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The mystery of what happened to Mary Day, or Mary Louise Day, back in 1981 is still one of those true crime cases that gets under your skin. This poor girl was just 13 when she went missing from her place in Seaside, California. At first, everyone thought she'd just run away like some teenagers do.
But it turned into something way darker when those dogs that can sniff out dead bodies led cops to a spot where they thought she might be buried. Years after she disappeared! That's when people started thinking maybe she'd been killed.
Fast forward more than 20 years, and a woman pops up out of nowhere claiming to be Mary Day. This throws everyone for a loop because they've been searching for her all this time, and now she's just... there? It's like she came back from the dead, and it makes you wonder if it's her or if someone's playing a twisted game.
Investigation Discovery's The Curious Case of... the Girl Who Died Twice, looks into this. It's packed with bits that make you want to sleep with the lights on. And the fact that we still don't have all the answers makes it stick with you.
Facts about the Mary Day case on Investigation Discovery
1) Cadaver dogs indicate a burial site, but no body is found
In 2003, cadaver dogs caught the scent of something eerie in Seaside. They led the authorities to a spot that they thought had human remains buried underneath. Steve Cercone, who was one of the main people working on the case, said that four of these dogs all pointed to the same area on their own.
Despite digging for hours, the search team didn't find a single bone. They started to think that maybe the body had been moved from there.
The dog handlers, though, were adamant, saying,
“Our dogs don’t lie.”
This made everyone sit up and take notice because it meant that their dogs' instincts were spot on. Suddenly, the focus of the whole case turned to Mary Day's mom and dad, Charlotte and William.
They went from being just worried parents to being the main people everyone was eyeing as suspects in their daughter's disappearance.
2) Suspicious behavior on the part of Mary Day’s parents
Charlotte and William's behavior was suspicious. Even though they said that Mary Day had a history of taking off on her own, they never actually went to the police to report her missing.
In an interview, Charlotte admitted,
“Life is full of regrets… If I had done this or that.”
The way she was acting and the strange things she was saying made it seem like she felt guilty, according to Cercone.
And William's story wasn't any better; he said he was mad at Mary and talked about a time when they had a big fight and he hit her. Investigators thought maybe there was something even worse going on that he wasn't telling them.
3) Claims of abuse and demonic possession
Mary Day ended up in a safe place in Hawaii back in 1980 because there were some serious reports that her stepdad had been hurting her physically. Later on, William, her stepfather, fessed up to hitting her during an intense argument.
He said it was like he was:
“Possessed by a demon.”
When Joe Bartena, the detective working on her case, asked if this "demon" he talked about could've killed her, William's answer was downright spine-chilling.
He said,
“Yes, the demon could have killed her.”
And then there was Charlotte, who said she saw "Satan" in William's eyes that same night. That just added a new level of creepiness to the situation.
4) The shocking reappearance of Mary Day
In November of 2003, something unexpected happened during a regular traffic stop in the city of Phoenix, Arizona. The police officers ended up finding a woman named Mary Day, who was alive and had an ID that had just been issued.
She looked like the Mary Day they were searching for, but her story didn't quite add up. It was a puzzle with missing pieces. She talked to them about some traumatic incidents that had happened to her, like being thrown against furniture, but couldn't remember the important parts that would help confirm who she was.
This situation had everyone scratching their heads, wondering if she was the real Mary Day, or just someone pretending to be her.
5) Lingering questions and mysteries
Even though she said she was Mary Day, things in her story didn't make sense. And she popped up right when the investigation was at its peak, making the cops think she might've made it all up to throw them off the scent of Charlotte and William. Plus, there wasn't any of Mary's DNA on record, so they couldn't prove for sure who she really was.
Legal analyst Beth Karas had to say:
“This is a case about family and identity… and the truth remains elusive.”
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Tune into Investigation Discovery or catch it on their streaming service as The Curious Case of… the Girl Who Died Twice is airing now.
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