On February 28, 2001, 23-year-old Stefanie Diane Welch—whose name is sometimes spelled Stephanie and who also used the surname Petersen—vanished from Lakin, Kansas after dropping off her two young sons at preschool and daycare. She was living in a mobile home in Lakin and was in the midst of a divorce, while also planning a future with her boyfriend, Roy Moore. That morning she was believed to be gathering belongings as she prepared to move into Moore’s home.
That day’s timeline is painfully brief. After leaving her older child at preschool, Stefanie dropped her younger son at daycare at approximately 9:15 a.m. Witnesses and investigators believe she then returned toward the mobile home she was preparing to vacate. She never came back for her children, and when Moore received a call at 6:20 p.m. that the toddler had not been picked up, he retrieved the child and reported Stefanie missing to the Kearny County Sheriff’s Office.
The vehicle Stefanie was driving—a silver 1990 Mazda 626 belonging to Moore—was discovered around 11:00 a.m. abandoned in the private driveway of a mobile home park in southeast Lakin. The keys were missing, but her jacket and wallet, containing $500 in cash, were on the front seat. The wheel wells were caked with snow and mud, suggesting the car had been driven some distance before being left there. A witness reported seeing an unidentified man dressed in black walking away from the car shortly after it was parked, and authorities believe someone other than Stefanie drove the vehicle to that location. Extensive searches of the area yielded no trace of her.
Investigators examined the tensions in her personal life: she and her estranged husband, Brian Welch, disagreed about whether they were reconciling, while Moore said the couple had become engaged and were planning a July 2001 wedding. Neither man is considered a strong suspect. In February 2002, the case was reclassified as a probable homicide, and detectives have said the rural landscape—with numerous abandoned wells—offers many possible places where remains could be concealed. No arrests have been made.
Stefanie is described as 5 feet 8 inches tall and about 190 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes, tattoos on her back and right breast, scars on her left buttock and right elbow, and a pierced navel. Some agencies list her as “Stephanie.” Her disappearance is recorded in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System as case MP35679, and the Kearny County Sheriff’s Office and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation remain the investigating agencies. Her loved ones emphasize that she would never have abandoned her children, underscoring the enduring grief of a family still seeking answers.Last Seen: Feb 28, 2001
