The Shoe on the Post: How Pinehart Meadow Swallowed Them Night

The Shoe on the Post: How Pinehart Meadow Swallowed Them Night

A pink size-four-to-six velcro sneaker stood upright on a guardrail post at 7,800 feet, the toe pointing outward and a phone number written on the inside strap - placed there when no one had yet reported anyone missing. Thirty-six hours, twenty-three searchers, two search dogs and a state patrol helicopter later, the central question remained: how did a mother and her four-year-old end up above 7,900 feet on a January night when every natural feature should have sent them the other way?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from a routine Thursday morning in a small town through the evening a husband reported his wife and daughter missing, and into a coordinated search that tracked a scent from a parked blue Subaru up Coldwater Grade. What was found on the trail, on a guardrail post, and by the handlers raises a single unsettling idea: where did they go and why would they have left a child's shoe so deliberately?

Person: Alice Gallagher
Person: Penny Gallagher
Date: January 8-9, 2019
Location: Pinehart Meadow / Coldwater Grade
Searchers: 23 volunteers plus state patrol helicopter

- The shoe was discovered upright on a guardrail post at 7,800 feet elevation.
- The shoe was a pink velcro sneaker, size four-to-six, with a phone number written on the velcro strap.
- Alice was reported missing by her husband Marcus at 4:47 PM on January 8, 2019 after she failed to respond to messages.
- Search-and-rescue activated within hours and by 8:00 PM eight volunteers were searching with headlamps.
- Two search dogs, Colt (Belgian Malinois) and Bess (Labrador), were brought and Colt immediately locked onto a scent from the blue Subaru.

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