Drinking The Cool Aid

Amy Pagnac // 205 // Unsolved disappearance

• Megan and Hanna Hawkins • Season 1 • Episode 205

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13-year-old Amy Sue Pagnac stopped at the gas station with her father on August 5th, 1989, after working on the family farm.  The gas station was just two miles from their home in Maple Grove, Minnesota.  When Marshall walked out of the station, Amy was not in the vehicle.  She remains missing and her case is unsolved. 

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It was a Saturday afternoon, on August 5th, 1989.  Amy Sue Pagnac and her father, Marshall Midden, arrived at the farm around noon.  Typically, Amy, her father, her mother, and her younger sister would all help with harvest, but on that day, her mother and sister had other plans.  There was an event that they had to attend.  Amy and Marshall worked at the farm for five hours and they headed home to Maple Grove around 5 PM.   

 

When they were two miles from their house, Marshall stopped at the Holiday gas station in Osseo to use the bathroom and Amy waited in the car.  He was only inside for a couple minutes, but when he returned, 13-year-old Amy was gone. 

-What’s your first thought? 

Many people have scrutinized Marshall about this part of the story.  Why would you stop at a gas station when you’re just two miles from the house?  Maybe it was an emergency?  Like, a poop emergency?  I know it sounds strange, but none of the articles mentioned if he was stopping to poop, and that honestly would help settle some of the debate online. 

 

When Marshall didn’t see Amy in the car, he figured she must have gone into the station to use the bathroom as well.  He headed inside and stood outside the women’s bathroom, waiting for Amy to come out.  It was a single person bathroom, and a woman eventually walked out.  Marshall started walking around the gas station.  Maybe Amy was looking for something?  One of the articles said he wandered around for about ten minutes, and he asked if anyone had seen her get out of the car, but no one had.  Marshall was very confused, and he caled his wife from a payphone outside the gas station.  He told her he couldn’t find Amy and he was wondering if Amy got sick of waiting for him while he was in the gas station and decided to walk home, but Susan didn’t think that sounded like something she would do. 

 

-This statement makes me think he was in the bathroom longer than a few minutes.  Men can typically pee pretty fast.  Maybe two to three minutes?  Why Amy leave the car in such a short time and start walking home?   

 

Marshall was probably going through every possible scenario at this point, trying not to panic.  He decided to drive home slowly, hoping to see Amy on the way.  When he got home, there was no sign of her and Amy’s mother, Susan, called the police. 

 

Maple Grove police officer, Jeff Garland was dispatched to the home, and he arrived around 5:45 PM.  Jeff had been at this home several times over that summer.  In fact, the police had a history of 65 calls to that address over the past 30 years.  In the summer of 1989, the police had responded to a juvenile runaway report on May 2nd. On June 28th, there was a reported domestic assault, where Susan said Amy was having a seizure and accidentally hit her mother when her arms were flailing.  Two juvenile runaway calls were reported on June 29th, and there was another the next day.  Amy ended up disappearing about two months after this.  Details about the calls haven’t been disclosed and the city said records that aren’t linked to the active investigation were purged in 1999, which is part of the city’s records retention policy. 

 

-I don’t know the exact policies, but I would think we should save records for an active investigation whether you believe it pertains to it or not. 

 

According to Jeff, Amy was a frequent runaway, and her parents were frustrated with her behavior.  Marshall and Susan previously told the officer that Amy was out of control, and they believed she was running away to drink alcohol and do sex. 

 

Marshal and Susan told Jeff Garland that Amy had a medical condition that caused pressure on her brain, and she was prone to having seizures.  They also suspected that she may be bipolar, but this wasn’t diagnosed.  Susan even though that Amy could have had a seizure while she was waiting for Marshall at the gas station.  They caused her to become very disoriented.  Maybe she had a seizure, got confused, and wandered away from the car? 

 

Since Marshall had only been inside the gas station for a couple minutes, the police thought it was unlikely that she could have had a seizure, got confused, and disappeared in such a short amount of time.  Amy had gotten lost three times that summer though.  She also ran away from home several times, but she always came back on her own. 

 

When the police had been called to the home, they were asked to file a missing person report, but it was labeled as a juvenile runaway.  This meant that Amy’s disappearance wouldn’t be looked into in a timely manner, and we all know how crucial the first 24 to 48 hours are.  As the weeks went by, people started to wonder if this wasn’t just a simple runaway situation.   

 

Missing Children Minnesota heard about Amy’s case and helped get the word out that she had gone missing.  There were a few possible sightings of Amy reported, but the police were never able to confirm any of them.  The search for Amy stopped almost right away, and it took decades for the search to start again.  The local news didn’t even pick up Amy’s case. 

 

Just two months after Amy disappeared, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted in St. Joseph, Minnesota, sparking national media coverage.  Amy’s case was quietly filed away.  When her classmates started eighth grade, she wasn’t there, but they saw her face on their milk cartons.  According to the Star Tribune, Amy wasn’t even mentioned at her 1994 high school graduation ceremony. 

 

Some of Amy’s classmates say she was smart and social, but she was bullied at school for years, even beaten up.  Becky Brooks-Macris said Amy was once pushed down the stairs while she was on crutches.  She talked to kids at school about running away. 

 

On the 25th anniversary of Amy’s disappearance, on May 18th, 2014, the Maple Grove Police Department got a search warrant for Marshall and Susan’s Maple Grove home, but they didn’t really say anything about the investigation.  About 40 officers showed up for the search.  For a week, the couple had to move out of their home while the police searched and started digging up the backyard.  On June 2nd, they did a four-day dig on the family’s wooded 140-acre Isanti County farm. 

 

Marshall and Susan were so confused by the search.  They didn’t understand why nothing had been done for 25 years, then the police wanted to dig up their yard and search the house.  They said the police could look at anything they wanted, they just didn’t get why they were focusing on their property and being so tight lipped.  This is when the media started paying attention for the first time, and Amy’s case was being talked about. 

 

The reporters had a lot of questions for the police, and they didn’t answer very many, but they did say that no one saw Amy at the Holiday gas station on the day she went missing.  No one saw her sitting in the car, and no one saw her leaving the car.  It’s my understanding that the police didn’t interview people at the gas station directly after Amy’s disappearance because she was listed as a runaway, not a missing person, so I’m not sure when they spoke to anyone there. 

 

After searching the home for a week, no one was arrested.  Susan said it looked like the police may have taken some paperwork from the house, but she didn’t know what it had to do with Amy’s disappearance.  Susan and Marshall told reporters that they believed they were the main suspects in their daughter’s disappearance for years, and Susan was worried that Amy had been taken for sex trafficking.  There had been rumors over the years that Amy had been seen working as a sex worker.  A tip was received that she was spotted at a strip club and at a bus or train station in 1992, but the police never found proof of this. 

 

After the police searched the property, Susan told WLS-TV, “They are doing something, it may not make sense to me, but they are doing something.  If this is the thing they have to do to get to the next step and the next step, then we will do it.” 

She said that the investigators did a thorough search of the home, but it was a welcome intrusion.  She said they went through everything, but that’s what they should have done.  She said they took a lot of art, notes, and schoolwork of Amy’s, and they even took some of her baby teeth. 

The police haven’t named any suspects, confirmed if they found anything, or revealed what even prompted the search.  Jeff Garland confirmed that Amy Pagnac and Jacob Wetterling’s cases have changed how the police and public respond to missing children. Garland said the police would follow more procedures when a child or teen goes missing. They look at crime networks, explore cases in depth, and they check surveillance cameras, which he doesn’t believe existed at the Holiday gas station in 1989. 

 

Susan Pangac says she keeps a blue bag packed with photos of her daughter.  The family has keep the same phone number in case she calls.  Amy’s sister, Susan Pagnac Jr. Said her older sister was very protective, and they used to watch movies and do homework together.  She said the best thing would be if Amy could come home so the family could heal. 

 

The Maple Grove police say they are actively working on this case, and they are especially interested in learning the identity of Amy’s biological father.  I’m not sure if this is something that Susan never revealed, or if she doesn’t know, but somehow, we still don’t know who her biological father is. 

 

Theories: 

  1. Amy was abducted from the car while Marshal was in the bathroom.   

That’s such a small window of time 

She was 13.  No one at the gas station saw or heard her, wouldn’t she scream? 

  1. Amy was never at the gas station.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense that Marshall stopped there when he was so close to the house.  No one else can confirm that Amy was in that car, but no one can confirm she wasn’t either. 
  2. She had a seizure and got confused.  Maybe she got out of the car, and a predator happened to be there and snatched her.  If she was already confused, she probably wouldn’t fight back, or scream. 
  3. Maybe Amy took her opportunity to runaway and she ran into someone bad along the way.  Her friends pointed out that she was being bullied at school and often running away from the house.  I think it would be very difficult for a 13-year-old to disappear on her own and stay away permanently.  Her mother said that even though she was having some problems, she was a happy kid, and she was looking forward to the eighth grade. 
  4. This isn’t a theory, it’s more of a thought, and not accusing in any way.  Why would Marshall drive home, rather than calling the police at the gas station?  Amy’s parents were clearly familiar with calling the police.  Unless he genuinely believed or hoped that she was walking home and he would find her along the way. 

 

Amy Sue Pagnac was only 13 when she went missing in 1989.  She has blue eyes and brown hair.  At the time of her disappearance, she was 5 feet tall and weighed 100 pounds.  She was last seen wearing a light-colored T-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers.  She has scars on her left cheek, left eyelid, and on the side of her nose.  If you have any information about Amy Pagnac, please call the Maple Grove Police Department at 612-494-6114. 

 

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