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EPISODE 197: Chance Englebert — The Vanished Podcast
I transcribed the podcast for anyone who might prefer to read the text versus listen to the podcast.
Dawn:
“So, I just can’t imagine what somebody said to hurt him so badly.”
“Unfortunately, I just see my son saying let’s get the f*ck in the car and we’re going home.
“If he got in the car, what was said between there and her grandparents house? It’s a 20-mile, 25-mile drive.”
“It was broad daylight when he walked off. Everybody keeps making a big deal out of this storm. I seen him in the videos. In the surveillance cameras, walking. He’s—he did not appear drunk; he was upset. He was on a mission; he knew where he was going. He was walking, and he was going there.”
“If I would have been driving by, I would have thought… ‘Oh, that’s a nice looking kid on a walk.’ I mean, he—he didn’t look like he needed help.”
“Ya know, nobody wrote a book on how to handle when your son goes missing. I just don’t want my son’s name forgotten. I believe somebody did something to him, and they need to pay for it.”
“He’s not a kid that walked away to start a new life. That’s not my son. He would never do that to his family, his brothers, or that little baby.”
Marissa: On July 6, 2019, 25-year-old Chance Englebert spent the day golfing with his wife’s family in Gering, Nebraska. He left with his wife Bailey and their infant son. Together, they went to her grandparent’s house to pick up a few things. According to Bailey, it was in her grandparent’s driveway—around 7:30 pm—that Chance got out of the car and walked away, heading toward Terrytown. He was last seen on surveillance walking in that direction; he’s never been seen again. I’m Marissa, and from Wondery, this is Episode 197 of
The Vanished: Chance Englebert’s Story.
Marissa: 25-year-old Chance had an amazing support system. He has loving parents and brothers, whom he was very close to. Just nine months prior to his disappearance, he married Bailey. Chance and Bailey had a son together in May of 2019. He had worked as a welder at a mine, until he was laid off when two mines were closed, but had recently gotten a new job. Chance was looking forward to starting that new job but disappeared before he ever had the chance to. For this story, we spoke to Chance’s aunt, Katie. While Katie isn’t actually a blood relative of Chance’s, he called her “Aunt Katie” because she was especially close to his family. Katie told us about Chance.
Katie: Honestly, their family is just really good friends to my family. But, I’m Aunt Katie, you know? They’re not blood, but they’re family. You know, we would do anything for any Englebert.
I got to meet Chance when he was… 8-months-old? Just an amazing, amazing person. Um, always has been. Sorry… I might cry on you. Just a happy person. Laid-back. When he was a baby, he just loved everybody. He, my grandbaby (unintelligible), so they’re family. He called me Aunt Katie since the day he could talk. Just a great person, and as he got older, it never changed.
He lived with me as an adult. I lived in Gillette, Wyoming, and while he was going to college, I got him a job at the coalmine for the summer. So he could make good money and have some extra money throughout the school year. And then when he graduated college, he came and lived with me full-time while he got started in life. And so, he lived with me off and on for four years.
And when he—the day he told me he was moving out, he was very emotional. He just didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings… ever. And he was practically in tears and told me, ya know, I’m going to go live with my buddy. And I’m all like great, ya know? I want you to. He was like… “you’re not mad at me?” And I’m like… “no, I would never be mad at you. I let you live here so you could save your money and figure out what you wanted to do, and if you wanted to stay here and not be committed to something, that—I want you to grow and be an adult, and do those things, and just… ya know?”
I could call him at any time, and no matter what it was, he would be there to help me when I still lived there. And, ya know, even right up until the last time I talked to him. Ya know? I sent him a text that was… “ya know, I’m so proud of you. As soon as you got laid off from your job… that you went out and found another one. You didn’t whine and cry. I just want you to know how much I love you and how proud of you I am.” And I got back “Aunt Katie, you know I love you too.” Ya know, he was just that kid.
Marissa: From what everyone told me during our research into this case, everyone who knew Chance loved him. We spoke to his childhood friend DJ, and he echoed these same sentiments when we asked him how he met Chance and what his personality was like.
DJ: His grandma actually lived right next to us, and he was always at his grandma’s. We’ve grown up around each other since I can remember. Funny as can be. Hard working. Kind of a little bit of a smartass when he wants to be. Just all around good, good person.
Marissa: DJ said that, for some time, Chance and his wife Bailey had lived with him. We asked DJ what he remembers from this time.
DJ: Chance and Bailey actually lived with me for a while. Some days, better than others. She—they’d argue every now and then. Not a whole lot, but she’d accuse him of doing stupid stuff that he’d never do and get mad at him for talking to his mom too much. Just immature high school stuff, I guess is the way to explain it.
Marissa: Bailey and Chance married young and almost a year prior to his disappearance. But when we spoke to Bailey, she said that her relationship with Chance was everything she had hoped it would be.
Bailey: So, my ex-boyfriend used to rodeo with his younger brother. So I always knew, like, who he was. And after I broke up with my ex, we just started talking. And, I don’t know, everything went from there.
His personality is—I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with, like, a bigger heart. He’d be getting off a night shift just tired as hell, and somebody would call and need something. He would just be crawling into bed with me, and he’d get back out, get dressed, and he would never complain or always ready for a good time. He would never let me be upset. He’d always make me laugh.
October 2017? Is when we really started talking. And we got married, yeah… a year later, actually, from when we started talking. So that was kinda cool. When you marry your best friend, it’s a lot better than what other people make it out to be. My parents split up when I was pretty young, so I always knew what I didn’t want to do and what kind of marriage I didn’t want to have. And he’s very much family oriented and knew what kind of marriage he wanted to have, and we were very clear with both our expectations. And we, honestly, never argued really about anything. And if we did have a problem, it was resolved pretty quickly and it was pretty easy to be married to him.
Marissa: We also spoke to Chance’s mom Dawn, and she told us about the last time that she and her husband heard from their son.
Dawn: Saturday afternoon, he’d texted—my husband had text him and said… “There’s a box here for ya, bud.” And, he said, “Oh great, that’s probably” something. I don’t remember what he told Everett it was. “We’ll be home Sunday to get those because I start my new job Monday morning at (unintelligible). I’m going to be doing a lot of welding, so I’m going to have you help me with my welding.” Whatever—I don’t understand all that talk, but Everett knew exactly what he was talking about. We expected him here Sunday afternoon. We would have never dreamed anything like this would’ve ever happened.
Marissa: On July 6th 2019, Chance, his wife, and their infant son had traveled from their home in Moorcroft, Wyoming to visit Bailey’s family in Gering, Nebraska. About a three and a half to four hour trip. Dawn described how she found out that something was wrong and Chance was missing.
Dawn: His dad and I were just sitting at home that Saturday night, and we got a message from Matt Miller to please call me right away. And so I called him. And he just said… “Hey Mama Dawn, I just talked to Chance and he’s had a little run-in in Gering and wants to get outta there. Can you go get him? I have people here and we’ve been drinking all afternoon, and you’re closer to him.” So, I said… “Well Matt, I’m not sure if he’ll want to talk to us, but either his uncle or somebody will reach out and try to get him.” And so I had his uncle, and his aunt, and then his dad, and then I, all text and called him, and he wouldn’t answer anything from us. None of our messages ever came back.
I know that—I sent him a message on Sunday afternoon. Or Sunday, about 11, and four days later that one did get sent back to me. So I know he did get my text messages on Saturday. I would say it must have been sometime after 9 o’clock that night—11 o’clock. I guess I did kinda see that there was some data used at 11 o’clock that night, and then it doesn’t show any phone calls, any text messages, or anything after 9:08 on Saturday night.
So, my husband wanted to leave right away and go, and Bailey assured him that they were out looking and there wasn’t anything that they—you know, it was going to take two and half hours for him to get there. He came in the house and he was quite upset, and I said… “Honey, you know, it’s going to be dark and she’ll get him found, and they’ll get things worked out… whatever happened.” We didn’t really know what happened at that time.
The only reason we talked to Bailey Saturday night is when he wouldn’t answer our calls, my husband reached out to their neighbor Larry, who also worked with Chance and has been to the ranch several times and is a very good friend. An older friend. So when Everett reached out to him to see why Chance didn’t get ahold of him instead, and he said he didn’t know anything but let me call Bailey. So Bailey explained to him whatever happened. And, I don’t know. I never did talk to Larry again about it. And he told Bailey, “You’ve got to call Chance’s dad. You can’t not call his dad.”
They got off the phone, and Bailey called my husband and they talked. And she just said, “Well, we’re out looking and don’t worry about coming down tonight.” And my husband was uneasy about that, but I said what are going to do in the dark anyway?
Marissa: So Chance walked away from his wife’s grandparents’ house in Gering, Nebraska around 7:30 pm. There were two reported sightings of Chance shortly after he left the home on the 400 block of O Street. He was seen on a surveillance video at 7:51 pm in the area of Martha Road and 10th Street, walking northbound on 10th Street. A witness believed that they’d seen Chance a few minutes after he was captured on video, in the area of Terry’s Lake, which is just a few minutes walk from where he was seen on video. Law enforcement was able to obtain ping information from Chance’s phone, and it was reported that his phone last pinged in the area of a truck stop that is about an hour walk from Bailey’s grandparents’ home. But while speaking with a reporter from the Bluff Scott’s Star Herald, an investigator clarified that the data comes from an arc that covers an area that is a couple miles long. Before any of that information came to light, all Chance’s parents knew is that he had walked away and they expected him to return after he had cooled off. Chance’s parents decided to stay in that evening, since it was already dark and they figured everything would be okay. But by the next morning, Bailey called to say that Chance was still nowhere to be found and that they were going to go out searching for him.
Dawn: So about 11, she called and said there was a bad storm and she had to quit looking for him. And so we went to bed and my husband was sick all night. And, about eight—oh, it was probably later than that because I had actually gone to church—he called him and asked him if he’d called us yet. And, of course, not. And then she called us again at 11 and said she was filing a police report. My husband wanted to go down again Sunday afternoon, but I just kept thinking he’d come walking in the driveway and meet us. So I asked Bailey if she wanted us to come down, and she said, “No, no… we’re good. We’re good, we don’t need ya down here right now.” So, Sunday night we talked again, and she kinda cried and she’s like… “I just know he’s coming home in a body bag. And I said, “Oh honey, I don’t think—don’t think that. Ya know, there’s a good chance but let’s just stay positive.”
Marissa: After the search commenced, Chance’s parents and brother left their home in South Dakota and jumped into action doing everything they could think to find Chance.
Dawn: It was about 10 o’clock and we drove down—my husband, my son, and I. To Gering. We just kinda drove around lost and didn’t know what was going on. We’d never—we’d been to Gering but never drove around. We just went right to the grandparent’s house and the church for my grandson’s baptism. We just kinda drove around, and we went and met with Bailey and them. And then we went and drove around again. And every place we looked, there were search parties walking the canals, and the empty fields, and it just broke my heart to just know that they were looking for MY baby. We were told we weren’t supposed to interrupt any of the main searches, so every place we went, we would go farther out and try to look ourselves.
Finally, Monday night, I went and met the cops by ourselves cause I just wanted them to know, just who we were and how upset we were. But, they knew. And then Tuesday, we got up and kinda did the same thing. Tuesday, late afternoon, Captain Rogers called us—Bailey and I—to come to the police station. When I got in Bailey’s car, I was freaked out. I thought oh my God, what are they going to tell us. And then I’m, like, well they wouldn’t have mom and wife drive down if they have bad news. They would have somebody with us. So I thought it must be gonna be good news. It was just that they didn’t find anything. And, we talked a little bit and that was the first time Bailey asked for a death certificate. And Captain Rogers just kinda looked at her like he was kind of surprised and said, “Bailey we don’t work with that kind of stuff. In my heart, I still feel we’re gonna find him. I’m treating this like my brother’s lost, and we’re going to do everything we can to find him.”
So, we went back to her grandparent’s house, sat, and stared at each other some more. Got up the next morning and started it again. And we went to the debriefing with the police department Wednsday morning, and that’s when we did our first news.
Marissa: I’ve never been to Nebraska, so we asked Dawn to share what the landscape is like in Gering and what the search entailed.
Dawn: We’ve had more rain than we’ve ever had, so the grass is extremely tall everywhere. A lot more water than what anybody is used to. They’re called bluffs. They’re kinda like a rock formation. With you not being from around here, we’re from the Black Hills and the Badlands, so it looks like Badlands to me. But it’s like a rock, sandy formation. Very rugged country. Some places, they were thinking we should go search, my son Miles was like, “he wouldn’t have went there.” I mean, Chance was very athletic, and very—he could walk, and out walk you, in a heartbeat… but it was to, like, get the big deer. It was not—he was not—going to go out of his way to work out to get anywhere. He was going to take the easiest.
I really felt—he told his friend he was walking the highway, which we call it the ditch, which nobody else seems to understand that. But he was taking the highway and walking to Terrytown and needed somebody to come get me. Is what Matt told me he said, which totally made sense to me.
Marissa: When we spoke to Bailey, we asked her to walk us through the events of the day Chance disappeared. This is what she had to say.
Bailey: We were just down visiting our family, and the guys all decided that they wanted to go golfing. So him, my brother-in-law, and my dad, they went down to Bear Golf Course and drank a lot, and golfed a lot, and I don’t know. Ha… had fun. Ha… he called me, and we were supposed to meet some friends for dinner that night, and he was in a super good mood, so I drove out there. I got the baby out of the car, and I started walking over to where everyone was sitting. And he stood up and said, “Get the f*ck back in the car. We’re leaving.” So, I thought that was really weird. So I was kinda looking at everyone, and they’re looking at me. And everyone is just super confused. We left and I canceled plans with my friends, and he had misunderstood something that somebody had said about him getting—about the mine shutting down. Cause in Nebraska, the minimum wage, I mean… it’s hard to make really good money in Nebraska. Even if you’re super skilled, you’re not going to be paid worth a compared to what you are in Wyoming. And, so they made a comment about “at least he wasn’t making minimum wage “. By Nebraska standards, he was making good money, and he just took it the wrong way. So he was upset about that, and he really wanted to go home. And, he had been drinking just enough that there was no talking any sort of sense into him. So, I just kinda went with it and was like okay cool, we’ll go home. So I drove to my grandparent’s in Gering, Nebraska, where we had been staying, and I went in to pack my bag. We pulled into the driveway, and he said, “No, I said I wanted to go home.” And I was like, “Yeah, just hold on. I’m gonna go grab our bags and we’ll leave. Well, he took off walking. And I ran the baby inside, and took him out of his car seat, handed him to my grandma, and ran back outside. And I started driving around looking for him. Several phone calls later, the rainstorm hit and I just never got him found.
Marissa: While Bailey was talking about what transpired that day, I wondered if it was a common occurrence for Chance to just walk off like Bailey said or if this was a special circumstance.
Bailey: When he gets pissed off, he goes to the shop and he has a beer, and he works on his derby cars, and he comes back in and we’re fine. He has a temper, but when he gets pissed, he gets pissed and it’s over quickly. So, it’s not like him to be passive aggressive or anything, ya know? So I… got up that morning and I figured he would have stumbled in at like midnight, and at the latest, early that morning. And I got up and was like something isn’t right. He still wasn’t answering his phone… and started talking to everybody. Nobody had heard anything, and I knew that wasn’t my husband. And I was trying to get ahold of Verizon that day, to see if they could tell me where his last phone call was because I was trying to avoid calling the cops if he was just out… having issues or whatever. And Verizon wasn’t able to tell me anything and I filed a police report by 11 that morning.
Marissa: When no one could reach Chance after Bailey said he walked off, Chance’s family thought that maybe his Aunt Katie would be able to reach him since the two shared a close relationship, and Katie says he would never decline her phone calls.
Katie: Dawn had texted me and asked me to call him because Matt had called them—his buddy—to say that he walked away from that house down there and that he’d called wanting him to come pick him up. My uncle called—Uncle John—as well, and he didn’t answer. Dawn knows that Chance will always answer Aunt Katie’s phone calls, so she called me to, or text me, to ask me. And so I called him first and didn’t answer, and so I sent him a text, and he answered me an hour later. And I answered him back and I didn’t get any response. And I really didn’t think much of it. I thought he’s either back at the house and he’s busy, or you know they’re fighting it out, or whatever the case is. And I’m not pushy, ya know? He knows I’m always there. And so I let it go until the morning and I text Dawn and said, “Hey, have you heard that Chance is back at the house or not yet?” And she’s like, “No, he’s not.” And I’m like, “Well I got a text back last night from him at like 9.” And that was the last text that he had sent.
Marissa: The day after Chance walked away, Bailey knew he would have returned and started to fear for the worse. So she decided it was time to file a police report. She told us more about her experiences with law enforcement.
Bailey: Oh, they didn’t take it seriously. They thought—they kept wanting to treat it like it was just another drunk that just walked off and everything was going to be fine, and he was going to come wandering back. They didn’t start taking it seriously until me, my dad, my mom… I believe his mom… there was several of us constantly calling the police department, telling them that they needed to get to doing something. They just didn’t treat it seriously until a day or two later. Then they were like, well, yeah I guess we should probably get a search team going. They finally got that going, looked into a few phone records, and that’s honestly, been about it. They followed up on some leads—which, my husband did not just get in a truck and take off somewhere. Like whatever happened to him is pretty bad, and they just keep treating it like he just decided he was done with everybody and left.
The cops are doing an investigative approach now, so whenever we get a lead, or we think of another spot that they could’ve dumped a body or something, my mom goes out and she combs the whole area. So, I mean… it’s just a day-by-day basis at this point. They told us that since it rained, they wouldn’t be able to track him by scent, so they brought out cadaver dogs. Well, they never got a hit in those two or three days they were searching. Well, I talked to some big league out of Oregon, I believe, and he works on national cases and he goes clear up in Canada, and he was nice enough to get into contact with me and gave me tips on these dogs. And he said rain actually enhances dog’s scent.
Marissa: There’s been some speculation that Bailey and Chance got into an argument that evening in the car prior to Chance walking off. We asked Bailey about their conversation in the car.
Bailey: And that’s just a lot of people who don’t know anything. They want to try to—they just want to try to put it on me. We did not have an argument at all. He was upset; it was one of my family members. I don’t want to say because I don’t want to—cause he already feels bad enough about it, and Chance just interpreted the information wrong.
Marissa: Without any obvious conclusion, we asked Bailey if there was anyone who would want to bring harm to Chance and what the searches for him have been like.
Bailey: Honestly, everybody loves Chance. Like he made friends everywhere he went, and that’s the really confusing part. He was—we have him last on tape walking through Terrytown, which is a super bad part of the area. I never met anybody more excited to be a dad. When I found out I was pregnant, I was freaked out and he was literally jumping up and down he was so excited. And, he loves being a dad and he’s great at it. There’s just no way he would have left us. We’ve done everything. My mom, she is still doing searches. We were getting up everyday. I’d feed the baby, and we’d like figure out some more acreage that we could go cover and any possible area that he could have been, wherever they could’ve dumped a body. To say that we’ve searched miles and miles and miles is an under exaggeration. Nobody has busted their *advertiser censored** harder looking for my husband than what my mom has.
Marissa: When we spoke to Chance’s friend DJ, we asked him how he came to find out how Chance was missing and when he knew something wasn’t right with his friend.
DJ: I left the waterpark and I see—I got on my phone and I—Bailey posted that Chance didn’t come home on Facebook, so I went down there—I went down to Scotts Bluff that night to go look for him cause that—he doesn’t not show back up. He’ll go on a walk and , like that, but he always shows back up. I knew that was out of character, so I went looking for him. Just kinda walked around Scotts Bluff, searched the river, then Bailey came out and looked for a little while with me. Cause I can understand if someone needs a break and disappears for a day or two but not two days later. I figured something was wrong.
Marissa: With no clues and no direction to point to where Chance might have gone that night, we asked his mom Dawn what she thinks happened to her son.
Dawn: Ya know, I honestly don’t know, but it had to have—it would have had to have been somebody he felt comfortable with. I mean, not that he knew, but like a nice pickup pulled up and said hey kid do you need a ride. It wouldn’t—I just can’t believe there would be that kind of evil people in Gering, Nebraska that would pick him up and do anything either, for no reason. Ya know, and it would have been a group of guys that yelled at him. I could’ve seen him smartin’ off back to him, but then I’m thinking he would’ve been all by himself. He would’ve just kept walking. I just… ya know, I just don’t think he would’ve tried to start anything. He would’ve—he wanted to get out of Nebraska. And they keep saying about this storm. Well the storm was a good hour after those videos, forty-five minutes or so. He wouldn’t have been in the area they keep saying he would’ve been unless somebody picked him up or did something to him. And that’s why I think it had to have been somebody he was comfortable with, or knew possibly, because I’m sorry… I just don’t see a drug dealer or meth head’s gonna pick him up in broad daylight or in the middle of the worst storm they’ve ever had in Scotts Bluff. I’m so naïve.
Marissa: We tried to contact the law enforcement officials investigating Chance’s disappearance, but they didn’t return our phone calls or email messages. Chance’s mom Dawn told us that, at first, she felt like law enforcement put forth a lot of manpower in the search for her son.
Dawn: I know that week they did try hard. I’m not doubting that. I don’t have any bad feelings about that. I mean, as a mom of course I wanted more and want more answers. And now I don’t know. They always tell me that they’ve not forgotten him and they can’t discuss things with us, and they’re just following up on leads as they come in. So, I did reach out to the state police and I found out Gering has not invited them back since that first week. So I am making phone calls to the attorney general’s office, the state attorney’s office. And by no means am I saying that Gering PD hasn’t done enough. I-I’m not. I just don’t want my son’s name forgotten. I believe somebody did something to him, and they need to pay for it. He’s not a kid that walked away to start a new life. That’s not my son. He would never do that to his family, his brothers, or that little baby. And I just don’t feel that Gering PD is big enough. I’ve now since learned that there’s probably a lot more crime there than they wanted me to know, and I just feel like they need some help. It’s not that I don’t trust them; I just think we need more people in and we need to find answers. I still keep calling. I call the state attorney’s office, and calling—just keep calling people to see where I can go… get his name out more… talking about him more that somebody will say, “Oh God, remember… we heard something about that, remember?” Somebody will get nervous and say something. I honestly don’t know what to do, and if anybody had any advice I wish they’d tell me. I have been told by the sheriff’s department, Sheriff Mark Overman, they’ve went out on a couple of other calls. They’re not really helping Gering PD either unless they’re called in on it. If there’s things that they feel they need to check out that’s outside of Gering, in their county, they have went out on a couple of different searches, I guess. So, I guess, really what I do is each week I talk to—I pick a different law enforcement and call and remind them of who I am and I want my little baby back. And, ya know, say… “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you but I wanted to hear your voice, and I wanted you to hear my voice. And, I want you to remember Chance Englebert. I was sitting outside on my swing and just kind of trying to breathe again, and I got a call from Capt. Rogers. I was expecting some good news or something at least. And he’s just like, “I just need to know are you being represented by the family’s attorney here in Scotts Bluff/Gering.” And I said, “What? I have to get a lawyer?” And he said, “No, no… I don’t necessarily want you to get a lawyer. I want to know if you are being represented BY this lawyer.” I said, “I didn’t know there was a lawyer even called.” I said, “Why do we call lawyers? I thought we let the police handle it right now?” Cause I’m dumb and naïve, I’ll admit. And I—I didn’t understand. I said, “Well, do I need to hire a lawyer?” Because in my mind, I’ve already missed work, my son’s missed work. We gotta help pay Chance’s bills. I can’t afford a lawyer. And he’s like, “No, we would rather you not get a lawyer, but we need to know if we can talk to you.” And I said, well, Captain Rogers, that’s what scares me… is when I’m not really considered his next of kin anymore. Is there going to come a time when you can’t talk to me?” And he said, “That’s what I’m concerned about and I need to visit with our lawyer. So we just wanted to make sure that you weren’t being represented also.” A couple days later he called me on something else and I said, “Well I thought you were going to call back and talk to me about this lawyer deal and if you’re able to talk to me.” And he’s like… “Oh, no… we’re able to talk to you. In the future, with Bailey’s family, we have to go through our attorney first though.” And from what I’ve heard from the other law enforcers—and Capt. Rogers has been very careful and hasn’t said much—but from what I heard, it just really slows down the process actually. And I said, “Why does one hire a lawyer in the first week or two?” And they said it was to get the Gering PD to work a little faster and harder.
Marissa: Dawn doesn’t know what happened to her son, but she shared that his relationship with Bailey was at times a rocky one and that she had tried to help them in the past by offering to get them counseling in order to resolve some of their issues. Dawn doesn’t want to believe that Bailey’s family had anything to do with his disappearance, but some things have left her with lingering questions. Like why hire an attorney? Why ask about a death certificate right after he went missing? All of this, on top of the fact that an argument with Bailey’s family was the catalyst for Chance walking away that day.
Dawn: I keep telling myself that we all mourn differently, and she’s very young. But it’s really hard to not judge. I don’t know if she knows exactly what happened that night, but I think something was said that was so horrible that he got out of that car and walked off. He’s got a temper, but he is the type that would walk away. He would not be abusive. He would not be aggressive. I know it broke his heart to fight in front of that little baby, even though he’s not very old and didn’t understand. And he just hated the fighting and the drama. We always knew he was walking on eggshells. She would tell me, a time or two, of fights. She would call me screaming about what he supposedly did and didn’t do, and I always just begged her to leave him. I said, “Bailey if you really think he’s that bad, just leave him.” Um, I offered to get him counseling, and her counseling, and the two of them counseling. And she said, “Oh, I guess you don’t want to see your grandbaby do you?” And I said, “That is just crazy. I want you guys to be successful and have a happy marriage, and marriage is hard enough as it is the first year or two. Let alone bringing a baby in and this kind of baggage.”
Marissa: Chance’s Aunt Katie told us about the theories she’s wrestled with as to what may have happened to Chance.
Katie: Okay, I can tell you my honest feeling is that he got into a vehicle with somebody and he’s not down there. That’s my feeling, my gut feeling. But, I’ve made that very clear from the beginning. That he wanted to leave, and he was going to do everything in his power to get away from there. I really feel like he either got in the vehicle with the wrong person or he trusted somebody that he knew and they ended up hurting him. I don’t want to admit that he’s not with us anymore, but after this long… he’s not capable, mentally, to not contact one of us. Ya know, that’s just not his personality.
Marissa: Dawn told us that Chance’s disappearance has caused some friction between their family and Bailey’s family. She said that Bailey’s mom Tracey has done a lot to look for Chance. But with no clues and lingering questions, they’re trying not to let the divide between the families get too big. Being in their grandson’s life is also very important to them.
Dawn: Tracey’s worked very hard on it. And part of me wants to say it’s because she wants to bring Chance home, in a good positive way, and then part of me is like she’s afraid what really happened and needs to be the one to find him. I don’t know, ya know. That’s what I hate, and I just wish everybody could just come forward, and talk, and be and investigated, and get us all cleared so we can move on to the next who did it part. Tomorrow it will be about two weeks that we’ve really talked, talked. She came down to the fair to our derby. That fair, it was very hard to go to, but the fair is always very important to my kids. We used to run the derby, in fact. And so my husband—everybody kept telling my husband that Chance is going to come home, and he’s going to come home at that derby, so you have to be there. So, we went to the derby and she showed up right before the main event and shocked us because we didn’t think she was coming because it got to be so late. And I’d asked her the day before to please quit driving back and forth that late at night. Because I said if something happened to you or Banks, I don’t know what I would do. So we talked that night, and they gave us some money and a plaque for Chance. And I had turned to her, and I said, “I just want you to know that any of this money that’s being raised now is going to hire a private investigator.” I said, “the one that is trying to help me find people is asking me for a $25,000 retainer fee.” And she’s like, “Oh, God!” I said, “I know but I’m bring the best in to find my son.” And, I didn’t hear anything from her after that. She got in her car and left that night. I mean, she said goodbye and everything was good. I got to kiss the baby.
Marissa: Having a loved one go missing is always devastating. People are often consumed with the “what ifs” and feel like they’re letting their loved one down if they aren’t constantly doing something to look for them. Chance’s Aunt Katie says that she sees the toll this is taking on Chance’s mom and is doing her best to be there for support.
Katie: We all love her and she knows that. I told her that I only live 10 minutes up the road from her and anytime, I don’t care day or night, if you just need to go for a drive or want to just talk, I’m here. And she knows that. I made her go with me—like two weeks after it happened—she needed a haircut, everything. I said, “Well get in the car. We’re just going to go because you need to get away for, you know. And I’m not judging you for it. So you need to do you. You need to do self-care—you. Otherwise life—you can’t not do that.” So, they are great people. I cannot imagine them not in our lives. They were meant to come into our life for a reason.
Marissa: So what happened to 25-year-old Chance Englebert on July 6th 2019? We know that he was seen on surveillance walking northbound on 10th Street, and that a witness thought they saw him not far from where he was seen on video. He had contacted a friend asking him to pick him up. He was mad and looking for a ride. He said he was walking to Terrytown, Wyoming and to send someone to pick him up. According to Google Maps, it would’ve been about an 11-hour walk from Gering to Terrytown. So it’s unclear if Chance was planning on hitching a ride. His friend couldn’t go get him because he had had people over and they’d been drinking, so his friend contacted Chance’s mom. When she and several other people tried to reach via phone and text, he didn’t answer or respond. His last text message was sent around 9:08 pm and his phone last pinged not far from where he was last seen. There were massive search efforts put forth to locate Chance, but they haven’t turned up any clues. Searchers combed more than 2400 acres of land and several waterways in the area were searched. Did Chance just decide to walk away from his life after the altercation he was involved in? Does someone close to him know more about what happened? Some point the finger at Bailey. That she must know more about why Chance was so upset and possibly more about what transpired that evening. They take issue with her attitude after his disappearance, asking about a death certificate and her family hiring an attorney. But as Dawn mentioned, Bailey is young. She’s just 20 years old, and all of a sudden, she’s a single mom just trying to keep things together for their infant son Banks…. and we all grieve differently. If they searched such a large area and haven’t found Chance, is it possible that he got a ride with someone? There is the truck stop in the general area where his phone last pinged. Could he have hitched a ride with a trucker or someone else who could’ve harmed him? One theory that law enforcement officials have discussed is the possibility that he could’ve succumbed to the elements because of that bad storm that came through the night that he disappeared. They said the rain was very cold, and they wonder if he could’ve gotten hypothermia. Also, the possibility of lightening. But with all the searches turning up empty, there really isn’t any evidence pointing to any one outcome. At the time of his disappearance, Chance Englebert was 25 years old. He’s approximately 5’11” tall and weighs around 195 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes. If you have any information about the disappearance of Chance Englebert, you can call the Gering police department at 308-436-5089. You can follow Chance’s story on Facebook at Help Find Chance Englebert.
“Maybe he said something to the wrong person. It’s hard to say… maybe Bailey’s family did something. I don’t know. It’s speculate all day. I’d like to think maybe he just couldn’t take Bailey no more and took off, but I don’t think that’s... the chances of that happening.”
“They’ve had cadaver dogs. They’ve had non-stop people out walking around in areas that they thought… (unintelligible) down there for a week with Miles and other relatives. And they were down there looking and knocking on doors and everything they could do. They were getting search parties. I think there were 17 counties involved at one point and time… out helping and looking right there in that area. I’m hoping that they are on to somebody but they just can’t tell us because they don’t have hard evidence yet. I mean… we haven’t heard anything for a long time from any of them. But he’s very loved and I can’t see this being something he would ever do. Honestly, he would’ve came to one of us if he felt like he had to disappear. He would’ve reached out to one of us knowing that there are so many of us that would never judge him whatever his decision is
