On Sept. 1, 1995, a police officer in Fort Smith, Arkansas pulled over a vehicle. A man named Jerry Cogan was driving and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Lori Murchison, was the passenger.
Lori worked at a local nursing home. She had a four year old daughter, Britney, and adored her little girl. But Lori had been battling an addiction to drugs, according to what her friends told police, mainly to methamphetamines and also alcohol.
Because of that, Lori had been living with her mother, Nancy, in between staying at different local motels, and Nancy had been taking care of Lori’s daughter on and off.
Lori and Jerry had been at a bar that night. When the officer pulled them over, he believed that both of them had been drinking. So, he placed Jerry under arrest for DUI, and Lori for suspicion of public intoxication.
Lori was taken to the Sebastian County jail. And she was released sometime after 5 AM on September 2nd. She told detectives that she planned to get money and come back to bail Jerry out.
But she never returned to jail. The last time she was seen alive was at the Continental Motel, when she was picking up a key to a room.
Her family had no way of knowing where she was - or that the hunt for this missing mother would eventually involve charges of corruption at the highest levels of government.
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