Missing Person, Murder Victim, or Impersonator? The Bizarre Case of Mary Day

Mary Day was only 13 years old in 1981 when she disappeared from her family home in Seaside, California, but her case is one of the longest enduring, and strange missing persons cases that I’ve covered on this podcast. Not because the case went cold, but because, until 2002, it wasn’t a case at all. Former Seaside Police Chief Steve Cercone told 48 Hours, “I can’t remember a time when a child was not reported by the parents,” and yet, that’s exactly what happened to little Mary. She disappeared, and was never reported missing until her sister came forward years later to get police on the case. Which meant that without Mary’s sister’s intervention, her existence could have just been completely erased. Now, of course, suspicions turned immediately to Mary’s parents, suspecting that she had met a horrific end in 1981, but did she? Because in 2003, M ...