Diane Augat

On April 10th, 1998, 40-year-old Diane Augat walked away from her sister's home in Hudson, FL. She would be spotted in the surrounding area over the next few days, but a couple of shocking discoveries would lead investigators to believe Diane had met foul play…

On Wednesday - April 15th, 1998 - 59-year-old Mildred Young heard a woman's voice over her answering machine. "Help, help, help - let me out," the woman's voice said, clearly tense and alarmed by what was going on around her.

This was followed by a scuffling sound, which made it clear that someone on the other end of the phone was attempting to pull it away from the woman speaking. The woman on the other end could be heard saying "Hey, gimme that!" before the call came to a quick and unceremonious end.

While most people wouldn't think twice of such a call, thinking it to be a malicious prank or a misdial of some sort - or, at the very least, a bizarre misunderstanding - Mildred Young knew better. After all, her daughter - a woman with diagnosed mental illness and a number of troubling personal relationships - had already been missing for several days. And the woman's voice from the other end of the phone was unmistakable her.

This is the story of Diane Augat.

Diane Louise Young was born on February 21st, 1958, to her parents James and Mildred Young. While Diane grew up in New York, she would end up relocating to Florida, along with the rest of her family; specifically, in the area surrounding Tampa, which is where she began to plant her roots.

In the late 1970s, Diane would marry Frederic Augat, taking on his surname. For a time, she seemed to live a pretty idyllic life, becoming a stay-at-home wife and taking care of the couple's three children (two daughters and a son); not only doting upon the children, but making it a point of pride to keep a neat and orderly home.

Denise, Diane's sister, would later recall:

"She had $100 pocketbooks. She was pretty. There could be 1,000 people in the room, and you'd notice her."

Unfortunately, in the late 1980s - after a brief period of bizarre behavior - Diane would be diagnosed with manic depressive disorder (which we know now as bipolar disorder). She would begin to treat this mental illness with medication, but over time, would begin to eschew treatment for a number of perceived reasons; none of which did her any good, and her mental health would begin to suffer as a result.

In 1988, Diane was alleged to have committed child abuse by the state; alleged to have sought an excessive amount of unneeded treatment for one of her children (a mental illness we now know as Munchausen-by-proxy). While she would ultimately be acquitted of these charges, the state would continue to pursue a case against her, believing the charges to have had merit. Elaine Fulton-Jones, a spokeswoman for Children and Families, would later state about Diane and her three kids:

"The children were removed from her custody."

In 1991, after a period of turbulent behavior, Diane and her longtime husband, Frederic, would divorce. He would retain custody of their children, and this would become the nail in the coffin (so to speak) for Diane's mental health.

Over the next several years, Diane would begin to unravel (for lack of a better word), with her being in and out of not only local jails but mental health facilities. Her brother-in-law, Al Finklestein, would later recount to reporters in the Tampa area:

"She's constantly talking to herself. You can tell right away she's ill."

And Diane's own mother, Mildred Young, would later recall:

"She hangs out with whoever will be her friend. She's sick. You can't deal with her when she's as manic as she is. She gets in your face and doesn't shut up."

Diane would begin to develop a drinking problem during this period, and would also begin to dabble in drug use; both of which did nothing but exacerbate her already-existing mental issues. She would be involuntarily committed to mental health facilities at least 32 times under the Baker Act (which allowed a judge, police officer, or doctor to decide whether or not someone was mentally ill enough to pose a danger to themselves or others). The most recent of this involuntary commitals came in 1998, which resulted in her being released to the care of her loved ones that Spring.

However, according to Diane Augat's family members, she should never have been released. Her mother, Mildred Young, would tell the Tampa Bay Times that:

"She deeply needed institutionalized care."

On April 10th, 1998 - Good Friday - Diane Augat was seen alive by her family for the very last time.

Diane had been released from a mental health facility roughly two weeks prior - after being sent there for an involuntary evaluation - and had been staying with her sister in Hudson. While Diane had previously been living in Odessa (where she still had a home) her family thought it best for her to be with family for the time being.

On the morning of April 10th, Diane was last seen by her sister, who ended up leaving for a doctor's appointment that morning. When she returned later that day, she found Diane missing from her home, and it would be reported that Diane left her sister's home - along Cobble Stone Drive in Hudson - at around 11:00 AM.

Later that same day, Diane would be seen at the Hay Loft Tavern, located along Little Road and State Road 52. There, Diane stayed until she was kicked out, with Diane's mother, Mildred Young, later recounting to the Tampa Bay Times:

"[The bartender] cut her off because she was walking in circles. To my knowledge, that was the last anyone saw her, except for the one who took her."

Diane's family would report her missing the next day (April 11th).

While Diane had been known to disappear in the past, she generally only did so for a day or two. This was usually when she lapsed on her medication, or just simply stopped taking them. But in this case, Diane would go missing for several days, leading to the mysterious voicemail received by her mother on April 15th (five days later).

While publications tend to vary on when, exactly, this call came in, it's most reputably reported to have been heard by Diane's mother on Wednesday, April 15th - five days after Diane's last known sighting. Other publications claim it was received on April 13th. In this call, Diane could be heard asking for help on the other end of the phone, but struggles to keep control of the phone from a mysterious individual taking it away from her.

To Diane's loved ones, this call seemed to confirm that Diane was in serious trouble this time; especially since this was her longest, and most unusual, disappearing act yet. When Mildred would attempt to call back the number Diane had dialed her from, the name "Starlight" would appear on her caller ID (indicating that it had been a business with that name), but attempts to redial would go unanswered. In my digging, I've only found one business in the Tampa area with that name, a strip club named the Starlight Lounge (which is now known as Teasers). But it's unknown if there was any connection between the two.

On Wednesday, April 15th - five days after Diane Augat left her sister's home in Hudson, Florida - a human finger was found along U.S. Route 19, near New York Avenue. This discovery was made at around 4:00 PM by a woman walking to work, who thought that the finger was just a toy or a prop of some sort. However, the woman would tell her boyfriend about it, and the following day he ventured out to the location, where he discovered that the finger - which was painted with red nail polish - was real. He would then reach out to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, who arrived at the scene shortly thereafter and documented the find.

While it's been reported that two fingers were found at the location, police have revealed that they only discovered one - and that's been the official narrative ever since.

In an attempt to figure out who this finger belonged to, authorities would match it up with their own records, and quickly discover that the finger belonged to the missing Diane Augat. Because Diane had been arrested in the past, she had been fingerprinted and was unfortunately a match.

While investigators would theorize that the finger might have been accidentally severed - perhaps slammed in a car door, or something similar - the likelihood of that was believed to be quite low.

Authorities would begin to search throughout the area near where Diane's finger was found, and would even bring out a helicopter to scan the area from the skies. Unfortunately, their efforts would prove to be fruitless, and no other trace of the missing 40-year-old would be found. Subsequent attempts to find her at her home or her regular haunts were similarly unsuccessful in the days and weeks to come.

Police did not believe that Diane had left on her own, with Jon Powers, the spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, telling reporters:

"She apparently did not have a vehicle. She either hitchhiked or got rides from friends."

This, paired with Diane's overly trusting behavior when off of her medication, led investigators to believe that she might have willingly gone along with someone intending to do her harm. On this, Pasco County spokesman Jon Powers would state:

"When [Diane] did not take her medication correctly, her personality would change, and during these bouts she was known to hang out with a pretty rough crowd."

When asked for her own thoughts on what might have happened to her missing daughter, Diane's mother Mildred Young hoped for the best, but clearly seemed to be preparing herself for the worst, stating:

"She is in trouble. Big trouble. They're probably torturing her... I'm hoping that she's still alive, that they haven't killed her yet."

On the same day that the story of Diane's disappearance began to break in the Tampa area, a discovery would be made at a convenience store that Diane often frequented. This occured in Odessa, Florida, about 25 miles north of Tampa.

On Saturday, April 18th, 1998, convenience store manager Patricia Sblendorio discovered a pile of neatly-folded clothing inside of an outdoor freezer. Immediately recognizing the clothing as Diane Augat's, Patricia would reach out to Deborah, Diane's sister, who confirmed the clothing was in fact Diane's.

Police would immediately begin to theorize that the clothing might have been put in the freezer by some of the people that Diane had been hanging out with in the weeks preceding her disappearance. Authorities also believed that these same individuals (who were described as "juveniles" in newspaper reports), had started looting Diane's home along the 1700 block of Chesapeake Drive at around the same time that she disappeared. It was believed that Diane had allowed these youngsters to hang out in her home and throw parties while she was gone, but they had been betraying her trust in her absence, moving items out of her home without her consent.

Unfortunately, it would be almost impossible to determine when the clothing had been put into the outdoor freezer, since the staff at the convenience store had not checked it in approximately three weeks. Diane had been missing for about eight days at the time of this discovery, making this an unknown variable in an extremely concerning case.

Over the next several weeks, authorities would receive dozens of tips from potential witnesses that believed they had seen Diane in the surrounding area.

This included one witness who claimed to have seen her on the afternoon of April 11th, between 3:00 and 4:00 PM, walking along New York Avenue. This would put her in the location where her finger was later found, and extended her last known whereabouts by an entire day - giving investigators another (mysterious) 24 hour period to account for.

Another witness - a waitress at the Inn on the Gulf in Hudson - would claim to have seen Diane on the same day that that the ominous phone call was made to her parents (which was picked up on the answering machine), but it's unknown if investigators were ever able to confirm this sighting. If they did, they haven't released that info in the years since.

Unfortunately, none of these tips seemed to pan into anything worthwhile, with investigators being unable to locate any part of Diane - other than her lone severed finger. Her case would begin to fade from the headlines by the end of April, and her story would languish in the press for more than two years.

Despite the circumstances pointing to harm having befallen 40-year-old Diane Augat, she would be ruled a missing person following her disappearance, and her case would remain in virtual stasis for the better part of the next few years.

In November of 2000, Diane's story would begin to make headlines in Tampa yet again, when Diane's parents reminisced about her life openly; pointing out that things had started to quickly devolve shortly after their daughter's mental illnesses began to reveal themselves, causing her to lose custody of her children, divorce her longtime husband, and begin to distance herself entirely from the person she had once been. As a result, she had become an entirely different person - seemingly overnight - and had begun to take solace in alcoholism and substance abuse.

Pasco County Sheriff's officials would reiterate that they continued to investigate the case, and treated it as an ongoing investigation - not a cold case, as you'd expect. Spokesman Jon Powers would state:

"There really has been a tremendous amount of work that has gone into this case. It is frustrating that all that work hasn't produced any more results."

Nonetheless, Diane's loved ones would be left without any answers. Her mother, forcing herself to ask questions that no parent should ever have to ask, would ponder openly about her missing daughter:

"Did someone cut her up, piece by piece? That's what I think about."

On November 25th, 2000 - one day after this article was published about Diane's case in the Tampa Bay Times - another bizarre discovery would be made at a convenience store frequented by Diane and her loved ones.

That Saturday, Terry Wilson (girlfriend of Diane's brother) walked into a Circle K convenience store along Highway 19, just north of Hudson; near Viva Villas, a neighborhood that Diane was often in. There, inside the convenience store, on top of the lottery ticket counter, Terry would find a bag of random knickknacks which had the name "Diane" written in black marker. Believing that this might have something to do with the case of her boyfriend's missing sister, Terry took this bag back to Diane's family, who then informed police about the discovery.

This clear plastic bag contained items that Diane would have been using at the time of her disappearance: black eyeliner, Taboo perfume, bright pink lipstick, as well as a generic brand of toothpaste. Coincidentally, this was the same type of toothpaste issued by the mental health facility that Diane had been in just a couple of weeks before her disappearance, and this bag appeared to have been similar to one kept by those in the mental health facility - leading Diane's family to assume that it had been hers. The question of how or why it had been left at the convenience store - seemingly abandoned - intrigued Diane's loved ones and investigators.

Authorities would announce that they were going to review the security tape from the convenience store, in the hopes of determing who had placed the bag on this counter, but it doesn't seem like anything came from this lead... other than a renewed belief that Diane Augat, or someone that knew what had happened to her, was still in the area.

Thankfully, the case would not remain out of the press for very long, but would be linked to another strange case that began unfolding just months later.

At around 4:00 in the morning on Wednesday, June 27th, 2001, a pair of men wearing black ski masks barged into the office of the Coral Sands Motel in Hudson, Florida. Located just off of U.S. 19, this was a cheap and affordable motel that was often frequented by those with nowhere else to go. This seemingly included the two masked men, who barged into the motel's office - a trailer - brandishing firearms.

Once inside the office, the two men would hit motel manager Rose Kasper in the face, causing her to yell out for her boyfriend and co-manager, Gary Evers, who was in a back room of the trailer/office. By the time that Gary ran out into the front, Rose had already been hit a couple of times, and the two mask-clad gunmen quickly fled.

The following evening - June 28th - Gary Evers would invite a man into the motel's office (which, again, was a trailer that both he and Rose lived in). That man, 26-year-old Todd Kammers, was a young man with a long history of burglary and other criminal acts, who Gary suspected of being one of the two gunmen from the night prior. Believing that the younger man had battered his girlfriend, Gary would pull out a 9mm pistol and ask - at gunpoint - if he was responsible. It's not known how Todd responded, but Gary would open fire, emptying two entire magazines into the 26-year-old's body.

On the morning of Friday - June 29th - 52-year-old Gary Robert Evers was taken into police custody and charged with first-degree murder. Surprisingly, it was discovered that Evers pretty much had no prior criminal history, other than an allegation for pulling a gun on a man in October of 1999 (for attempting to sleep with a stripper, who Evers knew was dating another man at the time). But in that case, no charges had been filed, despite police having been called out to the motel.

It would later be revealed in court that the man Gary Evers had shot to death, 26-year-old Todd Kammers, had had nothing to do with the attempted robbery from June 27th, 2001. In fact, Kammers had only gone to the motel that night in an attempt to clear his name. The true culprits of the attempted robbery had been another couple of lowlives from the region, Edwin Humphrey and Robert Hay, who had committed a string of similar robberies the same week. Humphrey had actually shot Hay in order to (unsuccessfully) cover up their involvement in the crimes, earning him a life sentence, and he later confessed to being the ones who battered Gary's girlfriend in the Coral Sands Motel office.

This was a tragic case of mistaken identity, causing two men their lives. Gary Evers was later sentenced to life in prison in April of 2004, and records indicate that he remained incarcerated in the Florida state prison system until his death in May of 2012.

So, how does this relate to the story of Diane Augat?

Well, at the same time that this story was breaking in the press, it would be reported through Diane's family members that Gary Robert Evers - the man convicted in this motel shooting three years after Diane's disappearance - had been one of investigators' main suspects in Diane going missing back in 1998. The motel that he co-managed, the Coral Sands Motel, was one of Diane's last known locations, and was located just a short distance away from where she was last seen alive (as well as being close to the location that the plastic bag containing her belongings was found approximately seven months prior).

While investigators have been coy about the potential links between Diane Augat and Gary Evers, he remains the only publicly named suspect in this case - and despite him (reportedly) passing away in 2012, it's believed that he may have been involved in Diane's disappearance, or held knowledge about it that he took to the grave.

During my research for this case, I discovered that a group of women - matching the same general description as Diane - went missing in the area between 1995 and 2002. These women, like Diane, were last seen in bars and restaurants in the Tampa area, and seem to bear an uncanny number of similarities.

37-year-old Kathy A. Struckhoff, a recovering alcoholic suffering from severe depression, was killed in February of 1995. She was last seen in the company of a man named "John" at the Tampa-area Texans Lounge; with staff at the bar claiming that "John" had been a regular that never returned after Kathy's murder. Her body was found the following morning just off of Little Road, in New Port Richey, but "John" - this mysterious man in his 50s or 60s - was never identified, and Kathy's murder remains unsolved today.

As does the murder of 36-year-old Kimberly Langlois Wilson, another woman that had long struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism. Kimberly was found dead in a shallow ditch along Hudson's Delmar Drive and Flicker Lane, and had last been seen alive on June 5th, 1999. Police pegged her date of death as June 9th or 10th.

34-year-old Rhonda Ann Brown was another struggling alcoholic that had previously worked as a bartender, who went missing in January of 2000. She was last seen walking away from her home in Hudson, heading out to a bar named Sullivan's nearby. Sadly, Rhonda was never seen or heard from again, disappearing without any of her belongings.

Then there is 33-year-old Kathleen Marie Wandahsega, who was another struggling alcoholic that disappeared in October of 2002. She was last seen walking away from her home in Port Richey, possibly heading out to a bar in the area to celebrate her birthday. She would never return home and wasn't seen alive again, and would fail to cash a $500 check mailed to her days after last being seen.

While it is indeed very possible that these are all unrelated incidents - I'll be the first to admit that I've been wrong in the past - the similarities in these five cases (including Diane Augat's) are pretty uncanny. These were all women that ranged in age from 33 to 40 years old, who were around the same height and weight, who had all previously suffered from alcoholism and substance abuse, and had varying degrees of distance with their loved ones. These five women would all be murdered or go missing from the same general area while heading out to bars in the Tampa area, over a roughly seven-year period.

Like I said, this could all just be a coincidence - after all, Tampa is a rather large metropolitan area, with more than two million people calling it home at the time - but these crimes all took place in Port Richey or Hudson, two towns in Florida with rather small populations at the time.

It's possible that I'm grasping at straws here, but I can only hope that this is something that investigators looked into at the time.

Unfortunately, there has been close to no activity in Diane's case in nearly two decades, with her disappearance remaining just as unsolved today as it was back in 1998.

40-year-old Diane Augat was last seen in April of 1998, and was last known to be staying with her sister along Hudson's Cobble Stone Drive, but would reportedly be seen in the surrounding area over the next few days. She had a history of mental illness and substance abuse, and was known to be incredibly trusting when not on medication. For that reason, it is believed that she may have willingly been in the company of people that intended to do her harm, and that was made evident by the discovery of one of her fingers just days after she was reported missing.

While rumors have persisted about sightings of Diane in the Tampa area from time to time, there has been no confirmed sighting of her since the second week of April 1998. If she is still alive, she would be approximately 62 years old, and likely still suffering from bipolar disorder (which requires medication to treat). She stood around 5'4" tall at the time of her disappearance and weighed about 130 pounds, and had dark strawberry blonde hair which has likely grayed with age.

A $3,000 reward still exists for information leading to her current whereabouts, and anyone with information can reach out to Crime Stoppers of Tampa Bay at 1-800-873-TIPS (or submit a tip online).

As of this episode's recording, the story of Diane Augat remains unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on December 6th, 2020

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Travis Scsepko, Damion Moore, Brittany Norris, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Bryan Hall, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Jo Wong, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Kevin McCracken, Tatum Bautista, Teunia Elzinga, Michele Watson, Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, Dawn Kellar, Elissa Hampton-Dutro, Sharon Manetta, Ruth Durbin, and Jennifer Henshaw