The kids dropped their things at the door and began tearing through the home, panic rising in their chests. Conrad was just fifteen years old; Chelsa was fourteen and their youngest sister, Savannah, was just ten. But things didn't look right to the kids – the drawers of the desk had been ripped open, and papers were scattered throughout the room.
"My mom normally keeps it completely spic and span," Conrad said. "There's hardly ever any dust anywhere, let along anything out of order."
Savannah had immediately bolted for the bedroom, and quickly called for her siblings to come and join her. There was a significant amount of blood in the room, Chelsa said, but the thing that really stuck out to her was her mother's bed. Normally, she said, the bed would have been made tidily, according to Debbie's exacting standards. But that day, the bedding had been thrown together somewhat haphazardly – "not quite smoothed out," as Chelsa described it.
"My biggest fear was that we were going to find her," Chelsa admitted. "That's what scared me most, is that we'd find her somewhere in the house."
But their mother was nowhere to be found.