Play the episode “Haleigh’s Secret” of the Dateline: Missing in America podcast below and click here to follow.
Read the transcript here:
On June 16, 2023, the forecast for Temple, Texas, was hot and muggy. The high would hit 103 degrees. 22-year-old Haleigh Murphy started her day as she often did: on the phone with her mom, Becky Mitchell.
Becky Mitchell: “We talked probably 45 minutes while I got ready for work. She told me about her going to go to her ex-boyfriend’s yacht party.”
Later that day, Haleigh asked her sister, Harley Murphy, to help her pack for that weekend getaway.
Josh Mankiewicz: “She wanted you to pick out some outfits for her.”
Harley Murphy: “Yeah. She has so many clothes. She was like, I have, like, 30 bathing suits and I need to just pick three. Can you help?”
Nothing about that day seemed unusual to Haleigh’s family. They were close.
Becky Mitchell: “Haleigh loved family.”
Harley Murphy: “She was very protective of the people that she cared about.”
One person had a special place in Haleigh’s heart: her 2-year-old son, JJ.
Brittney Ketchum is Haleigh’s best friend.
Britttney Ketchum: “I had never seen, like, a light in her eyes the way I saw when she was -- found out she was pregnant with JJ.”
No one in Haleigh’s circle old enough to remember that June day knew they were making their final memories with Haleigh.
Harley Murphy: “She said bye to her son, and she said bye to me. And then she got in the car and we left.”
Some of those memories are excruciating.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Are you feeling some guilt about this?”
Brittney Ketchum: “Yeah. I feel a lot of guilt.”
It turns out, Haleigh -- devoted mother, daughter, sister, friend -- had a dangerous secret. And her family believes it was deadly.
Josh Mankiewicz: “That’s a terrible story.”
Becky Mitchell: “Sounds like a movie. Not real life.”
I’m Josh Mankiewicz and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline.
This episode is “Haleigh’s Secret.”
Please listen closely, because you or someone you know may have information that could help Haleigh’s family find the answers they’re still looking for.
Haleigh Breann Murphy spent much of her childhood in and around Killeen Texas, in the shadow of the sprawling Fort Hood Army Base.
Her mother, Becky Mitchell, an Army veteran, was stationed there. She says her oldest daughter did not seem destined to follow in her bootprints.
Becky Mitchell: “‘Cause Haleigh is a princess. She likes her makeup; she loves her nails. She liked to be pretty.”
Haleigh did like to stand out. Her favorite mode of expression was ink.
Becky and her younger daughter, Harley Murphy, had a lot to say about that. At times they finished each other’s sentences.
Josh Mankiewicz: “She loved tattoos.”
Becky Mitchell: “Oh, God.”
Harley Murphy: “Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.”
Becky Mitchell: “That was her passion. I guess you’d say she --.”
Harley Murphy: “She wanted to be fully covered in tattoos.”
Becky Mitchell: “Fully covered.”
Harley Murphy: “From the neck down.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “So maybe we’re past a passion and into addiction.”
Harley Murphy: “Mm-hmm.”
Becky Mitchell: “I did make her promise after she got her neck tattoo that she would never tattoo her face.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “What was it about the tattoos that made her want to do that?”
Becky Mitchell: “I think it’s the art. She was like, wherever you want to put it, whatever you want to do, you can do it. I think she liked the attention, too. That was an addiction for her too, getting attention from people.”
Everyone who knew Haleigh agrees: she was not shy.
Becky Mitchell: “She lived loud with no regrets, absolutely. She enjoyed life to the fullest.”
In 2018, after graduating high school, Haleigh told Becky she was not going to college.
She had other plans.
Josh Mankiewicz: “When she said to the two of you, ‘I’m joining the U.S. Army,’ you thought, ‘Come on, you’re kidding.’”
Harley Murphy: “Yeah, I literally thought she was joking.”
Becky served in the military for four years. Today, she’s a parole officer.
To her and to Harley it was obvious why Haleigh and the Army did not seem an ideal match.
Becky Mitchell: “She don’t like to get dirty. She don’t like to be hot.”
Harley Murphy: “She does not like being told what to do.”
Becky Mitchell: “And she don’t like to be told what to do. Yes.”
Harley Murphy: “We didn’t think she was going to make it through basic training. We were waiting for the call for her to say, ‘Hey, you got to come get me. It’s time for me to come home.’”
That call never came.
Haleigh not only made it through Basic at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, she met her soon-to-be best friend, Brittney Ketchum.
Brittney Ketchum: “Everybody had their own little cliques. And she was new and she was rowdy. And then I was just socially awkward and weird. So we just ended up just hanging out because no one liked her and I was like, ‘No one likes me, so that’s perfect.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “To hear you tell it, you were a couple of misfits who found each other.”
Brittney Ketchum: “Yeah, in a sense.”
After basic training, Haleigh and Brittney both ended up at Fort Hood, and both in the Third Calvary.
Brittney says that’s when their friendship deepened.
Brittney Ketchum: “If you were a person that she liked, like, you felt the love through walls. She would do anything for you.”
Haleigh was a human resources specialist, and Becky says the office job was a perfect fit for her daughter turned soldier.
Becky Mitchell: “She loved her job. She loved the people she worked with.”
In 2019, almost 18 months after enlisting, Haleigh’s life took an unexpected turn. She became pregnant.
Becky Mitchell: “When she got pregnant with Jahlonni that was like the greatest thing in her life. She couldn’t wait to be a mom.”
Becky says Haleigh received a medical discharge in August 2020, and in September, Haleigh’s son Jahlonni “JJ” was born.
Haleigh assumed sole custody of JJ. His father was in the military too, and Haleigh’s family says she remained on good terms with him. She was determined to keep him in their son’s life.
Haleigh Murphy was now a stay-at-home single mom.
Becky Mitchell: “She said she wasn’t going to work ‘till after he was a year old, and that’s what she did.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “How’d she make money?”
Becky Mitchell: “She had some money saved up from when she was in the military. Haleigh was really good with money.”
After Haleigh left the Army, Brittney and Haleigh stayed close. Brittney says motherhood mellowed her best friend.
Brittney Ketchum: “Before she had JJ, she loved to party. She just loved going out. But when she had that son, like, everything changed. She started taking care of herself in ways that I had never seen her take care of herself before.”
After JJ’s first birthday in September 2021, Haleigh surprised her family again.
Becky Mitchell: “She was like, ‘Now I got to get a job and figure out my life.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And that job turned out to be stripper.”
Harley Murphy: “Not initially.”
Becky Mitchell: “Not initially, no.”
Harley Murphy: “First, she was working as a cocktail waitress in a strip club.”
Becky says Haleigh soon realized she could make a lot more money dancing at strip clubs instead of serving drinks.
Becky Mitchell: “One of her good friends from high school was a stripper. I feel like she coached Haleigh into doing it by, ‘Look how much money I make,’ and Haleigh’s competitive, so she had to outdo her friend.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Was her friend right? Did she make more money doing that?”
Becky Mitchell: “Lots.”
Harley Murphy: “She made a lot of money doing that, definitely.
Becky Mitchell: “Lots of money.”
Haleigh worked at three clubs in Austin, where according to Becky and Harley, her competitive streak was on full display, along with everything else.
Becky Mitchell: “She had to be best at the dancing on the pole.”
Harley Murphy: “Had the better outfit.”
Becky Mitchell: “Had the better outfit. She bought a pole and she put it in her living room and she would practice doing tricks and stunts so she could be better than anybody else in the club.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “One of the things that happens to women in that profession is they attract a lot of attention from men, some of it wanted and some of it probably not wanted.”
Becky Mitchell: “Yeah.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You ever worry about that?”
Becky Mitchell: “A lot. A lot.”
In January 2023, Becky says Haleigh hurt her neck and back in a car accident and had to stop dancing.
Becky Mitchell: “She was driving home from work one night and a drunk driver hit her. She still went to the clubs and worked, but she wasn’t able to dance on stage and stuff like she used to.”
According to Becky and Harley, by then Haleigh was already thinking about a new career.
Harley Murphy: “JJ was getting older. He was about to turn 3. And then the following year after that, he would have started school.”
Becky Mitchell: “She didn’t want to be the stripper mom.”
Becky says Haleigh enrolled in business classes and planned to get her real estate license. She was dreaming big.
Becky Mitchell: “‘I can open my own real estate company. I can be my own boss and work my own hours.’ That’s how she looked at being a real estate agent.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “I’m sure both of you thought,’This is great. She’s heading in the right direction.’”
Harley Murphy: “Oh, yeah.”
Becky Mitchell: “Oh, yeah.”
Haleigh owned a house in Temple, about an hour from Austin. And in the spring of 2023, she and JJ had two roommates: Harley and her baby boy. The sisters, just two years apart, were navigating motherhood together.
On Friday, June 16, Haleigh was packing for a weekend away. Harley agreed to babysit.
Harley Murphy: “She said that she was going to Austin for the weekend. Should be back Monday, if not, latest Tuesday morning.”
Haleigh’s car was in the shop, so Harley drove her to Austin to meet up with a friend, whose name is Trinity Smith. Haleigh was going to stay at his place. She said she might go to an ex-boyfriend’s birthday party on Saturday.
Harley dropped off her sister at a bar called Slick Willie’s, and Trinity met them there.
Harley Murphy: “Haleigh loaded her suitcase and then her school bag into his car. And then she said bye to her son, and she said bye to me. And then she got in the car and we left.”
As Harley drove home with the children, it started to rain, and Haleigh called her from her next stop, another bar.
Harley Murphy: “She was like, ‘It‘s raining really bad here. The power just went out at the bar. I just wanted to check on you guys to make sure you’re safe,’ and she told me to let her know when I made it home.”
Harley says she forgot to make that call when she got home, but texted Haleigh on Saturday.
She didn’t hear back, and Becky did not hear from Haleigh either.
Becky says that wasn’t surprising.
Becky Mitchell: “We didn’t really expect her to be calling us or texting us because she was going to be at this party.”
Then, on Saturday evening, Becky noticed Haleigh had not posted anything on social media, and that was unusual.
Becky Mitchell: “Haleigh, she lived on social media. She posted something every day, every so many hours on social media, something.”
By Sunday, Becky and Harley were worried. They could see their text messages to Haleigh were not being delivered and calls to her phone were going straight to voicemail.
Becky says they checked with Haleigh’s friends to see if anyone knew where she was, and learned this:
Haleigh never showed up at her ex-boyfriend’s party.
Haleigh’s friend Brittney Ketchum was asleep when her phone rang. She was still a soldier, deployed in South Korea.
Brittney Ketchum: “It was the middle of the night for me. And they were like, ‘Have you heard from Haleigh?’ And I opened all my apps. And I’m like, ‘No, I haven’t heard from her.’ And then I felt, like, this pit in my stomach.”
The one friend of Haleigh’s Becky could not reach was Trinity Smith, the guy Haleigh was with Friday night. Becky left messages on his phone but did not hear back.
Becky Mitchell: “I told Harley, I said, ‘Well, she said she’d be home Monday night or Tuesday morning.’ I said, ‘I’ll wait till Tuesday.’”
By Tuesday, Haleigh’s social media accounts had been uncharacteristically silent for three days, and calls to her phone were still going to voicemail. That’s when Becky filed a missing persons report with the Austin Police Department. The police issued a BOLO -- a be-on-the-lookout alert -- for Haleigh.
Even so, Becky wanted them to move faster.
A few days later, Becky learned Haleigh’s case had been turned over to the Texas Rangers.
On June 25, Ranger Kevin Callihan opened a missing persons investigation.
Becky Mitchell: “We were like, ‘OK, they’re going to take this serious. Something’s wrong.’”
By then, Becky and Harley had already launched their own search.
With help from relatives, they posted missing flyers on social media and all over Austin, hoping someone had seen Haleigh or Trinity.
And soon, Becky had something to share with Ranger Callihan.
Two women saw the flyer and messaged Becky on Facebook. They had seen Haleigh and Trinity Friday night at Eddie’s Tavern, a bar in Round Rock, just north of Austin.
Becky Mitchell: “They were sitting at a table next to Trinity and Haleigh, and they had actually talked to Haleigh. They were throwing darts.”
In her Facebook message, one of the women wrote, “The man said something to the effect that he left his phone or wallet somewhere so they had to leave. We stayed ‘til close and they didn’t come back.”
Becky says she gave both women’s contact information to Ranger Callihan.
That lead was a start, and soon Becky would have more information to share with investigators.
Trinity Smith was about to resurface.
He called Becky, and he had quite a story to tell.
Trinity Smith: “I’ve been in the hospital I just, I just checked myself out the hospital.”
Becky: “Today?”
Trinity Smith: “I just --.Yes, ma’am.”
Now, where was Haleigh?
And did Trinity know what happened to her?
It was Saturday, June 24, 2023. Haleigh Murphy’s family had not heard from her in seven days.
Her mom, Becky Mitchell, had been trying to reach Trinity Smith, the friend Haleigh was last seen with.
He had not returned a single message.
Until now.
Becky recorded the call.
Trinity Smith: “I’ve been in the hospital. I just -- I just checked myself out the hospital.”
Becky: “Today?”
Trinity Smith: “Yes, ma’am.”
Trinity told Becky he’d spent the past week in the hospital, receiving treatment for blood poisoning.
Trinity said he did not have his phone with him, and was just now hearing that Haleigh was missing.
Trinity Smith: “I’m just finding out everything today.”
Becky asked Trinity where he and Haleigh went after they left that bar in Round Rock.
Becky: “When y’all left Eddie’s Tavern, where did y’all go?”
Trinity Smith: “We stopped and met her friend off of, like -- like, Allendale area. And, uh, I went home.”
Becky: “Do you know what they were driving? Do you remember what they were driving?”
Trinity Smith: “Oh, I --. [Expletive.] I can’t -- I can’t, uh --. See it was, [expletive] some white -- it’s white. Uh, it was a car. I can’t --. It was not a big car.”
Trinity told Becky he was drunk when he dropped off Haleigh to meet her friend. And he said he did not know the friend’s name.
Now, there was a reason Becky recorded that call.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You already suspected him by the time that phone conversation happened.”
Becky Mitchell: “I automatically suspected the person she was with did something to her.”
Trinity’s phone call only deepened that suspicion.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Any part of the story Trinity is telling sound true to you?”
Becky Mitchell: “None.”
Because Becky is a parole officer, she knew Trinity was on probation for a federal drug conviction.
About six months earlier, Haleigh had asked her mom to check Trinity’s record.
Becky Mitchell: “She had found out he was on federal probation and she was wondering what it was for.”
That was not the first time Becky had run a record check on a man in her daughter Haleigh’s life.
Becky Mitchell: “She’s attracted to felons. And I told her that. I said, ‘You have a type. If they hadn’t been in trouble with the law, then you don’t want them.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “What appealed to her about guys like that?”
Becky Mitchell: “I don’t even know. The bad boy? She was attracted to men that just could not follow rules.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “OK. Pretty sure you said to her at some point, Becky, ‘Why don’t you try dating somebody who isn’t one of my parolees or couldn’t become one?’”
Becky Mitchell: “Yes. Yes. I -- I did a lot. We had that conversation so many times.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And her answer was what?”
Becky Mitchell: “She would laugh actually. She never really had an answer. She’d just laugh at it.”
Haleigh met Trinity at work. He was a 47-year-old patron at one of the strip clubs where she danced.
He also had a nickname he had apparently given himself: Bankroll.
Becky Mitchell: “He got to pick whatever girls he wanted to go to the VIP section with him. He picked Haleigh, and he told Haleigh, ‘Bring all your friends.’ She’d make five, six thousand dollars that night just by being in the VIP section with him and her friends.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Haleigh ever tell you what Trinity/Bankroll did for a living to make all that money?”
Becky Mitchell: “Back in January, February, March time frame, she had found out that he was a drug dealer.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Tell me what you know about Haleigh’s drug use.”
Becky Mitchell: “She smoked marijuana for sure, for sure. And I’m sure partying in that lifestyle, she probably did some coke or, you know, ecstasy, molly, something like that. But as far as drug using, daily basis kind of thing, no.”
Her sister agrees with that.
Harley Murphy: “The most she did at home was maybe smoke some weed after JJ went to sleep.”
Harley says Haleigh and Trinity were not dating, just casual friends.
Harley Murphy: “She wasn’t with him, per se. She was kind of like a trophy piece that he could walk around with in public. He would buy her nice things and pay her bills so that she would go be seen with him in public.”
Haleigh’s best friend, Brittney Ketchum, had the same take.
Brittney Ketchum: “I would never call him a boyfriend. I don’t think they ever got physical, like, um, sexually, that I’m tracking. And if they did, I’m not tracking it. Their relationship was: he was an older man who wanted a pretty younger woman on his arm, and that’s what he got.”
Platonic or not, Becky says Haleigh and her friends sometimes stayed at Trinity’s apartment in Austin.
According to Becky, Haleigh told her one night about three months before she went missing, Trinity did something that scared her. It happened after someone had broken into Trinity’s car.
Becky Mitchell: “She was at his apartment, and he wouldn’t let her leave. He thought Haleigh and her friends were trying to rob him because he evidently had some drugs in his car.”
Becky says Trinity made a not-so-veiled threat to Haleigh.
Becky Mitchell: “He was talking about whoever vandalized his car, he was going to kill them and -- and their whole family.”
After that incident, Becky says she thought Haleigh had stopped seeing Trinity.
It was now clear she had been wrong.
About a week and a half after Haleigh went missing, Becky met with Texas Ranger Callihan and told him about the threats Trinity had made. She also gave him the recording of her phone call with Trinity.
Becky Mitchell: “I was an open book. ‘What do you want to know? What information do you need to make this task easier so we can get to the finish line and find my daughter?’ They mainly wanted access to my phone account to look at Haleigh’s phone. That’s what they wanted.”
Becky says a couple of weeks after that meeting, Ranger Callihan told her Trinity had lawyered up and would not speak with them.
When someone you love goes missing, life doesn’t stop. It just gets harder. The adults in Haleigh’s life were struggling to manage their own emotions while taking care of Haleigh’s almost 3-year-old son, JJ.
Harley Murphy: “At first, he was just asking if he could speak to her or when she’d come home. And one time I was cooking dinner, and he just sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and he was crying. And he looked up at me and he was just like, ‘I just miss my mommy.’ I don’t know what to say to that boy. ‘Cause I miss her too.”
How do you tell a toddler that no one knows where his mother is?
Harley and Becky say they spoke with JJ’s father, who was still in the military, stationed in New York. Together, they came up with a plan to talk with JJ.
Harley Murphy: “We all decided that, um, we were just going to tell him that she’s lost and she’s having a hard time trying to find her way back home.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “That might be the best answer.”
Becky and Harley put on their game faces for little JJ.
The truth was that neither of them believed Haleigh was ever coming home.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Because if she were alive, one or both of you would have heard from her.”
Harley Murphy: “Yes.”
Becky Mitchell: “Absolutely. Absolutely. Haleigh loved family. Out of all three of my children, she’s the only one that would never leave me. She would never go anywhere that I wasn’t. Even as an adult, when she moved out and bought her own house, she was literally 15 minutes from me.”
Weeks turned into months, and to Haleigh’s family, it looked as if the Rangers had made zero progress in their investigation.
Becky and Harley were about to find out Haleigh had been keeping a secret from them.
Whether she realized it or not, she was taking a very big risk.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You think Haleigh had any idea the kind of danger she was putting herself in?”
Becky Mitchell: “No, I don’t.”
After Haleigh Murphy’s family reported her missing, they kept looking for her on their own.
Five days after her disappearance her sister Harley turned up a clue.
She had pulled up Haleigh’s call records from their family’s shared phone account and started calling the numbers she did not recognize.
Harley Murphy: “And the first one I called, he told me what his name was and then I explained to him the situation, and I asked him if he had spoken to her or seen her since that night. He clicked his pen, and I heard him start writing down stuff, and he was asking me more questions than not. As soon as I got off the phone with him, called my mom back and I said, ‘That was a cop on her phone log.’ I was like, ‘Why would she be talking to a cop?’”
To be clear, the man Harley spoke with did not say he was a cop.
Harley thought he sounded like one.
She says he told her his name was Mike, and that he had called Haleigh on June 16, 2023.
That was the day she disappeared.
Harley Murphy: “Mike had told me that he was supposed to meet her out at the bars that night, but he never went.”
Harley says she remembers Haleigh getting a phone call that night, before they left for Austin to meet Trinity.
Harley Murphy: “She made me get out of her room so she could take the call.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You remember anything she said during that conversation?”
Harley Murphy: “No, she closed her door. I do remember her saying about what time she was going to be getting there, but that was it. I just figured that she was talking to Trinity at that time.”
About a week after Harley talked with Mike, Becky met with the Texas Ranger assigned to Haleigh’s case.
She says another person was at that meeting, someone whose name was familiar.
Becky Mitchell: “Mike Guerra, who was a state police officer, CID undercover officer.”
The officer’s name is actually Mike Guerra. Becky said she first heard his name almost a year before Haleigh went missing.
And here’s how: in August 2022, Becky says Haleigh’s then-boyfriend had just been released from prison and was moving in with Haleigh.
Becky Mitchell: “And so, he tells her one day, ‘Hey, I got one duffel bag left at cousin’s house with my clothes in it.’ And so, she takes him to Austin, to his cousin’s house. She don’t get out of the car. She sits in the car. They’re on the way home, and State Patrol gets behind their car.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “I can see what’s coming here.”
Becky Mitchell: “Yeah, he’s driving. He takes off. High-speed chase down 35, headed toward Temple.”
Becky says the chase ended when the boyfriend stopped the car and ran off, leaving Haleigh to face the music and the cops.
According to Becky, that’s when Mike Guerra convinced Haleigh to inform on her boyfriend.
Becky Mitchell: “They put the handcuffs on her. She’s upset. She’s crying. And Mike comes and talks to her at the scene and says, ‘We could put you in jail if you don’t help us.’ She informed, and he went back to prison.”
Becky says when Haleigh told her about the deal with Guerra, she gave her daughter a reality check.
Becky Mitchell: “I told her that’s dangerous for one, like, you know, ‘Who all knows that you’re doing this? You don’t want to tell people that you do this or you’ve done this,’ I said. ‘Because no matter how long it’s been, it can come back on you.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Snitches get stitches.”
Becky Mitchell: “Get stitches. Yes.”
Becky says she thought her message had landed and Haleigh’s days as an informant were over.
Now, face-to-face with Mike Guerra, a wave of doubt swept over Becky.
Was he the same Mike Harley had talked with? The guy Harley thought sounded like a cop, the guy who’d called Haleigh the night she met up with Trinity on the day she vanished.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did you ask him?”
Becky Mitchell: “I didn’t ask him right out because I felt like I would be lied to.”
Instead, Becky says she made an excuse to FaceTime with Harley during that meeting so she could hear Mike Guerra’s voice.
Becky Mitchell: “When I FaceTimed her, I gave him my phone.”
Harley says she recognized his voice. He sounded like the guy she spoke with who had called Haleigh the night she went missing.
Becky and Harley were convinced that meant Haleigh was working as an informant once again.
And it turned out, they were right.
The Austin Police Department told Dateline that when she disappeared, Haleigh was working as a confidential informant for the DPS, the Texas Department of Public Safety.
That explains why the Texas Rangers, a division of the DPS, took over her case five days after Becky reported Haleigh missing.
Haleigh was working for their agency.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Did the Texas Rangers tell you that your daughter had been a confidential informant against a drug dealer?”
Becky Mitchell: “No, not at first.”
Haleigh’s sister, Harley, says when they shared their theory with investigators, the truth came out about Haleigh being an informant.
Harley Murphy: “We told them what we suspected before they finally were like, ‘Yeah, no. That is what was happening. We just didn’t know you knew.’”
In March 2024, nine months after Haleigh vanished, Trinity Smith, the man she was with on the night of her disappearance, was arrested for assaulting a girlfriend back in 2021.
At the time, Trinity was also under investigation for drug trafficking.
And while Trinity was in custody for the assault charge, Austin Police and the FBI executed a search warrant on his home and found nearly nine kilos of meth.
Trinity was arrested, and in 2025 he pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.
He was sentenced to 29 years and is appealing.
Haleigh’s family believes information she was giving law enforcement helped build the federal drug case that put Trinity behind bars.
Josh Mankiewicz: “I’m just wondering if they say to you, ‘We could never have done this without the help your daughter gave us’?”
Becky Mitchell: “Never. Never.”
The assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Trinity’s drug case told Dateline his conviction was unrelated to any information provided by Haleigh.
However, Becky paid close attention to the court proceedings in that case, and was struck by this:
Becky Mitchell: “Haleigh’s name came up quite a few times about the evidence in that case.”
Becky is right.
During an evidentiary hearing, a detective testified that police searched Trinity’s house because they suspected he was tampering with evidence, possibly evidence relating to Haleigh’s missing persons case.
That detective also testified that Trinity was the last person seen with Haleigh, and cell phone records showed their phones were together at the time of her disappearance.
He called Trinity a suspect.
That was more than a year ago.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Obviously Haleigh hasn’t been found.”
Becky Mitchell: “Right. They are still looking.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “No one has come forward and said they know what happened.”
Becky Mitchell: “No.”
We asked the prosecutor if the plea deal Trinity accepted required him to provide information about Haleigh’s disappearance.
He told us while the agreement did not require Trinity to cooperate with law enforcement, he may choose to do so and the government could file a motion for a reduced sentence.
Of course, confessing to any involvement in Haleigh’s disappearance could also land Trinity in a lot more trouble.
The same month Trinity’s house was searched, Texas Ranger Ange Amani replaced Kevin Callihan as the investigator on Haleigh’s case.
Becky says not only has Amani put fresh eyes on the investigation, he has kept her in the loop.
Becky Mitchell: “He’s been kind of an open book. As he finds something or hears something, he tells me. He lets me know.”
According to Becky, Haleigh’s phone records may be the key to solving her case.
Dateline spoke with Ranger Amani, and he confirmed that foul play is suspected in Haleigh’s case, but because the case is active, he would not say whether Trinity Smith is a suspect in her disappearance.
We reached out to Trinity, and he called us from the Williamson County Jail.
He told us he does not know what happened to Haleigh, and he never threatened to harm her or her family.
At the time he spoke with us, Trinity was facing three felony charges related to that assault on his former girlfriend in 2021.
In June 2026, he pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced to an additional five years in prison.
Haleigh’s family believes she was murdered because her secret life as an informant was somehow exposed.
Josh Mankiewicz: “You think Haleigh had any idea how much risk was involved in that and the kind of danger she was putting herself in?”
Becky Mitchell: “No, I don’t. I don’t think she understood. I mean, one, she was only 22 years old. I think the first time she did it and it was all OK, that when she’s approached to do it again, she’s like, ‘Oh, OK. I’ll just do the same thing I did before.’ I really feel like she thought she was safe and thought nothing could come back on her.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And law enforcement’s got my back.”
Becky Mitchell: “Right.”
Harley Murphy: “Mm-hmm.”
When a person goes missing, it is natural for the people who love them to replay their last conversations over and over in their head.
Brittney Ketchum says she spoke with Haleigh on the night she vanished, before Haleigh went to Austin to meet Trinity.
Brittney Ketchum: “The last phone conversation we had, we were arguing about him literally that night. And I said, my last words verbatim to her were, ‘Haleigh, you need to stop hanging out with men like this, ‘cause one of these days you’re not gonna come home. You have a son you need to think about.’”
Josh Mankiewicz: “And she said you’re being overdramatic.”
Brittney Ketchum: “She just hung up on me.”
That call still haunts Brittney.
Brittney Ketchum: “Those were probably the last words she were thinking, where she was like, ‘Yeah, look where I’m at right now. Yeah.’ And I don’t know if, like, she would have felt anger towards me in that moment, you know.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Or towards herself.”
Brittney Ketchum: “Yeah.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “Are you feeling some guilt about this?”
Brittney Ketchum: “Yeah. I feel a lot of guilt.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You should not. It sounds like you said every single thing to your friend that a good friend would say. You gave her the right advice, she didn’t listen to it, which is incredibly sad, but that isn’t on you.”
Brittney Ketchum: “Yeah. Yeah.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “But?”
Brittney Ketchum: “But at the end of the day, she’s a grown woman. You know, she’s gonna make her decisions.”
Brittney did not agree with every decision Haleigh made, but she has no doubt about this:
Brittney Ketchum: “Everything she ever did in her life was to take care of her son, whether or not people believe it was a good decision or not. Everything she did was for him.”
When Haleigh Murphy disappeared more than three years ago, she was taking some first steps toward a new life.
Harley and Becky can very easily imagine a different ending to this story.
Harley Murphy: “She probably would have been a great real estate agent. She could sell water to somebody, sell air.”
Becky Mitchell: “Yeah, even if you weren’t in the market to breathe, she’d still get you to do it, buy it.”
Haleigh’s son JJ was 2 years old the last time his mom sang happy birthday to him.
Becky treasures the video that captured that moment.
In September, JJ will turn 6.
He lives with his father in Texas, and spends one weekend a month with Becky and Harley.
Josh Mankiewicz: “Does he have any memories of her?”
Harley Murphy: “A lot, actually. Ones that you would think that he could not remember ‘cause he was so young. But he does remember her a lot.”
Becky Mitchell: “A lot.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You look at him, you see her?”
Becky Mitchell: “Yes.”
Harley Murphy: “Yes. The way he acts now too, and some of the things that he says, me and her joke about him, ‘Boy, he’s just like his mama. Just like her.’”
Becky keeps photos of Haleigh all over her house.
She and Harley are determined to keep her memory alive for JJ.
Josh Mankiewicz: “How do you want her son to remember her?”
Harley Murphy: “I think the way that he does. He remembers her as a fun parent who gave him all of her attention.”
Becky Mitchell: “And whatever he wanted.”
Harley Murphy: “Yeah.”
Becky Mitchell: “He -- he will be quick to say that to us.”
Harley Murphy: “Yeah, he’d be like, ‘My mama would get it for me.’”
Becky Mitchell: “My mama would do it.”
Josh Mankiewicz: “You think you’re ever going to know what happened to her?”
Harley Murphy: “I would like to hope that we would know eventually, but, um, --”
Becky Mitchell: “The way it’s looking --.”
Harley Murphy: “-- I don’t think I would bet money on it.”
Haleigh Murphy’s story does not have an ending, not yet.
But Becky can sum up what her family has been through so far in just seven words.
Becky Mitchell: “Sounds like a movie. Not real life.”
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At the time of her disappearance, Haleigh Murphy was 5 feet tall and 130 pounds, with short platinum blonde hair, hazel eyes, and multiple brightly colored tattoos. Today, she would be 26 years old. Haleigh was last seen wearing a light purple T-shirt, light-colored jean shorts, and light purple Vans.
If you have information on Haleigh’s whereabouts, please contact the Texas Rangers at 512-424-2160 or the Texas Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 512-424-5074.
To see photos and videos of Haleigh, and to learn more about other people we’ve covered in our Missing in America series, go to DatelineMissingInAmerica.com.