It was late on Monday, March 23, 1998 & 26-year-old Danielle Nusbaum was watching the 70th Academy Awards at home. Leonardo DiCaprio was taking the win for Best Picture for “Titanic” & Danielle, knowing that her younger sister, 23-year-old Stacey Colbert, was a big fan, called her at 9 pm to talk about it since she had just taken Stacey to see “Titanic” for her 23rd birthday.
Stacey was born on February 3, 1975 in Chicago & the family later relocated. Danielle & Stacey were raised in the very small town of Charleston, in east-central Illinois where their father worked as a podiatrist. There wasn’t much to do beyond going to the park, the mall or the movies. The sisters were two & a half years apart in age & close as can be. They went to the same elementary school & high school together. Stacey was more into sports, such as tennis cheerleaders & poms, while Danielle was into theater & show choir. Stacey was a very self-motivated person who often woke up at 4 am in order to get her run in before her day began. In 1991, Danielle went off to Ohio State University which was a family tradition as both their dad & their uncle went. When Stacey was fourteen years old, her dad took her on a tour of the campus & she made up her mind right then & there, that that was where she would go.
A few years later, in 1994, after spending one quarter at Lakeland Community College near Cleveland, Stacey followed in her family’s footsteps, joining Danielle at the OSU campus. They would get together for coffee & Danielle was thrilled to have her sister there. Stacey graduated in 1997 with a bachelor of science in business administration.
As Danielle called her sister to discuss the Academy Awards, she was met with silence on Stacey’s end & as she went to sleep that night, she just assumed that Stacey must be away on a business trip & would likely return her calls the next day. Despite only working at her job for six months, Stacey’s boss selected her to go to New York City for an important presentation.
As Danielle arrived home from work the following evening, Tuesday, March 24th, rather than seeing a message from Stacey on her answering machine, she was met with a message from Stacey’s employer. They were letting Danielle know that Stacey hadn’t been to work that Monday or Tuesday & hadn’t contacted them. The last time she reported into work was Friday, the 20th & on that evening, she went out with friends to the Arlington Cafe. She was driven home Friday night by a male acquaintance. When Stacey didn’t come into work on Monday, her co-worker assumed she already left for her business trip & her boss was on vacation & not in the office to confirm that.
Danielle looks back at that moment in her life as life before the call & life after the call. She immediately knew that something must be terribly wrong. Knowing that Stacey was an incredibly hard worker, she couldn’t fathom any situation where Stacey would show up for work.
According to police, the last time Stacey was seen was on Saturday, March 21st, two days before Danielle sat, watching the Academy Awards, her calls to Stacey going unanswered. She had a cold at the time & planned to have a low-key weekend at home in her first floor, one bedroom apartment, since she’d been working long hours at work. That Saturday, she spoke with Danielle on the phone as well as her dad who was living in Georgia. She chatted with a co-worker who lived in the same complex. As evening rolled around, Stacey ordered a double-order of breadsticks from Papa John’s which was the minimum amount for a delivery. A pizza delivery driver delivered breadsticks to Stacey’s Governours Square apartment, fifteen minutes northwest of the Ohio State University campus, at about 6 pm that Saturday evening. He was the last person to report seeing her alive.
Within days, Stacey’s picture, her smiling face, dark brown hair & brown eyes, were plastered throughout the streets of Columbus & Ohio State’s campus. It was only a year earlier that Stacey had graduated from the university. Six months earlier, Stacey began her first job as a marketing assistant with American Electric Power in Columbus. Everyone was terribly concerned & wondered what happened to the recent alumna & member of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority.
On Tuesday, March 24, when Danielle got word of Stacey missing work two days in a row, she rushed over to Stacey’s apartment which was only two miles away from her own. As she drove she called her parents, who also hadn’t seen Stacey & let them know what was going on. When she arrived, Danielle was shocked to see that not only was Stacey’s car parked outside, but her apartment door was unlocked & slightly ajar. Once inside, there were no signs of burglary or theft.
Danielle did find clothes strewn about the apartment & the refrigerator door open with milk, pizza & a half-eaten box of breadsticks sitting on the counter. The box of breadsticks were stamped with the date & time of March 21st at 5:58 pm. Stacey’s keys, purse, $40, uncashed checks & credit cards were there & nothing was missing except for Stacey’s kitten, Boots, who had gotten out through the open front door. Stacey had only gotten Boots three months earlier & she was madly in love with him. She felt his name was a little generic but had yet to come up with a more unique name. Stacey’s typical routine was to head home after work so she could play with Boots & then meet up with co-workers for happy hour. After Stacey went missing, Boots went on to be adopted by Stacey’s sorority sister who changed her name to “Cookie” which was a nickname Stacey had been given shortly after she joined ADPi. He lived to be nineteen years old.
As Danielle stood in her sister’s apartment with no sign of Stacey, she was panicked & confused & immediately called the police.
The Columbus Police Department began their investigation, questioning Stacey’s neighbors as well as the delivery man who had delivered the breadsticks on Saturday evening. Police asked those who were questioned if they’d seen or heard anything or if anything seemed amiss. The delivery driver told police that he found nothing out of the ordinary when he made his delivery. According to an article from The Lantern, the pizza driver felt very strongly that Stacey was not alone in her apartment & sensed that someone was present.
A neighbor who lived upstairs in Apartment C, indicated that he had been woken up at 4 am on Sunday, March 22nd to horrific screams coming from the apartment directly below. This was Apartment A which belonged to Stacey. He was unable to fall back to sleep as the screams continued & he also heard loud banging; he felt it sounded as if someone was in trouble. The report indicated that the neighbor didn’t check on Stacey until 2 pm, the next afternoon, ten hours after hearing screams. No one answered the door & he found Boots roaming around outside. A person known to Stacey indicated that the man made the decision not to contact the police at the time he heard the noises because he had outstanding parking tickets & didn’t want to call attention to himself.
Danielle couldn’t think of a single person who didn’t like Stacey, let alone someone who would want to cause her harm.
Stacey’s coworker, Molly described Stacey as positive, enthusiastic & vibrant & said that her wonderful energy spread throughout the entire office. She said that she was the kind of person you wished all of your co-workers could be. A sorority sister of Stacey’s said that she had an amazingly warm, friendly smile & if you knew her, you couldn’t not be attracted to her.
Stacey’s college roommate lived with her on the third floor of the sorority house & remembered Stacey as someone who was filled with kindness, compassion & without judgment. She served as the person that everyone could turn to when they needed help or support. She was a positive influence in the sorority & when she joined in January of 1994, she participated in various volunteer opportunities, including the Ronald McDonald House. Her go-getter spirit led her to the role of vice president at the sorority.
Despite her busy college schedule, Stacey always prioritized her learning & schoolwork & was an active member of the American Marketing Association. Stacey had overcome issues with her eyesight as well as a learning disability & worked especially hard to achieve good grades. Her hard work led her to an internship at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta with McDonald’s where she was tasked with working on a marketing plan. This opportunity gave her a glimpse as to what lay ahead with her dream career & she found that it was an instant match for her personality.
Stacey spent her weekdays immersed in her studies & her weekends out on the dance floor. Her outgoing, extroverted personality made her the life of any party. After graduation in 1997, Stacey remained an active member of Ohio State’s ADPi chapter & loved mentoring new members & participating in recruitment events for the sorority.
The night that Danielle reported Stacey missing, she stayed with police until 3 am, answering the same questions, over & over with various detectives from various units. Since Stacey went missing during spring break, many of her friends were out of town. It wasn’t until nearly 72 hours after Stacey went missing that her employer alerted Danielle & police were aware that after 24 hours, there was a much lesser chance that Stacey would be found.
On March 31, a week after Stacey went missing, the campus mourned & hundreds of students gathered together & left a trail of lit candles & printed posters of Stacey in hopes of her returning home safely. Stacey’s employers printed thousands of fliers a day & assisted with the search. They also held her position at work for months in hopes that she would safely come home. According to the Columbus Police Public Records Unit, 498 missing persons reports were filed in 1998 though usually only one to two end up going unsolved most years.
As the vigil came to an end, Danielle thought about a missing girl who had been captured for a week until she managed to escape. This gave her hope that Stacey could still come home too which was something she desperately needed to hold on to.
The years continued to pass & by 2004, six years after Stacey disappeared, police had exhausted all suspects & leads slowly began to dwindle, the case stalling to a standstill. Danielle described the experience as something that “kills you from the inside out. You pray for their safe return. You want them to come back.”
On Saturday, November 27, 2004, a hunter named Ray Parsons, was out in search of his lost dog in a wooded area by the Scioto River on State Route 257 North in Delaware County, Ohio, about a forty minute drive from Stacey’s apartment. Under tree leaves & scattered debris, he was shocked to see human bones. The Delaware County coroner was called to the scene & joined the Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation at the scene. Over the course of two to three days, they were able to gather 70% of a person’s skeletal remains across a ten feet wide area. Dental records positively identified the remains as belonging to Stacey.
Because of the lack of physical evidence at the scene, her cause of death could not be determined. The body was found to have broken some ribs though the family did not report that Stacey had broken any though another article indicated that the rib fracture found had healed before she died. The missing person’s case could now be confirmed as a homicide, something that Columbus Police expected based on the findings at Stacey’s apartment. The evidence found there, police would not go into detail about.
The case was now swapped from one jurisdiction to another, making it very challenging. Detective Jeff Bessinger who was with the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office knew nothing about Stacey’s case which put them behind, on top of the fact that the case was already more than six years old. Bessinger indicated that Delaware County, sadly, is a dumping ground for bodies, which means their department deals with the aftermath from other agencies.
Bessinger began to reexamine every detail of Stacey’s case from the very beginning. He’s reinterviewed suspects & has gone back to the original scene of Stacey’s apartment. He indicated that there were some things that were found later on in the search by the Columbus Police Department which he now has in his possession which are being analyzed by the crime lab. There are many barriers to getting resolution in cold cases, including a lack of physical evidence & DNA, suspects refusing to speak with police & a lack of evidence to indict them. As time goes by, people’s memories fade, witnesses die & victims sadly get forgotten.
Working with Stacey’s family over the years, Bessinger has formed a bond with the Colbert family, even though some members have died. Stacey’s father Larry passed away in 2007, not knowing who was responsible for his daughter’s death. Stacey’s mom, Ronna, has since moved to Arizona.
According to a Reddit page about Stacey’s case, the apartment complex was located in a very safe area surrounded by families in a suburban area. After Stacey’s disappearance, the police cut out a large portion of her carpet, but it’s currently unknown if DNA other than Stacey’s was located. In this page, it’s reported that the carpet appeared to have been scrubbed & her apartment may have smelled strongly of bleach. There were over sixty hours between the time that Stacey went missing until anyone was aware of the fact which gave her killer or killers ample time to clean up the crime scene & erase potential evidence. A boot print was also found on the door from the inside which may indicate that Stacey was trying to escape while the killer kicked the door closed. The Columbus Police treated Stacey’s case as a homicide vs. a missing persons case almost immediately, even without a body. It’s unclear what was discovered in her apartment that led to this decision.
The Reddit page also indicates that it’s been speculated that Stacey’s remains were outside for at least two years when they were discovered. Her body was found in 2004 & it’s believed that she was killed in her apartment the night she went missing in 1998. There has been speculation that her body wasn’t initially in that location. Another report indicated that the area where Stacey’s body had been located had brush clearing work done five years earlier & her remains were not found at that time despite the fact that Stacey had been murdered 6.5 years earlier. However, a personal close friend of Stacey’s weighed in on this & pointed out that her remains would have been decomposing in the elements for at least a year before the brush clearing. The elements included weather, insects, animals & a rising & falling riverbank & under those conditions, her body could have been reduced to bones in as little as ten days let alone a year. The area being cleared was waist high brush that could have obscured her bones. The police are confident that Stacey’s body was there the whole time.
Now Stacey’s family waits for the phone call that her killer has been caught. They realize that when this happens, old wounds will reopen. Danielle worries about her own family & her teenage twins & how this will affect their lives.
Stacey’s mom, Ronna Colbert, prays for closure. She finds it terribly hard when someone asks the question, “How many children do you have?” And she has to respond with, “I had two.” Stacey’s family keeps her memory alive through pictures & telling stories, but it’s never the same. At each gathering, an empty chair sits where Stacey once was.
According to the Facebook page that was created by Stacey’s sorority sisters, “#FinishingStaceysFight” & is dedicated to bringing Stacey’s killer to justice, 29 days after Stacey disappeared, police were quoted in an NBC4i news article saying that Stacey knew her attacker. Two close associates of hers quickly obtained legal council, refused polygraph tests & police believe she may have let one or both of them into her apartment on the night she disappeared. It’s likely she let the person in at 3:30 am on Sunday, March 22nd. The person may have taken a gold necklace pendant with a pi symbol which was her ADPi alumna necklace in a diamond shape &/or an amethyst birthstone ring with a gold band; Stacey never took these pieces off & they weren’t recovered with her remains. If you’ve seen either of these items in a place that seemed odd or with someone who had no real reason to have them, please report this.
Detective Bessinger believes he knows who is responsible for murdering Stacey, but he doesn’t yet have all of the evidence needed to make an arrest just yet. He has vowed to remain diligent, adding, “I’m gonna get him. I promise you, I’m gonna get him. He’s a monster & this isn’t something you do once.”
Stacey’s memory lives on in the community & in the hearts of family & friends who loved her & continue to fight for justice. Typically, on Stacey’s birthday a memorial is held at the fountain of women on the OSU campus. Danielle has a cup of Highlander Grogg coffee which they often enjoyed together & she raises her cup in her sister’s honor. Her family & friends will never move on & they will continue to fight until there is justice for Stacey.
Anyone with any information on Stacey’s murder is asked to call the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office at 740-833-2892 or email Sergeant Bessinger at jbessinger@co.delaware.oh.us or finishingstaceysfight@gmail.com.
In order to move Stacey’s case along, her family is respectfully asking for donations through gofundme to assist in hiring a private investigator: https://gofund.me/6aa99e23 Anything you can contribute will help & no gift is too small. The family has thus far raised $3,360 of their $15,000 goal.
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