She Went Missing On Her Way To Church: Almost A Decade Later, Her Daughter Vanished
In 1998, Christie Marie Cales, a 40-year-old mother from Blue Island, Illinois, went missing after she supposedly headed out for church, leaving her personal items behind, and never returned. However, her family is convinced that her boyfriend killed her.
Almost a decade after Christie vanished, her daughter, Stacy, went missing, too. Her relatives also believe that Stacy’s husband was responsible.
A Turbulent Home
Christie and her husband, Anthony, had five children together, including daughters Jessica, Stacy, Cassandra, and Lacy, as well as one son, Yelton. Additionally, they raised Christie’s daughter, Tina, who was from a past relationship.
Reports suggest the Cales children endured “a lot of trauma.” At the tail end of 1983, their home in Downers Grove, Illinois, went on fire. The blaze was allegedly started by the kids, who had been playing with matches.
Christie, who was 8 months pregnant with Stacy at the time, barely made it out. Her daughter Jessica, who was just 2 years old at the time, died in the fire.
This tragedy reportedly led Christie and Anthony to begin arguing more frequently. The couple allegedly had alcohol and drug issues and neglected their children.
“There were drugs, alcohol, and physical abuse in that family. They were good kids without direction or security,” detailed Cheryl Weiser, who had a child with Kyle, Christie’s brother.
In spite of this dysfunction, the couple had two more daughters: Cassandra and Lacy. Lacy ultimately passed away due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 1987, and Christie and Anthony were never able to move past her death.
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This left the rest of the Cales children to fend for themselves. One neighbor, Rowland Henderson, remembered seeing Stacy running around with just a diaper on in the dead of winter. Meanwhile, Christie would be asleep on the couch.
Christie began to leave home for periods that spanned weeks, and Anthony would tell the kids that she “ran off.” She was admitted to psychiatric hospitals on multiple occasions, got caught shoplifting, and was arrested for drunk driving in 1990.
According to Christie’s brother, Kyle, Anthony used alcohol to “medicate his pain,” saying, “That’s all he did. He had a $30,000 car, and the kids were eating mac and cheese. He had them on a budget.”
He ultimately filed for divorce in 1990 after he and Christie were hit with two foreclosure suits, and she contested the divorce in the beginning. Nonetheless, she kept missing court dates, so Anthony was given full custody of Yelton, Stacy, Cassandra, and Tina.
Christie’s Disappearance
The same year that Stacy, who was 16, managed to graduate high school early with dreams of getting a fresh start, her mother vanished.
On March 11, 1998, she was last spotted walking near the 2300 block of West 199th Street in Blue Island at 4:30 p.m. Christie was reportedly living with a man, her boyfriend, at the time, someone her kids didn’t know very well.
Still, Cassandra claimed to think he killed Christie and stated, “Because he said she left for church and never came back, but she left her purse.”
Upon approaching the police, though, investigators apparently wouldn’t listen to the Cales. Cassandra remembered, “They brushed it off, never looked into it. That’s when things got really hard.”
Stacy, who was reeling, never spoke to friends or neighbors about her mom after she vanished. Then she also went missing 9 years later, in 2007.
Stacy’s disappearance reignited the investigation into Christie’s case. However, to this day, both of their cases remain unsolved.
Christie was five foot four, weighed 140 pounds, and had brown hair and brown eyes. Her nickname was Chris, and she had a multi-colored tattoo of a dove and an olive branch on her hip.
Anyone with information regarding her case is urged to contact the Blue Island Police Department at (708) 396-7000.
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