what did that say to you? a great deal of rage by someone. he looked like your average high school student. tall, clean cut, polite. a teenager with two sides. he would yell at her. he would be pushing her around. a puzzle seemingly solved, then blown apart. we recorded the conversation and it was dynamite. micaela was on the ground and she wasn t really moving. to unravel the mystery, investigators would follow a trail through high school hallways, teaming with secrets and schemes. the hatred grew more and more and more. bad idea that became a horrible idea. bad idea that went very, very bad. they call him wendover will. he waves at you from miles. the big neon cowboy. wendover will is what he s called. and his job has been to tampa travelers off of interstate 80 near the utah-nevada border. pull them off the road to this tiny casino commerce. and most evenly a little lighter on the wallet. knowing precious little about the stories wendover like to te
and she s not home. and i said, come down. she says, you re probably just missing her. christina tried calling mickey, too. no answer. and i m thinking, maybe for the first time in her life she s being a normal teenager. was mickey the youngest of cecilia s three girls. she was a star student, an athlete. mature beyond her years. she liked write poetry, short stories. and she was pretty. and a very popular. she was the one out of all three of us girls that was just going down the path you would want any child to go down. she was doing it the right way. stereotypically. right, talented, good-looking. a trifecta. yes, she had it all. one of those special kids, said cecilia. born happy. she was always positive. she just had a different approach to life.
that i was on the night before and i just thank. only one thing that could mean. so, she rushed for, picked up her mother, went to see the police chief. and he said, we have found a body. so, we called off the search and i guess, i would ve hope, i said well, can you see her? and he said, no. i said, well you don t know it s her. and he says, you re right, christina. she s the only one missing, so we re pretty sure it s her. but they couldn t know for sure, said the chief. until the forensics team arrived the next morning. and i said, you are going to leave her out here again all night? and he said, yes we have to. and i remember seeing, and i m not leaving. and he told us we had to. and he said, i ll have somebody out here at all the time. and i said, it shouldn t be strangers. it shouldn t be left with strangers.
that girl would check in with me all the time. so, we have a routine. i m changing. i m going to be heading out. and heading out the back. and heading home. i m home. always kept in touch? always. to a fault. as the sun began to set, cecilia was still working at one of the local casinos, expecting mickey s usual check-in call. she did not call me to tell me track practice was over and she was getting ready. she didn t call me to tell me she was walking home. so, i started calling her phone. and it rang and rang and rang, the first time. and then i called it right back, because that was unusual. and it was like you hit the ignore button. this is so not her. now cecilia called christina 400 miles away in las vegas, to see if she had heard from mickey. and i said, mom, she s probably at practice. she says, no, practice ended
of wendover will. it was a thursday afternoon. a windy, late winter day in the high desert. here at the local high school, star runner micaela costanzo cleaned up after truck practice. mickey as everybody called her, intended to walk home. not far, about a mile. her usual ride, her sister christina, was out of town. before we had left, me and or my husband would always pick up micaela from school. so, we were like, are you sure you re going to have a way home? this is something you do every day? this is something i do every day. it was the first time i left her. with mickey 16. a junior. clockwork reliable. said her mother cecilia. it s micaela not your typical teenager.