This is a missing persons case out of the Northampton, PA area — the basic details are here, but Padgett was a wife/mother who worked at Duck Duck Goose Daycare and had a second job at Distinctive Fence. Last Friday, she was headed from (A) — the day care — to (B) — the fence store — to send a fax, and she disappeared. No contact since. Her car was found behind a Dollar General, phone inside. It’s now being treated as a “criminal manner,” but we don’t have full context on what that means.
Let’s start with some maps. Here’s the route from Duck Duck Goose to Distinctive Fence:
And here’s the same map with Dollar General put in:
Clearly, Dollar General is on the way. She stopped. That doesn’t seem so out of the ordinary.
Her last conversation was with her husband, and he hasn’t been very active in speaking out here, so of course you start with him as a suspect. His name is Mica Padgett, and they’ve been married since September 6th. Her sister, who lives in Maryland, said she sent her a FB message/text saying “I want to see my niece being born” around 1pm. (Her sister is obviously pregnant.)
This, by all accounts, seems like one of those “devoted mother who would never leave her kids” situations. We had that with Kallen Huston, and that did not end well. Thing is, in the same area as Padgett, we have the Holly Grim case, which is about a year old and not solved. There’s no evidence right now that they’re linked, but they could be.
Here’s the number if you have information:
Jessica Padgett was last seen Nov.21st in Northampton, PA. Can you help? http://t.co/7RVKqB6oUC #Dateline pic.twitter.com/1lQbPIqqjt
— Dateline NBC (@DatelineNBC) November 24, 2014
Obviously the logical flow on this would be:
- Husband
- Surveillance cameras (I’m sure Dollar General has some)
- Credit card records of those at Dollar General before, or at least speaking with clerks
- Social media scrubbing, etc.
This honestly seems like one of those totally banal things where someone went to run an errand between Point A and Point B, and in the process, the lives of a few families are going to be changed forever. (That’s kind of what’s gripping about the Serial podcast, but more on that in a future post.)
In positive news, search teams are gathering, and they seem robust:
.@FOX29philly Volunteer search teams gather to look for Jessica Padgett. Mother of 3 missing for three days.#fox29 pic.twitter.com/SVIpT4Yowc
— Dave Schratwieser (@DSchratwieser) November 24, 2014
The sad part is, typically a wife/mother wouldn’t be gone from Friday to Tuesday with no contact, so you assume something must have happened here. This one seems like the answers are pursuable.
Anyone have any theories or first-hand knowledge?
I believe that in every crime- when the police initially rule out those closest to the victim — they should look for direct or indirect anger. If there is no reason for direct, no one they had major problems with, then look for indirect,or displaced, anger.
That is someone with immense anger at someone close to her. That person wants to hurt someone but not physically but “emotionally”. They get their satisfaction by watching their intended victim suffer.
And it is known that there is a much higher incidence of step -children being murdered by the step-parent. I believe this is because they want to teach someone they love a lesson but don’t want to hurt them physically because they still want to be with them.
I don’t know what this means-when they hurt the one they supposedly love by killing their daughter. Can someone love someone if they want to watch them suffer?
I think in this case, it seems like the stepfather had sexual urges towards Jessica. He attempted to play them out, it didn’t work, and she ended up deceased. It’s a tragic story but one we have seen in other places.