On the night of August 16, 1996, in Milan, Tennessee, 14-year-old Cayce Lynn McDaniel vanished from her home after being dropped off about 12:30 a.m. after a church back-to-school party. A chaperone watched her go inside; when her mother returned between 1:30 and 2:00 a.m., the back door was ajar and Cayce was gone. The bedroom suggested she had been settling in for the night: the TV was on, the clothes she’d worn to the party were laid out, and a snack of cookies and milk remained untouched. Her new shoes were left behind and there were no signs of a struggle, leading investigators to consider that she might have opened the door to someone she knew.

The case went cold despite national attention and a composite sketch of an unidentified young man seen with Cayce. In July 2018 a family acquaintance identified as Finis Ewin Pete Hill was publicly named; he had been a person of interest since 1997. In October 2019 Hill was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated rape, and in August 2022 he entered a best interest plea to criminal responsibility for second-degree murder and abuse of a corpse, receiving a 15-year sentence and agreeing to cooperate in locating Cayce’s remains, which have not been found.

Are there any readers who remember Cayce, the party that night, or saw someone near her home in Milan on August 16, 1996?