On June 14, 2000, there was a huge storm brewing in northeast Arkansas. It had been raining heavily all day and according to local weather data, tornados had hit. Over 100 trees were downed, power lines were down and homes were destroyed. 

Twenty year old Amanda Tusing was hanging out with her fiancé, Matt Ervin, at his apartment in Jonesboro.

Amanda lived 40 miles away in Dell, Arkansas, which is in Mississippi County, with her father Ed, her mother Susan and her twin brother, Andy. She also had an older brother who worked out of state. 

Matt didn’t want her to go home that night. It was about a 45-minute drive on a good day, and the weather was bad, but Amanda wanted to get home. So she left Jonesboro at around 11:30 pm and should have gotten home around 12:30 at the latest.

Amanda told Matt that she would call him from her parents landline as soon as she got home. She did have a cell phone but never kept it charged. But Matt never got that call and by 1:30 he was concerned.

Matt called Amanda’s mother, Susan Tusing, and woke her up. She went to check to see if Amanda was in bed, and when she went into her bedroom, she saw that the bed had not been slept in and that Amanda was not home. 

This was totally unlike her, and they knew something happened. So her dad and brother drove toward Dell, and Matt left his house in Jonesboro and started driving down Highway 18 in the opposite direction. Their plan was that they would meet in the middle and hopefully see her or her car along the route.  

Matt saw her 1992 Pontiac Grand Am parked under a streetlight on the shoulder of AR Highway 18 about a mile west of the small town of Monette.

It was on the side of the road and looked like it was parked there intentionally - not like she randomly swerved over. Matt got out of his car, walked over and looked inside. 

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