Casey Lavonne Young, a 44-year-old woman from Boiling Springs, South Carolina, was last heard from on the afternoon of May 15, 2023, after leaving her job at Spartanburg Regional Hospital. She was expected to be driving her white 2009 Infiniti G-37 to the home she shared with her boyfriend, Da'Ron Jerome Collins. Concerns for her welfare grew when she failed to show up for work the following day, an act her family described as highly out of character.
This initiated a missing person investigation by the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, which would soon uncover a series of troubling and suspicious circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
The initial stages of the investigation revealed conflicting stories from her boyfriend, Da'Ron Collins. He first claimed to police that Casey never returned home from work on the day she went missing. However, surveillance footage from the neighborhood showed her vehicle arriving at their residence at approximately 4:50 p.m. When confronted with this evidence, Collins changed his account, admitting she had come home and that they had an argument, after which he claimed she left the house in her car. This was the last time he professed to have seen her. The investigation took a significant turn when, two days later, an anonymous tip led authorities to Casey's car, which was found concealed behind bushes in the parking lot of the Windsor Palms apartment complex, about three miles from her home.
Further examination of surveillance footage from the apartment complex revealed unsettling evidence. On the evening of May 15th, the footage captured Collins driving Casey's car into the parking lot. He was seen wearing gloves, wiping down the interior and exterior of the vehicle, and discarding unknown items into a nearby dumpster before walking away in the direction of his home. Investigators also discovered that Collins had left his cell phone at home during this time, in what they believe was an attempt to hide his location. At their shared residence, it was found that security cameras had been unplugged during crucial times, and surveillance videos had been manually deleted from the system. The case was further complicated by the revelation that just two days prior to her disappearance, police had responded to a domestic violence call at their home where Collins was accused of choking Casey, though no charges were filed at her request. As a person of interest, Collins was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty to federal charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering related to the investigation into her disappearance, for which he faces a lengthy prison sentence. Despite these legal proceedings against Collins, the core mystery remains. The investigation into Casey Young's disappearance is characterized as a kidnapping case, but her whereabouts are still unknown, leaving her family and community searching for answers.Last Seen: May 15, 2023
