In the spring of 1999, 34-year-old Gary McCullough was a man with a troubled marriage who lived and worked on a farm in Cassville, Missouri. On the evening of May 11, he reportedly left his farm in his truck, telling his wife he was headed to Diamond, Missouri, to purchase a fighting rooster. He was last seen wearing a t-shirt, blue jeans, brown work boots, and a camouflage cap. This would be the last time he was ever seen or heard from again.
The circumstances leading up to that evening painted a grim picture. Gary had confided in his supervisor at the chicken processing plant where he worked that he was planning to divorce his wife, Sandra. He claimed she had forged checks in his name, leading to his arrest, and he had secretly started moving his belongings to a friend's house. Less than two weeks before he vanished, a friend reported that Sandra had allegedly tried to shoot Gary.
It wasn't until two days after Gary's disappearance, and only when sheriff's deputies visited the farm on an unrelated matter, that his wife, Sandra, reported him missing. Three days after he was last seen, on May 14, Gary's truck was discovered abandoned on a dead-end road in a different town, Pulaskifield. The investigation that followed uncovered a complex and disturbing web of relationships and motives. Sandra was having an affair with a man named Kristopher Klemp, which Gary was allegedly aware of. In fact, Sandra had previously been married to Gary's own brother, Albert. Within days of Garyï s disappearance, Klemp had moved in with Sandra. Authorities charged Klemp with conspiracy to commit murder in June 1999, alleging he tried to hire someone to kill Gary, but the charge was later dropped due to a lack of evidence. A year later, in May 2000, just one month after obtaining a divorce from the still-missing Gary, Sandra married Kristopher Klemp.
Years passed without any resolution in Gary's case, which was complicated further by another disappearance. In February 2006, Gary's stepdaughter, Leihnia 'Lena' Chapin, also vanished. Before she disappeared, Lena had made a secret tape-recorded statement to Gary's brother, Albert, in 2003, confessing that her mother, Sandra, had shot and killed Gary. She claimed he was shot while eating scrambled eggs on the couch and that she was forced to help dispose of his body by burning it and scattering the remains. This confession, however, was not admissible in court. In 2005, Gary McCullough was legally declared dead. Following this declaration, his daughters filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Sandra and Kristopher Klemp. During the 2013 civil trial, though Lena's taped confession could not be used, other daughters of Sandra testified against her, with one recounting how her mother and Klemp had once held a gun on her. The jury ultimately found Sandra and Kris Klemp liable for Gary McCullough's death. The case remains a haunting story of two intertwined disappearances, with law enforcement suspecting foul play from the beginning.Last Seen: May 11, 1999
