In this haunting episode of The Lost Girls, hosts Amy Smith and LaDonna Humphrey take listeners deep into the heart of small-town Arkansas, where safety is supposed to be a way of life — yet three young women have vanished without a trace.

Madelin Tomlin (Hope, AR – 2015), Mercedes Toliver (Prescott, AR – 2016), and Destinee Bruce (Hope, AR – 2025) are names that echo through the quiet streets of two close-knit towns now united by tragedy and unanswered questions.

LaDonna and Amy explore the unnerving parallels between these cases — three women, all young and loved, missing within an 18-mile radius. Each disappearance is different, but all share one chilling commonality: silence.

In places where “things like that don’t happen,” these women’s disappearances demand attention — and action. Their stories remind us that justice delayed is not justice denied, and that every girl deserves justice.

Sources & Acknowledgments

• We are deeply grateful to the following for information used in this episode:

  • The Charley Project – case summaries and historical records

  • NamUs (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) – official case entries and identifiers

  • News Archives

  If you are a family member with updates or corrections, please contact us so we can keep these stories accurate and current.

The Lost Girls Podcast is taking a short break!

We’re currently on vacation as we prepare to send our kids back to school and take some much-needed time to rest, refresh, and reflect. This break also allows us to thoughtfully respond to the hundreds of messages we’ve received from families asking us to share their loved one’s story.

We’ll be back at the end of August with a brand new season—one filled with powerful, important stories of Lost Girls who deserve to be seen, heard, and remembered.

Thank you for your continued support. We can’t wait to share what’s coming next.

Patricia disappeared from Albuquerque, New Mexico at 3:00 p.m. on June 17, 1969. She left her home in the 800 block of San Pedro Drive southeast to sell raffle tickets for the Elks Club. She returned home briefly to pick up her coin purse which she'd forgotten, then left again, and never returned. She was last seen by a neighborhood girl who waved to her on the street.