Michelle Prasek

All witnesses, purchas of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We shockingly do not have a lot to talk about in regards to right now in true crime. One thing I do want to talk about is they did release a new age progress photo in Maura Murray's case. For those that aren't familiar with her case, Mora was a college student from Massachusetts and she crashed her car in Haverville, New Hampshire and was never seen again. Her story has actually been really popular in the true crime community amongst true crime podcasters and different documentaries and such, and her has been a really big proponent of trying to solve her case and figure out what happened to Maura. I probably will do an episode on her. Her story has been done a lot, but I still feel like I want to do it. I feel like it has a place on this podcast because there is a lot of unknowns regarding her case, but it has been twenty years, which is so wild that time flies that quickly. But they did release, like I said, a New Age progress photo and the drag racers are going by. We love that. If you can't hear it, the drag racers just went by, and it's nine to twenty eight am. Anyways, her case is very interesting because it is a little similar to some of the other cases that we've seen and talked about, where there is some type of accident, altercation and then the person literally just vanishes into thin air. So I will do a more in depth story about Moura and kind of talk a little bit about what happened that day, what kind of happened leading up to her disappearance, because I feel like her story is one that I need to cover because I know there are a lot of people that aren't familiar with it. But regardless twenty years ago she disappeared, she very well still could be out there, so it's really important that we share her story and try to get her face out there. The trial of Adam Montgomery continues Friday. We heard testimony from Kayla Montgomery, who is Adam's estrange wife and was also present when Adam killed Harmony, and she, oh my gosh, she was on the stand for more than six hours. I do think she was either highly medicated or she was on drugs. I don't know which one, maybe a little of both. She was definitely high, in my opinion, on the stand, probably to deal with everything, but whatever. She's also incarcerated as well, so it was a lot. She was on the stand for more than six hours, and it was crazy to hear her tale of everything that happened. And honestly, I had to shut off parts of the trial at points because the details were so jarring and so upsetting. Anytime you're talking about the murder of a child, it's upsetting, but this is like next level, like next level upsetting, the way that Adam treated his daughter in life and in death. He is a horrible, disgusting person. And there is zero percent chance that this guy is going to get away with this zero percent chance. Like I know, it's never over until it's over, but the evidence against Adam is incredible and it is forever just like mounting up and mounting up, like he is so screwed. He is so screwed, and it's really sad to me that Harmony was put into the situation where she was with her father because she was living with a foster family previously, and she was doing really, really well, and then she ended up back with her father and all hell broke lose, and it just turned into her being constantly abused and ended up with her losing her life because her dad was horrible, and then he hid the body and took the body from place to place to place with him in order to hide it. It is one of the most traumatizing cases I've heard in a really, really long time. And Harmony was the sweetest and cutest little girl, like the pictures of her, She's just the cutest thing. And Adam thought of her as evil and said that she was bad and she was evil and he hated her, and he is just a horrible person. We're not even going to allege it. He is a horrible person and he is going to pay for what he did to his daughter. So the trial will continue. I honestly feel like once the trial is done and they go to the jury room to decide guilt or innocence, it's going to be a really really quick turnaround. There is no denying what Adam did to her. There are multiple people witnesses, there is so much against him, there's no way it's going to take longer than two hours to review evidence and say yes, he did it. And I really really hope that they throw the book at him. So it's going to be really interesting to see it all play out pretty lies and Alibis is doing a review of the testimony from each day without going into the super graphic detail because it is very graphic, but she's doing a really good job at just kind of laying out the facts and talking in a non super descriptive way about everything that happened, because if you want to watch the trial footage, you will get the most disturbing details of what exactly Adam did to Harmony. But the gist of it, he's a horrible person and he's going to go to jail probably for the rest of his life, and we're here for it. So I will continue to keep you guys updated on that and see how everything goes with that. But I expect that we will probably have a verdict shortly after the trial wraps up, and for the first time in forever, that is it for right now in true crime, there isn't a whole lot to talk about. Everybody was behaving this last week, which is a true miracle. But I'm sure that things will break out against soon. I'm sure there's gonna be all sorts of things to talk about for Friday's episode. So we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode Beyond the Shadows Podcast. In the darkest corners of our universe, live spaces where even the light won't go, places where terror and the unknown lurk always waiting. Join Ryan and Scott on the Beyond the Shadows Podcast as we pull back the curtain and peer into the darkness. We'll examine hauntings, true crimes, mysteries, UFOs, exorcisms, reincarnations, mysteries, and all things dark. Join us as we go Beyond the Shadows Shadow. All right, guys, we are jumping into a new case today. This is a missing person's case from nineteen ninety seven, and we are going to be talking about the disappearance of a twelve year old girl from the Woodlands, Texas in December of nineteen ninety seven. This story, for me, has a lot of like really odd twists and turns and like really odd happenings, but still one that I feel like we need to talk about because I do feel like there is more to the story than meets the eye. So as always, let's go ahead and dive right in. Michelle Lowis Prossick was born on April thirteenth of nineteen eighty five to Richard and Beth Prosseick. She had a younger sister named Rebecca, who was born in nineteen ninety. In nineteen ninety four, Michelle's parents divorce and Beth and her daughters relocated to Lafayete, Louisiana. But Beth had said that Michelle really really hated Louisiana, and they soon ended up moving back to Texas and ended up living at thirty four thirty nine Valerie Lane in the Woodlands, Texas. Now I know that I do have some listeners that are from that area and the surrounding areas. The Woodlands in nineteen ninety seven is not what the Woodlands is today. In twenty twenty four. It was a lot less congested, a lot less built up, But there was this neighborhood there and that is where Michelle and her family lived. So Michelle was a student at Knox Junior High, which wasn't far from where the family home was. So I have to mention the elephant in the room. Beth was dating a horrific, horrific human who was named Mark Sageen, and he lived at the house with Beth and her daughters. I will get to why he's a horrific human later. It's not alleged he is a horrific human. So Michelle had been struggling quite to be with her parents' divorce, and leading up to her disappearance, she had been attending some counseling classes at the Montgomery County Youth Services to try to deal with some of her family issues. She really had managed to try to struggle her feelings and luckily though the counseling was helping, and at the time of her disappearance she was kind of learning to manage her anger. It is hard enough to be a twelve year old. It is hard enough to be a twelve year old girl, and then you add divorce and relocation and moving back to Texas. You have a lot of things going on there, and it is hard enough just to exist as a twelve year old, much less add in all those other aspects of things. So regardless of what was going on in Michelle's personal life, she was having a hard time dealing with some of the things that were happening, and she had been seeking help and going to counseling, and that was helping her try to now gate everything that was happening in her life. So we are going to now talk about the day of December nineteenth of nineteen ninety seven. This was a Friday, So Michelle had asked Beth if she could spend the night at a friend's house Friday night, and Beth told her that she needed to know more about the friend's parents first and find out, you know, a little bit more about them, and then Beth would consider it, which I feel like is a good thing. I remember when I was younger, my mom always wanted to know, like, who were you staying with? Let me meet their parents. Obviously, when I was a child, I didn't understand the reasoning for that, but obviously as an adult I get it. And there was only a select few people that I was allowed to spend the night at their homes, and I had super separation anxiety, so most of the time I never even made it through the night because I would always come back home, but not important, just that you know, it was a good thing that her mom was doing this, and that you know, she told she told Michelle, let me find a little more about out about the parents, and I'll consider it. So that morning was pretty much routine for the family. It was very similar to all the other mornings. Mark had left the house around six thirty, which I guess he left for work. I don't see that specified, but he left the house around six thirty. It said that that was normal for him. And Beth had left home to take Michelle's younger sister to daycare, and she said that when she left the house around seven thirty, Michelle was there and had been preparing to catch the bus, and she seemed overall like she was in good spirits. However, it is unknown if Michelle ever did catch the bus, but she did not attend any of her classes at Knox Junior High. Now, there was a lot of back and forth between the school. People at the school, like her friends. One friend said that she saw Michelle on campus that day, and other friends said they really didn't know if they saw Michelle or not. And again, these are twelve year olds. Twelve year olds are super self involved and self absorbed. It's not like they are going to be the most super super reliable people in regards to that. Because you can see somebody on a Thursday and feel like, oh, yeah, I saw them on Friday and it was Thursday. Everything kind of mixes together. And again, they're young, They're not paying attention to those details like we would as adults. So we really don't know if Michelle made it to Knox Junior High that day, but I want to say that she did it. She never got on that bus and she never made it to Knox, that is my opinion. So when Michelle didn't come home that day after school, Beth just assumed that she had gone ahead and gone over to her friend's house without you know, Beth clearing her to go. She just assumed that that's where she was. So for that reason, Beth didn't immediately notify police about Michelle not coming home. She at one point called her ex husband, Richard, who lived in a different part of Texas, and asked him, you know what should I do? And Richard was immediately upset and shocked and said, you need to call the police. She's not home. Notify them immediately and we're going to go from there, So that's exactly what happened. Authorities do come to the home, they're searching the home, and they discover that michelle six month old tabby kitten was also missing, and there was also some clothes that were missing, a green sleeping bag and a patchwork quilt. So this kind of seems like it's a runaway type of situation, And allegedly Michelle had shared with one of her friends that she was going to leave home and travel to Conroe, Texas. Now in proximity from the Woodlands to Conroe, if you're going by car, it's really not all that far, but it's far for a twelve year old to travel without assistance from someone, whether she's walking, whether she's driving. For a twelve year old to be able to navigate from the Woodlands to Conroe doesn't seem like something that Michelle would have come up with on her own. It seems like someone would have had to have been helping her. Or again, there's something more in nefarious going on here where Michelle is being lured to this specific location in Conroe for whatever reason. So of course investigators start to question Michelle's parents. Richard Beth, and then they also question the live in boyfriend Mark, So Michelle and her sister. This was like a week before Christmas. Michelle and her sister had planned to spend the holidays with Richard in Kingsville, Texas. So the night before Michelle vanished, Beth and Richard were on the phone having a conversation and they were arguing about where the girls would be kicked up for their holiday week with their dad, and Beth said that she knew that Michelle had overheard this conversation and potentially could have been upset by it, but she didn't really know if that held any weight in her disappearing the next day. Now, Michelle was also upset because she had asked her mom to take her holiday shopping and that was I guess supposed to happen on Thursday evening and Beth did not come through, so Michelle was upset about that. Again, is it something that could have led to Michelle being like I'm over this, I'm gonna run away. I don't entirely think so she was twelve, like kids get over things really really quickly. But just the circuit stances surrounding her disappearance and all of that really make me question a lot of what happened that day. So Beth was very present in trying to search for her daughter. She helped distribute flyers, she was doing all that she could, talking to all the people that potentially could help bring her daughter home. So pretty much from the beginning, Mark was considered one of their suspects, and he failed a polygraph test, which we're not surprised about. We're just not. So the case pretty much from the start was one that investigator scratched their head about. They had no sightings or possible leads or anything that could lead them to where Michelle could potentially be. And again, it was a lot different back then than it is now, So you don't have, you know, video surveillance, and you don't have as many people in the area as eyewitnesses. You would think at a super busy time time of the morning on a Friday, if there was a girl walking in the woodlands towards Conro with a cat, a green sleeping bag, a quilt, somebody would have seen something. And it is literally like Michelle vanished into thin air. So the case goes cold. There is no credible sightings of Michelle, no new leads, nothing is really coming in, and again Mark is considered the number one suspect. He fails his polygraph test. Of course, they can't really do anything with that because it's not a solid piece of evidence, but it does make Mark look bad. But Mark doesn't care about looking bad because in two thousand and five, he was convicted of indecency with a child who was seven years old. Like this guy is a predator, and he was sentenced to ten years of probation. He currently lives in Davis, Texas and is a registered sex offender. He does maintain his innocence and look playing Devil's advocate here. He may be innocent. I'm not implicating him or anything like that. He may be innocent of this crime. But regardless of that, he was at the house, lived at the house the day that Michelle went missing. He was there, he had left, and then he eventually came back. I'm not sure of the timeline of when he came back. But regardless of that, Mark is a child predator and he is a horrific person, a horrific human, as I said earlier, regardless of if he had anything or not to do with Michelle's disappearance, he still is a predator, so we don't like him. Investigators have talked with him numerous times. I think honestly they're trying. They were trying at the time to gather enough evidence to bring charges against him. They were never able to do that, but they did say that they would be talking to him again and again and again. So that's kind of where this case is. Michelle is still missing. So if mis Michelle is still alive, if she's out there living under an assumed identity, she did run away, she left on her own volition. She would be thirty seven years old, turning thirty eight in April. There is an age progress picture of her and I will post that on the Instagram and Facebook pages. Again, this is a super important story to get out into the masses, to get her face out there and get her story out there, especially if you are local to the Woodlands Conroe. I mean, there's no telling if Michelle did truly run away, where she could be now, and she had to have had help. A twelve year old is not going to be able to completely uproot her life and survive on her own without an adult helping her. So there is definitely, in my opinion, more to the story. I am really more interested in the Mark aspect of things, because I did hear Mark left for work at six point thirty, which was normal, But then there was a point in the day that Mark came back. And it wasn't like Mark was gone from the house for eight hours for his shift. There was some point in there that Mark came back. I also think that if you were going to kind of stage somebody's running away type of situation, it would be really easy to do if you lived at the house with them and had access to some of their items, so you could kind of take those items, hide those items away to kind of stage like, oh, Michelle ran away, that's just what happened. I don't know. I'm not, like I said, I'm not trying to implicate anybody. I'm just simply stating what happened, and kind of all we have to go off of, which is we have Beth, who I don't think had anything to do with anything at all. She was always very active in trying to find her daughter, and we have Mark who was just living at the house and is a child predator. So if Mark was a stand up guy, and Mark was you know, the best of the best, and everyone says good things about him. And Mark is, you know, saving homeless kittens and stuff. We wouldn't be talking about Mark, but he is a child predator, and not too long after Michelle went missing, he was charged with those crimes. So we're going to talk about Mark. And it does seem that investigators kind of go in that same direction. But like I said, it's unsolved. We don't have anything substantial to go off of, so there's really no saying what happened to Michelle. Michelle could still be out there, she could be living under a new identity. And it's so crazy to me to think that Michelle and I are the exact same age, pretty much, Like she's a month older than me by like three weeks or so. And I just can't imagine myself at twelve planning this great escape where I leave my home and travel a ways up to conrail, like that's a ways away from where Michelle was living. I just don't see it being a possibility that she willingly ran away on her own with that help from some type of adult. Now, how she would have come into contact with this adult because the Internet was like not a super thing back then, Like very very very beginning stages, like it wasn't at all what it is today. So how would she have come in contact with this person? There's a lot of unanswered questions here, there really is. So that is the story of Michelle, and there's really not a whole lot more to say about it. But I am going to post the h progress photos of Michelle again living in that area. If you do, it is so so important that you share this episode. I'm sure a lot of people that lived in the area at the time are familiar with it, and there's just there has to be answers as to what happened to Michelle. She didn't simply just vanish into thin air. She could very well still be out there. She could be living under a different identity, and she could still be alive, and she could still be well. And I know for Beth that that's really all she wants is she wants closure, she wants to figure out what happened to Michelle, and ultimately she wants her daughter back. So let's do all that we can together to share this episode. Share the photos of Michelle, the h progress pictures of Michelle especially, and if you were in the area on that day of December nineteenth of nineteen ninety seven, and you saw something, even if you think it's so minuscule and not substantial, it is so important to call the authorities and forward then the information you know. So Michelle, at the time of her disappearance, she was twelve years old. She was wearing a tan T shirt with the initial c K for Calvin Klein blue jeans, and Nike tennis shoes. At the time of her disappearance, again, Michelle was twelve years old, around five three, one hundred and thirty five pounds, blonde shoulder length hair, blue eyes, and also a birthmark on the palm of her hand. If she was seen that day, she would have had a sleeping bag with her, a patchwork quilt, and her cat with her. She also had twenty dollars cash with her. I didn't include that earlier. And there is some thought that she might have even potentially left the state of Texas, so really she could be anywhere. And they did say that foul play is suspected in her disappearance, meaning that they don't think she ran away on her own. So that is Michelle's story. Please share, and especially if you're local, share this episode with somebody. It might spark something in their brain that they remember from Friday, December nineteenth of nineteen ninety seven, and we can help bring Michelle's family closure. So, as always, I thank you guys so much for listening. I appreciate each and every one of you. Please subscribe and rate the podcast. I really appreciate all of the rates and reviews that I get. It's really helping me grow the podcast. I can't believe this is episode ninety nine. I'm recording episode one hundred here shortly, and it is just crazy that I've been able to hustle this much and get all this content out and put out a hundred episodes, almost of unsolved for the most part cases. So I appreciate each and every one of you, and I will see you guys on Friday for a new episode. Bye.