All They Found Was Her Abandoned Van...

Hello everyone, Nigel and Luke here and welcome to the Crime Zone. On December 26, 1996, a man was driving on the highway in the southern part of Bear County, Texas, just outside the city of San Antonio, when he noticed something strange. He had just finished lunch and was. returning to work at his electrical contracting company when he saw a blue-gray minivan on the side of the road, the vehicle appeared to have a flat tire, but the driver was nowhere to be

found

after stopping to investigate, he noticed the man he recognized The

abandoned

minivan belonged to one of her employees, a 32-year-old receptionist named Patty Vaughn, realizing this for a moment, things seemed to make sense.

Patty had not arrived at work at the usual time that morning and her coworkers had told me. I've been wondering where it was, that being said, it was the day after Christmas and things weren't exactly on their usual schedule in any case, as the office was just two miles down the road. Patty's boss assumed that she had had car trouble and simply decided to try walking the rest of the way, however, when the boss returned to work, he soon learned that Patty was not there, in fact, no one had seen her since. The day before, it turned out that what the man had stumbled upon was one of the only major clues in what would quickly become a terrifying and frustrating missing persons case.

This is the story of Patty Vaughn, the woman who disappeared without a trace on Christmas Day. From the outside looking in, it looked like Patty and J.R. Vaughn were the perfect couple who met at a local San Antonio burger joint where Patty worked as a waitress and

they

soon hit it off. They married a couple of years later, in 1985, and had three children. Patty was a devout Christian and a talented singer who had been in love with music since she was very young. J.R owned a construction business and was able to provide a good life for his family.

The couple moved to several states at first, but eventually settled in the small town of Lavernia, Texas. near where

they

first met there they settled into a comfortable routine. Jr continued working in his construction business while Patty was a housewife. In addition to taking care of the children, he became very involved with his business. United Methodist Church, where she joined the choir and also performed regularly with the Christian folk band she had started called Prism; However, despite the image that Patty and Jr maintained after a while, their relationship had problems, it is not clear exactly what the problems were between them. but he said that Paddy in particular was not happy.

Some sources we encountered in our research claim that much of the tension in the marriage was due to Jr.'s controlling behavior. They further allege that Paddy was prohibited from working outside the home and that Jr. often made comments insulting and degrading statements towards her, although Patty absolutely loved her children and was willing to do anything for them, in the fall of 1996 she realized that the problems in her marriage were too great to simply continue, it seemed that Jr. agreed. agreement and so, after 11 and after a year and a half they made the decision to carry out a trial separation as part of this agreement.

Jr. moved out of the family home and into an apartment in San Antonio. Meanwhile, Patty stayed with the children in Lavernia and for the first time in years she rejoined the family. workforce Landing a job at a company called Quinney Electric, although the separation was not something to celebrate as far as Patty was concerned, shortly after it began in October of that year, those close to her felt an immediate change for the first time. For once in what felt like an eternity the 32-year-old mother seemed happy and excited about life in the run-up to Christmas. Patty revealed to one of her sisters that there had been another exciting event in her life: she had reconnected with an old boyfriend named Gary Patty.

She first met Gary in 1982, when she was 18 and still living with her family. The two had fallen very hard for each other and had been in a serious relationship for several months, but things ended abruptly after an ex-girlfriend approached Gary and told him that she was pregnant out of a feeling of obligation to her. ex and his son. Gary had broken up with Patty. She had always been devastated by the end of the relationship, but now it seemed like they might have a second chance soon after the split. from Jr. Patty

found

out that Gary had recently gotten divorced;

Meanwhile, it seemed that things were still amicable between Paddy and Jr. On Christmas Eve they attended church as a family, where Patty performed as part of the annual Christmas celebration, when she finished the service, they parted ways. once again, but they had plans to meet the next day, they decided that, for the sake of normality and tradition, it would be best if Jr still came to the family home to do the usual Christmas morning routine with the children with Patty and the kids. Heading to her Aunt Jean's house for a Christmas Eve gathering while Patty was excited to reunite with her family for the usual holiday reasons for her, the night was also tinged with a different kind of nervous anticipation and, for the first time, formally.

Introduced to Gary as her new boyfriend, initially nervous about how the relationship would be received, Patty found that her family was incredibly supportive, they were just happy to see that for the first time in a long time she seemed genuinely happy when it all ended around the midnight. In the usual flurry of hugs and goodbyes everyone said they would see each other soon, unfortunately for Patty this couldn't have been further from the truth, as mentioned earlier on Christmas morning Patty and Jr had arranged for him came to the house. and spending time with her and the children after unwrapping gifts and participating in her usual Christmas routines.

The plan was to invite some of Jr's family over to the house in the afternoon. After that, Jr would go his own way while Patty dropped the kids off. at her Aunt Jean's house for the night, if all went well she would spend some time with Gary. The two had tentatively planned to watch a movie together while Gene and Patty's cousins, Kathy and Barb, watched the kids. However, as the afternoon turned into night, that Christmas Day there was no sign of Patty at her aunt's house, not only that, but she never called to cancel. This was a little worrying, but Gene Kathy and Barb told themselves that maybe things had gotten a little delayed with Jr's side of the family.

It wasn't until the next night that all that would change when Kathy got a call frighteningly, he said that no one had seen or heard from Patty in almost 24 hours. Jr explained to him that the day before he had come with the family. house in Lavernia as planned, but that at some point Patty had become angry with him, he claimed that she stormed out of the house in the middle of an argument and had left almost immediately afterwards, he said that at first he was not worried because he assumed that Patty was with her new boyfriend, that's when Jr dropped another bomb later that day, around 1:30 p.m. m.

Patty's blue-gray 1991 Dodge Caravan had been found on the side of Loop 1604, the outer highway that surrounds the city of San Antonio, the truck was discovered. by Patty's boss on her route to work about 15 miles from the family home and about two miles from her office, the vehicle appeared to have a flat tire, but there was no sign of Patty anywhere on the keys in the purse she had taken with him when Jr said that he had taken an extra set of vehicle keys to the place where he had left the truck and had given them to Patty's boss, who had transferred it to his office so that it could be properly investigated as soon as Kathy got off the phone with JR, telling Barb and Jean what was going on before immediately calling Gary much to their horror, he seemed just as shocked and worried as they were, he said he hadn't seen Patty all Christmas day she She had never called him the last time they had been together it was Christmas Eve, the same time the rest of Patty's family had also seen her now extremely worried Kathy Barb and Jean contacted the Bear County Sheriff's Office to report the Paddy's disappearance.

To their frustration, they were told it was too early to file a missing persons report, since 72 hours had not passed and Patty was an adult, there was nothing they could do, the family members insisted that Patty was a devout Christian and a loving mother. who would never have

abandoned

her three children, unfortunately the police said there was no evidence that she had not left of her own volition, unable to simply sit and wait. Kathy went to the spot where Patty's minivan had been found and started looking around it. Meanwhile, in the dark with a flashlight, Gene began calling other family members to see if anyone else had heard from Patty.

Both tactics initially came up empty until Gene contacted Patty's younger sister, Jeannie, who was living in Georgia at the time. Since Jeannie knew that she was not going to see her sister during the holidays, she instead called her to wish her a Merry Christmas the day before. Jeannie told her aunt that she had called around 10:30 a.m. Texas time, and that Jr had responded when he put Patty on the phone and pretended to have a cold, but Genie immediately realized that this was an excuse, it was obvious that she had been crying. Janie had previously lived with J.R and Patty and was close to both of them, she asked what was going on and Patty explained that she and her ex-husband had been arguing, although Janie was worried.

Paddy assured him everything was fine. He said that fights were nothing out of the ordinary between the two of them these days, while Patty's conversation with Jeannie revealed nothing. As much as it showed that Patty had at least been at his house on Christmas morning, it also suggested that the fight between her and Jr had been much less spontaneous than he had described and, in fact, had lasted all day early on December 27, now almost two. Days after Patty disappeared, her cousin Barb and Kathy went to work to take a look at her recovered minivan, what they found there upset them even more when they examined the so-called flat tire on her vehicle and noticed they couldn't find it.

Instead of an actual puncture mark, it looked like the air had simply been let out of the tire; in other words, it had been intentionally deflated, suggesting that the roadside scene that Paddy's boss had stumbled upon the day before had been staged with this information in hand, the cousins. He contacted the police again, who now agreed to open an investigation before the normal 72-hour period had passed. When they arrived at Quinney Electric, they quickly confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the flat tire on Paddy's truck. They were able to re-inflate it perfectly. and kept up their pressure as investigators began combing the interior of the minivan, something else caught their attention almost immediately: the vehicle was suspiciously extremely clean, making it a pickup truck that was regularly used for driving to three children, but it looked like it had just been cleaned thoroughly with detergent and water, in fact several areas of the interior were still wet, believing there might be blood.

A sample was taken from the van and sent for further testing. He also was dusted for fingerprints, although the vehicle appeared to have been cleaned only once. A set of fingerprints that did not belong to Patty were recovered and authorities would later learn that they did not match anyone in local or federal databases. One thing that did seem out of place was a pile of men's clothing that was found inside the van. Among the clothing was a red workman's jumpsuit that was described as something a mechanic or plumber might wear. On the back were the initials JM in white.

While awaiting the results of more tests on the van, a search effort was organized to try to find Patty. Thanks to local and state news coverage, the family was able to gather a team of more than 500 volunteers to come out and participate. The search effort focused on the area around where Patty's truck had been discovered, but several areas of interest were further explored. Police and canine units, this included a small pond approximately 50 feet wide and three feet deep that was well hidden on the side of the road. The pond was washed out but nothing of interest was recovered.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened everywhere else police and volunteers searched. and on December 29, the official search ended with all efforts to locate Patty. Failed police turned their attention to the people in the missing woman's life. There were immediately three areas of interest to startthe suspicions. She first turned to Gary, as he was the new man at Paddy's. During interviews, detectives learned that on Christmas Day, Gary had driven to Patty's house in Lavernia, even though they had not made plans to meet until later that night, he was outside with his sister taking a calm walk at the time and asked them if they could pass, they apparently did this, although they did not stop or attempt to enter, however, Gary told the police that at the time JR and Paddy's vehicles were in the path of entrance of the house, said the children were also playing outside in terms of Gary's possible possibility. involvement in Paddy's disappearance, investigators speculated that perhaps when he saw the Vaughn family together he became jealous, worried about a possible reconciliation of the marriage, perhaps he had decided to make sure that did not happen, however, investigators quickly abandoned this. line of speculation to start with. the jealousy theory didn't really make much sense according to basically everyone around Patty, it was pretty clear that she was excited about the prospect of being with Gary, secondly Gary had a solid alibi, he was with family members. throughout Christmas Day, even when he supposedly stopped by Patty's house, finally his actions upon discovering that Patty had disappeared did not seem like those of a person with something to hide, according to Paddy's own relatives, he seemed genuinely surprised when he was asked.

He reported that she was missing and was the first person who offered to help in any way he could. He was there for almost every search they conducted and helped hand out leaflets with Paddy's photo and information about them once he concluded the search. Finally Gary voluntarily took a polygraph test when he was first approached by the police, which he passed easily and Gary seemed to have nothing to do with Paddy's disappearance. Authorities then considered a more nebulous possibility that someone in the community may have had a problem with Patty and Gary's relationship. Something that the police pulled out of nowhere, on the other hand, the fact that Patty had been dating had caused quite a stir in the local community, it had started a couple of weeks earlier, on December 13, when a male member of the Paddy's church had seen her and Gary leave. to have lunch together at a local Dairy Queen, believing it was inappropriate for Patty to go out to lunch with another man because she was still married to J.R.

The man had reported Patty to the minister of her Church a few days later. The minister had called Patty. in front of everyone at choir practice, shaming her and saying that she did not deserve to represent the church due to her supposedly immoral behavior, her behavior reportedly snowballed to the point where several people in the community had not I had qualms about telling Patty. about what they thought of her and the police wondered if it could have turned into something more sinister than was reported, although it was clear that the gossip and public shaming had been humiliating for Patty, no further concrete evidence emerged to suggest that something how this had happened. left one last obvious Person of Interest: Paddy's estranged husband, J.R.

Vaughn, when detectives first spoke to J.R. He told them more or less the same story that he had first told Paddy's cousin over the phone. He said they had gotten together on Christmas morning and had gotten into a fight, prompting Patty to run out of the house. In his opinion, he told investigators that what had happened to his wife had happened after she had left the family home; However, by speaking to several other people around J.R, the police were able to develop a more complete picture of not only the day of the Disappearance, but whether Jr's alleged actions afterwards, to begin with, was the fact that Paddy allegedly She spent most of Christmas Day locked in her room, something her relatives say would have been extremely out of character for her, especially if people were around.

In fact, upon coming, some family members told police that They had stopped by sometime around Christmas, but J.R told them they couldn't see Patty because she was in her room and wasn't feeling well. Unfortunately, the reports were a bit confusing. this specific detail as it's not clear if it was members of Jr's family or Paddy's family who claimed they weren't allowed to see her, but we thought it was worth mentioning because it came up in almost every source we came across. We found in our However, we investigated what we do know is that later that afternoon, instead of hosting Jr's family as previously planned, Jr had asked his sister Marilyn to take the children to his house. younger sister, Maryland had done as he had asked, apparently leaving only Jr and Patty alone together. in meaning but he would definitely have been the last person to see her before she disappeared, then there was Jr's behavior after the disappearance according to Paddy's family, unlike Gary Jr he never helped with any of the searches for his wife, This was apparently despite the fact that he remained in constant contact with several people he knew on the ground, reportedly showing great interest in where the volunteers and police would look next when asked.

Jr explained that there were two reasons why he didn't help, one of which was that he wanted to be home to watch. After his and his two children had apparently been advised by a police officer that if anything related to the case was found during the search, he did not want his DNA anywhere near it. That said, Patty's family claimed that this didn't explain everything. Jr's behavior, for example, they claimed that he had lied about delivering a stack of missing persons pamphlets that were supposedly later discovered to still be in the family home, but there was more when Patty's boss called Jr to inform him that had found his J.R. minivan.

He allegedly first told her that he couldn't come look at the vehicle because he was on his way to officially file for divorce. Note that Patty had been missing for less than 24 hours at that point, Jr eventually agreed to meet with the boss and drop off the spare keys, but he apparently did this on his way to file divorce papers, which raised signs of alert in the minds of Paddy's family, although Jr was only supposed to visit him for Christmas, he had indeed moved back into the family home that day. Not only did he delete the outgoing message from Patty's answering machine and replace it with his own, but he did so just two days after she disappeared, perhaps strangest of all according to a letter discovered as part of the investigation. that Jr had written to his landlord to break the lease on his apartment this letter was dated two days before Patty disappeared to Patty's family it seemed like Jr knew something the rest of them didn't know when Jr spoke to the Police offered explanations for all of this by saying that none of the details about his return to the house had been planned, instead, he claimed that this had been the result of his fight with Patty on Christmas Day.

Jr. stated that after finding out that Patty was dating Gary, he had become angry and felt the relationship was inappropriate. and that he didn't want this man he didn't know around his children, the argument had escalated to the point of threats during which Jr. said he decided to stand his ground, he said he told Patty that he was going to try to do it. He would get the house back and could probably ensure that she never saw her children again after Paddy stormed out of the house. Jr said that he had moved back as a way to show that he was willing to follow through on his threat.

He said this was what the divorce filing the next day was about and that it was an ultimatum tactic. He said that he was really trying to pressure Patty to get back together, as for the letter to his landlord, Jr. claimed it was purely coincidental. He simply didn't like the area where his apartment was and said he didn't feel safe there. Despite these explanations, detectives still suspected J.R. As part of their investigation, they requested access to the family home to look for evidence in she. In the same way they were doing with Paddy's minivan, Jr agreed to this request and several days after Paddy disappeared, a forensic team began to make their way into the house.

During this search, investigators would find several areas of concern, most of which were in or adjacent to the master bedroom. Like the van, the room showed signs of having been thoroughly cleaned recently, despite this, luminol testing revealed the number of places where there could be blood in a closet in the room's adjoining bathroom and in the bedroom. Mainly, a mop and bucket in the garage were also tested. positive under luminol, as with the van, the police took samples in all of these areas and sent them for testing several months later, in April 1997, the results from both the van and the samples taken from the house finally came back when investigators suspected blood. found in both locations and all samples matched Patty Vaughn, at this point you might be thinking that this is where the case broke wide open.

Patty's family certainly didn't need any more convincing. Two months earlier, her mother had broken into Jr.'s house in the middle of the night and attacked him with a baseball bat. By the way, she was charged although the case would never be brought to trial, although far from being solved, this is where things began to go downhill in the Patty Vaughn investigation. By far the biggest problem police reportedly faced was the lack of a body, although it was widely feared that Patty had been the victim of foul play without any remains, it was difficult to say for sure that this was especially true and given that the case occurred.

In the state of Texas, as detectives would later say in interviews when it comes to investigations like this, the state Mantra is not a body, it is not a crime, the only thing that could have helped overcome this obstacle would have been evidence of blood, unfortunately with such small amounts recovered in both the truck and Vaughn's home was not enough to prove that a violent crime had occurred; It was certainly suspicious, but it was not enough to file charges against J.R or anyone else, in addition to this, there were alleged bureaucratic problems in procedural errors that further hindered the investigation because Patty lived in Lavernia, which is in Wilson County, but his vehicle was found in Bear County.

There were apparently jurisdictional issues, which allegedly led to the case being switched back and forth at first, causing confusion for Paddy. The family further alleges that vital evidence was compromised by the fact that the Vaughn family home was never officially cordoned off as a crime scene from the time Patty disappeared until the time police searched for blood evidence, in fact , people had been living in the house constantly. According to sources we found in our investigation, Jr and his sister Marilyn were present as the forensic team processed the house for clues, at several points Maryland allegedly interrupted investigators, peppered them with questions and became so disruptive that the team left. was forced to leave and return.

I returned another day to finish gathering evidence, apparently it was at this point that Jr stopped talking to investigators, hired a lawyer entirely, and cut off all further contact with the police without solid evidence against his only real person of interest in the case. . clues that had waiting for a breakthrough, the most promising of these tips was regarding the possible location of Paddy's remains, in particular it was noted that JR's construction company had been contracted to work on two different primary schools in the San Francisco area. Antonio at that time. of Paddy's disappearance because Jr had been personally involved in pouring the concrete for these buildings, it was suggested that this could have been the location where his remains were hidden.

Be careful because the following is a bit confusing and in our research it seemed to be an area full of disagreements and contradictions. What we know for sure is that in May 1997 a team of researchers used ground penetrating radar at one of the elementary schools in the city of Pleasanton at multiple points of interest, plugged holes in the concrete and brought in cadaver dogs. To see if they could officially detect the presence of human remains, it appears that the results were inconclusive, but other reports claim that nothing of interest was found. Patty's family, meanwhile, insists that concrete irregularities were found on radar but were never properly detected. investigated due to the financial cost plus lack of will on the partfrom local officials not wanting to have to essentially destroy a major part of a new building under suspicion that there might be a body buried there, while it appears that further searches have been conducted at these two former construction sites throughout years since nothing of importance has ever reportedly been found, of course these seem to have been even quicker investigations, so if Patty really was hiding in any of these locations, it seems doubtful she would have actually been found.

According to the most recent reports, we were able to find that several members of Patty's family remain convinced to this day that she was buried in one of these two locations, while members of Patty's family have continued to search for her in the Since So sadly it seems like they have been met with disappointment at every turn as no charges were ever filed against Jr. He was granted full custody of his three children and eventually left the state completely. When he did so, he allegedly prevented Paddy's family from seeing the children forever and also changed her name in 2005.

Jr. declared Patty legally dead and allegedly attempted to collect life insurance money from her. Patty's family responded by filing a wrongful death lawsuit against him. The case was settled later that year while it was ruled that the insurance money would be held in trust for Patty's children. All claims against Jr were rejected, while members of Patty's family, particularly her cousins ​​Kathy and Barb, say they have not and will not give up on finding out what happened to her with each passing day. . It only seems to delve deeper into the topic that now seems like a good time to talk about some of the more mysterious details of the case, perhaps the strangest of which is the red jumpsuit with the initials JM that was found in Paddy's van as Hasta As far as we know, no explanation was ever given as to why they might have been there or who the police believe they might have belonged to.

Another strange detail related to the case has to do with the mysterious movements of Paddy's van, according to pre-vehicle reports. It was found by Patty's boss, at least two of her co-workers who were traveling on that same section of road, and later told police that the van was not there at the time. Even stranger, some reports we found claim that an anonymous caller to the police claimed that her friend had seen the minivan the night of Christmas Day, right around the time that Patty had supposedly disappeared. Once again, the caller stated that The friend had seen the truck stopped on the same section of road where it was later found, only this time it wasn't abandoned.

The caller stated that the friend had seen a white man get out of the vehicle and began to run away from him only to stop and back up as if they had forgotten something. Was this advice legitimate? If so, who was this person? Unfortunately, we simply don't know. In 2008, investigators added their own mysterious twist to the case when they reported that they now had reason to believe that three or more people may have been involved in the incident at the time, citing the level of apparent precision in planning that went into the incident. Paddy's disappearance, but failed to identify any potential suspect four years later, another hurdle was thrown into the case when the Bear County Sheriff's Office announced new DNA findings in the investigation and claimed they had found DNA in the minivan that did not It belonged to Patty, but here's what belonged to another woman.

This time the police went so far as to say they were pretty sure they knew. who the DNA belonged to, but once again stopped short of identifying them by name, as if metaphorically throwing cold water on the fire they had just lit, they also stated that even if they were right in their assumptions, they did not have enough evidence to meet the standards of probable cause to obtain a DNA sample from this person. That being said, given all the research we have done up to this point, we believe we have an idea of ​​who this person was.

Keep in mind that we are in wild speculation territory. Now and none of this is to be taken too seriously, but we personally wonder if the police thought the woman's DNA belonged to Jr.'s sister Marilyn, after all, it wouldn't be the first time a family member She helped cover up a crime and she was both reportedly at the Vaughn house the day Patty disappeared and were also disruptive when police attempted to collect blood evidence later. However, we want to reiterate that this is a wild assumption and we definitely wouldn't put any kind of action behind it, it's just the kind of strange thought you can't help but have after reading about this frustrating case non-stop for days on end while the Police insist they are still investigating, as far as we know this was pretty much the last major update shared. with the public, this is with the exception of another excavation that took place in 2014 at the Vons' former home in Lavernia;

However, as you may have already guessed, this also failed to reveal any new evidence at the time of this recording. With days to go until the 26th anniversary of Paddy's disappearance and with each year that passes the window of opportunity to get justice in this case seems to close a little more, some like Gary, Paddy's boyfriend, are unfortunately no longer present and, according to a article from last year, her elderly mother is also quite ill, more than anything, we hope the family soon gets the closure they deserve. If you or anyone you know has information related to the disappearance of Patty Vaughn, please contact the Bear County Sheriff's Office before closing.

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