Kyle Fleischmann

Case background and investigation

Kyle Fleischmann was 24 when he disappeared from uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, in the early hours of November 9, 2007. According to the North Carolina missing persons listing maintained by the CUE Center for Missing Persons, he had spent the evening of November 8 at a Dane Cook comedy show at the city's arena, where members of his family were also in the audience, and afterwards went with friends to the Buckhead Saloon on East 5th Street.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's missing person flyer states that he was last seen leaving the Buckhead Saloon at 201 E. 5th St. at around 2:20 a.m., wearing a dark short-sleeved shirt and jeans. WRAL, in a 2016 report for the program NC Wanted, said the departure was recorded by surveillance video, and that video from a nearby Fuel Pizza showed him buying food at about 2:25 a.m. Creative Loafing Charlotte reported in November 2007 that he left his black peacoat and his credit cards behind at the bar; WBTV later described the item left behind as his wallet. He still had his phone.

Creative Loafing reported that he tried to call friends at 3:28 and 3:29 a.m. and that cell tower data placed at least one call near Seigle Avenue and Tenth Street, east of the city centre. The CUE Center listing says no voicemails were left, that phone activity was concentrated in the uptown and First Ward areas, and that it stopped at about 4 a.m. The Vanished podcast's case summary adds that a cab driver reported watching him walk down a street and out of view.

The search began within days. According to Creative Loafing, search dogs followed a scent on November 14 to the area of the Alpha Mills apartments on Twelfth Street, volunteers distributed fliers across the city, a Facebook group drew more than 33,000 members, and the family hired private investigators and offered a reward of up to $10,000. By 2016 WRAL reported the reward at $50,000. WRAL also quoted his father, Dick Fleischmann, as saying about four weeks after the disappearance that he had come to believe a crime had occurred. Police have not publicly named a suspect or announced evidence of what happened.

On the tenth anniversary in November 2017, WBTV reported that the case had been reviewed by private investigators, missing-person organisations and police, and that it was assigned to the department's Cold Case Unit. A police spokesperson told the station there were no new developments despite the resources devoted to the case over the decade. The station reported that the family had since moved out of state.

Local coverage of the eighteenth anniversary in November 2025 described the disappearance as still unresolved. The police flyer remains published on the City of Charlotte website, and anyone with information is asked to contact Charlotte Crime Stoppers at 704-334-1600.