Linda Zapata

And when Daphne Webb returned the call about an hour later, guess who answered?

What did you say to him?

Daphne Webb told police all that at the time, but there was no physical evidence of foul play.

And after just three weeks, the case went cold.

Eugene Zapata moved back into the house, and for Linda, it was as if her mother had simply never existed.

It's really odd, but somehow no one talked about it.

No one brought her up.

I don't think I used the word mom until I was in my late teens, early 20s.

I don't know why.

That's so strange.

Back then, it was so taboo, and no one told me not to talk about it, but the three of us kids, we just, I think we all just shut down.

For me, there was this enormous, uncomfortable elephant in the middle of the room, and no one talked about it.

Two years after Gene disappeared, Eugene married his current wife, Joan.

Linda now had a stepmother, but she still waited and hoped.

For years, yeah, I remember sitting at our front window and on our front porch waiting for mom to come home.

Just waiting for her, you know, that car to pull around and maybe even drive by and keep going.

But I kept waiting for her to come home.

You're breaking my heart.

That's hard to imagine.

Yeah.