EPISODE 511: Kaila Vincent Vatole

On the afternoon of January 8, 2023, deputies from the Jersey County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to a trespassing call in Dow, Illinois. A landowner reported seeing two men riding across his fields: one on a four-wheeler and the other driving a blue Buick. When deputies caught up with one of the men, he explained that he was searching for his girlfriend, 39-year-old Kaila Vincent Vatole, who had left their residence earlier that day. He said he didn’t know which direction she had gone, but he was worried about her and told deputies she might be suicidal.

Given the seriousness of the situation, a search for Kaila began immediately. Deputies arrived on scene shortly after 2 p.m., and, with daylight already fading in the winter months, a helicopter was requested to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. Several other agencies were called in to assist with the search efforts. Deputies went door to door, asking neighbors if anyone had seen Kaila, but no one had. It was as if she had simply vanished without a trace. The sheriff then contacted the Illinois State Police to request an aircraft equipped with heat-sensing technology, hoping it could locate Kaila. The pilot identified several heat signatures, but each proved to be an empty well or a culvert.

They began pinging Kaila’s phone. A deputy also attempted to call her several times, and that's when it was heard ringing inside the house under a pile of clothing. At that point, investigators realized Kaila had left without her phone, eliminating what might have been their strongest digital trail. In the days that followed, deputies returned to the area to search, but no trace of Kaila was found. More than three years later, what happened to Kaila Vincent Vatole remains unknown.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Kaila Vincent Vatole, please contact the Jersey County Sheriff’s Office at 618-498-6881.

EPISODE 510: Troy Galloway Part 3 - A Decade of Searching

In Part 1 of this series, we explored Troy Galloway’s life and the events surrounding his January 13, 2016, disappearance from Sonora, California. We walked through the confusion of those early days, eyewitness accounts of a disturbance near Crystal Falls Lake, and the later phone data that appeared to place Troy’s phone in that same area. Those elements combined to form the backbone of the investigation and ultimately led to the extensive search of the lake, an effort that, despite its scale, uncovered no trace of Troy.

In Part 2, we shifted our focus to Troy’s relationships and the people who knew him best after his move to Sonora. We heard from the Brainstormers, the friends and loved ones who traveled to Sonora themselves, spoke with neighbors, and worked to piece together what Troy’s life looked like in the months before he vanished.

This week, in Part 3, we are going to take a deeper look at the other lines of investigation that have been pursued over the past decade, where the case stands today, and the impact that ten years of searching without answers has had on everyone who loves Troy.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Troy Galloway, please contact the Tuolumne Sheriff's Office at (209) 533-5855.

EPISODE 509: Troy Galloway Part 2 - The Brainstormers

Last week, we walked through the timeline of Troy Galloway’s disappearance and the events that unfolded in the days leading up to January 13, 2016. We learned how, after years of building a life and a steady support network in Santa Cruz, California, Troy moved to Sonora with his wife, placing hours of distance between himself and the people who had always been his safety net. Troy was a devoted father to his young son, but the distance made it difficult to maintain that same level of involvement in his life after the move.

On January 15, 2016, Troy’s mother, Nancy, received a message from his wife telling her that Troy had disappeared two days earlier. Nancy was confused and alarmed by what she was hearing. His wife said Troy had run out of the house, underdressed for the cold, and never returned. After that exchange, Troy was finally reported missing, but a miscommunication between local agencies delayed getting the case to the appropriate investigators and beginning the search for Troy.

Over time, pieces of information slowly came together. Neighbors recalled hearing a disturbance at Crystal Falls Lake on the night Troy vanished. Years later, advances in technology enabled investigators to interpret Troy’s phone data with greater clarity, suggesting that his phone had been near the lake around the time he disappeared. For a long time, this became the guiding theory: that Troy had somehow ended up in the water.

That idea guided the investigation, culminating in an extensive, highly coordinated search effort. Crystal Falls Lake was drained, scanned, and combed through by forensic specialists, dogs, and sonar teams. But when the search turned up no trace of Troy or his belongings, the explanation that had once seemed most likely suddenly stood on shaky ground. If Troy wasn’t in the lake, then the story everyone had been leaning on for years no longer fit, and the investigation was forced back to its earliest questions.

This week, we’re going to dig deeper into what Troy’s loved ones learned about his time in Sonora, what they began to uncover about the dynamics within his marriage, and the questions that still haunt Troy’s family as they enter the tenth year of searching for answers.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Troy Galloway, please contact the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office at (209) 533-5855.