The Skeleton Key Chronicles

18 hours ago

David Vetter would have turned 55 this year. Instead, today marks the anniversary of his passing, the child the world came to know as the real “boy in the plastic bubble.”

Long before Hollywood took notice, much of the country was already following updates about the Houston boy who lived inside a sealed plastic isolator.

In 1976, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble aired on television, inspired by his life. A 22-year-old John Travolta took on the lead role, an interesting casting choice at the time but one that drew major attention. Millions watched the dramatized version of a teenager growing up inside a bubble.

While Travolta’s role played out on TV, David himself grew up in Houston, spending his childhood inside a clear enclosure that created a life carefully managed and closely watched by the outside world. At age 12, doctors attempted a treatment that finally allowed him to step beyond the enclosure for the first time. He passed away shortly after.

In the end, David's story became more than a headline or a made-for-TV script. It marked a moment when one child’s life, lived in isolation, became part of American pop culture and medical history at the same time.

David Phillip Vetter
September 21, 1971 ~ February 22, 1984

More info👇 … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

23 hours ago

In 2001, a North Carolina mother left home to go Christmas shopping and never came back. This week, nearly 25 years later, authorities say she has been found alive. The Rockingham County Sheriff's Office announced that Michelle Hundley Smith was recently located somewhere in North Carolina.

At her request, her current location will not be released.

Officials said she is doing well and her loved ones have been notified that she has been located and informed of her request for privacy.

Smith was 38 years old when she was last seen on December 9th, 2001. She reportedly told her husband she was heading from her home in Eden to a Kmart in Martinsville, Virginia to do some Christmas shopping, but she never returned home.

A missing person report was filed, and what officials described as an extensive investigation began almost immediately. Over the years, the case drew assistance from multiple state agencies in both North Carolina and West Virginia. Despite numerous leads and years of effort, her whereabouts remained unknown.
According to the sheriff’s office, new information was recently received by their Criminal Investigations Division and when detectives followed up on that lead, the decades-long search came to an end on February 20th.

Authorities have not released additional details about where she has been all this time or what led to her being located. After nearly 25 years, the case is no longer open. What happened in between remains her story to tell… or not.

More info👇 … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

2 days ago

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is asking people to stop calling 911 with personal theories about the Nancy Guthrie case. Dispatch manager Cecilia Ochoa says their office received tens of thousands of calls in just the first half of February, many from people sharing speculation rather than specific information.

Some callers are debating whether the person seen on surveillance footage is right- or left-handed, or whether the figure appears to be a man or a woman. Those repeated guesses, she explained, overwhelm dispatch lines.

Nancy Guthrie, 84, was reported missing from her Tucson home on February 1st. Investigators have said they believe she was taken from the residence that morning, and later obtained video showing a masked individual approaching her front door.

Authorities are urging the public to call only with concrete, actionable details that could assist the investigation, rather than opinions formed online. The focus now, they say, is keeping phone lines clear for information that truly helps move the case forward.

More info👇 … See MoreSee Less