The Murder Police Podcast
The Murder Police Podcast
Where is Linda Price? | Part 1 of 2
The haunting disappearance of Linda Price tears at the heart of a Kentucky family as whispered secrets circulate but answers remain elusive.
Mary Elizabeth never imagined she would hear news about her missing daughter from inmates at the Lincoln County Jail where she worked. "Miss Mary, we have family out there. We can't talk to you about anything," they told her after making cryptic comments suggesting they knew what happened to Linda. This devastating experience eventually forced Mary to leave a job she loved because she couldn't bear working "beside these people that know what's happened to my daughter."
Born in 1983 in Danville, Kentucky, Linda Price was a loving mother of two who enjoyed simple pleasures – skating at the local rink, playing with dolls as a child, and surrounding herself with her favorite color, blue. As the only girl among three brothers, she learned to be tough early in life. But toughness wasn't enough to shield her from the grip of addiction that eventually led to her cycling through local jails and distancing herself from loved ones.
The last confirmed contact with Linda was a phone call with her father on June 8, 2015. Her son Chase, just 12 years old at the time, initially didn't grasp the severity of his mother's disappearance given her history of being "in and out of the picture." Years later, he's still searching for answers alongside his grandmother, who carries the weight of wondering if she could have done more. "I carry a lot of blame that I wasn't there for her," Mary Elizabeth shares, her grief still raw after nearly a decade.
What really happened to Linda Price? Does someone in this close-knit community know the truth? Listen as we explore this heartbreaking mystery that reveals how substance abuse, small-town dynamics, and family struggles converge into a perfect storm of uncertainty and pain. If you recognize Linda or have information about her disappearance, please contact authorities or the podcast team immediately.
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But I had to leave that job because the inmates were telling me things that I really did not want to hear. And I finally had to separate myself from it when they were in the kitchen and I felt I can't work beside these people that know what's happened to my daughter. But I was told, miss Mary, we have family out there. We can't talk to you about anything.
Chase Ellis:Where is Linda Price? Part 1 of 2. Miss Mary, we have family out there, we can't talk to you about anything. Where is Linda Price, part?
Wendy Lyons:1 of 2. Warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast. Today we're going to discuss the disappearance of Linda Price, and we have with us today her mother, mary Elizabeth, and her son, chase. Thank you all so much for coming.
Chase Ellis:Thank you for having us. Thank you.
Wendy Lyons:David, how are you?
David Lyons:Good. We've been talking about producing this one for quite a bit of time, and it's an important one to produce. We need people to know who Linda is and some of the circumstances behind her disappearance and, of course, to ask people in the community to help out, and that's what we're going to do today. So thank you all for joining us. It means a great deal to have a little bit of faith in us to be able to carry Linda's story through. So thank you again for being here. Absolutely. Thank you, guys for covering it.
Mary Elizabeth:Yes, thank you.
Wendy Lyons:Well, why don't you start with telling us a little bit about Linda? You're her mother, chase, you're her son, so why don't you just tell us who Linda, who she is?
Mary Elizabeth:Linda is just a caring, loving person. She was a great mom, mother of two. She just loved to laugh.
Wendy Lyons:Mary Elizabeth tell us a little bit about Linda as a baby and as a young girl. How was she, as a child, growing up?
Mary Elizabeth:Oh, she was a quiet baby. You had to feel over to see if she was breathing. She was just quiet, she didn't cry. I mean, she was just a good baby and she loved challenge. And she was one of those children that she could be doing something wrong and you would say, linda, stop doing that. And she would turn around and she had it in her mind that if she couldn't see you, you couldn't see what she was doing. That's excellent.
Mary Elizabeth:She was very funny, but she loved bicycles and just baby dolls. She loved baby dolls.
Wendy Lyons:What city did Linda grow up in?
Mary Elizabeth:In Danville.
Wendy Lyons:In Danville, Kentucky.
David Lyons:When was she born? Before we let that go too far past that.
Mary Elizabeth:August 25th 1983.
David Lyons:1983? Mm-hmm, okay, good deal. Yeah, we're coming up on that birthday here in just a few months here and we're actually recording in Danville where that disappearance happened. When you talked about her loving dolls and things like that, what were some of her other passions Like? Did she have a favorite color?
Mary Elizabeth:Oh, she loved the color blue.
David Lyons:Oh wow, we share that in common. I love anything blue. I'll eat anything if it's blue. To be honest with you, I love blue. So we have that in common. And you said she liked riding bikes or things like that when she got into school, were there subjects that she focused on more, or were there things she absolutely hated? Tell us a little bit about when she got into school.
Mary Elizabeth:Linda liked school until she got in the middle grade, you know sixth or seventh grade, I think it became harder and she wouldn't give up. But she would just hate to ask for help.
David Lyons:Middle school is a turning point for a lot of people. It really is. It's where the socialization changes, the peer pressure comes on Exactly. Kids start worrying about things other than grades. Does that make any sense?
Mary Elizabeth:Exactly.
Chase Ellis:So I can see her.
David Lyons:It's so common, I think most kids struggle in middle school. It's a very difficult turning point for a lot of people. Did she get involved in athletics or academic teams or anything like that?
Mary Elizabeth:No, no, she just had a few close friends and that's what she, you know. She just valued them and she hung out with them and just tried to enjoy life. She loved roller skate, so I would take her and her brother, her older brother. I would take them to the skating rink before their younger brother was born. Then, when he was born, we had trouble getting there all the time because you don't take a baby to the skate rink.
David Lyons:So she didn't understand that. There we go. How old was she when she was into skating? Do you remember Eight and up.
Mary Elizabeth:She loved to skate.
David Lyons:Yeah, indoor rinks, I guess right. Yeah, where at.
Mary Elizabeth:Up here at Windchamber. Okay.
David Lyons:I got you. That's true. I forgot that that was there. I forgot that was there and you read my mind. I was going to ask if she had a close circle of friends or not people that were close to her. I think for girls that might be more important than for boys. She probably had three. Yeah, ah, there we go. Did they stay in touch over the years, or did they?
David Lyons:Yes, she had two that stayed in touch with her from adulthood Okay, even when Chase and Pacey was born Gotcha and sibling-wise you mentioned that I was going to ask that too Brothers and sisters for Linda, and how many, and their ages?
Mary Elizabeth:Okay, she's got. The oldest brother is oh crap, I'm not good with math, so I'm sorry, but she has an older brother, chris vickery, and she has thomas wilson, okay. And then her younger brother is lewis Okay, good deal.
David Lyons:Kind of in the middle a little bit she was the only girl One girl three boys.
Mary Elizabeth:And she was meaner than them boys had to be. I had to teach her to be.
David Lyons:I was going to say I've always said in my dad's side of the family that having daughters was extremely rare, and so when I learned I was having a daughter 26 years ago, I got down on my knees and thanked God, because I came up in a house with four brothers and we were rough. We tore that house up. I always tell people I sort of learned how to fight. I was in the middle and I got it and I gave it, and so I know what that's like as far as she would have to be so.
Mary Elizabeth:When she became a teenager, she was there we go far as she would have to be. So when she became a teenager, she was there we go she began to learn to defend herself.
David Lyons:That's it. I think the toughest woman I ever met was my Aunt Patty, because she was at the trail end of Dad's Brothers and Sisters there was like eight of them or something ridiculous like that and my cousin Terry was at the trail end of like six boys. I think, oh, yeah, yeah, so had to be tough, had to be tough.
Wendy Lyons:It prepared you for me, didn't it?
David Lyons:Somewhat, but nothing could prepare me for you.
Wendy Lyons:Exactly that's so loving it is. Yeah, you meant that in a really interesting way, didn't you?
David Lyons:I did, yeah, you could just feel the emotion.
Mary Elizabeth:But I bet it wouldn't change it for anything.
David Lyons:No, no before the Tweety birds start we'll get back on this.
Wendy Lyons:Yeah, we better. Yeah, exactly.
David Lyons:But yeah, that's what I'm always interested to see. Now, in a little bit, we'll turn to why we're here today. Did any of her friends, were they close to her at the time when she went missing from this area?
Mary Elizabeth:No.
David Lyons:They just separated.
Mary Elizabeth:Linda took a turn in her life and experimented with drugs and kind of pushed all the people that were important to her away before she went missing.
David Lyons:That's what that happens. Right, that happens. I've just shared I don't mind sharing it again that right before I retired, in 2020, I lost my youngest brother to a drug overdose and he had estranged himself from the rest of the family. So nobody's immune.
Chase Ellis:And.
David Lyons:I think it's a struggle that many people go through, sometimes quietly, sometimes not, so my heart goes out to you with that. I've experienced that on many levels in my own personal family, so my heart goes into that. It's a bad thing that's out there and there's bad people that make sure people get it in the hands of people that have no business with it.
David Lyons:So sorry to hear about that. So she enters into that, starts to struggle with that. That's a good way to put that and everything. Good way to put that and everything. It's uh. It's on a basis of where some of the answers could be on this, maybe to um chase uh, you're her son, uh, and I guess, given that those dynamics were probably difficult for you as a son with a mother going through, that where am?
Chase Ellis:I assuming too much there oh no, it was absolutely a struggle. Uh, especially being a younger kid, you know you're kept away from a lot of the real world things because you don't want to corrupt a young child's mind with what's going on in the real world. So there was a lot of battles there, not knowing what was going on of you know moms in and out of the picture, so it was definitely a struggle.
David Lyons:Got you Any idea how old you were when that struggle happened and you had to?
Chase Ellis:start dealing with it. Mom was what you would call a frequent flyer in the jails, so I think I was around the age of seven or eight, but at the time of her disappearance was in 2015,. The time I was 12. Gotcha 15, the time I was 12. Gotcha, so it was. It was about a three to four year, um period of time that, uh, that I was dealing with. Uh, tough stuff for a kid tough stuff for a kid.
Wendy Lyons:During that time, did you go live with your grandmother or stay with her when your mother was incarcerated?
Chase Ellis:Um, my dad. He was a single father. He had custody of us. He was struggling, you know, with the divorce and getting back on his feet trying to support two kids. So we were just kind of everywhere. We were passed around with the family. You know dad's trying to make up, you know he's trying to get his money up. So we were passed around the family, with my grandmother here, my grandmother on my dad's side, my aunt grandfather. We were just around the family.
Wendy Lyons:Yeah, so Linda had entered into, she started dappling with the drugs and then I guess we kind of missed the part where she had you and your sister and then got married. So I'm guessing when that happened were you kind of thinking maybe she'll straighten out, get off the drugs, quit toying with those that followed after.
Mary Elizabeth:Oh, after she had her children.
Wendy Lyons:So up to that point she was fine.
Mary Elizabeth:Yeah, mm-hmm, we'd done things together. I mean, we were close, mm-hmm. And I think her second marriage, after her and Chase's dad had divorced she got with the Prices and that's when she changed. She married David Ashley Price.
David Lyons:Okay.
Mary Elizabeth:And that's when things changed. He had a past. His dad had. History changed. He had a past he had. His dad had history too. He was imprisoned.
David Lyons:So you think there might have been some influences in that relationship? Yes, sir.
Mary Elizabeth:Okay, that's fair to say. Definitely yeah, fair to say.
David Lyons:How did you first notice that there was a problem?
Mary Elizabeth:She would call me, and during this time, mom and dad divorced you know me and my husband divorced, so to pick up the phone and just call me, I was devastated in my own and I do carry guilt to this day that maybe I should have been there more for her. I'm sorry, I thought I dealt with this grief but I haven't. It's hard to talk about it. I carry a lot of blame that I wasn't there for her. I tried to end my own life in my own struggles and I wasn't there for her like I should have been and maybe I could have done things different. That's what I have trouble with how old was she, when it started again, she turned 30.
Mary Elizabeth:Turned 30.
David Lyons:A young adult, then? Not even a young adult anymore. I think we're limited on what we can do for other people, even when we want to.
Mary Elizabeth:But as a parent you always try to be there for your children good or bad, even my grandchildren. Good or bad, I'm trying to be there for them.
David Lyons:Right, yeah, be careful about beating yourself up on that, because as adults, we do start to make decisions.
Mary Elizabeth:It's been 10 years and I thought I dealt with quite a bit of it, but I haven't.
David Lyons:Yeah, 10 years is a long time and it's not a long time a lot. But be careful about beating yourself up. Be careful. Sometimes, as parents, we actually have to let our kids, especially as adults, make those decisions, because we're actually more powerless than we believe. So be careful, don't let that eat you alive. Don't let that eat you alive. Chase, going back to you again, I know you were young. Do you have any fond memories, despite that, before all the trouble started?
Chase Ellis:Not really much of fond memories. There's a few, here and there, moments that I can recall of. You know, my sister and I. We would go over to mom's for the weekend or, you know, during a school vacation, week or something, we would go over there and hang out with her. She well, one of the times that I do remember she was with a woman. She was staying with a woman in Junction my apologies, Houstonville, Houstonville and this woman. I grew up on game systems. I was a big gaming system kid and you go into this woman's house she's got gaming systems everywhere. So a very fond memory was playing games with Mom. Any console you could think of, that woman had it.
David Lyons:Oh wow.
Chase Ellis:So that was a pretty cool fond memory playing all the old nostalgic games there.
David Lyons:Yeah, you're going to say old and nostalgic. Be careful.
Mary Elizabeth:He's not talking. Pong Pong, yeah, Pizza Hut for 75 cents a game.
David Lyons:That was bad stuff when I was a kid, I mean, we were masters of that. So we go through that period where it fractures the family right, I've been there and lived through that myself in my own family. You're struggling to do what you can do for her and whatever. So she goes on and goes on with her life. And you said she's a frequent flyer in and out of the local jail, I guess, and stuff like that. So that's something that. What kind of stuff was it? Was it just like petty crime, probably shoplifting and things like that?
Chase Ellis:I don't know the history of it. I don't think it was very severe. I don't think so either of it. I don't think it was very severe. I don't think so either.
David Lyons:Very severe crimes. Yeah, you don't go in and out that much, so I'm just thinking a lot of things are associated with drug addiction.
Mary Elizabeth:I think she had fines and so forth. That first started out.
David Lyons:Probably couldn't pay them yeah.
Mary Elizabeth:That would do it. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That started and then it would increase.
David Lyons:Gotcha. Well, let's go back and head up in time a little bit.
Wendy Lyons:At what point did you realize that Linda was missing, like I'm guessing? You said she was kind of in and out, so it might be typical that she would maybe be gone for a day here and there.
Mary Elizabeth:At what point did you realize she's missing and it's just not jail, she's not I was working in Lincoln County Jail System and I had an inmate tell me that he was sorry to hear about my daughter and I'm like excuse me. And he said, well, I heard she had OD'd Miss Mary. I said okay, this was in May, the end of May.
Wendy Lyons:Of 2015?.
Mary Elizabeth:Yes, yes, I'm telling you wrong. This was the end of June. I'm telling you wrong. This was the end of June. I'm sorry.
Mary Elizabeth:That's all right, let me retract that the end of June, because the actual day that we knew that she was finally missing was June 8th. But it was about almost the end of June. And then I had a family member on her side of the second husband come to me and tell me she was waiting outside my work and she said you need to file a report. Her husband was in jail and he can't file a missing person report. I said, well, I'll think about it. Then I started doing a little bit of investigation, calling around, talking to people, and by the time I finally came to the conclusion nobody's seeing her. In between.
Wendy Lyons:This time, of course, I'm working and and still days are going by and you'd maybe tried calling her and just no answer, going by where she stayed exactly and, um, I waited the length of time thinking, well, maybe she just took off for a while, she'd had enough.
Mary Elizabeth:And she was just taking off for a while Because the last time I had spoke to her, her grandfather was sick and he was dying with cancer, and that's the last time I spoke to Linda, and that was the last time I spoke to Linda, and that was the 1st of June and she knew her grandfather had passed, so the last one to talk to her was her dad, and that was June the 8th.
David Lyons:Did you all go for periods of time sometimes where you just didn't communicate?
Mary Elizabeth:Yes, we did so. That's why I waited a length of time to make sure, hey, I go file a missing person report. I know some people. You have to wait 30 days or whatever. So I waited a little bit of time. I went through all of July just to make sure that I was doing the right thing. And then I heard about Michael Gorey. And then I was getting phone calls and I thought, well, I need to step up. Yeah, and August 3rd I made a police report with Trooper Ayers sitting at the end of the driveway in Stanford.
David Lyons:I'm still just floored by you working in that facility and having somebody bring you news about your own daughter that way.
Mary Elizabeth:How did that happen? I had to finally leave that job. I loved that job, it was an easy job, but I had to leave that job because the inmates were telling me things that I really did not want to hear. And I finally had to separate myself from it when they were in the kitchen and I felt I can't work beside these people that know what's happened to my daughter. But I was told, miss Mary, we have family out there. We can't talk to you about anything.
David Lyons:There we go. We hear that a lot. We hear when people are in your shoes, that you'll hear those things. Some of it might be plausible and we'll talk in a minute. Chase, you've done a lot of work on the background on this, and some of it's plausible and then some of it is just like mean-spirited lies. Does that make any sense? Yes, we've heard that before and we have always wondered why people wouldn't look it up.
Mary Elizabeth:I've had several people come and tell me they found pieces of her chopped up. I mean just people talking Rumors. There's the key word Rumors.
David Lyons:That's a good word for it In a small town and everything.
Mary Elizabeth:I would follow up on.
David Lyons:Exactly and again, just for context, we're talking a small town area, am I right? Maybe a holler involved and a mountain involved?
David Lyons:and yeah and everything where everybody knows each other, and to me that makes it even more bizarre that people would know each other and they would express that information or manufacture that information, or the big one we'll talk about in a little while too, is, if you really know something, why you're not taking it where it matters to actually bring peace to a family. We'll get there here in a few minutes, but again I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes, as being in there and having somebody approach that and then the rest of the stories here in the kitchen, like that, had to have been unreal.
Mary Elizabeth:So during this time you were just kind of waiting, like maybe she'll call that's what I thought Maybe something was wrong and she had to distance herself is what I had felt and I thought well, she'll call me.
David Lyons:And.
Mary Elizabeth:I guess Chase, because there has never been a length of time that she hasn't reached out to mom.
Wendy Lyons:Right.
Mary Elizabeth:But when that length of time went by, I knew I needed to do something.
David Lyons:Did your intuition speak to you?
Mary Elizabeth:Yeah.
David Lyons:I think that's not uncommon. A mother's intuition is one of the strongest things on the planet.
Wendy Lyons:So, chase, during this time, I believe you said you were 12. Chase, during this time, I believe you said you were 12. Had you just kind of wondered where's my mom? Or was it not really something that you thought much about at that point?
Chase Ellis:It was something that I definitely kept in mind, but I didn't think of it as something very severe. I didn't think of the severity of the level at which she was gone, because she, you know, she was in and out of the picture, so I didn't think of it any differently. You know, mom's just out doing mom things.
Wendy Lyons:She'll be back and I guess, mary Elizabeth, you had reached out to her ex-husband, chase's dad, and asked him hey, have you heard from Linda?
Chase Ellis:And he just said Nobody had.
Wendy Lyons:Nobody. So during this time you're waiting, you filed the report and were you still at the jail at that point when you filed the report working?
Mary Elizabeth:Yes.
Wendy Lyons:So you just keep every day kind of waiting to hear or maybe still trying to contact her and nothing Exactly. So how long does that go on for before you take your next step?
Mary Elizabeth:And what was your next step? I guess there hasn't been. It's just been a waiting game.
David Lyons:In that time, between you making a report and then we're going to pick up a couple years later, you become aware of it as a young man. Did the police give you any updates? Did they have any theories? Did they ask for anything from you?
Mary Elizabeth:The last time I spoke to Detective Thornberry, we had took some DNA for NamUs. She has a NamUs and that way they would have it on file too. In case anything was found, then it would be on file to match her DNA Super important, but they took a sample from me and her deceased dad. Now he deceased since then.
David Lyons:Very important.
Mary Elizabeth:And he's been gone since. He's been gone four years, so it's been a while since I've talked to Detective Thornberry.
David Lyons:Gotcha, so let's enter Chase you become aware. How did you find out again?
Chase Ellis:It was. I actually found out through the family, just kind of finally told us hey, your mom's missing. We don't know where she's at. We weren't given any of the details that they knew it was just we filed a missing report for your mom. Nobody's heard from her. We don't know where she's at.
David Lyons:What did you do with?
Chase Ellis:it. I didn't think of it as anything ordinary. It know it was just okay. They filed it, you know, just to get the awareness out there that we've not seen Linda. Everybody keep your eyes out for Linda. So I didn't think of it as anything too severe. It wasn't until later that I got the details about the possibilities of why she was missing that I took it to heart.
David Lyons:That's where we were going to go here in a second too. It's a mystery, obviously, but if you want to give those theories whatever you're comfortable with, of course we won't name any names or anything like that, but I think the operating theories are good with. Of course, we won't name any names or anything like that, but I think the operating theories are good Because I was curious as to if you all could guess where in the community, or if there was a group in the community that would be more likely to have answers. Where would that be? Because, again, we're talking about small town stuff, really small town stuff. What did you end up learning?
Chase Ellis:It was after her oldest I'm sorry, her second oldest brother. He had just got out of prison. He had messaged me and wanted me to come and meet him. So I came and met with him in Parable and he explained to me what he had heard.
Wendy Lyons:Hey, you know there's more to this story, so go download the next episode. Like the true crime fan that you are, so go download the next episode like the true crime fan that you are.
David Lyons:The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you Lock it down, judy.
