Sep 3, 2026 · 17 min · 9 segments
A piece of Kelly's life before Gilmer, Texas, might shed some light on the night she disappeared. Become a supporter of this podcast…
Lauren SealGuestBut real quick, because we got into all of this back in episode two, here's the short version.
17-year-old high school senior was last seen on January 5, 1992.
She had just finished working a shift at a local video store when she headed to the bank to make a deposit.
That night, the money made it into the account, but Kelly never made it home.
The morning after Kelly disappeared in January of 1992, her car turns up beside the video store in Gilmer where she worked.
Keys missing, a bottle of vodka inside, no signs of any struggle, and her left rear tire is slashed.
And not just a little puncture, it's slashed so bad the tire has come off the rim.
The next morning, her car still found sitting outside of her job.
One of the tires had been slashed, her belongings, including her purse, still inside of the car.
The keys were missing, and now, so was Kelly, gone without a trace.
Couple months later, this 17-year-old kid named Michael Bybee admits that it was him.
He pleads guilty to a misdemeanor and the police write the whole thing off as random.
And the girl who worked with her at the video store got one slashed right around then too.
I've talked about all this on the show before, and I even said a while back that I couldn't shake the feeling that a slash tire might be somebody's extremely juvenile idea of a romantic gesture.
But real quick, because we got into all of this back in episode two, here's the short version.
17-year-old high school senior was last seen on January 5, 1992.
She had just finished working a shift at a local video store when she headed to the bank to make a deposit.
That night, the money made it into the account, but Kelly never made it home.
The morning after Kelly disappeared in January of 1992, her car turns up beside the video store in Gilmer where she worked.
Keys missing, a bottle of vodka inside, no signs of any struggle, and her left rear tire is slashed.
And not just a little puncture, it's slashed so bad the tire has come off the rim.
The next morning, her car still found sitting outside of her job.
One of the tires had been slashed, her belongings, including her purse, still inside of the car.
The keys were missing, and now, so was Kelly, gone without a trace.
Couple months later, this 17-year-old kid named Michael Bybee admits that it was him.
He pleads guilty to a misdemeanor and the police write the whole thing off as random.
And the girl who worked with her at the video store got one slashed right around then too.
I've talked about all this on the show before, and I even said a while back that I couldn't shake the feeling that a slash tire might be somebody's extremely juvenile idea of a romantic gesture.
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