One cold night in November 2007, Kyle Fleischmann (24) walked out of a crowded bar in Charlotte, North Carolina, grabbed two slices of pizza, made a series of unanswered phone calls, and vanished without a trace. Despite surveillance footage, extensive searches, and nearly two decades of investigations, no one has been able to explain what happened after those final moments.
Kyle was born on September 24, 1983 to Barbara and Richard ‘Dick’ Fleischmann. Kyle has at least two siblings – a younger brother who has remained out of the public eye, and a younger sister, Noelle.
The Fleischmann family moved to Charlotte around 2000 when Dick accepted a position with Fidelity Investments. Kyle graduated from Charlotte Catholic High School before earning a business administration degree from Elon University in 2006.
Information from Reddit about Kyle:
Kyle: 6 ft tall, athletic/ muscular build, veneer teeth, described as having a very positive outgoing personality, helpful, volunteered with kids in need. Kyle was single, and recently started a new job with Maxim, a health care recruitment consultancy in south park. Maxim was also near his dad’s office at Fidelity. Kyle had recently purchased a new condo in south Charlotte approx. 8 miles from uptown. He lived there with 2 male roommates, one being his friend Bruce.
Kyle was a friendly, caring, and trusting person. He made friends easily. Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and Kyle told her they would beat it together. Barbara was scheduled to undergo surgery in November 2007.
Kyle decided that he would treat his mother to a night out to lift her spirits. On Thursday November 8, 2007, Kyle treated her to a Dane Cook comedy show. Dane performed his “Rough Around the Edges” Tour at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena (now known as Spectrum Center) in Charlotte. Noelle also attended the show with Barbara. The mother and daughter were seated together.
Kyle also attended the show with a group of friends and they sat separated from his mother and sister. Kyle attended with his best friend, Dan Scagnelli, Dan’s wife Christina, a friend Dom and Dom’s girlfriend.
Prior to the show, Kyle drove his car to Dan’s house in Dilworth and left the vehicle there. The group got in a cab and had drinks and dinner uptown before the show.
After the show finished, Kyle invited his mother to come for drinks but she declined and headed home with Noelle. Kyle and his friends walked around 5-6 minutes from the venue to the Buckhead Saloon. They arrived there around 10-10.30pm.
The Buckhead Saloon has now closed permanently, but this is a 2008 review:
Buckhead is Buckhead. It’s a college bar, so if you’re in the mood for a college bar, then it’s the right place for you. If you’re not, you should stay away.
It’s kind of meat-markety, like Cans and a few other places around Charlotte. Since they are catering to the young-and-horny crowd, they also offer good deals on a few college-friendly nights, so if you can stand the ick-factor, you can drink pretty cheap.
Kyle and his friends purchased drinks. They ran into a group of people who they had a mutual friend with and Kyle began chatting with some females within the larger group.
According to a detailed timeline of the case from reddit, at around midnight, Dom and his girlfriend left the bar.
Soon after, at around 12.15 to 12.30am, Dan closed off his bar tab and told Kyle he was leaving. This was now the early morning hours of Friday morning and most of the group presumably had work later that day.
Dan said that Kyle was talking to the group of ladies. He said he wanted to stay and he would get a cab to Dan’s later to pick up his car. Dan said that Kyle had been drinking beer and had a few shots, but that he was only moderately buzzed.
Between 1-2am, Kyle was chatting and dancing with one female. There is actually a CCTV still of them.
Around this time, there was a minor altercation that allegedly occurred between Kyle and the female’s boyfriend/male friends. This is believed to have happened due to Kyle being somewhat flirty with her.
The woman ended up leaving the bar at 2.17am.
Kyle appears to have decided to wrap things up around this time. At around 2.19am, he was seen on CCTV leaving the bar. He left his jacket at the bar with his bank cards in the pocket. It is believed he had his wallet, some cash (reported to have been around $6) and his keys with him. To note, the weather was very cold on this night:
High: 62°F (17°C)
Low: 34°F (1°C)
Kyle was seen on CCTV at 2.20am, walking east on College Street.
At 2.20-2.42am, Kyle was seen alone at Fuel Pizza. He purchased two slices and used the restroom. Kyle’s friends have said he often went to Fuel after a night out. The employee who served Kyle claims to have a photographic memory and said that Kyle ordered ‘everything’/extreme slices.’
After he left Fuel Pizza, Kyle was never seen again. He began making phone calls from 2.42am – he made eight calls. He tried to call his dad, his roommate, his sister and Daniel. All of the calls were very short – under ten seconds long – and he did not leave any voicemails.
This timeline of the calls is from Reddit:
2:42 am: Kyle calls business he went to ‘earlier in the night’ but no answer
2:42 am: Kyle calls his own voicemail
2:42-2:57 am: Kyle calls his dad, Dick 3x during this time period. No answer. (Dick says Kyle called his cell and his work office line. Kyle’s dad was in Raleigh staying at a hotel for work that evening).
3:00 am: Kyle calls his sister again. No answer.
3-3:28 am: ?? (What happens during this time? No one knows)
3:28 am: Kyle calls his friend Dan. Unanswered. 4 sec. long
3:29 am: calls Bruce -roommate. Unanswered. Lasts 6 sec.
It is speculated that Kyle’s phone died or was turned off at around 4am.
When Dan woke up on November 9, he was alarmed to discover that Kyle’s car was still at his house. He tried to call him and the call went to voicemail.
When Kyle did not get back to Dan, Dan called Kyle’s work that afternoon and was told that Kyle had not shown up.
Dan contacted Kyle’s family in the early evening of November 9, to let them know he had not been able to get in touch with his friend.
A missing person report for Kyle was filed.
Police officers searched alleys, streets, parking garages, wooded areas and construction sites near where Kyle was last seen. They also interviewed bar employees and cab drivers in the hope of finding out more information.
When authorities looked into Kyle’s cell phone records, they found that after he left Fuel Pizza, the activity of the phone centered around the Uptown Charlotte area. As Kyle kept calling people, the pings shifted northeast from Uptown towards North Davidson Street (NoDa area). Investigators believe this shows that Kyle left the busy bar district and headed towards a more industrial/residential area.
The final ping was said to have come at around 3.30-4am in the area near Cordelia Park. This is around 2 miles from the Uptown area where Kyle was previously and it places him in an area that was, at the time, relatively isolated and higher-crime.
The family hired a private investigator to look into the case. This PI spoke to a cab driver who said he saw a man matching Kyle’s description walking alone on North Davidson Street at around 3.25am on November 9. He said the man seemed intoxicated or drunk. According to reports, the PI was doubtful that this sighting was actually Kyle.
This PI personally collected Kyle’s jacket and debit card from the Buckhead Saloon after Kyle vanished.
Bloodhounds and tracking dogs were brought in to search shortly after Kyle disappeared.
It is believed the dogs picked up Kyle’s scene near Fuel Pizza and tracked his movements up North Davidson Street. The scent was said to have become weak and eventually disappeared near the Cordelia Park area.
Info about Cordelia Park from Reddit:
In 2007, Cordelia Park was known as a hot spot for gangs and drug dealers. Many would describe NoDa as a sketchy part of town back in 2007.
This area was in the opposite direction to where Kyle should have been headed. He didn’t know anyone in that area and did not live in the area himself.
Some articles report that cadaver dogs were used in the search for Kyle.
Article quote:
The next day, the handlers took the dogs back and picked up where they had left off. The dogs tracked Kyle’s scent past the park and into a construction area about 200 yards away. The handler claimed when they got close to the construction site she could smell death. She said it was a very strong scent of a dead animal—or possibly a human.
She took the dogs all over the site to try and track down the source of the smell, but they were unsuccessful. Both dogs took the same path, and at the construction site, they brought in more dogs to help search the large area, but found nothing. Residents of the area also complained about the foul odor that smelled like a large dead animal, but nothing was done about it.
Note to add – some interviewees dispute that cadaver dogs were used. Olivia can discuss.
Daniel created a Facebook group to help in the search for Kyle and over 50,000 people joined in a short amount of time. FB did eventually purge the group so the numbers are much smaller now.
In 2009, a federal judge ordered a search warrant for a construction site in the area where Kyle was last seen – on 16th and North Davidson Street. This location is now known as the Edgeline Flats. The ATF were linked to the case at the time and they usually investigate cases that involve drug, gang or gun violence. The judge sealed the documents to the public.
In a 2011 article from WCNC.com, Dick said that law enforcement had not contacted him about the case since 2009. He also gave an interview at this time where he said ‘I don’t know if the pain will be less or worse. I do spend substantial frustration over not knowing (what happened). It is upsetting to talk about but I know my son would do the same for me. He would never give up.’
He also spoke about the multiple phone calls that Kyle made. ‘I believe he was looking for a ride. Oh, how I wish he would have just gone to a hotel.’
Dick also said that he worried for the safety of his family as he believed Kyle had been murdered and his body dumped. He said that the family had moved homes and he would not say where. He said he believes Kyle was buried near a construction site at 16th Street and North Davidson, where search teams have previously looked.
Kyle’s parents spoke to the media again in 2019. “It’s true what they say about time,” Barbara said. “I like to think of the good things, think of the life, not the death. Mostly the good things.”
Kyle’s father, Dick, has a tougher time.
“My brain tends to go towards, did we miss anything?” he said.
“I just think he was a victim of robbery; it got bad, and they took his life,” Dick said.
“Three years later, a woman contacted the police. She goes, well, I called the police, there was a horrible stench here, and I said there’s something deceased here,” said Dick.
“There are condos now. We tend to believe he’s buried under there. At the time, there was open dirt because they were digging for the pipes.”
“I think we know but it’s never gonna be prosecuted or anything like that. We know what our PIs have found out and the police to a lesser extent but nothing provable,” Barbara said.
“I wonder what he’d be doing. I see all of his friends getting married and having children, and I assume he would be doing that, too, and that would have been wonderful,” she shared.
“It’s a true missing persons case. We really don’t know what happened,” said Det. John Tuttle.
“I hate to say it, it’s hard to remember the sound of his voice, and sometimes it’s hard it’s not there but that’s the gift of time,” Barbara said.
“There’s never a day I don’t think about him,” said Dick.
Barbara can’t help but get wistful.
“I wonder what he’d be doing. I see all of his friends getting married and having children, and I assume he would be doing that, too, and that would have been wonderful,” she said.
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