Boy Vanished In 1979 — 45 Years Later Plumber Found This…

The object felt oddly heavy for its size. Danny turned it over in his gloved hand, squinting at it under the narrow beam of his flashlight. It was a dental retainer—the kind teenagers wore decades ago, made of wire and a pinkish acrylic plate that once fit snugly against the roof of someone’s mouth. Dirt clung to the metal, the plastic cracked with age. For a second, Danny thought it was nothing, maybe something left behind by a previous owner, until the light caught on two small, darkened shapes still attached to the wire. His breath caught. They weren’t stones or bits of plastic—they were teeth. Real teeth, complete with roots, brown with age but unmistakably human.

He froze. Every instinct told him to get out, now. The crawl space suddenly felt tighter, the air heavier, the smell of earth sharper. Danny dropped the retainer, his pulse hammering in his ears as he scrambled backward, scraping his shoulders against the wooden beams above him. By the time he reached the opening, his shirt was streaked with dirt and sweat. He climbed out fast, dragging himself into the daylight. For a few seconds, he just stood there, gulping air, staring at the dark hole he’d just emerged from. Then he called out for the homeowner. His voice shook as he told him to call the police—right now.

That discovery would unravel one of Sacramento’s oldest unsolved mysteries, one that had haunted families and detectives alike for nearly half a century. The retainer belonged to Kevin Anderson, a fourteen-year-old boy who had disappeared without a trace in the fall of 1979. For forty-five years, people had believed Kevin had been taken—snatched from his bedroom by someone who vanished into the night. But as it turned out, Kevin had never left his house at all.

Back in 1979, the Anderson family had lived in a modest two-story home in a quiet Sacramento neighborhood, a row of near-identical houses built during the suburban boom of the 1960s. Kevin’s father, Robert, worked as an insurance adjuster. His mother, Patricia, volunteered at the local library. They had three children: Derek, a college freshman home for the weekend; Kevin, fourteen; and Amy, twelve. By all accounts, they were the kind of family everyone described as “normal.”

Kevin was an average kid by the standards of the late 1970s. He played baseball for his school team, watched Star Wars on repeat, and spent hours sketching spaceships and robots on lined notebook paper. His braces had come off that summer, replaced by a clear retainer that he wore every night. He’d hated it, complained that it made him sound funny when he talked, but his mother made sure he kept it in its little blue case by his bedside. That retainer, she’d reminded him, had cost almost two thousand dollars—money they couldn’t afford to waste.

Friday, September 14th, 1979, began like any other day. Kevin went to school, came home, and spent part of the afternoon helping Amy with her math homework. Dinner was meatloaf and mashed potatoes. His father watched the evening news while Kevin talked about an upcoming baseball tournament. Around nine, Patricia told him to start getting ready for bed. She remembered hearing the bathroom faucet run, the sound of the toothbrush hitting the sink, and the squeak of his door closing.

Kevin’s bedroom was on the first floor, tucked behind the kitchen, overlooking the backyard. The window faced the tall wooden fence that marked the back of the property. Upstairs, his parents’ and siblings’ rooms were grouped together, which meant Kevin slept alone on the ground level—a detail that had seemed harmless at the time.

At around 9:30 p.m., Patricia peeked into Kevin’s room. He was propped up in bed, reading a Star Wars novel, his glasses sliding down his nose. The window was closed, the curtains drawn. She kissed him goodnight, turned off the light, and shut the door softly behind her. That was the last time she ever saw her son alive.

When Patricia went to wake Kevin at 7 a.m. the next morning, his bed was empty. The blanket was tangled, the pillow on the floor. The window was open, the curtain fluttering in the cool morning air. At first, she thought he’d gone out early to meet friends, but something about the open window felt wrong. When she looked closer, her stomach dropped—the screen had been cut, not removed. A clean, vertical slice ran from top to bottom, the edges curling inward toward the room.

Patricia screamed. Robert came running, half-dressed, still buttoning his shirt. Within minutes, the entire house was in chaos—doors flung open, closets checked, every inch of space searched. Derek sprinted down the street calling Kevin’s name. Amy stood on the front lawn crying. There was no sign of him.

The police arrived within twenty minutes. Two patrol cars, then a detective unit. They photographed the window, dusted for prints, and marked the small drag marks on the carpet near the bed. The window sill showed faint scuffing—shoes, maybe. On the nightstand sat Kevin’s retainer case, empty. The officers concluded that whoever had taken Kevin had done so quickly, silently, efficiently.

Within hours, the Anderson house became a command post. Detectives canvassed the neighborhood, knocking on doors. No one had heard screams, no one had seen a strange car. The Andersons’ next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hollis, had been awake until midnight watching television; she swore she hadn’t heard a thing. The only sound she recalled was the wind rattling her windows around 10 p.m.

The search that followed was one of the largest in Sacramento’s history. Volunteers fanned out across parks, empty lots, and drainage ditches. Bloodhounds followed Kevin’s scent from his bedroom window across the backyard to the curb—and then it vanished. Investigators concluded that he had likely been carried to a waiting vehicle.

For weeks, the Anderson family lived inside a storm of sirens, searchlights, and reporters. Every night, Patricia appeared on local news, begging for her son’s return. Flyers covered telephone poles across the city: MISSING — KEVIN ANDERSON, AGE 14. His school held candlelight vigils. Baseball teammates wore his jersey number, 11, on their sleeves. The family offered a reward, but no one came forward.

As the months passed, leads dried up. One anonymous tip suggested a white van seen near the neighborhood. Another claimed a man matching Kevin’s description had been spotted at a Greyhound station. Both went nowhere. By winter, the case was officially labeled “cold.” Detective Frank Morrison, who led the investigation, remained convinced that Kevin had been abducted by someone familiar with the neighborhood—someone who had watched and planned. But without physical evidence, the trail ended in silence.

Years went by. Patricia and Robert’s marriage began to fracture under the weight of grief. Derek went back to college but rarely came home. Amy grew quiet, withdrawn, her childhood stolen by the shadow of her brother’s disappearance. Patricia refused to change Kevin’s room. His Star Wars posters still hung on the walls, his baseball glove sat on the dresser, and the small blue retainer case remained on the nightstand, its lid permanently closed.

In 1982, three years after Kevin vanished, the Andersons sold the house. They told the new owners about the open window and the police search but not the details—they couldn’t bear to. Patricia moved two towns away. Robert transferred to a different office. The family never returned.

The new owners, Mark and Susan Chen, lived there for fifteen years, raising two children of their own. They painted the walls, replaced the carpets, remodeled the kitchen. Life filled the spaces that grief had once haunted. They never had any reason to go into the crawl space beneath the house; it was sealed, narrow, and rarely used except by repairmen.

By the time the Chens sold the home in 1997, the neighborhood had changed. The lawns were smaller, the trees taller, the families newer. The story of Kevin Anderson had faded into something told occasionally by older residents—half-memory, half-urban legend. The next owners stayed eight years, then sold again. The house changed hands six times over the next four decades. Each family left its mark, repainting walls, redoing floors, building fences. None of them ever knew that just beneath the wooden planks of the first floor, hidden in the dry earth of the crawl space, Kevin Anderson had been there all along.

For forty-five years, his remains lay only thirty feet from where his mother had searched and screamed his name that September morning. Thirty feet from the police who combed through his bedroom. Thirty feet from the life that went on above him, oblivious.

By 2024, the house belonged to Mike Rodriguez, a contractor with a knack for buying fixer-uppers. The place was old but sturdy, its bones good even if the plumbing wasn’t. The water heater, installed sometime in the early 1960s, was still clinging to life but barely. Mike decided it was time for an upgrade and called a local plumber he trusted—Danny Martinez.

It was supposed to be a simple job. Replace the heater, run new pipes, seal the crawl space vent when done. Danny had done hundreds like it. But when he slid through that narrow opening and saw the retainer glinting under the beam of his flashlight, everything changed.

As police descended on the house later that day, cordoning off the property with yellow tape, the neighborhood filled with whispers. Old neighbors emerged from doorways, faces pale, voices low. A few remembered the Andersons, remembered the flyers, the search teams, the years of not knowing. Some had long since assumed Kevin had been taken far away. None imagined he’d been so close the entire time.

Down in the crawl space, investigators worked slowly, brushing away decades of dust, cataloging every inch. The air was thick with earth and silence. Above them, the afternoon light flickered through the floorboards as if the house itself were holding its breath.

Whatever they were about to uncover would rewrite a story everyone thought they knew. But for the moment, only one fact was certain: after forty-five years, Kevin Anderson had finally been found—and the question that had haunted Sacramento since 1979 was about to take a darker, stranger turn.

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March 23rd, 2024. Plumber Danny Martinez was crawling through a tight crawl space underneath a house in suburban Sacramento, California.

 He’d been called to install a new water heater and needed to run pipes through the crawl space to reach the basement. It was dark, cramped, only 2 and 1/2 ft of clearance between the dirt floor and the wooden joists above. Dany was on his stomach using a flashlight to navigate toward the far corner where the old pipes were located. And that’s when his flashlight beam caught something metallic, something that shouldn’t be there.

 He crawled closer, reached out, picked it up. It was a dental retainer, the old kind. wire and acrylic plate covered in dirt. But that wasn’t what made Dany stop breathing. Attached to the wire, still caught in the metal loops, were two human teeth with roots still attached, brown, dried, but unmistakably human teeth.

 Dany dropped the retainer, scrambled backward out of the crawl space as fast as he could, called the homeowner, told him to call police immediately. What Dany had found would solve a 45-year-old mystery and revealed that a teenage boy who vanished from his bedroom in 1979 had never left the house at all.

 The retainer belonged to Kevin Anderson. He was 14 years old when he disappeared on September 15th, 1979. Kevin was a freshman at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento. normal kid, played baseball, got decent grades, loved Star Wars. He’d gotten braces the year before in 1978 and had just transitioned to wearing a retainer at night, the kind with a wire that wrapped around his teeth and an acrylic plate that pressed against the roof of his mouth. His orthodontist, Dr.

 Raymond Chen, had engraved Kevin’s name into the acrylic K. Anderson, 1978. Standard practice so kids wouldn’t lose them at school. Kevin hated wearing it, complained it was uncomfortable, but his mother, Patricia Anderson, insisted they’d spent $2,000 on those braces. Kevin would wear that retainer every night. No exceptions.

September 14th, 1979 was a Friday, normal day. Kevin went to school, came home around 3:30, did homework, had dinner with his family, Patricia, his father, Robert, his older brother, Derek, who was home from college for the weekend, and his younger sister Amy, who was 12. After dinner, Kevin watched TV. Around 900 p.m.

, Patricia told him to get ready for bed. He brushed his teeth, put in his retainer, went to his first floor bedroom. Kevin’s room was at the back of the house, first floor. His window looked out onto the backyard. The rest of the family slept upstairs. Twostory house built in 1962. Kevin’s room had been his since they moved in when he was 5.

 He climbed into bed. Patricia checked on him around 9:30. He was reading a Star Wars novel. She kissed him good night, turned off the light, closed the door. That was the last time anyone saw Kevin Anderson alive. September 15th, 700 a.m. Patricia went to wake Kevin for Saturday morning baseball practice. She opened his door.

The bed was empty. Covers thrown back. Window open. The screen had been cut. A clean slice from top to bottom. Patricia’s first thought was that Kevin had snuck out to meet friends. She checked the backyard, called for him. No response. Then she saw the cut screen more carefully. It wasn’t just open. It had been cut from the outside.

 Someone had broken in. Patricia screamed. Robert came running. They searched the house. Kevin wasn’t there. Robert called police. Within 20 minutes, Sacramento Police Department arrived. Officers examined Kevin’s room. The window screen had definitely been cut from outside. The edges of the cut curved inward. Classic entry point.

 Kevin’s bed showed signs of struggle. Pillow on the floor. Sheets pulled toward the window like someone had been dragged. On the nightstand was Kevin’s retainer case. Empty. Kevin had been wearing his retainer when he was taken. Police concluded this was an abduction. The search for Kevin Anderson was massive. Sacramento was still reeling from earlier child abductions in the 70s. Parents were terrified.

Volunteers flooded in. Over 500 people searched nearby parks, fields, vacant lots. Blood hounds were brought in. The dogs tracked a scent from Kevin’s window across the backyard to the street. Then the scent disappeared. Police theorized someone had grabbed Kevin, carried him to a vehicle on the street, and driven away.

 Detectives interviewed everyone in the neighborhood. No one had seen anything suspicious. No strange vehicles, no screams, nothing. Kevin’s face appeared on local news. Missing posters went up across Sacramento. Patricia and Robert appeared on TV begging for Kevin’s return. Days turned into weeks. No leads, no sightings, no ransom demand, no body.

 By October 1979, police had interviewed over 200 people, investigated dozens of tips, all led nowhere. The lead detective, Frank Morrison, believed Kevin had been abducted by a predator. Someone who saw an opportunity. First floor bedroom, window accessible, quiet neighborhood. The cutcreen suggested planning calculation.

 This wasn’t random, but without evidence, without witnesses, there was nothing to pursue. The case went cold. Patricia Anderson never gave up. She kept Kevin’s room exactly as it was. his posters on the walls, his baseball glove on the dresser, his books on the shelf. She couldn’t accept that he was gone. Couldn’t believe she’d never see him again.

 Every birthday, every Christmas, she set a place for Kevin at the table just in case he came home. But he never did. In 1982, 3 years after Kevin vanished, the Anderson family moved. Patricia couldn’t stay in that house anymore. Every day walking past Kevin’s empty room destroyed her. They sold the house to a young couple, Mark and Susan Chen.

The Chens lived there for 15 years, raised two kids, never had any reason to go into the crawl space. In 1997, they sold to another family. That family lived there 8 years, then sold again. The house changed hands six times between 1982 and 2024. Different families, different lives. None of them had any idea that beneath their feet in the crawl space under the first floor, Kevin Anderson had been there the entire time.

 For 45 years, Kevin’s remains lay in the dark, less than 30 ft from where his mother had searched for him in September 1979. less than 20 ft from where police officers had stood investigating his disappearance. He’d never left and no one knew. Fast forward to 2021. Mike Rodriguez bought the house. He was a contractor, liked fixing up old properties. The house needed work.

Updating. In March 2024, Mike decided to replace the ancient water heater. It was original to the house, 62 years old. A miracle it still worked. He hired a plumber, Danny Martinez, to install the new system. Danny arrived March 23rd, looked at the setup. To run new pipes properly, he’d need to access the crawl space.

Mike showed him the exterior vent panel on the side of the house, standard access point for crawl spaces in houses from the 60s. Dany removed the panel, grabbed his flashlight and tools, got on his stomach, and crawled in. The crawl space was tight, uncomfortable, dirt floor, smell of earth, and mildew. Danny’s flashlight beam cut through the darkness.

 He could see the underside of the first floor, wooden joists, old pipes, spiderwebs. He needed to reach the far corner where the water heater pipes connected. He crawled forward, 50 ft to go. The dirt was loose, disturbed in some areas, probably from animals over the years. Raccoons, possums, common in crawl spaces. Dany kept moving.

 When he reached the corner, he swept his flashlight around, looking for the pipe junction. That’s when the beam hit something that reflected light, metallic, about 10 ft to his left. Dany crawled toward it. As he got closer, he could see it was partially buried in loose dirt. He reached out, brushed dirt away, picked it up.

 It was a dental retainer, old style, wire wrapped around an acrylic plate, yellowed with age, covered in grime. Danny turned it over in his hand. Why would a retainer be in a crawl space? Then he looked closer at the wire, and his blood went cold. Caught in the wire loops, still attached to the metal, were two objects that he recognized immediately. human teeth.

 Two front teeth, incizers, with their roots still intact, dark brown from age, dried, but unmistakable. Someone’s teeth had been broken out of their mouth while wearing this retainer, and the teeth had stayed caught in the wire for decades. Dy’s hands started shaking. He dropped the retainer, scrambled backward.

 His flashlight swung wildly, and in that sweeping beam, he saw something else. 10 ft away, partially covered by dirt. The unmistakable curve of a human skull. Dany didn’t stop to look closer, he crawled out of that crawl space faster than he’d ever moved. Burst out of the vent opening, stood up, took huge gulps of fresh air, called Mike Rodriguez, told him there was a body under his house. Mike called 911.

Sacramento police arrived within 15 minutes. Dany showed them the vent opening, explained what he’d found. Officers entered the crawl space with high-powered lights, confirmed there were human remains. The scene was immediately secured. Forensic teams arrived. They carefully excavated the crawl space.

 What they found was a complete skeleton lying in the far corner, partially buried under loose dirt. The skeleton was small, young, adolescent. Next to the skull, lying in the dirt, was the retainer with the teeth still attached. The forensic anthropologist on scene, Dr. Lisa Park, carefully photographed everything in place, then removed the retainer for examination.

 When she cleaned off the dirt and looked at the acrylic plate, she found an engraving. K. Anderson, 1978. Dr. Park immediately ran the name through missing person’s databases and found him Kevin Anderson missing since September 15th, 1979. from this exact address. Detective Sarah Kim, who’d taken over cold cases for Sacramento PD, pulled the 1979 file, read every page, looked at the photos of 14-year-old Kevin Anderson, read the reports about the cut window screen, the assumed abduction, the massive search, the dead end. And now they knew. Kevin

had never been abducted. He’d never left the house. Someone had killed him in his bedroom, hidden his body in the crawl space, and staged an abduction by cutting the screen from inside. For 45 years, everyone had been looking in the wrong places. The answer had been under the house the entire time.

 The forensic analysis of Kevin’s remains took 3 weeks. Dr. Park examined every bone carefully. The skeleton showed signs of blunt force trauma. The skull had multiple fractures concentrated on the left side of the head and face. Something heavy had struck Kevin with significant force. The pattern suggested a baseball bat or similar object.

 The damage to the facial bones explained the retainer finding. When Kevin was struck, the impact broke his two front teeth at the root level. The teeth snapped off but remained caught in the retainer wire because the wire wrapped tightly around them. The retainer itself had been knocked out of Kevin’s mouth during the attack.

 It was found next to his skull because when his body decomposed in the crawl space over 45 years, the soft tissue of his mouth deteriorated. The retainer, which had been lying on his chest or near his head, simply stayed where it fell. But the teeth stayed attached to the wire because they were physically trapped in the metal loops.

 Forensic analysis of the teeth themselves showed something important. The roots of both teeth showed signs of fresh fracture consistent with violent trauma, not decay, not natural loss. These teeth had been broken out suddenly with force. The forensic dentist, Dr. Raymond Chen, the same Dr. Chen who’d been Kevin’s orthodontist in 1978 and was now 78 years old and retired, was brought in to consult.

 He confirmed the retainer was one he’d made. said he remembered Kevin. Quiet kid hated wearing the retainer. Dr. Chen examined the teeth and confirmed they were violently extracted. The angle of the brake suggested a blow from the left side of Kevin’s face. Someone right-handed, using a heavy object. Dr. Chen had to excuse himself from the examination room started crying.

 This was a patient of his, a child he’d treated, and someone had beaten that child to death. Detective Kim reopened the investigation fully. She studied the 1979 reports. The cut window screen had always bothered her. It was too clean, too deliberate. And the 1979 investigators had noted the screen was cut from outside, but there was no mud on the window sill, no disturbance of the plants directly under the window.

 In September, Sacramento had rain. The ground would have been soft. Anyone climbing through that window should have left marks, but there were none because no one climbed through. Someone inside the house had cut that screen from inside carefully to make it look like an entry point. Then that person had taken Kevin’s body and hidden it in the crawl space.

Detective Kim looked at who had been in the house that night. Patricia and Robert Anderson. Derek Anderson, 19 years old, home from college. Amy Anderson, 12 years old. Police in 1979, had interviewed all of them, never suspected any of them. But Detective Kim looked at Derek’s interview. He’d said he was in his upstairs bedroom all night, heard nothing, woke up to his mother screaming.

 But here was something interesting. Derek had left for college Sunday morning, September 16th, the day after Kevin vanished, drove back to UC Davis. In his 1979 interview, Derek said he’d planned to leave Sunday anyway, wasn’t cutting the visit short, just sticking to his schedule. But Detective Kim found Derek’s college records.

 His fall semester didn’t start until September 24th. He had no classes that week, no reason to rush back, but he left the morning after his brother disappeared. Detective Kim tried to find Derek Anderson to interview him, found his death certificate. Derek died in 2019, car accident on Interstate 5.

 He was 59 years old, married, two kids, normal life. But Detective Kim requested Derek’s personal effects from his widow. explained she was investigating Kevin’s case. The widow, Linda Anderson, was shocked. She’d known. Dererick’s brother had disappeared when Derek was 19. Derek rarely talked about it. But Linda cooperated, gave Detective Kim access to Derek’s storage unit, things he’d kept from college. Old boxes.

In one box, Detective Kim found a baseball bat, wooden Louisville Slugger with the name Derek Anderson burned into the handle. The bat was from high school. Derek had taken it to college, kept it all these years. Detective Kim had the bat tested. After 45 years, there was no biological material left to test.

 But the mere existence of the bat kept by Derek for decades was notable. Detective Kim interviewed Amy Anderson, now 57 years old, living in Oregon. Amy remembered that night in September 1979 vividly. She’d been 12. She told Detective Kim that Dererick and Kevin had argued the night before Kevin disappeared. Friday, September 14th.

 Amy heard them fighting in Kevin’s room around 8:00 p.m. before Kevin went to bed. She couldn’t hear what they were arguing about, but Derek had been angry. Loud. This was the first anyone had mentioned an argument. It wasn’t in the 1979 reports. Detective Kim asked Amy why she’d never told police. Amy said no one asked.

 Police had interviewed her briefly in 79, but focused on whether she’d seen strangers around the house. not family dynamics. And Amy had been 12, scared. She didn’t think to mention a fight between brothers happened all the time. But now, 45 years later, Amy wondered, could Dererick have done something? Detective Kim built a timeline.

 September 14th, 1979, 8:00 p.m. Derek and Kevin argue about what? Unknown. 9:30 p.m. Kevin goes to bed wearing his retainer. Sometime between 9:30 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. the next morning, someone enters Kevin’s room, strikes him in the head and face with a blunt object, kills him, removes or dislodges the retainer from his mouth.

 The teeth break and stay caught in the wire. The killer panics, can’t call police, can’t explain a dead body, decides to hide it. The crawl space, accessible from outside through the vent panel. The killer waits until the house is silent, maybe 2 or 3:00 a.m., carries Kevin’s body out through the bedroom window, takes the body around to the side of the house, removes the crawl space vent panel, places the body inside far corner, covers it with loose dirt, takes the retainer, and tosses it in with the body. Replaces the vent panel. Goes back

to Kevin’s room. cuts the window screen from inside to stage an abduction. Goes back to bed. If Derek did this, it explains everything. Why he left for college the next morning even though he had no classes. He needed to get away from the house, from the scene. Why he kept the baseball bat for 45 years, couldn’t throw it away. Guilt, memory.

Why he never talked about Kevin. The secret ate at him his entire life. But Derek is dead. He can’t be prosecuted. Can’t confess. The case can’t be officially solved. But Detective Kim wrote in her report based on evidence and timeline analysis, “It is the determination of this investigation that Kevin Anderson was killed by a family member on the night of September 14th to 15th, 1979.

The body was concealed in the crawl space of the residence. The window screen was cut from inside to stage an abduction. Primary suspect, deceased. Patricia Anderson was 79 years old when Detective Kim called her in April 2024. Told her they’d found Kevin. Patricia broke down. For 45 years, she’d wondered, hoped, prayed, and now she knew.

 Kevin had been under the house the entire time while she lived there, while she searched. While she cried in his empty room, he’d been right there, 20 ft below her. Patricia asked how Kevin died. Detective Kim told her gently. Blunt force trauma. Someone had struck him. Patricia asked who. Detective Kim said they believed it was someone in the family. Patricia’s voice went quiet.

 She asked if it was Derek. Detective Kim said they couldn’t prove it, but evidence suggested yes. Patricia hung up, called Linda, Derek’s widow, asked if Dererick had ever said anything. Linda said no, but she remembered one thing. Years ago, maybe 2010, Derek had been drinking. Said something about wishing he could undo 1979.

Linda had asked what he meant. Derek said he’d made choices he regretted, couldn’t take them back. Linda thought he meant choices about college, about his path. Now she realized he meant Kevin. Kevin Anderson was laid to rest on May 5th, 2024. 45 years after he disappeared, his mother Patricia was there, his sister Amy, Derek’s wife, Linda, and their children. A small service.

 Patricia had Kevin buried with his retainer. The retainer with his teeth still attached. It was part of him, part of his story. The gravestone reads Kevin Michael Anderson, 1964 to 1979. Lost but never forgotten. Finally home. Patricia visits the grave every week, talks to Kevin, tells him about the years he missed, apologizes for not finding him sooner, apologizes for what Derek did.

 She’ll never know for certain what happened that night, why Derek did it, what they argued about, but she knows Kevin is finally at peace. The house on Elm Street in Sacramento was sold by Mike Rodriguez in June 2024. He couldn’t live there anymore, knowing what had been found beneath it. The new owners are a young family. They don’t know the history.

 Detective Kim recommended not telling them. Let them have a fresh start. The crawl space has been sealed. Concrete poured. No one will ever go down there again. Kevin’s room, the first floor bedroom at the back of the house, is now a playroom for the family’s children. Bright, colorful, full of life. Maybe that’s how it should be. Life continuing.

But every year on September 15th, Patricia drives by that house, parks across the street, looks at Kevin’s window, and remembers the boy who should have lived, who should have grown up, who should have had a life, but whose life was taken by someone he trusted, someone he lived with, someone who then hid him away in the darkness for 45 years, and all because of an argument on a September night in 1979. 9.