In 2017, Jepsy Amaga Kallungi’s life appeared to be a modern fairy tale. After a whirlwind online romance with a retired American Army veteran named Dane Kallungi, the 24-year-old from Cebu, Philippines, moved to Colorado Springs on a fiancée visa. Her social media profile quickly became a vibrant diary of a dream realized, filled with photos of her wedding, a new apartment, and travels with the man she loved.

But behind the curated perfection of her online life, a dark and dangerous reality was unfolding, one that would end with her mysterious disappearance and a two-year-long search for the truth.

The alarm was first raised in March 2019 by Jepsy’s close friend, Renee Ramos. Living in Chicago, Renee had grown accustomed to frequent chats with Jepsy. When days passed with an unnerving silence, her concern grew. She reached out to Dane, who offered a casual and unsettling explanation: he and Jepsy had argued on March 20, and she had packed a bag and left to visit a friend in Chicago.

Renee’s intuition told her something was wrong. She contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department and requested a welfare check. When officers arrived at the apartment, they found no signs of a struggle or foul play. Dane, though seemingly nervous, stuck to his story that his wife had simply left him. However, his narrative quickly began to crumble under the slightest scrutiny.

Investigators soon discovered that Dane had told a completely different story to their apartment manager. On the very day Jepsy supposedly left for Chicago, Dane had gone to the office to terminate their lease, falsely claiming that his wife had already returned to the Philippines and would not be coming back. The conflicting lies immediately put him at the center of the investigation.

The case grew more complex as police delved into Jepsy’s private life. Dane revealed that their last argument was over text messages he had discovered between Jepsy and another man, an Army soldier named Travis. This admission complicated the narrative, but Travis was quickly located and cleared as a suspect.

Investigators also uncovered a chilling detail from Jepsy’s phone records: two 911 calls had been made from her phone on the day she vanished, but both were abruptly ended before a location could be traced.

The most damning information, however, came from Dane’s own past. Police interviewed his ex-wife, Elaine, who painted a terrifying portrait of the man she had been married to for 15 years. She described a long and harrowing history of domestic violence, recounting multiple instances where he had choked her, a story corroborated by her sister. Suddenly, the police had a prime suspect with a known capacity for violence.

Despite the mountain of suspicion—the lies, the history of abuse, the suspicious 911 calls—the investigation hit a wall. With no physical evidence, no crime scene, and no body, Jepsy was simply a missing person. The case went cold. For two years, her mother, Margie, and her friends refused to give up. They ran Facebook pages, shared her photo, and pleaded with the public for any information, keeping her memory alive in a desperate, long-shot effort to find answers.

The breakthrough finally came in March 2021, from the one person who knew Dane’s dark side better than anyone. His ex-wife, Elaine, contacted investigators with a crucial tip: Dane was temporarily returning to Colorado from California, where he had moved, and had invited her to lunch. Recognizing a unique opportunity, police asked Elaine if she would be willing to help, and she bravely agreed.

In a carefully planned sting operation, Elaine met Dane for lunch, wearing a secret recording device. In the chilling audio captured that day, Dane Kallungi confessed. He calmly admitted to Elaine that his fight with Jepsy on March 20, 2019, had turned physical. He claimed he only wanted her to stop talking but realized he had gravely injured her.

In a cold and calculated admission, he stated that because he didn’t want to see her suffer, he “finished it.” He confessed to burying her body afterward but claimed he couldn’t remember the exact location.

Based on the secretly recorded confession, Dane Kallungi was arrested, two years after Jepsy’s disappearance. Though his admission finally brought an answer to what happened to her, it has not brought her family complete closure. To this day, Jepsy’s body has not been found, and her family is still waiting for the slow wheels of justice to lead to a final trial and a chance to finally bring their daughter home.