I gritted my teeth and re-watched the PEOPLE documentary. It makes my blood boil. It was completely biased. They had access to the entire recording, "no more secrets" as they put it, but they played less than a minute of it. They had access to Melissa's Facebook Live videos, at least some of them, but they only played brief snippets, and the only inconsistency they addressed was Melissa's initial description of what Karlie was wearing changed. (Note that when she reported Karlie missing, she said that she was wearing jeans and a sweater, which turned to jeans and a T-shirt in her first video, and then changed to sweatpants and a T-shirt to match the description of the "witnesses"). That was excused because she didn't see Karlie leave, but then why did you say what she was wearing if you didn't know? There was also subtle victim-blaming. The Guses were one perfect, happy family until Karlie started dating her boyfriend and smoking marijuana (trying to paint Karlie as the problem, so of course, no mention of Zac's alcoholism or tendency to become violent when intoxicated). Here, Melissa claims that she knew before she picked Karlie up that she had lied to her about being at the football game, but in her October 22 2018 video, she said she only found out when Karlie supposedly told her after Melissa picked her up. Why does Melissa feel the need to say that Karlie lied to her? If your child is missing, that shouldn't be something that stands out in your mind, but Melissa brings it up again, to portray Karlie in a negative light.
Once again, Melissa described Karlie as "paranoid" and said that at one point Karlie was screaming at her to slow down because she thought the car was going to kill her. Interesting. Zac described Karlie as "paranoid" and standing in a corner in the kitchen. He claimed that Karlie pointed to him and said "Who is that?" and Melissa said, "It's your dad, silly." Then he said that Karlie told him she had smoked pot. They then justified their decision not to seek medical attention for her. Zac said he wasn't worried. Zac said he checked in on Karlie, and that Melissa was in her room with her, and then he went to bed. Melissa then said, "Around 5:45, Karlie was still sitting next to me, just doodling, writing on a piece of paper, she was calmed down at that point, and then, at 6 am, I just dozed off. And then around 7:15 am, I woke up, and she was not next to me. I got up out of bed in a panic and looked in all the rooms, in the backyard. I went over to our bedroom and Zac was still in bed, and I said, "Karlie's gone," and he was like, "What?" Zac then stated, "I immediately said, "Check the boys' room, 'cause she would sleep with them in there, or the boys would sleep with her, and she wasn't." Melissa: "I immediately got my keys, into my car and started driving around." Zac: "And that's when I called her cell phone and saw that her phone was down on the same spot it had been the night before. At that point, I started panicking. I drove up to the highest point and I started looking in the whole valley to see I if I could see her, walking out in the desert. Something, anything, anywhere." Melissa: "After searching for two hours, I saw our neighbor down the street, and I said, "Hey, did you happen to see a teenage girl walking around this morning?" and he said, "Yeah, she was walking down the street and she was headed South." At that point, we called the police." Melissa mentioned that she called Karlie's boyfriend and asked him if he had seen or heard from her. (Remember, Melissa sent a text to Donald at 8:28 am which read "I think it was more than just weed. She is acting like she is on Meth." This was when she was supposedly out looking for Karlie). Zac then said, "I never saw this kind of behavior from her before. She was scared to death of something."
Not only is this story different from what Melissa stated in her October 22 Facebook video and what they said on Dr Phil, but they spoke of Karlie in distant terms, and what they said sounds rehearsed. Something that Melissa stated about searching for Karlie in the Facebook video was not included in the documentary - on how she drove down the street to Highway 6 (at the end of White Mountain Estates), which is a two-minute drive, within the timeline that the last two witnesses supposedly saw Karlie, yet Melissa didn't see her. "How could I have missed her?" Melissa asked rhetorically. Well, there's only one explanation - Karlie was never out there. Of course, she and Zac are pushing the abduction/trafficked theory and it's obvious that they want people to believe this.
Sheriff Ingrid Braun was there to essentially say, "We did everything by the book" (yeah right) and to defend Zac and Melissa. The Guses were quick to say how cold and dangerous it can get there. It also wasn't mentioned that Karlie's boyfriend and other friends who were with her that night were threatened with arrests if they didn't hand over the bong that held the marijuana.
Of course, it wouldn't be complete without Melissa and Zac playing the victim; they blamed their appearance on Dr. Phil (and conveniently, their suspicious behavior was never shown) and Lindsay as well as social media for "victimizing" them. Melissa cried when she was accused of lying in the Dateline interview. Well, newsflash, you did lie. An innocent parent of a missing child does not deliberately give misinformation. Of course, people are going to find that suspicious. You haven't done yourself any favors by acting suspicious and evasive.
They also said that Karlie was last seen on the east side of the highway, at the intersection, not inside the barbed wire fence.
This "documentary" is just another way to mislead the public. The Mono County Sheriff's Office needs to take responsibility for the mishandling of this case. Is it worth a young girl's life to deny responsibility and cover up a crime?
