Crime Documentary - The Samantha Bonnell story
Viewer discretion is advised. Some may find this content disturbing. This is a documentary I found interesting.
She left Alaska a few days before she turned 18, filled with dreams of freedom and traveling the country. A few months later, she would wind up abandoned and dead on a California highway.
The death of Samantha Bonnell has left her family and police with many unanswered questions, but perhaps the most puzzling one is this: Why did her luggage show up on a Hanahan carport five months after she died?
Bonnell left her family's home in Palmer, Alaska, just outside of Anchorage, in March 2005, a few days before her birthday. She traveled to California to be with a boyfriend. Bonnell had just started working for the company selling subscriptions when she called home for the last time in September 2005. Weir never heard from her daughter again and began a frantic search that would last 19 months.
Five months later, in February 2006, a Hanahan resident reported finding a blue suitcase and a black backpack that didn't belong to him in his carport on 1106 River Road.
"That's one of the big mysteries in this," Weir said. "We have no idea how and why her suitcase got there. I would love to hear from anybody who has any information." Greyhound Lines luggage tags bore Samantha's name and phone numbers for her mother in Alaska and her grandmother in Washington state. The bags held clothing and a picture of a black man and black woman with "Tee-n-Nate" written on the back, a police report states. An officer called Weir and she was able to file a missing persons report, something she had not been able to do until then because her daughter was 18 and considered an adult by law.
The case baffled Hanahan police. "We have no idea how it got here," Lt. Michael Fowler said of the luggage. "There's just no way of knowing. We'd love to know." Another eight months passed without answers. Fearing the luggage would be destroyed, Weir requested that Hanahan police send it to her.
When it arrived, she could identify some random contents as her daughter's: a sweater, a lone sock, and a leather backpack she gave her as a gift. Some things clearly weren't hers: a few sports jerseys, two pairs of jeans with a waist size in the upper 30s and at least a dozen sports caps.
Weir felt certain something was seriously wrong after the first Christmas passed without a call or visit.
In early 2006, she began searching Jane Doe sketches on the Internet. At that point, she still hoped to find her daughter alive. Though Weir's actual job was managing a tri-plex, the search consumed most of her time. She was reluctant to leave the house for fear she would miss a phone call.
In mid-March of this year, Weir was going through sketches of found remains on a missing persons Web site, www.doenetwork.org. She found one from California that haunted her, even though some details weren't right.
She left Alaska a few days before she turned 18, filled with dreams of freedom and traveling the country. A few months later, she would wind up abandoned and dead on a California highway.
The death of Samantha Bonnell has left her family and police with many unanswered questions, but perhaps the most puzzling one is this: Why did her luggage show up on a Hanahan carport five months after she died?
Bonnell left her family's home in Palmer, Alaska, just outside of Anchorage, in March 2005, a few days before her birthday. She traveled to California to be with a boyfriend. Bonnell had just started working for the company selling subscriptions when she called home for the last time in September 2005. Weir never heard from her daughter again and began a frantic search that would last 19 months.
Five months later, in February 2006, a Hanahan resident reported finding a blue suitcase and a black backpack that didn't belong to him in his carport on 1106 River Road.
"That's one of the big mysteries in this," Weir said. "We have no idea how and why her suitcase got there. I would love to hear from anybody who has any information." Greyhound Lines luggage tags bore Samantha's name and phone numbers for her mother in Alaska and her grandmother in Washington state. The bags held clothing and a picture of a black man and black woman with "Tee-n-Nate" written on the back, a police report states. An officer called Weir and she was able to file a missing persons report, something she had not been able to do until then because her daughter was 18 and considered an adult by law.
The case baffled Hanahan police. "We have no idea how it got here," Lt. Michael Fowler said of the luggage. "There's just no way of knowing. We'd love to know." Another eight months passed without answers. Fearing the luggage would be destroyed, Weir requested that Hanahan police send it to her.
When it arrived, she could identify some random contents as her daughter's: a sweater, a lone sock, and a leather backpack she gave her as a gift. Some things clearly weren't hers: a few sports jerseys, two pairs of jeans with a waist size in the upper 30s and at least a dozen sports caps.
Weir felt certain something was seriously wrong after the first Christmas passed without a call or visit.
In early 2006, she began searching Jane Doe sketches on the Internet. At that point, she still hoped to find her daughter alive. Though Weir's actual job was managing a tri-plex, the search consumed most of her time. She was reluctant to leave the house for fear she would miss a phone call.
In mid-March of this year, Weir was going through sketches of found remains on a missing persons Web site, www.doenetwork.org. She found one from California that haunted her, even though some details weren't right.