When the Crime Scene Is Empty: What Behavior Reveals When Evidence Vanishes

In June 1973, seven-year-old Susan Jaeger vanished from her family’s tent at a Montana campground, leaving investigators with remarkably little physical evidence and no obvious suspect. The case became an important episode in the FBI’s emerging use of behavioral analysis, associated with early Behavioral Science Unit figures Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany. This episode asks a deceptively difficult question: What can behavior tell investigators when the crime scene tells them almost nothing?