Phoebe Judge

Both of them were very sure that the body would surface from their experience and their forensic knowledge.

Lake Seminole was known for rather sizable alligators.

And in fact, during the search to find Mike's body, a number of the investigators said that they encountered alligators in the water, including one having his ankle bitten by one and someone else actually trod on one.

And after Mike's body disappeared, many people started to wonder if he might have been attacked by alligators.

Nobody thought that he would actually have been eaten alive by alligators, but people did wonder, since his body didn't surface, if he might have knocked himself out, drowned, and then his body being consumed by alligators.

And he actually wrote back and said to her, your son could not have been eaten by an alligator because alligators don't eat during the winter.

she did not believe that mike was dead and said that she had an experience that she heard god's voice telling her mike is not dead mike did not die in the lake you have to bring him home she thought maybe he knocked his head lost his memory and was wandering somewhere she thought perhaps he'd taken on a new identity gone to live in a different state

Denise was absolutely opposed to Cheryl's constant search for Mike, which many people found peculiar.

I mean, if your husband, your child's father, had gone missing, wouldn't you do everything you possibly can to find him?

But Denise repeated what her family had told her, which is, you should listen to the experts.

The experts told her that Mike would not be coming back.

She believed the experts.

In a very small Baptist community, very close, knew each other actually from preschool, a very tight-knit foursome.

As they went through high school, they went to a Christian high school.

Mike and Brian were football stars.

Denise and Kathy were cheerleaders.

Brian and Kathy were always a couple.

Mike and Denise were always a couple.

And it was almost as though after denying themselves their whole lives, sex, alcohol, the kinds of things that most people enjoy in high school, they sort of broke out of the straightened Baptist circumstances and began to experiment.

It seemed that Brian and Denise were much more interested in these kind of lurid games than were Kathy and Mike, who were keener on settling down.