Angela Freeman left the apartment she was sharing with a co-worker around 1:00 am on Friday, September 10, 1993. She left a note saying she would be back shortly, though she didn’t say where she was going. At 1:30 pm, she stopped by the Pizza Hut in her hometown of Petal, Mississippi, and spoke briefly with a former boyfriend, then left the restaurant alone. She never returned to the apartment and she was never seen again.
Early Friday afternoon, Randy Freeman, Angie’s uncle, was driving on Mahned Road near New Augusta, Mississippi when he spotted Angie’s distinctive silver Honda hatchback. The car had been abandoned near the Old Mahned Bridge, a historical landmark spanning the Leaf River. The driver’s window was rolled down but there was no one in or around the vehicle. Concerned, Randy called Angie’s mother, Debra Stewart, and told her what he had seen. When Debra was unable to get a hold of her daughter, she instantly knew something was wrong. She called the police and told them that her daughter’s car had been found abandoned and Angie was missing.
At the time of her disappearance, Angie was four months pregnant, though it’s unclear if she was still in a relationship with the baby’s father; his name has never been publicly released. Debra knew Angie wouldn’t voluntarily disappear while pregnant, and she was desperate to find her.
Debra was confused as to why Angie would have been in the Mahned Bridge area. “I didn’t even know this place was out here. She has no friends out here that I know of. I have no idea what she was doing out here.” Although Old Mahned Bridge was only about 15 miles away from Petal, it was in Perry County while Petal was in Forrest County.
According to Debra, officials from the Perry County Sheriff’s Department weren’t initially concerned when she reported her daughter missing. “The sheriff acted like this was a runaway case. Forrest County was ready to put dogs out there right then, but Perry County wouldn’t let them. The sheriff told us to just take the car home…we asked them if they needed fingerprints or anything and they said no.” Bill Stewart, Angie’s stepfather, pointed out a small red puddle near the car and asked deputies if it was blood. One of the deputies poked at the puddle and assured Bill that it was just transmission fluid.
Perry County Sheriff Carlos Herring refused to comment on the case, saying only, “We don’t just go on rumors around here.” Investigators with the Petal Police Department noted that they were never notified about the fact that Angie’s car had been found, so they weren’t given a chance to search it for potential evidence before it was moved.
By Monday, there was still no word from Angie and her loved ones were growing increasingly concerned. She was normally a very responsible teenager, so when she didn’t show up for a scheduled shift at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi restaurant where she worked, everyone started to assume the worst.
Petal Police Sgt. Kent Wade admitted that Angie’s disappearance seemed suspicious. “She didn’t take a toothbrush, make-up, clothes…nothing. She didn’t have any extra money. There was nothing that said she was planning not to come back.” Shortly before she went missing, Angie paid her car payment and stocked up on groceries; she also bought a large selection of baby clothes for her unborn child. Additionally, she had a paycheck waiting for her at work.
Around 5:00 pm on Monday, after a reporter called to ask what was being done to find Angie, Sheriff Herring sent officers with search dogs to the bridge area. The dogs went directly to the puddle that Bill had pointed out to deputies Friday afternoon. The puddle was dry at this point, but the dog’s handler collected a sample to be sent for analysis.
On Tuesday, a Louisiana search and rescue team used dogs to search the area where Angie’s car had been found, scouring the area for any possible clues to Angie’s whereabouts. They headed toward the river, pulling their handlers down to the banks. Searchers found a pair of white Keds sneakers there which Debra tentatively identified as belonging to her daughter. She said she couldn’t be certain as Angie did her own clothes shopping, but the sneakers were the correct size and similar in style to a pair she had seen Angie wearing before. Divers with the Forrest County Sheriff’s Office were sent into the river to search for any sign of Angie’s body but found nothing.
Detectives interviewed Angie’s friends and relatives, but none of them had any idea what had happened to her. Petal Police Chief Wayne Murphy said that they didn’t have any solid evidence to suggest foul play had taken place, but admitted that Angie wasn’t the type of teenager to disappear without contacting anyone.
On Wednesday, September 15, 1993, investigators with the Petal Police Department searched Angie’s car, which was sitting at her mother’s house. They processed the car for fingerprints, finding only one that they couldn’t identify. In the car’s ashtray, they found two live bullets. Since Angie didn’t own a gun, how they got there was a mystery. On the back windshield of the car, investigators saw what appeared to be blood dripping down to the back fender. They took a sample and sent it for analysis to determine if it was blood.
Angie had last been seen in the parking lot of the Petal Pizza Hut; she had stopped by there to speak with her ex-boyfriend, 23-year-old Steven Lindsay. Steven was the assistant manager of the restaurant and said Angie would occasionally stop by to visit him while he was at work. He claimed she wanted to get back together with him but he hadn’t been interested and told her so.
According to Steven, while he was talking to Angie he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to reset a computer program so it would be ready when the restaurant opened in the morning. He went back inside to do so. “When I came back out, she was gone, which was typical of her. I didn’t think anything about it.”
Another of Angie’s ex-boyfriends was also questioned by detectives. 21-year-old Larry Posey told reporters that he and Angie had dated briefly and still spoke occasionally. “I had to go to the police department. They questioned me like I am a suspect.” He told reporters that he thought Angie had staged her disappearance. “I think she’s trying to get attention. I hope she’s okay.”
Angie’s loved ones said she had no reason to run away from home and there was no reason for her to abandon her car in Perry County. They were convinced that she had been a victim of foul play, and they were angry with the way the investigation had initially been handled by the Perry County sheriff. Debra stated, “I guarantee you if it were the sheriff’s daughter, he would have done it differently.”
The search for Angie was scaled back a week after she was last seen. Dive teams had dragged the Leaf River and searched the water for potential evidence but found nothing, and search dogs didn’t have any luck, either. Investigators in Perry County said they would continue to walk along the banks of the Leaf River in case anything surfaced, but there would be no more large-scale searches unless new information was received. Officials noted that the river wasn’t very high at the time and the current wasn’t swift. If a body had been placed in the water, searchers should have found it.
Detectives spoke with dozens of Angie’s associates as they tried to determine what she had done in the hours leading up to her disappearance. Friends said that although Angie had relatives living in Perry County, she had only recently started driving and likely wouldn’t have known how to get to the Mahned Bridge area. Suzanne Lindsey, who had gone to high school with Angie, noted, “I don’t understand how she got out there…I’m not sure she could find her way around down there.”
Suzanne was the younger sister of Angie’s ex-boyfriend, Stephen. She told reporters that she knew Angie well but they didn’t always get along. “I had some iffy feelings about her, mostly because she was dating my brother. But I could really talk to her about a lot of things.” Suzanne initially thought Angie left voluntarily. “At first, I thought she was just hiding out, trying to get some attention, but now I don’t know.”
Suzanne admitted that Angie’s life hadn’t necessarily turned out the way she had been hoping, but she still had dreams for the future. “She talked a lot about wanting to be a nurse. She had things planned out so she could do it. She tried to get her life back on track and it never really worked out right. I think mostly she just wanted somebody to love her.”
Friends said Angie was a homebody; although she enjoyed going out with friends, she preferred to spend time at home. Debra noted, “She’d come home from work and go straight to her room and watch television.”
Debra admitted that she and Angie hadn’t always had a very close relationship, and Angie had moved out of the family home a few months earlier. “She thought she was grown, but she wasn’t. She had a lot to learn.” Although she had dropped out of school in ninth grade, Angie had recently started studying for her GED and was looking forward to the future. She had been excited about becoming a mother and had been doing everything possible to ensure a healthy pregnancy; no one believed she would have voluntarily run off while pregnant.
The Forrest County Search and Rescue Team returned to Mahned Road on Sunday, September 19, 1993. Using search dogs, they pinpointed an area of the river where they believed Angie’s body might be found. Crews from the New Augusta Volunteer Fire Department searched the river in that area but were unable to locate any trace of Angie.
Some of Angie’s family members and friends spent hours combing along the river banks and the adjoining wooded area for any sign of Angie’s purse and car keys. These items had not been found inside Angie’s car and search teams had been unable to locate them. Angie’s stepfather said they combed through the area inch-by-inch but didn’t find anything.
On September 24, 1993, detectives learned that the substance found on Angie’s car and in the sand near it had been positively identified as human blood. Although additional testing would be needed before officials would know if it was Angie’s blood, the finding was an ominous one.
Search teams returned to Leaf River and conducted another search, this time moving a snarl of tree logs in case Angie’s body had gotten caught underneath them. Although cadaver dogs indicated there was a body in the water, once again the search came up empty. Angie’s stepfather was disappointed; he told reporters that he and Chief Murphy had both thought Angie’s body was going to be found in the cluster of logs.
Three weeks after Angie was last seen, Bill and Debra told reporters that they believed she had been murdered and likely thrown into the Leaf River. Cadaver dogs continued to alert on the area, but dozens of searches had turned up nothing in or around the river. The couple had been a constant presence by the Mahned Bridge, silently holding vigil while searchers combed the river for clues. They went each day until September 30, 1993, when they decided it was time for them to return to their jobs.
By March 1994, Angie should have given birth to her baby. Debra quit her job so she could devote all her time to searching for her daughter, but detectives admitted that the investigation was at a standstill. Hoping to raise money to offer a reward, Debra decided to organize a large rummage sale. She ended up holding two, one in May and one in July. Together, they brought in more than $5,000.
As the first anniversary of Angie’s disappearance approached, Debra spoke with a psychic who told her that Angie’s body was buried in the woods within a few miles of where her car was found. The psychic believed that Angie had been stabbed to death. Debra’s brother searched the area with a friend who had a trained search dog but they didn’t find anything. Debra admitted that she had never really believed in psychics, but at this point, she was willing to try anything to find her daughter.
Debra was still somewhat bitter about the way the investigation had been handled when Angie was first reported missing. She felt that if the Perry County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t waited four days before starting the search, Angie would have been located. “I’ll always believe that. If they had done their job and brought those dogs out there, I just believe we’d have known something.”
Years went by and Angie’s loved ones resigned themselves to the fact that she wasn’t coming home. Debra did everything she could to keep her daughter’s name in the public eye, but with no new leads to report, the local news media soon lost interest in the case.
In June 1997, investigators searched a gravel pit in Perry County after a tip that Angie’s body might be buried there, but they didn’t find anything. Sheriff Herring admitted that the search had been a long shot as most of the tips they received were nothing more than rumors. Debra wasn’t notified of the search until after it took place. “They don’t ever let me know anything.”
By September 1998, Angie had been missing for five years and investigators still had no idea what had happened to her. Debra told reporters, “What scares me the most is people will forget her. She’ll be swept under a rug. It really bothers me the most.” Angie’s family was offering a $7,000 reward for information leading to her recovery, but there hadn’t been any solid leads in years. “The hardest part is not knowing. I can’t grieve…somewhere along the line, I’ve got to find out what happened. I just can’t believe there’s a perfect crime.”
In 1999, cold case investigators resubmitted the blood collected from the side of the road and from Angie’s vehicle for DNA analysis. The tests proved what Debra had suspected all along: the blood belonged to Angie. While the few drops of blood weren’t enough to confirm that Angie was dead, those close to the case had suspected as much for years and knew they were likely dealing with a homicide.
On January 12, 2002, Debra held a memorial service for her daughter. “I’ve got to do it for myself. I don’t want people to think I’m giving up, I’m not. But it’s been more than eight years and I need to give her something.” Around 50 people attended the ceremony.
Debra continued her fight to find her daughter. In November 2011, she raised money to have a billboard about the case placed in Perry County and continued to offer a reward for information leading to Angie’s recovery. She hoped this might bring in some new tips, but Angie’s case remained unsolved.
In November 2021, Perry County Sheriff Mitch Nobles said that the case had been turned over to the Perry County District Attorney for evaluation. Although he didn’t want to say much for fear of jeopardizing the investigation, he stated, “We do know she left Pizza Hut in her vehicle…we know something transpired from there to the Mahned Bridge where her vehicle was found.” Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough evidence to prove that any one person was responsible for the crime, so no charges were filed. As of June 2023, Angie remains listed as a missing person and her case is still unsolved.
Angela Lee Freeman was just 17 years old when she went missing from Petal, Mississippi in September 1993. Angie was four months pregnant at the time; the name of her baby’s father has never been publicly released and it’s unclear if he is considered a suspect in her disappearance. Blood was found on and around Angie’s car, leading detectives to believe that she was a victim of foul play, but her body has never been found. Angie has blue eyes and brown hair, and at the time of her disappearance, she was 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 108 pounds. If you have any information about Angie, please contact the Perry County Sheriff’s Department at 601–964–8461 or the Petal Police Department at 601–544–5331.
