What Happened to Katelyn Kelley?

In June 2020, 22-year-old Katelyn Kelley vanished from the Menominee Indian Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin.

She was seen near County Highway VV and Silver Canoe Road late at night. Hours later, she was reportedly at her apartment in nearby Shawano. Then—she disappeared.

Her family knew something was wrong almost immediately. Katelyn wasn’t the kind of person to just stop answering calls or walk away from her life. As days turned into weeks, searches expanded across roads, forests, and waterways. Investigators publicly stated they believed someone may have given Katelyn a ride that night—and asked that person to come forward.

Nine months later, in March 2021, human remains were discovered on the Menominee Reservation. They were identified as Katelyn.

But even now, years later, her case remains unsolved.

In this episode of Vanished Voices, we walk through Katelyn’s final known movements, the critical timeline investigators have shared, and the questions that still have no answers. We also take a closer look at the Menominee Reservation, the challenges of investigating cases across jurisdictions, and why so many Indigenous cases remain unresolved.

If you know anything about Katelyn Kelley’s disappearance, you are urged to contact the Menominee Tribal Police Department at (715) 799-5806, or the Wisconsin Clearinghouse for Missing & Exploited Children & Adults at 1-800-843-4673 or wisconsinclearinghouse@doj.state.wi.us.

Someone knows something.

And Katelyn deserves justice.

To see more about this case, as well as the sources used to create this episode, visit our Blog Here.

Thank you so much for listening to Vanished Voices. We truly appreciate you!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi, welcome to Vanished Voices. We're your hosts, I'm Jenna.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

And I'm Shannon.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

There are some cases where the silence feels louder than anything else. A dark road, a shoulder at night, a reservation where the trees run deep and the roads seem to stretch forever. A young woman seen near County Highway V V and Silver Canoe Road around 10:30 p.m. Then later at her apartment in Shawnee, and then nothing. No publicly known explanation, no resolution, just a family waiting for answers that still haven't come. Caitlin Kelly was just 22 years old. Her family said that it was not like her to simply disappear without contact. She was reported missing on June 18th, 2020. And nine months later, on March 17th, 2021. Oh, that's yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

That's weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

It is. It's funny how many you find that are close to the dates of the issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

I was thinking because June 18th, it was in our last case, too. June 18th. Oh. That was her birthday.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Tiara's. Gemini. Yeah. Nine months later, on March 17th, 2021, her body was discovered. But even now, five years later, Wisconsin's Department of Justice lists her case as unsolved. And that's part of what makes this story so haunting, because this is not a story where the public has been told exactly what happened. This is a story built around a very narrow timeline, a possible ride, a search that stretched across roads, woods, and water, and a debt that still has not been publicly explained. Today we're talking about the case of Caitlin Kelly. Now, before we get too far into this, I want to emphasize we're sticking to what can be verified. This case has a lot of rumors online with social media, and those rumors tend to spread faster than the actual facts. Yeah. And in Caitlin's case, police themselves have publicly asked people to stop spreading misinformation because it was hurting the investigation and hurting her family. So we may say we don't know. You may see rumors out there that say otherwise, but we're really going to try to stick to what is known in the public.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Good context, because I do come up with some questions.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Well, I want your questions. I might have the answers to them, but I have to take I don't know as fact. Sometimes. Too often, especially in cases involving Indigenous victims, the public record is thin, the updates are limited, and the families are left carrying both grief and the burden of being their loved ones' loudest advocate. Wisconsin officials have acknowledged that cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous women are often underreported, misclassified, and complicated by overlapping jurisdictions. Wisconsin Reporting has also noted that the state still does not have accurate numbers for the full scope of the crisis. But today the focus is Caitlin, not as a statistic, not as a headline, but as a person. Caitlin Letitia Kelly was born on December 18th, 1997. Her parents are Daniel and Michelle. Caitlin enjoyed spending time with family. And after graduating from high school, she stayed close by. She got a job at the North Star and Menominee Casino, which by all accounts she enjoyed. She and her boyfriend Kodiak welcomed a son in 2018. And while their relationship was described as on again, off again, they worked hard to make co-parenting work. Caitlin was outgoing and always liked to be around people. She was very close with her mom and sometimes would spend the night at her mom's house or even have her mom over to spend the night at her place. She just liked to be around people. She moved just outside the reservation in 2019, about 15 to 20 minutes away to an apartment in Shahano. In the summer of 2020, Caitlin and Kodiak had ended their relationship, but were continuing co-parenting. According to an interview from Caitlin's mom, Michelle, which she gave to Crimelines. Caitlin had started dating a new man that she knew through family. Her mom said that she knew him well and the people connected to him. He was a little bit older. They didn't say exactly how old. And I've not seen him named anywhere, but she said she always liked him and trusted him.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

How long had they known them? Family friends?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Uh, they'd known the family friends for years. Okay. Uh Caitlin had only been dating him for a brief amount of time at this point. She was 22 years old that summer of 2020. Her family described her as someone who stayed in touch and whose disappearance immediately felt wrong. Her mom said that Caitlin would never let her worry about her. She would go out of her way to make sure she was checking in, keeping in contact. It sounded like they were the type that talked on the phone every day. And it seems like a simple thing, but it matters. Families know patterns, families know what is normal. And when a mother says this is not like her, investigators should hear the alarm in that sentence. Caitlin was also a young mother, and that detail lands hard because it reminds you that she wasn't just loved, she was needed. She had a child who should have gotten more years with her, a family who should have gotten more ordinary days, more calls, more birthdays, more chances to watch her walk through the door. And that is one of the things that always gets flattened in stories like this. People become the missing woman, the victim. But before any of that, Caitlin was a daughter, a mother, a tribal citizen, a young woman whose life should have continued. Now, the Menomi Indian Reservation is in northeastern Wisconsin. The tribe says that the seat of government is in Keshina, about 45 miles northwest of Green Bay. The reservation shares nearly the same boundaries as Menomi County and includes five main communities: Keshenha, Neopit, Middle Village, Zor, and South Branch. The tribe states that the reservation covers 235,523 acres or about 358 square miles. The US Census lists the 2020 reservation population at 4,255, which is less than half of the enrolled members, but the other half live off reservation. It's a huge area. When you hear 357 miles, that can sound abstract until you picture what it means on the ground. They've got long stretches of roadway, forest, rivers, streams, uneven visibility, scattered communities, and places where a person or a clue can disappear from view quickly. The tribe's own background materials note that they have more than 407 miles of improved and unimproved roads. They have 187 rivers and streams and 53 lakes. Like huge, vast, beautiful areas.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

From water, dry, forest, exactly. Rocks. Yes. Mountains. Is there mountains in there?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I don't know about mountains, but all the rest.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, I don't know. I guess I really never thought about Wisconsin's topography.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

I like the word topography. It's important to think about that because when Caitlin vanished, investigators were not searching a city block.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

They did she disappear on reservation or off reservation? Well, or we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

We know, but it gets tricky. Okay. She for the first two weeks or so, they thought that it was on reservation. So their first tip placed her on reservation. Okay. Then they found out from her apartment neighbors that she actually had made it home. And so that brought in the police department from Shaw now. Okay. From all accounts, it seems like the two work well together. Yeah. You still have jurisdictional gaps. Right.

unknown 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

The public timeline says that Caitlin left her boyfriend's house at 1020 p.m. on June 16th.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Now she's seen walking. Okay, because she's dating the new guy, so she doesn't live with him. It does she has her own apartment. Right. Now, does baby daddy still live there? No. Okay. So she truly lives by herself. Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

She was seen on County Highway V V and Silver Canoe Road. Someone drove past around 1025 to 10:30 PM. They saw her and reported this. And then there was also, and I don't know where it came from, but there is a CCTV snapshot of her wearing the same thing. So that sighting is credible because they hadn't put out what she was wearing at first, if that makes sense. Yeah. She was last seen wearing black flip-flops, jean shorts, a gray t-shirt, and a black swimsuit top. So she's walking along this road. It's dark and late. The car drives past wherever they were headed to, and then they came back the other way, and Caitlin's no longer on the road.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Okay, so do we know why the witness drove by just 15 minutes later, going the opposite direction?

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Like We don't know, but it sounds like it was somebody who was doing like rideshare.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Oh, okay, like an Uber.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah. And was like going there to either drop off and come back.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Okay, so that's a valid reason to be.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

And they did come forward. They were one of the first ones to come forward to get.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Did they know her? It doesn't sound like it. Okay. Interesting. I mean, I guess if I saw somebody walking on a county highway, I would take notice of it too. Cause that's a very Especially in flip-flop. Right. Well, it's an odd like a highway, even if it is a smaller one, is still an odd place to be walking as a pedestrian.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Well, and my question is, she was still eight miles from her apartment.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And so is this normal for her to leave the boyfriend's house and walk home? I mean, eight miles, that would take hours.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yes. And that's why they know that sometime in that 15 minutes, somebody picked her up and gave her a ride. Yeah. The first couple weeks of this, they thought they were really looking for that driver.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

She grew up on the reservation. Okay. So it's likely she would have, I mean, 4,000 people isn't very big. So it's very likely that she would have known the person who picked her up.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

But were you planning to walk that or were you planning to get a ride?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah. Does she have a cell phone? She does.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Uh they got data from it. They've never released the pings or anything.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Well, I'm just wondering if there were text messages that showed that, hey, she asked somebody for a ride, or why she was walking on a county road for eight miles or was the attempt was eight miles. Like that's crazy. That's hours.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yes. And she makes it back to her apartment by 11.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And so somebody did pick her up right in that time and take her.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Okay. But when the people, the witnesses that saw her in her apartment, did they see her go in or just on property?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

They said they saw her at her apartment with two females and a male. Okay. And that didn't come out for a while. So, like I said, they focused on that stretch of road waiting for her.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Right. Like maybe she got hit on accident when somebody drove by. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yeah. But then when they found out that she did make it happened, yes, because she also was seen around 3 a.m. at her apartment. Okay. They haven't released a lot about they say a neighbor. I don't know if it was the same neighbor or if one saw her get home at 11 and maybe another one is coming or going for work or whatever at 3 and noticed.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

So is this the apartment she lived at with her child's father originally and then he moved out, or is this maybe a new apartment?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

This I'm just wondering how long a newer apartment but like within she moved there in 2019. So she'd at least been there for six months.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Okay. So you'd kind of know who your neighbors are at that point. I mean, at least by sight.

unknown 14:21

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And I don't know, I don't know why it took so long for the neighbors to come forward if they didn't realize she was missing. Possibly not. Everything was happening within the reservation jurisdiction.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

I mean, I remember living in apartments. I hello to my neighbors, but I certainly I mean, maybe there's one of the sets in our grouping that maybe we may have hung out with, but yeah, otherwise I didn't hang out with my neighbors. I had friends.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

So And you know, she's young, she's working, she's co-parenting, she likes being with family. Yeah. She might well yes, who had her baby? I'm guessing Kodiak did. Okay. Because there's no mention that the baby was in danger, right? Or that he was with her or anything like that. Caitlin made a Facebook post around that 3 a.m. timeframe that she, and I don't have the exact text of what she posted on Facebook, but it was something to the effect that there was a black SUV parked right outside her apartment.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

And it seemed odd to her. Okay, so that could be the people that gave her a ride.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

It could be. I don't know why she would post about it though.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

It more Oh, she posted about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

She posted that on Facebook at 3 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, that is an odd in 2020. That's an odd post.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Right. And so I don't know if it was I'm up and I'm seeing this, and it's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Or because it's an apartment complex. You never know who's has a visitor that the car belongs to them. Right. Unless you're in my assigned spot, I don't really care who's that's that is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

And maybe it had been down there for hours and she was weirded out.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Or that's an odd I know. It's an odd that's like the odd detail. Well, it's like the type of post you would make back in 2009 when Facebook first started, you know, like where we didn't know what to say. Not in 2020.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

But it is COVID 2020. She did post a lot. Okay. And it sounds like more of the day-to-day, like instead of sending a group chat, I post.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

No, she's just like posts. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Uh, we don't know anything more about that black SUV. It doesn't sound like they've ever found out who gave her a ride home, if it was the two females and the male. Police do know who those people are and whether and that's some of the rumors and the gossip that surround this case. The black SUV is? No, the man that she was seen with that night. Oh. They keep posting that on any like that whole first year when they would put out like a Facebook post asking for information or tips. People would post that that's who she was with, and he's this and this and this and this. And then that's when police had to be like, please stop posting this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Right. That's not true. Or I don't We vetted it, it's not true.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah, something, but I don't know why they're posting that. I can't see those posts anymore. Caitlin's mom expected to hear that she had made it home. She knew that she was at the boyfriend's house on June 16th. She expected to hear either when she made it home or the next day from Caitlin. She didn't.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

The so that I just thought of something. The Facebook post at 3 a.m. Was that done from her phone or from a computer?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

It sounds like from her phone.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So that could have been anywhere, right? Not necessarily in her apartment, or did they confirm that it was pinging there too? Or is that something that we just don't know?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

That one we don't know, but a neighbor did say they saw her at 3 a.m. Oh, okay at her apartment. Okay. And the black SUV might be a red herring. It might not be related, connected. Yeah. That's it's just her last known post. Post. And it's kind of odd. Yeah. Ominous. On the 18th, when Michelle still hadn't heard from Caitlin, she reported her missing.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So it was June 17th, 3 a.m. last known. Okay. So the mom still waited 24 hours. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Her family made it clear early on that disappearing without contact was not normal. And by the time police are publicly asking for help, they're working with this very narrow window because they've seen her it multiple times and then not. She's not answering on the morning of the 17th. So they feel like it was.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

And was there anything about whether she was supposed to pick up the baby? Missed pickup.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

So I don't know if it was his weekend. Right. Or it did take about two weeks after Caitlin was reported missing before investigators started really trying to figure out who had given her a ride. They were wondering, you know, they know Caitlin can't walk eight miles in 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Right. And no one ever came forward about giving her a ride?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Not that they've ever released. Yeah. Okay. It sounds like for months they were still asking, but I can't tell now if they found that person. It doesn't seem like it. You know, police want to ask them about her mood, if she mentioned anything, if she was hitchhiking, or if they had arranged to pick her up. Right. If there's anyone else in the vehicle. I mean, it could have been those two women and the man that she was seen with later. Right. Because they were seen at her apartment pretty quickly after. Yeah. Which would make sense. Yeah. I am fairly certain they've never found out who the black SUV went to. And to me, if she's hanging out with those three people, she would know that's their car. Right. So either it is not connected or it's something different.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So they've never found these three friends? I'm fairly certain that they have.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Okay. But whatever's come from talking to them has never been released and they've never been named.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Right. I'm well right now to me they're witnesses. So that's where I'm just curious if they've ever said anything publicly.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

They haven't.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Uh right away her family's putting up missing person posters. Native News Online reported that the tribal police and tribal entities scoured roadways, forest areas, local bodies of water. Police asked hunters, campers, boaters, and area residents to stay on alert, report anything suspicious or unusual. Reporting also stated that there had been no arrests at that stage, of course, and that they still did not know who gave Caitlin the ride home. Kodiak was able to log into Caitlin's Facebook and her email account and gave all of that information to police. So they were able to go through and see if there were messages that were useful or all of the activity there. Her phone, as far as reporting has stated, has never been found. The information On data or location pings. We know they did that. We don't know if they got data back. Nothing has been made public. When they learned after those first two weeks that Caitlin had made it back to her apartment, because their first two weeks were focused on that highway and who gave her a ride. Or if someone picked her up since she was no longer on the road when that car came back.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

When they found out that she had been at her apartment, a private And that witness car, they didn't see any other cars on the road.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Not like that they could point to as a specific look for a silver black SUV. A black SUV, exactly. There was a private search and rescue team from the city of Madison that came in with dogs. I guess there's a 50-acre area of wooded forest right behind Caitlin's apartment. They searched through all of that and found nothing. On July 22nd, 2020, the Menomi tribe publicly offered a$5,000 reward for information in Caitlin's case. Reporting says multiple agencies were involved. I'm not exactly sure when they brought in the FBI. I believe it was in that first month, though. Okay. So we know we have the tribal police involved because we don't know if she went back on reservation. Right. Or if something happened at her apartment or in the city. So that police department is also involved. We also have the FBI. I didn't read anything about the Bureau of Indian Affairs being involved in this one. But we still have at least three agencies that are working this. By 2020, the public picture looked like this. Caitlin was gone. Police believed that someone had given her a ride to her apartment, possibly given her a ride after that 3 a.m. time, whether by choice or not. We have multiple agencies involved, the community searching, the rewards announced, and still no answers. The interview that Caitlin's mom did with Crimelines came out on March 1st, 2021. And so Caitlin was still missing. But on March 17th, human remains were found on the reservation. Authorities asked the public not to enter the area. They've never made public where the remains were found.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Now that's interesting because I was about to ask, so how far from her apartment, but not releasing where, I'm gonna guess they're holding that back again. So if somebody either ever confesses, they can provide the where as providing their, you know, proof that yes, I'm the killer.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Right. Because yeah, that's never been released.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah, that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

I don't know that I've even seen that in a case before. I don't, yeah. I'm trying to think of one, but very rare. Yeah. They did perform an autopsy the following Monday, and those remains were identified as Caitlin. Police also never said anything about what happened.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

How she Oh, they didn't disclose cause or cause.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

They do call it a homicide.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

But how she was killed has never been released either.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Okay. So that's also very important. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Probably, I know, like we said, the withholding these things can help if someone confesses or if they're interviewing someone who slips up and knows something that no one else knows. Yeah. But they've never said why. They just withhold it all. They have never released any other digital evidence, anything surveillance-wise, except for that one picture of what she was wearing.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I'm assuming the family knows because they would have released her body, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yes, but it was nine months later. And so I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they how they did that part of it.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

I'm not sure. I mean not like they're gonna come out and announce it, but Right. I'm not sure if they were able to well, that could be another reason too. They're not able to determine yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

True. But then you think if they are able to if they weren't, they might have said that.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

But if they are, then it would have to be like Well, yeah, for them to say homicide. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

And she is back on the reservation. So when she's found, how did she get there?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah. Well, and that coinciding with not releasing where, I think, plays into that as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

It is a brutal form of incomplete closure. Her family no longer has to wonder where she was, but now they've got all of these other questions. In Fox 11 News' coverage of finding Caitlin's remains, an activist for missing and murdered indigenous relatives, her name's Renee, was quoted as saying, here's another young indigenous daughter not coming home. It's nice that we will know where she will rest for the rest of her life, where her soul will be, but it would be much nicer if she wasn't stolen in the first place. After Caitlin was identified, local reporting captured what so many families in cases like this are forced to live through grief without answers. Coverage the day after the identification showed family members asking for justice and wanting the public to keep paying attention. Earlier reporting had already established that her family believed something was wrong almost immediately. They knew Caitlin would not disappear without contact. It's worth thinking about this for a second. When families have to go through this, families do not just lose someone in cases like this, they lose some twice. First in the disappearance and then in a completely different, awful way in the discovery. And if the case stays unsolved, which Caitlin's is, they're forced to keep living in that awful space between memory and uncertainty. Forced to repeat the same facts, forced to hope that every new tip might matter. According to the Wisconsin DOJ Clearinghouse page, we know when Caitlin went missing, when she was discovered, and that her disappearance and her death remain unsolved. The Wisconsin DOJ has publicly acknowledged that violence against Indigenous women is often underreported. Cases are misclassified, and the confusion about jurisdiction contributes to poor tracking and weak data. Wisconsin reporting has also emphasized that the state lacks accurate numbers on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Now, a month after Caitlin went missing, a task force on MMIW in Wisconsin was formed. This had to be done by the state attorney general because the Wisconsin legislature wouldn't put a bill that was similar up for a vote. They wouldn't even bring it to the floor. Wow. It had been put together with input from indigenous women throughout the state, and the state legislature wouldn't even consider it, which is just so frustrating. Wild, awful, horrible. Luckily, the state attorney general found it incredibly important and got it going anyways. They are focused on data collection. As we know, you have to demonstrate a problem, show the data that supports it before you can get any funding. And in Wisconsin, when Caitlin's case was happening, the data was so limited. You had under-reporting, you had race misclassified constantly on police reports, if the reports were filed at all.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Oh, so not acknowledging that they were native.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

At one point they said they had six cases.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

It's mind-blowingly bad. Like you can't hear the expression on my face, but my face was like incredulous. Like really. Yep, incredulous. That was mine too.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

And the data that was available only went back to the late 90s.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Because I believe Wisconsin has a high native population.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

I believe so too. So this tribe in particular has at least three other unsolved cases. Two from the 80s and another one from 2014, I believe. Okay. And so those first two won't even show up because it only goes back to the late 90s. Wow.

unknown 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

And that's really where Caitlin's case sits. We don't know who gave her the ride.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Or the authorities doing any like press releases on the anniversaries. Like, I mean, are they continuing to work the case publicly?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

They are. Okay. The FBI put out a statement on the one-year anniversary of when she went missing. And I believe they have done that every year. Okay. Saying we still want and need tips. We can't solve this without someone giving us something. Yeah. They want to know who did she leave with at 3 a.m.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Was it the three people that they know she was seen with?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Right. The black SUV. Mm-hmm. Another car.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Right. Was it the car that gave her a ride in the first place? And is that why you haven't come forward?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

New boyfriend. I mean, we have a lot of choices here. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

And you know, it feels like, and maybe they didn't communicate that way, but Kodiak did get into her Facebook and her Gmail for police.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Oh. Okay. So it does appear he was being helpful. Okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah. I believe he's been at every search. His parents have even spoken, offering condolences and begging for tips. Yeah. They say they look at her son, who looks a lot like her. Oh, yeah. And their heart breaks.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

His mom was quoted as saying it shattered her when four-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Was he when she went missing?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

He was two.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

He was born in 2018.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Okay. So yeah, he would have been missing his mom.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Him asking for her was horrible.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah. Because what do you say?

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Right. And that's the thing. What do you say? Because there's still so many unanswered questions. Police have really begged for anybody with any information to come forward. They wonder if someone has stayed silent all this time because they think what they know is too small, or it's been too long. Or maybe you're implicating yourself in the process. Or maybe they'll, I don't know, not need what you have to share. But in this case, there's no leads, no suspects. That missing piece has to come from a witness or someone who saw something, someone who has heard something. Usually, if three people, if all three of them were with her that night, it's hard for someone to stay silent forever. Yeah. When there's more than one. Tragically, in March of 2023, Caitlin's mom passed away unexpectedly at only 47 years old. She never got the answers to what happened to Caitlin, which is also heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Yeah. Secondary tragedy for sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

If you know anything about Caitlin Kelly's disappearance, if you saw her, spoke to her, gave her a ride, saw a vehicle either near County Highway V V and Silver Kinney Road or near those apartments in Shanawa, investigators would love to hear from you. You can contact the Menomi Tribal Police Department at 715-799-5806. There is also a tip line from the Wisconsin Department of Justice. And we will post their email, phone number, and links to that. If you have information, send it to investigators directly. That is what they need to get justice for Caitlin. And we will keep saying her name until the silence breaks.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Vanished Voices. We are grateful you've chosen to spend your time with us as we bring attention to these stories that too often go unheard. If you'd like to learn more about the resources and sources we used in today's episode, visit our blog, link through our website at Vanished Voicespodcast.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and reflections, and to continue building this community with you. Your support not only helps us reach more listeners, but also helps amplify the voices of those who can no longer speak for themselves. You can find Vanished Voices on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and all other streaming platforms. And as always, refuse to let these voices vanish. Thanks, bye.