Missing Like You

DETECTIVE GABE GIBBONS
FRIDAY JUNE 17, 2022

After speaking with the "husband", Rylie and I get back in the car and plug a new address into the GPS. Next stop, the parent's house.

I'm undecided how I feel about Scott Donovan. His disposition was hard to read. He claims to not have seen Isabelle recently, but for all I know, he's a world class actor. He could have murdered her and disposed of the body last night. You don't know the number of cases I've worked where the husband is guilty. Whether it's domestic abuse to a full-blown homicide investigation, like clockwork: It's. Always. The. Husband.

The last misper I worked was late last year, mid-September. Similar case to this one, actually. Alexandra Chambers, twenty-five years old. Went missing on a Thursday evening. Husband called it in the next day, said she didn't come home the night before. When asked where she could have gone, he didn't have a clue. When we wanted to speak with her friends, he said she didn't have any.

That was my first red flag that something wasn't right in their marriage. Your wife goes out and you have no idea where? And you don't even know whether she has friends or not?

We combed through her life meticulously, dug up some well buried secrets and discovered a plethora information, especially about their marriage. I had my eye on the husband from the beginning, from the way he'd talk about her to the way he'd talk to us. He pled his innocence, remaining firm in his belief that Alexandra went out that night and mysteriously vanished. Without a body, we couldn't prove anything. For all we knew, Alexandra packed a bag and disappeared on her own accord. But something didn't sit well with me. He seemed guilty. I envisioned him hitting her over the head with something heavy and disposing of the body before calling 911.

We had witness statements from a few of her colleagues and neighbors saying that they fought a lot. When we confronted him about this, he didn't deny it. "Every couple fights," he said. "That's normal. Doesn't mean I killed my wife."

As the weeks progressed, the likelihood of us finding her alive was dwindling, and it slowly went from a missing person's case to a murder investigation.

Months and months passed and the investigation eventually got cold. We had canvassed the area dozens of times, held search parties, brought out cadaver dogs, the whole nine yards. Not a single sign of her anywhere. It really was like she disappeared without a trace.

Bad for us, good for the husband. Because without a body, it's extremely difficult to make a case and bring it to trial.

But I'm telling you – regardless of whether we could prove it or not – I knew it was him. It was a feeling so visceral that I can't explain. I just knew.

To this day, her body still has never been found. That case caused me a lot of sleepless nights, racking my brain with one question: where is Alexandra? Either the husband killed her and disposed of the body so well that no one would ever find it, or perhaps she really did run away and disappear forever.

Either way, wherever Alexandra is today, I highly doubt she's ever coming home.

We arrive at the parent's house, which is in the north side of Philadelphia. The houses are generous in size and the neighborhood screams upper middle-class. We park in the driveway and head to the front door.

A woman who looks to be in her mid-fifties, who I presume is Mrs. Healey, opens the door.
"Jeanine Healey?"
"Yes?"
"I'm Detective Gibbons and this is Officer Hunter. We'd like to talk to you about your daughter."
"Yes yes, I've been expecting you. Please do come in," she opens the door wider, allowing us to step through the threshold and into her home.