Narrative On Deadline

Read Tom's Story: Mariesa Weber vanished three days before Halloween, leaving her purse and new suede jacket. She was 38, loved rock 'n' roll, lived with her sister and parents. She left the bedroom light burning.

Her family thought she had been kidnapped. They called the Pasco County Sheriff's Office and put out fliers that said MISSING PLEASE HELP. They posted her description at SomeoneIsMissing.com. They appealed to Nancy Grace on CNN.

Days passed with no clues except for a strange smell coming from Mariesa's bedroom. They turned it inside out. Nothing. They blamed it on Norway rats, gorged on poison, dead behind the wall.

Mariesa turned up nearly two weeks after she disappeared. She was not pulled from a culvert or fished from a cypress swamp. For the people who loved her, it was even worse.

"I'm sleeping in the same house as her for 11 days, looking for her," said her mother, Connie Weber. "And she's right in the bedroom."