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Went Out for a Run and Never Returned

The friendly farmer and his fatal fantasy. She was murdered for nothing.

Jules
5 min readJul 20, 2022
A photograph of Sydney Sutherland; victim | Photo Credits: knewz.com

On August 19, 2020, 25-year-old Sydney Sutherland left her home in Jackson County, Arkansas, for a run, but never returned. The following day her phone was discovered in a rural area, just over a mile from where she lived, which led her family to fear the worst, but then a grim discovery proved that what happened to Sydney was far more horrific than anyone could ever have imagined.

The Day of Disappearance

A photograph of Sydney with her boyfriend, Alex | Photo Credit: Mirror.co.uk

Sydney had just returned from a family vacation in Florida and had an extra day off from Unity Health Harris Medical Centre, where she worked as a registered nurse. She lived with her boyfriend, Alex, and was known to exercise regularly. That was why no one thought twice about her decision to go for a run on that fateful day. After a brief visit to her mother, Sydney texted Alex to let him know she was heading out for a run.

Everything seemed to be going well until Alex returned home from work later that day and realized that Sydney’s car and belongings were still home, but she was nowhere to be found. The worried boyfriend started reaching out to her family and friends hoping that someone had seen her, but nobody had spoken with Sydney in hours. Because Sydney’s behavior was extremely out of character, Alex immediately called the police, and they quickly organized a massive search operation.

The Investigation Begins

As the news of her disappearance spread quickly over social media, a UPS driver came forward to say that he had seen Sydney jogging along her regular route between Newport and the Grub, Arkansas, at 3 p.m. However, as it was getting dark in the search area, authorities withdrew the search until the following day. But just as the sun rose, swarms of volunteers, Arkansas regional police, and the FBI came together to look for the missing nurse.

Helicopters circled the skies above her running route. But when they found nothing about Sydney, the hope that she had just fallen and…

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Jules
Jules

Written by Jules

Psychology Expert | MSc Social and Cultural Psychology

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