Mom and Teen Found Wandering NYC Weeks After Vanishing Without a Trace
LatestThis morning, Iona Costello and her 14-year-old daughter Emily were found wandering around New York City’s Upper West Side after disappearing nearly three weeks earlier in a manner that was ripped straight from the pages of the next Gillian Flynn novel.
Costello and Emily went for a trip to New York City in late March and disappeared without a trace. Police confessed they had no leads and the last picture of the women—taken by a security camera—doesn’t show them distressed. And there was one more important detail: Costello was in the middle of a battle over the estate of her very wealthy late husband.
On April 14, Costello’s car was found in a New York City garage, almost a month after she and her daughter had gone missing. According to The New York Daily News, the authorities in charge of the case had no leads due to the fact that their usual methods of tracking missing persons—phone calls, credit card receipts, and ATM transactions—have turned up nothing. Neither of the women’s cell phones were turned on (especially mysterious considering that Emily is 14) and the only reason either were reported missing was because Emily had failed to return to classes after spring break.
What’s especially interesting, aside from the fact that the police had absolutely nothing to go on, is the fact that Costello was in the middle of an inheritance battle with her deceased husband’s four children from previous marriages. While the details of the will have not been released (aside from the fact that the entire estate had been left to Costello), family members reported that Costello had been under a lot of stress since the battle over the will began.