One April evening in 1991, Ann Racz’s three children waited for her to pick them up some burgers and fries at the local McDonalds, which was less than a mile away. But instead of seeing Ann’s white minivan pull into the driveway, their father showed up hours later with a small bag of cold French fries. He said that their mother had gone away on a trip to think things over. This was so unlike Ann, who planned everything and put her children above all else, that Ann’s children didn’t believe it. Neither would the police.

Join us at the quiet end for The Disappearance of Ann Racz. 42-year-old Ann had been planning to divorce her husband John for several months.  She had rented a condo and moved her and her children’s belongings there before she vanished. No one believed John Racz’s story, but there was no evidence that anything had happened to Ann. Years went by while her children tried to understand where she could be and their father behaved strangely, never fully cooperating with the investigation. The circumstantial evidence and suspicions were piling up, but could investigators prove murder without a body?

Sources

Ex-deputy held in death of wife in ’91, LA Times, Andrew Blankstein, 10/24/2006.

John Racz v. Sircoya Williams, Warden, Respondent, ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE WHY PETITION SHOULD NOT BE DISMISSED AS SUCCESSIVE, Petition of Habeas Corpus, 3/20/2025. 

Prime suspect, Dateline NBC, 3/ 22/2023.

You’ll Never Find My Body, Don Lasseter.

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