Melanie Uribe was just trying to get to work.

On December 15th, 1980, the 31-year-old nurse and single mother vanished on her way to a night shift in California. Hours later, her burned truck was discovered abandoned on a dead-end road. Witnesses reported hearing screams and seeing men force their way into her vehicle at a stoplight before driving away. Then the case took a turn nobody could explain.

A woman named Etta Smith walked into a police station claiming she had experienced a vivid vision showing where Melanie’s body could be found. She described a remote canyon police had not searched, then personally led investigators straight to Melanie’s remains. Instead of being praised for helping, Etta became the prime suspect.

In this episode of Serial Napper, we dive into one of the strangest murder investigations in California history. Was Etta Smith psychic? Was it intuition, coincidence, or something else entirely? And why did police become so convinced that the woman who found Melanie’s body had to somehow be involved in her murder?

This is the story of Melanie Uribe, Etta Smith, and the case that still leaves people debating the impossible decades later.

Sources:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-27-me-381-story.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-27-me-76-story.html

https://time.com/archive/6708759/crime-etta-smiths-fatal-vision/

https://unsolved.com/gallery/premonition-of-murder

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-03-27-me-76-story.html?

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