SHEESH. Def wanted to get away. Being a parent is rough, especially if you don't want it. Still fucked up what she did, making them wonder what happened for decades and decades and won't even face them to deal with the fallout. Fuck.

Officials said Smith’s family was notified that she had been located and were informed about her request to keep her whereabouts undisclosed.

Wonder if she'll be notified of their request for retroactive child support

Sounds like she got tired of it all and dipped. Especially with her telling the authorities to not reveal her location even to her family.

How do you stay “missing” that long without being found? Like if you applied for a job / filed your tax return / got a credit card wouldn’t some system get flagged?

Without reading the article, I choose to believe she finally found the perfect Christmas gift.

That was a long long way to the nearest cigarette kiosk.

Did she just peace out or what?

I hope there's a way for their children to relay a message to them.

This is both good and sucky for everyone. I feel for the family - glad for them to have some conclusion, but also sad for them to find out she just left.

We don't know what the mum went on to do. Whether she just noped out and lived by herself, or even if she had another family. Many unanswered questions and all anyone is left with is more unanswered questions and more undeserved pain for this family.

All I'll say, as a father of a couple of kids, is well done to the dad for holding them all together. I hope the mother will one day give them all the closure they deserve but I have a sneaking suspicion that all this will lead to is feelings of abandonment rather than loss.

They started to convict some people with no bodies too. How embarrassing that would be if they had someone in prison, or already executed.

They would probably suppress the information if they could if that was the case. Government employees all cover for each other. Especially prosecutors, those old boys are dishonest and rotten to the core, and run unopposed more often than not.

Prosecutors got a lot more powerful in the 80s, in their campaigns during the crime wave, and the satanic panic and all that. It didn't used to be such a powerful position as of now.

Who goes to a Kmart 17 miles away at 8:30 at night? Didn't Kmart (and most stores in general) close by 8 or 9? Even closing at 9, if you drove 17 miles at 40 miles an hour assuming zero traffic or other issues, you'd just barely make it to the store, let alone have time to shop. Awful cover story. F-.

I expect this assignment re-written from scratch, and the rough draft peer reviewed before a final hits my desk. Due Friday, minus 10 percent for the extension.

I hope they sue her into the ground, what in the actual fuck.