On a cold evening in January 2011, the life of 29-year-old Misty Dawn Faulkner took a turn that has left her family and community searching for answers for over a decade. A resident of Eucha, Oklahoma, Misty was a mother of two sons who was living with her grandparents at the time of her disappearance. On January 14, 2011, after finishing her shift at Tyson Foods in Southwest City, Missouri, she called her grandmother to let her know she was stopping at a Walmart in Jay, Oklahoma, to pick up
groceries before heading home. Security footage and receipts later confirmed her visit to the store. This seemingly routine day would be the last time anyone would have a confirmed sighting or communication with Misty.
Misty's grandparents heard her 1996 red Ford Explorer pull into their driveway at approximately 7:30 p.m. that evening. Through a window, they saw her sitting in the driver's seat, apparently talking on her cell phone. An hour later, when she still had not come inside, her grandfather went to check on her, but she was gone. The vehicle was locked, and inside were her recently purchased groceries, her wallet, and her cell phone. There were no signs of a struggle or any indication of where she might have gone. The discovery of her essential personal belongings left behind immediately raised alarms for her family, who insisted that it was highly uncharacteristic of her to leave without warning, especially given her devotion to her children.
The investigation into Misty's disappearance has been a long and arduous one, involving the Delaware County Sheriff's Office and later a new cold case unit established in 2022. Over the years, numerous searches have been conducted in the wooded areas and a nearby pond surrounding her grandparents' home. These efforts included the use of specialized search teams with ground-penetrating radar, which detected some anomalies, but excavations of those areas yielded no clues. While persons of interest have been identified and investigated, a lack of evidence has prevented any significant breakthroughs in the case. The circumstances of her vanishing from a place she should have been safest, her own driveway, continue to baffle investigators and haunt her loved ones. The case remains an active and unsolved missing person investigation, a painful testament to a family's enduring hope for answers and a community's long-held questions about what happened to Misty Dawn Faulkner.Last Seen: Jan 14, 2011
