The Skeleton Key Chronicles

10 hours ago

In 2000, a woman named Jodi Foster moved into a small apartment in Chico, California, with her young daughter, Hannah. (And no, not that Jodie Foster, although what happened next could have come straight out of one of her movies.) Not long after they settled in, Hannah began talking about someone she called “My Liz.” Jodi initially thought her daughter had made an imaginary friend, but then strange things started happening around the apartment. Lights flickered, unexplained noises interrupted their days, and Jodi began having unsettling dreams about a young woman she had never met.

At some point during their time in the apartment, a longtime resident mentioned that a young woman who had once lived in the building had disappeared years earlier. It wasn't until 2008 that Jodi began looking more closely into the story and learned about Marie Elizabeth Spannhake, better known as Marliz. On January 31st, 1976, the 19-year-old had disappeared after leaving a flea market in Chico following a disagreement with her boyfriend. She had decided to walk home along Mangrove Avenue, but she never made it back. What made the discovery especially unsettling was the apparent connection to Jodi's own home. According to Jodi's account, Marliz had once lived in Apartment 14, the very same apartment where Jodi and Hannah had experienced all those unusual things. And the name Hannah had been repeating, “My Liz,” sounded an awful lot like Marliz.

But there was another part of Marliz's story that Jodi hadn't known about. Years after the disappearance, a woman named Janice Hooker told investigators that she and her husband, Cameron, had picked up Marliz while she was walking in Chico that afternoon. Her account came during the investigation into what happened to Colleen Stan, the woman at the center of the widely publicized case known as “The Girl in the Box.” Janice claimed she and Cameron had encountered Marliz before the events involving Colleen, but investigators were never able to locate Marliz, and no charges were brought in her disappearance. When Jodi contacted Chico police in 2008 about her experiences in Apartment 14, she said detectives were surprised by some of the details she shared. According to the account presented in the documentary, certain information Jodi provided appeared to match details from the original investigation that hadn't been publicly released.

Jodi and Hannah's experiences were featured in an episode of Paranormal Witness called “The Apartment” and later in the Netflix series Unsolved Mysteries, in an episode titled “The Ghost in Apartment 14.” Both explore what happened inside that little Chico apartment and the possible connection to Marliz. There's quite a bit more to the story, but I don't want to give everything away for those who haven't watched it. Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, the circumstances are fascinating, and Marliz's disappearance remains unsolved nearly 50 years later.

Jodi also wrote a book about her experiences with Hannah called Forgotten Burial, which goes into much greater detail about their time in Apartment 14. And here's something I thought was pretty interesting. When I shared this story here last year, Jodi herself stopped by the comments and mentioned that she was finishing another book with details neither television episode had covered. I haven't seen an update on that yet, but maybe she'll stop by again and let us know how it's coming along!

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

14 hours ago

There's new information in the disappearance of Kylie Arellano, who was just 15 when she vanished from Garden City, Utah, in May 2025. Some court documents made public this week are giving us a better idea of what investigators have been looking into, including questions about Kylie's last evening at home and what her mom has since had to say about it.

Kylie was last seen on May 29th, 2025, at around 10:52 p.m. in the small town near Bear Lake. Her mom, Stephanie Coleman, reported her missing the next day. Kylie had apparently gotten a suitcase decorated with skulls shortly before she disappeared, and there were reports that she may have been seen traveling with luggage. Over the months that followed, people came forward with possible sightings, including some from other states, but none could be confirmed. There hasn't been any verified contact with Kylie since that night.

Just yesterday certain details from documents connected to searches earlier this year were released. One thing investigators couldn't find was a series of text messages Coleman said she exchanged with Kylie on the night of May 29th. According to her mom, they'd wished each other goodnight and said they loved one another. Investigators also noticed some markings inside the house they wanted to look into, and the documents brought up something Kylie had told authorities about an incident involving her mom back in 2024.

Coleman spoke with KUTV, the media outlet who broke the story, that same day and gave her version of events. She provided copies of the messages from that evening and explained that the markings in the house could have come from Kylie's cat. She also denied the earlier allegation and said she had nothing to do with her daughter's disappearance.

Kylie's mom believes she may have left with someone she met online, although there's been nothing to confirm that possibility. Coleman says she's asked investigators to look into her daughter's social media accounts and has continued trying to get help finding her. The newly released documents show that investigators have had questions about parts of her account, but they don't tell us what actually happened to Kylie.

It's now been seventeen months since Kylie disappeared. She would be 17 years old now, and despite the searches and possible sightings, no one knows where she went.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

20 hours ago

Fifteen years ago today, Karen Swift disappeared just hours after returning home from a Halloween party in Dyersburg, Tennessee. Her car was found abandoned less than half a mile from her house, and two of her cell phones were discovered damaged nearby. It would take another six weeks to find Karen, and more than a decade before anyone was brought to trial.

Karen was 44 years old and raising four children when she disappeared on October 30th, 2011. She had spent the previous evening at a Halloween party at a local country club before returning home in the early morning hours. By the following morning, she was missing, and investigators were trying to piece together what had happened after she arrived home.

Over the following weeks, search teams combed the surrounding countryside, using dogs, horses, and helicopters to look for Karen. They searched wooded areas and nearby waterways, but there was no sign of her. Then, on December 10th, two men near Bledsoe Cemetery discovered Karen beneath a thick tangle of vines, approximately three miles from where her vehicle had been found.

Investigators began looking closely at her husband, David Swift. She had filed for divorce just weeks before disappearing, and the couple had been having marital problems. David denied having anything to do with what happened to his wife, but investigators continued examining the evidence and looking into the circumstances surrounding their marriage. The investigation stretched on for years, and it wasn't until August 2022, nearly eleven years later, that David was taken into custody in connection with her case.

The case finally went before a jury in May 2024 but jurors found him not guilty of the two most serious counts but couldn't reach a decision on a lesser one. That resulted in a mistrial on the remaining count, which was eventually dismissed on March 17th, 2025, after a judge determined that the legal deadline for prosecution had expired.

This past March, David filed a federal lawsuit against Dyer County, Sheriff Jeff Box, District Attorney Danny Goodman, and several investigators, claiming he had been wrongfully prosecuted. He alleges that evidence was fabricated, witnesses were pressured, and information that could have helped his defense was withheld. Those allegations remain disputed, and the defendants have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Fifteen years after Karen disappeared, no one has been convicted in connection with her death, and what happened to her that Halloween weekend remains unknown.

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