Paula Michelle Burnette, 21, was last seen in Harrison, Tennessee in the early morning hours of September 17, 1996. She was a mother to a four-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter and had been living apart from her estranged husband, Donald Ray Burnette. The day before she vanished Paula had contacted police to have Donald removed from the home and had her father stay overnight because she feared he would return.

Donald told Paula’s father the morning she disappeared to pick up the children because Paula needed a vacation and was upset about possible bad-check warrants that were not actually issued until more than a month later. Her father reported her missing on September 21, 1996. In October 1996 her driver’s license was found by a mailbox on a gravel road that leads to the abandoned Savannah Valley Water Treatment Plant; search dogs reportedly reacted at the plant but searches turned up no sign of her. In April 1997 her purse and address book washed up in the backyard of a nearby residence after heavy rains. Paula’s case remains unsolved and open.

Did anyone who knew Paula or her movements in September 1996 notice anything out of the ordinary?