Demanding, yes, but also loving, sewing costumes for her school plays, notes in her lunchbox.

Speaker 1 Ellie wished she'd had a chance to say goodbye.

Speaker 4 It was rough. The hardest part for me was being unable to do anything.
I just had to be there for her.

Speaker 1 Especially because Ellie felt like she was grieving alone. She had so many questions for her dad, but he didn't want to talk about things.

Speaker 1 He had always been the quiet parent, quick with a hug and a calm word, who loved spending time tinkering with his vintage cars.

Speaker 1 Angela was more focused on home, where she was definitely the one in charge. When she was the boss of the household, as you say, how did he react to that?

Speaker 2 Just went along with it.

Speaker 3 That sounds a little passive. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Well, sometimes if you have one parent who's who's particularly strong, it can help to have another parent who you can go to and say, you know,

Speaker 2 yeah, I did that. I did that.

Speaker 1 And he was there as a sort of relief

Speaker 3 for you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So when Jeff told his daughter he needed space and quiet to grieve, Ellie gave him both.

Speaker 2 I'd already lost one parent. I didn't want to lose another.

Speaker 3 I totally understand, yeah, for that.

Speaker 1 Jeff didn't even seem to want a funeral.

Speaker 11 That always struck me as strange. As well as other people, Ellie's boss asked me

Speaker 11 where she could send flowers to the memorial. And I said, there's not a memorial.

Speaker 11 And she said, oh, okay. She seemed confused by it, too.

Speaker 3 Still, wasn't her place to say.

Speaker 1 And time moved on. Ellie went back to college.
just like her mother would have wanted her to.

Speaker 1 But as the shock faded and the grief became an ache, she was ever more troubled by another request her dad had made of her.

Speaker 2 Told me not to tell mom's family.

Speaker 1 Jeff had asked Ellie not to contact her mom's sister and niece, Michelle, to tell them Angela was dead. But of course you tell a family.

Speaker 3 That's what you do. You should do ASAP.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you should.

Speaker 1 So what was his explanation for not wanting to tell people?

Speaker 2 He wasn't ready yet.

Speaker 1 But Ellie was, because something was changing in her. She picked up the phone and called her mom's relatives.
But you know the domino theory. Knock down just one of them and look out.

Speaker 1 On that, a life can turn.

Speaker 5 You can't just snatch someone off the street. This raised so many red flags to me.

Speaker 1 A story that just didn't seem to add up.

Speaker 5 I said, well, which hospital was she at? Was there a funeral or a memorial? Do you have a death certificate? At this point, I said I'm going to call the police.

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Speaker 1 It had been a long time since Angela's sister and niece Michelle had heard from her. No phone call, no word at all.
Strange.

Speaker 5 And my mom tried to call her and then she didn't pick up, and she thought, okay, maybe Angie's just busy, or maybe she's just being stubborn.

Speaker 1 They knew Angela could be that way sometimes, a little distant. But there was a family wedding planned in Virginia.
Was Angela coming?

Speaker 5 Then she tried to call again to ask if she received a wedding invitation

Speaker 5 and still no answer.

Speaker 3 That's getting downright rude at that point.

Speaker 5 Exactly. That's exactly what she told me.
She said, I think that she's being a little rude now.

Speaker 1 They had no idea what had been going on all that time back in Kansas. Not a clue that during that long silence, Ellie had been mourning Angela's death.
Didn't know because nobody told them.

Speaker 2 It wasn't my place to tell. I didn't want to tell.
I knew it was supposed to be my dad who did.

Speaker 1 But when months went by, That confusion and guilt worked at her. Something finally broke.
She picked up the phone and called her mom's family.

Speaker 2 It was a horrible phone call. The worst one I've ever given in my life.

Speaker 5 When Ellie called her, she was just crying for the first minute.

Speaker 1 Michelle happened to call her mom in the middle of that conversation about Angela.

Speaker 5 And my mom knew that something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what she was saying. She said, hold on, Ellie's on the other line.
She just told me that your aunt died.

Speaker 1 Angela dead? At 51 years of age? Michelle was stunned. Even more so when she and her mom figured out that Ellie's dad had kept the news from them for seven months.

Speaker 5 And my mom, she was just like, why hasn't anyone told us? Why hasn't Jeff reached out? And she said, my dad told me that I wasn't allowed to tell you.

Speaker 1 Wasn't allowed to tell you?

Speaker 5 Yes. He didn't give her a reason, but she said, I thought that he was just grieving in like a strange way, and I didn't want to overstep my boundaries.

Speaker 1 But Michelle, seven years older than Ellie and a lawyer, had no such misgivings. She wanted facts.

Speaker 1 So she called Ellie, a cousin she barely knew, and pressed her for details. Ellie recounted what she'd been told.

Speaker 5 That Angie had been ambushed in a grocery store parking lot and forcibly admitted to a mental institution against her will.

Speaker 5 As a lawyer, this raised so many red red flags to me and I was just like, they would need some sort of court order or judge approval to be able to do this.

Speaker 5 You can't just snatch someone off the street.

Speaker 1 Then the story about Angela dying of a stroke.

Speaker 5 We don't have a history of strokes in our family. So I told Ellie this and I said, well, which hospital was she at? And she said, I don't know.
My dad won't tell me.

Speaker 5 So I asked her, was there a funeral or a memorial?

Speaker 5 And Ellie said, no, my dad didn't want to have one. And so then I asked, do you have a death certificate? And then Ellie said, what's a death certificate?

Speaker 1 Your cousin explained there had to be a record of her mom's death in the state capitol, Topeka. So Ellie went the next day.
She was the feet on the ground. Michelle was on the phone back in New York.

Speaker 1 Two cousins forging an unexpected bond under the strangest of circumstances. Ellie found her way to the right building.
to see the right person who could produce Angela's death certificate.

Speaker 5 They spent a really long time trying to look for it, and they ended up being able to find her marriage certificate to Jeff, but they said that there was absolutely no record of her death in Kansas.

Speaker 2 My mind was spinning in a whole bunch of directions, but I just knew it wasn't good.

Speaker 1 Not good at all.

Speaker 1 Ellie needed an explanation from the only person who could give it: her dad.

Speaker 5 I asked,

Speaker 2 where

Speaker 2 did mom die? what state? And he said, Kansas.

Speaker 2 I said, no, it wasn't. And he kind of turned on me and he said, how do you know? And I said, because I went to Topeka and looked it up and there wasn't anything.

Speaker 2 And he said, well, maybe it was Missouri or some other state. I don't remember.
I'll have to go home and look at it.

Speaker 1 Michelle wasn't counting on her Uncle Jeff. Not when it came to the truth about her aunt.

Speaker 5 We found out that she had died allegedly seven months ago. We found out that she had been taken to a mental institution.
We didn't know where she had died.

Speaker 5 We knew that there was no death certificate for her. So then at this point, I said, I'm going to call the police.

Speaker 1 A phone call of the police station.

Speaker 11 He happened to call Ellie while we were there. And so she put it on speakerphone.
And he wasn't aware that they were listening and he wasn't aware that we were there.

Speaker 1 And a brand new story. Like, oh my gosh, well, makes his life.

Speaker 1 The police in Prairie Village, Kansas, had no idea who Angela Greene was.

Speaker 1 She was just not the sort of person who'd be known to police, as they say.

Speaker 1 That is, until a phone call from her niece, miles and miles away in New York.

Speaker 4 A family member called and wanted Mrs. Green's welfare checked because they had not had contact with her.

Speaker 1 Sergeant Adam Taylor is part of the Investigations Division of the Prairie Village Police Department. When that call came in, could you go check on Angela Greene?

Speaker 3 What did you do?

Speaker 4 Yeah, the patrol officers responded. When they got to the residence, they did not have contact with Mrs.
Green.

Speaker 1 But the officers asked around, canvassed the neighbors.

Speaker 4 The response was nobody had seen her for quite some time.

Speaker 3 Quite some time.

Speaker 1 Like this wasn't just a day or two. No.

Speaker 1 Odd, they said, because she was always in her garden. The neighbors said it looked like it hadn't been touched in a while.

Speaker 4 The sidewalk in front of her house was covered with branches. And that would never have happened if she had been around.
That was sort of my first inkling that she wasn't around.

Speaker 1 Of course, the officers talked to Ellie's dad, and here's what he told them. Angela was away for the weekend.

Speaker 3 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 5 I was in disbelief. I was like, you do know that he told us that she was dead, right?

Speaker 1 Ellie was also in disbelief. She was angry and knew exactly what she had to do.
Zach's family was there to help.

Speaker 11 Ellie and my mom and I went to the police and filed a missing persons report for Angela.

Speaker 1 And right in the middle of that, right there in the police station, Ellie's phone rang.

Speaker 1 It was her dad.

Speaker 11 He happened to call Ellie.

Speaker 1 While you were in the police station.

Speaker 11 While we were there.

Speaker 11 And so she put it on speakerphone, and he wasn't aware that they were listening, and he wasn't aware that we were there.

Speaker 1 And at some point, the call was recorded.

Speaker 1 This is the voice of Jeff Green. So at the moment, I have no idea which way to go, or what Petrut is, or what's going on.
Jeff was telling Ellie that her recent trip to Topeka had shaken him.

Speaker 1 He thought her mother was dead. But now...

Speaker 1 I didn't think anything until you told me that there's no death certificate, and it's like, oh my gosh, well, maybe she is alive. Really? Ellie was exasperated.

Speaker 1 She wanted her dad to start at the beginning with that tale about some psychiatric facility making off with her mother.

Speaker 13 What about the story you told me about taking her from a parking lot? And

Speaker 13 well, that was, I didn't

Speaker 13 want you to think that she had

Speaker 13 run off with some stranger to do something, and

Speaker 13 I thought it would be uh

Speaker 13 look dad you know I want the truth

Speaker 13 yeah and that yeah yeah and the truth is that she

Speaker 1 um kind of disappeared of her own free will

Speaker 1 Ellie's dad was saying now that he made up the story about her mom being grabbed off the street and taken to a hospital when actually he said back then he had no idea if Angela had run away or checked herself in for treatment or what.

Speaker 1 But this part was true, he said. Someone later called to tell him Angela was dead.
And he, Jeff, chose to have her cremated.

Speaker 6 I've got an urn, and they dropped the urn back by. And

Speaker 13 it was all done by phone. And

Speaker 13 now that I think about it, it was like...

Speaker 13 When was that?

Speaker 13 That was back in July.

Speaker 2 That was the first time he told me he had her ashes delivered in an urn.

Speaker 1 It had all been such a blur, said Jeff.

Speaker 3 Who called him to tell him Angela had died?

Speaker 1 He didn't say.

Speaker 1 Couldn't even tell Ellie exactly who dropped off the urn at the house.

Speaker 13 I didn't check it until just this past weekend, and I thought, should I open the urn, you know?

Speaker 6 So I finally did. I opened it up, and it's empty, so there were no ashes in it.

Speaker 1 Angela's ashes were not there.

Speaker 1 What was going on?

Speaker 6 That's like, oh my god, maybe she's alive.

Speaker 1 So what was true? What wasn't? Ellie demanded to know.

Speaker 13 I just want to know the truth. Like,

Speaker 13 as bad as it is, like,

Speaker 13 it stresses everybody out. So just tell me, just tell me as soon as possible.
Like, seriously.

Speaker 13 It's so not fair. So I don't want any fabrication of stories anymore.
Do you understand?

Speaker 13 Yes, I understand.

Speaker 13 Even if you're trying to to protect me, just tell me the truth. Yes, I will.

Speaker 13 I love you, Dodd.

Speaker 13 I love you, too.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 13 Love you. Bye-bye.
All right.

Speaker 3 How did you feel when you left the police station that day?

Speaker 11 Like a heavy heart for Ellie. So much frustration and confusion about

Speaker 11 what was happening now.

Speaker 1 Though this much was clear to Ellie. She was no longer alone in her confusion.
The circle of people who heard Jeff Green explain his wife's disappearance and came away bewildered was widening.

Speaker 1 And now the police had more questions of their own to put directly to Mr. Green

Speaker 1 and right away.

Speaker 3 That's got to be a very strange thing to stand there and watch as policemen

Speaker 3 are going through your house, digging in the backyard.

Speaker 2 My childhood home has crime scene tape all over it.

Speaker 1 The investigation heats up and Ellie prepares for a confrontation.

Speaker 5 We would make flowcharts, like write down a question and then say, if he says this, then you say this.

Speaker 3 So she had a whole script to go on when she talked to him.

Speaker 5 Yes.

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Speaker 1 Sometimes when you turn a corner, there's just no turning back.

Speaker 1 Ellie Green had talked to the police about her missing mother. She'd let them listen in on a phone call with her dad as he admitted he'd changed his stories.

Speaker 1 From saying Angela was dead, to saying she had disappeared to saying she might even be alive.

Speaker 1 Kind of make you think you want to talk to Jeffrey Green, right?

Speaker 4 That would be a very important part of it.

Speaker 3 So?

Speaker 3 Did you?

Speaker 4 We tried.

Speaker 4 He did not want to talk to us.

Speaker 1 I heard that when you arrived, he handed you the calling card of his attorney. Is that correct?

Speaker 4 He did.

Speaker 3 What does that say to you?

Speaker 4 To us, it's a choice that he made at the time. We're just wanting to know his side of the story.

Speaker 1 But if Jeff wasn't ready to talk, investigators had other leads to pursue, like Angela's death certificate, which they did. But...

Speaker 5 The police said that there is no record of her death in the entire country. They did a search in every single state, and there's no record of her death.

Speaker 1 Which meant what? That she was still alive?

Speaker 1 Sergeant Taylor went looking for any trace of where she might have gone.

Speaker 4 We have to figure out what's factual, what's real.

Speaker 1 Investigators checked local hospitals to see if Angela had admitted herself

Speaker 1 and checked travel records too to see if she'd left the United States. They even tried to pull traffic camera video.
It was a massive operation, but time wasn't on their side.

Speaker 5 I think it's so tough because from the time of her disappearance until the investigation was started, that there was eight months of time. So that's eight months of evidence being gone.

Speaker 1 Still, there was something investigators could do, and it came as a total surprise to Ellie and her dad.

Speaker 1 Just before dawn on a cold March morning, two forensic teams descended on the storage facility where Jeff kept his vintage cars

Speaker 1 and on the family home.

Speaker 11 They took her dad away that morning to the police station, so he wasn't there. They roped off the house and they had Ellie come.

Speaker 3 That's got to be a very strange thing to stand there and watch as policemen

Speaker 3 are going through your house, digging in the backyard.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my childhood home that has crime scene taped all over it.

Speaker 1 They brought cadaver dogs too.

Speaker 1 Why would you take cadaver dogs on a search?

Speaker 3 Why would you do that?

Speaker 4 You would want to use any and all resources available to you for any investigation related to a missing person to help gather evidence.

Speaker 1 But there was one source of information that remained untapped. Ellie's dad.
He still wasn't talking to investigators.

Speaker 1 Ellie and Michelle were frustrated. Jeff's story about Angela being away for the weekend seemed obviously false to them.

Speaker 5 The extent of her social interaction was just small talk with neighbors, like she would never go anywhere alone.

Speaker 1 As for her dad, Ellie just didn't believe he would have accepted her mother's death without asking more questions, let alone cremate her and buy an urn sight unseen. He told her it cost him $1,500.

Speaker 2 He's protective of his money.

Speaker 2 He wouldn't just give that amount of money to somebody he didn't know.

Speaker 1 The dad Ellie had always known was far too skeptical to do something like that.

Speaker 3 Well, Ellie was skeptical too, and she didn't believe anything her dad had told her.

Speaker 2 and so ellie knew she had to make a choice a very difficult one i could have just kept going with my life and not asked any more questions and

Speaker 2 accepted and moved on but that's not the person i am

Speaker 1 no

Speaker 1 and so she decided she was going to start her own investigation of her own father. If he wouldn't talk to police, maybe he'd talk to her.
And Ellie wanted to be ready.

Speaker 1 She and Michelle spent hours preparing questions.

Speaker 5 We would make flowcharts, like write down a question and then say, if he says this, then you say this.

Speaker 3 She had a whole script to go on when she talked to him.

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 1 The day after her visit to the police station, Ellie made the first of several phone calls to her dad.

Speaker 1 And she did more than talk with her dad. She recorded every word.

Speaker 9 I can't follow your story.

Speaker 7 Like, there's parts, there's parts missing.

Speaker 7 You're like, the death certificate is at home. The ashes are at home.
None of it's at home. You know that.
But you lied to me.

Speaker 6 I'm not lying to you.

Speaker 1 With Ellie finally learned the truth.

Speaker 5 Did you hurt, mom?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 1 Growing up, Ellie barely knew her older cousin, Michelle. Then came her mother's disappearance.
And overnight, Michelle became Ellie's ally, someone as determined as she was to find Angela Greene.

Speaker 5 Every night when I lay down, it's all I can think about is just trying to figure out what we still can do.

Speaker 1 Eight months after Angela's disappearance, the cousins had a plan. They were going to cross-examine Ellie's dad in a series of phone calls.

Speaker 2 I didn't want him to get anything by me anymore.

Speaker 1 She was at Zach's house when she made the first call.

Speaker 1 As she began, she was polite, but pointed.

Speaker 1 When exactly did her mom disappear? Their fight was on June 20th.

Speaker 9 So did she run away that night or did she run away like the next day?

Speaker 8 It was later. It was later than that because, I don't know, it was late at night.

Speaker 1 Had she taken anything with her?

Speaker 9 Do you know her purse? The black one that she has?

Speaker 8 No, I don't know what she took with her.

Speaker 1 In fact, Jeff didn't seem to know much.

Speaker 9 So somebody called you and said that she had died.

Speaker 9 Right.

Speaker 9 And you don't know who that was?

Speaker 8 No.

Speaker 8 It was quite a shock.

Speaker 1 Michelle poured over the transcript of the call and helped Ellie strategize new questions.

Speaker 3 What was all of this like, this process?

Speaker 5 It was so stressful.

Speaker 1 A few days later, Ellie called her dad back.

Speaker 9 If she's alive, how do you think she's affording to live?

Speaker 8 Well, the only way I can think of that she could is that she... My first thought is she has a friend.

Speaker 8 Other than that, I wouldn't think it

Speaker 8 worked out. And I don't think this is the first time that this has happened to her.

Speaker 6 So.

Speaker 1 That was news to Ellie.

Speaker 16 When was the first time?

Speaker 8 But that's a story for discussion to have sometime in the future.

Speaker 1 Michelle didn't buy it for a second.

Speaker 5 If you're maintaining that your wife is alive and had run away with a friend, tell us which friend. Tell us why she ran away.

Speaker 1 But what could possibly explain the empty urn? The mysterious phone call saying she was dead. As they talked, Ellie wondered if her dad thought that Angela might have faked her own death.

Speaker 8 I think not so much for fake her death as much as

Speaker 6 pulled a

Speaker 8 scam on me to

Speaker 8 make me feel bad, get back to me, whatever.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 8 Because she was unhappy with me, that's why.

Speaker 1 Ellie wasn't the only one with questions. Her dad had one, too.
And it was also pointed.

Speaker 8 So have you been talking to the police a lot?

Speaker 16 Not a lot, no.

Speaker 16 They've only questioned me a few times.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 They, uh

Speaker 8 in a situation like this, they look at the

Speaker 8 closest person as primary suspect.

Speaker 6 So

Speaker 8 I'm the closest person, so I'm the primary suspect.

Speaker 1 Primary suspect?

Speaker 1 That caught Ellie's attention.

Speaker 1 Anyway, after several phone calls with her dad, listening to what sounded to her like him dodging and deflecting, Ellie's patience ran out.

Speaker 2 He went from saying, she's alive to she's dead to she's alive to dead again. Like, I can't even come up with a flowchart to make it all work.

Speaker 1 So, Ellie's questioning was about to get tougher. She zeroed in on that phone call Jeff said he got at work, telling him his wife, her mother, was dead.

Speaker 16 You can't tell me anything about that call or who called you.

Speaker 8 Because

Speaker 8 I was

Speaker 8 very busy at that particular point in time, so I didn't worry about it because I knew that information would come different ways.

Speaker 1 But you

Speaker 7 excuse yourself from work. Like, whenever I call you, you excuse yourself from work.

Speaker 8 Well, it depends on what's going on. Most of the time, there's not a.

Speaker 7 But it's like, mom's dead. Why would you not excuse yourself from work?

Speaker 1 Ellie didn't even let her dad answer.

Speaker 7 You're like, the death certificate is at home. The ashes are at home.

Speaker 7 None of it's at home.

Speaker 7 You know that. But you lied to me.

Speaker 6 I'm not lying to you.

Speaker 10 I don't have a

Speaker 6 story that's completely.

Speaker 7 That's straight. You don't have a story that's stray.

Speaker 8 It's only because there's a

Speaker 8 precise line that you want and I can't give you a precise line. Because I don't know what that is yet.

Speaker 1 If logic wasn't going to get through to her dad, Ellie decided to try a new tactic. She begged.

Speaker 16 I'm telling you you that I need your help emotionally and also to find her. If you want to talk to me, then go and talk to the police or hire PI.

Speaker 16 Instead, you've hired a criminal defense lawyer to save your ass.

Speaker 6 She'd left. She'd left.

Speaker 10 So I don't feel that I need to go chase her.

Speaker 16 I've respected a liar.

Speaker 10 Peldrick Ford, I'll tell you again, I'm not lying.

Speaker 16 Will you go into the police station tomorrow with me?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 16 With your attorney?

Speaker 10 No.

Speaker 10 No, I'm not going to get into.

Speaker 16 You're not going to get into finding her.

Speaker 10 You're doing a cross-examination like you have been on just about every phone call.

Speaker 10 Taking things and turning them around and twisting them.

Speaker 1 I don't turn anything around.

Speaker 10 I told you I don't like that.

Speaker 1 We repeatedly asked Jeff Green and his lawyer to comment, and they declined to do so.

Speaker 1 But since that first recorded phone call with Ellie in the police station, Jeff Green has insisted he does not know where Angela is and had nothing to do with her disappearance and did not harm her.

Speaker 13 Did you hurt mom?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 1 Two members of Jeff's family told us they've never seen him commit a violent act. And after chasing down hundreds of leads, the police still can't say whether a crime has been committed or not.

Speaker 4 We can't jump to conclusions. We have to see what the facts are in front of us.

Speaker 1 And a year after Angela vanished, it sounded like investigators had run out of facts to consider.

Speaker 2 They told me the case was cold, they had exhausted all their leads, and they would go back and revisit the case every month.

Speaker 3 What was it like to hear that?

Speaker 2 Frustrating.

Speaker 1 Ellie was just as frustrated with her dad. They barely talked anymore.

Speaker 2 Right now,

Speaker 2 there's no chance of a relationship between us.

Speaker 1 So Ellie felt like she had nothing to lose. In July 2020, she decided to do something bold.
She went public. Instagram, interviews like this one.
Public appeals for leads.

Speaker 1 Michelle, right there with her.

Speaker 5 We're not going to stay quiet. We're not going to keep this a secret.
We are going to make sure that as many people know about it as possible.

Speaker 1 So you become pretty close, you two.

Speaker 5 Yeah. She asked me for advice.

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 asked her for advice and we're just we're super super close now.

Speaker 1 But perhaps the biggest change is something about her. Her whole life she'd been a creature of her mother, bookish, dutiful, obedient.
She's not that person anymore. She has her own voice now.

Speaker 2 When the trees tremble and the wind roars across the valley, look around.

Speaker 1 She's started writing poetry.

Speaker 2 For in all the uncertainty, there is one sound. Hope whispers louder than the wind.

Speaker 1 Hope is hard,

Speaker 1 but she will not let it go.

Speaker 2 There's a part of me that hopes she's out there somewhere.

Speaker 3 Do you really think that's possible?

Speaker 2 I think that's just a slim possibility.

Speaker 3 But you want to hang on to something.

Speaker 6 I hope you're not. I do.
Yeah. Yeah, I do.

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