character. she didn t show up on either day. the evidence whisperer wasn t present at either of those interviews, but watching them helped him solve the mystery of what happened to a vivacious young woman and bring answers to the mother who loved her. i was always proud of her. she was a real fighter. lynsie eckland arrived on july 27th, 1980. she was the youngest of three. maybe that fighting spirit isn t visible in her photos, but her mother nancy said it was always there. lynsie had a passion for animals. she helped out in her spare times at the local shelter. kim davidson who worked at lynsie s middle school remembers that she had a sense of compassion. i was freezing cold and i didn t bring a jacket that day. i felt these little hands up on my shoulder and a sweater come up around me and i turned. andy: she said, i just can t stand watching you shiver. lynsie gave back in other
ways. she would lie about her age to give blood. her left lung was paralyzed. left leg impaired. did she ever talk about how she was impaired? she had brought it up to me. she said she was in a car accident and thrown when she was a little girl but very, very just like matter of fact. but growing up lynsie needed so much care, her mother was with lynsie like a shadow. she was my only purpose in my life is to make her as normal as she could be. by the time kim met lynsie, lynsie s dad and brothers had moved away. kim remembers a very tight family unit of just two. how close were lynsie and natalie? unbelievably. when she reached adolescence,
lynsie ekelund. and neither was nancy, who remained convinced her daughter would one day just come home. you thought that one day, she would walk back through the door. yes. reporter: she believed it, because she wanted to and because over the years several people had told her they d seen lynsie. they never saw the front of her face. they always saw the back of her. and i held onto every word they said. reporter: her friend kim remembers how hard it was on nancy thinking lynsie had just left her. reporter: it was torture for nancy, no matter what version of events you believed, and police still weren t telling her anything. nancy, during all this time, feels like she s been sort of cut out of the loop. yes. reporter: like you re not telling her anything. maybe you re not actually working on it. right. reporter: whatever you are doing, you re certainly not sharing it with her. nancy was pretty angry. we worked this case diligently for a long time. at some point, you
we did look at lynsie s mother. you have to. so i made my cookies and all this kind of silly stuff that i always do. reporter: make some coffee, right, yeah. yeah. reporter: the cops weren t coming for coffee. they arrived with a search warrant, shovels, and cadaver dogs. i was shocked that they even suspected me. i didn t know what even a search warrant was. reporter: the house nancy and lynsie had once shared was torn apart. how much of a suspect was nancy? i don t know that nancy was on the radar for a long time. she was on the radar long enough to be able to set her aside. reporter: after that search, they did just that. they believed this anguished mother had nothing to do with the disappearance of her daughter. so they took nancy off the list. they also took off the boyfriend, matthew. he had an alibi that held up, putting him somewhere else at the time lynsie went missing. so that left just two. i haven t seen her since that day. reporter: marty, whom polic
lynsie struggled with her own disabilities. her left arm was paralyzed, her left leg impaired. did she ever talk about how she became disabled? she had brought it up to me and said that she was in a car accident and that she was thrown. and when she was a little girl, but very, very just like matter of fact. just didn t not poor me or not feel sorry for me or anything like that. reporter: but growing up, lynsie needed so much care. her mother nancy was with lynsie like her shadow. somebody had to be with her 24 hours a day. reporter: and that was you. it was her and i alone. she was my only she was my purpose in my life, was to make her as normal as she could be. reporter: by the time kim met lynsie, lynsie s dad and brothers had moved away. kim remembers a very tight family unit of just two. reporter: how close were lynsie and nancy? unbelievably, extremely. extremely. reporter: but as lynsie reached adolescence that started changing. like a lot of teens, she w