Michael Joseph Vaughan

Case background and investigation

Michael Joseph Vaughan, a five-year-old boy his family called 'Monkey,' was last seen between roughly 6:40 and 7:00 p.m. on July 27, 2021, near his home at Southwest 9th Street and Arizona Avenue in Fruitland, Idaho, a small city on the Oregon border. His family reported him missing at 7:21 p.m. the same evening. Michael, who stood 3 feet 7 inches tall with blond hair and blue eyes, was last seen wearing a light blue Minecraft t-shirt, dark shorts with lime green trim, and flip-flop sandals. Massive searches of the surrounding neighborhoods, fields, and canals by law enforcement and hundreds of volunteers found no trace of him, and the case was classified as a non-family abduction.

The first arrest came more than a year later. On November 12, 2022, Fruitland police arrested Sarah Wondra, who lived a few blocks from the Vaughan home on Redwing Street, and charged her with failure to report a death. Acting on what they described as a credible tip from someone who had lived in the home, investigators spent more than a week excavating the property's backyard; cadaver dogs reportedly alerted, but no human remains were recovered. Police Chief J.D. Huff said authorities believed Michael was abducted, killed, buried on the Redwing Street property, and later moved. On April 17, 2023, the charge against Sarah Wondra was dismissed without prejudice at the prosecutor's request, based on an Idaho Supreme Court ruling that requiring a person to report a death could compel self-incrimination.

In October 2025, prosecutors charged Sarah Wondra's husband, Stacey Wondra, with first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping, and destruction or concealment of evidence in Michael's death. He was extradited to Idaho in November 2025 from Arizona, where he had been serving time on unrelated charges. A probable cause affidavit named four people investigators believe were involved: Stacey Wondra, Sarah Wondra, Brandon Shurtliff, and Adrien Lucienne. According to the affidavit, Stacey Wondra told police he saw Michael carried into the home on the night of the disappearance and placed in a duffel bag with duct tape over his mouth, and he told his mother that Sarah had accidentally killed the boy by suffocation and that the body was buried in the backyard before being moved. Prosecutors alleged the group discussed selling the child, citing a claimed $10,000 cut; Wondra's defense has maintained he was at most a witness, not a participant.

After a three-day preliminary hearing that concluded on March 5, 2026, a Payette County magistrate found probable cause and bound Stacey Wondra over to district court, where he pleaded not guilty. His attorneys later filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the state presented insufficient evidence at the preliminary hearing. In August 2026 the September 14, 2026 trial date was vacated after the defense waived Wondra's right to a speedy trial, and jury selection was rescheduled to begin March 29, 2027; a hearing on the defense motion to dismiss was set for September 29, 2026. No one has been convicted in the case, none of the other three individuals named in the affidavit had been charged with Michael's murder as of this writing, and despite repeated searches Michael Vaughan's remains have never been found.