On the evening of December 10, 2022, 35-year-old Heather Mae Kelley, a mother of eight from Portage, Michigan, told family she was going to pick up an acquaintance in downtown Kalamazoo and later spoke to her children by phone at about 10:20 p.m., saying she would be home soon. That was the last time her family heard from her and she did not return that night.

The next day Heather’s vehicle was found abandoned and on fire in Comstock Township. Investigators recovered her blood on the front and back seats of the burned truck and some of her clothing nearby. Those findings led the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office to announce in February 2023 that they were treating the disappearance as a homicide.

Authorities identified Heather’s boyfriend, Carlos Watts Jr., as a person of interest. Cellphone data reportedly placed him with Heather before she vanished and tracking placed him away from where her truck was found. Charges of open murder were brought in January 2024, and prosecutors say Watts had escaped a halfway house briefly after her disappearance; Heather’s body has not been found. Does anyone have information about Heather’s movements in Kalamazoo on December 10, 2022, or about the events that followed that night?