On a crisp winter day in 1910, a 25-year-old New York socialite left her family’s Upper East Side home to buy a new evening gown, and vanished without a trace. Over a century later, Dorothy Arnold’s disappearance remains one of New York’s greatest unsolved mysteries and its oldest missing persons case. Over the decades, there have been many theories about Dorothy’s fate; everything from secret elopements and amnesia to botched surgeries and buried bodies. But despite widespread publicity, Dorothy has never been found. Did something tragic happen to her on that cold December day, or did Dorothy Arnold simply choose a different path for herself?

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When someone goes missing, time doesn’t stop — but the world often moves on. For families, every day without answers becomes a kind of waiting room, where hope and grief exist side by side. We’ve covered hundreds of cases on this podcast, and we try to offer follow ups whenever we can, because the person’s story doesn’t end when our episode does. This week, we’re revisiting four cases that we’ve previously covered: Chance Englebert, Mary Johnson, Sage Smith, and Trudy Appleby, because in 2025, each of these cases saw significant developments. Some brought long-awaited answers, while others brought more painful questions. All of them remind us why it’s so important to keep these stories alive.

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On this day in 1988, 34-year-old Joan Yarbrough Bernal was supposed to be hitting the road with her husband and children for a holiday trip from Joliet, Illinois, to Texas. Instead, she vanished without a trace—and was never seen again.

Her husband, Gilbert “Gil” Bernal, has long claimed that Joan walked away from her life during the road trip. But Joan’s children and investigators believe the truth is much darker—and that Joan may never have made it out of Joliet.

In this episode, we trace Joan’s story: her life as a devoted mother of five, the troubling history of domestic abuse in her home, and the suspicious timeline of events surrounding her disappearance. We explore the initial 1993 murder charge against Gil that was later dropped, and how, decades later, the case has been revived with new forensic efforts and national attention thanks to Cold Justice.

Thirty-seven years on, Joan’s body has never been found, and no one has been held accountable. But her children—and cold case detectives—still haven’t stopped searching for the truth.

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