The tawny complexions of both Doug and Michelle were plucked from their shared paternal genes. Doug was his father’s namesake and a dead ringer. He’d also inherited his father’s particular talent; he could draw and paint. When Doug Sr. and Anita met, he was an artist, a painter primarily of seascapes, portraits and wildlife. In the summer, when the kids were younger, the whole family would travel to art shows with him, sometimes for a month at a time.
Doug Sr. was thirty-nine and Anita twenty-one when they married. A petite and pretty brunette, Anita was a third-generation East Tennessean. Black-eyed, swarthy Doug Sr. had been born in New York and raised primarily in Miami. They’d met in Gatlinburg, the glitzy, neon-lit, tourist town cradled in the Smokies, twenty-five minutes outside Knoxville. Then they’d lived in Atlanta and Columbus, Ohio, before moving the family back to Anita’s hometown, not long before they called it quits. Doug Sr. could be hard, spewing heat like the stack of a steam engine.
After the split, he’d settled back in Miami for good. The kids talked to him regularly on the phone, and Doug Jr. spent some months in Miami with his father when he was just turning eighteen, but Doug Sr. didn’t return to Knoxville. He and Michelle, his dark-haired princess, communicated only by phone. She never visited him in Florida. When Anita finally informed him that Michelle was missing, he felt as desperate and devastated as the rest of the family. He railed at the torturous mystery of it all: the unasked and unanswered questions, the awful imaginings.
Michelle was still missing in April when Doug Sr. finally paid a visit to Knoxville. By then he’d backed off on blaming Anita and had begun to blame himself. “I’m going to get some answers,” he assured his ex-wife, hands pushed deep into his hip pockets, grim worry upon his face. Doug Sr. questioned the kids who’d been with Michelle the night she disappeared. He also met with Detective McNair at the KPD. After completing these interviews, he went home to his son and ex-wife and said, “I want to talk with this Larry Lee Smith.”
Knoxville south of the river seems like a different city altogether, with its hilly, winding roads. On the third day of Doug Sr.’s visit, he, Anita and Doug Jr. drove across the Gay Street Bridge and wound their way the few blocks east to narrow Fern Avenue, where Larry Lee’s mother lived. The Smith residence, a small, two-tone-green, one-story rectangular box built on a basement, was tucked into a narrow, sloping lot in a neighborhood dotted with similar homes on similar lots. On its front side, only the main floor and small basement windows faced the street.
Doug Sr. pulled up near the compact house to have a look. When Doug Jr. stepped out of the car to see if he could recognize the truck in the driveway, he was startled by a man who appeared suddenly from behind, wielding a wrench above his head and ordering them to leave. This man, tall and broad, with tan skin and black hair, was Larry Lee’s older brother, Brad, who lived next door to their mother. Doug Sr. explained who he was and said that he wanted to talk with Larry Lee.
Brad remained tense but slowly lowered the wrench. “My mother would probably like to talk to you,” he replied. Doug Sr. negotiated a time for the meeting. Brad told him to return at eleven o’clock the next morning, and said he’d make sure Ruby and Larry Lee were there.
But after they got back to Anita’s, Larry Lee called the Anderson house with the stipulation that Doug Sr. come alone. Anita was too emotional, Larry Lee said, although Anita denied that she’d ever been “emotional” with him. In Larry Lee’s apartment the day after Michelle disappeared, listening to him tell his version of what had transpired the night before, Anita had been too overwhelmed and confused to know what to think and what to do. She hadn’t so much as raised her voice.
Doug Sr. accused Larry Lee of doing something to Michelle, to which Ruby got on the phone and sarcastically replied: “They haven’t found a body, have they?” Larry Lee wasn’t done, however. He seemed nervous, frightened of Michelle’s angry father. He blurted out that Michelle had actually run away because she was pregnant by Anita’s friend, Len. Larry Lee hadn’t told this to the police (if he had, Detective McNair never mentioned it), nor Anita, nor anyone else, for that matter.
After the heated exchange, Anita encouraged Doug Sr. to go ahead and meet with Larry Lee and Ruby, but he was angry, upset, afraid he might become violent. The meeting never took place.
At the end of the week, Doug Sr. departed from Knoxville even sadder than when he’d arrived. He thought that he’d be able to get to the bottom of things, to find answers that his mild-mannered, ex-wife had not. But he’d hit the same roadblocks Anita had. None of the kids had any answers. Of course, all of them thought it was highly unlikely that Michelle had run away, but the KPD was still pursuing the case as if she had. Doug Sr. was also beginning to realize that he might never see his beautiful daughter again.
As shocking and dubious as Larry Lee’s allegation about Len was, and as unlikely as it was to be true, Anita was going to follow up on it. It could not go unanswered. She’d been so shocked by Larry Lee’s claim that she tried to question him further, but he wasn’t talking. Anita wrote him a letter inquiring about his accusation. He refused to answer, redirecting her to speak with his attorney.
This was the first Anita heard of Larry Lee having an attorney. She later learned that Larry Lee got an attorney through Ruby’s connections; she worked as a housekeeper for a prominent political family in Knoxville. A few calls and arrangements could be made, a Smith family member later explained, and sometimes they were.
Anita questioned Len. He denied Larry Lee’s claim. Could Michelle have actually said such a thing to Larry Lee? Anita wondered. No friends of Michelle placed any stock in what seemed like nonsense to them. It was just one more ridiculous distraction from the seemingly unobtainable truth.
But in her efforts to follow up, Anita was able to talk with a lawyer who had previously represented members of Larry Lee’s family. The attorney was surprisingly candid. The family of Ruby Smith, he confided to Anita, could put on nice clothes and speak the language of Southern manners, sort of, but they were some rough folk. And it was from this attorney that Anita learned the most shocking information of all: “Larry Lee Smith,” he said, “served time in a Florida prison for the kidnapping and rape of a young teenage girl there, in 1981 or ’82.”
Another crime? Larry Lee Smith had served time for rape? That was not what Anita had been told by Detective McNair. What if he didn’t know? Anita called him with the news. McNair said he would check into it, get those records. But even with the passing on of this new information, nothing changed in the case. No one at the KPD sent for any records from Florida or followed up on this lead.
Five months had passed since Michelle’s disappearance. Gradually, the search crowd thinned. Sightings continued to trickle in, however, and Anita held tenaciously onto hope. She would follow every false lead, every false sighting, every morsel of hope until the possibility of hope was gone, without a doubt. Anita’s guilt, her remorse, began competing fiercely with her fear, her grief, her deep and growing despair. A racing stream of thoughts brought on a tightness in her chest like a fist pressing on her heart and lungs, smothering her. I am to blame. If only I’d been here, she wouldn’t have been able to leave. If only…
In June, while on the way home from the family’s Smoky Mountain cabin in Townsend, Tennessee, Anita’s mother, Marie, stopped at an antique store in Sevierville and met a man named Vance who ran a small ministry that helped locate missing children and runaway teenagers. This prompted her to share the tragic story of her missing granddaughter.
Vance could help out, he said; he wouldn’t charge a thing.
“I’ll talk to my daughter.” Marie said. “Can you write down your phone number?”
5. THE INTERVIEWS
It was a hot and humid June afternoon, six months since Michelle had gone missing. Vance and his two person crew set up the folding lawn chairs and camera tripod under the white, wood-paneled carport of Anita’s red brick, Tacoma Trail home—just off the kitchen. The
quiet street and large lawn provided some privacy for the interviewing. Occasionally a lawn mower could be heard rattling and roaring nearby.
Anita’s gracious mother, Marie, her silver hair styled in a short bob, sat next to the kitchen door within easy reach of refreshments for the group. A plate of chocolate chip cookies rested on a table nearby.
Gathered for this interview were Michelle’s best girl friend, Marci; Michelle’s best guy friend, Todd; his younger sister, Ashley; and Doug and a few of his friends. Chas did not show. No one from the KPD had interviewed any of these kids, and it remained doubtful that they ever would—at least not while Michelle was still missing.
Vance’s agenda was to complete an exhaustive profile of the missing teen, Michelle, the runaway—to document any known associations and patterns of behavior. He claimed it would assist in tracking and finding her. The motivation for videotaping the interviews wasn’t completely clear to Anita, but perhaps it was easier than taking notes; she wasn’t going to challenge a helping hand.
The interviews began with Anita, smoke swirling and wafting upward in hazy columns from the cigarette held between the first two fingers of her right hand, her left hand occasionally shooing the dancing vapors away. In her mellow manner, she answered questions and provided yet another account of the night Michelle vanished, and the days, weeks and months that followed—an exhausting list of false leads and fruitless chases. In between cigarettes, Anita sipped coffee and nibbled cookies. She read the “satanic” note that had been pinned to her front door the day after Larry Lee’s truck was reported vandalized.
Anita described what Michelle looked like, who she hung out with, how she dressed, and so on. Michelle always wore a certain necklace, Anita said, never took it off. It was a 14 karat gold crab pendant, the zodiac sign for Cancer, a gift sent by her dad.
The next interview was Ashley, younger sister of Michelle’s friend Todd. Ashley had a freckled, pixie-face and frizzy-curly, red-blonde hair. She wasn’t a best friend of Michelle, she explained; they just partied together. Yet Ashley had information.
Ashley insisted that she’d received a call from Michelle at five-thirty the Saturday evening following the night Michelle had disappeared. When Ashley answered the phone, the female caller identified herself as “Michelle” and asked to speak to Todd. He was in the shower, Ashley told her, and Michelle said she would call back. She never did.
“You ready to give up all that red hair to stick by that story?” Vance teased.
“I know it was her. I know her voice and she said it was her,” Ashley argued, a small furrow in her brow. Vance encouraged her to add any final thoughts she might have, anything she thought was important.
“I’d like to think Michelle is alive,” she said, “but sometimes I think she’s dead, ’cause ain’t nobody found her.” She paused, as if thinking this last line over. “Which also makes me hopeful. They haven’t found a body.”
When Ashley’s handsome brother, Todd, sat before the camera, his blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, he confirmed that he and Michelle were good friends. In fact, it was Todd’s opinion that he and Michelle were best friends. He’d been at Michelle’s house earlier in the evening of the night she vanished; his girlfriend had wanted to visit. He said he believed his sister about that Saturday evening call from Michelle, but when questioned on specific details, his recollection was different from his sister’s. The times were off by hours, and he wasn’t in the shower in his account; he wasn’t even in the house.
“Do you think she was pregnant?” Vance asked, making reference to the allegation made by Larry Lee. Anita had told Vance about Larry Lee’s accusation, and although no one was giving any credence to this story, Vance had brought it up a number of times.
“To my knowledge,” Todd replied thoughtfully, “Michelle never did anything with anyone.” Then he added, grinning slyly, “I mean, I kissed her once or twice.”
“Todd, have you heard from Michelle?”
“No.”
“You’ve never seen her?”
“Not since the night of the party.”
“Do you think it was the drinking?”
“Could’ve been.”
“Do you know who Jesus is?”
Todd nodded in the affirmative.
“Do you think she’s in Knoxville?”
Todd threw his head back, then drew a deep breath and exhaled. “I don’t know what to think about this whole situation.”
Next up was seventeen-year-old Marci. Although Marci was two years older than Michelle, the best friends had a number of things in common: both girls were exceedingly cute with personalities described by most as sweet; both had blown off school, hooking classes together, but had been working to reverse that pattern (Michelle had brought her grades up and had been commended by the principal); both had troubles with their dads and rebelled against their moms; and both could hold their liquor. Marci would admit this last detail to Vance. But despite their sometimes wild and devious ways, Marci and Michelle came across to others as innocent and demure. It was part of their contradiction, part of their mischievous teenage charm.
On camera, Marci appeared as a fresh-scrubbed beauty in her blue tank top, with deep-set eyes and wide cheekbones. As she stared into the lens, Marci spoke with an air of quiet maturity in a velvety soft drawl. Her sandy-brown, wavy hair was parted and pulled back.
“My name’s Marci,” she began, a mildly sad look on her face, “and I was Michelle’s best friend.”
“You still are, aren’t you?” Vance said.
“I still am. Wish she was here.” Marci slid into a nervous grin.
“You want to wave to her in case she sees this?”
“Hi,” said Marci, waving awkwardly to the camera.
During the interview Marci provided yet another accounting of the evening Michelle went missing—how Michelle said she’d be right back when she left with the group; how she had called back to the house twice that night saying she was on her way, but never returned. Vance asked about Michelle’s menstrual periods and about Len, referring again to Larry Lee’s allegation that Michelle had run away because she was pregnant.
Marci didn’t give any credence to that rumor, she said emphatically. In fact, as far as Marci knew, Michelle was still a virgin. Marci admitted that she and Michelle partied frequently, but that night made her rethink a lot of things. Since Michelle’s disappearance, Marci had stopped drinking altogether.
And Marci also didn’t believe Larry Lee’s account of that night. Michelle wasn’t dropped off at the corner of Cherry and Jefferson, near Chas’s house, as he’d claimed. She believed that the fate of Michelle rested in the hands of Larry Lee, and all the false leads, which had come to nothing, wouldn’t change that. “I’d like to think she’s out there somewhere, but I don’t think Michelle ran away.”
The next day, Chas sat before the camera. Doug and his friends had rounded him up that morning and brought him over. Chas’s large, dark eyes, stared into the lens. His long, rock-star-like curly hair was tucked under a gray and burgundy baseball cap worn with a matching gray T-shirt.
“Tell us who you are,” Vance said.
“I’m Chas. I was Michelle’s boyfriend when she turned up missing,” he answered in a flat voice, followed by a nervous smile exposing a mouth of crowded teeth. Chas believed that the man interviewing him was a police detective. He unconsciously ran the fingertips of his right hand across his upper lip. “What do you want me to say now? What happened that night?”
Chas appeared somewhat ill-at-ease, frequently averting his eyes from Vance when answering an open-ended question, one that required more than a yes-or-no answer. At Vance’s prompting, Chas explained how he’d met Michelle and how long he’d known her.
“Were you good friends?” Vance asked.
“Yes, we were,” Chas confirmed, eyes focused directly on Vance.
“How would you describe Michelle?”
His eyes shifted to the left. He stroked th
e beginnings of barely visible chin hairs. “She was a really nice person, outgoing. She liked to party a lot. She was fun to be with. Other than that, I don’t know what to say.” His focus shifted back to Vance.
With prompting, Chas went on to describe the party at Michelle’s house and the continued partying at Becka’s friend’s place afterward. He recounted how he, Michelle and Becka then left with Larry Lee in his truck, going with him to his apartment.
“Larry Lee was trying to make passes at Becka,” Chas explained, eyes flitting, fingers stroking his chin. “To make advances—get somewhere with her. But after a little while, Becka wanted to go home. She was asking him to take her home, and he finally agreed to. That was about two o’clock or two-thirty in the morning.” He and Michelle had ridden along, but returned to Larry Lee’s apartment because he said he had champagne to finish.
“Was Michelle sleeping then?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Was there any point that you and Michelle got into an argument?”
“Yes, there was. That was toward the end. She’d fallen asleep, passed out, whatever you want to call it, and Larry Lee carried her up the stairs. He thought we were going to do something, so…” He paused and turned his head and his eyes toward the side yard again.
Instead of waiting for a response, Vance jumped in: “What do you mean? Go somewhere? Party?”
“Umm…” Chas hesitated.
“Hit the sack!?” Vance added, in a tone that seemed inappropriately jovial.
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