Georgia Smith (8 of Hearts, Minnesota)

In 1999, 76-year-old Georgia had plans to spend the 4th of July with her family at her

lakeside cabin one state over in Wisconsin.

But a few days before they were all set to leave, Georgia said that she needed to go

there early on her own.

When her family eventually showed up to celebrate, they quickly realized that this holiday wouldn't

be anything like they'd planned.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.

When Brent, Kim, and Carrie all arrived to their mom's cabin in Minon, Wisconsin, they

were expecting to find some sign that their mom Georgia was there.

Maybe the smell of barbecue on the grill, some decorations set up for the next day's

4th of July festivities, or at least some indication that she'd been working in the

yard that week, as she usually did.

But the blinds in the windows were closed, and her 1984 blue Mercedes sedan wasn't in

the driveway.

At first, her adult children weren't that worried.

Yes, she hadn't been answering her phone, but that wasn't too concerning, considering

she didn't always respond right away and she was known to unplug her landline at the cabin

when she didn't want to be bothered.

It was only the afternoon on July 3rd, after all.

Maybe she'd just gone to run an errand or pick up something that she'd forgotten for

their 4th of July get-together the next day.

But the more they thought about it, and the longer they waited, the less likely that seemed,

because she knew that her family was planning on coming to the cabin that weekend.

Feeling a sense of unease, they walked over to the neighbor's house, probably hoping

he'd be able to quell the feeling of worry starting to grow in the pit of their stomachs.

But that's not what happened.

Instead, the neighbor said something that made their hearts sink.

He hadn't seen Georgia at the cabin at all that week.

Carrie immediately phoned his brother, Brett, who hadn't arrived at the cabin yet either,

to let him know what the neighbor had told them.

You see, Georgia had been staying with Brett and his wife, Debbie, on and off for the last

decade since her husband passed away.

And over the past four years or so, she had been spending about two-thirds of her time

at their place in Champlain, Minnesota, and the other third out at the family's cabin

in Wisconsin.

Carrie knew Georgia would have been staying with Brett before leaving for the cabin, maybe

she was even still there with them.

So he was hoping to call Brett and settle all of their nerves.

But again, that's not what happened.

Brett told Carrie that their mom had already left for the cabin three nights ago, so she

should be there.

The family wasted no time, and they reported Georgia missing in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

At around 4.30 that afternoon, Carrie called the sheriff's office over in Washburn County,

Wisconsin, where Georgia's cabin was located.

And back home, Brett phoned police in Champlain, Minnesota.

Now, based on the fact that the last confirmed sighting of Georgia was leaving Brett's house,

the Champlain police were the ones who ultimately took on the missing persons case.

Brett told police that the last day with Georgia, Wednesday, June 30th, had been pretty typical.

He owned this business where he sold concrete water fountains for yard decor and landscaping,

and he and his wife Debbie and his mom had all spent most of the day working at the store.

Even though Georgia was technically retired, she still liked to help out where she could

by setting up appointments, talking to customers, and giving them quotes.

Brett said all three of them worked a few hours that morning, then went out to lunch

together at around 12 or 1 in the afternoon, and then returned back to the shop to work

several more hours before wrapping up for the day.

Everything seemed normal until, out of the blue, Georgia became adamant about heading

to her cabin that night.

Now, going to her cabin wasn't weird.

Like I said, she spent a third of her time up there.

What was weird was the timing.

The entire family, Georgia, her seven kids, and some of her grandkids planned to spend

the Fourth of July holiday at the cabin.

Brett, Debbie, and Georgia were planning on all riding up there together that week.

But rather than wait, Georgia insisted that she had to run an errand.

She had to go that night, and then she would come back and still go up with them as planned.

In her statement, Debbie, Brett's wife, even went as far as to describe Georgia as

agitated, as she told them why she had to go right then.

Here's investigator Justin Michael, who's working Georgia's case today.

She thought she had to pay them at that time.

They were not actually due until July 31st, I believe.

So she wanted to leave, to go up there early, to pay the property taxes.

Making the nearly three-and-a-half-hour one-way trip by herself on back roads just to come

back and do it all over again later that week didn't make sense to Brett.

But in the summer, it was light longer, and it's a trip that his mom had made many times

before, so he wasn't going to fight her on this one.

Although, after she left, she didn't actually get very far.

the evening.

She got about maybe 10 minutes north of here and decided to turn back around because she

thought she forgot her property tax statement, so she'd bring that to the county or whatever

and say, here's my property ID and pay the taxes.

they all could go up together.

But again, she insisted on going that night.

Before she took off, Brett asked her to make one concession if she was going to leave,

to avoid one specific area that he thought could be dangerous.

Oh, and call him when she arrived safely.

this gas station in the area, you know, you'd have to cross the highway to get there, and

I don't want you taking that extra risk.

And that was the last time that anyone had seen her or talked to her.

Brett said he tried calling her several times leading up to that Saturday before he learned

from Carrie that she wasn't home.

But again, it wasn't that weird that he couldn't get in touch with her.

Remember, he just assumed her phone wasn't on, and she didn't always keep him updated

about her plans and kind of came and went as she pleased, I mean, she was their mother,

an adult herself.

Now, it was a little strange that she left her overnight bag behind on her bed.

Back on Wednesday, that had signaled to Brett that she probably planned on coming back at

some point before they all went up for the 4th of July.

But maybe she just decided to stay there, he thought.

And she wouldn't have necessarily needed her suitcase anyways, as she kept some of her

things at her cabin, again, since she stayed there so much.

Minon and Champlain quite often.

She kind of just came and went like a seed, you know, on the wind type of thing where

she was very independent.

the cabin.

So police decided to start their investigation at Brett's and then work their way out.

They started by canvassing their neighborhood, chatting with anyone who may have seen anything

that night Georgia set off.

There were a few neighbors that confirmed Brett's story, stating that they saw Georgia

and Brett talking in the driveway at around 6.30 p.m. before she left.

They noted that the exchange appeared to be normal and that the two didn't seem to be

even arguing or anything like that.

While police were boots on the ground over in Minnesota, back at Georgia's cabin, some

of her kids had started going through her things in search of any clues as to where

she could be.

And that is when they made a concerning discovery.

To their surprise, they found some credit card statements and bills from Publishers

Clearinghouse, a catalog subscription Georgia had been using to shop for all kinds of merchandise.

They hadn't known that their mom was struggling financially, but the unpaid statements said

otherwise.

They also came across checks that had been made out to their brother Brett, who was kind

of known in the family to be bad with money.

When detectives pulled Georgia's bank information, her credit report confirmed her children's

suspicions.

She was about $24,000 in debt at the time of her disappearance.

And her accounts hadn't been touched since the day she left her son's place.

According to Investigator Michael, those checks she wrote Brett weren't for any huge sums

of money.

They were small bailouts, if you will, part of a pattern that Brett's siblings said

that he had.

He would sometimes come into a sizable sum of cash from sales being up at his business,

but then he'd burn through it quickly and go right back to struggling to upkeep his

lifestyle.

Brett didn't deny it, even admitting that he had filed bankruptcy several years back.

But he described his relationship with his mom as equitable.

Yes, she would sometimes write him checks, pay for things, or help him out with the inventory

for his business.

But just as often, Brett said he would take care of her and pay for things as well, including

international trips that he, his wife, and his mom would take together.

He also said he would give her cash for gas and food.

In fact, he said he did that the very night she went missing, though exactly how much

he gave her changed a little from one interview to the next.

was heavily discussed.

And he kind of varied at times, saying, you know, I gave her $50 for cash.

He liked to always say I took care of my mom type of thing.

You know, I made sure she had cash for gas and for food, because at that time, the last

time they'd eaten was that lunch.

So he thought that for sure she'd be stopping for gas, and she'd probably be stopping for

food as well.

So he at one point said, you know, I gave her $50.

Another time, I think he said give her a couple hundred bucks, and just kind of varied a little

bit.

It was a weird inconsistency, and investigators couldn't say for sure what it meant.

I mean, detectives knew full well how strapped finances could lead someone to kill.

And so they wondered if Brett could have been taking advantage of his mother in any way

when it came to money.

But here's the thing.

Looking back at the case files, in hindsight, Investigator Michael mentioned that he didn't

think Brett would have had much to gain from harming Georgia.

For instance, he was pretty sure she didn't have a life insurance policy that would go

to him.

He thinks Georgia's estate, including the cabin, was split amongst her seven children,

which didn't end up adding up to anything significant.

Now, he had helped her settle a life insurance policy from his late father for somewhere

around $10,000.

But most of that money had been put in a new bank account for Georgia to use, a bank account

that Brett helped set up.

And I did say most, not all, because the rest of it was put towards one of those vacations

that Brett mentioned that he, his wife, and Georgia would take together.

And, in fact, he, his wife, and Georgia were actually planning another big trip to Europe

around the time of her disappearance.

They hadn't traveled for a little while because Georgia was recovering from a heart attack.

But since she'd appeared to be doing much better, another adventure was in the works.

Though it was unclear who would be funding that vacation since neither of them were in

a good place with their finances, which, in turn, made some of Brett's siblings suspicious.

All this talk about money wasn't a smoking gun by any means.

And with no solid evidence Georgia had been the victim of foul play, investigators had

to consider all other scenarios.

When looking at her history, they found that she wasn't in picture-perfect health.

For one, her daughters had raised concerns when she'd forgotten directions on a few occasions.

And while Investigator Michael told us that he didn't think Georgia was ever formally

diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's, her memory was a concern for some of her children.

And like I said, she had also suffered a heart attack last year.

And she had allegedly stopped taking her prescription medication several months prior to her disappearance.

Maybe because of this or some other health issue, Investigator Michael told us that Georgia

had previously had some type of medical restriction on her Minnesota driver's license.

But Brett had actually helped her cheat the system a little bit by assisting her with

obtaining her Wisconsin driver's license, which had no restrictions.

While her other kids, particularly her daughters, didn't love the idea of Georgia driving such

long distances due to her medical concerns and mental wherewithal, Brett still seemed

to support her unwavering independence.

Which, in turn, caused even more tension amongst some of the siblings, who already hadn't

been getting along that well prior to Georgia going missing.

Brett was happy having Georgia stay with him, but his sisters wanted her to consider moving

into an assisted living facility.

You know what I mean?

She comes and goes.

Whether it be, you know, eight inches of snow on the ground, she drives, that's fine.

what they thought may have happened to her.

A few went as far as to point the finger at their own brother, Brett, thinking he could

have been using his mom for money.

But others assumed that her disappearance was likely due to a car accident that might

have been caused by a health episode.

And still others worried that a stranger may have harmed their mother in order to rob her

or hijack her car.

In an effort to corroborate Brett's story, police pulled his phone records and confirmed

that someone had, in fact, tried calling Georgia's cabin multiple times in the days between when

she left Brett's house and when the other siblings reached the cabin and informed Brett

that his mom wasn't there.

Plus, the day after reporting his mom missing, he and his wife spent hours making up flyers

and putting them up all along the routes that she may have taken, stopping at every gas

station and market in search of her and her blue Mercedes.

So looking at all the evidence they had so far, which admittedly wasn't much, law enforcement

had to consider that there was a strong possibility Georgia had gotten into some kind of accident

in a rural area somewhere, or maybe gotten confused or even suffered from another heart

attack.

Regardless of why she was missing, investigators began trying to track Georgia down.

If the accident theory was right, time was of the essence.

One of the first things they did when trying to follow her movements was to see if she

even made it to the government office where she was going to pay her property taxes.

But she hadn't.

So backtracking further, they focused their search efforts on the route that Georgia may

have taken to Wisconsin that night.

Now no one was certain the exact way she may have gone, as she would often switch it up.

But her family member's best guess was that she could have gone through Cambridge, Minnesota,

and then Siren and Spooner, Wisconsin.

Besides sites like forests or lakes simply being on Georgia's potential path the night

she disappeared, investigators at the time had a few other qualifiers for targeting specific

locations to search.

Did the area have any sneaky curves that could have caused her to swerve off the road and

into the woods or to the water somewhere?

Was the area super unpopulated or remote enough where people wouldn't necessarily notice something

strange right away?

One week after she was reported missing, the family was already out.

Search parties.

We had assistance from state patrol and other local agencies, you know, with helicopter

searches and checking water, stuff like that too.

Edge of the road, water, waterways and stuff.

No tire tracks, no disturbed patches of land near any roadways.

body of water, you know, not right on the shoreline, but far enough out where a car

could be submerged.

So, yeah, this is the land of 10,000 lakes.

There's probably close to 10,000 lakes between here and Minot.

spread throughout the towns that she may have driven through.

More than 60 leads were called into the Champlain Police Department, most of which were from

people thinking that they may have seen a car that could have been Georgia's.

Some even claimed that they had actually seen an older woman matching Georgia's description

looking lost or confused.

Most of them were discredited rather quickly, you know, as far as there just isn't enough

information to follow up on.

three weeks after Georgia went missing.

Now, Spooner was only about a half an hour away from the cabin.

And this employee remembered that she'd interacted with a woman matching Georgia's description

who drove the same blue Mercedes.

This mystery woman had called in first and then showed up to the store in person.

Here's a recreation of a portion of that interview police did with the employee.

Some of it has been slightly edited for clarity.

We had information that you possibly had seen her.

Since I've gotten here, I've shown you two pictures that you identified as being her.

Were you able to tell from those photographs if in fact it was the lady we are looking for?

Does that seem reasonable to you?

I think 1 o'clock.

I don't know if she said it was her clock or whatever.

The other important detail this manager was able to recall were the big, shiny rings the

older woman had been wearing.

And out of everything the manager said, this was one of the things that really solidified

investigators' belief that she had spoken to Georgia.

You see, she wore a lot of jewelry.

In fact, her kids said that she was known to keep a bag of jewelry in her car.

Now, it was a point of contention, with some of the siblings saying it was worth tens of

thousands of dollars and might have been a reason for someone to target her, while others

said the value was more sentimental than anything.

But regardless, that jewelry wasn't something someone would easily forget.

So this sighting seemed particularly promising, and it did more than just give them something

to work with.

With this tip, word of Georgia's disappearance made the news.

national news shortly after.

And when that happens, you're going to get a flood of, everyone and their brother saw

her, you know what I mean?

They saw that model of vehicle or that color of vehicle or a woman of that description.

They saw her as far as, you know, New York or was it Mackinac Island in Michigan?

They saw her in North Dakota, South Dakota, traveling every which direction out of here.

And there was almost so many leads flooded in that you couldn't possibly follow up on

every one of them.

a more accurate timeline of Georgia's whereabouts.

But all that work went out the window with one call from the woman who took her car into

Radio Shack, and it wasn't Georgia.

radio or the news or something that, hey, we think that this is a possible lead.

She came back and said, that was me.

I didn't try to create any confusion.

You know, it was a misunderstanding more than anything.

It wasn't her fault.

And square one was the last person to see Georgia, Brett.

So they decided to give him a polygraph, which he took willingly and passed.

But no other leads panned out and no one else came forward with any reliable sightings.

So the rest of 1999 passed without so much as a whisper from Georgia herself.

But with the turn of the century came a bizarre twist that no one saw coming.

In late March of 2000, police learned about a strange interaction at a Walmart in Coon

Rapids, Minnesota, which is only about 10 minutes or so from Champlin.

A cashier told them that she'd been casually chatting with this older woman with graying

hair while checking her out at the register.

And the woman noticed that the cashier was wearing a Where's Grandma pin in support

of the ongoing search for Georgia.

So they spoke a little about Georgia's case.

And over the course of their conversation, the cashier just kind of casually mentioned

that one of Georgia's grandsons, Robert, also worked at that very Walmart.

She said the woman finished checking out and left the store.

But then a few days later, she came back.

And this time, she came back with a handwritten letter addressed to Robert.

She handed the note to another employee and asked them to get it to Georgia's grandson.

We were able to get a copy of the original handwritten letter.

And although it was mostly legible, some of the handwriting was smudged or more difficult

to read.

But here's what our reporter JC and investigator Michael were able to decipher from the loopy

cursive in blue ink.

Date, 3-21-2000.

Dear Father,

The car was blue in the woods.

Blue is power, which means the car is the key.

A car's license plates can be transferred.

A car license plates can be changed.

And then there's a star before this sentence.

A car license plates can be held in a junkyard for years.

It is illegal, but done all the time.

And, but done all the time is underlined.

There's another star before this sentence.

If someone sold the car, but the plates are still in the box at the junkyard,

the car would be there being scrapped out, sold for parts.

If the someone who is keeping Grandma is in nearly as poor shape, mind, as her,

she might be in loving company who is unaware people are looking for her.

There are many people without families wandering around in this society.

Do I give this letter to someone who will give it to her grandson?

Love you, Jay.

And then, at the bottom of the note, in the same handwriting and blue pen,

written almost as a response, it reads,

Dear Jay,

Yes, Dad.

Now obviously, this letter was confusing.

Jaycee and Investigator Michael discussed a few possible interpretations,

one of which being that it could have been insinuating that Georgia was being cared for

by some unnamed person who was unaware that she had been reported missing.

Another idea was that it could be claiming something sinister

went down with Georgia's car and or license plate,

and that's why the vehicle hasn't been located.

And lastly, and probably the most popular analysis,

pandering for attention.

in an attempt to track down the woman who had left this letter.

There was surveillance footage from the Walmart, but we're talking 2000 here,

so the video ended up being too grainy to be of any real help.

A detective even took the footage to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,

better known as the BCA.

He was trying to see if they would be able to enlarge one of the frames

where the woman was walking into the store pushing her cart.

But to his disappointment, nothing could be done to improve the quality of the image.

So that woman, even to this day, has never been located.

And she never showed back up at the Walmart.

There's really no theory police subscribed to today about the letter.

Even the idea of someone wanting attention kind of goes out the window

because no one came forward to get the attention,

and then they left the letter signed without a full name.

It's just a puzzling mystery within a puzzling mystery.

As the one-year anniversary of Georgia's disappearance loomed,

police reinvigorated search efforts.

They decided to re-interview all of Georgia's close relatives,

which, of course, included questioning Brett once again.

During this process, Brett agreed to take a voice stress analysis test,

which he failed.

So they offered him another one, and he failed again.

Unable to explain why Brett would have passed an initial polygraph exam early on

in the investigation, but then failed these two voice stress tests a year later,

police contacted the FBI, who referred them to their national head agent

for polygraph administering.

And that agent told investigators that the FBI does not use voice stress analysis testing,

and that, in his opinion, they are completely unreliable.

Not to mention, it also sounds like the guy who gave Brett the two failed tests

was a bit of a novice.

Now, amidst all this voice stress test polygraph drama,

Brett was also asked if he would come to the sheriff's office for another formal interview.

While he reluctantly agreed in the moment,

when he was actually supposed to meet investigators,

he never showed up.

No explanation, no phone call, nothing.

So a detective called him to see what was up,

and Brett said that he had thought about it during the night,

and decided he was no longer willing to cooperate with police.

To be fair, reading the detective's report on this interaction,

I get the feeling Brett was extremely frustrated

that he was still being questioned so heavily.

As he had stated, he had already submitted to a polygraph,

searches, voice stress analysis tests,

and he had shown up to all of the press conferences.

He was at a point where he didn't know what more he could do

to prove to them he played no part in his mother's disappearance.

So investigators eventually pivoted back to the theory

that maybe Georgia had been in an accident,

missed a turn, or had a heart attack along the way,

and drove her car into a body of water.

So in the summer of 2000,

with the assistance of the Washburn County Sheriff's Office,

the Jamblin Police Department worked with the Hennepin County dive team

to coordinate a search of a body of water where this was most likely to have happened,

if they were right about one of the possible routes she took that fateful night.

And that body of water would have been the pond at Chicago Creek in Wisconsin.

With the family watching anxiously,

a diver went into the water and did a thorough search of the bottom of the pond.

That diver resurfaced without discovering Georgia's vehicle,

and he noted that there didn't appear to be any signs

that a car had ever been down there.

After this, investigators felt that there wasn't much more they could do

in the early 2000s outside of keeping an eye out

for any signs of Georgia and her blue Mercedes.

Every now and then they would hold a press conference

to try and renew public interest in the case,

and Georgia's children worked to keep their mom's case in the spotlight as well

by traveling to hand out flyers and holding a public remembrance service in 2003.

But year after year, dead end after dead end,

they were left with nothing.

No sign of their mom, no clue as to where she went.

Things stayed pretty quiet until 2022,

when a volunteer group jumped in and tried to help.

An Oregon-based search and rescue dive team that takes on cold cases

searched the St. Croix River by Taylors Falls

looking for any evidence of Georgia or her car.

Investigator Michael said that the group probably chose the St. Croix for a reason.

Georgia's likely route would have intersected this body of water.

if her car submerged in water,

the chances of it being a pond versus a river,

well, it's a lot more likely to be a river, right?

I mean, how many ponds are there?

You know that 10 feet offshore, it's over 10 feet deep.

Probably not many.

So I think you start there with the most likely.

Well, you know, if her car is fully submerged,

it's pretty likely in a river.

Obviously, we got the Mississippi River a mile away from here.

But it's such a populated area that a car goes in the river

and goes past over a bridge,

you're going to see the sign of that.

no signs of Georgia or her vehicle were found during the search.

But the silver lining is that they now know where she's not.

So any future searches can focus their time and energy elsewhere.

Brett passed away in 2014 with no answers

as to whatever happened to his mother.

And since he's not here to speak for himself,

we want to make it very clear

that there were never any criminal charges against him

relating to Georgia's case.

Brett was never charged with anything.

There was never enough evidence.

In my mind, never even close to enough evidence.

is that Georgia had a tragic accident

that ended with her car submerged in some body of water

still waiting to be found.

I personally can't shake the feeling

that maybe she got confused

and maybe she's still out there somewhere.