Amanda Tusing Case: June 14, 2000

Amanda Tusing was another young woman who was abducted from the side of the road after she pulled over to wait out a rainstorm. This case is featured as an episode of Haunting Evidence titled "Forgotten Fiancee". On June 14, 2000, Amanda Tusing left her boyfriend's house in Jonesboro, Arkansas at 11:30pm to return to her parents house in Dell, Arkansas. About halfway into the 45 minute trip, she pulled her car to the side of the road near Monette, Arkansas to wait out a bad thunderstorm. When she had not arrived home by 1:30am her boyfriend called her parents since he had not heard from her that she arrived home safely. At that point her father and boyfriend traveled from opposite directions toward each other looking for her car. Near the middle of the route the boyfriend found her car and then met up with her father to call police. A few days later on Fathers Day, June 18th, a passerby found her body in a drainage ditch called Big Bay Ditch near Lake City, about 13 miles west of where her car was found. The cause of death was consistent with drowning.

This is another unique murder case. It reminds me of a Forensic Files case about a girl named Kara Knot. The circumstances seem so similar. In that case, though, it is presumed her killer saw her first.

There is one unique aspect of Amanda Tusing's case. I do not know whether or not her killer took her license, but if it is a police officer or even someone posing as a police officer it would be strange if her license was not gone or even wet along with her registration when the car is found. This is the major difference between her case and the Kara Knot case. The reason investigators came upon the police officer who murdered Kara Knot was because after airing her case on tv(like airing Amanda Tusing's case on Haunting Evidence), women came forward pointing to one officer who had pulled them over and made them feel uncomfortable. This ended up being the officer who murdered Kara Knot. The officer even participated in the program featuring Kara Knot's case warning women to be careful when traveling alone.

Even if the person knew Amanda Tusing was from Arkansas, you would think they would want to know what part of Arkansas. When the psychics did their reading at Amanda Tusing's body site, the paranormal investigator said it best when remarking it is easy to see why whoever killed Amanda Tusing chose this place for her body. The key word is chose and when you factor in the cause of death, this certainly seems like a person who is organized and neat, maybe even phobic about it.

The difference between Kara Knott's death is that it was rather impersonal while Amanda Tusing's was personal. In all the cases I have read about concerning drowning, there seemed to be a personal connection between that manner of death and who eventually was found to be responsible.