Michael Terrell Green

It's an outlier because I'm the only detective in this department, so I get everything from stolen by, sickles on up. So just coming on my desk is rare because really and truthfully, being in a small town, people just don't disappear in these small towns. They may move on, but somebody always know where they're at. But just having a person that's disappeared five years, no one's seen him, no law enforcement agents has come across him, no family members, no friends, we really don't get a lot of those over here. We think we know what happened, and your podcast, hopefully it's going to turn over a couple of leads and help us out. In early March of 2020, 35-year-old Michael Green left his home in Winfield, Louisiana. It wasn't unusual for Michael to come and go, and a few days without hearing from him didn't immediately raise concern. But as the days stretched on, his absence began to feel heavier. Michael was usually in touch, or at the very least, he was visible somewhere around town. This time, he wasn't. Michael's sister sent him messages, but he didn't respond. That alone was unsettling. In mid-March, his sister sent him a message through Facebook Messenger to tell him that their mother was worried and to ask him to get in touch. She could see that Michael's account was active, a small sign that he was still out there. And then that, too, was gone. The account disappeared, deactivated. It vanished just like Michael himself had. That was when his family knew something was wrong. They reported Michael missing to the Winfield Police Department. And nearly six years later, the question of what happened to Michael Green remains unanswered. I'm Marissa, and from Audible, this is episode 515 of The Vanished, Michael Green's story. Michael's case came to our attention in April of 2025, when we were contacted by Detective Brian Goody with the Winfield Police Department. Detective Goody told us that he had recently reopened Michael Green's case and was actively working with Michael's family. He indicated there were unanswered questions surrounding his disappearance and information that had not been previously explored. For Michael's loved ones, it meant that after years of uncertainty, someone was once again taking a closer look at what happened in March of 2020. And for us, it was an opportunity to help share Michael's story at a time when renewed attention may matter most. Winfield is a small city in north-central Louisiana, home to just over 4,000 residents. It's the kind of place where people tend to recognize one another, and routines are easy to notice. When someone stops showing up and they're no longer seen around town or heard from, it stands out. Michael Green's disappearance didn't just leave questions for his family. It left a quiet gap in a place where people expect to know where their neighbors are, or at the very least, what happened to them. In places like this, familiarity can cut both ways. When everyone knows everyone, people are often cautious about what they say and who they say it to. Speaking up can feel risky, especially when rumors travel faster than facts. Small communities like Winfield can also become echo chambers, quiet on the surface, but full of speculation beneath it. Stories circulate, details blur, and over time, truth can be buried under layers of assumption and silence. In cases like Michael's, that atmosphere can make answers harder to reach. Detective Brian Goody wasn't part of the Winfield Police Department when Michael Green disappeared in 2020. By the time Michael's case came back into focus, years had passed. Detective Goody explained that he was relatively new to the department when the case first crossed his radar. Over the years, Michael's disappearance had continued to weigh on police chief Johnny Carpenter, who believed that there were still unanswered questions. So he asked Detective Goody to take another look at it when time allowed. That conversation marked the beginning of a fresh review of Michael's case. Here's Detective Brian Goody. Well, how it came to me is I'm relatively new to this department. I kind of heard about the case in the background, but being a small department, We have so many other cases that come. And one evening, I was with my chief, Johnny Carpenter, and we just started talking about some things. And he was telling me about it, and he felt that maybe everything wasn't done. It kind of bothered him because he's one of these big-hearted guys that cares a lot about people, and he felt that maybe everything that could have been done wasn't done. And I told him, I said, well, give me a week or so. Let me clear up some things, and I'll start looking into it. That's pretty much how it was brought to me. When I got it, not knowing anything about it, previous two detectives, I went to their files, and they kept some pretty good files. And so not knowing anything about the case, I just started reading. The general public often forms expectations about criminal investigations based on what they've seen on television. But the reality is far less cinematic. Investigations are shaped largely by resources. And those resources can look very different in a small community than they do in a major city. The Winfield Police Department operates with a very small staff, a reality that influences how cases are handled day to day. Current cases often demand immediate attention, while older files can quietly recede into the background. When we spoke to Detective Goody, it was clear that officers frequently juggle multiple roles at once, from covering shifts to responding to calls for service and managing investigations simultaneously. On the day that we spoke with him, Detective Goody was the only officer on duty and explained that he could be pulled away at any moment if an emergency occurred. In a department this small, there isn't much separation between patrol work and investigative work. An officer can be reviewing a case one moment and responding to a call the next. Time that may otherwise be spent digging into older files is often taken up by whatever is happening in town that day. It isn't necessarily about a lack of care or effort. It's simply the reality of working with limited staff and time. Winfield, Louisiana, and the surrounding Wynn Parish are sparsely populated. Detective Goody said this isn't the kind of place where people just disappear. His agency hasn't seen many missing persons cases, which has made Michael's unsolved disappearance confounding. It's an outlier because I'm the only detective in this department, so I get everything from stolen by, sickles on up. And so this coming on my desk is rare because really and truthfully, being in a small town, people just don't disappear in these small towns. They may move on, but somebody always know where they're at. But just having a person that's been disappeared five years, no one's seen him, no law enforcement agents has come across him, no family members, no friends. We really don't get a lot of those over here. And this parish, this is what other people call counties and boroughs we call parishes. I think they have a total of five missing people, and Michael is one of them. So it's not really something that comes up, and it's a different ballgame, missing people. If you talk to a lot of police officers and detectives, some of them really don't have a clue what to do because some places don't really consider it a crime, or if they do, it's not a major crime. have other crimes, homicide, rape, sexual assaults, and old things. Sometimes missing persons just drop to the bottom of the ladder. Luckily for me, that was something I've always kind of educated myself on, on missing people. When I went to get my master's degree, I wrote my thesis on murdering and missing minorities. So I kind of had a background. Maybe let me start looking in this direction, start looking here. Once Detective Goody took on the case, he started from the very beginning. He reviewed the original case file, spoke with the officers who had previously worked Michael's disappearance, and reached out to Michael's family to fill in the gaps. His goal was to understand not just what had been documented, but what may have been missed, details remembered by family members that never made it into the record, or connections that hadn't been fully explored. Those early conversations helped him begin narrowing the timeline and to identify the last confirmed sightings of Michael, giving the investigation a clearer place to start. The case was originally brought to our department on, I think it was March 17, 2020, by his sister, LaShawn. She had said that family members hadn't seen him for two to three weeks, which wasn't unusual, but she felt that she would have seen him if it was just passing by, she would have seen him in that period of time. So that was the jumping off spot, early March 2020. So I started looking into the case and I first contacted his aunt Mary and she gave me some background information. I talked to some people in the department that may have known him during that time. And I was able to track down his sister, Brittany, who's been very instrumental. And she's a god-enlighted in this because she gave me so much information. And from her memory, she remembers seeing him on either the 4th or the 5th of March. That's the last time she can remember seeing him. So that was my jumping off point that I know I had somebody who was dependable said, this is the last time I saw him at my mother's house. He was at the mother's house, and she can remember his description of clothing. Okay, I have some place to look off from, and this is the last time a family member saw him. We also spoke with Michael's sister, Brittany, who shared what she remembers about the last time she saw her brother at their family home in Winfield in early March of 2020. From her recollection, Michael was there on both March 4th and March 5th. The last place, me and my brother both was at the same house, which was at my mom's house. It was March 4th of 2020. During that time, my mom was cooking. He had came to my mom's house. He had got a bell, changed clothes and stuff like that, and then he was at the door. He never said he was going anywhere, but when I seen him the next day, which was March 5th, was the last time that I actually seen him. So when he walked out the door, he was going to go somewhere, but he didn't say specifically where he was going. There was him, he'd pop up, pop out, he'd eat, get a bath and stuff like that, grab clothes and gone. He was the type of person, come in and leave, in and out. It was normal. The last time I seen him, he was on a bike. And I remember just like yesterday, what he had on, a backpack with his phone charger. Once the fourth interfield, that was the last two times that I saw him. After that, I didn't see my brother no more. Brittany's memory places Michael at their mother's house. It was a brief visit that at the time didn't seem out of the ordinary. Michael had stopped by, changed his clothes, gathered a few things, and then left. He didn't say where he was going. And there was nothing about that moment to suggest that it would be the last time Brittany would see her brother, but it was. Brittany explained that her family was very close. Michael always stayed in contact with his sisters and his mother. But in March of 2020, that pattern broke. have been seeing him. We didn't see him no more. And I'm thinking if we didn't see him, then somebody else might have saw him. But some people said that they seen him in the H.Y. Bells apartment complex in Winfield. Some people said that they saw him in a beige looking truck. Since it was completely normal for Michael to come and go, his family wasn't immediately alarmed. But everyone has an internal sense of how long silence feels normal. And when that unspoken window passed, concern began to set in. Michael wasn't responding to messages, which wasn't like him. And in a small community like Winfield, where people expect to cross paths, his absence became harder to ignore. Looking for some sign that Michael was okay, Brittany turned to Facebook to see if she could establish contact with her brother there. She could see that his Facebook messenger showed that Michael was active, so she sent him a message to let him know that he had everyone worried. But what happened next was unexpected, leaving Brittany shocked and confused. Things started getting suspicious for me around March 17th or the 18th around there when I wrote him on Messenger because it's not like him to not reply back to my messages. He didn't reply back or none of that. When I wrote him, I was telling him like, hey, mom told me to tell you to come by the house. It's not like him because he always get in touch with me or he get in touch with my older sister or the baby's sister. But this one particular day, somebody was on his page out of nowhere. He just vanished. They deactivated his page. What caught all of our attention was when, I can't remember exactly what day, there was a rumor out already that was saying my brother was shot and killed, murdered type of stuff. When that had came about, my mom and my sister, they went to the sheriff's department, if I'm not mistaken. They went up there and filled out a missing person report. And they told my mom and my sister to go to the city of Winfield to go and fill out a missing police report. In the weeks after Michael was last seen, signs of activity on his social media account raised questions for his family If someone was accessing that account it meant that Michael or someone else still had access to his devices or at least his login information To better understand that possibility we asked Brittany what she knew about the devices Michael had with him around the time he disappeared. He did have a phone on him. I gave him a phone that I would no longer use in. At that time, it's one that must have to be hooked on Wi-Fi, a prepaid phone. The only way it'll work is if you have Wi-Fi. Before going any further, we wanted to step back and understand who Michael Green was, beyond the circumstances of his disappearance. To do that, we asked Brittany to share what she remembers about her brother and where he seemed to be in life in the time leading up to March of 2020. My mama had eight kids, so a lot of siblings. From younger, I didn't mean him. He was raised and we grew up in Winfield. He's so full of energy, very unique person, sweet. He was into music. He loved music. He loved karate. So he loved sports, too. His personality, he was outgoing, so full of life, overall good person. To see him in a state of mind and where he was before he came up missing, he was basically trying to change, get his life right, change life around type of thing. As Detective Goody began reviewing Michael's background, he took an honest look at parts of Michael's life that were complicated and imperfect. Brittany told us that Michael was trying to get his life back on track, but those past struggles were still relevant to the investigation. Details like that can shape the direction of a case, influencing who investigators speak with and where they focus their efforts. But those details don't define a person's worth, and they don't lessen the importance of finding out what happened. When we spoke with Detective Goody, he was clear about that distinction. Michael, he was born down here in Winfield, and he had some issues. He had some addiction issues, and I think maybe that some of the people he hung around with and some of his lifestyle choices may have led him to becoming a missing person. Digging deeper into this case, some of the people that are involved or may know something about the disappearance or people who have the same issue, addiction issue, criminal records, it kind of all may lead to what happened to him. I know he has some problems, but that still doesn't mean he doesn't deserve his justice and be able to get looked for. Earlier, Brittany talked about Michael's patterns. He would stop by to change clothes, share a meal, or stay for a few days. But there was never a set routine. For some people, daily life follows a predictable pattern, the same places, times, and routes. Those patterns make it easier to notice when something changes. Michael's life didn't follow that kind of structure. That lack of predictability made it harder to establish a clear timeline or narrow down where he may have gone. Detective Goody explained how that complicated the search for Michael. Michael was kind of migratory, meaning what I was to gather and talking to people. Not homeless, but he really never had a permanent address. Sometimes he would stay at his mom. Sometimes he would be with his sister. He had a girlfriend. He would stay with her. And then he had other friends. He would couch surf and things of that nature. So it was kind of hard. You didn't know where Mike would show up. He might show up here for two, three days and be on the other side of town two, three days. That was kind of hard pinpoint where he went off to. We had heard the officers at the time, the department had heard some stories of, hey, this is not natural for Michael because, again, Michael is not the type of person. Somebody would have seen him riding his bicycle, walking. then somebody would have seen him. It was like, okay, this is not natural. Something happened to him. Brittany told us that not long after Michael disappeared, her family began hearing rumors, alarming ones that suggested something violent had happened to her brother. The stories didn't come from a single source, and they spread quickly, passed from person to person, changing as they went. In a small community, that kind of information can move fast, leaving families caught between fear and uncertainty. Michael's loved ones were left trying to make sense of what they were hearing, unsure whether the stories held any truth, or were simply another example of how speculation can take on a life of its own. Brittany remembers how quickly those rumors took hold at the beginning. It was like a wildfire. You hear one, and then all of a sudden, everybody's talking about it. But it was told to one person, which was his ex-girlfriend, brother, told my brother-in-law, that told my sister, and my sister told my mom, that my brother was shot, killed, and dismembered to the hogs. Detective Goody said that the rumors surrounding Michael's disappearance weren't just persistent, but they were deeply disturbing. Those stories didn't stay on the periphery. They were repeatedly brought directly to Michael's family. For Michael's mother, That meant being confronted again and again with graphic and unverified claims about her son's final moments. Detective Goody believes that the emotional toll of Michael's disappearance, combined with the constant stream of rumors and unanswered questions, had a profound impact on her health, and ultimately she passed away in the aftermath of Michael's disappearance. When we spoke with Detective Goody, he didn't minimize the harm those rumors caused or the trauma they left behind. On this case in particular, there are some very disgusting and disturbing rumors that have been floating around or some people say it's gospel of what happened to them. I'm praying that these stories aren't true because, be quite honest with you, if they are the people involved with it, hell is not a hot enough place for them. If those rumors we keep hearing that keep resurfacing over and over again, they're not very good. Their mom, Miss Marilyn, these stories were coming directly. From what I understand, people were going to her every day with, hey, your son is here. They did this to his body. They did that to his body. Oh, he's been beat with this. He was shot with this. He's buried under this house. He's buried under that. And she passed away, I don't think she made, quite a year after Michael disappeared. and people who knew it, they swear to God that she was traumatized, which we can't blame it. And some people feel that made her health bad and she passed away. Learning about every day, some of the things I've read is every day somebody was telling these different things that happened to her son. And I can't imagine every day somebody telling me these things and it not affect you. Early on, Brittany was consumed by the stories she was hearing about what had allegedly happened to her brother. But with the passage of time, she's come to believe that those stories were likely red herrings, designed to throw everyone off track. During that time, hearing the same similarities to the stories, but they had a different outcome. But my thing about it is, I think that that is a cover-up that sold the ponies off. Basically, it's two locations where people were seeing. And my brother never known to be hanging out because if he was to be in Jordan Hills, it was somebody that he knew that would be hanging out down there. But he known for hanging out in Jordan. When he and his girlfriend was together, they would stay a couple of days and they would be back in Winkfield. By me being despidling, it's kind of hard for somebody to do some stuff like that. That is a hurtful feeling. As the investigation moved forward, a pattern began to emerge. The accounts investigators heard, though inconsistent, repeatedly pointed to the same area of Winfield as the place Michael may have last been seen. But narrowing in on a location didn't make the case easier. The people who spent time in that part of the city were often reluctant to speak with police, leaving investigators without the firsthand statements they needed to move the case forward. It's a dynamic that can stall an investigation. especially when fear, mistrust, and fading memories all intersect. Detective Goody explained how those factors complicated efforts to establish a clear timeline and identify what had happened to Michael. Well, this is where the water started getting murky and muddy, because this is when you start dealing with some of the people we hung with. And as I mentioned earlier, some of them had addiction issues and maybe weren't the most reliable person. Some of them didn't want to be involved. So from what I got, we really never had where he went, where he ended up. The consensus of where we think he was last seen was McLeod Street. That's in Winfield. The reason we didn't put it down officially because everybody you talked to, well, I heard he was on McLeod Street. Oh, well, I saw him then, but I don't remember the date. So it was kind of the consensus he ended down there somewhere on McLeod Street. But I was never able to have anyone just say, oh, man, I saw him here. We never got that kind of statement from anyone. He had people that he knew. I know his former girlfriend. She hung around there. I think he had some other friends. So he did know people down there. I think he knew pretty much everybody down there. And the people that, for lack of a better word, that hung in that specific part of town was known as a big drug area. I would say it would be a place you would frequent a lot. It is difficult from the aspect of, OK, I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to get involved with it because what are you going to do to me if I was at this particular place when something happened? They don't want to get involved. Some of it is from fear. They may not want to say what they were doing with other people for fear of retaliation. Some people just don't want to be known as the rat in town. You don't want X, Y, and Z around because she may tell the police on you. So it hurts the investigations a lot because usually people involved in that type of behavior and that type of lifestyle, they won't just tell you what they know. And the one thing that doesn't get better with time is usually memory. So a lot of people, when you were able to get a little piece of something, oh, well, it may have been this day, but no, maybe it was this. Well, you know, to think about it, it was that kind of hard to base an investigation off of. Then, especially if you want to go in front of a judge and maybe ask for a warrant. If you got a person that's telling you three and four different days when this happens, chances are the judge is going to look at you. I can't do anything with this. Get something. Nailed me down. something solid, then come back to me. Brittany told us that she had heard different accounts about her brother after she had last seen him. One placed him at an apartment complex. Another suggested he had gotten into a beige truck. We wanted to know whether that detail meant anything to her. Was there someone in Michael's circle who drove a truck like that, or was the truck a complete mystery? Brittany explained that while she doesn't know anyone who owned a truck matching that description, if that actually happened, she believes that it must have been someone Michael knew. I don't know the guy that owns the truck, but he knows the guy that was driving that picked him up because he got in the truck with him. See, my brother is the type of guy, he not finna get in no car with just no anybody. If he don't know you, he not finna get in no car with you. Either he owns feet or he own a bicycle. What Brittany does know is how she last saw her brother leave. She told us that Michael was on his bicycle when he left that day. And as far as the family is aware, that bicycle has never been found. She also has a clear memory of what Michael was wearing that day, including a backpack, and that too has never turned up. Earlier, Brittany said that she believed that when Michael left, he had a phone that she had given him that wasn't connected to a service provider and would have required access to Wi-Fi to function. Early on, investigators believed that Michael didn't have a phone at all, but as the case was revisited years later, and Detective Goody spoke to Brittany. That assumption began to shift. During the renewed investigation, law enforcement began taking a closer look at whether Michael may have had access to a phone after he was last seen, and whether that activity could help clarify where he went or who he was in contact with. Well, at first, we didn't think he had a phone. The initial file interviewing some people, they said he didn't have a phone. But through talking with his sister, Brittany, I was able to get some information from the Louisiana State Police rerunning his records and going through some files that he may have possibly had a cell phone. His sister Brittany told me she did remember giving him one of her old phones, but we weren't able to find that number as of yet. But current background checks, current research, he did use a phone number. And right now we're in the process of trying to track that information down if possible. In many missing persons cases, there are warning signs that only become clear in hindsight. That could be a conflict, a shift in behavior, or something that the person shared that suggested trouble was brewing. As we looked more closely at Michael's final days, we wanted to know whether he had ever told anyone that he felt unsafe or believed that something was wrong. Detective Goody has spoken with many people who knew Michael, as well as officers who had interacted with him in the past. We asked what, if anything, Michael had expressed about his own safety. From what I've read and from the people I've talked to, Michael thought he could take care of himself pretty good. He was not above fighting someone, so he thought he could take care of himself. I never personally talked to anyone who said he was worried for his personal safety. I do think the people that he was around and whatever happened to him, if that's what we think happened to him, I think he may have trusted them maybe that nothing was going to happen to him. But we never got any indication that he was in fear or anything for personal safety. That's what I've heard. Like I said, I never met Michael. But things like that, that was not going to bother him. He would get on with his business regardless. Like I said, if that was a concern, no one I've talked to has even mentioned it. What Brittany shared about her brother closely matched what investigators had heard from others. Michael was confident and not someone who ever seemed afraid. But Brittany has spent years turning over another possibility, that the people Michael was spending time with may have played a role in what happened to him. It's a question that's never left her. If someone harmed her brother, who would have had a reason to do so? See he the type of person he handles things himself He don worry about anything he fearless If he ever really just came to a point where he actually felt like that he knew he can always talk to his siblings. He can always talk to family about anything. Somebody was like, they did see him going to the apartment complex, the HYB was coming from somebody's apartment that he knew over there. So after that, it was like somebody else said that they saw him coming from over there at the apartment complex. He got in the car with somebody where they was heading. We don't know. To me, personally, this is my opinion. I feel like each one that he was hanging around had a modal. Over time, Michael's case has become clouded by the stories that couldn't be verified. Rumors circulated and details shifted. Brittany told us that she understands how that uncertainty complicated the investigation from the early days. Law enforcement heard the same stories she had been told, but without any evidence to support them. There were limits to what could be done. Brittany spent years trying to make sense of that reality, knowing that people may have information, but also understanding how difficult it is to move a case forward when everything rests on hearsay. They did what they could do. Other than that, basically, they really just didn't have enough because at the moment, when they was investigating stuff, all they had was hearsay. It's a whole lot of things. My mama had asked them before she passed away, is there any way that you can do a lot of success to see who's telling the truth and who's not? I feel like the ones that they ask questions, they know more than what they're seeing. But my thing about this whole situation is how they said they don't have enough to hold anybody on anything so they can walk. Nobody say, hey, I'm here to help or I'm sorry for your loss. But if you need any information or anything, we'll help you out. Try to solve your brother, you know, murder or whatever. Nobody once or ever never reached out. I hear more from a person that's just like family to us. But at the same time, the information that he heard that was told to him, basically, the detail from detail about what supposedly happened was told from a person that it sounds like was there. I'm not sure because I don't believe hearsay. But knowing that in this scenario, how he put it, it's about right. For Michael's family, the years after his disappearance felt painfully still. The leads that they had quickly stalled, questions lingered, and time continued to pass without answers. For nearly five years, it seemed as though the case had gone ice cold. That began to change when Detective Goody took over Michael's case. For the first time in years, Michael's family felt a sense of forward movement, Not because everything suddenly became clear, but because someone was taking the time to listen, follow up, and keep pushing. Brittany told us what that shift has meant to her family. He's exactly what we've been praying for, somebody to come in and swoop in and take over the case that actually cares. I'm not saying that WPD don't care, but you've got to actually show that you care. Look how many murders this place in Winfield, Louisiana, and nobody's taking action on that case. That case is going cold. It's a very small thing. I've been working with Detective Brian since he first had came and get involved, giving him detail by detail, anything that I know, anything that I can remember. And he really does take the time out and making major moves. I'm glad Detective Brian had actually came in and really just took the time out and guaranteed that he's going to do everything that he can and in his power. Over the years, we've spoken with many families who understand just how difficult these cases can be. They don't expect answers to come overnight, and they know progress is rarely straightforward. What they want is care, communication, and compassion. They want to know their concerns are being taken seriously and that their loved one still matters. For families like Michael's, that kind of attention can bring a small but meaningful sense of relief. Having an investigator who checks in, follows up, and keeps them informed means they're no longer carrying the weight of the unknown alone. That kind of trust is built through consistency, and in Michael's case, that ongoing work has led investigators to take a closer look at what may have happened in the days after he was last seen. While his case remains open and active, and certain details can't be shared publicly, Detective Goody told us that he does have a working theory about what happened to Michael in early March of 2020. What he was able to share begins with a narrowing of the timeline. We think we know what happened. And like I said, from what we've gathered, the last time Michael was seen was either the fourth or fifth. My personal theory, whatever happened to Michael happened to him between the fifth and the seventh of March 2020. We're thinking that between those two or three days, his life possibly was ended. We're not 100 percent sure. But we think it was in that small period of time. And as I said, the initial report came to us on the 17th. I was told his Facebook page was deactivated on the 18th. So we had that period of time where his Facebook page, the second he's reported by his sister misses, the Facebook page goes dead. If what we think is correct, we had almost a period of 10 plus days, whatever happened to him, to be covered up. Brittany, to be honest with you, she, see, that's what I really needed. She told me things that weren't in the file, people who know him. And to be honest with you, some of that's more helpful that was in the official files that people who were in the street, they know certain things. And they will tell you, hey, don't go look no further than these three people. And you know, that is the constant tune that you hear is those three people right there, that's what you need to look at. She knows the names of these people. She heard them. So it's no big secret. It's a group of people, I think it's about five of them, that were there. They know what happened. There's probably no secret in this town who they are. It's just they have rights to. And we're still looking into this, but it's an open secret. We just need that one smoking gun that's going to say, hey, go over year. One of the many unanswered questions in Michael's case centers on his Facebook account, Specifically, who deactivated it in the days after he was last seen. Over the years, different possibilities have been raised. Detective Goody told us that some believe Michael's ex-girlfriend may have had access to his account. But even that theory is complicated by conflicting accounts of their relationship at the time Michael disappeared. By the time Detective Goody took over the investigation, Michael's ex-girlfriend was no longer alive and obviously couldn't be interviewed directly. leaving Detective Goody to rely on earlier attempts to speak with her and on what could be pieced together from the case file. Detective Goody explained what is known and what remains unresolved. We were never able, and this is one of the things that with this case, there's such a massive amount of information that we're working on. And with our limitations and manpower and resources, sometimes it takes us a while to get that information, But that's definitely something we're pursuing. I know his sister believed that it was done by the ex-girlfriend who is now deceased. She believed she had all Michael's information. And she believed that she went in when she heard that a report was filed and we were looking for Michael. He deactivated the Facebook page. Whether that happened or not, we don't know. She passed away about a year, if I'm not mistaken. In 21, she was living in a trailer with a gentleman and the trailer caught on fire and she passed. So I was never able to talk to her. I know the detectives in the past tried to talk to her. They were never really able to get a solid answer or her to admit to anything. I know some people did feel that she knew a lot more. Some people did feel that maybe she was at that turning point where, you know what, I need to say what I know, if anything. And then she passed. You read the files and talk to different people. You had a group, oh, they hadn't talked in a year. Then you had people who still say they were still in a relationship. It all depends who you talk to. And I think she denied that she was in a relationship. She had moved on and got with another gentleman who was the gentleman that was with her when the house caught on fire. But it all depends who you talk to. Had they broken up? Were they still together? Never really got a clearance on that. We know that Detective Goody never had the opportunity to speak with Michael's ex-girlfriend before her passing. But we wondered if Brittany had. This is what she told us. His ex-girlfriend, but she passed away, was the one that had the password to his account. I haven't seen her anymore. Then I ended up finding out that she had passed. So, to be honest, it really ain't no telling who could have deactivated his page. As the years have passed, the obstacles in Michael's case have only grown. Michael's ex-girlfriend is no longer alive, and others believed to have had information about what happened to him are also gone. Some have passed. Others have moved away. Time has scattered the people investigators once hoped to speak with. For those who are still out there, the work now is finding them and trying to convince them to speak with law enforcement. Detective Goody explained that tracking down potential witnesses years later has become one of the most difficult parts of this investigation. Several of the people that were involved in whatever happened to him, like I said, they had addiction, drug issues. So we're coming again with the fuzzy memories. That area where that happened at, no cameras back there. And I think one of the biggest parts for me was two things. Several of the people who were involved that may have information are deceased. I know people that we would call witnesses, probably about five of them now that are deceased. One of the people we think that possibly was there, she's deceased now. Some of the people, they've moved on, they've moved out of town, and it's kind of hard to track them down. I have 24 people that were interviewed originally, and I'm still trying to track down over half of them. In five years, you know, people get on with their lives and just finding out where they moved to, where I can try and make contact with them. It's a Herculean effort sometimes. One gentleman, he was living less than three miles from, I did not know. If you go by his last address, he had an address that was almost 60 miles away. But come to find out, he had moved back into town. A couple of people we need to talk to, they're incarcerated right now. So just tracking them down and be able to get them where you can just talk to them for a few minutes, it's a problem sometimes. And, you know, a lot of people don't want to call in. They don't want that number showing up and it can be sent to email. I can tell people, just slide a letter under the door and leave any way you can to just drop us off the information. We're not asking for your name. Just point us in the right direction. And that's all we need. And we'll take you from there. Another question investigators have had to wrestle with is why Michael may have been harmed. Establishing motive is often one of the most difficult parts of a case like this, especially when so much of the information comes from secondhand accounts. Detective Goody told us that while nothing has been proven, there are a few prevailing theories investigators have been working to better understand. We are really working on, from what we gathered, two motives. One of them was possibly been racial because Michael being Black, girlfriend, she was white. And it was stories floating around that some people did not appreciate him being with her. And they were offended. And they possibly may have done something to him. We don't know. The second rumor was that it was maybe drug related. And somebody got mad and may have done something to him. We don't know. And recently, I was told through someone that whatever happened to him, they thought it was an accident. A group of people, they were maybe drinking, doing drugs, and somebody said something, and it got out of hand, and then this happened. So we really don't know what two are the main theories we're concentrating on. When we spoke with Brittany, she clarified that there were actually two women that Michael had been seeing prior to his disappearance. Not at the same time, but the distinction is important. The one former girlfriend that has since passed. Brittany said they had broken up, and then Michael began seeing another woman. From what Brittany has learned, Michael thought she was single, but she was actually with another man. Here's Brittany again. Okay, this is the same. See, they had the type of relationship where they wasn't in a relationship, but they was kind of cold-roar with one another. My brother started seeing a girl that basically turned out that she lied. Well, this was May of 2019. My brother was bringing this girl around that he was dating, her name Amy. And the girl was like, her and her own man is getting a divorce. She met my mom. She met us and stuff like that. So I'm like, OK, like with him, in order for him to bring a female around us, it got to be something serious. because he's not known to bring his females around us if he don't see himself with them. But it turns out the girl was already seeing somebody, but the girl lied during the whole time. She was still seeing that man. Why put him in the mix of it? And I think her boyfriend or old man or whatever he is to her found out about it, and he probably was the one that did it, to be honest. Because how he go from talking to this female, all of a sudden, he went from talking to her and this was like 2019. 2020, now he dead. Not his ex-girlfriend, but the one that he was talking to because he broke up with his ex-girlfriend and started talking to Amy. And he was bringing her around and I don't know what that was seeing each other off and on because we didn see her as much as we did when he first brought her around That what really had me thinking like okay now it really dawning on me because him and her was in a relationship, but she lied to him saying that she wasn't in a relationship with nobody, but it had a whole old man. So if they really just think about it, that's a motive right there. He have a motive. Nobody hasn't heard or talked to her ever since when he came up missing. The police was bringing everybody in to the police station and stuff like that for questioning. We haven't heard nor seen her again. This is something that somebody already had plotted to get him out the way. It seemed like, to me, to be honest, I hate crime because they said that the girl, that her boyfriend don't like Black people. I started getting all kinds of messages saying that she told somebody her boyfriend was the one the person hit Mike in the back of the head with a bat and shot and killed him. For somebody to come and tell me that she said I heard now that he was the one that did it, it really got me thinking. She knew what happened. The last time I heard somebody say that she in Arkansas, Alabama, out of everybody, why you didn't reach out? She can't sit there and say that she don't know the family because she know who he is. After he ended up dying or getting killed, you leave. After the police asked you and brought you in for questioning. Let her tell you. She don't know what they're talking about. They turned to me like it was a drug-related gone bad, but it's not a drug-related gone bad. During that time, my brother, he wasn't on no drugs or anything. Over the years, different stories about what may have happened to Michael have pointed investigators in multiple directions. Some of those areas have been searched, but without a clear starting point, each search becomes an exercise in uncertainty. To move forward, investigators need more than a general area. They need something more specific. Detective Goody explained what search efforts have already taken place and why without that definitive lead, narrowing down where to search next has been such a challenge. We talked about McLeod Street earlier. That's where we think what happened to him happened. It was searched. Dogs were bought. They searched several, several acres of property. They went to other towns and searched. They went to other houses and searched. They went down dead-end roads and searched. Right now, from me looking at it, you get maybe the area where it happened at, what we think happened to them. But it's so much land out there. It's massive. If you would go back there, it's open field, a lot of trees, dried creek beds. It's very hard for a vehicle to get back there where you probably need four wheelers. And I know they had to get back there on foot when they did a search. We've never really had anybody tell a search here. I was told just a couple of days ago of another place, well, actually two more places where he may be at. And it's kind of hard to get these things narrowed down when you hear somebody just come in. Well, I heard he was here. No, I heard he was here. We just never got that smoking gun where somebody They say, hey, look right here. So it's hard because we're a small department. For us, we have to borrow resources from other departments. Go look in some of these areas. It's labor intensive. You know, you just can't really go off on, oh, well, my cousin's baby daddy told me this. You need something solid. And we really never got anything solid. But like I said, they searched where they thought he might be. And they never got anything. Michael and his siblings grew up in Winfield. It's the community Brittany has known her entire life and where her brother disappeared. She believed that would matter and that people would speak up, that someone would help point the way toward answers. Instead, she said her family was met with silence. As the years continued to pass without clarity, that silence became its own kind of weight. Brittany believes the people responsible for hurting her brother assumed there would be no consequences, that Michael wouldn't be missed, and no one would be asking questions. What they failed to account for was Michael's family and their refusal to let him be forgotten. I'm getting so frustrated. that. Winfield can sit up on their bus and gossip about who doing this for who and who's sleeping with who, but you meant to tell me a human being come on this and y'all don't know who killed. They're more afraid of going to jail. That's what they're afraid of. But I feel like at the same time, why, if you know something, why not speak up on it? You're going to do just as much time as a person that actually killed him. Accessory. You watched this, but you didn't say nothing. Since day one, this really has put a toll on our family because, like I said, this situation would never got down to the root of the problem before the rumors and everything. My mama actually passed away because she had so much stress on her heart and it actually took her out. She wanted justice, much as the whole family does. Her being a mom, what type of mother would want to hear her son murdered that way? We also got to think on the outside of the bar, somebody could be hiding behind somebody with power. Who's finna go and sit up there and let one of their families go to jail? They finna do whatever it takes to make sure that that person don't go to jail. It's crazy to me because what if that was their daughter, one of their child? But you know what it is, though? I feel they feel like he don't have no family that love him. They ain't gonna know he ain't this and we finna do this because he don't got no family. That's a lie. He have family that love him. I'd be down if I let him get away with this. Y'all not finna just sweep him under the rug, his case on the rug, like he's nobody. Out of all the people that have some being involved, we know some of them. If you was a true friend and you really fool with my brother, like you say you fool with my brother, soon as you knew something about what happened, whether you was there or you not, your first thing would have came and checked, hey, is there anything that I could do? Nothing. I want for every last one of them to go to jail. That's my justice. I want them to realize and understand y'all took a life. Not only did y'all take a life, y'all took a brother, y'all took an uncle. Y'all really took him from us. Detective Goody believes the answers in Michael's case are likely tied to the area where he was last believed to have been seen. But he also explained that it's possible that someone in the community may have seen something important at the time, an unfamiliar vehicle, unusual activity, or a moment that didn't stand out then, but it might now. I do think what happened to Michael, that he's been brought to somebody else's property. And when I mean somebody else's property, people who we think are involved with it, it may be on some of their family's property. It may be on a buddy's property. But things that the general public would even know about it, because to be honest with you, A lot of people had forgotten about it till we reopened the case. I started putting up flyers all around town, started handing out flyers. I started calling these people who had been talked to in five years. And I started just, hey, can I talk to you about Michael Green? But I do think to move forward, that would be something for us to focus on that. Hey, you saw something or if you know somebody was on your property around early 2020, digging holes or just hanging around there and they never did, that would be something I would tell people. I know it'd be hard to remember, but if something like that would hit your memory, that would be very helpful. And like we talked about earlier about some of those rumors are disturbing and disgusting. And I'll just go out and say one of the rumors that I think the general public that knows about this, I've heard about it, I heard the rumors, they were saying that his body was head to peak. I don't really believe that. It could have happened, but I really don't believe that. So I think that is something that's being perpetrated by certain people to keep other people from looking, saying that, hey, his body was disposed of this way. I've actually did research on it, talked to a couple of veterinarians, and it is possible. It's not impossible at all. It'll be very rare. So I tend not to believe that it doesn't feel right to me. One of the biggest obstacles in Michael's case has been fear. Fear of retaliation. Fear of being labeled. Fear of getting pulled into something people would rather leave behind. That fear has kept some from speaking up, even all these years later. Detective Goody wants the community to understand that coming forward doesn't mean putting themselves in danger. He believes the time for silence has passed, and that anyone with information can help without putting themselves at risk. He explained why he's asking the community to speak up now. We think we know what happened, and we think we know who was involved with it. And I know one of them, he knows he's involved with it. What I would tell everybody, the people that are involved with this, they're no one to be feared. They are getting up there in age. A couple of them from their lifestyles are probably invalid now. a couple of them are cowards. What we are asking and we want people to know is it's time for somebody to just come up and say what needs to be said. We'll help you what we can do. But I just want people to know that those people, they're no one of the fear. We don't want you to have a fear of anything physically happening to you because those people that are involved, they're no threat to you. That's pretty much where we're at on this thing right here. It's an open secret, and we just need somebody just to come and tell me, man, y'all looking in a complete, oh, no, you need to go back here. Really, we have three main law enforcement bodies, and we have the Winfield City Police, what I work for. We have the Winn Parish Sheriff's Department, and we have Winn Parish Marshal's Office. Information can be dropped over there, and they'll phone it to me if they want to go that route. We want to bring some answers to the family. Five years has been too long. Everybody in this town knows the people involved. Like I said, if his girlfriend Amber wouldn't have died, I really do believe she would have said something by now. She would have said, hey, this is happening, or this didn't happen. But that's where we're standing with it from that aspect. Brittany, I think she just wants to be able to put him to rest and all that. They just want him home. She said, you know, they killed him for a mile. Anything we could just do to help it out. So what happened to Michael Green after he left home in early March of 2020? At first, his absence didn't seem alarming to his family. Michael was known to come and go, sometimes without explanation. But as days turned into weeks with no word, concern gave way to fear. Calls and messages went unanswered. Then came the rumors and the sudden disappearance of Michael's Facebook account. Moments that signaled to Michael's family that something was deeply wrong. In the months that followed, stories continued to circulate around Winfield. Many were graphic and unsettling, but none were backed by evidence that investigators could verify. There was no confirmed location, no witness willing or able to anchor those claims to fact. And without that, the case stalled. It's now been nearly six years since Michael vanished without a trace, and his family is still searching for the truth, refusing to let Michael be forgotten. Today, Detective Goody believes they're close to understanding what happened to Michael. But belief is not the same as proof. What's missing is that piece that can't be manufactured, someone willing to speak, or a detail that points clearly to where Michael may be. Detective Goody hopes that time, distance, and the renewed attention will give someone the courage to finally come forward. If you have any information about the disappearance of Michael Green, please contact the Winfield Police Department at 318-628-3511. It is just crazy because people would do anything. I'm trying to get recognition or trying to get noticed or trying to get their name made. But that's not a way about killing somebody else. Everybody's running around, running email, but I ain't going to the cops. Because I feel like that's the right thing to do. I've been digging around and some people be like, you know, you got to be careful because the people related to the situation, what happened to him, that they dangerous. I feel like when they're siblings and something would have happened to them, what would you do? I talk to Brittany probably once every couple of weeks. We try and touch bases with each other. Sometimes she has some information or, you know, we just talk to just let her know, hey, we're still working on it. In fact, I passed by the own house today. Just let her know we still, because for a while that she thought they had given up on it, I just as long as I'm here, I'm gonna keep working on it. I can't work on it every day, but when I can, I'm gonna work on it. That brings us to the end of episode 515. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this story. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes. 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