MEGAN TRUSSELL
COLD OPEN
Imagine this. It’s Super Bowl Sunday 2025. You’re doing what everyone’s doing – camped out with friends, half-watching the game, fully judging the commercials, live-posting every moment of Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, and immediately refreshing your feed for the memes and Drake’s reaction to them. It’s chaotic, but it’s normal… it’s just another Super Bowl.
And then, three days later, you realize that while you were watching the game, your friend went missing.
You didn’t know because she’s away at college. You assume she’s busy. Her phone is dead. She’s studying, living her life, and nobody flags anything – not the school, not her roommate. No one says “hey… something’s off.”
So by the time you realize no one has heard from her, you’re not at hour one – you’re at day three. And in missing person time, that’s not a delay, that’s a disaster. Then it gets worse. They find her… miles away, in a canyon, injuries covering her body.
That’s what happened to Megan Trussell, and this is the story her family is still trying to make sense of.
I’m Madison McGhee and this is Frozen Files.
CHAPTER 1: When Silence Becomes a Red Flag
No one realized anything was wrong at first.
Megan Trussell was living life like any 18-year-old would. She was a freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder, settling into her second semester, taking classes she actually liked, and building a routine on campus.
On the night of Super Bowl Sunday – February 9, 2025 – Megan was last seen leaving her dorm, Hallett Hall, just before 9:40 p.m., walking alone across campus.
No one knew it at the time, but that would be the last confirmed sighting of her.
The following days passed normally. Megan’s family texted her like they always did, but no one heard back. That didn’t immediately set off any alarms. Her parents, Vanessa Diaz and Joe Trussell, were careful not to hover. Megan was independent, and college was still new. Giving her space felt appropriate. Her sister, Lindsey, who was also in college, understood that too. New semesters get busy. Phones die. Texts go unanswered. It happens. It’s never suspicious at first, but as the days passed, that silence began to feel wrong – really wrong.
By Wednesday, February 12, the silence had crossed a line. Megan’s entire family realized that none of them had heard from her in days – not a text, not a call, nothing. That alone was enough to raise concern. Megan always stayed in touch with her family. She didn’t disappear without explanation.
Vanessa checked Megan’s phone records. There had been no activity since the night of February 9. That’s not typical for any 18-year-old girl. There’s no way Megan would’ve gone three days without using her phone. That was the moment their parental intuition kicked in. They knew without a doubt something was seriously wrong.
CHAPTER 2: The Roommate, the Dorm, and the First Dismissal
Vanessa became a combination of caring mother and bullish detective. She started reaching out to every number she could find in Megan’s call logs, hoping someone, anyone, had seen or heard from her. No one had. Vanessa started where anyone would. She contacted Megan’s roommate, Haili. According to Vanessa, Haili said she hadn’t seen Megan since Sunday night. But she hadn’t told anyone Megan was missing. No urgency. No “that’s weird.” She didn’t even really express concern. Vanessa told us she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Still, Megan’s family tried to stay focused on action. Vanessa called CU Boulder police to report Megan missing. Instead of treating the situation as urgent, officers told her Megan was probably staying at someone else’s place. They said they’d seen it many times before, and that eventually she would just show up.
Her family rejected that explanation immediately. They knew Megan. She wouldn’t just vanish. And if she were staying anywhere, it would have been with her sister Lindsey, who lived nearby and she wasn’t there. She was missing and her family desperately needed help finding her. Vanessa told us that it felt like CU Boulder didn’t care. So she and Joe drove from Denver to Boulder themselves to report Megan missing.
When they arrived at the dorm, they were shocked by what they saw. Haili’s friend – someone Vanessa had never met – was sitting on Megan’s bed, using her belongings, uncomfortably comfortable.
As if nothing was wrong. As if Megan hadn’t been missing for days.
The impression they came away with was hard to shake: Megan’s absence didn’t seem troubling to Haili at all. If anything, it felt… convenient. Like Megan being gone meant her friend could hang out more often.
Vanessa and Joe went to CU Boulder police and asked them to do what felt like the bare minimum: search for Megan on campus, and since Megan was Indigenous, issue a Missing Indigenous Person Alert to the public. CU police wouldn’t do either. Instead, they agreed to review surveillance footage, hoping it might provide answers. But for four hours, officers searched for a girl with blue hair, because that was the photo on Megan’s student ID. No one had asked the family for a current picture. And that mattered, because Megan didn’t have blue hair anymore.
She had red hair.
It wasn’t until later that evening, when police requested an updated photo to issue a BOLO, which stands for “Be On the Lookout,” that the mistake became clear. After reviewing footage again, they determined Megan left her dorm on February 9 at 9:36 p.m. and was last seen at 9:52 p.m., still on campus. After that – nothing. There was no additional footage of her. Which is striking, considering how many cameras cover the university.
CHAPTER 3: From Campus Cameras to Canyon Pings
After the release of the BOLO, the family requested a physical search be conducted. An official search was denied and no Missing Indigenous Person Alert was sent.
By Thursday, February 13, it had been four days since Megan was last seen. So her family took matters into their own hands. They began putting up flyers around Boulder. As the day went on, there was still no sign of Megan. So campus police finally began to slowly acknowledge what her family had been saying all along: Megan might not be couch surfing after all.
Once the case was finally taken more seriously, the FBI was brought in.
Using campus security footage, key card access logs, cell phone records, and witness statements, investigators began reconstructing Megan’s movement on the night of February 9 – a night when the temperature dropped to just 17 degrees.
Here’s what they were able to piece together.
Megan had her boyfriend over at her dorm while her roommate, Haili, was at work. Around 9:00 p.m., Haili left work on her break – a break she normally didn’t take – and returned to the dorm. An argument followed.
After the argument, Haili went back to work.
Megan’s boyfriend later told investigators he didn’t want any drama and decided to break up with her. At 9:17 p.m., he left the dorm. According to his mother, he arrived home about 15 minutes later. At 9:36 p.m., Megan left the dorm alone.
Surveillance footage shows her walking across campus. Her gait appears normal. She isn’t rushing. She isn’t running. There’s no visible panic. If anything, she looks like someone just… walking. Without urgency, without a clear destination.
She was wearing white platform tennis shoes, red pants, a black and bright blue short-sleeved TV Girl t-shirt, and a lightweight dark-colored coat. She had her purse with her – a round blue-and-pink crossbody bag with a star on it, modeled after the one worn by the character Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Her mom made it for her. It was one of Megan’s most prized possessions.
The last time Megan appeared on campus surveillance footage was at 9:52 p.m., north of her dorm, near the Champions Center.
After that, she vanished.
Megan didn’t tell anyone where she was going but based on the route she was taking, her parents believe she may have been heading somewhere familiar – possibly toward where Lindsey lived, or to a nearby convenience store just two blocks away. Given the temperature that night, and what Megan was wearing, they don’t believe she planned to be gone long.
No additional footage of Megan has ever been found.
At that point, investigators turned to Megan’s phone. Using Stingray technology, they were able to track where it had last connected to cell towers. At around 10:45 p.m., her phone pinged near Eben G. Fine Park, at the entrance to Boulder Canyon, which is around a 52 minute walk from the dorm, if Megan had gone straight there at a normal pace. Nearly an hour later, at 11:55 p.m., her phone pinged again deeper into the canyon, near the 40-mile marker along Boulder Canyon Drive.
After that, the phone goes silent. Either it died… or it was shut off.
Boulder Canyon Drive runs west out of town, winding alongside Boulder Creek. There is a bike path that parallels the road – but it’s not somewhere people typically walk at night. There are no streetlights. In winter, the path is often frozen. Unhoused people live in encampments along the roadway and nearby creek.
This was not a place Megan would have gone. She hated long walks, hated the cold, and was afraid of the dark.
CHAPTER 4: The Search, the Culvert, and the Discovery
Because Megan’s phone last pinged in the canyon, search teams were sent there on February 13. Multiple agencies responded, searching the area near the 40-mile marker using drones, search dogs, and ground teams.
That same day, a trained volunteer searcher named Max was assigned to search along the creek with his partner. As they moved through the area, Max noticed a drainage culvert running beneath the road. Inside the culvert was an encampment used by unhoused individuals.
Max climbed up the canyon slope to look inside the culvert. Less than ten feet in, he spotted an empty Adderall bottle. He examined it, saw a man’s name on the label, and assumed it belonged to someone staying there so he put it back.
After searching the culvert, Max and his partner continued on. They didn’t find Megan, and neither did anyone else.
Two days later, on February 15, more than 130 volunteers gathered for another search in the exact same area. Joe and Vanessa were among them. By early afternoon, snow began falling heavily. Then, around 12:30 p.m., volunteers noticed a road closure near the 40-mile marker. When Joe asked for more information, officers declined to tell him anything.
At 3:30 p.m., the news came. A body had been found.
It was Megan Trussell.
Park rangers had located her just before 11:00 am. She was lying on snow-covered rocks, eight feet below the same culvert that had been searched just days earlier.
The search for Megan was over.
But the questions were only beginning.
CHAPTER 5: Who Megan Was Before the Headlines
Before Megan Trussell became the focus of a missing person search, she was an 18-year-old building a life she was genuinely excited about.
Megan Piper Trussell was born on September 12, 2006. She grew up in Denver, Colorado, with her parents, Vanessa Diaz and Joseph Trussell, and her older sister Lindsey. Although Vanessa and Joe later divorced, they remained closely connected as co-parents, and Megan grew up in a family that spent a lot of time together.
They traveled often – sometimes by plane, sometimes by car. At one point, they even road-tripped from Canada to Baja Mexico. Staying connected mattered to Megan. Family time wasn’t an obligation to her. It was something she really valued.
She was especially close to her parents and her sister, and she also maintained strong relationships with her extended family, including her aunts, uncles, and her cousins Rebecca and Isabella. Even after she left for college, those relationships stayed central to her life.
From a young age, Megan stood out.
Her parents encouraged her to be herself, and she took that to heart. Megan expressed who she was through her clothing, accessories, and ever-changing hair color. She was thoughtful and empathetic, quick-witted, and deeply intuitive. She always made the people around her feel comfortable – like she really understood you. Those closest to her describe her as someone who made others feel genuinely seen.
Megan was bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish. Her cultural identity mattered deeply to her, and her Hispanic and Indigenous roots shaped how she saw the world and her place in it.
She was a natural artist, filling sketchbooks with drawings inspired by her friends, moments from her daily life, and the little details she noticed and wanted to hold onto. Art came easily to Megan - it was one of her primary ways of expressing herself and making sense of the world.
Megan was also politically aware and justice-oriented. She had a strong sense of fairness and believed people should be held accountable for how they treated others. That belief wasn’t abstract. It showed up consistently in how she lived, how she spoke, and how she showed up for people.
Megan also had a playful side. She was funny. Her dad described her as a “prodigy smartass.” She was using sarcasm before she even knew what sarcasm was. It came naturally to her. She was sharp, observant, and never dull.
Megan loved music – especially her parents’ 1990s grunge collection – and she played the bass guitar. Her taste was all over the place in the best way, spanning from Smashing Pumpkins to TV Girl to Sabrina Carpenter. She took pride in her carefully curated “vintage” CD collection.
She loved movies and pop culture. Megan enjoyed whodunits like Knives Out, Death on the Nile, and Clue. She also loved campy movies like The Birdcage and So I Married an Axe Murderer, along with favorites like Twilight, Sky High, and anything Disney or Pixar.
So it surprised no one when Megan decided to study film after high school. After graduating from Northfield High School, she enrolled at the University of Colorado Boulder, where her sister Lindsey was already attending.
And Megan loved it. During her first week on campus, she texted her dad, “college rules.”
She enjoyed her classes, especially the creative ones. She was making new friends, reconnecting with people she already knew, and settling into a life that felt like it was opening up right in front of her. Even without having her car in Boulder, Megan stayed closely connected to her family. Lindsey lived nearby, and they saw each other often. Megan also continued visiting her parents several times a month.
She wasn’t pulling away. She was growing, and staying connected at the same time.
By January 2025, Megan had begun her second semester. She enrolled in photography for non-majors, an introduction to screenwriting, and two other courses she was genuinely excited about. She was settling in, finding her rhythm, and making the most of her freshman year.
Around that same time, Megan was dating someone she met a few months earlier who also attended CU Boulder.
On Saturday, February 8, Megan told her mom, Vanessa, that she planned to spend Sunday with her boyfriend. During that same conversation, they talked about her cousin Isabella’s upcoming birthday on February 27. Megan was excited and looking forward to celebrating.
There was nothing in that conversation that suggested distress, nothing that seemed concerning, nothing that sounded like a goodbye.
To the people who knew Megan best, Megan was a young woman who loved her family, cared deeply about others, and was excited about what was next.
And that’s why, when she disappeared without explanation, her family didn’t hesitate. They knew something was wrong.
CHAPTER 6: The Canyon Scene and the Missing Pieces
When park rangers located Megan’s body on February 15, she was lying on snow-covered boulders and rock near the culvert, partially covered by a thin layer of snow. She was on her back, with her left arm extended outward. Her jacket was no longer fully on – her left arm had come out of the sleeve, which was ripped and draped across her chest. Her purse, which she always wore on the left side, was missing, while her right arm remained inside the jacket.
Megan was wearing the same clothes seen in campus surveillance footage, but her red pants were pulled up toward her knees. Her right shoe was missing, and on that foot she wore a black sock that was reportedly torn at the heel.
Her remaining shoe showed heavy scrapes along the toe and sides – damage that hadn’t been there before. And while the bottoms of the shoe showed normal wear, there was no dirt, mud, or sand on them. That detail stands out, because dirt and sand were present on Megan’s hands and on her clothing.
A black fingerless glove, turned inside out, was still on Megan’s right hand. Her left hand was bare. All of her fingernails had visible dirt and debris beneath them. Her palms, however, showed no injury.
Beneath Megan’s body was a piece of dirty, ratty fabric. Investigators alternately described it as a shirt or a pair of sweatpants. It didn’t match anything Megan was seen wearing in surveillance footage. Her family has never been shown a photograph of the item laid out and detectives never determined what it was. To this day, it remains unclear where the fabric came from or who it belonged to.
Because Megan was found within Boulder County jurisdiction, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office took over the investigation.
Investigators conducted a cursory search of the area as snow continued to fall. Inside the culvert, they swabbed multiple small blood drops. The blood appeared fresh, but completely dry.
In the same area, detectives also found a Valentine’s Day card sent to a man named Alexander Connor, and a ripped piece of newspaper from February 9.
Still inside the culvert, investigators recovered the empty Adderall bottle that volunteer searcher Max had noticed two days earlier. They also found a backpack containing clothing and a candle. The backpack didn’t belong to Megan. But the Adderall bottle did. MUSIC STARTS: ECHO When Max first discovered the bottle, he had mistakenly read the prescriber’s name instead of Megan’s on the label.
Vanessa explained that Megan typically carried two Adderall prescriptions with her. She didn’t like leaving them in her dorm – especially because her roommate’s mother, who often visited, had a substance abuse disorder.
Megan had been prescribed Adderall extended release for several years and later also received a prescription for immediate-release tablets. The bottle recovered in the culvert was for the immediate-release medication. The other prescription, for time-release, was nowhere to be found.
Several other items were missing – her phone, purse, right shoe, and left glove.
Detectives waited days before informing Megan’s family which items were missing.
I want to pause here for a second because this part is important. When families are dealing with the most unimaginable tragedy like looking for a missing loved one or piecing together their murder to try to find the killer or just make sense of it all, we aren’t looking for special treatment from law enforcement. We are looking for human decency.
Families want to feel like the investigators are working with them, not against them. Hiding or concealing information, or even worse, lying about information does not build trust. All we are asking for is honesty – to be kept in the loop while time still matters.
What’s so maddening in cases like this is how often families are shut out during the most critical moments of an investigation. Evidence is found. Decisions are made. Theories are formed. And the people who know the victim best – the ones who can spot what feels off or suspicious – are the ones left in the dark.
Information is withheld “until later.” Questions are brushed off. And by the time families are finally told the full story, evidence is gone, memories have faded, and opportunities to course-correct are already lost.
I’ve seen this firsthand, and once you’ve lived it, you start to recognize the pattern everywhere.
When investigators decide they already know what happened, it feels like transparency becomes optional – no matter how many unanswered questions are still sitting right there in front of them.
From the beginning, Megan’s parents struggled to understand how her body had not been found sooner. Multiple searches had taken place in the exact area where she was eventually discovered.
At one point, Max had been just five feet from where Megan’s body was later found while he searched inside the culvert. PHOTO: AREA PHOTO His search partner had been positioned across the creek, facing the slope where Megan was lying. How had both of them missed her? A woman who lived nearby even told police she was surprised Megan hadn’t been found earlier, given how many people had searched the area.
Megan’s body was transported for autopsy. It would be months before her family would learn what that examination revealed.
CHAPTER 7: The Autopsy and a Decision They Can’t Undo
When the coroner’s office first contacted Joe and Vanessa with preliminary findings, they were told the autopsy revealed no evidence of physical trauma – only one small scratch on Megan’s leg, believed to have come from a branch.
But that was not true. Megan had sustained numerous injuries – so many that they filled nearly an entire page of the report.
On the left side of her body, where Megan always wore her purse, the report documented bruising on her ankle and the bottom of her foot. There were scrapes on her knuckles, multiple bruises and abrasions on her calf and arm, and a large contusion on her left arm measuring 7.5 by 3 inches.
There was a 2.5-inch contusion on her wrist, a dark contusion on her left hip, and several dark red abrasions – some measuring up to five inches – across the mid and lower left side of her back.
Megan also had significant injuries to her face and head. Two teeth on the left side of her mouth were broken – one missing entirely and another severely fractured. The autopsy described them as “chipped,” but photographs showed far more extensive damage. There was bruising on that side of her mouth, abrasions on her forehead and the bridge of her nose, a laceration on her forehead, and a contusion on her scalp.
On the right side of her body, the report documented abrasions on the pads of her fingertips. Her right arm showed multiple contusions and abrasions. On her right foot – the one without a shoe – there were abrasions on her ankle and toes. The report also noted long, linear abrasions – some measuring up to 11 inches – on her lower extremities where her pants had been pulled up.
There were also several areas of frostbite across her body.
During the internal examination, Dr. Meredith Frank found what she described as “abundant pill or capsule material filling” Megan’s esophagus and stomach. The material consisted of white spheres consistent with time-release medication capsules. Toxicology testing was ordered, but results would not be available for several weeks.
After the autopsy, investigators spoke with Megan’s parents again. They did not describe the extent of Megan’s injuries. Instead, they focused on the presence of pill material and made it clear that their preliminary belief was that Megan had taken her own life through an overdose.
Joe and Vanessa immediately pushed back. They told investigators Megan was not suicidal.
And then, almost immediately after the conversation, they were asked a different question.
Which funeral home would you like to use?
Based on what they had been told – that Megan had no injuries – they chose a cremation service that offered water cremation. Months later, when they learned the full scope of Megan’s injuries, they were devastated. They deeply regretted that decision… but it had been made with incomplete information.
This is something Megan’s parents have been very open about – it’s something they wish someone had told them. If there are any unanswered questions about how a person died – any inconsistencies, any uncertainty, any part of the story that doesn’t sit right – don’t rush into cremation.
Joe and Vanessa made their decision based on the information they were given at the time. They were told Megan had no injuries. They trusted the process. And later, when they finally learned the full extent of what had been found, they were left with a kind of regret no family should have to carry. This isn’t about blame. Megan’s parents have done and are doing a remarkable job. But now, when it comes to cremation, they choose to focus on awareness.
Once cremation happens, certain answers can never be recovered. And in cases like this – where reexamination could provide clarity – that loss can feel devastating. If you’re ever in that position, and I hope you never are, but if something doesn’t feel right, it’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to ask for more time. It’s okay to protect the possibility of answers, even when you’re drowning in grief.
CHAPTER 8: No Threat to the Community
On February 18, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office released a public statement. They said, “we do not believe that there was, or is, a threat to the community.” They added, “We are still interested in hearing from anyone who may have additional information about Megan’s movements on Sunday, February 9, the last day she was seen alive, or any relevant information.”
To Megan’s family, it felt like the conclusion had already been reached.
Megan did this to herself. There was no danger. There was nothing more to look at.
Three days later, on February 21, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office searched the area around the culvert for Megan’s missing items. Nothing was found. A follow-up search was conducted two days later. Again – nothing.
Later that day, a detective contacted Vanessa to finally tell her that Megan’s phone and purse were missing. He did not mention the missing shoe or glove. This was the first time Vanessa heard that any of Megan’s belongings were unaccounted for. She was stunned.
Megan never went anywhere without her purse. It wasn’t just something she carried – it was something she relied on. Megan loved it so much that she wore it constantly, even when sitting on the couch at home.
She was wearing it in the last surveillance footage. Now it’s gone and detectives couldn’t tell her why.
With few answers coming from investigators, Megan’s loved ones set out on their own search. Days turned into weeks. Nothing turned up.
Then, on March 5, a woman was biking along the path off Highway 36 when she noticed something near a drainage ditch at the 40-mile marker.
It was Megan’s purse.
The location was approximately six miles from where Megan’s body had been found.
The woman immediately reported the discovery to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office. When detectives first heard a purse had been found near a 40-mile marker, they assumed it was near the same location where Megan’s body had been recovered. It wasn’t. Once they realized the purse had been found along Highway 36, they responded to the scene.
The woman showed them where she found the purse. She also pointed out a pink strap nearby, which appeared to have been torn from the bag. Detectives conducted a brief search of the surrounding area but didn’t find anything else. They took the purse and its strap back to the sheriff’s office.
Inside the purse, investigators found an empty Adderall prescription bottle for Megan’s time-release medication, a black wallet, pepper spray, Megan’s CU ID card, and other personal items. Her wallet still contained her driver’s license and several credit cards. The wallet and purse were swabbed for touch DNA, then a detective called Vanessa to tell her the purse had been found. He sent her a photo of the recovered items and asked whether anything appeared missing.
Vanessa said yes, there were at least three items missing: Megan’s phone, vape, and earbuds.
Vanessa also noticed that the purse itself was torn where the crossbody strap attached to the bag and that stood out to her.
Vanessa had reinforced that strap herself. She had even purchased a special sewing machine to make sure it wouldn’t tear. To her, the damage suggested force – but detectives didn’t seem concerned.
By this point, Megan’s family was deeply troubled by what was going on. There were too many inconsistencies and too many questions. So Joe and Vanessa asked to see the exact location where Megan had been found. Park rangers escorted them to the site.
Standing there, Vanessa struggled to understand how Megan could have ended up in that spot. Megan had been wearing three-inch platform shoes. She hated walking. She hated the cold. And the path leading into the canyon was frozen, unlit, and uneven.
How did she make it there? And why would she ever go there?
Even if Megan had intended to take her own life – which her family firmly believes she did not – nothing about this makes sense. The route into the canyon required all things Megan hated. There was no reason for her to endure that when she had access to warmth, privacy, and safety in her dorm room.
While at the scene, Vanessa asked one of the rangers whether he had seen Megan’s shoes. He told her he had only seen one.
And that was the first time Megan’s family learned that one of her shoes was missing. They were devastated. More days had passed – days when they could have been searching for that shoe – and they hadn’t even known it was gone. Once they did know, they searched.
But the shoe was never found… and to this day, it remains missing.
CHAPTER 9: The Sheriff, the Phone, and Shrugged-Off Evidence
By March 10, Megan’s family had more questions than answers. They’d flagged inconsistency after inconsistency. Missing evidence. Conflicting explanations. And yet, law enforcement didn’t seem troubled at all. It felt like they were looking at an entirely different case.
So, Joe and Vanessa met with the sheriff to discuss their concerns. But once again, they were shut down. The response was immediate and final. The sheriff told them, “based on the evidence I’ve seen, I don’t believe a crime was committed.”
When they pushed back – pointing to Megan’s missing purse, her missing phone, her missing shoe, and how none of that aligned with a suicide – the sheriff dismissed it. “Sometimes weird things happen in an investigation and we never find out why.”
When a family comes to law enforcement with legitimate questions – missing evidence, contradictions, things that simply don’t add up – and they’re met with dismissal, of course it’s frustrating. But it makes us feel hopeless. What do you do when the only people who can really do anything at all about your loved one’s case are seemingly abandoning you?
What makes it worse is how final it feels. When police decide early on that they know what happened, every question after that is treated like an inconvenience instead of a lead. Families aren’t seen as partners in finding the truth – they’re seen as obstacles.
Megan’s family learned this the hard way: once a case gets labeled a suicide, the curiosity disappears, the urgency disappears, and the burden of proof quietly shifts onto the family to explain why it shouldn’t be. But families aren’t asking for miracles. We’re asking for effort, for transparency, for someone to slow down and make sure they got it right.
Because when law enforcement shuts the door too early, it doesn’t just close a case – it makes the truth impossible to find.
Not long after meeting with the sheriff, one of Vanessa’s friends – who had been looking for Megan’s phone – heard that someone might have tried to sell it to an EcoATM kiosk which is an automated, self-service machine located in retail stores that buys used smartphones and tablets.
Vanessa filed a claim with EcoATM regarding Megan’s missing phone. Within days, she got a response. The phone had been located. Vanessa found the phone. Not the police.
Records showed the phone had been sold on March 2 at a grocery store kiosk in Boulder for $75 by a man named Elliot Beafore (BAY-FOUR). Photos from the EcoATM showed he was alone at the time of the sale. Unfortunately, by the time detectives recovered the phone, it had been wiped. There was no usable data left to review – no location history, no messages, nothing at all.
An attempt-to-locate alert was issued for Elliot, but it would take several more months before detectives tracked him down.
Around the same time, detectives also identified a man named Alexander Connor who went by Travis. He was known to stay in the culvert area near the 40-mile marker. A Valentine’s Day card addressed to him had been found in the same area as Megan’s body.
Travis told investigators he had been incarcerated from January 23 to February 13. Sometime after his release – between February 13 and February 22 – he returned to the encampment to retrieve his belongings.
While doing that, he said he found Megan’s purse in the area of the culvert. He couldn’t recall exactly where. He described the strap as torn and said he assumed it belonged to a hiker who had dropped it. He admitted to removing a disposable vape from the purse and said he left everything else inside.
According to Travis, he later left the purse along the bike path off Highway 36, where it would eventually be found. He denied knowing anything about Megan’s phone.
Detectives didn’t believe him. They felt he was withholding information and pressed him repeatedly to explain what had been inside the purse. But Travis maintained that he couldn’t remember anything else.
Weeks later, detectives finally located and interviewed Elliot Beafore, the man who sold Megan’s phone. Elliot said he had never met Megan. He admitted to selling her phone, but his story shifted. First, he claimed he found it along the trail. Later, he said he received it from Travis – though he claimed he didn’t know where Travis got it.
Following that interview, Elliot was arrested for stealing Megan’s phone. He was later released on bond and has not yet gone to trial.
But here’s the problem. Detectives did not go back to question Travis about why he initially denied knowledge of Megan’s phone, even after Elliot said Travis had given it to him. That’s a loose end and there shouldn’t be loose ends like this in an investigation.
Despite that, the sheriff’s office later issued a public statement saying they knew who had moved Megan’s purse and phone, and that both men had no contact with Megan.
Megan’s family has one question: How do they know that?
CHAPTER 10: The Suicide Ruling
As Megan’s family tried to make sense of missing belongings and conflicting statements, they were still waiting on two critical pieces of information: the toxicology and the final autopsy report.
On May 27 – more than three months after Megan was found – those reports were finally released.
The autopsy listed nearly a full page of injuries, but concluded that none of them contributed to Megan’s death. Instead, Dr. Meredith Frank ruled that Megan died from the toxic effects of amphetamine, and that exposure to a cold environment – hypothermia – contributed. The manner of death was suicide.
To support that conclusion, Dr. Frank pointed to the toxicology report, which showed amphetamine – which is the Adderall – in Megan’s blood at 1,900 nanograms per milliliter. That number might sound high until you see the comparison. In amphetamine-related fatalities, reported blood concentrations range widely – but the average is around 9,000 nanograms per milliliter. Megan’s level – 1,900 – was well below that. And yet, the ruling stated that Megan died from an overdose, one she caused herself.
When Joe and Vanessa read the reports, they were shocked. They couldn’t understand how a suicidal conclusion had been reached.
The autopsy itself noted that Megan had no known history of suicidal ideation or attempts. It confirmed that no suicide note was found. Megan had been thriving in college. She was excited about her classes. She was making plans and looking ahead to a bright future. Nothing in her life suggested she intended to end it.
And yet, her death was officially ruled a suicide.
CHAPTER 11: Pills, Blood Levels, and a Story That Doesn’t Track
Megan’s parents were so confused and they needed answers, but for more than a week they couldn’t get a meeting with the coroner’s office. When they finally sat down with Dr. Frank on June 4, Joe and Vanessa wanted to understand how Megan could have sustained so many injuries, how she got out to the canyon, and how this was being framed as something she did to herself.
They didn’t get answers.
Dr. Frank told them she had not been to the scene. However, her “team” went there, and they believed Megan’s injuries were consistent with a fall. Vanessa pushed back. She asked how someone could sustain that many injuries from falling less than 10 feet. Dr. Frank responded, “I’m not gonna get into this speculation that the blunt force injuries that I saw on her body were not fatal.” She went on to describe Megan’s injuries as “small.”
Then Dr. Frank pivoted. She returned to the pill material found during the internal examination. She told Megan’s parents, “The only fatal condition is that the entire upper esophagus and stomach was filled with pill material. It’s the most I’ve ever seen in my 14 years of experience. I have never seen this [widening or stretching of] the esophagus by pill material - it was volumes, multiple, potentially multiple bottles, but definitely multiple capsules - and to me, this is a volitional use of a medication, and that is really pointing me strongly towards the direction of a manner…”
At that point, Vanessa interrupted her. She asked a simple question: Had the pill material been tested?
The answer was no.
Dr. Frank had decided that Megan died from taking a fatal amount of Adderall, without confirming what the pill material in her throat and esophagus actually was.
Like we talked about earlier, Megan was prescribed two types of Adderall. One was time-release. The other was immediate-release. The pill material found in Megan’s throat and stomach consisted of time-release capsules. But the empty prescription bottle for her time-release medication was found about six miles away, inside her purse.
The empty bottle recovered from the culvert – about 16 feet from where Megan was found – was for her immediate-release prescription. There were no signs of immediate-release pills in her esophagus or stomach – only time-release capsules.
Those facts left her parents wondering…Where did enough time-release capsules come from to fill her esophagus and stomach?
Megan was not known to stockpile medication. In mid-January, she texted her mom and said she was almost out and needed a refill. So it’s not like she had multiple bottles at her disposal. She certainly didn’t have enough to fill her throat and esophagus. Joe and Vanessa said the pill material needed to be tested immediately, and the coroner agreed to send it out.
By mid-July, results came back showing amphetamine levels in Megan’s stomach measured at 1,700,000 nanograms per milliliter – far higher than the level found in her blood. The coroner’s office maintained that this confirmed Megan died from Adderall toxicity.
Once again, the results left Megan’s family with more questions than answers. What troubled them most was the disconnect between what was found in her stomach and what was found in her bloodstream.
I’m not a doctor, but from what I’ve read online… generally, for a medication to cause death by overdose, it has to be absorbed into the bloodstream at high levels.
In Megan’s case, that hadn’t happened. Her blood level of amphetamine was relatively low compared to levels typically seen in fatal overdoses, while an extremely large amount of pill material was still present in her stomach.
That distinction really matters. When a large quantity of medication remains in the stomach but much less is found in the blood, it suggests the drug had not fully entered the body’s system yet. And that can happen if the medication was taken very close to the time of death - or if something else happened before the body could absorb it.
What it does not automatically show is that the medication caused her death. When Megan’s family brought these inconsistencies up to the coroner’s office, no one would listen to them.
At that point, it became clear. To officials, this case was closed.
CHAPTER 12: An Investigation Full of Holes
Because Megan’s case was ruled a suicide and closed, her family was able to obtain most of the investigative records. That’s when they began to see just how many problems existed with the investigation.
To start, some evidence was never collected at all, including a blue tarp found inside the culvert and surveillance footage from nearby residents.
With the evidence that was collected, none of it was sent out for testing – not the sexual assault kit or Megan’s fingernail clippings or the fresh blood found inside the culvert. They didn’t test the DNA swabs taken from her purse or the unidentified, ratty piece of fabric found beneath her body.
Then there were issues with how evidence was handled. Several items recovered from the culvert were placed in a drying cabinet. At one point, the cabinet had been left unlocked, compromising the integrity of the evidence inside.
After Megan’s purse was recovered, a detective went through it and made decisions about what to keep and what to discard. Among the items thrown away was a small container holding what they described as wet ibuprofen and Zyrtec. Yes – medication was discarded in a case where investigators concluded Megan died by ingesting medication.
And that was only part of what her family uncovered in the files.
As they reviewed the records, Megan’s parents realized something else was missing entirely: there was no clear narrative explaining how investigators believed Megan died. There was no reconstruction of how she supposedly traveled from her dorm to the canyon.
They give no explanation for how she reached the 40-mile marker dressed as she was, without a heavy coat and wearing only one platform shoe. The report has no reasoning for how her injuries were sustained. Officials seemingly can’t provide clarity for the torn purse strap, or the ripped jacket sleeve, or the unidentified fabric beneath her body. No one can explain how Megan went unseen for days in an area that had been searched repeatedly by drones, dogs, and ground teams.
To Megan’s family, it felt like the investigation had ended before the most basic questions were ever asked.
Let me take a moment to talk about this, not as an investigative journalist or a storyteller but as someone who has lived inside an investigation. Some people won’t like to hear this. But police bias is real. And it doesn’t always look like hostility. Most of the time, it looks like assumptions – decisions made early on that quietly shape everything that comes after.
I’ve experienced what it’s like to walk into a police department with facts, timelines, and real concerns only to feel like none of it matters because someone had looked at a photo and heard a brief summary and decided what happened. Once that decision is made, every new detail is filtered through it. Anything that fits with that narrative is accepted and anything that doesn’t gets ignored, minimized, or explained away.
That’s not justice. That’s confirmation bias.
Families feel it immediately. That little punch in your gut when you hear something that doesn’t match what you knew about the victim. You can sense it when the tone quickly shifts from “we’re investigating” to “we’re done.”
That’s what makes cases like Megan’s so hard to accept. Because when bias replaces curiosity, the truth becomes optional – and the people left behind are the ones who pay the price.
CHAPTER 13: This Is Not the End of Megan’s Story
Today, Megan Trussell’s death remains classified as a suicide. Her family does not accept that conclusion. And frankly, neither do I.
Since the ruling was issued, Vanessa Diaz and Joe Trussell have done the unthinkable — put their grief on hold to become detectives. Instead of beginning the long process of adjusting to this new normal without their youngest daughter. They have continued reviewing records, consulting independent experts, and pressing for answers about the investigation into their daughter’s death.
In December of 2025, they learned about a Colorado State law requiring the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to conduct independent reviews of cases where an Indigenous person’s cause of death is ruled a suicide. Megan’s parents reached out to the CBI, and in January 2026, they announced they would be conducting an independent review of Megan’s case. That review is ongoing, and no findings have been publicly released at the time of this recording.
If you have any information related to Megan Trussell’s disappearance, her movements on the night of February 9, 2025, or the days that followed — no matter how small or seemingly insignificant — you are encouraged to come forward.
Tips can be submitted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at 303-239-4201 or to the family’s PR team, Vigilante PR, at 678-636-9771 or you can email TRUSSELLTIPS@VIGILANTE-PR.COM. There is an $11,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
Megan Trussell was not a case file. She was not a statistic. She was a daughter who loved her family, a young woman who loved art, music, and film, a human being who was excited about the life she was building.
What happened to Megan remains a mystery, but what is clear is that critical questions have gone unanswered. Until they are addressed, her story is not over.
Because Megan deserved to be protected in life and she deserves the truth in death.
CREDITS:
Thanks for listening to Frozen Files a Yes! Podcast
Recorded in Los Angeles at KeyFrame Studios
This episode was produced, written, hosted, and edited by Madison McGhee
Produced, written and researched by Haley Gray
Additional producing and editing by Skyler Wright and Nick Baudille
Production design by Stephen Hauser
Creative direction by AJ Christianson
All additional sources are linked in the show notes.
SOURCES:
https://bouldercounty.gov/news/conclusion-of-investigation-into-the-death-of-megan-trussell/
https://www.beatreecremation.com/obituaries/2025-02-15-megan-trussell
https://www.denverpost.com/2025/05/27/megan-trussell-cu-boulder-student-death-canyon-suicide/
https://bouldercounty.gov/news/update-4-deceased-female-found-near-40-mile-marker-boulder-canyon-dr/
https://www.dailycamera.com/2025/06/05/janice-marchman-phil-weiser-review-megan-trussell-death/
Interview between Haley Gray and Joe Trussell and Vanessa Diaz
Documents and Records obtained from Boulder Sheriff’s Department
