Michelle Casias

On the morning of June 26, 2025, 53-year-old Melissa Casias seemed to be following an ordinary routine. She drove her husband to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, something she did often, and then returned home. Later that day, she stopped by a local shopping area to drop off lunch for her daughter at work—a small, caring gesture that spoke to the close bond she shared with her family.

But sometime after that, Melissa vanished.





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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the high desert of northern New Mexico, where the
sky feels endless and the landscape is carved with a
rugged beauty, it's easy for stories to get lost. The
town of Tows, known for its art and timeless traditions,
has become the backdrop for a story that so far
has no ending. It's about a woman, a loving mother
and wife, who walked out of her life one summer afternoon.

(00:22):
She left behind a silence that's deafening to her family,
and a clue so strange, so deliberate, it's deeply unsettling.
On June twenty sixth, twenty twenty five, fifty three year
old Melissicussias vanished. She left her car, her purse, and
her keys. But the most chilling clue she left behind
was what was missing from her two cell phones. Both

(00:44):
were found inside her home, wiped clean and reset two
factory settings. What was on those phones that some one
wanted to erase forever? Hi, and welcome to One Crime
at a time. I am Shannon, and today we are

(01:04):
covering the disappearance of Melissa Cassias. But before we get
into it, I just want to remind you that you
can reach out to us at one Crime Pod on
all of the social platforms, and if you like what
we do here, you can join our Patreon for just
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(01:25):
is greatly appreciated. If you want to help out the
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us a like in review. All links will be in
the description for this episode. Now on with our story.
The last confirmed image of Melissa Cassias shows a woman
walking alone. It was captured by a doorbell camera, a silent,
fleeting witness to a moment that has now stretched into

(01:47):
an eternity of questions. She's seen on the side of
State Road five hundred eighteen, a strip of asphalt cutting
through the rural community of Talpa, just outside Tows. She's
walking south, away from her home, away from her life,
and toward where. Minutes before this, a family friend was
driving down that same highway saw Melissa walking and thought

(02:10):
it was odd enough that he decided to turn around
to see if she needed help. By the time he
circled back, she was gone. He told police he saw
a blue truck driving away from the area where she'd been.
Investigators would later track down that truck and its driver, and,
after questioning them, announced that Melissa had never gotten into
the vehicle. So where did she go? She didn't just

(02:33):
disappear from the roadside. The evidence suggests that before she
even took those final lonely steps, a more deliberate erasure
had already taken place, an erasure that has made finding
her and the truth nearly impossible. Before she became a
face on a missing person poster, Melissa Cassias was a
fixture in her community, a woman whose life was woven

(02:54):
into the fabric of tows. Friends and family describe her
as warm and steady, someone you could always count on.
At fifty three, she was a mother, a wife, and
a dedicated administrative assistant at the Los Alamo's National Laboratory,
a high security facility about an hour and a half
from her home. Her husband, Mark worked there too, and

(03:15):
their daily commute was a shared ritual. Melissa's life was full.
She had distinctive tattoos that told parts of her story.
A dragon on her right ankle, a dream catcher on
her left shoulder, and a bow an arrow on her
left arm. That last one wasn't just ink. Melissa was
an avid archer who competed in local tournaments. It was

(03:37):
a hobby that showed her focus and precision, qualities that
really seemed to define her. By all accounts, she wasn't
someone who would do something impulsive or irrational. She was
a planner. This is a point her family comes back
to again and again. In the days before she disappeared,
Melissa's life was moving forward. She and her husband had

(03:57):
a lake trip planned for the upcoming weekend. The following week,
she was scheduled to help care for her mother, who
was having knee surgery. These aren't the actions of a
person planning to vanish. There the building blocks of a
normal life filled with love and commitments. Her relationship with
her daughter, Sierra was especially close. The family is adamant

(04:18):
that Melissa would never have willingly left her. She loves
adores her daughter. Her sister Trudy has said, her voice
full of conviction. The idea that Melissa would just walk
away from that relationship, from all of her plans, from
everything she knew, is something her family finds not just unlikely,
but impossible. She was last seen wearing a white and

(04:39):
turquoise top and blue jeans, a normal outfit for a
normal day, But the woman inside those clothes was the
center of her family's world. To understand the mystery of
her disappearance, you have to understand the person Melissa Caussie's
wasn't a drifter. She wasn't a woman with a secret life,
at least not one anyone's awe. She was grounded, rooted

(05:02):
by her love for her family, and that's what makes
her vanishing act and the clues she left behind so
profoundly disturbing. She wasn't the type to just walk away.
Someone or something had to have made her. June twenty sixth,
twenty twenty five, started out like any other workday for
the Cassia's family. Melissa drove her husband Mark to his

(05:23):
job at the Los Alamo's National Laboratory, dropping him off
around six fifteen am. This is where the timeline has
its first little fracture. According to Mark, Melissa had mentioned
needing to finish something at another location on the lab's
campus before bringing the car back to him. He thought
he saw her swipe her badge to get into the facility,

(05:43):
but that's not quite what happened. Around seven forty five, am,
Melissa was back home in Rancho's Detols. Her daughter Sierra
heard her come in and found her in the kitchen.
Melissa explained that she'd forgotten her employee badge and couldn't
get into work without it. Getting into the high security
lab was impossible. She told Sierra she'd probably just work

(06:05):
from home or call out for the day. The conversation
was totally normal. As Sierra left for her own job,
they shared a hug and a simple love you. It
was a routine moment, the kind that happens a thousand times,
but this one would be the last time Sierra saw
her mother at home. The day moved on. Just before
one o'clock PM, Melissa did something that was perfectly her.

(06:27):
She bought a subway sandwich and drove it to Taos Plaza,
where Sierra worked at a coffee shop. She dropped off
the lunch and Sierra gave her a check to deposit.
They said there goodbyes. Security cameras from nearby shops captured
her image as she walked back to her car and
drove off around one o'clock PM. This is the last
time she's seen in her car or interacting with anyone

(06:49):
in a normal, everyday way. What happened in the next
hour is the real mystery. At about two fifteen pm,
Melissa was seen again, but this time things were very different.
She wasn't in her car. She was on foot, walking alone,
heading south along the shoulder of State Road five hundred
eighteen in Talpa. This spot is important. It's a rural road,

(07:12):
not a place people usually walk, and it was a
couple of miles from her home. Her presence there was
confirmed by two sources. First, a family friend drove past
and recognized her. He thought it was strange enough that
he turned his car around to see if she needed
a ride, but in the short time it took him
to circle back, she was gone. That's when he saw

(07:32):
a blue truck in the area where she'd been walking.
Police later investigated this tip, thoroughly located the truck in
its driver and said that Melissa did not get into
that vehicle. The sighting was backed up by a neighbor's
doorbell camera. The footage confirmed it was Melissa, wearing the
same white and turquoise top and jeans. Some reports say

(07:53):
she was carrying a backpack. She was just walking. Her
destination a complete unknown. This final sight as a puzzle.
Why was she walking along a highway if she had
her car just an hour earlier. Where was it it
was later found parked at her house. Did she drive home,
park the car and then just start walking? If so,

(08:14):
why she was an experienced outdoors woman, but she wasn't
dressed for a serious hike and had left all her
gear behind. Every piece of this timeline just makes the
mystery deeper. The day started with a forgotten badge and
ended with a woman walking alone down a desolate highway,
stepping out of the known world and into a mystery

(08:34):
that hasn't offered a single solid answer. For a few hours,
the world kept spinning. At the Cassier's home, there was
only silence. The first hint of worry started small, the
way it often does. Melissa's husband, Mark, tried to get
in touch with her. His text messages, which usually showed
as read suddenly weren't being delivered. That small digital problem

(08:56):
hinted that something was very wrong. He called their daughter,
Sierra to see if she'd heard from her mom. Around
three thirty p m. Sierra rushed home from work with
a growing sense of dread. The first thing she saw
was her mother's car parked right where it should be.
The house was quiet, the front door locked. The scene
was perfectly still, but it was a stillness that felt

(09:18):
hollow inside. Worry turned to alarm. On the kitchen table,
Sierra found her mother's keys and her work phone. In
Melissa's home office, it was even more unsettling. There on
her desk was her purse. Inside it was her wallet
with cash and credit cards. Next to it was the
checksi Era had given her just hours before undeposited. And

(09:41):
beside all of that lay her personal cell phone dot.
In an instant, the situation changed. This wasn't just a
mother who was late. Think about that list of items.
A person doesn't just walk away from their car, their keys,
their money, their ID and both of their phones. These
are the tools you need to exist in the world.
For all of them to be left behind suggests Melissa's

(10:03):
departure was not planned, at least not in any way
that makes sense. It suggested she had left with nothing
but the clothes on her back. Her niece, Jasmine mc
millan later told reporters about the family's shock. Her purse,
her car, her keys, her wallet and her personal phone,
her work phone and her computer were all at home.

(10:23):
Each item was another piece of evidence against the idea
that she left on her own dattes. Afternoon turned into evening.
The family's frantic calls and texts to Melissa were met
with total silence. Around five o'clock p m. They officially
reported her missing to the New Mexico State Police. The
quiet how Sierra had walked into was now the center

(10:44):
of a crisis, holding a collection of clues that offered
no comfort, only more questions. Melissa Cassias was gone, but
she had left everything behind. Everything that is except for
an explanation, and, as the family would soon discover the
most important clues, her digital life hadn't just been left behind,
they had been deliberately destroyed. In any modern missing person case,

(11:08):
the first place you look for clues is the digital trail.
Our phones record the details of our lives, our texts,
our calls, our locations, our secrets. They're often the key
to unlocking the whole mystery. Investigators found not one, but
two of these potential keys at Melissa's home, her personal
phone and her work phone. This should have been the

(11:29):
first major break in the case. Instead, what they found
was the single most sinister clue in this entire story.
Both phones had been wiped clean. Both had been reset
to their original factory settings. This was not an accident.
A factory reset is a deliberate choice. It takes several steps,
and you have to confirm multiple times that you want

(11:51):
to permanently erase all data. It's like burning a diary.
Every text message, every call log, every photo, every GPS location,
every search history gone. The discovery of the reset phones
changed everything. This wasn't just a woman who had gone missing.
This was a woman whose disappearance was tied to a

(12:11):
secret that she or someone else desperately wanted to hide.
The questions this raises are chilling. First, who did it?
Did Melissa wipe the phones herself? If she did, why
was she trying to erase her past before starting a
new life That just doesn't line up with her future
plans or the fact that she left all her money

(12:32):
behind Planning a new life usually requires cash. And if
she did it, when did she get home from dropping
off lunch, wipe both phones and then start walking. The
timeline is incredibly tight. It means that in about an hour,
she drove home, parked, went inside, methodically erased two separate devices,

(12:53):
and then walked two miles to the highway where she
was last seen. It's possible, but it's a very compressed
series of events. The other possibility is even more disturbing.
Someone else wiped the phones. This opens the door to
foul play. Did Melissa meet someone who forced her to
erase her phones or did it themselves. A factory reset

(13:14):
would be a perfect way for an attacker to destroy
any evidence of their communication with her. Maybe she was
fleeing a situation at her home after the phones had
been wiped, or maybe she was taken from her home
and the perpetrator wiped the phones to cover their tracks.
There's even the possibility of a remote wipe, which would
imply the person had her passwords. This is what's so

(13:38):
frustrating for everyone. The whole point of this clue was
to destroy information, and it worked. The contents of those
phones could have answered everything. Was she talking to someone new?
Was she being threatened? Was she planning to go somewhere?
All of those questions were locked away forever. The act
of erasing the phones was a message in it. It's

(14:01):
a calculated act of digital destruction that speaks volumes yet
says nothing at all, leaving a void where the truth
should be. With Melissa gone under such suspicious circumstances, a
massive search effort kicked off. The New Mexico State Police
immediately classified her as a missing endangered person, showing just
how seriously they were taking her case. The response from

(14:23):
the Taos community was immediate and overwhelming. Hundreds of people
were galvanized into action, determined to find one of their own.
Melissa's family, while in shock, became the hub for the
volunteer search efforts. They channeled their grief and fear into action,
Creating large, detailed maps of the area. They divided the
rugged landscape into grids, sending out teams on foot, on horseback,

(14:48):
and in ATVs to systematically search each zone. The terrain
is a mix of high desert, rocky maces, and dense wilderness.
Volunteers searched for days on end under the hot summer
side on looking for any sign, a piece of clothing,
a footprint, anything. The family also worked tirelessly to keep
Melissa's story in the public eye. They started a Facebook page,

(15:11):
Let's Find Melissa Caussia's two share updates and organized searches.
They understood that the more people who knew her face,
the better their chances to encourage tips. The family quickly
put together a reward through a GoFundMe campaign. They raised
a five thousand dollars reward, which was soon boosted by
another two thousand, five hundred dollars from crime stoppers, for

(15:33):
a total of seven thousand, five hundred dollars for information
leading to Melissa's whereabouts. Despite all these efforts, the search
for Melissa remained frustratingly empty. Tips came in, but none
led to a confirmed sighting. The blue truck was investigated
and cleared. State police conducted three major official searches, but

(15:53):
they also came up empty handed. The days turned in
two weeks, the initial frantic energy of the search settled
into a long, painful wait for the family. The lack
of answers is a special kind of torture. Because we
don't have answers, we can't draw any conclusions one way
or the other, her niece explained, describing the terrible limbo

(16:14):
there Traptain. The massive search turned up nothing but the
terrifying reality of how completely a person can just disappear
when the trail goes cold and you run out of facts,
you're left with theories. In the case of Melissa Kasias,
there are a few possibilities that people keep coming back too,
but each one runs into a wall of conflicting evidence.

(16:35):
The first, simplest theory is that she chose to leave.
Could she have wiped her phones, packed a bag, and
walked away to start a new life. The wiped phones
might seem to support this, but almost everything else argues
against it. She had plans, she was excited about, she
had a daughter she adored, and practically speaking, she left

(16:55):
her wallet, cash, and car behind. Starting over is pretty
hard with no money. Her family is certain she would
never have chosen to leave, especially not without telling her daughter.
The second theory is a tragic accident. The land around
Tows is beautiful but wild. Could she have gone for
a walk and had a medical emergency or gotten lost.

(17:17):
It's a possibility, but the search was incredibly thorough, with
hundreds of volunteers covering a huge area. It seems unlikely
she could have had an accident in a place that's
been searched so carefully without leaving a single trace. And
this theory still doesn't explain the most intentional clue of
all the wiped phones. You don't typically erase your digital

(17:38):
life right before an accidental death. This brings us to
the third and most disturbing theory, foul play. This theory
suggests that someone else is responsible for her disappearance. In
this scenario, the wiped phones make perfect sense. It's a
perpetrator covering their tracks. Her strange walk down the highway
could have been a moment where she was being forced

(18:00):
to go somewhere, or maybe she had escaped the situation
at home and was trying to get away when she
was caught. This theory accounts for the abandoned belongings and
lack of financial activity. The New Mexico State Police have
never ruled out foul play, but this theory has its
own frustrating problem, a total lack of evidence. There were

(18:21):
no signs of a struggle at her home. There are
no known suspects, There are no witnesses who saw her
with anyone else. There is only a disturbing set of
circumstances and a deafening, agonizing silence. The mystery of what
happened to Melissa Caussias is a story of contradictions. She
was a devoted mother who vanished just hours after bringing

(18:42):
her daughter lunch. She was a careful planner who disappeared
right before a vacation she was looking forward to. She
was a woman last seen walking down a lonely road,
but her car and keys were safe at home. And
at the heart of it all is that chilling, deliberate
act of erasure. Two phones wiped clean, a digital life destroyed,
leaving everyone in the dark for her loved ones. The

(19:05):
time since June twenty sixth, twenty twenty five has been
a blur of anguish and hope. They are stuck in
a state of not knowing, haunted by that last image
of Melissa walking away and the silence that followed. Their
fight for answers is a testament to their love for her.
The community searched and the police investigated, but Melissa Caussiers
is still missing. The question of who wiped her phones

(19:28):
and why remains the central unanswered riddle. Until that riddle
is solved, a family will wait, and a case will
remain open, a haunting reminder of the day a woman disappeared,
leaving everything behind but a single, silent and sinister clue.
The search for Melissa Caussiers isn't over. Her family hasn't
given up, and the community of Toos is still watching.

(19:50):
The key to solving this could be with one person
who saw something or knows something. This is where you
might be able to help. A combined reward of seven thousand,
five hundre undred dollars is being offered by the family
and crime stoppers for information that leads to the whereabouts
of Melissa Cussias. If you have any information, no matter
how small it seems, please contact the New Mexico State

(20:12):
Police at five hundred five minus four hundred twenty five
minus six thousand, seven hundred seventy one. That number again
is five hundred five minus four hundred twenty five minus
six thousand, seven hundred seventy one. Sharing this story helps
keep Melissa's case alive, ensuring she isn't forgotten and that
the search for answers doesn't stop. Please share her story

(20:33):
and help bring her home. There are basically two theories
surrounding the disappearance of Melissa Cussius. What do you think happened.
Do you believe she disappeared voluntarily or do you think
she met with foul play. Share your theories and thoughts
with us and we can discuss this fascinating and disturbing case.
You can reach out to us on our social media

(20:54):
at one crime pod, or you can join our community
over on Patreon. Again. Links are in the discription. Thank
you for listening. I am Shannon and this has been
one crime at a time. I'll see you next week