The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And it will just be me this week. I wanted to just give a little note here at the top. So this week's episode and next week's episode are going to be related to each other. They take place in the same area. So I just wanted to throw that out there that it's not quite a two-parter, but there is a connected episode that we will be airing next week. So next week won't be a cold case. It'll still be another missing person case.
But I really wanted to bring these cases together. So let's just get into it. I just wanted to give a bit of a content warning at the top that there are mentions of suicide in today's podcast. If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, you can dial 988 if you're in the United States. Or you can visit 988lifeline.org to speak with somebody. Today we're going to be talking about the missing person case of Holly White. This takes place in May of 2016 in Taos, New Mexico.
But first, a little bit about Holly. Holly is 49 years old in 2016. Those close to Holly say that she was meticulously organized. She paid attention to the details. But above all, she was an extremely warm person. You gravitated towards her and you couldn't help but feel comfortable with her. She was always welcoming. She had a dog named Rosie, who she loved. Holly was well known in the Taos community. For over 20 years, she worked as the general manager for the Taos Center for the Arts.
But she had recently put in her two weeks notice. Holly's husband, Jeff White, had moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is about two and a half hours away, to pursue a new job. He had rented a house there and had been fixing it up, and now Holly was due to join him. Holly was excited to move and to start this new chapter of her life. She already had an interview set up to be an office manager for a dentist there in Albuquerque.
But mostly she was excited to be with her husband again and to live as a couple again. And now a timeline of events. Thursday, May 5, 2016. Holly works one of her final days at the Taos Center for the Arts. Her official last day would be next Friday, May 13. Holly spent the day training her replacement as the general manager in the office.
That evening, Holly texted with a friend around 9.20 p.m. and also texted with her best friend Cynthia to meet up the next morning for their daily morning walk. Holly stays up playing words with friends and chatting using the in-game communication until about 10.30 p.m. The next day, Friday, May 6, 2016, Holly had made plans to meet with her friend Cynthia to go on their morning walk together in the Kit Carson Park area.
This is something they had done together almost daily for nearly eight years. They had a plan to take their morning walk and then meet up again later that day for Holly's going away party due to her upcoming move to Albuquerque. When Holly didn't show up to their meeting spot and after not answering phone calls or text messages, Cynthia decides to head over to her bus front's house.
When Cynthia arrived at the house, she noticed that Holly's car was gone, but no one was answering the front door and phone calls continued to go unanswered. So Cynthia let herself in using the spare key that she had been given. When Cynthia entered the home, Holly's dog Rosie greeted her at the door. Cynthia noticed that Holly's purse was near the front door. Holly took her purse everywhere with her. Even when they would meet up for their early morning walks, Holly would have her purse.
Cynthia also found Holly's phone still charging next to the bed. The phone had a missed alarm on it. As if Holly had planned to get up for the morning walk, Cynthia makes her way over to the next door neighbor, who was also the realtor that was helping Holly and Jeff sell their towels home since they were making the official move to Albuquerque. Cynthia asked the neighbor if they have any idea where Holly might be. They did not.
Neither Cynthia or the next door neighbor had a phone number for Jeff, so they each called around to some folks who worked at the Taos Art Center to get his number and call him. When Holly's husband is reached in Albuquerque, he has no idea where Holly is at either and asks that Cynthia call the police. He immediately leaves and makes the two and a half hour drive to Taos to help look for his wife. He had already planned to come back to Taos that day to join Holly at her going away party.
As Cynthia is waiting in the driveway for police to come, a member of the Taos Art Center calls Cynthia to let her know that Holly's car had been found. It was parked at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. The keys were still in the vehicle, inside the cup holder. Cynthia immediately heads there and talks with a roadside vendor that said the car was already there when she arrived at 6.15 a.m.
On the police side of things, the case is immediately handed off to the state police and they launch a search of the gorge. Police also make note that there is some dried grass on the floor in front of the passenger seat of Holly's vehicle. Holly was known to keep her vehicle very tidy, so the presence of the grass was odd to those that knew her. So just a little bit of background around the gorge bridge. This is a beautiful space.
If you just type this place into Google Maps and just take in the street view, it's really a breathtaking sight. It's a gorgeous area. Over the years, people have used this bridge to die by suicide. So as soon as Holly's car is found here, police begin to believe that this is what happened. But her family and friends are adamant that she would not do that and that if she did, she would have left a note.
Even more, Cynthia tells police that May 6th, this is that day that Holly goes missing, is Cynthia's birthday. There is no way that her bus run would ruin the day like that. That evening, instead of having the goodbye party Holly's friends, family, and co-workers organize a search party and pass out flyers for Holly, they search the area around the bridge and neither Holly's friends or the state police are able to find any evidence of her.
That weekend, Saturday, May 7th and Sunday, May 8th, police spend the weekend searching along the Gorge Bridge area for Holly. They bring out the ground search and rescue team, cadaver dogs, and a helicopter to assist in their search. Police also bring in a scent dog who's only able to track the scent of Holly near her vehicle nowhere else on the bridge or in the parking lot. After the weekend search, no sign of Holly is found and police suspended the search indefinitely.
Police say that typically when someone jumps from the bridge, that they are usually found by area rafters and usually later in the summer when the water levels have gone down. Holly's friends and family spend the weekend putting flyers around Tows to bring awareness about Holly's missing person status. On Wednesday, May 11th, Holly has been missing for five days now. Police hold a press conference and tell the public that at this time there is no evidence of foul play.
A state police spokesperson says, quote, it is possible that she jumped and just didn't tell anyone how she was feeling, end quote. But those closest to Holly do not believe that she was thinking of taking her own life. Cynthia points out that she would have never left her dog alone and without a plan to be cared for and she had not mentioned any thoughts of hurting herself. A group of kayakers who had already had a trip planned for this day also aid in their efforts to help find Holly.
One of the rafters' mothers was friends with Holly and she asked him to keep an eye out. The rafters tell police that they had found a woman's shoe floating among debris in the river, a black mesh sketcher's shoe. Police say that the size of the shoe was a match for Holly, but her family and friends are unsure if the shoe was hers. She owned another set of the sketcher's shoes, but they were in a different color.
Her family and friends believe that the shoe could be hers, but her husband thinks that if it is her, then whoever took her had parked the car at the gorge as a decoy and then threw the shoe over to throw police off. The next day, Thursday, May 12th, police conduct another search of the Rio Grande, covering 16 miles and with a dive team. No trace of Holly is found during this search. On Wednesday, May 18th, Holly has been missing for 12 days. Her husband, Jeff, sits down with local media.
She tells them that he had last talked on the phone with her Thursday night, the night before she went missing. He says, quote, We were making plans to go to the party. We were just laughing and joking, just like always. My take on this, really, is she got taken. Somebody came to the door probably early Friday morning, woke her up, she knew him, and she kind of answered the door. I don't know any other scenario because she isn't the type of person to leave without a note.
Everything was here, her belongings, her cell phone, her charge cards, her license. End quote. Jeff confirms to the local paper that he was a suspect at first, but remains firm that he was in their new house in Albuquerque when Holly went missing. Jeff was renting the new home from his new boss, who lived next door, and confirms that Jeff was at work the next morning. The whole experience has been upending for Jeff. He says, quote, I couldn't even think on Friday.
I didn't even really eat until Sunday when a buddy came over. I was just shocked. Now I'm confused. I don't know what really went on. I know damn well she didn't jump. She didn't leave me. There would have been a note. She's not a cold person. She wouldn't leave her dog. I don't know why she would just leave on her own. She just wouldn't. End quote. Her family and friends remain steadfast in their belief that she wouldn't jump off of the bridge. And if she would, she would have left a note.
They all believe, along with Jeff, that someone took Holly against her will Thursday night or Friday morning and parked the car at the gorge as a decoy. However, police say at this time that most likely she jumped off the bridge and they do not suspect foul play. Jeff is also critical of the police. He says, quote, they are just so slow. We are just moving at a snail's pace.
He also tells the local media that he had to consider every scenario since the police won't, such as if Holly had been having an affair. Jeff doesn't think she was, but wanted police to test the bedsheets to make sure there was no unknown DNA. Jeff said, quote, a neighbor came and said how sorry he was. And he told me there was a black Toyota Solera with Colorado plates. End quote. The car was seen at Holly and Jeff's home the day before she vanished.
Jeff also learned that on the day that Holly disappeared, there were two men seen leaving the gorge that police have yet to talk to. Jeff says, quote, if she is down in the gorge, she didn't go by herself. She was pushed or something. End quote. In July of 2016, so it's been two months since Holly went missing, and there is still no sign of what happened to her. Around the community of Taos, however, tragic death by suicide continues to happen both on and off the bridge.
The community implores that more be done at the bridge to stop people from jumping, and mental health professionals in Taos urge those in powers to put more money towards mental health before someone even has to think of driving to the bridge. As of 2024, they have installed crisis hotline phones, but no other preventative measures such as netting have been put in place. In August of 2016, police send Holly's computer and cell phone off to be forensically analyzed.
Police are pretty tight lipped about what was found on her devices, but do say, quote, she had many friends she spoke with online. End quote. Police also confirm that it was both in-state and out-of-state people that Holly had been talking with. Police also tell the media that they had checked and confirmed that she did not fly out on any international flights the day she went missing and are following up with domestic flights for any potential clues.
It's unclear exactly why, but on August 26th of 2016, so it's been over three months since Holly disappeared, Holly's case is moved from the Uniform Bureau to the State's Police Criminal Investigation Bureau. But police remain firm that she is still considered missing at this time and no foul play has been uncovered in her case. On September 5th, 2016, a private investigator, Elaine Graves, is hired by Holly's father to help solve the case.
She hires two kayakers to search the Rio Grande in an area known as the Taos Box. Nothing is found during the search. On September 8th, it's now been four months since Holly vanished, State Police Lieutenant Edwards Martinez tells local media that police have ruled out the possibility that she jumped from the bridge. They also have ruled out that she simply got up and walked away from her life.
Lieutenant Martinez says, quote, We met with the criminal investigations lieutenant and sergeant and we went over the whole case and discussed it. Suicide seemed unlikely for a couple of reasons. We found in her computer that she had plans for her future. She was looking for a job in Albuquerque and she was trying to sell her house and planning to move out of Taos. Also she didn't take any identification. She didn't take any money, her bank accounts have no activity on them, or her credit cards.
We ran her social security card through the system to see if the numbers were used to find employment elsewhere and none of that panned out. End quote. Police are confident to rule out death by suicide since other people have jumped from the bridge since Holly went missing and all of their bodies have been able to be recovered from the river. In fact, police are confident that Holly did not jump.
In January of 2017, Holly has been missing for eight months and there are simply no leads in her case. Jeff is asked by the private investigator to take a polygraph test. He passes the test and hopes that police and the private investigator will at least believe him now when he says that he wasn't involved and move on to other theories. Also in Jeff's defense, he did ask to be polygraphed to be cleared. He wanted to be officially ruled out so everyone could focus on other things in the case.
Jeff maintains that he believes that Holly answered the door to someone she thought she knew or since she was such a kind person to help someone in need. On May 5th, 2017, at the one year mark of Holly being missing, her family and the PI run a full page ad in the Taos newspaper asking for more information and offering a $5,000 reward. The ad lists out some new details in the case and also outlines the great lengths that they have gone to try to uncover leads.
The private investigator has called psychics and also has had an animal communicator come in to work with Holly's dog to help the dog process any trauma that she may have had the night that Holly disappeared. They also say that a vehicle matching the description of the car seen the morning before Holly vanished was found abandoned near the New Mexico Colorado state line shortly after Holly disappeared.
They asked if anybody knows anything more about this car or more about Holly to please call them. And then the case really drops out of the media. There was a story ran in May of 2023 to mark the seven years of Holly's disappearance. The private investigator that was hired by the family back in 2016 is still working the case and she says that the case is not cold, that she still occasionally gets a lead in the case that she follows up on, just none of them have led to Holly.
She is interested in interviewing multiple people of interest in the case, mainly from people that Holly talked to online. The PI says, quote, there are always hopeful leads where a hunter or rafter will find something suspicious like maybe bones. So we'll have the bones tested to see if they're animal or human. We have actually found both, but unfortunately, none have led to Holly. We found clothes in different areas we've checked on, no Holly.
We've had lots of sightings that we've looked into, local and also in other states, and they've all ended up not being Holly, end quote. The PI still doesn't believe that Holly jumped from the bridge and police have dismissed this as a theory. But she says, quote, there have been three to four jumpers a year on that bridge since Holly disappeared in 2016.
For each of those persons, you've had the sheriff's department, sometimes the state police, divers, rafters, drones, helicopters, people on foot recovering those bodies three to four years since 2016. So that's how many times people have been down there. A lot of times in the same area to recover these bodies. It just seems like Holly's body or something would have been seen, end quote. But that is really the last update that I could find on Holly White.
So if you know anything about the disappearance of Holly White in May of 2016, please call private investigator Elaine Graves at 575-613-3415. And the sources for the timeline today come from the Taos News and the Santa Fe, New Mexico. So that is the missing person case of Holly White. Like I mentioned at the top of the show, this is a two parter. So just to lay a little bit of groundwork for next week. Next week's case will also take place near this bridge, the Taos River Gorge Bridge.
I actually found this case researching next week's case. And I knew that I needed to start here for both of these stories to make sense with each other. So I needed to start with Holly's missing person case. And I was really shocked by this. I think it's really important to remember when you maul this case over, is that both police and Holly's friends and families have said she didn't jump. She didn't jump off of that bridge. She didn't die by suicide.
So that makes me think that, you know, her car was parked there as a decoy. This bridge, as I kind of mentioned in the timeline, is unfortunately a little bit notorious for people jumping off of it. Not unlike the Golden Gate Bridge also has that same kind of history. So someone kind of using that to their advantage to park a car there to throw police off of their trail, that part does kind of make sense.
And you know, there are just like a couple of things about the car that stood out to her family and friends and also investigators. The mention of the grass on the floorboards in front of the passenger seat, people thought was really interesting, especially because we kind of know Holly's movement the day before she disappeared. So that Thursday, Fridays when she was reported missing.
So we kind of know her movements and nowhere in there does anybody talk about getting in her car and sitting in the passenger seat where maybe they would track grass in. I would be curious to know if anybody had sat in her car that week at all. And if they had, you know, was there grass there? Usually if a car is very neat, like you'll kind of notice if there's dirt on one floorboard. So that was something that stood out to family and friends.
And then also, I just thought the detail of the keys being in the cup holder, not necessarily in the ignition was interesting. I don't really have any like big speculative things on what that might mean. But to me, it's just like, you know, when you drive a car, you park it, you go to get out of it, you kind of naturally turn it off and pull the keys out of the ignition. So it almost seems like you know, an afterthought that somebody said, oh, and then put them in the cup holder.
You could argue that maybe Holly would do that if she didn't plan on coming back to the car at all. But as her family and friends have said from the beginning, and as police later also said, they do not believe she jumped off of that bridge.
I was reading in all of these articles, and it mentions that the Taos search and rescue team that work in these instances where somebody does die by suicide from jumping off of the bridge, when they know for certain that that is what has happened, they have recovered the body almost 100% of the time. So they really know what they're doing. And they know the terrain really well.
And the rafters in the area, they talk about knowing the river really well, like you know, where you kind of get hung up on things where somebody could get stuck. And so they also volunteer their time and search the river. And nothing is found of Holly's. There is that shoe, which I have a lot of questions about. It's never really answered if it is Holly's or not. We know that she did have that shoe in a different color in her closet.
Some people when they really like something, they'll buy it in multiple colors if that's available to them. I don't know if Holly was that kind of person. Nobody mentions that as like a support to this. And nobody seems to pull out a photograph of her wearing the color shoe that they found, the black mesh Skechers shoe that they found in the river. A detail I did find interesting that was reported by the rafters who found the shoe is that they said the shoe wasn't sun bleached at all.
They mentioned that, you know, they're out on the river a lot. We've seen a lot of shoes and ones that have been out there for a while. Like you can usually tell like there's sun bleach to them. But this one didn't have any, which led them to think that it hadn't been there for that long. So that is interesting. But again, it's not ever really confirmed if that is Holly's shoe. You know, in the future for this case, I really hope that there are some big resources put towards searching for Holly.
Her family has obviously been doing so much of that like work, you know, and also via her private investigator has been doing a lot of that work over the years of searching for signs of Holly searching for clues. But I just hope that at some point those like police resources and specialties and you know, all those things they have at their fingertips of, you know, helicopters and drones and dogs and all of that.
I hope those resources are given to the family to help search for Holly and to find out what happened to her because something is off here. Again, if you know anything about the disappearance of Holly White, please call private investigator Elaine Graves at 575-613-3415. We'll be sharing pictures of course of Holly on our Instagram. If you're not following us, you can find us at Cold and Missing. Our profile picture on Instagram is the same as our podcast cover.
So you should be able to spot us if you just search our name. And I want to say thank you. We had a couple of really wonderful reviews come in this week in Apple Podcast. So if you have a second if you're in Apple Podcast, if you can go ahead and give us a five star rating, write us a review.
It is so helpful and other people finding this podcast finding us finding these cases getting to know these cases that maybe they didn't know about and it's just one more person, you know, thinking about Holly, looking for Holly knows about Holly like all of our cases deserve that. So your reviews, your recommendations to family and friends go so far and getting these stories out there. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
And if you want to find more episodes, transcripts of all our podcast episodes, our YouTube, any of that if you want to donate if you want to write us a review, but you don't have Apple Podcasts, you can go to www.coldandmissing.com and do all of that over there. Thank you again so much for listening to cold and missing. Such an honor to share these stories and to be a part of your week. So thanks for joining me. Thanks for listening to cold and missing. I'm your host Allie.
Have a good week and stay safe.