When a 10-year-old girl didn't come back from a quick trip to the store on a cold January night in 1988,

her family and the Potucket Rhode Island community searching for her feared the worst.

Then weeks later when her body was found miles away, those fears were confirmed.

And the questions just started stacking up.

What happened to Christine Cole?

Investigators have considered multiple persons of interest and suspects

over the last 30-plus years and even made an arrest.

But the evidence crumpled as allegations of misconduct rose to the surface.

I'm Kylie Lowe and this is the case of Christine Cole on dark down east. It was around 8.15 p.m. on January 6, 1988, and Margaret Cole was waiting by the

apartment window watching for her 10-year-old daughter

Christine Cole to come walking down West Avenue.

According to reporting by Suzanne Espinosa for the Providence Journal, Margaret, who also went by Margie, had given

Christine a food stamp voucher and sent her out to get some milk and clams for supper around 515.

Christine asked her mother if she could use some of the money to buy a little

penny candy too and Margie said yes. Christine just had a birthday two days

earlier so it would be a special treat. The store, Red's seafood at

286 Mineral Spring Avenue in Patucket, Rhode Island, was just about a half mile

away from their apartment, depending on the route, and Christine knew her neighborhood well.

Margie was a young single mother who had her hands full, and Christine was the oldest, so it wasn't unusual for her to run Samarins for mom or go out

walking on her own. It also wasn't unusual for Christine to not return when she should.

Reports say that Christine had been reported missing in 1985 after she did not come home for several hours. When searchers found her, she was in a dumpster looking for a key she said she lost.

Just the previous summer, Christine was reported missing again when she was gone for more than six hours.

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