Missing for 40 years: Cassville couple still seeks answers in daughter's disappearance

Christene Nickle Seal disappeared from her home near Verona on June 19th, 1972.

June 19, 2012|by Linda Russell, KY3 News | lrussell@ky3.com

CASSVILLE, Mo. -- On June 19, 1972, Christene Nickle Seal disappeared from her home in Lawrence County. Her parents still wait for closure.

Doyle and Trudy Nickle last saw their daughter, Christene, on Father's Day 1972. The next morning, she was gone. They're still looking for clues, 40 years later.

The Nickles volunteer their time to help others at the hospital in Cassville.

"You feel like you are so fortunate when you see the people who are feeling bad. You see them at their worst here," Trudy Nickle said on Tuesday.

But time has not healed them.

"You have to go on. You keep busy, so you don't have so much time to think," Trudy said.

It was a Monday morning when Seal, a 22-year-old wife and mother, vanished from her home near Verona. The Nickles got a phone call from her husband, Linn.

"It was, 'Is Chris at your place?' And she wasn't here, and they didn't know where she was," said Doyle Nickle.

"What had happened, I believe, is Mr. Seal left for work that morning with his wife still in bed asleep and the small child there," said Lawrence County Sheriff Brad DeLay.

Linn Seal told Lawrence County investigators that he stopped by his house to find his 2-year-old son crying and alone in the kitchen.

"She was a good mother. She would have never left him," Trudy said.

Seal's purse, clothes, and car were also left behind.

"The bloodhounds went from the trailer to a spot in the yard where a car could have been. That was it," said Trudy.

The case seemingly dead-ended.

"There was nothing that we could prove," said Trudy.

Doyle and Trudy don't believe they'll see Christene alive again.

"But she's in a good place," said Trudy.

Yet they hold out hope, as does the current sheriff.

"If anyone knows anything whatsoever, even if it's just rumors, if they would report it," said Trudy.

"That one little lead may be the only break we get and may be the only break we need to solve a 40-year-old case," DeLay said.

The Nickles believe someone knows something.

"We still love her," said Doyle.

"It's always with you, every day," Trudy said.

No one has ever been named a suspect in the case.

A recently published book called Missing or Murdered in Missouri includes Seal's story. See the online version here.

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