In the summer of 1989, a sense of unease settled over the suburbs of Kansas City. Theresa Brown, a 22-year-old White female, was building a life for herself in Lenexa, Kansas. A graduate of Camdenton High School in Missouri, she worked as a dental assistant with aspirations of becoming a dental hygienist. She shared an apartment at the Trafalgar Square complex with her roommate, Christine Rusch. The two were last seen on the evening of June 25, 1989.
The following day, June 26, a call was made to both of their employers stating that they were ill and would not be coming to work. That was the last time anyone heard from them.
Concern grew when the two young women failed to show up for work the next day and were reported missing. The initial investigation into their disappearance took a dark turn when authorities connected their case to another missing woman, Joan Butler, who had vanished just days earlier from her apartment in the nearby community of Overland Park. The discovery of a suspect's car in Grandview, Missouri, on June 28 began to unravel the mystery. Inside the vehicle belonging to Richard Grissom Jr., police found personal belongings of both Theresa Brown and Christine Rusch, including jewelry and credit cards. Chillingly, they also found a key to the apartment shared by the two women.
The suspect, Richard Grissom Jr., was a painter and maintenance worker who, through his employment, had access to master keys for numerous apartment complexes in the area, including the one where Theresa and Christine lived. He was known to have a criminal past, having committed his first murder at the age of sixteen. Grissom became the focus of a multi-state manhunt that ended with his arrest in Texas on July 7, 1989.
Despite the absence of the victims' bodies, prosecutors built a compelling circumstantial case against Grissom. In 1990, a Johnson County jury found Richard Grissom Jr. guilty of the first-degree murders of Theresa Brown, Christine Rusch, and Joan Butler. He was sentenced to four life terms in prison, with his first possibility of parole not until 2095. To this day, Richard Grissom Jr. has never revealed the location of the women's remains, leaving their families with unanswered questions. Despite extensive searches over the years, the bodies of Theresa Brown, Christine Rusch, and Joan Butler have never been found.
