The girls’ disappearances were as strikingly similar as they were terrifying.
One morning in January 2002,12-year-old Ashley Ponddashed out of her home in Oregon City, Oregon, and vanished on her way to the school bus stop.
About two months later,Miranda Gaddis, Pond’s friend and neighbor in their 125-unit apartment complex, left for the same bus stop one morning and never arrived.
In both cases, nobody in the complex heard any shouts, detected any signs of struggle or noticed anything amiss. The mystery of how the girls vanished shook the entire Portland metro area and is the focus of tonight’s episode ofPeople Magazine Investigates, entitled “Fallen Angels,” airing at 10 p.m. ET onInvestigation Discovery, an exclusive clip of which is shown above.
In the clip, FBI Special Agent in Charge Charles Matthews says that in both cases, there was “no crime scene. No scattered books on the ground. … [Miranda] walked out the door — just as Ashley did — and disappeared.”
The girls were on the same dance team at school and hung out at each other’s homes. When Ashley vanished, Miranda posted flyers around town and helped stage a dance team benefit to raise money for the search.
PEOPLE cover, June 3, 2002.
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But when Miranda went missing, nobody speculated she’d run away, and fear gripped the community.
“Everyone is scared,” Miranda’s best friend Brock Ketterling told PEOPLE at the time. “It feels like it’s pitch black and dark and sad.”
People Magazine Investigates: Fallen Angelsairs tonight (10 p.m. ET) on Investigation Discovery.
source: people.com
