A middle-aged woman has been missing for more than two years. Does anyone care?
That question nagged me as I investigated the case of 49-year-old Julie Vessigault.
Julie was last seen on January 23, 2024, in Elk Grove, California, where she lived in an apartment with her mother.
Julie had no apparent reason to run off – and even if she did, she’s a woman of limited means without the financial resources to get very far.
According to a CBS News report in 2024, the police didn’t find any sign of her – no sightings, no financial footprint, no social media activity. My investigation confirmed that none of this has changed.
Even more mysterious: Julie’s 2005 Toyota Camry disappeared along with her.
This raises another troubling question: In an era of video surveillance and license plate readers, how can a woman and her car vanish without a trace?
The most likely answer is that Julie accidentally drove into a waterway.
As for whether anyone cares, Julie’s family and friends continue to agonize about her fate. But the public at large hasn’t shown much interest, unlike in cases where the victims are young, glamorous, or notable.
Put another way: There’s a “midlife crisis” in the lack of attention shown to aging victims like Julie.
An aviation enthusiast
Like her father, Julie was obsessed with airplanes, and for more than fifteen years she attended airshows across the USA. To earn pocket money, Julie made a business out of cleaning airplanes.
Airshows draw millions of visitors to venues such as regional airports. Julie became well-known in the tightknit community of aviation enthusiasts who make these shows possible.
Julie also bartered for rides in airshow planes, which include historic warbirds, biplanes, and high-performance aircraft used for racing and stunts.
Julie’s cheerfulness and enthusiasm gained her many friends, and they yearn to know what happened to her.
Outreach by a concerned friend
I learned about Julie from Helen Murphy, a certified flight instructor and former flight attendant from Tucson who came to know Julie as a friend on Facebook.
Helen reached out via email and asked me to investigate – a common occurrence when you’re a true-crime journalist.
In a phone interview, Helen explained that since Julie’s disappearance, she’s become deeply involved in efforts to locate her missing friend.
Julie’s move to California
Both Helen and Julie’s younger sister Melanie Worden, who’s 47 and lives in Ohio, told me that Julie moved from Georgia to California in 2023 to assist her ailing father.
After Julie’s father passed away, she stayed on, sharing an apartment in Elk Grove with her mother Marjorie Worden, who’s now 79 years old and in need of special care.
Helen told me that Julie struggled with finances and suffered from incontinence, which was embarrassing for her.
Even so, said Helen, Julie’s love of aviation filled her with joy and gave her a feeling of purpose.
“The airshow community is very welcoming,” said Helen. “It became a passion and gave her a sense of belonging.”
Julie’s sudden disappearance
On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 23, 2024, Julie grabbed her car keys and a bank card and walked out of her mother’s apartment. Authorities believe she climbed into her Toyota Camry and drove off.
Melanie confirmed in a phone interview that Julie left her purse, cell phone, and a hundred dollars in cash on a counter in the apartment.
After Julie left the apartment, a traffic camera sighted her car about 2.5 miles away at the intersection of Elk Grove Boulevard & Harbour Pointe Drive – a location that suggests Julie may have been heading toward the onramp to southbound Interstate 5.
Melanie said that when she talked on the phone with Julie the prior evening, nothing seemed amiss. “We talked for a long time,” she told me. “We left it in a good place.”
Since then, the Toyota Camry hasn’t been seen, and neither has Julie.
Something bad must have happened
According to Helen, two days after Julie left the apartment she was reported missing by the woman in her 70’s who serves as the caretaker for Julie’s mother Marjorie.
When I called Marjorie’s caretaker, she declined to answer questions, instead referring me to the Elk Grove Police Department.
I emailed a list of pointed questions to Elk Grove PD, such as: “What specific efforts have been made in the past six months to locate Julie?” If and when Elk Grove PD responds, I’ll update this post.
Meanwhile, my investigation turned up only one public mention of Julie by Elk Grove PD since she disappeared: a Facebook post dated February 12, 2024, about three weeks after Julie was last seen.
“Julie has a history of going on her own without contact for periods and is considered a voluntary missing person at this time,” the post reads. “However, we would like to make sure she is ok.”
But by now, more than two years later, it seems obvious that something bad must have happened to Julie – she didn’t just run off.
Public response to Julie’s baffling disappearance has been lackluster. Unlike cases involving victims such as Nancy Guthrie or Gabby Petito, there’s been limited mention of Julie in social and conventional media.
The unfortunate reality: If Julie was young and photogenic, or related to someone famous, there would be a lot more interest in the case.
Did Julie drive into a waterway?
Based on my investigation, the strongest possibility is that Julie, who per Helen “has poor eyesight and Coke-bottle glasses,” accidentally drove into a waterway.
The Sacramento River runs through the area where Julie lived, and the region abounds in waterways such as lakes, creeks, and canals.
Example: About fourteen miles south from Marjorie’s apartment, and only a few miles from Highway 5, there’s a segment of the Sacramento River where cars are often dumped or fall in accidentally.
Another possibility, albeit remote, is that Julie drove into a waterway deliberately. Melanie said that in the past, Julie considered harming herself, and in early 2024, she was “stressing about not having a job.”
But Melanie also told me that she didn’t think Julie was suicidal, especially after their long and positive phone conversation the day before Julie disappeared.
Statistically, it’s rare that people drive into the water to harm themselves. An accident is far more likely, especially considering that Julie’s car wasn’t in good repair and, per Wunderground, the weather was unsettled on the day Julie went missing, with intermittent precipitation and mist.
Melanie and Helen both told me that the volunteer group Adventures With Purpose, which scours waterways for missing persons and their vehicles, searched for Julie’s car multiple times, turning up several submerged cars but not the missing Camry.
Despite this fruitless searching, I still believe that a waterway is the most likely explanation.
In 2025, south of the Sacramento area, I helped search for missing mom Whisper Owen and her baby Sandra. I was convinced that Whisper, driving at night in an SUV with one headlight, had driven into a waterway, and I urged authorities to focus their search in that direction.
Legendary diver Juan Heredia ultimately found Whisper’s SUV submerged in a canal. When investigating Julie’s disappearance, my experience in Whisper’s case definitely influenced my evaluation.
Is foul play a possibility?
Helen told me that she and other friends of Julie’s in the aviation community suspect that foul play led to her disappearance. “We don’t think it’s random,” she said. “We think it’s personal.”
But in 2024, Elk Grove Police Sergeant Jason Jimenez told CBS News, “We have nothing to suggest that foul play is part of this at all.”
When I talked with Melanie, she concurred. “I don’t believe it’s foul play… There’s no proof whatsoever.”
Helen also criticized law enforcement for not doing more to hunt for clues in Julie’s disappearance. “She’s a bottom-of-the-barrel victim to them.”
In 2024, when explaining to CBS News why police were stymied, Sergeant Jimenez said: “The trail has gone cold. Her vehicle hasn’t been seen. Her social media is quiet. She hasn’t contacted friends or family.”
To me, this is all the more reason why authorities should utilize today’s specialized tools to methodically comb the waterways within Julie’s likely radius of travel.
But the sad reality is that there’s limited public funding for widespread searching of waterways, and jurisdictional boundaries can complicate such an undertaking.
Bottom line: Unless there’s an outpouring of public interest in Julie’s case, or Adventures With Purpose redoubles their efforts, it’s unlikely that Julie or her car will be located anytime soon.
You can help look for Julie
Julie Margaret Vessigault is a 5’1” white female weighing 140 pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair. Her tan 2005 Toyota Camry bears Georgia license plate number SBJ4515.
Anyone with information about Julie’s disappearance is asked to call Elk Grove PD at (916) 714-5115, referencing Case # 24-0514.
