In the fall of 2002, a young 20-year-old mother named Angela Christine Mack, also known as Angie, vanished from Alton, Missouri, along with her four-year-old son, Thomas 'Mikey' Rettew. Angela, a white female with blonde hair and blue eyes, stood at approximately 5'3' and weighed around 100 pounds. The exact date of their disappearance remains unclear, adding a layer of sorrow to the already tragic circumstances of their case.
Earlier that year, Angela and her son had left their home in Salem, Arkansas, in a late-model dark gray or blue Chevrolet or GMC extended cab pickup truck with Missouri license plates. The complexities of Angela's life at the time included being recently married but also in a relationship with another man, with whom she shared another son who was not with her when she disappeared.
The path that led to Angela and Mikey’s disappearance was fraught with personal difficulties. Sometime in the fall of 2002, Angela entrusted the care of her son, Mikey, to a couple in Alton, Missouri, Clarence and Barbara Krusen. There were conflicting accounts regarding this arrangement, with the Krusens claiming they were in the process of adopting Mikey, while other reports suggested Angela may have sold her son to them. After leaving her son with the Krusens, Angela traveled to Chowchilla, California. The last known communication from Angela was a phone call to her mother in December 2002, in which she expressed her intention to return to Missouri to regain custody of her son. It is believed that someone picked Angela up from a bus station in Springfield, Missouri, and took her to the Krusens' residence where Mikey was staying. Neither Angela nor her young son were ever seen or heard from again.
For nearly two years, the disappearance of Angela and Mikey went unreported to the authorities, a painful detail that has never been fully explained. The official missing persons reports were not filed until August 2004. The case languished for years with few leads until a significant breakthrough occurred in October 2020, when investigators learned of the informal adoption arrangement with the Krusens. By this time, Clarence Krusen had been deceased for several years, having been shot and killed in Texas in 2012. When questioned, Barbara Krusen initially told police that after she and her husband picked Angela up from the bus station, both Angela and Mikey were gone the next morning, with Clarence claiming someone had come to get them. However, after failing a polygraph examination, Barbara’s story changed dramatically. She then stated that her husband, Clarence, had murdered both Angela and her son and had destroyed their bodies in a furnace at their farmhouse. This confession led law enforcement to close the case, believing they had solved the mystery of what happened to the young mother and her child. However, the bodies of Angela and Mikey have never been recovered, leaving a painful void for their loved ones and a case that, while officially closed, continues to be a source of deep sorrow and unanswered questions for many.Last Seen: Sep 1, 2002
