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<v Speaker 1>Now, there's a particular kind of quiet that settles over

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<v Speaker 1>a room when someone has gone for good. It isn't

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<v Speaker 1>the peaceful silence of an empty house on a Sunday morning.

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<v Speaker 1>It's a heavy, hollow thing. It's the silence of an

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<v Speaker 1>interrupted sentence, of a door left hanging open on its hinges.

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<v Speaker 1>Most mysteries we talk about start with a bang, a

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<v Speaker 1>screech of tires, a frantic phone call, a set of

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<v Speaker 1>muddy footprints leading off into the dark woods. But the

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<v Speaker 1>disappearance of Elizabeth Connie Converse didn't start with a bang.

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<v Speaker 1>It started with a whisper and then a slow, deliberate

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<v Speaker 1>fade into the American ether. If you were wandering the smoky,

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<v Speaker 1>dimly lent streets of New York's Greenwich Village in the

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<v Speaker 1>early nineteen fifties, long before Bob Dylan never picked up

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<v Speaker 1>a harmonica, you might have crossed paths with her. Connie

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<v Speaker 1>was a striking woman, brilliant but incredibly solitary, with a

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<v Speaker 1>mind that always seemed to be turning over some sad

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<v Speaker 1>secret truth. She worked at a prince house by day,

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<v Speaker 1>but by night she sat in her small apartment, armed

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<v Speaker 1>with an acoustic guitar and a reel to real tape recorder.

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<v Speaker 1>Now she wasn't singing the upbeat pop tunes of the

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<v Speaker 1>Eisenhower era, nor was she singing the traditional folk ballads

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<v Speaker 1>that were just starting to gain traction in the local

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<v Speaker 1>coffee houses. Connie was doing something entirely different. She was

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<v Speaker 1>writing deeply personal, hauntingly poetic songs about loneliness, about empty rooms,

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<v Speaker 1>about walking in the shadows while the rest of the

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<v Speaker 1>world walked in the sun. If you listen to her

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<v Speaker 1>old recordings today, her voice comes through the tape hissed,

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<v Speaker 1>like a transmission from a ghost. It's delicate, melodic, and

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<v Speaker 1>draped in a bone deep sorrow. She sounded like a

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<v Speaker 1>woman who was already practicing how to haunt a house.

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<v Speaker 1>A few friends recognized her genius. They invited her to

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<v Speaker 1>small gatherings, trying to get her to play for crowds.

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<v Speaker 1>An animator named Gene Ditsch even recorded her in his kitchen,

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<v Speaker 1>hoping to help her catch a break in the music industry.

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<v Speaker 1>But the world wasn't quite ready for Connie Converse. The

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<v Speaker 1>record executives didn't know what to do with a quiet,

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<v Speaker 1>intellectual woman singing achingly sad complicated songs. They wanted polished,

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<v Speaker 1>they wanted happy, and Connie she was neither. After a

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<v Speaker 1>decade of trying, of knocking on doors that refused to open,

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<v Speaker 1>something inside her began to fracture. The dream didn't just expire,

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<v Speaker 1>it began to wither, turning into something heavy and dark.

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<v Speaker 1>In nineteen sixty one, feeling defeated and exhausted, she left

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<v Speaker 1>New York City. She moved out to ann Arbor, Michigan,

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<v Speaker 1>to be closer to her brother. For a while, she

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<v Speaker 1>tried to build a normal life. She got a job

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<v Speaker 1>writing for a journal. She threw herself into her work,

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<v Speaker 1>and she put the guitar away. She stopped singing. But

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<v Speaker 1>you can't just box up a piece of your soul

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<v Speaker 1>and expect it to stay quiet. As the nineteen sixties

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<v Speaker 1>led into the nineteen seventies, the world around her changed,

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<v Speaker 1>but Connie felt entirely stuck in time. The music she

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<v Speaker 1>had pioneered was now making other people famous and rich.

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<v Speaker 1>Her health began to fail, and a dark, suffocating depression

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<v Speaker 1>wrapped its cold fingers around her. She started drinking heavily.

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<v Speaker 1>Friends and family noticed the light fainting from her eyes,

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<v Speaker 1>replaced by a distant, hollow stare. She was a woman

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<v Speaker 1>that seemed to be untethering herself from the very earth,

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<v Speaker 1>one rope at a time. In August of seventy four,

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<v Speaker 1>just a few days before her fiftieth birthday, the tether

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<v Speaker 1>finally snapped. Now we don't know exactly what time of

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<v Speaker 1>day it was when she made her preparations. We can

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<v Speaker 1>only imagine, though, the eerie calm that must have washed over.

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<v Speaker 1>She sat down at her desk and wrote a series

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<v Speaker 1>of letters to her family and closest friends. Now these

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<v Speaker 1>weren't panic notes or anger manifestos. They were poetic, cryptic,

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<v Speaker 1>and chillingly serene. She wrote that she needed to go

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<v Speaker 1>west to make a new life. She wrote about how

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<v Speaker 1>human beings are deeply isolated creatures islands in a dark sea.

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<v Speaker 1>One of the most haunting lines she penned at that time,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm read quote, let me go, let me be if

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<v Speaker 1>I can, let me not be if I can't end quote.

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<v Speaker 1>She gathered those letters, dropped them in the mail, and

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<v Speaker 1>walked back to her house. She packed her pupiloggings into

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<v Speaker 1>her dark green Volkswagen Beetle. Now she didn't take much

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<v Speaker 1>with her, just the absolute essentials. She turned the key

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<v Speaker 1>in the ignition, put the car in gear, and drove away.

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<v Speaker 1>By the time the letters arrived in her family's mailboxes,

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<v Speaker 1>Toni was already a ghost. Her brother Philip, alarmed by

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<v Speaker 1>the profound finality of her words, immediately contact to the authorities.

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<v Speaker 1>But in nineteen seventy four, tracking a missing adult who

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<v Speaker 1>had explicitly stated she wanted to disappear was an almost

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<v Speaker 1>impossible task. There were no cell phones to ping, no

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<v Speaker 1>credit card chips to trace, no sprawling network of highways,

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<v Speaker 1>sternveilance cameras. Once you're out on the long, lonely stretches

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<v Speaker 1>of the American Highway, there were just another pair of

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<v Speaker 1>headlights in the dark. The family waited for a phone call.

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<v Speaker 1>They waited for a postcard from some dusty roadside motel

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<v Speaker 1>in Nevada, or maybe a quiet beach down in California.

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<v Speaker 1>They waited for the police to find the little green

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<v Speaker 1>VW beetle broken down on the shoulder of Root sixty six.

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<v Speaker 1>But the call never came, the postcard never came. They

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<v Speaker 1>never heard from the police, not that year, not the next,

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<v Speaker 1>or the next decades. Slipped by the mister deepened, not

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<v Speaker 1>because of what was found, but because of what wasn't.

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<v Speaker 1>A human being conveyed. Is sure. A person can walk

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<v Speaker 1>into the deep woods and be swallowed up by the underbrush.

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<v Speaker 1>I've made many videos about it. But a car, a

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<v Speaker 1>Olkswagen Beetle, is a solid, heavy machine of steeling glass.

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<v Speaker 1>It doesn't just evaporate. Yet. No junkyard, no impound lot,

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<v Speaker 1>no police precinct ever reported finding Connie's car. Instance, if

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<v Speaker 1>she drove straight off the edge of the map. Did

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<v Speaker 1>she find a secluded and possibly deep lake out west

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<v Speaker 1>and just keep her foot on the gas. Did she

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<v Speaker 1>find a dirt road that wounds so far into the

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<v Speaker 1>wilderness that no hunter or hiker has ever tumbled across

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<v Speaker 1>the rushed out hulk of her car? Or did she

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<v Speaker 1>actually do what she set out to do, what she

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<v Speaker 1>said she was gonna do, change her name, cut her hair,

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<v Speaker 1>and live out the rest of her days as a

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<v Speaker 1>stranger in a strange town, watching the sunset over the Pacific,

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<v Speaker 1>finally at peace. The strangest chapter of the mystery, though,

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<v Speaker 1>didn't unfold on a lonely highway, but in a radio

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<v Speaker 1>studio in New York City, thirty years after she vanished

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<v Speaker 1>in two thousand and four, Geene Diitch, the man who

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<v Speaker 1>recorded Connie in his kitchen half a century Euler, was

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<v Speaker 1>invited onto a music history radio program. He brought along

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<v Speaker 1>those old, dusty reel to real tapes. For the first

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<v Speaker 1>time in fifty years, Connie Converse's voice went out over

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<v Speaker 1>the airwaves. Two young music producers having to be listening,

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<v Speaker 1>they were stopped dead in their tracks by the haunting

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<v Speaker 1>beauty of the music. They tracked down. Her family acquired

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<v Speaker 1>the rest of the tapes, and in two thousand and

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<v Speaker 1>nine released an album Connie's Music titled How Sad, How Lovely. Suddenly,

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<v Speaker 1>Connie Converse was everywhere. Critics held her as a lost genius,

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<v Speaker 1>a pioneer of modern folk music. People all over the

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<v Speaker 1>world were listening to her songs, analyzing her lyrics, and

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<v Speaker 1>mourning the troubled, brilliant woman who had written him. She

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<v Speaker 1>had finally achieved the success in recognition that eluded her

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<v Speaker 1>and that she so desperately craved in the nineteen fifties.

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<v Speaker 1>But she wasn't there to see it, at least not

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<v Speaker 1>that we know of. Perhaps her ghost was left to

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<v Speaker 1>take the bow. And when you sit alone in a

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<v Speaker 1>quiet room, and play those old recordings, knowing how her

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<v Speaker 1>story possibly ends. The songs take on a terrifying prophetic quality.

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<v Speaker 1>She sings about walking alone in the dark, about wondering aimlessly,

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<v Speaker 1>about being a stranger in her own life. It's as

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<v Speaker 1>if she was leaving a map drawn in music and melody,

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<v Speaker 1>hooding towards the day she would pack up her little

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<v Speaker 1>car and just drive off into oblivion. Connie Converse left

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<v Speaker 1>us with a handful of beautiful, melancholy songs and one

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<v Speaker 1>of the most enduring, quietest mysteries in American history. And

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<v Speaker 1>somewhere out there, maybe resting at the bottom of a dark,

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<v Speaker 1>cold quarry, or maybe hidden under a tangled briars in

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<v Speaker 1>a forgotten forest ravine, there's a rusted shell of a

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<v Speaker 1>GREENVW beetle, And somewhere out there is the answer to

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<v Speaker 1>what happens when a person just drives off into the unknown.