The disappearance of Karlie Lain Guse is one that has been shrouded in mystery and speculation. In the early morning of October 13, 2018, Karlie (16) vanished from her home in Chalfant Valley, California after reportedly behaving erratically the night before. According to family accounts, Karlie had smoked marijuana with friends and later appeared paranoid and frightened, telling relatives she felt like she was “going crazy.” Her stepmother said she stayed awake with Karlie for hours before briefly falling asleep around dawn. When the family woke up, Karlie was gone. Surveillance footage later captured what is believed to be Karlie walking along nearby roads barefoot and disoriented shortly after sunrise, but no confirmed sightings have emerged since that morning.
As of May 2026, Karlie has now been missing for almost 8 years.
True crime author Doug Kari has a lot of information about Karlie on his website (dougkari.com).
At the time of her disappearance, Karlie lived with her dad Zachary Gusé, stepmom Melissa Gusé, and two little brothers, in a rural area in eastern California. Melissa had been Karlie’s stepmother since she was around 7 years old – for 9 years. Karlie had a boyfriend named Donald Arrowood III (17). Karlie’s birth mother is Lindsay Fairley and she was living in Nevada in 2018.
On Friday October 21, 2018, Karlie told her stepmother that she was going to a high school football game. Instead, she went to a house party with her boyfriend.
Doug Kari interviewed Donald in 2018, after Karlie disappeared. Donald said that while they were at the party, Karlie smoked marijuana and began to panic. “She got scared of the music,” he said. “She got scared of me.”
“She hadn’t smoked in a while,” he said. “It could’ve triggered something.”
Melissa said that Karlie frantically called her. Melissa went to pick her up and drove her home. Melissa stayed up with Karlie and tried to calm her down. She decided to make a recording on her phone of their conversation to play for Karlie later as a teaching moment. This info about the recording is from Doug’s website:
At one point Karlie said, “I really messed up today,” and Melissa tried to soothe her. “We all do things in life that we regret, drugs especially.” Karlie then thanked Melissa and said, “I love you.” But when Melissa gave Karlie a salad, the teen blurted out, “This the devil’s lettuce!”
After Melissa urged Karlie to get some sleep, the troubled girl responded, “No, I don’t want to go to sleep. You’re going to kill me.” Melissa tried to reason with her. “Why would I kill you? That’s preposterous.”
“I’m just thinking all this demonic stuff,” Karlie sobbed. “I can’t help it.”
“I’m so glad you came” and “I love you” but also asking “Are you going to call 911?” and “Am I going to live until tomorrow?”
Melissa said that Karlie did not want to be alone at the time. “She wanted to paint toenails,” Melissa said. “She wanted to read the Bible.”
Karlie’s birth mother would later say that she suspected Karlie had actually taken LSD. Karlie had asked Lindsay about the drug and Lindsay had warned her about the dangers of it.
Karlie and Melissa ended up falling asleep in Karlie’s bed. Melissa woke up at 5.45am and there are some varying reports – some say that Karlie was asleep, others say that Karlie was just laying there with her eyes open, so she herself went back to sleep. Melissa woke again between 7.15 and 7.30am and Karlie was gone.
The family started searching for Karlie.
“Because of what happened the night before, the thought was she went on a walk to clear her head,” said Zac.
Two separate witnesses said they saw Karlie shortly after daybreak.
Side note – On October 13, 2018, sunrise in California ranged between 7:08 a.m. and 7:22 a.m.
The witnesses said that Karlie was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt and was holding a piece of paper as she walked through the neighborhood alone.
Richard Eddy, a retiree who used to work for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office told Doug Kari that sometime between 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m., he saw a tall, slender female with long hair walk by. “She was looking up, looking around at the sky,” he said.
Kenneth Dutton would later tell Doug Kari that he saw Karlie walking down the street toward Highway 6, holding a piece of paper in her hand. “I know her,” he said. “I saw her.”
According to the local sheriff, someone who was cutting firewood also saw Karlie standing in the vicinity of White Mountain Estates Road and Highway 6.
The search for Karlie lasted for a week. Helicopters, dogs and over 60 officers and volunteers participated in the search.
Some weather information from around that time:
On October 13, 2018, temperatures across Mono County, California, varied significantly based on elevation and specific location, ranging from highs in the mid-70s down to overnight lows just below the freezing mark.
The sheriff’s office also enlisted help from the FBI in analyzing cellphone data and pursuing leads.
A week after Karlie disappeared, the sheriff’s office set up a checkpoint along Highway 6. About 50 people reported that they’d driven through on October 13, but none recalled seeing anyone matching Karlie’s description.
Melissa was very vocal online during the search for Karlie and in the ensuing years. She received a lot of criticism and there was speculation about her possible involvement in the case.
“One thing that bothers me as a licensed psychotherapist is the stepmother’s eyes shift constantly which indicates lying,” read a YouTube post by Francie Hartsog of Davidson, North Carolina.
Lindsay publicly questioned Melissa’s credibility. “I’ve been hearing about four or five stories now,” she told Nancy Grace in an October 2018 podcast.
On a May 2019 episode of “Dr. Phil,” Linday speculated about what she thought happened to Karlie. “I believe my daughter had a fatal drug overdose … and I believe that very early morning, Melissa saw her with her eyes open, and I think that’s when my daughter passed.”
On social media, people questioned the eyewitness sightings. One post read “Did Melissa walk down the street that morning and was mistaken for Karlie?”
Over time, this speculation morphed into a story that was repeated as fact.
Recently, when someone on YouTube asked “Then why are there reports of witnesses seeing Karlie on the road at daybreak,” the question generated a startling reply.
“It wasn’t Karlie,” wrote Amanda Earls, of Knoxville, Tennessee. “It was Melissa running around in hopes people would think it was Karlie. Karlie was long dead by then.”
Melissa has denied involvement in Karlie’s case. According to a reviewjournal.com article from 2019, “It feels awful,” she said about the accusations. “When Karlie went missing that day, everything happened so fast. … She’s not dead; she is missing.”
That same year, the sheriff spoke about the case.
Sheriff Ingrid Braun said that her office doesn’t have a theory about what happened to Karlie and remains “open to all possibilities.”
When asked whether she’d cleared Karlie’s family of involvement in her disappearance, Sheriff Braun said, “Nobody’s been cleared of anything. Right now I don’t even have a crime to clear them of.”
As for the accusations on social media, Sheriff Braun said, “Most of them don’t appear to be locals. The anonymity of the keyboard draws people who think they can solve crimes from afar.”
In March 2021, a tip came in that claimed Karlie had been seen in Nevada.
Jason Pelichowski, an investigator with the sheriff’s office in Mono County, California, said that in March 2021, his office received a call from a witness who claimed to have seen Karlie at a party in Tonopah.
Tonopah, a historic mining town and the county seat of sparsely populated Nye County, is about 100 miles away from Karlie’s home in Chalfant Valley.
Pelichowski did not disclose the witness’s name or say when the sighting of Karlie allegedly occurred.
But he did say that authorities located a vehicle that may have been used to pick up Karlie from alongside Highway 6 and transport her to Tonopah.
Mono County Sheriff Ingrid Braun confirmed this month that the Tonopah lead is one of the angles “actively being investigated” by her office and the FBI.
The same year, Karlie’s father was arrested on DV charges.
Reports said he posted a $50,000 bond and was later released pending a hearing. We cannot find any further updates so perhaps charges were dropped.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/karlie-lain-guse