KCTV 5Searching for answers in girl's disappearance

What started as a story about a repeat runaway is raising more and more concern about foul play as each year ticks away without any word of her whereabouts.

"I went through years and years (asking), 'why why why why why?'" said the girl's mother, Sholly Seefeldt. "Now it is, 'Is she alive or is she dead?'"

Seefeldt spoke to KCTV5 at her home in Buckner.

Her daughter was 12-years-old when she disappeared from their home in the Susquehannah neighborhood of Independence. But her daughter always liked Buckner better, her mother said, so she moved back to the town hoping it might make her daughter more likely to come back.

It has been nine years.

"I don't want to run the scenarios through my head anymore, because I have so many that I could sit here and talk to you for eight hours about it," said Seefeldt.

Her daughter, Kathrynn Sholly Seefeldt, known as Katie to family and friends, was almost 13-years-old when her mother last saw her.

Katie and her mother had begun sparring over how the pre-teen dressed.

On Oct. 13, 2002, they had an argument about a party. It was a Saturday. Katie stayed home. She was grounded. At 1 a.m. on Oct.14, the phone rang two hours after the house rules for phone calls. Katie and her mom ran to the kitchen to get it. Katie got there first.

Her mother never knew who called.

"All she said was, 'You guys know you can't call me this late! You're going to keep me grounded," said Seefeldt.

The two watched a movie and Seefeldt fell asleep. When she woke Sunday morning, Katie was gone.

"I thought maybe she was just gonna leave for two or three days and come back," said Seefeldt, thinking back. She had done it once before, but soon it was clear this time was different. When Monday rolled around, Seefeldt called police.

Seefeldt is convinced Katie was pregnant. She said she saw Katie stand in the doorway with her hand on her belly. Katie bolted the day before a regular doctor's appointment would have revealed the secret. A hunch. No medical tests that her mom was aware of, but a hunch just the same.

The Jackson County Sheriff's Office said the case has remained open all these years. They have worked with outside agencies to try to locate Katie elsewhere.

"Typically, over a period of time, those that run away have contact with their families or surface in some manner elsewhere," explained Sgt. Ronda Montgomery, when asked about the recent renewed attention. "However, in this case, no one has had any contact with Kathrynn and we have received no leads in her case."

Investigators are now, once again, putting out a call for information about Katie's whereabouts. Seefeldt said the original detective assigned to the case recently retired, and she is encouraged by the interest of the new pair of detectives looking back for new clues.

She said she spent a lot of time over the years feeling guilty.

"When she left I was a wreck," Seefeldt said. "I was an alcoholic. I was in the bars."

Since then she said she is looked back on her role as a mom and tried to be better just in case her little girl, now almost 22, comes home.

Click here to see Katie's poster on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

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