Riddle of the Roads: In Search of Karlie Guse, Introduction

Beyond the rumors, podcasts, and online theories was a family still living with the daily reality of Karlie Guse’s absence

I found myself invited into the Guse home. Zach standing in the entryway.

Up until this point, interpreting the family of the missing girl was, at best, like reading Braille. Braille being podcasts of interviews, browsing FB profiles, reading and rereading comments, watching clips of the family on Dr. Phil and a local news segment on which the Guses appreared. Certainly distant from what it’s like to meet someone in the flesh.

Depending on which version of Karlie’s theories one was exposed to, I suppose there is spectrum of how one could imagine the residence and what it was like inside. Beige carpeting, an orderly and clean kitchen. There are clues to younger children living happily and safely there. Evidence of arts, crafts and tidy emphasis on one wall visible from the living room. So ordinary of an american middle class home it was, it seems strange to even write about it. The only thing making it remarkable outside of ordinary appearance was the home had an emptiness. Even the least intuitive type could detect the invisible open wounds the man in front of me carried. Zach is clearly suffering the confusing, undetermined and unknown whereabouts of his lost daughter.

Sitting at his dining room table and discussing the worst moments of his life for nearly two hours was a humbling experience for me. I am just a guy from Colorado that volunteered to help search for a missing child. Those searches are what eventually brought me into their home.

Volunteer searches for Karlie Guse have continued, outliving two human trafficking groups who approached but, just as suddenly, left the missing girl’s case abandoned. These searches endured obstacles and obstructions set by fraudulent individuals who approached family and were later revealed to have backgrounds too obscene to be associated with a missing child case.

I look forward to publishing more on my experience with Karlie’s disappearance in conjunction with American Crime Journal. I can’t speak for everyone and will only share my own personal account. My hope is that I may help this family and broadcast a more factual account of Karlie’s story.

Continue the Investigation

Meeting the Guse family provided insight into the human cost of Karlie’s disappearance, but the answers were not inside the home. To understand the mystery, investigators must examine the terrain, roads, and search areas surrounding Chalfant Valley.

In the next installment of Riddle of the Roads, Travis Moore begins exploring the landscape where Karlie was last known to have traveled and the challenges investigators faced in searching the high desert.

Next: Riddle of the Roads: In Search of Karlie Guse, Part I