25-05-2025
Woodland home is now at the center of strange disappearance of party girl
Nestled in the lush, wooded hills of River Falls in South Carolina, a six-acre property could easily be mistaken for a peaceful escape from the world.
But last week, the quiet landscape became the scene of a grim excavation, as cadaver dogs and forensic teams searched for signs of Brooke Leigh Henson - a 20-year-old woman who vanished after a house party in 1999.
On May 16, investigators executed a search warrant at the rural property, owned by a man police say was once friends with Henson.
Cadaver dogs alerted to a patch of land behind the home, raising hopes that a long-awaited breakthrough was near. A vehicle was towed. Forensics arrived.
For a moment, it looked like the case might finally crack.
But by late afternoon, that hope evaporated. The discovery turned out to be a pet grave.
'This is the only cold case we have in Travelers Rest,' Police Chief Ben Ford told Fox Carolina, underscoring the weight the disappearance still carries in the small South Carolina town with a population of around 9,000 people.
The property owner was arrested on unrelated charges and is currently being questioned, though he has not been named a person of interest.
The latest search is just one of several prompted by a renewed effort launched in April.
A new task force - made up of officers from the Travelers Rest Police Department, Mauldin Police, and the Greenville County Sheriff's Office - has already unearthed new leads and interviewed several individuals connected to Henson's final hours.
Their mission: to find out what really happened to Henson the night she vanished more than 25 years ago.
On July 3, 1999, Brooke, 20, was throwing a small party at her home on Henderson Drive while her parents were out at a concert.
The family says she was sitting on her front porch when her parents pulled into the driveway. She left the home on foot shortly after and was never seen again.
She reportedly left to buy cigarettes at 2am, even though the store was closed. It is thought an argument with her boyfriend, Rickey Shaun Shirley, may have sparked her sudden departure.
For years he remained the only serious person of interest in the case.
Shirley had a criminal record and refused to cooperate with police.
But in 2019, he died of what was officially ruled an accidental drug overdose in his mother's house. Chief Ford, however, believes there may have been more to it.
At the time of Shirley's death, investigators were actively pursuing new leads at Henson's childhood home - the same place she was last seen.
Word of developments had spread quickly, and according to one of Shirley's friends, he was preparing to come forward with everything he knew.
Shirley allegedly told the friend he planned to speak with police and clear his name. But before he could talk, he was found dead in his mother's home from an overdose.
For years, the working theory was that Henson disappeared from her front porch. But Chief Ford says new witness statements have changed that timeline.
'We have statements that say she was seen at other parties in another part of the county that night,' Ford told FITS News in December 2023.
'So we believe that even though she walked away from her residence, someone picked her up and she continued to go to other parties.'
Those parties, he believes, were in River Falls - the same quiet corner of the county now at the center of the latest search efforts.
'My theory is she never made it through the night and she's buried somewhere in River Falls or the water treatment plant at Travelers Rest,' Ford added.
Though Henson's cause of death is unknown, rumors have long pointed to the local 27-acre water treatment plant as her burial site - a vast area that remains difficult to search without more precise leads.
In 2006 Henson's identity was used by a con artist. A woman using Henson's name applied for a job. But when the prospective employer searched her name online, it came up on a national missing persons list and authorities were called.
What followed was a heartbreaking turn for Henson's family, who for a moment believed she could still be alive.
The woman claiming to be Henson was actually Esther Reed, a Montana native who had gone missing herself in 1999.
In a desperate attempt to escape her troubled past, Reed adopted new identities and assumed the lives of others including Brooke's.
She used the stolen name to enroll at Columbia University and rack up thousands in student loans.
In 2006, a job applicant using Brooke Henson's name was exposed as Esther Reed (pictured) - a woman who had gone missing in 1999 - briefly giving Henson's family false hope she was still alive
When investigators confronted Reed, she doubled down, insisting she was Henson. But when asked to take a DNA test, she fled - sparking a nationwide manhunt.
Reed's ability to evade capture for years left some wondering if she was a spy.
Others speculated she might have had some connection to Henson's original disappearance.
But in all the fascination with Reed, the real girl behind the stolen identity - the one whose face appeared on missing posters - was often lost in the shuffle.
Still, the search continues.
