Mickie

Summary

Five Miles From Home – Episode 1: Mickie

Hosted by Keith Morrison, NBC News – June 8, 2026

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Overview

The debut episode of Five Miles From Home tells the gripping and tragic story of Micaela “Mickey” Costanzo, a promising high school junior who vanished while walking home from track practice in West Wendover, a small casino town on the Nevada-Utah border. Host Keith Morrison weaves together recollections from Mickey’s family, law enforcement, and the community as initial hope turns to horror amid a frantic search through the unforgiving desert. Themes of innocence lost, betrayal, and the tight bonds within small towns are central, as subtle clues and unlikely suspects begin to surface.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Disappearance (01:10–08:51)

• Mickey’s Last Day:

  • Mickey is described as bright, positive, responsible, and always in communication with her family. On this day, she leaves school and heads home alone – unusual since her older sister Christina, who normally drives her, is out of town.

    “She was supposed to walk home, which is not a normal thing for her.” – Celia Costanzo, Mickey’s mother (05:52)

• Family’s Immediate Concern:

  • Celia quickly grows anxious when Mickey does not call after practice, as was her habit. The phone rings unanswered, then goes straight to voicemail, which is highly out of character.

    “She’ll never not answer me. It does not matter what she does, she’d answer. And she’s always been like that.” – Celia (08:56)

• Sisters’ Responses:

  • Christina, away in Las Vegas, tries to calm their mother. DJ, the middle sister and Mickey’s closest confidant, begins searching immediately and is alarmed when her call is ignored.

    “If we weren’t at the same place, we always had to know where the other was at all times.” – DJ Costanzo (13:12)

The Search Begins (13:27–16:58)

• Law Enforcement Mobilization:

  • West Wendover police take the case seriously from the start, immediately assigning Detective Donald Burnham.

    “We don’t wait to start responding to somebody that’s missing… The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to find them.” – Det. Burnham (13:42)

• Night Search:

  • Over 80 volunteers canvas the desert and town.

    “There was already over 80 people looking for her, and they’re all panicked.” – Celia (14:39)

• Community Response:

  • A sense of disbelief and growing dread sweeps through the town, challenging its reputation as a safe, if quirky, outpost.

Early Suspicions and Theories (16:58–22:17)

• Fears of Abduction:

  • With no sign of Mickey, attention turns to the harsh desert and the possibility of an abduction — perhaps by an outsider passing through the casino town.

• Mickey’s Character and Relationships:

  • The community paints a portrait of Mickey as generous, accomplished, and kind — a “low risk” victim with no known enemies.

    “She helped everybody. She tutored kids at school. If she goes to bed at 10 o’clock… you need help, she will get up and help.” – Celia (22:33)

  • Boyfriend: Mickey’s boyfriend Javier is interviewed by police, but has a verified alibi and is just as frantic as her family.

Investigation Breakthrough: The Cell Phone Records (25:00–30:41)

• Critical Evidence:

  • Detective Burnham notices all calls and texts stop abruptly after Mickey leaves school.

    "Her phone either was disabled or the battery was dead. But… she never made another phone call or text after leaving that school." – Det. Burnham (28:51)

  • The last series of communications are traced to a single number belonging to Cody Patton.

• Cody Patton’s Relationship to Mickey:

  • A lifelong friend, not a boyfriend but “like a brother,” according to the family. Cody, now 18, is engaged to another local teen, Toni Fratto.

Shift of Suspicion – Cody Patton’s Account (30:41–34:05)

• Cody’s Police Interview:
  • Cody outlines his whereabouts; he claims he and Mickey missed each other by phone and only spoke briefly before she said she couldn’t help him with a task and was heading home.

    “I said, can you come help me? And she goes, I can’t. I have to go home. And I said, okay, no worries.” – Cody (32:07)

  • He says he saw her leave school and then went to McDonald’s with his fiancée, later joining in the town-wide search.
  • Cody appears cooperative but his proximity to Mickey and the timing raise suspicions for Detective Burnham.

    “What did you think about that?” Morrison asks about the phone activity. “Very suspicious.” – Det. Burnham (26:10)

Emotional Fallout and Dark Certainty (34:25–37:08)

• Family’s Realization:

  • As hours tick by, Celia and DJ become convinced that Mickey will not return alive:

    “When she didn’t go to school on Friday morning, I knew I wouldn’t see my daughter alive.” – Celia (34:25)

  • Christina, returning from Las Vegas, searches remote desert roads herself, determined to “bring her home,” even knowing it may not be the outcome they want.

    “I knew that I was going to find her and I wasn’t going to find her the way we wanted to, but that I was going to bring her home.” – Christina (35:16)

  • The episode ends with the search called off, the realization setting in that not only innocence but safety has been shattered in Wendover.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Sibling Bond:

  “If we weren’t at the same place, we always had to know where the other was at all times.” – DJ (13:12)

• Maternal Instinct:

  "She’ll never not answer me... I started calling her phone. And it rang and rang and rang." – Celia (08:56) “I felt like a failure as a parent.” – Celia (34:44)

• Community Support:

  “In times of need, we all come together and everybody turned out.” – Det. Burnham (17:56)

• Sense of Foreboding:

  “I really just don’t. This isn’t her. This isn’t right. And I just kept calling her phone, crying, begging her, please answer, please be okay.” – DJ (18:07)

• Unanswered Questions:

  “It doesn’t make sense. I still wonder to this day, why? What’s the real reason? Or what even really happened?” – Christina (02:58)

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Timeline of Key Events

| Timestamp | Event | |---|---| | 01:10 | Morrison introduces the key moment of a young woman about to tell a dangerous truth | | 03:10 | Introduction to West Wendover and its setting | | 05:52 | Celia reveals it was unusual for Mickey to walk home alone | | 08:32 | Mickey fails to call after practice; initial alarm in the family | | 13:27 | Police are notified; search effort begins | | 17:43 | Detective Burnham describes the scale and importance of the search | | 22:33 | Family and community describe Mickey’s compassionate and giving nature | | 25:42 | Detective Burnham explains focus on last phone activity | | 29:13 | Discovery that last calls/texts were to Cody Patton | | 31:07 | Cody recounts his version of events during second police interview | | 34:25 | Celia confesses her realization that Mickey is dead | | 35:16 | Christina’s return to Wendover to search for her sister | | 36:33-36:41 | Search is called off as hope fades |

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Tone and Language

Keith Morrison’s narration is steeped in melancholy and dread, blending poetic descriptions of the desert’s cold beauty with the raw grief and urgency of Mickey’s family. The voices of Celia, Christina, DJ, and Detective Burnham ring with authenticity, love, and a community’s shaken innocence. The tragedy is never sensationalized; rather, it exposes the slow, excruciating unraveling of hope in a family and town united by loss.

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Conclusion

Episode 1 of Five Miles From Home sets the stage for a haunting exploration of trust, betrayal, and resilience. The disappearance of Mickey Costanzo transforms a quirky desert town and an ordinary family into the center of a devastating mystery, powered by love, suspicion, and an unyielding quest for answers. The episode closes with both family and police bracing for the worst—setting up the series’ further investigation of what really happened to Mickey, and who, in their close-knit community, might know more than they're saying.

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Keith Morrison]

What was she thinking as she secretly slipped into a car wearing just her pajamas, her mind at turmoil as she rode down Interstate 80 across northern Nevada. Would she? Could she reveal what she knew? She was just 18, tiny, 98 pounds and barely 5ft tall. But the story she took with her on that tortured drive was, she knew, going to change everything.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

She came and we talked and we recorded the conversation with her permission.

[Commercial Narrator]

And it was dynamite.

[Keith Morrison]

The man she had come to talk to was a distinguished attorney. If anyone could advise her, surely it would be he. About the story she said she had to tell.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

It had been eating at me and eating at me.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I couldn't sit there and live with myself knowing what I knew.

[Keith Morrison]

And then out it came, the whole terrifying story, possibly true and possibly a careful and cunning deceit.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I was too, in shock and numb.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

I didn't know what I was feeling. It was like I was in a daze.

[Keith Morrison]

Still was, she said, about the thing that happened and about who was there and what happened after and what might happen next in a small town deep in the American desert.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

They deserve to be in hell for doing that, and there is nothing they can say or do that will make it better. They cannot fix this.

[Keith Morrison]

Some things aren't fixable. Some things are hard to explain.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

It doesn't make sense. I still wonder to this day, why? What's the real reason? Or what even really happened?

[Keith Morrison]

Hi, I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Five Miles from Home, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 1 Mickey. There is a place, a remote, windy place, tucked away in a sliver of northeast Nevada next to the Utah border. You'd certainly see it if you cruised along Interstate 80 casinos, five of them flashing away like some Vegas in miniature, a golf shot or two off the highway, the town of 4,000 or so spilling out onto the surrounding desert. And if tempted by a meal or rest or a roll of the dice, if you pulled off that highway, you'd be welcomed by a great grinning cowboy or the improbable towering image of one 63ft high, garish and weirdly charming as it waves a welcome. A giant concoction in neon and steel they call Wendover Will for West Wendover, name of the town and a reminder of more innocent days.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

That's pretty much the only thing Wendover was known for.

[Keith Morrison]

Her name is Christina. She knows what happened to innocence, knows all too well.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Now you know, everybody's like, oh, Wendover, oh, do you know that girl? It's a question unfortunately that gets asked because we have a lot of tourists that come into the casino towns from all over. And that's what Wendover's known for now.

[Keith Morrison]

Yes, even now, all these years later. And how did it begin? That memory is as clear as the morning sun on the high desert and cold like the desert wind. That Thursday morning in March 2011, 16 year old Michaela Costanzo Mickey, as everybody calls her, was up early preparing for school. She was a creature of habit, was Mickey. She stuffed her signature polka dotted black bag full of track gear and then made sure she had her lanyard full of keys with her favorite charm, little panda bear. Well, mother Celia, a single mom, quickly dressed so she could drop Mickey at school before heading to her hosting job at one of the local casinos. All very routine, except for one little thing, the thing about coming home after school.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

She was supposed to walk home, which is not a normal thing for her.

[Keith Morrison]

Usually Mickey would ride home with Christina, 28 years old then and 12 years older than her little sister. But Christina was out of town, vacationing in Las Vegas with her boyfriend, soon to be husband. Here's Christina.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I thought that everything was fine. I mean, everything was normal. I remember because before we had left, me and or my boyfriend would always pick Mikayla up from school. And so we were like, are you sure you're gonna have a way home?

[Keith Morrison]

This is something you do every day.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

This is something I do every day. And it was the very first time I had ever left my sister.

[Keith Morrison]

Still, it wasn't far to walk a mile or so in this relatively safe little town. And Mickey wasn't worried, not at all. She wasn't the worrying type. She was confident, pretty and popular with long dark hair, warm brown eyes, an easy smile. People seemed to gravitate to her, said her mother, Celia.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

She had a way of looking at life that was just amazing. She was always positive.

[Keith Morrison]

Celia's brown eyes were beaming as she told me about the youngest of her three daughters.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

If someone was not so good or it wasn't such a great day, she'd say, it's okay, it'll get better. She found the good in everything, in everybody.

[Keith Morrison]

And Mickey was quite good herself. A super student, a gifted writer, a star athlete, and the leader of the West Wendover Wolverine track team. And so that day after classes, she hurried to the locker room, suited up in her bright red running outfit, laced up her spikes and headed down to the big oval track for some speed training. There was no mistaking Mickey, Fast and graceful as she glided through her laps in the high altitude air. Long hair flowing, legs pumping, perform near perfect. After 45 minutes of sprints and stretching, Mickey went to the gym for a weight training session, followed by a quick change of clothes in the girls locker room and then out the school's back door to walk that mile or so home. It was just after 5pm across town, Celia was schmoozing with customers inside the bustling Nugget Casino. But her mind was on Mickey and the phone call she'd be getting from her any minute now.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

Mikayla is not your typical teenager. That girl would check in with me all the time. I'm changing, I'm going to be heading out. The next call I get from her is I'm heading home. Always kept in touch, always to a fault.

[Keith Morrison]

But Mickey did not call. So Celia called Mickey.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

She'll never not answer me. It does not matter what she does, she'd answer. And she's always been like that. And so at a quarter after five, I started calling her phone. And it rang and rang and rang.

[Keith Morrison]

The first time the sun, orange and anxious, sank behind desert foothills.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

And then the next call, it went straight to voicemail like the phone was off. And I'm like, okay, this is so not her.

[Keith Morrison]

So Celia, panic rising, called her eldest daughter Christina, 400 miles south in Las Vegas. Here's Christina.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

She said, when's the last time you talked to Mickey? And I said, a few hours ago. And she says, I can't find her. And I said, mom, she's probably at practice. And she says, no practice. They ended and she's not home. And I says, well, maybe she went to the gym. Calm down, because my mom was easily upset. You're probably just missing her.

[Keith Morrison]

Christina tended to be the cool head in the Family, mature and wise, with cold dark eyes under a pair of wire rimmed glasses. She wasn't too concerned.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

And I'm thinking maybe for the first time in her life, she's being a normal teenager.

[Keith Morrison]

Really? So you still weren't worried?

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I was trying not to worry. And so my husband's telling me the same thing. Don't worry until she doesn't go to school tomorrow. He says if Mickey's being a normal teenager and hiding out, doing something crazy, we both know she'll go to school in the morning.

[Keith Morrison]

Even so, Christina dialed Mickey, fully expecting an answer.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

And it rang and rang and rang and then went to voicemail. So I left her a voicemail. Mickey, why aren't you answering? Call me back. Mom's going crazy. So I waited. Nothing. Called my mom back. And I was telling her, calm down, you know, it's Wendover and it's Mickey. She never does anything.

[Keith Morrison]

It was dark by then. Dark and suddenly cold. 45 excruciating minutes had passed from Mickey's normal call in time at the casino. Celia could no longer pretend to be calm.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

I was still at work. I had been frantically texting and calling and everything and just getting more and more upset, more and more upset. Because I knew the moment she didn't answer her phone the first time, something wasn't right. The second time, I knew something was really wrong.

[Keith Morrison]

And with that, Celia dropped everything and raced home, hoping she'd see Mickey on the way or open the door to encounter her smiling face. But the house was silent. Nobody home. Cecilia, heart pounding, hurried to the high school, checked the track, the gym, the locker room. All empty. Frantic now, she roared out of the school lot, looking to find anybody who knew Mickey.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

And they started trying to call her cell phone and wasn't getting answers. And I'm going to the next friend. And that friend I had just talked to is calling other friends and they're

[Keith Morrison]

all panicked because none of them had seen or heard from Mickey either. Celia was bargaining with God by then as she hurried home again. Please let her be there, Please. But Mickey wasn't only her middle daughter. DJ was home.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Then my mom came in, she said, mickey's not here. So I immediately went out and searched for her, called her friends, called my friends, if you hear from Mickey, you need to tell me. Then I called her phone, real mad. I said, this isn't funny. You need to tell me where you are. What's going on?

[Keith Morrison]

That Mickey didn't return DJs call was a bad sign. The two were close, practically Inseparable. Even looked alike.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I consider us twins. We always promise to stick together no matter what, and to be each other's best friend. If we weren't at the same place, we always had to know where the other was at all times.

[Keith Morrison]

But now nobody knew where Mickey was. So Celia, nowhere else to turn, called the West Wendover Police Department. Would they take it seriously? They would. And right away assigned Detective Donald Burnham.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

We don't wait to start responding to somebody that's missing. We'll start looking right away. The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be to find them.

[Keith Morrison]

Burnham, lean and 30 something, had been a cop virtually half his life. Chiseled face, short cropped black hair. Around that apartment, burner was known as the Queen. Quiet one, cool and circumspect. And he offered Celia a ray of hope.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

I didn't believe she was dead. I was hoping maybe she was just somewhere and we were unable to find her at the time.

[Keith Morrison]

That she had just gone off to be with a friend and been irresponsible for once.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

We didn't know whether that was it or if she'd met with foul play or if she was, you know, being restrained and held somewhere against her will.

[Keith Morrison]

That evening, volunteer search teams ventured out into the profound darkness beyond the neon globe of the town's casinos, their flashlights stabbing at vast, empty desert.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

There was already over 80 people looking for her, and they're all panicked.

[Keith Morrison]

What did you feel like while all

[Detective Donald Burnham]

this was going on?

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

That's a hard question. Scared. Upset. Panic. Worry. Because it was dark now and it was cold and she had no jacket.

[Keith Morrison]

And Celia waited. Waited as a mother would wait on the longest night of her life.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

I didn't sleep.

[Keith Morrison]

It was horrible.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

And in the bottom of my heart, I knew something was really, really.

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[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

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[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

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[Keith Morrison]

That first night, they all agreed, all the searchers. Mickey Costanzo didn't just wander off. Someone took her. Holding her. In town maybe. But somehow it seemed more likely she'd been taken out there, somewhere out in what they call the Great Basin. 200,000 square miles of unforgiving desert that makes up most of Nevada. Here are jagged mountain peaks, deep remote valleys, sand and sagebrush, and somebody says, the middle of nowhere. This is the place. Early the next morning, volunteers were back combing the empty desert around West Wendover. Here's Detective Burnham.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

There was a large search party that was formulated and they had constructed different groups to search different areas. There was a huge turnout of volunteers for the search.

[Keith Morrison]

Just regular folk from around town.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

In times of need, we all come together and everybody turned out.

[Keith Morrison]

Among them, of course, was Mickey's sister and soulmate DJ and out searching.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I remember dropping to the ground and I said, I really don't think she's alive. They're like, you need anything positive? And I said, I really just don't. This isn't her. This isn't right. And I just kept calling her phone, crying, begging her, please answer, please be okay.

[Keith Morrison]

But it wasn't okay. Downstate at an RV site outside Las Vegas and a ostensibly on vacation, Mickey's eldest sister Christina tried to do the impossible. Both sleep and persuade herself that Mickey would show up safe and sound.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Woke up at 6:00', clock, called my mom. Still no sign of Mickey. So I call the school and I'm like, is she showed up for class yet? No, they're still looking for her. Christina. And I'm like, oh my God. And at that moment, I knew something had happened. And I woke up my husband and I said, she is not in school. And he said, okay, now we worry. What do you want me to do? And I said, I don't know.

[Keith Morrison]

By now, media had gotten wind and descended on little West Wendover. Satellite trucks and news vans with giant microwave antennas sprouted like palm trees, beaming the fears of Mickey's friends and neighbors back to Salt Lake City and nearby towns in northern Nevada.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

I just hope that we find this little girl safe. Never thought anything like this would ever

[Keith Morrison]

happen in my neighbor. The news made its way south to Las Vegas, where Christina was chained to her cell phone, trying to figure out what to do.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

And a couple of our friends actually had shown us that Mickey's picture went in the news that she was missing. And she said, christina, nothing bad happens in Wendover. And I said, you are absolutely right. And I looked at my husband and I said, you need to take me home right now. He says, well, what changed your mind? And I said, cause nothing happens in Wendover. And something did. And I have to get home. And he took his truck and drove me straight home. It's about an eight and a half hour drive. He got me home in about six and a half hours.

[Keith Morrison]

Christina and her husband drove all afternoon and into the evening.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

The whole way back home, I kept crying. And he would say, it's okay. You don't even know anything. And I kept telling him, even if she's just hurt somewhere, it's cold. And 24 hours now, that's all I could think. Even if she was just laying somewhere hurt, she wouldn't have made it because it was cold. I knew that she wasn't okay.

[Keith Morrison]

All the way home, she worried away at terrible ideas. What if some stranger, some traveler saw her walking home from school and snatched her? After all the casinos depended on the tourists who pulled off the interstate for a few free drinks and a little roulette or blackjack or whatever it was. No Mayberry. As Detective Burnham said, it's not the

[Detective Donald Burnham]

small, quiet rural community that most people would. Would like to assume.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah, it's a little place along the road, but it's got stuff going on, right?

[Detective Donald Burnham]

It's got big, big problems at times. And we do have our share of violent crimes.

[Keith Morrison]

Thus the fear that some passing motorist had taken her. Because around home, Mickey was what cops call a low risk victim. Not an enemy of the world, a straight arrow going places good Places, a totally trouble free life.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Michaela was the one who was going to do everything, I guess you would say, the right way. She was gonna finish school. And she had such a bright future, she could have done anything that she put her mind to it.

[Keith Morrison]

Bright, talented, good looking. The trifecta.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Yes, she had it all.

[Keith Morrison]

And one more thing about Mickey. She was unusually generous. Not with money, she didn't have much of that. But sharing herself, said her mother, Celia.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

She helped everybody. She tutored kids at school. If she goes to bed at 10 o' clock at night and you're struggling on homework and it's 1 o' clock in the morning and you text her or call her because you need help, she will get up and help and she'll tell me, mom, I have to help Jackie. I have to help Javier. We have a project. They can't do it well. No, no, no. But mom, they're my friend. I have to.

[Keith Morrison]

Javier, by the way, was Javier Trujillo, Mickey's boyfriend. Soft spoken, polite young man. The two had been dating for several months. It seems Serious, said Celia McKayla was

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

not allowed to date till she was 16. Her first real boyfriend is Javier. You would have to see Mikayla and Javier together and hear them. And that was her boyfriend.

[Keith Morrison]

In fact, the entire Costanzo family liked Javier and he was crazy about her. And she could have had her pickup boys at school, said sister Christina, but

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Michaela would have never looked at anybody else. She was very happy and she was very much in love with Javier.

[Keith Morrison]

Now police wanted to have a little chat with Javier. He wasn't a suspect, at least not yet. But he was part of Mickey's inner circle. What did he know about where she was or if she had been taken? So Detective Burnham had him come down to the police station where he ushered Javier into a small, white walled interrogation room. Javier seemed a little nervous, upset too, as his eyes twitched ever so slightly as Detective Burnham rolled tape and started asking questions.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

How's she been acting lately?

[Cody Patton]

I don't know. She's been acting pretty fine. Like if she's. If something was wrong, she'd venture she's not one of those girls that hides her feelings, like. Like puts her emotions in her.

[Keith Morrison]

So he's been good, huh?

[Cody Patton]

Yeah. And we haven't had any problems.

[Keith Morrison]

Javier said he had no idea where Mickey was, who she was with or what happened to her. Said he was at work around the time she was setting out from school to walk home. They checked his alibi, of course, and yes, he was indeed at work just like he said he was.

[Cody Patton]

I got out at 10 yesterday. One looking for her. Didn't finish until like 2. I think she's not safe, because if she was, she'd notify other people.

[Keith Morrison]

Javier seemed to be just as frantically worried as the rest of her family. So they let him go. There was one way to track down Mickey or what happened to her, and Detective Burnham was on it. Mickey's cell phone records. Her family told the detective she used that phone a lot. The records couldn't tell him what Mickey said or to whom she said it, but it would reveal the phone numbers she was communicating with and the specific times of those calls and texts. And right away, something stood out. At the very time she left school for that walk home. Here's Detective Burnham.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

There was a lot of text and phone calls transpiring just immediately after school and up till just after five.

[Keith Morrison]

And then they stopped abruptly.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Stopped right at the time that she had left the school.

[Keith Morrison]

But there was more. And this might matter a lot. Those calls and text messages pinging off the local cell phone tower were all from one number.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Definitely having communication back and forth.

[Keith Morrison]

There was something going on.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Something.

[Keith Morrison]

What did you think about that?

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Very suspicious.

[Keith Morrison]

Time to find whoever owned that other phone.

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[Keith Morrison]

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[Keith Morrison]

It was a virtual gold mine. A jackpot of numbers. Phone numbers that had flowed in and out of Mickey Costanzo's personal cell phone. All her calls and texts from the very day and time she disappeared. It was now Friday, Day two of Mickey's mysterious disappearance. Inside the West Wendover pd, Detective Donald Burnham was holed up in his sparsely decorated office, carefully perusing those pages and pages of calls and messages. His eyes must have been glazing over, scanning what seemed like an endless list of digits, chronicling Mickey's constant phone activity. And though he couldn't see the content of those messages, something did jump right out. Had to be important.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Her phone either was disabled or the battery was dead. But in any manner, she never made another phone call or text after leaving that school.

[Keith Morrison]

And there was something else. Those last calls in and out of Mickey's phone, the ones made just before she disappeared, were all from one number. So Detective Burnham traced the number and found a name.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

The last calls were made to a Cody Patton.

[Keith Morrison]

Cody Patton. Cody was a classmate of Mickey's. Practically a member of the family, Celia told the detective. Or not quite that, but he certainly hung around enough. Cody and Mickey had known each other most of their lives.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

They grew up together. He was our apartment manager's son. He was always around.

[Keith Morrison]

Not like a boyfriend, said Celia. Just a pal, a chum.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

Her DJ and Cody, they hung out. They were all best friends.

[Keith Morrison]

Did they ever date? Michaela and Cody?

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

They didn't date, but I'm sure it was probably what I call puppy love, you know? So at 12 or 13, probably 13, 14.

[Keith Morrison]

Yeah. But they'd long since moved on. Cody was 18 now, a senior at Mickey's high school. And he certainly stood out. Big, handsome, strapping kids. Six foot six with ginger colored hair and hazel eyes. Everybody in town seemed to know him. And he was engaged. Well and truly committed. In fact, he'd moved in with his fiance, Tony Fratto, and her parents. He and Tony planned to marry sometime after high school. And Cody also had his sight set on joining the Marines after graduating. So now Detective Burnham wanted to know a little more about that. A flurry of phone calls and text messages Cody exchanged with Mickey just before she vanished.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

I actually went to the school and asked him if he'd come to the police department. And speak with me, which he agreed to.

[Keith Morrison]

This was actually Cody's second interview with the police. He was one of many students and friends of McKees the cops spoke to that first night. And now the next day. He looked tired and he seemed sad, little on edge. But with this lifelong friend missing, Detective Burnham started recording.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

It's March 4th, 12 noon exactly. Detective Sergeant Donald Burnham with Patton.

[Keith Morrison]

For the next 30 minutes, Cody reviewed again and again what he did and where he went the day of Mickey's disappearance, especially during that flurry of calls and texts on Mickey's phone just before she disappeared. It was a fairly simple story. Cody had returned to school, he said, in a white SUV he borrowed from a friend. Wanted to use it to pick up some car parts he'd left there. It was a chore, and he thought maybe Mickey was still around. Extra pair of hands to help.

[Cody Patton]

I had texted Mikayla and asked her if she could tell me. No answer. So I called her and no answer. She called me back. I left my phone in the car when I was getting some of the particles done.

[Keith Morrison]

They kept missing each other, said cody, until around 5pm when Mickey called back and the two finally connected.

[Cody Patton]

I said, can you come help me? And she goes, I can't. I have to go home. And I said, okay, no worries.

[Keith Morrison]

But something in her tone on the phone seemed off. Not the usual upbeat Mickey. She seemed a little upset, said Cody.

[Cody Patton]

I asked her if she was okay because she had a weird tone of voice, kind of like an indifferent, like, I don't know, sad mad type. I was like, you all right? She was, yeah, just like I was like, okay, no worries. And I hung up.

[Keith Morrison]

Soon after, Cody said he packed up the borrowed SUV with those car parts and left the school.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

The last time you seen her was about 5:30. You seen her leave the school?

[Cody Patton]

Yeah.

[Detective Donald Burnham]

Where was she leaving from?

[Cody Patton]

She was going out the front. How sure you were blown up? From positive,

[Keith Morrison]

pinning down the last known sighting of Mickey could prove crucial. And Cody was emphatic. He watched her walk out the front door of the school, and that was the last time he saw her. Burnham filed that away and went on listening. After he left campus, said Cody, he picked up his fiance, Tony Fratto, and they went to McDonald's for a bite and to hang out. And then later the two drove around looking for Mickey, because by then the alert had gone out that she was missing.

[Cody Patton]

Everybody was out looking. So we went, drove around for a little bit.

[Keith Morrison]

They crisscrossed much of the town, said Cody. They even drove By Mickey's house. Didn't see a trace of her though. They got home a little before 10pm and now. Well, Detective Branham asked the question, what

[Cody Patton]

do you think about your opinion? Honestly, I hope she has gotten a fight with her boyfriend in law or something. It's just at a friend's house or something. Do you have any questions for me? Yeah, find it, please.

[Keith Morrison]

At the very time Cody was pleading with the detective, search teams were continuing to check every gully and ditch and hole and hillside in town and out deep into the night. By then, at the Costanza's little apartment, Celia was gripped by a cold certainty.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

When she didn't go to school on Friday morning, I knew I wouldn't see my daughter alive. I didn't know how to make things right for DJ And I couldn't make things right for Michaela. And I felt like a failure as a parent.

[Keith Morrison]

By now what little hope D.J. had left was running on fumes.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

And just the more hours I went, the more I searched for and then panic. She hasn't called, she hasn't done anything. That's not her, especially not to me. She send me a text or something, I'm fine. But nothing.

[Keith Morrison]

Later that Friday evening, eldest daughter Christina rolled in after the long drive from Las Vegas.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I went to my mom's house and I told her that I was going to go find my sister. And she was very upset and she was like, Christina, they're all looking for her. And I said, but I'm going to go get her and bring her home. Even though she's not okay, I will bring her home. I knew that I was going to find her and I wasn't going to find her the way we wanted to, but that I was going to bring her home.

[Keith Morrison]

And out she drove into the ink black desert, crisscrossing miles of remote dirt roads, surveying all the party spots where West Wendover teenagers were known to hang out.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I stopped and looked at any little mound of dirt that looked weird, I'd stop, maybe that's her. And I went to the gravel pits.

[Keith Morrison]

In point of fact, had Mickey been able to call out to her sister at one particular moment during that frantic drive, Christina would have heard her, heard her calling out there in the dark of the desert.

[Christina Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

Next time I went straight to my mom's and she says they've called off the search. And I said I know where she's at.

[Keith Morrison]

What'd you think when you got that call?

[Detective Donald Burnham]

I thought the worst.

[DJ Costanzo (Mickey's Sister)]

I'm woken up shaking. Cops there. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.

[Celia Costanzo (Mickey's Mother)]

This is not over yet until the person or persons responsible are brought to justice.

[Keith Morrison]

Five Miles From Home is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Robert Dean is the producer, Brian Drew, Marshall Housefeld and Meredith Greenstein are Audio editors, Molly DeRosa is Associate Producer, Adam Gorfin is co executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio Sound mixing by Rich Cutler Foreign

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