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On March 20th, 1988, two friends—Stacie Madison (17) and Susan Smalley (18)—vanished after a night out together. They visited the apartment of another friend, then returned to Susan’s home briefly, where one of them made a call just after midnight.
Later on, they were seen at a local convenience store and then, finally, at a restaurant. Stacie waited in the car while Susan spoke to one of her coworkers at the Steak and Ale before the pair departed. From here, their trail goes cold.
Stacie’s Mustang would be located on Monday afternoon, sitting in the parking lot of a Dallas shopping center around five miles away. The vehicle was locked and there were no obvious signs of foul play inside, though the convertible was never processed for evidence.
Over the course of the investigation, there would be multiple unconfirmed sightings, numerous tips—suggesting everything from satanic sacrifice to the girls having fallen victim to a serial killer—and a disturbing confession, but no hard evidence to explain their disappearance.
As one investigator would put it:
“It’s a very rare occurrence when a person, much less two people, completely disappears.”
What happened to Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley?
One of three children, Stacie Elizabeth Madison was born on June 17th, 1970, to parents Frank and Ida. Described as kind, quiet and determined, Stacie excelled in her classes, was a baton twirler and played the French horn in her school’s band.
She worked part-time as a receptionist and owned a green and gold 1967 Mustang convertible that had been a gift from her father. She planned to attend the University of North Texas that fall and study business.
The youngest of two children, Susan Renee Smalley was born on September 19th, 1969, to parents Carolyn and John. Those who knew her described Susan as a polite, quiet, and responsible person. She did well in school and was also athletic. She ran track, as well as played volleyball and basketball.
Susan’s parents divorced when she was a child and at the time she went missing she had been living with her mother. She worked as a hostess at a Steak and Ale in Addison.
Deanna, one of her closest friends, wanted people to remember “what an amazing person Susan was. She was a best friend to me, and I want everyone to know her greatness and what a loss we have without her.”
Both Stacie and Susan resided in Carrollton, Texas, and attended Newman High School. They met while taking a class together the previous semester and quickly became good friends.
It was March 1988 and spring break was about to come to an end. Stacie and Susan decided that they wanted to hang out that weekend before going back to school on Monday.
Originally, their friend Deanna was supposed to tag along as well but dropped out at the last minute due to having to attend a family member’s birthday party.
On Saturday, March 19th, Ida permed Stacie’s hair and spoke to her for what would prove to be the final time—a conversation she would later remember with regret. Stacie had expressed apprehension about spending the night at Susan’s but didn’t elaborate further.
“I told her if she didn’t want to go, she didn’t have to. I wish I had told her she couldn’t go. That was my biggest mistake.”
Stacie drove her boyfriend Kevin to work earlier in the day, because his car was in the shop that weekend. She anticipated that he might call later, wondering where she was, and instructed her mother to tell him that she was out if he did call.
She left and drove her Mustang over to Susan’s home. Susan’s mother Carolyn was about to go out on a date, so the two girls were going to have the place to themselves, though it was understood that they were still supposed to be home by midnight.
“I told them to be careful, not knowing I’d never see them again,” said Carolyn.
Phone records would show that a long-distance call had been made from the home at 12:01 a.m. (more on this later), but it is known that they went out again after this.
Shortly after midnight, two teenagers matching their description were seen by a clerk at the local 7-Eleven. He said they attempted to purchase alcohol, but he refused to sell it to them because they were under the legal drinking age.
The final confirmed sighting of the girls took place around 1:30 a.m. at the Steak and Ale where Susan worked. Stacie waited in the car while Susan spoke to one of her male coworkers, who would later tell police that Susan had “been trying to date” him.
Following this brief interaction, they drove off, vanishing into the night. What they did afterwards, as well as whether or not they made it back to Susan’s home, is unknown.
When Carolyn returned home on Sunday, she discovered that Stacie and Susan weren’t there. Initially, she didn’t find this concerning and assumed that they’d simply gone out for a day trip.
However, when Monday arrived and there was still no word from either girl, their families became worried. Both girls took school seriously and it was highly uncharacteristic for them to skip class.
Ida and Frank drove around, looking for Stacie’s distinctive green and gold Mustang. She typically parked in one particular area of the school parking lot, but on this day her car was conspicuously absent.
It didn’t take long to find it, though, since it was only around five miles away. The Mustang sat locked and abandoned in the parking lot of a Dallas shopping center, which was located on Forest Lane—said to be a popular hangout area for teenagers at the time. There was nothing about the condition of the car that set off alarm bells.
Stacie and Susan’s coats were draped over Stacie’s stereo in the backseat. There was no blood or signs of a struggle inside.
All that appeared to be missing, in addition to the teenagers, was their purses, which to this day have never been found.
A missing persons report was filed that day with the Carrollton Police Department.
The teenagers were reportedly spotted on Forest Lane after leaving the restaurant, but no details about these supposed sightings have been disclosed. It has been said, however, that none of the reports which took place after 1:30 a.m. could be substantiated.
Investigators initially theorized that Susan and Stacie had simply opted to extend their spring break and had voluntarily gone to Padre Island.
They pointed out that Stacie had told friends weeks earlier that she’d love to go to Padre Island during spring break. However, she also noted that she didn’t have enough money to do so and nothing more was said about it.
Neither family believed the girls had run away.
“They were two responsible young ladies,” said Ida, “who were making good grades, who had jobs, who were a couple of months away from graduating. I never believed that my daughter had left voluntarily.”
“I felt from the first like there was definitely foul play,” stated Carolyn.
Their friends and respective families searched for them, to no avail. They also distributed missing persons fliers to raise awareness for their case.
During the early days of the investigation, authorities remained convinced that the teenagers were runaways. Due to this belief, they didn’t process the Mustang for evidence and quickly returned it to the Madison family.
They “just didn’t process the car,” said Greg Ward, a later investigator on the case. “They thought the girls were runaways. I’m not saying they screwed up, but they probably could have handled it better.”
Investigator Ohlen Sapp explained:
“The case did come to us as a missing person case. There was no sign or indication from the information we had initially that there’d been any foul play or anything like that. We did have spring break going on at the time and there was a prevailing thought that Stacie and Susan went to Padre or whatever.”
Ultimately, they failed to turn up any evidence of a voluntary disappearance and, as more time passed with no sign of the girls, authorities began to seriously consider the possibility that foul play had occurred.
Susan’s brother Rich, who was away at college at the time, felt guilty that he was unable to take an active role in the search efforts.
“I wasn’t around, but I wish I had been. I feel like they (law enforcement) dropped the ball on the case. I feel like I could have done more if I was there.”
As previously mentioned, a long-distance call was placed from Susan’s residence at 12:01 a.m. on the night they vanished. It turned out that the number belonged to a teenage boy who lived in Arlington (around 25 miles away from Carrollton) that Stacie had been talking to for a while.
Stacie “maintained telephone relationships” with several teenage boys, according to Ida.
This clue gave investigators their first possible lead. Why did Stacie call him that night? And was it in any way relevant to what happened to them?
At first, the (unnamed) college boy denied seeing or talking to Stacie at all that night, but later admitted that Stacie and Susan had come over to his apartment earlier in the evening.
He explained that he only lied at first because he was concerned about two things: getting Stacie in trouble and his girlfriend potentially learning about their “friendship.” He lived with three other boys and stated that they’d been having a party when Susan and Stacie joined them.
The boys were smoking marijuana and drinking, but he was adamant that neither Susan nor Stacie drank or did drugs while there. This rang true to Ida, who said that Stacie once got very sick after drinking at a party and vowed never to consume alcohol again.
(Although it might be worth reiterating that the 7-Eleven clerk had identified them as the two teenage girls who attempted to buy beer after midnight.)
Before the girls left, they said they were planning to get a late dinner at Chili’s and also stated that they might return to the apartment later. However, for unknown reasons, they didn’t come back.
It’s also unclear why Stacie called him after midnight. If that question has ever been answered, the information isn’t publicly available. Perhaps she was merely calling to let him know that they weren’t coming back after all.
Law enforcement didn’t find any evidence implicating the college boys in the disappearance and ceased to regard them as suspects, likely at least partially because there were confirmed sightings of the girls on their own which took place later that night.
Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t return to Arlington later, but it’s never been proven that they did.
Authorities soon focused their attention on a new person of interest: Stacie’s boyfriend, 19-year-old Kevin.
(Side note: He eventually moved to another state and changed his name.)
Ida alleged that Kevin had a history of being physically abusive to her daughter.
At first, the Madison family had liked him and thought he seemed “like a sweetheart.” But as the relationship progressed, he grew jealous and possessive of Stacie, who had reportedly been considering breaking up with him but wasn’t sure how to handle the delicate situation.
Ida noticed that bruises would appear on her daughter from time to time, which Stacie dismissed as being the result of playfully wrestling with Kevin, but Ida suspected the truth was much darker.
Kevin had called the Madison home looking for Stacie at approximately 10:45 p.m. He’d believed that she would pick him up from work, as his vehicle was still in the shop. But she didn’t. Ida let him know that Stacie was out with Susan.
According to him, he simply walked home after talking to Ida and stayed in for the rest of the night.
There’s no available information on where he lived in relation to his job or what the distance was from his workplace to Susan’s residence (although there were no signs of a struggle in her home). He claimed that his brother could vouch for the fact that he’d been at home for the remainder of the evening, but it’s unclear if his alibi was ever verified.
Suspicion only intensified when his new girlfriend came forward with a disturbing story three months after Susan and Stacie’s disappearance.
She claimed that Kevin had admitted to killing the missing teenagers, after finding them on Forest Lane, and went on to tell a fairly detailed story about how he took them to an isolated cemetery nearby, hit them both over the head with a shovel and then buried them on the cemetery grounds.
Investigators found her credible and took her story seriously.
A search of the cemetery was carried out, but no disturbed ground was discovered. They found no sign of any recent burials or that an attack had taken place there.
Kevin, for his part, denied murdering them and explained that he’d only told his girlfriend this story because he was hurt that she would even ask him such a question.
Additionally, he corrected her version of events by saying that he’d actually told her that he disposed of Stacie and Susan at a fish hatchery, though it’s unclear why he thought this sounded any better than the original story.
He also said that the stress of being viewed as a suspect by everyone had been wearing on him.
“Cops came around every day. They kept coming to my job repeatedly. I felt so alienated. I had nothing to do with it (their disappearance).”
Kevin was questioned by the police and passed a polygraph exam. And while Sapp would later acknowledge that this was hardly definitive proof of innocence, he also admitted that it was in fact the primary reason why Kevin was cleared of suspicion and hasn’t been regarded as a person of interest since.
“This whole decision to eliminate Lawton as a suspect was based on a polygraph test.”
And aside from his own confession, they reportedly found nothing else to implicate him in this case.
No other suspects have been publicly named.
With no concrete evidence to work with, the investigation hit a standstill. Numerous tips came in, variously suggesting that the girls had been murdered by a serial killer, went to Padre Island to visit their boyfriends, or had been the victims of either a satanic sacrifice or trafficking, but nothing to support any of these theories was discovered.
Both families have contributed DNA to CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System) but there have been no hits so far.
The case remains open and unsolved, and the loved ones of Stacie and Susan are still hopeful that a resolution will be possible one day.
“If you know anything—anything at all—please call the police,” pleaded Ida. “It’s time for someone to come forward. It’s past time.”
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Susan Smalley and Stacie Madison, you are encouraged to contact Carrollton’s Criminal Investigation Division at 972-466-3300 or their anonymous tip line at 972-466-9133.
“This Night Wounds Time: The Mysterious Disappearances of Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley” by Shawn Sutherland
The Charley Project - Stacie Elizabeth Madison