In the spring of 2014, eight-year-old Relisha Rudd vanished from Washington, D.C. She was a child of color, she was poor, and she was living in a homeless shelter. In this episode, we trace the layers of institutional failure that kept anyone from intervening in time, the nineteen-day gap before an Amber Alert was ever issued, and the harder questions about who this country decides to look for, and who gets left behind.

In the summer of 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh walked into a Sears store in Hollywood with his mother and never came home. What began as a frantic search for a missing little boy quickly became one of the most heartbreaking and infamous child abduction cases in America. The tragedy not only devastated a family, but forever changed the way missing children cases are investigated, turning Adam’s father, John Walsh, into one of the country’s most recognizable voices for justice. Decades later, the case still haunts the nation as a chilling reminder of how quickly innocence can disappear.

Michele Hundley Smith’s disappearance initially raised serious concerns, as the devoted mother vanished under circumstances that didn’t quite add up. Investigators quickly noted inconsistencies and began to question whether more was happening behind the scenes than anyone realized. But in a surprising turn, Michele was later found alive, shifting the focus of the case from a potential tragedy to the mystery of why she disappeared in the first place and what really happened during the time she was gone.