Vanished in Broad Daylight: The Disappearance of Phoenix Coldon

Missing In Missouri: The Phoenix Coldon Mystery

A black SUV slowly pulled out of a driveway in Spanish Lake, MO. The vehicle is found 25 miles away in the roughest part of St. Louis. The door was slung open, the engine left running, and the driver was missing. What happened to this beautiful young college student? Seven years later her grieving parents still pray for answers.

Phoenix Coldon, 23 had recently moved back into her parent’s home in the Spanish Lake suburb of St. Louis Missouri. The deeply religious family upbringing had sheltered the young woman from the dangers of the world around her. On the outside, the smart, outgoing Phoenix had a bright future ahead of her. She was a fencing champion, a talented pianist, and made friends easily. She was surrounded by love, how could this sweet girl go awry? I wish I knew.

On December 18, 2011, Phoenix and her mother attended morning services at their local church. The pair made a stop on their way home but arrived in the early afternoon. Around 3 pm, her father noticed Phoenix walk out to her black SUV and pull out of the driveway. He didn’t think much about it until she didn’t return. What happened to his lovely daughter? Phoenix had lived away from home for a while, but as long as she lived under their roof, she never stayed out past 2 am. The next morning Phoenix was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, when Goldia Coldon tried to file a missing persons report she was informed her daughter was of age and the report wasn’t taken seriously. Goldia tried to explain that her daughter still lived at home and had always come home on time. Finally, the report was taken, but that wouldn’t be the only obstacle the parents would face. They quickly found that getting media attention was nearly impossible.

Within three hours of the SUV leaving the driveway, the vehicle was found abandoned in one of the roughest places in East St. Louis. The location was only 25 miles from her home, but it was a world away from the quiet life she led. No one could understand why she would go to East St. Louis. The vehicle brought on more questions, a few conspiracy theories, but unfortunately no answers.

For seven years it has been told this way:

The 1998 Chevy Bronco was found parked in the traffic lane on the corner of 9th St & St. Clair Ave, East St. Louis, Illinois. The driver’s door was open, and the engine was running. The initial reports claimed there wasn’t anything left in the vehicle. The 911 call came it at 5:27 pm on December 18, 2011, and the officer arrived on the scene at 5:35 pm. Here is where the problems begin. For seven long years, people were working with this story with these facts. It leads people to believe that poor Phoenix was pulled from her vehicle in a violent way. The Bronco was found next to Interstate 70 which is known as the human trafficking highway. This made investigators immediately think of this possible scenario. I’m not so sure, and I will tell you why.

When conducting interviews for the documentary “The Disappearance of Phoenix Coldon,” the hosts speak with the first officer on the scene. This interview would shake up the entire investigation. The attending officer claimed the vehicle was not running when he came upon it, and the driver’s door was not open. Where did this story come from then? Who knows?

The Double Life of Phoenix:

Investigations tend to kick up all your dirty little secrets and seems Phoenix wasn’t as saintly as initially described. Everyone has their problems, and it appeared the 23-year-old was struggling with her share of difficulties. Phoenix was homeschooled for most of her education and many wonder if she was too sheltered and just decided to break out and try something new. In fact, she did move out of the house when she started college. But, if her home life was so restricting and terrible, then why would she move back into her parents’ home in early 2011. This theory doesn’t hold water with me. There are many other ways to leave the nest.

Phoenix was leading a double life of sorts. After her disappearance, her parents discovered she kept a separate cell phone just to speak with friends she thought her parents wouldn’t approve of. Also when she had rented an apartment earlier, she wasn’t living with a female friend. Going against her religious upbringing, Phoenix was living with her boyfriend; Michael B. Supposedly, she was on the phone with Michael B. on the day she disappeared, but frankly, nothing seems for sure in this case. If Michael B. was the last person to talk to her, then why do investigators adamantly claim he wasn’t involved in her disappearance. It’s strange to hear an investigator say that they are 100% sure someone wasn’t involved. Maybe the guy was in jail, or in the hospital, I don’t know. But everything was so vague, and it’s hard to understand why the police wrote him off as a person of interest.

Continuing with Phoenix’s secrets, we also find out that she had been dating another man from school also named Michael. We will call him Mike#2. It was later determined that Mike #2 had a violent nature with women when his ex-girlfriend came forward to talk to investigators. She would eventually have to file a restraining order against him. Could Mike #2 have anything to do with Phoenix’s disappearance? The ex is unsure. He did seem to be overly interested in the case but said it was just because he had known her.

“Why are you worrying about someone who’s dead?”

Those are the words that fell from the lips of Mike #2 when his ex-girlfriend continued to question him about his interest in this case. How did he know she’s dead? More importantly, what are investigators doing about it?

Phoenix’s Best Friend:

When interviewed by the investigators for the documentary, Phoenix’s next door neighbor and best friend came forward to talk with the hosts. She claimed to know some things about her friend and had been afraid to say anything in the beginning. This friend claims Phoenix had grown paranoid in the last few months before her disappearance. She claimed Phoenix talked about leaving and even said she was afraid something terrible was going to happen to her. She claimed Phoenix was driving around with a large knife tucked in beside the drivers’ seat of her Bronco. Strangely, this knife wasn’t found in the abandoned vehicle.

Honestly, I don’t know what to do with this. Yes, there is evidence to show that Phoenix had gotten mixed up with a rough crowd, but why would the friend just now be showing up to talk? Why would she talk on camera if she were so afraid? She didn’t even ask for them to hide her identity. I don’t know. Maybe she is legit, but I find it funny when someone who’s afraid to come forward suddenly jumps into the limelight of television.

The Fateful Video:

When the hosts spoke with the family, they were given a bunch of evidence and documentation the family had collected over the past seven years. In this pile of evidence was a “selfie video” of Phoenix. In this video, we see the true nature of Phoenix’s mental anguish. She felt like she couldn’t turn to anyone and she just wanted to start over. After watching the film, it is apparent that Phoenix’s life was spiraling out of control. What had she gotten involved with? Why did she say she would have been better off to stay the way she used to be?

Investigators came back to the poor parents and said they believe the runaway theory. Of course, if this is true, she sure did a great job hiding her identity for seven years. I still think if she’s alive she was lured away by someone. I don’t believe she would go through all of this without stashing away some clothes and building an identity for herself ahead of time. Her family still thinks she was forced into the sex trade. They even interviewed local prostitutes and visited the strip clubs hoping someone would recognize their daughter.

Tragedy upon Tragedy:

During the most difficult time of their lives, the Coldon family should be surrounded by loving friends and supportive strangers. Instead, their misfortune has been compounded by grief upon grief. A few days after Phoenix went missing, Goldia received a phone call from a female claiming to be her daughter. Police tracked down the caller to find it was a 14-year-old prankster from California. Who would do such a thing?

If that weren’t bad enough, the Coldons spent every dime they had trying to investigate their daughter’s disappearance. When they had spent their savings and were nearly wiped out they got a tip out of Texas claiming their daughter was in a prostitution ring. This caller needed money to buy her out. Of course, the grief-stricken parents gave them the money only to find out it was another horrid hoax. This one left them nearly homeless. Their family home was behind, and the lender was threatening to foreclose. A stranger stepped in and helped negotiate a quick sale for the family. Although they avoided foreclosure, they still lost their family home.

“It’s just money, and it’s just a house,” Goldia said. “It wasn’t a home when she’s not there.”

Sightings & Rumors:

To make this case even more bizarre, the private investigator says there is evidence that Phoenix had been taking money from her parents’ safe and had found out she had two separate birth certificates. One certificate was with the Coldon name, and the other was with her mother’s maiden name. The parents’ deny this, but why would their own private investigator say this? Also, when tracking down the maiden name theory, investigators found a person by that name living in Alaska. They made the trip up there only to find out the person at the given address had never heard of Phoenix. Could that be a coverup? Could Phoenix really have run away and used a random address? Who knows.

If that’s not enough twists for you, here’s another one. Two years after Phoenix went missing one of her church friends was on an airplane coming home from Vegas when she saw Phoenix in a group of well-dressed women. She called out her name, and strangely the woman looked at her.

“Do I look like someone?” was the woman’s response. Two men were with the group, and the crowd moved past the stunned friend. Was this really Phoenix? The concerned woman immediately reported the incident to airport security. The entire place was searched, but no one found Phoenix or the group of people. Was this really Phoenix? Were the ladies high priced escorts and the men their bouncers, or was this a random group of people?

Through all the chaos, hoaxes, and turmoil Goldia and Lawrence Coldon are still searching for their precious baby girl. Where is Phoenix Coldon? Who took her? Did she go on her own? Is she still alive? These questions and more torment the poor mother causing panic attacks and even a heart attack. If you have any information or if you have seen Phoenix, please contact the St. Louis County Police Department 314-615-5317

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May 25, 2025 2

Jennifer Casper-Ross: The Tragic Story of a Ballerina’s Mysterious Disappearance

Jennifer Rayleen Casper was born on April 30, 1975, and grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. She learned to love the art of dance as a child and thrived in the industry. While many little girls take dance lessons when they are young, very few are talented and dedicated enough to make a career out of it. At a young age, Jennifer achieved every little girl’s dream and became a professional ballerina.

At 19, she would be the youngest woman to ever audition for the Greg Thompson Productions. She would go on to be the youngest hired by the production company. Her career in show business had finally taken off, but sadly, eleven years later, she would disappear without a trace. What happened to this beautiful dancer? The disappearance of her starlet was devastating for Jennifer’s mother, Carla. The beautiful young woman seemed to have the world at her fingertips.

After graduating from Highland High School, Jennifer moved to Las Vegas and danced in the American Superstars show. Her dreams were coming true. Jennifer was featured on show posters, giant billboards, and commercials. Everyone loved the tall, slender brunette, and she was living her dream.

In 1995, Jennifer moved from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, and got a job dancing for Harrah’s Hotel & Casino. The studious young woman immediately enrolled in college and began working on a major in Veterinary Medicine. Like many college students, she would eventually change her major. She had big dreams for her future and decided she wanted to find a cure for autism and cancer.

While working at Harrah’s, she meets and falls in love with a crewman named Sean Ross. They married and had a son four years later. Sadly, her career was cut short by an injury, so she began giving ballet lessons to help make a living. Life was good until then, but she continued pressing forward, battling her demons and trying to make a good life for her son. The showgirl glitz was pretty from the outside, but Jennifer was struggling with mental health issues and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. If that wasn’t enough to deal with, her marriage was also beginning to crumble.

Most people have heard the term bipolar, but few understand what it really is. Bipolar disorder is a mental health issue that can range from mild to severe. This condition can cause extreme mood swings with bouts of severe depression. Coupled with losing her dancing career, motherhood, and marital woes, this would have been quite an overwhelming load.

Jennifer was a showgirl from childhood. She was smart, talented, and beautiful. She knew this, but her identity was on the stage, and she found it hard to find herself now that her life of glitz and glamour had vanished. She always had the adoration of those around her, but now she felt hopelessly inadequate.
How do I know this, you might ask? Because I’ve been there. Mental health issues are hard to deal with, especially for a driven, successful person. Now, everything she had worked so hard for was going up in smoke. What could she do now?

In a fit of despair and drowning in debt, the beautiful ballerina took a job as an exotic dancer at the Wild Orchid Gentleman’s Club. She wasn’t happy about it but couldn’t find another option with her current mental state.

Like many women, Jennifer also suffered from postpartum depression, or so her husband claimed, and her life spiraled down from there. That’s when her drug and alcohol use began again, according to her husband. Her family vehemently disputes this, and there isn’t any official record of Jennifer having postpartum depression.

In 2005, Jennifer sought professional help with her anxieties and mental health issues. She was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and postpartum depression. It is unclear if the postpartum depression was just something Sean mentioned or if she was diagnosed with it as well. Whatever the case, Jennifer was given a high-powered concoction of medications and treatment to help her get her life back in order.

She seemed to respond well to the treatment in the following weeks. There was one problem. However, Jennifer was still unable to cope with drinking and experimenting with drugs along with her medications.
No one knows what happened between husband and wife, but the fighting came to a breaking point in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005, and Jennifer stormed out of the house. Sean says she left with a red bag full of clothes, but no one could verify this story, and no other reports mention the bag.

Jennifer walked to the Peppermill Resort, Spa & Casino, which was only a mile from her home. There, she shared a few drinks with a friend, and some witnesses recall marks on her wrists and arms. Were they from abuse, or were they self-inflicted? No one knows for sure.

Around 5 a.m., she used her friend’s cell phone to call her father in Las Vegas. She told him she wanted to come to visit. Then, around 5:30 a.m., she took a cab to the Reno Sparks Cab Company. There, she hoped to see her mother, who usually worked the graveyard shift.

Unfortunately, her mother was off that night. Witnesses say she was seen climbing a fence and walking off. No one has seen her since. Here, the story begins to get a little strange. A beautiful woman is clearly upset and out on the town alone. She has a few drinks, paid for by an unknown gentleman, and then leaves the Peppermill to go to her mother’s job.

While interviewing family members, I was made aware of one gentleman who was particularly infatuated with the tall, gracious dancer. It was never brought out in the police reports, but it would seem a man at the cab company (I won’t name him) was always asking her mother if she had ditched Sean. He wanted to marry her and probably would have if it were an option. Here’s my question. Was this man ever questioned? Did his infatuation with the dark-eyed ballerina drive him to some nefarious scheme? We may never know.

Sean Ross called in a missing persons report when Jennifer didn’t return home the following day. Those closest to Jennifer found this odd because, according to Sean’s statements, Jennifer had run off before and would be gone for a few days. These reports could never be verified, but he would choose to call in a missing persons report right away if this were true. Wouldn’t waiting and seeing if she came home first make more sense?

Initial police reports say the investigators found two blood-stained notes in the home. After testing, they confirmed that the missing woman had written them and it was her blood. Were they written under duress? Was the medication and alcohol mix causing her to lose control? Maybe, but there’s more.

The young woman with a 3.9 GPA at the University of Nevada is on the opposite side of this dark spectrum. In 2001, she was inducted into the Dean’s List and remained there every year thereafter. She majored in veterinary medicine but switched to biomedical engineering and was awarded the NASA national space-grant college and fellowship program in 2000. She was smart, passionate, and independent. Was she pulling away from Sean? Was it more than he could handle?

Some people want to insinuate that Jennifer committed suicide, but would that really be like her? No one knows for sure. Yes, she was desperate, but she only had one year left before she received the degree she had worked so hard for. Surely, things would get better then.

Was her world really crashing down, or did an unknown monster bring it down? Investigators follow the night’s events and try to piece together a timeline of Jennifer’s last known hours. They talk to the employees at the cab company and hear a bizarre tale. The intoxicated woman had shown up that morning looking for her mother. When she was told her mother had the night off, Jennifer panicked and ran off into the night. She turned so quickly that the heel of her shoe broke. She ditched her high heels and ran off barefoot, jumping a small fence and heading toward her house.

Tracking dogs were brought in to help with the investigation. They found Jennifer’s scent behind the cab company and followed her trail until she reached the road. There, the trail was lost. Did someone stop and pick up the heavily intoxicated woman? The couple’s marriage problems and financial woes were a well-known fact. Did those issues cause Jennifer to want to abandon her life and start over somewhere else? Her family doesn’t think so. She adored her son, and no one believed she would run away. So, what happened to Jennifer?

Sean Ross is given a lie detector test shortly after his wife’s disappearance and fails. A second test is scheduled because everyone knows the tests aren’t 100% reliable. Sean agrees to the second test but never shows up. As if that weren’t suspicious enough, Sean told his mother-in-law that he thought Jennifer might be in the river before Jennifer was even officially declared missing. Investigators noticed his lack of emotion during the process.

Of course, everyone grieves differently, but that wouldn’t be the end of Sean Ross’ odd behavior. Three months after his wife’s disappearance, Ross divorces Jennifer and files for sole custody of their son. Who does that? Did he think she was out there somewhere refusing to come home, or did he know more? The strange behavior continues when Sean sells the home and moves to California with their son.

According to the divorce decree, Jennifer was supposed to receive half the proceeds from the house sale. Where is that? Is it still in the courthouse?

When this case was first reported, several news outlets claimed Sean had been cleared as a suspect, but that is not the case. Dateline did a write-up about this case recently, and the investigator claims Sean and one other unnamed individual are still persons of interest. I wonder who the unidentified person is. Could it be the guy at the cab company? I have no idea. I will leave that up to you to decide. The investigator also makes sure to mention the supposed suicide notes. He said they do not believe they were definite proof of suicide because they cannot prove that Jennifer wasn’t coerced into writing them. Sadly, Jennifer’s son is now coming of age and asking questions about his mother.

If you have any information about this case, please contact the Reno Police Department at (775)334-2155.

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Follow the heart-rending cases Synova first wrote about on her blog in 2018. Filled with missing persons’ cases, unsolved homicides, and even serial killer cases, this book will give you a greater insight into the shattered lives behind every story. Cases Included in this book: Jayme Closs, Haley Owens, Josh Robinson, Timothy Cunningham, Carol Blades, Pam Hupp, Arthur Ream, Angela Hammond, The Springfield Three, Jennifer Harris, Danny King, Angie Yarnell, Jack Robinson, Madelin Edman, Alexis Patterson, Amber Wilde, Sandra Bertolas, Jennifer Casper-Ross, Crystal Soulier, Jody Ricard, Carmen Owens, Brandon Tyree McCullough & The I-70 Serial Killer