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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/AlfredTheJones on 2023-12-29 19:47:51+00:00.
Hello everyone! Thank you for your votes and comments on my last post about Nevaeh Kingbird! I hope that they (I've been informed that Nevaeh identified as Two-Spirit and used they/them pronouns. I have used she/her in my writeup because every source refered to them with she/her) will be found soon and reunited with their grieving family.
Today's case is about an woman who also left a home and vanished without a trace.
BACKGROUND
April Bailey was 36 when she went missing in January of 2020 from Nashua, New Hampshire, USA.
She was a mother of three: An adult son, Isiah Bugg, (21), a teenage daughter (16) and a teenage son with disabilities (14). Her children didn't live with her at the time of the disappearance, and she allegedly lost custody of her two younger children some time in the past, but was a part of their lives and stayed in contact.
April has, sadly, fell into addiction at some point in her life and was arrested multiple times. She did however belong to online groups dedicated to addiction recovery and has celebrated sobriety on her social media profiles, which seems to imply that she was getting better. She has reportedly been clean and sober for quite some time according to her friends.
The past couple years have been difficult for April, as she lost her mother in September of 2016. Her father is, allegedly, in and out of jail.
April's friend, Heather Duprey, described her as "(April) would give the shirt off her back for anybody. She never pushed anyone away and she was always there". April's twin sister Nicole said that her sister "(...)Had such a good heart, and her children (were) her world". Isiah described his mom as "(The) greatest mother you could ask for".
DISAPPEARANCE
April was last seen on the evening of 15th of January when she left an apartment at Lynn Street she was renting from a woman to take out the trash. She didn't take any personal items with her; Her purse and phone were found in the apartment. The last person who saw her was her male roommate, in 2023 revealed officially as her boyfriend.
She was reported missing on the 20th of January by her family after she wasn't in contact with them for a few days.
Around the March of 2021, FBI joined the investigation and put out their own missing person's poster. They described her disappearance as "suspicious".
On the 29th of April, a search of Improved Machinery Pond near the Joyce Park and Wildlife Sanctuary was carried out after police recieved a tip, but nothing was found. Sniffer dogs participated in the search, but again, they didn't find anything.
CONCLUSION
It really seems like April just vanished into thin air; There are no clues as to were she went (at least none that we, the public, know of). Of course, that is assuming that the story about taking out the trash is even true.
At first, people were quite perplexed about April's roommate not going out to look at her after she didn't come back for some time and rightfully so- but then again, people have different relationships with their roommates. After the roommate was officially confirmed as her boyfriend (some people who said they were close to the case have been saying it for some time), I'd say that it makes his lack of reaction much more suspicious- If your significant other went out to quickly take out the trash and didn't come back you'd get concerned and go look for them, right?
Take this with a grain of salt, but someone who appears to be close to the case said that the woman April was renting the apartment from is actually the mother of her boyfriend, and her boyfriend was "helping her" in exchange for favors. This person speculated that April's boyfriend was trying to hide his relationship with her and was afraid of "consequences". What consequences, exactly, though? Something related to her disappearance, or their relationship with an alleged power imbalance? The poster, sadly, didn't specify. Again, please take this as speculation as this person didn't get verified as an actual insider.
Rumors or not, I do think that something has happened to April and her boyfriend isn't telling the whole truth. I think that there's a chance that he did something to her, given how sadly common domestic violence is. Some also speculate that April overdosed and died, with her boyfriend or someone else getting rid of her body. She was allegedly sober and I don't want to diminish that, but there's always a chance that she might've relapsed. January 2020 was the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic- maybe that scared April and she turned to drugs to cope?
Of course, there's always a chance that she was snatched off the street by someone, but I'd say that this is unlikely. These kinds of kidnappings aren't as common as people think, and the neighbourhood was reportedly quite nice and "middle class". So it's not like it couldn't happen, but I'd say that's very unlikely.
This theory is a bit... out there, but hear me out: What if April had a medical episode, fell into the dumpster and her body wasn't discovered and was taken away? There have been cases of drunk people falling into dumpsters by accident and falling asleep there, only to be hauled away by workers who weren't aware. Again, I'd say that this is the least likely and "fantastical", but I had to put it out there.
Nashua PD insists that they are working on the case to this day and that they've given it a significant amount of resources (like during the Improved Machinery Pond search which utilized a boat, dive team and sniffer dogs), but April's family say that they feel like the case isn't given the attention it needs from them due to April's history of addiction.
April was actually a third person that went missing in the past year from the neighbourhood- the last disappearances were Michael Andrew Jones, 35, who went missing while staying with friends in the area of Harbor Avenue in January and Michael McClain, 29, last seen near club tropical at Hollis St. Both are missing to this day.
There’s a $150,000 reward for relevant information in April's case.
She had ties to Boston, Massachusetts, and Glen Falls, New York, but it wasn't specified in what way.
April Jean Bailey was 36 when she went missing and would be about 40 now. She's white, 5'3 (63 Inch / 160 cm) and 130 pounds (59 kg). April had black hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a large black jacket with a fur-trimmed hood, black sweatpants or pajama pants, and pink and black Nike slippers. April has the following tattoos: the names "Isaiah", "Savahna" and "Manuel" on her left leg, the name "Damien" on her right ankle, the word "Sister" on her shoulder, and a tattoo of a butterfly on her right shoulder. Her ears and upper lip are pierced, and she has a scar down the center of her spine.
If you have any info regarding April's disappearance, call the Nashua Police Department at (603) 594-3500 (case number 20-4062-OF).
SOURCES
April's websleuths thread