Bozeman Cold Case: Teen Vanishes in 1987, Killer Hides in Plain Sight for 34 Years
Bozeman, Montana — February 14, 1987
It was the perfect night to disappear.
The world outside was coated in a thick, peaceful blanket of snow. The soft flicker of streetlights cast long shadows across the empty streets of Bozeman. Sarah Mitchell, 19, had just finished a quiet dinner with friends, a routine night for any college student. No one knew that this would be her last night seen by anyone.
Her orange Ford was discovered on County Road 86, its engine still humming, door wide open, and a half-eaten candy bar resting on the passenger seat. The snow around it was undisturbed, as though the world had paused, waiting. Her jacket was still draped over the seat, and her scarf fluttered in the wind. She had vanished. No signs of struggle, no clues, nothing that could explain her disappearance. The car had been parked at an angle that suggested Sarah had been in a hurry, but to where? Or why?
The police were quick to chalk it up to a runaway case, but Patricia, Sarah’s mother, knew better. This wasn’t her daughter’s style. She was independent, but not reckless. Patricia poured through every file, every piece of evidence, turning her basement into a sprawling shrine of photos, newspaper clippings, and yellowing police reports. The case went cold.
But Patricia didn’t stop.
Weeks before she vanished, Sarah had gone on a weekend trip to the mountains with her best friend, Emily. The pair had planned a quiet camping trip near a frozen creek, far from the noise of everyday life. A GoPro, newly purchased for documenting their hiking adventures, captured every moment. Laughter echoed through the cold air as they roasted marshmallows over an open fire.
It was an ordinary day, the kind of day that would come to haunt Emily forever.
As Sarah fiddled with the GoPro, she paused, tilting the camera toward the dark treeline. “Do you ever feel like someone’s watching us?” she asked, her voice hushed, as if afraid to say the words aloud.
Emily chuckled, brushing it off. “It’s just the trees, Sarah. You’re paranoid.”
Sarah smiled, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes, a warning that Emily didn’t fully comprehend at the time. The camera continued to roll. In the distance, a shadow moved—too fluid, too deliberate to be an animal. Emily didn’t notice at first, too absorbed in the warmth of the fire. But when Sarah glanced over her shoulder and stared into the blackness of the trees, Emily’s heart skipped a beat.
The camera captured Sarah’s nervous laugh before she turned it off. The last frame froze, showing Sarah’s face, eyes wide, looking directly into the lens. The darkness behind her seemed to ripple, the shadow just a little too large, too defined. Then, nothing. The footage ended abruptly.
The memory was buried in the GoPro footage for years, untouched—until Patricia found it in 2021, tucked away in an old box. It was a jarring discovery.
Thirty-four years had passed. The case had become a part of Bozeman’s tragic history. People spoke of Sarah’s disappearance as a distant memory, a story of loss they could never fully comprehend. But Patricia never gave up. Her basement remained her war room, filled with maps, old files, and photographs of her daughter at every stage of her life. Every night, she would pour over new theories, new details, trying to piece together the puzzle.
Then, everything changed.
In 2021, genetic genealogy technology began solving cold cases across the country. It was a long shot, but Patricia sent in a sample of Sarah’s hair, hoping for something—anything—that could lead to an answer.
The results came back six months later. And they were staggering.
The DNA didn’t lead to any distant relative, but to someone much closer to home—someone who had been a quiet fixture in the community for years. The killer had been hiding in plain sight.
The man who had worked as a crossing guard at the local elementary school, a beloved figure in the town, was arrested. His name was Thomas Weller. The man who had helped children cross the street for decades, who had greeted parents and children with a friendly wave each morning, was the person responsible for Sarah’s disappearance. For years, he had slipped under the radar, unnoticed, a ghost in a town that trusted him implicitly.
When questioned, Thomas was oddly calm, almost detached. “I didn’t think anyone would remember,” he said. His confession was incomplete, fragmented. But one thing was clear: he had been hiding something far darker, and the town had been blind to it.
Patricia was left with a sense of hollow relief, but the answers she’d longed for only raised more questions. In the weeks that followed the arrest, as she sifted through boxes of old possessions, Patricia found Sarah’s GoPro camera, buried beneath a stack of camping gear. The camera still worked.
Patricia pressed play, hoping to find something that would bring her peace. The footage flickered to life.
There was Sarah, laughing by the campfire, her face glowing in the warmth. Then Emily appeared, her laughter infectious. They were so young, so carefree. The video was almost painfully normal.
But then, just as Sarah adjusted the camera to catch both of their faces in the frame, something caught her eye. Her gaze shifted toward the treeline behind them, where the shadows seemed to move in ways they shouldn’t. There was something about the way the darkness shifted that sent a chill down Patricia’s spine. Sarah smiled nervously, but her eyes were wide with unease.
“Did you hear that?” Sarah asked.
Emily laughed. “Probably just a bear or something. You’re too paranoid.”
But Sarah wasn’t laughing. Her eyes never left the trees. The shadow was there again. It wasn’t a trick of the light—Patricia could see it clearly now. A tall, thin figure, lurking just beyond the reach of the firelight.
The footage ended abruptly. The screen flickered, then froze on Sarah’s face, eyes wide with fear.
Patricia rewound the footage, hoping to find a clue that had been overlooked. There it was again—a shadow moving between the trees, too deliberate, too real. But this time, as the video ended, the camera captured something new: a figure standing in the background, just outside the firelight, watching them.
Patricia’s heart pounded. That wasn’t Thomas Weller. He hadn’t been there.
Patricia’s obsession grew once again, sharper than before. She returned to the site where Sarah and Emily had camped, retracing the steps of that last night. As she stood by the frozen creek, something caught her eye—a small, metallic object in the snow. Kneeling down, Patricia’s hands trembled as she picked it up. It was a keychain, shaped like a fox, something Sarah had been given by Emily when they were children.
Emily.
The keychain was significant. Emily had given it to Sarah as a birthday gift years ago. It seemed impossible that it would end up here—miles away from where Sarah had been camping. Had Emily seen something that night? Did she know more than she was letting on?
Patricia pressed Emily for answers, but her friend’s response was evasive. “I don’t remember much about that night,” Emily said, eyes darting away. “It’s been years, Patricia. You have to let it go.”
But Patricia couldn’t let it go. The pieces didn’t add up. The shadow in the video. The keychain. And now, Thomas Weller’s confession, which had left so many holes.
One late evening, as Patricia sat in her basement, pouring over the old case files once again, the doorbell rang. When she opened the door, no one was there.
A folded note lay on the ground, the paper frayed from years of hiding. Patricia unfolded it, her hands shaking as she read the short message:
“You’re closer than you think. Don’t stop.”
Her blood ran cold. The handwriting was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She felt the familiar weight of being watched. Someone was out there, someone who wanted her to continue. Someone who had been following her every move.
Patricia’s obsession reached a fever pitch. She knew the truth was close—so close. She couldn’t stop now, not when the final piece was within reach.
One evening, Patricia returned to County Road 86, where Sarah’s car had been found. She carefully examined the area, searching for anything she might have missed. And then, she saw it—a pattern in the snow. Tire tracks, clearly visible, as if someone had parked Sarah’s car in a hurry, but then moved it.
She followed the tracks until they stopped at the edge of a small patch of woods. There, the footprints continued—toward the river. But then, they stopped abruptly.
A voice echoed in her mind: “River… or something else?”
Suddenly, there was movement behind her. She spun around, but no one was there. Just the eerie silence of the night.
