When Kristi Krebs left work at 10:00 pm on Monday, August 9, 1993, she told her coworkers that she was going to go straight home. She appeared to be in a cheerful and upbeat mood as she crossed the parking lot of Round Tree Pizza and headed for her red 1990 Toyota Tercel. Coworkers saw her climb into her car and drive out of the parking lot, but the 22-year-old never made it home.
Kristi lived with her parents, Don and Susan Krebs, in Fort Bragg, California. They were worried when their daughter failed to return home from work Monday night, but hoped she might have gone out with some friends. When Kristi still wasn’t home the following morning, Bob called the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department and reported her missing.
Deputies spoke with several of Kristi’s coworkers at Round Tree Pizza and confirmed that she had left alone the night before. They told investigators that Kristi had seemed to be in an unusually hyper mood during her shift on Monday, but it didn’t appear that anything had been bothering her. None of her coworkers were able to provide any clues as to where Kristi might have gone; as far as they knew, she had no plans to do anything other than go home and sleep. She hadn’t changed out of her work uniform before leaving the restaurant; when she got into her car she had been wearing blue jeans and a dark blue Round House Pizza shirt.
Although the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department issued a missing person bulletin with Kristi’s information, they had little to go on and there was no formal search for her on Tuesday. With no evidence of foul play, it was assumed that the 22-year-old was missing voluntarily and would soon return home.
All hopes that Kristi would soon come pulling into her driveway were dashed on Tuesday afternoon, when campers in Mendocino Woodlands State Park found her car stuck in a creek bed. There was no sign of Kristi.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Kristi herself had driven her car into Mendocino Woodlands State Park or if some type of foul play was involved. Investigators made a public appeal for anyone who had seen Kristi after she left work on Monday night to contact them, and soon received a call from a park ranger at MacKerricher State Park, 20 miles north of Mendocino Woodlands State Park. He was certain he had spoken to Kristi shortly after she was seen leaving Round House Pizza.
According to the park ranger, he had been making his normal patrol through MacKerricher State Park around 10:30 pm Monday night when he saw a red Toyota Tercel sitting in one of the park’s parking lots. Since the park had closed at 10:00 pm, the ranger pulled in next to the Toyota to see if anyone was inside. There was only one person in the car, a female seated in the driver’s seat. After seeing a picture of Kristi, the ranger identified her as the driver of the car.
Kristi asked the park ranger if it was okay that she was in the parking lot, but he told her that the park was closed and she couldn’t remain there overnight. She didn’t appear to be upset at this answer and indicated that she would leave. The park ranger noted that the interaction had been a friendly one; nothing seemed to be wrong with Kristi at the time. There was no indication that she was intoxicated or otherwise impaired, and after a few moments she pulled out of the parking lot and left MacKerricher State Park.
Investigators surmised that when Kristi left the parking lot, she drove straight to Mendocino Woodlands State Park. Once there, it appeared she had driven through a remote camping area and ended up on a winding dirt road leading to the Big River creek bed where she got stuck. It was clear that she had made numerous attempts to free her car from the creek bed; detectives determined that she had revved the car’s engine so hard that two of the tires had burst. Kristi’s car jack was found next to one of her front tires; she had either tried to change the tire or jack the car up in an attempt at getting it unstuck. She had been unsuccessful, and this seemed to make her mad, as it appeared she had repeatedly bashed the car’s hood with a rock she found in the creek bed.
Kristi’s fit of rage continued when she got back inside the car, where she had taken several photographs out of her wallet and shredded them before tossing the pieces on the front seat. She had also ripped her car stereo out of the dashboard and thrown it onto the seat.
The jeans and shirt Kristi had been wearing when she left work were found in the backseat of her Tercel; although they were neatly folded when found, they were wet, presumably from Kristi’s failed attempts at freeing her car. Her gym clothes — a pair of pink Spandex shorts and a white T-shirt with a neon pink and chartreuse design — were missing from the Toyota, leading police to believe that Kristi had changed into them before abandoning her car and setting off on foot.
When Bob and Susan learned that their daughter’s car had been found stuck in a creek bed, their thoughts immediately flashed back to an event that had taken place more than three years earlier. In May 1990, Kristi had gotten her car stuck in a wooded location east of Fort Bragg. In a desperate attempt to free her car, she had revved the engine for so long that it had overheated and caught on fire. Panicking and disoriented, Kristi abandoned her car and fled through the woods.
In this earlier incident, Kristi had walked through the night, apparently trying to find her way home. She was found the following morning, confused and disoriented, by a group of men working on some railroad tracks more than 13 miles away from where her car had been left. One of the men was a friend of Kristi’s family and recognized her right away; he called her parents and they immediately came to pick her up.
According to Bob, Kristi had seemed to be okay when they started driving home, but a few minutes into the drive it was clear that something was wrong with her. She had no memory of what had happened to her and appeared to be having some sort of mental breakdown. Concerned, her parents drove her directly to a hospital. She spent the next four weeks recovering in a private mental facility, though it would take several months before her memory completely returned.
In the years following this incident, Kristi appeared to be fine and showed no symptoms of mental illness. Her breakdown was attributed to the stress of getting lost in the woods and then having her car catch fire; it seemed to be a singular episode that was unlikely to repeat itself. But in August 1993, more than three years later, it seemed that history was repeating itself.
In hindsight, her father admitted that Kristi had been working herself too hard in the months leading up to her disappearance. She had been holding down two jobs, often working for more than 12 hours a day between Round House Pizza and Burger King. Although she appeared to be very happy with her life, she began going to the gym more often and sleeping less. Bob now wondered if these were subtle signs that Kristi’s mental status was starting to decline. He believed that when Kristi got her car stuck in the woods for a second time, it triggered a flashback of the first incident. “I think it was just too much for her.”
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department, along with volunteers and search dogs, launched an intensive search of Mendocino Woods State Park and the area surrounding where Kristi’s car had been found. Nothing was found to indicate that foul play was involved in her disappearance and detectives believed that she had walked away from her car voluntarily, though it was unclear what her state of mind was at the time. Her parents believed that she was likely disoriented and possibly suffering from memory loss.
The search of Mendocino Woodlands State Park continued throughout the week. Search parties combed along all the main roads leading in and out of the park, while the Mendocino County Air Squadron conducted an aerial search of the numerous logging trails that snaked through the thick woodlands. All searches came up empty.
On Monday, a week after Kristi went missing, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department announced that their search of Mendocino Woodlands State Park was being called off. The ground and aerial searches had covered more than 1800 square miles but failed to find any trace of Kristi. Mendocino County Lt. Rich Wiseman noted that they had thoroughly covered the area but found nothing to indicate that Kristi was still inside the state park. “Without further information, we just don’t think we can do anything else.”
Although the search of the park failed to yield any clues, several people called detectives to report seeing Kristi in the days following her disappearance. One man was certain he had seen the missing woman hitchhiking on Highway 20 near Fort Bragg. “There were a number of people standing there hitchhiking near the road that goes up to Harvest Market and she was with them.” The man thought at first that the young woman was his niece, so he slowed down as he approached the group of hitchhikers and got a good look at the woman he believed was Kristi.
The sighting had taken place on August 10th, the day after Kristi went missing. The man was able to accurately describe the hot pink shorts the woman was wearing, and Susan was confident that the man had seen her daughter. Unfortunately, by the time investigators followed up on the reported sighting, the hitchhikers were no longer in the area.
Kristi’s parents were hopeful that their daughter would be located quickly, but as days and then weeks went by without any progress on the case they struggled to remain optimistic. Bob told reporters, “We feel our daughter is out there and doesn’t know who she is. With the help of the public, we hope to get her back.”
By December, Kristi had been missing for four months. Bob and Susan faced the grim task of getting through the holiday season without their daughter, and concentrated on keeping her story in the public eye. Noting that Kristi could be just about anywhere by that point, they expanded their search outside of California into several other western states.
Members of the Fort Bragg community started a fund so they could help cover the costs of the continued search for Kristi and offer a reward for her return. By March 1994, they had collected more than $40,000. Despite the monetary reward being offered, tips about Kristi’s possible whereabouts slowed to a trickle.
Nine months after Kristi vanished, a woman saw her missing poster in a Salt Lake City, Utah, gas station and recognized her as a hitchhiker she had picked up the previous August. Alicia Larson immediately called the tip line and reported that she was certain she had picked Kristi up in Salt Lake City a few days after she was last seen in California. She was so certain that the hitchhiker had been Kristi that when she didn’t get a call back from detectives she decided to call Kristi’s parents.
Alicia told Bob and Susan that she had encountered Kristi near Interstate 80 in Salt Lake City on August 11th, two days after she was last seen in California. She accurately described the hot pink shorts and distinctive t-shirt that Kristi had been wearing, and noted that the hitchhiker had introduced herself as Kris. As she got into Alicia’s car, she stated, “You’re looking at the happiest girl in the world,” a phrase Susan confirmed was one that her daughter used often.
Alicia stated that Kristi had been happy and talkative, claiming that she was in love with a truck driver and was traveling to Amarillo, Texas, to marry him. As Kristi continued talking, however, Alicia sensed that something wasn’t quite right with her. When the young woman confided that she was being chased by police and couldn’t go home because it would put her family in danger, Alicia realized that “the story she was telling me wasn’t real. It was clear very quickly to me that she was in a world of her own.”
Alicia eventually dropped the hitchhiker off at a McDonald’s in Park City, Utah. As the young woman got out of the car, she remarked, “Burger King is better.” Since Kristi worked at Burger King at the time of her disappearance, her parents confirmed that this was also something Kristi likely would have said.
Kristi’s parents were convinced that Alicia had indeed picked up their daughter. Susan noted, “She told us about conversations and mannerisms that were completely credible, that anyone who knew Kristi would recognize…we know she hitchhiked out of Fort Bragg and made it to Salt Lake City in a very happy, though delusional, state.” After that, her trail went cold.
In an effort to increase publicity about the case and hopefully solicit some viable leads, Kristi’s disappearance was featured on an episode of America’s Most Wanted in May 1994. The broadcast brought in many reported sightings but none of them could be confirmed.
In February 1995, a 12-minute segment on Kristi’s case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and watched by more than 20 million people. Again, a flood of new tips came in but none of them led to Kristi.
Over time, Kristi’s case faded from the headlines. Although her parents have never stopped hoping that Kristi will be found alive, police are less optimistic. Despite the numerous reported sightings, some investigators admit that they have never been able to confirm that Kristi actually left the Fort Bragg area and they are unsure if she is still alive.
In 2012, Fort Bragg Police Officer Jeanine Gregory requested that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children produce an age-progression photo of Kristi to show what she might look like as a 40-year-old woman. Officer Gregory was convinced the case could still be solved. “I’m optimistic that either she’s out there somewhere or someone knows something about it.”
Kristi Krebs was 22 years old when she went missing in 1993. She has blue eyes and brown hair, and at the time of her disappearance, she was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. She was last seen wearing pink gym shorts and a t-shirt with a neon pink, chartreuse, and blue design. Her right thumb is deformed and thick at the knuckle and she speaks with a slight lisp. She was most likely suffering from some psychological trauma at the time of her disappearance and may have issues with her memory. If you have any information about Kristi, please contact the Fort Bragg Police Department at 707–961–2820.
