Gone
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Who was Michelle Warner and what led to her disappearance in 2012?
As a mother, Michelle was awesome. I called her the picture girl. Pictures, pictures, pictures. She looked like a million dollars. Wear her high heels and carry a baby on her hip. When she was a child, it was hard not to have a close friend relationship with her, even though I had to be the mom.
A woman has vanished from her Houston apartment. Her family and friends are fearing the worst.
I got the phone call from my son, and David said something's wrong. The authorities say Warner's estranged boyfriend claimed she stormed out of the apartment following an argument. Mark Castellano was Michelle's boyfriend for a while. Mark and Michelle did meet at work.
She captivates the room as she walks in. That part about her is completely true. She mesmerizes people.
They had a son together who was Caden. Michelle was living with Mark the night she disappeared. We called the police. Everyone was searching.
We don't have a scene. We don't have a witness. We don't have evidence. We don't have a body. The more we thought about it, we kind of looked at each other and said, let's go back and let's search it.
So
will you explain to me how you use the iPhone and FaceTime?
They tried to follow it like a treasure map.
Like that kind of thing, right?
Correct.
Well, it was in real time.
FaceTime. FaceTiming?
Yes.
So it's like I'm aiming it at this tree here and you say, do I go to the right of the tree or is it more to the left of the tree? That kind of thing?
Correct. Exactly what I'm looking at right now.
A week went by. Michelle was still missing. We heard about Dr. Phil, and Mark Castellano was going on his show.
Today, we will take you inside a national news story as it unfolded in front of our cameras in real time. Mark was going to be on Dr. Phil.
When he said he wanted to talk with you, what'd you do?
I got on an airplane, flew to Odessa, and there was a woman missing. And like everybody else, we wanted to help find her.
I'm staying strong for my son. I cry every once in a while. But you're hurting inside. Yes, I'm hurting
inside. This is killing me. Friends describe her as bubbly. Those same people describe you as psychotic.
Well, they don't like me too much. She has to be alive. I'm sorry she does. She has to be out there.
If she is watching this right now, let's say she's...
She can
come home and... What do you say to her? She... We can fix this.
It was the worst week of my life. Michelle was just gone.
I'm Tracy Smith. Tonight on 48 Hours... Gone.
It's just about a 45 minute drive from the refineries of the Texas coast to the high rises of downtown Houston. And in 2000, 20 year old Michelle Warner moved to the big city. She was a new mom looking to make a fresh start.
Michelle did have the small-town girl in her, but Michelle always desired to go to the big city.
Donna Malone is Michelle's
mom. She loved to talk to people. She never met a stranger. We
were really, really close when we were young kids. I mean, really close. From the time we were born, we did pretty much everything together. I was her child, not theirs.
She just grew into this beautiful swan, you know, and she had the long, pretty hair and a beautiful smile. She started going to college and started studying criminal justice.
But things didn't exactly work out. Michelle may have been a saint, but she was also a sinner. She married right after high school, in 2001, and had a daughter, Haley. When that marriage went south in 2003, little Haley went to live with the ex-husband, and Michelle was on her own.
Michelle was a great mom, but she ran into some
tough times in her life. She fell in with a bad crowd. She even disappeared a couple of times. And she was arrested for possession of cocaine. But that was eight years ago, and her family says Michelle's dark days were behind her.
She was finally turning around.
What did investigators discover about Mark Castellano’s initial story?
She was no longer on any kind of drugs. She was
going to work every day. In 2008, she also began a relationship with a man she met at work, a man named Mark Costolano.
My impression of Mark from the very beginning was, what an odd duck. What a strange
little man. Mark Costolano and Michelle had met on the job.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was Michelle Warner and what led to her disappearance in 2012?
0:09–5:08
2
What did investigators discover about Mark Castellano’s initial story?
5:08–10:48
3
How did Dr. Phil’s interview change the direction of the case?
10:48–15:26
4
What key evidence did detectives uncover from the apartment and hard drives?
15:26–20:12
5
What did Castellano finally admit about the night Michelle vanished?
20:12–26:16
6
How did the trial and the prosecution’s strategy build a murder case?
26:16–29:45
7
What was the jury’s verdict and how was the 27‑year sentence received?
29:45–35:46
8
How are Michelle’s family coping after the conviction and what’s next for Castellano?
35:46–41:56