By K8 Newsdesk
Published: Jun. 2, 2024 at 6:30 PM CDT|Updated: Jun. 2, 2024 at 6:59 PM CDT
MISSISSIPPI COUNTY, Ark. (KAIT) - One stormy summer night in 2000 left one Mississippi County family in horror.
It all began in the small town of Dell, Arkansas.
Ed Tusing and his wife, Susan, lived the typical American dream: a house, three kids, the oldest, Adam, and then the twins, Andy and Mandy.
“She was always very outgoing. Loved sports. She participated in everything she possibly could. She was always the littlest one on the team, but she had just as much fire as anyone else out there.
“Personable, outgoing, with dreams of helping animals. And engaged to her high school sweetheart,” said Ed Tusing, Amanda’s father.
On June 15, 2000, storms moved through the area as the Tusing family went about another normal day.
“Mandy’s fiancé was living in Jonesboro,” Tusing said. “I was at work. I got a phone call at about 1:30 in the morning. My wife, Susan, said, ‘Mandy isn’t home yet.’ I said ‘Are you sure’ and she said ‘Well yeah.’”
With each passing minute, Ed and Susan grew more on edge. They called Mandy’s fiancé to let him know.
The clock ticking, Ed and one of his sons searched from Dell while her fiancé searched from Jonesboro when they found her car parked on the roadside, everything just the way it had been, except no Mandy.
Within minutes, officers and deputies began to arrive.
Authorities couldn’t put a missing person alert as it had only been a few hours.
“A lot of things go through your mind. You think she has car trouble. It’s usually the first thing. When we get over there and find her car and still in good condition, just parked on the side of the road and she’s gone, it’s just a nightmare the things that go through your mind. We still don’t know exactly what happened. It’s just a nightmare,” Tusing said.
The Tusing family, along with their friends and local law enforcement, searched for what seemed like forever.
“You don’t know if she’s dead or alive. If she’s alive, what is she going through? My child’s out there and we got to find her regardless,” Tusing stated.
And three days later, Ed received a phone call from Craighead County Deputy Sheriff Bud Moxley. Their dark days only got darker.
“I was at home when I got a call from Bud and he said we think we have Mandy,” Tusing recounted, “but it’s not good news.”
But Mandy’s case still remains unsolved.
“There’s really no explanation. It’s a mystery. It’s tragedy,’ said Ron Richardson.
Richardson began working with the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office two months after Mandy was found dead.
Looking through past documents and findings, Richardson and his team treated this case as if it had just happened yesterday.
“We’ve been through every transcript of every interview. We’ve listened to every interview conducted, reviewed all the crime scene photographs. We have poured through time and time again,” said Richardson.
While the sheriff’s office worked tirelessly to find out what happened, interviewing anybody related to the case, Ed and his wife had their suspicions.
“My wife immediately thought she had to have been stopped by a police officer. That was her first impression. She had watched a lot of crime shows on TV. I think it had to be someone, a police officer or someone posing as a police officer, would have to stop her to get her out of her car,” said Ed.
“I think probably whoever did this probably did it before. That’s what I’m thinking due to no evidence and the first thing that comes to your mind and I’m not saying it was a law enforcement officer, first thing that comes to your mind is that a law enforcement officer would know how to conceal the evidence,” said Detective Gary Etter.
Detective Etter led the investigation for years. He has since retired but he poured his heart and soul into his case. Even with his retirement, the sheriff’s office continues to work hard to crack the case.
“We got a call a few months ago that they assigned an investigator to Mandy’s case. His only job was to go through the piles of jobs and notes collected over the years,” said Ed.
The Craighead County Sheriff’s Office assigned Detective David Bailey to Mandy’s case in March 2023. Since then, he’s actively investigated.
“This investigation, we want to entertain every possible clue and follow it out to the furthest you can follow it,” said Bailey.
However, new methods of uncovering evidence have emerged in the past twenty years, and detectives hope they can use them to their advantage.
“Technology has really come a long way since the year 2000 and there are lot of advancements in other types of technology, phone grids that can be utilized now to possibly give information that you weren’t able to get in 2000 and that’s avenues that we continue to explore,” said Bailey.
There are definitely more questions than answers.
So why did the scene seem so ordinary at first?
With no sign of a struggle, the radio still on, her bottle of co*ke still in the cup holder, everything seemed to be just as she left it.
“She had her engagement ring still on when she was found. So it wasn’t a robbery, or they would’ve taken her diamond ring,” said Ed. “If the car had skidded off in the ditch from the rain would have been different. Car was pulled over and parked squarely parallel with the road. Nothing wrong with it. She wouldn’t have gotten out of a car like that at that time of night.”
And just like the rain that night, tips and rumors came pouring in.
“Everybody comes up with all kinds of conclusions without any facts whatsoever. We’re going at everything seriously at what they do and they act,” said Richardson.
Now 24 years later, Ed has since retired. His wife, Susan, passed and reunited with her daughter in 2021. To the end, Susan worked to find closure.
“I refuse to let whoever did it destroy my family,” said Susan.
“Everyone talks about giving a closure. There is no closure. It’s an open wound and it will continue to be that way until we find out what happened,” said Ed.
Until the family finds answers, Ed can find comfort in knowing the community is there for support.
“There’s a song about tying the yellow ribbon around the old oak tree,” said Ed. “They tied so many yellow ribbons around for Mandy that you couldn’t buy a yellow ribbon around Mississippi County. Every tree had yellow ribbons tied around for her.”
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