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I'm your host Marc, and this is Mountain State Mysteries.
Today I wanted to bring you an update on the case of Gretchen Fleming, a girl who has been missing from
the West Virginia since December 4th, 2022. There is a lot to update you on, so pay close attention, because you may hold one of the missing puzzle pieces to Gretchen's case.
On December 27th, 2022, we dropped a bonus episode on Gretchen. Since her name hit headlines, we have stayed up to date on everything with her case.
On October 16th, 2023, Gretchen was featured on Investigation Discovery's show, Disappeared, which is one of the main sources for this episode.
After you listen to this episode, you need to head over to Discovery Plus and watch it. Again, that's Disappeared, Season 11, Episode 6, titled Gone With the Night.
On December 3rd, 2022, in Parkersburg, West Virginia, Gretchen Fleming is one of many missing and unsolved cases coming out of Parkersburg.
Growing up, Gretchen was mostly raised by her father, David Fleming. They would always ride bikes together.
When Gretchen was a child, him and her mother split. And growing up, Gretchen did not have a close relationship with her mother, but would still talk to her here and there.
David met Jennifer, who became Gretchen's stepmom. Jennifer recalls the first time she ever met Gretchen, saying, quote,
It was right after she turned 14, and I don't think she was real excited for her dad to have a girlfriend, end quote.
Jennifer had two twins and soon got pregnant with her and David's child. She said whenever Gretchen needed anything, she would always come to her.
David said Gretchen and her friends would thrift shop and put outfits together. She was also involved with clubs and school.
After high school, Gretchen wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her life. She just knew that she wanted to move to a bigger city.
Her dad said that her goal was to move to North Carolina, either the Charlotte or Raleigh area, and just start a new chapter in life.
So she did just that. Gretchen ended up meeting a boy who was from Charleston, South Carolina. They dated for around a year and for some reason that no one really knows, they ended up breaking up and going their separate ways.
After this, Gretchen would move back to Parkersburg, West Virginia.
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After the breakup and the move back home, Gretchen just felt like she needed to take time to regroup and figure everything out.
So she ended up moving in with her grandparents. Gretchen did not have her driver's license. She would say, why drive? I can Uber or I can go with my friends.
David remembers Gretchen talking about wanting to become a flight attendant after she moved back to Parkersburg. Before her disappearance, he said she was preparing herself for that.
Since she was living with her grandparents, Gretchen knew that they were set in their ways and she knew that at 10pm, if she wasn't home, the door would be locked.
In the disappeared episode, Jennifer said it wasn't uncommon for her to stay with friends for the weekend or three to four days.
They would take her back and forth to work and she said that she had a big bag that she would pack everything in.
David Fleming, Gretchen's dad, said the last time he saw Gretchen was on November 29th, 2022. Just nine days before she went missing.
David started a new job as a wrestling coach so he was out of town. On Monday, December 5th, he sent Gretchen a text.
Quote, Hey Gretchen, just checking in. Been busy with the new job, but I'm back in town if you're around.
He sent her another text because she didn't reply.
Quote, You free to talk this weekend? He said he didn't think much about her not replying because she was notorious for letting her phone die and losing it and getting back to him within a few days.
He said there was always an open line of communication between him and Gretchen that they would talk on the phone and sometimes they go a week to a week and a half not talking on the phone.
Let me note that during this time, her family had no idea Gretchen was missing due to the fact that she would go and stay with her friends.
Be busy with work, not text her call back right away. They truly felt nothing of it. That is, until December 11th, the eighth day she's been missing.
Jennifer said that her and David were at the house when there was a knock on the door. It was David's mom. She went into the house
and said, quote, I'm worried. I haven't talked to her sing Gretchen since December 3rd, end quote.
She said I dropped her off for work and she told me she wouldn't be coming home that night. It was a Saturday night.
So Gretchen was going to get off work and go hang out with some friends like she did most weekends.
She also said a few days went by and I didn't worry about it or think about it much because that's just common.
She goes and hangs out with her friends. She said when it got to Thursday, she started to get a little bit concerned.
By Friday, she hadn't heard from her. Saturday, she was really worried.
So Sunday, she went to David's house and said something's wrong.
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David tried to call Gretchen. Jennifer tried to call her. Each call immediately went straight to voicemail.
So they knew her phone was dead. David sent Gretchen a text quote Gretchen, where are you? We're looking for you.
We're worried. Please call us end quote. And the text went with no response.
So David and Jennifer drove around to every bar in Parkersburg to see if they could find any sign of Gretchen.
One of the places Gretchen liked to go to was called the front row. So her dad and Jennifer went there to see if anyone had seen Gretchen.
David asked the bartender if she had seen Gretchen lately. She said yes, that she was here last weekend and that one of friends dropped her purse off here.
David asked if he could have her purse. She handed him the purse and when he opened it, he saw her phone ID and her credit card.
When David told Jennifer that he found her purse, she went, what do you mean you found her purse? He told her that was returned to the front row a week ago.
Jennifer remembers saying quote, this is not good at all. End quote.
The bartender mentioned the guy that she left with. David automatically thought that this was more than a missing person case. He knew something bad happened.
David and Jennifer ran into some of Gretchen's friends and they also mentioned that she left with the guy and that they were going to the My Way Lounge for karaoke night.
So that gave them another place to look for clues on where Gretchen is. When David and Jennifer got there, the same DJ for karaoke night was there.
And he told them that she was there that night with the guy that she was with at the front row, whose name was John.
David and Jennifer found out that John drove Gretchen to the My Way Bar and Lounge. They had no idea who this John guy was or where he lived.
Before Gretchen went missing, her dad said that Gretchen was going through a hard time.
Her mom passed away and it was very sudden and Gretchen was the only person that could give consent for them to take her off of life support, which is just awful for someone as young as Gretchen to go through.
Jennifer said that she thought Gretchen was closed off because of that. She said she didn't have the best relationship with her own mom and she thought that it was just overwhelming for Gretchen.
With that and her breakup, her dad felt like she was in a lost place when she moved back to Parkersburg.
With everything that happened, Jennifer said Gretchen never lost hope. She said she was struggling and trying to figure things out, but she was going out and having fun with friends.
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Like I said earlier, David and Jennifer started at the front row sports bar trying to get some answers to what happened and that's when they found her purse.
When they got home, they took her iPhone out of her purse and put it on charge. Gretchen didn't have a passcode on her phone, so Jennifer started to go through all of her messages and social media.
The last contact she had with anyone was on Saturday, December 3rd, when the last time they saw her and when was the last time you heard from her and no one heard from her or seen her since December 3rd.
The next morning, they went straight to the police station to file a missing persons report.
Detective James Zimmerman has been investigating Gretchen's case since December 12th, 2022.
Detective Zimmerman said with Gretchen's case what concern them was that the family had located her purse and cell phone in the length of time that the family hasn't communicated with Gretchen was very concerning.
Chief of Police Matthew Bord said his initial thought was to be concerned and that he tried to not jump to conclusions.
He said after a conversation it was agreed upon that it would be an all hands on deck kind of circumstance.
Right then and there, Detective Zimmerman started reaching out to local hospitals and local shelters and checking her social media if there was anything that she had posted.
And they checked their systems to see if any officers had any contact with her since December 3rd, 2022, which they did not.
The Friends of Fleming's family and the community of Parkersburg has shared Gretchen's missing poster on Facebook and all over town.
According to the police, Gretchen has told me anytime she's in Parkersburg for work she's seen signs, in yards, where people have talked about Gretchen's case with her.
John, the man Gretchen left the front row with, reached out to police when he saw that she was missing.
John said that when he spoke to John, he told him that they started their night off at the front row. From there, Gretchen mentioned going to the My Way lounge for karaoke.
So John said they stopped there that evening. He also mentioned that when they traveled from the front row to My Way, she had left her purse and cell phone in his vehicle.
Later that night, he was looking for her and got concerned that he couldn't find Gretchen. He started to look around the downtown area.
When he wasn't able to locate Gretchen, he returned back to the My Way lounge, seeing if she had came back while he was out looking for her.
He then went home and later that day returned her purse to the front row bar, hoping she would visit there again and get it.
He said the reason that he returned the purse to the front row is because he didn't know where Gretchen lived.
He knew that was a place he visited a lot, so he thought she would get back there and get her purse.
John was really worried and upset. He said, quote, I came out and she was gone. I don't know what happened to her. She just disappeared.
End quote.
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On December 13th, 2022, the My Way lounge contacted David over Facebook Messenger and said they have video surveillance if you would like to go there and watch it.
He, of course, said yes. So he grabbed Jennifer and they went to the My Way lounge.
David said the video showed Gretchen innocently just sitting there at the end of the bar by herself. John was a couple seats down from her and was talking to other people.
He said then a man coming out of the gambling room stands beside her and ends up bringing her a drink.
They ended up talking and they go back into the gambling room together.
For about 45 minutes, then they come out of the gambling room and the man ends up walking out the door and Gretchen is walking out right behind him.
David said John ended up going to the bathroom. So when Gretchen came out of the gambling room to leave, he did not see her leave.
So when he came out of the bathroom, the bar was getting ready to close down and he was looking for her.
The bartenders told David and Jennifer that Gretchen left with Preston Pierce.
The owners of the My Way lounge released the video footage to police. Due to the active investigation, the Parkersburg Police Department are unable to release the footage from the My Way lounge.
From how the bartenders and owners were talking, Preston Pierce was not a regular customer at My Way. They said he may have only been there a time or two before.
To this day, no one knows how he got Gretchen to go into the gambling room with him or how he even got her to leave with him.
They think he may have told her if she needed a ride, he would give her one.
Police made contact with Preston Pierce. He was questioned in the early morning hours of December 13th.
Detective Zimmerman said he described who Gretchen was and then he was able to recall the accounts he had that evening with Gretchen.
Preston said that he and Gretchen had left the bar together and he dropped her off in the downtown area of Parkersburg.
Due to the active investigation, the Parkersburg Police Department are unable to give specific details including the location he said he took Gretchen to on the morning of December 4th, 2022.
On December 14th, the Parkersburg Police Department obtained video footage from multiple surveillance cameras and that's when they were able to reconstruct where Preston went in the early morning hours of December 4th.
From the footage they obtained, they tracked a car which they believed to belong to Preston and they could not see Gretchen get out of the vehicle or see her walking in the downtown area.
They believed that the vehicle was traveling in the direction of Preston's home.
Jennifer said when she heard this, she immediately knew something bad happened.
Her gut instinct told her that this wasn't normal.
Detective Zimmerman said at this point things were not adding up.
He said Preston and a lot of the statements he gave police from that evening were inconsistent with the footage they collected.
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Due to the circumstances of the information police had, it led Detective Zimmerman to draft up search warrants and meet with the local prosecutor.
The prosecutor reviewed the search warrants and were able to present that to a circuit court judge who believed in the probable cause to do a search warrant of Preston's home, vehicle, and storage unit.
During the search warrant, the Parkersburg Police Department were trying to play Gretchen inside the home, vehicle, and storage unit.
After they collected evidence, they went back to the police department and started picking up all of the evidence that they had.
Sadly, the search did not lead them to Gretchen's body.
When Jennifer heard about the search warrants, she decided she was going to do some research of her own.
She got on Facebook and found out Preston Pierce has worked for DoorDash.
Jennifer said she searched his name and she never saw anything positive about Preston.
Even during my research on Preston, I could not find one positive thing about this man.
From almost every single complaint I've seen, it was a woman who ordered food and he delivered it.
Then he would text them multiple times.
He would ask them if they could go on dates and if the dates would lead to more.
He would bang on the doors when people said to leave the food at the door.
People have banned him from coming to their jobs delivering food due to his creepiness.
In February, just two months after Gretchen's disappearance, the community put together a search out at Mountwood Park, which is close to Preston's home.
Over 500 people showed up to help in the search of Gretchen.
During the search, items were collected but none, which the Parkersburg Police Department believed had anything to do with Gretchen.
On the morning of January 6, 2023, just five weeks since Gretchen went missing, a reporter from a local news station reports.
The body of the missing woman had been found.
The article said, West Virginia officials found suspected human remains two hours from where the missing woman was last seen.
Jennifer and David had no idea this new story broke until Emma, Gretchen's sister, came running upstairs and said, quote,
I heard they found Gretchen, end quote.
David tried to get in touch with Detective Zimmerman, but he was already en route to try to figure out why no one was notified.
Detective Zimmerman said, though, the various law enforcement agencies that he did contact said the description did not match Gretchen's.
Detective Zimmerman contacted the Fleming family to tell them that the body was found was not Gretchen's.
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In January of 2023, the Parkersburg Police Department got a tip that Gretchen may have been put down a whale.
With this tip, Detective Zimmerman took a crew and they went to the whale with a drilling company.
They drained the whale looking for Gretchen.
The whale was located in Ravenswood, West Virginia, just a 36 minute drive from Parkersburg.
Detective Zimmerman said it took them about a week to complete the search and one of the most challenging things was having to drain the whale.
They searched the whale, the woods, and the river bank around the drain, not knowing if Gretchen could be somewhere close.
After searching for about a week, the Parkersburg Police Department felt comfortable marking it off of their list as not a place Gretchen could be.
As of today, the investigation is still very active.
The Parkersburg Police Department searches every single lead that comes in.
For nearly 11 months, Gretchen's family has wondered what happened to her.
That pain is only amplified by the lack of answers.
Someone out there knows something that could help the Parkersburg Police Department solve this case and give Gretchen the justice she deserves.
If that person is listening to this podcast or if you know anything about Gretchen's case, it's time to speak up.
If you have any information on the whereabouts of Gretchen Fleming, please call Detective Zimmerman at 304-424-1072
or the Parkersburg Police Department at 304-424-8444.
Next time on Mountain State Mysteries, I'll be back in the studio with Courtney and we will be telling you the story of a man whose battered body was found in his own home in Sismville, West Virginia.
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