Gone

We have his baseball jersey in here from little league

when he played.

Texas, 2, daigle.

The experience of not knowing where your child is

and if he's okay, it's really hard.

You can't sleep at night.

You're constantly looking.

I want to be very careful with what I say.

He started to turn into somebody else.

Samantha: YOUR MIND GOES TO THE MOST HORRIBLE PLACES.

This was a repeated thing for 10 years.

Tracie: I'D SEE SOMEBODY THAT COULD POSSIBLY LOOK LIKE HIM.

I would follow him.

And then I would have to explain myself to them,

"I'm not crazy.

I'm just trying to find my son."

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Tracie: THE LAST DAY THAT WE REMEMBER SEEING CHRIS

WAS NOVEMBER THE 7th.

He went to school that morning.

My mom took him.

My mom said chris was depressed

and he was tired of going to school every day

and being told what to do.

Are you okay, chris?

Yeah. I'm all right, grandma.

I'll see you after school, honey.

He just wasn't happy, and that wasn't like him.

Narrator: A JUNIOR AT HIGH TOWER HIGH SCHOOL,

17-year-old christopher daigle was one of the popular kids.

Chris was tall, handsome.

I mean, always dressed nice

and cute and definitely a head-turner,

always could make you laugh.

All the guys wanted to hang out with him

and the girls most definitely,

they wanted a chance to be with him.

I'm trying to keep from using "smart-ass,"

because that's the best term to describe him.

Teach.

He had this way about him

to where he could, um, suggest something with a smile

and then that was it, everybody was like,

"yeah, yeah, that's a good idea."

Narrator: AND NO ONE KNOWS CHRIS BETTER THAN HIS GRANDMA WANDA,

who he has been living with since he was three.

Tracie: SHE COULD TAKE BETTER CARE OF HIM

than I could as far as financially.

She spoiled him rotten.

She got him motorcycles, four-wheelers, three-wheelers.

Anything he wanted, he got.

She ended up getting him the k5 blazer,

which he loved that.

She really took care of him.

Samantha: HE LOVED HIS GRANDMA.

He could be mad as the devil at her,

but he'd have never left her.

Never.

Narrator: THE NIGHT AFTER WANDA DROPPED CHRIS OFF AT SCHOOL,

dinnertime comes and goes, but chris never shows up.

We thought he was just spending the night

with some of his friends and that he would just

come home the next day, and usually,

if he didn't come home, we didn't worry.

He was always with his friends.

The following morning,

there's still no word from chris,

and calls to his cell phone go unanswered.

His family reaches out to his friends,

starting with brittany parker.

Brittany: CHRIS WENT TO SCHOOL THAT DAY

and then he had come by my house for a little bit.

His state of mind wasn't anything

out of the normal for him.

He left.

He went over to our friend ashley's house.

He got a phone call that, "hey, you want to go do this or that?"

And he said yeah and he was picked up by his friend, ricky.

Hey, hit my house first.

Got you.

Samantha: AND EVERYONE SAW A TRUCK PULL UP,

and he got a duffel bag, threw it in

the back of the truck, and they took off,

and that was the last time anybody saw him here

other than his friends.

Narrator: HIS GOOD FRIEND RICKY SAYS HE AND CHRIS

drove to the nearby mall to hang out.

Hey, man. Take a look.

Jen: RICKY HAD JUST SAID THAT THEY'D SEEN SOME GIRLS THERE.

Want to go talk to them for a little bit?

-You going to hang out? -No, I've got to go.

You sure?

They wanted to leave and go some place,

but ricky's mom called him, told him he had to come home,

so chris left with the girls.

I'll see you later, okay?

All right, have fun.

Narrator: BUT NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT THESE GIRLS,

not even their names.

Tracie: NOBODY SEEMED TO KNOW WHERE HE HAD GONE.

I'd hear of other people missing.

I never thought it would happen to me.

Chris was always so much fun,

always playing and running around,

and he was a daredevil.

When he was like three years old,

he would try anything.

He didn't like the word "no."

If you'd tell him no, he couldn't do something,

he was going to do it just to show you he could do it.

Definitely 100-percent all-boy.

Tracie: HE STARTED PLAYING BASEBALL

when he was five years old,

and he was on select teams and then he went to high school

and he played on high tower high school baseball.

Chris was very talented.

I was very, you know, happy

and just always bragged about how good he was.

Heads up.

You know you only get three strikes, right?

One, two, three, and that's it.

Yeah, sure. Bring it.

He would have got scholarships.

I mean, he was -- he was really good.

Tracie: CHRIS WOULD DREAM ABOUT IT,

running and telling people, "no, he's out at first base,"

and just I couldn't believe

that he could have a baseball game in his sleep.

Narrator: BUT IN THE SUMMER BEFORE HIS SENIOR YEAR,

chris' major league dreams are shattered.

Tracie: THERE WAS AN INCIDENT WHERE SOMEBODY THREW A BOTTLE

and it hit chris,

so chris got mad and threw it back

and it hit the coach.

That was it.

Threw him off the team.

Brittany: WHEN HE GOT KICKED OFF THE BASEBALL TEAM,

that was -- that was devastating for him.

That was, like, world-crushing.

Are you okay, chris?

Yeah. I'm all right, grandma.

Okay, honey.

You kind of saw this light in him

kind of start to dim a little bit,

and he changed.

He started to turn into somebody else.

Tracie: HE REALLY DIDN'T ASSOCIATE WITH HIS FRIENDS

as much as he did after that happened.

He was hurting.

Narrator: THE FOLLOWING DAY,

chris doesn't show up to school at all.

Brittany: IT WASN'T, LIKE, CONCERNING.

It wasn't a big deal.

Okay, so he skipped school, or, you know,

he's doing something else.

When I go home, I call him,

he doesn't answer.

Call him a couple of more times, he doesn't answer.

Started talking to some other friends.

"Okay, well, where is chris? Has anybody seen him?

No? Nobody's spoken with him?

That's not right."

Jen: I REMEMBER MY GRANDMA CALLING ME AND I WAS JUST LIKE,

"what do you mean, missing? Like, he ran away?"

That's what I figured it was.

Narrator: SOME OF CHRIS' FRIENDS THINK THE DUFFEL BAG SUGGESTS

he was leaving for good.

Jen: WHEN HE LOST BASEBALL,

he was sad and he was mad and angry

and he was like, "I'm moving.

I'm going to leave, I'm going to run away."

Zavala: YOU KNOW, YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT

the mind in adolescents, in 16 and 17.

Something minor in their world is huge

and they feel like they can't handle it anymore.

Samantha: I THOUGHT HE JUST TOOK OFF.

Just him and his friends were going to go

to the beach for a few days.

He was just going to haul ass for a few days

and then he would be back.

Narrator: BUT ACCORDING TO CHRIS' FRIENDS,

in the months after getting kicked off the team,

his behavior changed.

I want to be very careful with what I say.

He started to make some decisions

that I know that he wasn't super proud of.

He started to party a lot more.

He didn't care so much,

because the one thing that he really was passionate about

was kind of stripped from him.

Narrator: BUT IF CHRIS IS RUNNING AWAY FROM HIS PROBLEMS,

he has no idea the trouble he is heading into.

Samantha: PEOPLE ARE CRAZY. THEY ARE CRAZY.

You just don't know.

Tracie: IT WAS SATURDAY MORNING WHEN CHRIS DIDN'T COME HOME,

so my mom called the police department,

and they were telling her to wait

and he would probably be home.

Well, he didn't come home,

so then she went to the police department