in Cassie's room; Lauren has decided to keep it again when Cassie leaves for college

in Cassie's room; Lauren has decided to keep it again when Cassie leaves for college

A dry sunflower-yellow backpack appears on a picnic table in the middle of a fresh snow at a rest stop, untouched by the storm, containing a child's math notebook, a broken green crayon and a folded Mother's Day note that had been stolen four months earlier - so why was it left in a near-perfect dry circle at 2:17 a.m.? What happened in those four months between a home burglary and a baffling return?

In this episode, you’ll hear the timeline of the theft and the odd return, the people involved and the small, meaningful objects that tie them together, and the single unexplained action that drives the mystery: who left the backpack and why?

Person: Lauren Jenkins
Date: February 11, 2014, 7:43 a.m.
Location: Rest stop at mile marker 211 on Interstate 74, western Indiana
Case: Burglary reported October 2013; backpack returned February 2014
Person: Dennis Farwell

- The backpack was stolen during a break-in at Lauren's house in October 2013.
- The backpack reappeared on February 11, 2014 at 7:43 a.m. sitting dry on a picnic table after a snowstorm.
- The dry circle of concrete around the backpack measured roughly two feet across with sharp edges.
- Inside the backpack were a child's math notebook, a broken green crayon, two hair ties, and a folded construction paper note reading "I LOVE MOM."
- Dennis Farwell had the backpack on his passenger seat and carried it for approximately four months (October through January).

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