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The unsolved disappearance of Michael Keith Gorley haunts the backroads of rural Kentucky like a ghost story without an ending. Ten birthdays, ten Christmas mornings, ten Mother's Days have passed while his family waits for answers that never come.

Sandra Hasty remembers the last morning she saw her son - May 17, 2015. Michael had slept in her bed that night (she took his), a simple moment of connection that would become a treasured final memory. Just five days earlier, he'd been released from jail after the grand jury refused to indict him on charges stemming from being in a car where others possessed drugs.

The mystery began that afternoon when two women arrived at Sandra's door with a bizarre story: Michael had driven his truck into a pond on Wilderness Trail Road. The family found this immediately suspicious. Michael had been seen earlier that day at his grandmother's house, seeking help to remove the vehicle, but showing no signs of erratic behavior. Why would he deliberately drive his only vehicle into water?

After retrieving the truck (which mysteriously smelled of gasoline in the back), the story took a darker turn. When Sandra called someone at a house on Highway 300 asking about Michael at 11 PM, she was told he was there. By morning, the story changed - Michael had supposedly left walking between 8-9 PM. Two weeks later, bloodhounds would track his scent along this route before losing it near Hatcher Road.

Michael's sister Jennifer shares poignant memories of her brother - his love of football (number 55), his work installing flooring at the famous Versailles Castle, his passion for mudding and four-wheeling, and the devastating losses he'd endured in the years before his disappearance. Their father had died in 2004, followed by two more family deaths in quick succession.

What happened on that May evening? What are people hiding? And why, after a decade, is there still no justice for a man who once wrote poetry, loved comedy movies, and would give the clothes off his back to someone in need?

Have you seen Michael? Do you know something that might help bring his family peace? Listen to part one of this three-part investigation into a case that demands answers.

 
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