Vanished Without a Trace: The Alexis Patterson Case

Description: On May 3, 2002, seven-year-old Alexis Patterson—known to her family as "Pie"—walked toward Hi-Mount Boulevard School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, carrying her bright pink Barbie backpack. She had perfect attendance and lived only a half-block away, yet she never made it to her classroom. What followed was one of the largest searches in state history, a mystery involving a phantom red truck, and a decades-long debate over racial bias in missing persons coverage. Twenty-four years later, Milwaukee still asks: What happened to Alexis?

Inside This Episode:

• The Cupcake Argument: The heartbreaking ordinary morning that preceded Alexis's disappearance and the "gap" in time between the pl ...