MISSING for ten years, Kelsie Schelling’s family had lost hope – until one day, her killer got down on one knee to propose to a complete stranger, unknowingly providing the key to solving her disappearance.
Twenty-one-year-old Kelsie Schelling, who was eight weeks pregnant, drove two hours from Denver to Pueblo to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Donthe Lucas.
Kelsie Schelling went missing in 2013 and her remains have still not been found Credit: ABC 20/20
Donthe Lucas has now been locked up for life after a stranger he fell in love with tricked him into a confession Credit: Colorado Department of Corrections
She vanished without a trace in 2013 and despite years of searching, was never found.
As leads dried up, the investigation went cold and her family were left with no answers.
That was until Lauren Suhr – a complete stranger with no connection to Kelsie – came across her case and felt compelled to help.
Lauren took matters into her own hands, creating a fake profile and messaging the prime suspect, Lucas, while pretending to be someone who had recently moved to the quaint town of Pueblo.
Lauren, from Colorado, told ABC News: “It definitely was nerve- racking, but I felt like I could do it.”
She eventually persuaded Lucas, who was 31 at the time, to meet her face-to-face, and the pair quickly formed a close relationship.
The single mum described him as cocky, charismatic, and convinced he could do no wrong.
But while Lauren was building trust to uncover the truth behind Kelsie’s disappearance, Lucas was building on a real relationship.
The fake life she had meticulously created for her undercover mission soon became a one-sided love story.
Lauren said: “I feel like he did genuinely develop feelings for me and he did genuinely fall in love with me.”
Within weeks, the relationship had intensified, giving Lauren unprecedented access to the man she believed held the answers to Kelsie’s fate.
As Lucas slowly let his guard down, his account of what happened the night Kelsie vanished became increasingly erratic.
Lauren Suhr, a complete stranger with no connection to Kelsie dated her killer to help find Kelsie Credit: ABC 20/20
Although Lauren helped in the investigation to put Donthe behind bars, Kelsie still remains missing Credit: Help Find Kelsie
Lauren recalled: “One minute he had no involvement, he had nothing to do with it.
“And then he would just shut down and start crying hysterically and get very upset.”
She said: “In the back of my mind, I always kept that he is potentially a murderer.”
Believing he could trust her, Lucas began confiding in Lauren and revealed just enough information to ultimately put himself behind bars.
He admitted he had lied to police and confessed that it was him seen on surveillance footage moving Kelsie’s car to a hospital car park before returning the following day to collect it.
Eventually, Lucas got down on one knee and proposed to the woman he believed he loved after a year- long relationship.
But while he thought he was securing his future with Lauren, he was actually sealing his fate of a lifetime in .
Lauren wore the engagement ring while quietly passing everything he told her on to investigators.
For months, she continued playing the role of his devoted fiancée as detectives quietly built their case behind the scenes.
By 2017, police believed they had gathered enough evidence to move in.
But when officers finally arrested Lucas, it wasn’t over Kelsie’s disappearance.
Instead, they used allegations that Lucas and several relatives had assaulted a man and stolen $1,000 – giving detectives the opportunity to detain him just 20 minutes before he was due to board a flight and potentially flee.
Faced with hours of questioning, the man who had spent years denying any involvement finally cracked.
During his police interview, Lucas admitted he was the man captured alongside Kelsie in Walmart surveillance footage on the night she vanished.
Combined with the extensive messages Lauren had painstakingly collected throughout their relationship, the confession gave prosecutors the evidence they needed to cage him for life.
It’s now been 13 years since Kelsie went missing, but many questions have still been left unanswered.
During his police interview, Donthe admitted he was the man captured alongside Kelsie in Walmart surveillance footage Credit: ABC 20/20
Investigators tracked down Donthe and Lauren to quiz him on Kelsie’s disappearance Credit: Denver Police
For years, Kelsie’s mother, Laura Saxton, refused to give up on finding answers about what happened to her daughter.
When Kelsie first disappeared, Laura was desperate for information and even confronted Lucas herself over the phone, hoping he could provide answers.
Instead, she was left with more questions and the crushing reality that the truth remained hidden.
More than a decade later, Laura has still not been able to bring her daughter home and give her the farewell she deserves.
The last confirmed message Kelsie ever sent was to Lucas at 11:18pm on February 4, 2013, after she pulled up to a street near his grandma’s house where he was staying at the time.
It read: “Where are you? I’ve been here over an hour just waiting.”
The following day, Kelsie failed to turn up for work, prompting a concerned colleague to call her.
Instead of speaking to Kelsie, the co-worker received a text message claiming she was no longer having the baby because “it was growing in the wrong place”.
The messages continued in the days that followed – but they did not sound like Kelsie.
When her father tried to contact her, he received a brief and unusual response that appeared to brush him off.
And a day later, Laura said her daughter’s phone calls were going straight to voicemail.
As more messages came through, Kelsie’s family and friends began noticing strange changes in the way she communicated.
For years, Kelsie Schelling’s mother, Laura Saxton, refused to give up on finding answers Credit: ABC 20/20
More than a decade later, Laura has still not been able to bring her daughter home Credit: Help Find Kelsie
The texts contained unusual punctuation, short replies and a tone that felt completely unlike her.
They started to fear the heartbreaking possibility that the messages were not being sent by Kelsie at all.
As Lucas became a prime suspect, his version of events quickly began to unravel under police scrutiny.
He claimed he rushed Kelsie to Parkview Medical Center after she suffered a miscarriage the morning after they met.
But detectives found no record that she had ever set foot inside the hospital.
He also insisted they stopped at Walmart to buy snacks before she headed home to Denver but CCTV blew that story apart.
The footage shows only one person, believed to be Lucas, getting out of Kelsie’s car.
Nearly 18 hours later, an unidentified man is seen driving the vehicle away, although police could not confirm it was Lucas.
Days later, Kelsie’s abandoned car turned up with no sign of the mum-to-be.
Laura said: “He’s a monster. I mean, it’s bad enough that he wanted to get rid of Kelsie rather than just walking away from her, but that he wanted to kill his child.”
When her daughter’s car was found in Pueblo, where Lucas was staying with his grandma, Laura said she “knew” her daughter was dead.
Investigators also learned that the day after she disappeared, someone had used an ATM in Pueblo to withdraw $400 from Kelsie’s bank account.
When they looked at the surveillance footage captured at the ATM, they found Lucas in front of the camera.
Kevin Torres, an investigative cop, said: “She loved Donthe with all her heart, unconditionally, but Kelsie would often confide in her friends that Donthe didn’t feel the same way about her and he was very degrading to her””
One friend had reported that Kelsie confided that he had become violent in the past, pushing her when he got upset.
According to Torres, the relationship “met all the markers” of “a very tumultuous relationship with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.”
Time and time again, Laura made the 220-mile journey from her rural home in Yuma, , to Pueblo to search.
But every search ended the same way – with no sign of Kelsie.
Desperate for answers, Kelsie’s family offered a $50,000 reward and launched a Facebook page pleading for information.
Two years later, Kelsie’s mum Laura Saxton received a chilling message from a stranger claiming her daughter was still alive – and had allegedly been sold into sex trafficking by Lucas.
The sender demanded $50,000 in cash to “free” Kelsie and instructed Saxton to leave the at a McDonald’s in Vancouver, , for a man called “Marcus” wearing a red hat.
But police suspected it was a cruel scam, and Saxton never showed up for the exchange.
To this day, Kelsie’s remains are still missing, the case has gone col, d and her devastated family are still searching for answers.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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