Getting high caused Karlie to panic
In October 2018, sixteen-year-old Karlie Lain Gusé lived with her dad Zachary Gusé, stepmom Melissa Gusé, and two little brothers, in a rural area along U.S. Highway 6 in eastern California, about thirty miles from the Nevada border.
After school on Friday night October 12, Karlie told Melissa she was going to a high school football game. Instead Karlie went to a house party with her boyfriend Donald Arrowood III.
When I interviewed Arrowood in 2018, he said that while they were at the party, Karlie smoked marijuana and started to panic. “She got scared of the music,” he said. “She got scared of me.”
Arrowood explained why he believed Karlie became paranoid. “She hadn’t smoked in a while,” he said. “It could’ve triggered something.”
Melissa said she received a frantic cellphone call from Karlie, went to fetch the frightened teen, and drove her back home.
Karlie’s birth mom Lindsay Fairley, of Yerington, Nevada, told me in 2018 that she suspected her daughter was high on LSD. Karlie had recently asked about the drug, and Lindsay had warned her that it was dangerous.
After Melissa drove Karie home on Friday evening, October 12, they spent a long night together as Karlie grappled with the effects of cannabis — or whatever else may have sparked the episode.
Melissa decided to make a recording on her phone, so later she could replay it for Karlie as a teaching moment. In 2018, after I started investigating the case, Melissa played the eight-minute audio as I jotted notes.
At one point Karlie said, “I really messed up today,” and Melissa tried to soothe her. “We all do things in life that we regret, drugs especially.” Karlie then thanked Melissa and said, “I love you.” But when Melissa gave Karlie a salad, the teen blurted out, “This the devil’s lettuce!”
After Melissa urged Karlie to get some sleep, the troubled girl responded, “No, I don’t want to go to sleep. You’re going to kill me.” Melissa tried to reason with her. “Why would I kill you? That’s preposterous.”
“I’m just thinking all this demonic stuff,” Karlie sobbed. “I can’t help it.”
In November 2018, my first article about the case ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/search-continues-for-california-teen-karlie-guse-1519961/
After daybreak, three witnesses saw Karlie
In the wee hours of October 13, Melissa fell asleep while lying beside Karlie on the teen’s bed. At about 5:45 a.m., Melissa woke up, looked over at Karlie and fell back asleep. When Melissa awoke again around 7:15-7:30 a.m., Karlie was gone.
Two witnesses told me they saw Karlie shortly after daybreak on Saturday October 13, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, walking through the neighborhood by herself, and holding a piece of paper.
Richard Eddy, a retiree who used to work for the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office, lived down the street from the Gusé home. He told me in 2018 that sometime between 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m., he saw a tall, slender female with long hair walk by. “She was looking up, looking around at the sky,” he said.
Kenneth Dutton, a schoolteacher who lived around the corner, told me in 2019 that he saw Karlie walking down the street toward Highway 6, holding a piece of paper in her hand. “I know her,” he said. “I saw her.”
According to the Mono County Sheriff’s Office, a “wooder” (someone going to cut firewood), who has never been publicly identified, reported seeing Karlie standing in the vicinity of White Mountain Estates Road and Highway 6.
The search for Karlie yielded no clues
Then-Sergeant Seth Clark, now Lieutenant Clark, of the Mono County Sheriff’s Office, told me in 2018 that the search for Karlie was a weeklong effort involving multiple helicopters, half-a-dozen scent dogs, and upward of 60 personnel.
Rex Hamilton, a neighbor who watched the search unfold, told me in 2018, “This is a quiet little community, but for a few days it was like ground zero up here.”
The sheriff’s office also enlisted help from the FBI in analyzing cellphone data and pursing leads.
A week after Karlie disappeared, the sheriff’s office set up a checkpoint along Highway 6. About 50 people reported that they’d driven through on October 13, but none recalled seeing anyone matching Karlie’s description.
The media furor focused on Melissa
Karlie’s disappearance attracted nationwide attention in print, broadcast, and social media. Many people pointed fingers at Melissa based on her demeanor in Facebook livestreams she posted during the search for Karlie.
“One thing that bothers me as a licensed psychotherapist is the stepmother’s eyes shift constantly which indicates lying,” read a YouTube post by Francie Hartsog of Davidson, North Carolina.
Lindsay, the teen’s birth mom, publicly questioned Melissa’s credibility. “I’ve been hearing about four or five stories now,” she told Nancy Grace in an October 2018 podcast.
On a May 2019 episode of “Dr. Phil,” Linday speculated about what she thought happened to Karlie. “I believe my daughter had a fatal drug overdose … and I believe that very early morning, Melissa saw her with her eyes open, and I think that’s when my daughter passed.”
But after interviewing the three eyewitnesses, searching the Gusé home, and repeatedly questioning Melissa and Zac, the Mono County Sheriff’s Office found no evidence to implicate Karlie’s father or stepmother in Karlie’s disappearance. My second article about the case ran a year after Karlie disappeared: https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/a-year-later-still-no-answers-to-california-teens-disappearance-1864708/
Years later, the mystery persists
As the five-year anniversary of Karlie’s disappearance approached, I reviewed my case files again, conducted more interviews, and revisited the scene.
Given that Karlie hadn’t surfaced yet, two theories seemed most plausible. One was that she walked deep into the desert, hunkered down outside the search zone, and perished. Given how exhaustive the search was, and the fact no one had stumbled across her remains, this theory seemed like a long shot.
The second theory was that Karlie got into a vehicle, either of her own will or under duress, and was transported somewhere else. While this appeared the most likely explanation, statistically an abduction would be an anomaly, because the vast majority of missing teen cases involve runaways. But the longer the case remains unsolved, the more likely abduction is the explanation.
The latest from Mono County and the FBI is that Karlie may have been spotted in Tonopah, Nevada, after she vanished from alongside Highway 6. Here’s my most recent article about the case: https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-nevada/case-of-missing-california-teen-leads-to-nevada-2917690/
In July 2023, I followed Highway 6 north from where Karlie disappeared, stopping along the way to conduct interviews. Kerry Saulque, a waitress at the Benton Station café in Benton, California, said she was working on October 13, 2018, when two people stopped in and asked if she’d seen the missing teen. Afterwards, there was no other follow up that Saulque knew about.
“Whatever happened and whoever did it, they did a pretty good job of covering it up,” said Saulque.
At the California state agricultural station a few miles from the border with Nevada, I confirmed that there weren’t any security cameras in 2018 monitoring traffic on the northbound side of Highway 6.
