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When she opens her eyes, it is pitch black. So, she starts to like feel around and her hand actually touches
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grass. And when her eyes finally adjust to the darkness, she notices that there is this gaping hole sliced [music]
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through the back of her tent and her little sister Susie, who had been sleeping right next to her, is gone.
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[music] Now, Heidi doesn't hesitate. She runs to wake up her parents in their nearby
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camper. Bill and Marietta Yaeger hurry out with flashlights hoping to see 7-year-old
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Susie wandering their campsite somewhere, maybe using the restroom. But what they find causes even more panic.
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Susie's stuffed animals that she'd been sleeping with are in the grass outside the back of the tent near where the hole
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was. Now, they figure she couldn't have been gone long. It's just after 5:00 a.m. now and Heidi tells them that she
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last laid eyes on her sister at 1:30 a.m. They'd both like woken up, chatted for a little bit before then falling
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back asleep. >> wake them? >> Not that she remembers, but it's something that I've wondered about
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because their parents had put them to bed earlier before going to their camper to sleep. So, I know that they were
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asleep earlier. But it seems unlikely because it wasn't just Susie and Heidi in the tent. Two of their brothers were
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actually in there, too. You see, the Yaeger family had an order about their campsite. So, for this month-long
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excursion that they were on from their home in Michigan to Montana, the four youngest kids slept in the tent. Their
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oldest son, Dan, had a sleeping set up in the family van. Parents, Bill and Marietta, have their own camper. And
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even the grandparents who were on this trip, they also have their own sleeping quarters. And no one else reported
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hearing anything strange in the night. They all stayed asleep until the family started waking them up one by one to
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help search for Susie. In the book, The Lost Child, which was written by Susie's mom, Marietta, she
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describes the moment that she saw Susie's stuffed animals on the ground >> [music]
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>> and the hole in the tent. And Brett, I'm actually just going to have you read
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from this sentence so people can hear directly from her. >> As I stumbled around the campground
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searching, I was gripped by a terrible sense of separation, panic, and hopelessness in my inability to see.
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I remember looking up at the black night sky and begging God to send the sun. The
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darkness was unbearably frustrating. >> And in that moment, like desperate [music] for a logical explanation,
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Marietta and Bill are asking Heidi if there was anything inside of the tent that Susie could have used to cut the
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hole herself, but of course there wasn't. And right away, Marietta knows in her heart of hearts that someone has
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her daughter.