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Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14, episode 11, covers the story of a twenty-one-year-old girl named Kelsie Schelling, who mysteriously disappeared on February 4, 2013. As per ABC News, she went missing while traveling from Denver to Pueblo, in the state of Colorado, United States. Kelsie, who was on her way to meet her boyfriend, Donthe Lucas, was eight weeks pregnant at the time.
The body of Kelsie was never found, and her case was almost on the verge of a dead end. However, her mother, Laura Saxton, continued her fight to seek justice for her daughter for more than four years, and a robbery case finally helped the authorities to find the murderer.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14, episode 11 documents the complete story behind the disappearance of Kelsie Schelling. The episode titled The Night Kelsie Disappeared made its release on Oxygen on January 22, 2024, at 8 pm EST. The official synopsis of Dateline: Secret Uncovered episode reads:
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Kelsie Schelling disappears one night after leaving work, leading to a four-year hunt.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14 episode 11: What is the story of Kelsie Schelling
As per an ABC News article published on March 26, 2021, Kelsie Schelling met Donthe Lucas in 2010 while studying at Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colorado. The two eventually started dating and dropped out of school two years later. In 2012, Kelsie got pregnant with Lucas' child and shared the news with her family.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered subject Kelsie wanted to give birth to the child, even if it was out of wedlock, and her mother, Laura Saxton, supported her daughter completely. However, as per Kelsie's friends, the relationship between the couple was far from being healthy. The two often engaged in heated debates and then struggled to resolve it.
As per ABC News, on February 3, 2013, Lucas texted Kelsie to drive from Denver all the way to his hometown in Puelbo. From Lucas' chats, investigators found that he had kept a surprise gift for her. Around 8:40 pm, she started her journey and was asked to meet him at a particular Walmart location.
The city of Pueblo is a 2-hour drive from Denver, and around 11:10 pm, Lucas asked her to meet him at another location. This was the last time Lucas texted her, and she disappeared after this.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14 episode 11: The disappearance of Kelsie Schelling
Kelsie Schelling's parents divorced when she was a young child. She went on to live with her mother, Laura, and studied psychology at Northeastern Junior College, as per ABC News. Her mother would often drive to her college to meet her, especially with balloons on her birthdays.
On the night of February 4, 2013, she reached Pueblo but didn't make her way back. On February 5, 2013, when her co-worker noticed that she had been absent for two days without notice, an unexpected text arrived. As per ABC News, the text was from Kelsie's number, which said that she had decided not to have the baby anymore because she felt it was "growing in the wrong place."
When Kelsie's father, Doug Schelling, tried to reach out to his daughter, he received some unusual messages from her phone, which made him suspicious. By February 7, 2010, all the calls on Kelsie's phone went out to voicemail. As per an article by The Pueblo Chieftain, published on February 23, 2024, Kelsie was reported missing on February 9, 2013.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14 episode 11: The interrogation of Donthe Lucas
On February 12, 2013, Donthe Lucas was interrogated after police found that he withdrew $400 from Kelsie's bank account, as per ABC News. The investigators retrieved a surveillance camera video, where Lucas was seen parking Kelsie's car in a hospital's parking lot. The police retrieved her abandoned car two days later.
As per The Pueblo Chieftain article, upon rigorous questioning, Dateline: Secret Uncovered episode prime suspect Lucas revealed that he had sent the strange messages from Kelsie's phone. As per ABC News, he told the police that after they met, he took Kelsie to The Parkview Medical Center. Lucas was trying to convey that she suffered a miscarriage there.
However, no medical records of Kelsie were found in the hospital. His story was highly suspicious, considering she had checked with her doctor the previous day in Denver and realized the baby was completely healthy. The Dateline: Secret Uncovered episode culprit Lucas also said to the police that they went to Walmart to buy snacks; however, the surveillance cameras showed only him.
After collecting all the immediate evidence, Lucas was arrested on February 15, 2013, with charges against him for using Kelsie's card. However, the police had to release him soon due to a lack of more concrete evidence since she allowed him to use her card.
As per ABC News in 2015, when an anonymous Facebook message to Laura claimed that Kelsie was alive and she was sold into sex trafficking. The message asked for a sum of $ 50,000 cash to provide her intels and help her escape. However, this, too, turned out to be a complete fraud.
As per The Pueblo Chieftain, later that same year, Kelsie's family went on to file a civil lawsuit against the Pueblo Police Department for their wrongful investigation, which was later dismissed. As per ABC News, in May 2016, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation took up Kelsie's case, led by agent Kevin Torres.
Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14 episode 11: Donthe Lucas was found guilty of the murder of Kelsie Schelling
In 2017, the case took a sharp turn when the Pueblo Police Department received a report of burglary against Lucas and his family for stealing $1000, as per ABC News. The police eventually got the information that Lucas' and his family were boarding a flight from Denver International Airport to Tucson in Arizona.
The police immediately produced an arrest warrant on charges of robbery and caught the family 20 minutes before the flight took off. Lucas was taken into custody and, upon questioning, revealed that he was the one who abandoned Kelsie's car in the hospital lot.
As per the Pueblo Chieftain, after rigorous questioning and thorough investigation of the evidence materials, he was charged with the first-degree murder of Kelsie Schelling. After several delays, Lucas' trial started on February 3, 2021.
It was found that Lucas did not want Kelsie to have the baby, which she resisted, leading him to devise a plan to kill his girlfriend. The forged text messages, the surveillance footage, and Lucas' testimony collectively became concrete evidence. Besides Kelsie's mother, Laura, Lucas' cellmate, Ryan Rivera, also provided a strong testimony.
He revealed that once, while they were playing cards, Lucas confessed to killing his girlfriend. Kelsie's friends testified that Lucas was abusive and would often use her for his financial profits. As per The Pueblo Cheiftan, on March 8, 2021, Donthe Lucas was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Kelsie Schelling.
He was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment without any chance of parole. Lucas is currently serving his time behind bars at the Limon Correctional Facility in Colorado, United States, as per The Pueblo Chieftain.
To learn more about the murder of Kelsie Schelling, watch Dateline: Secret Uncovered season 14, episode 11, which was released on January 22, 2024, on Oxygen.
