Colleen Perris: She Left After One Phone Call and Never Came Home
- Strange Case Files
- Mar 19
- 5 min read
She was 18 years old. It was a Saturday afternoon. She told her parents she would be back in a couple of hours. Then she walked out the door after a call to her cellphone and disappeared.
The Last Ordinary Afternoon
On September 30, 2000, Colleen Elizabeth Perris was at her family’s home in Plantation, Florida. Nothing about the day seemed unusual at first. She was young, close to her parents, and had plans that evening to go with her family to a Florida Marlins game.
Then, sometime just before 3:00 p.m., her cellphone rang.
After answering it, Colleen told her parents she was heading to Coral Springs for a little while. She said she would be back by around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m., in time for the game. It sounded temporary. Casual. The kind of thing no family would think twice about in the moment.
She left the house and never returned.
That was the last time her parents saw her.
A Young Woman With Plans
Colleen was only 18 years old when she vanished. She was described as petite, with blonde hair and red highlights, and she still had the kind of life that was just beginning to open up in front of her.
She worked part-time as a restaurant hostess. She had saved money. She had plans for the future, including a trip to Colorado later that year and a cruise her family said she had been looking forward to. Nearly everything that made up her daily life was still where she left it.
That mattered.
Because when someone disappears on purpose, there are often signs. Money taken. Clothes missing. A plan half-hidden in the background. But in Colleen’s case, the picture her family described was the opposite. She did not seem like someone preparing to leave her life behind. She seemed like someone stepping out briefly, expecting to come back.
What Colleen Perris Left Behind
One of the most haunting details in the case is how little Colleen appears to have taken with her.
Most of her belongings were left at home. According to the best-known case summaries, the one item she definitely had with her was her cellphone, the same phone that had just received the call that sent her out the door.
That detail has lingered for years because it narrows everything down to one moment.
One phone call.
One quick departure.
One promise to be back soon.
After that, the trail begins to disappear.
The Car in Tamarac
Six days later, on October 6, 2000, Colleen’s white 1994 Mazda MX-6 was found abandoned in a shopping center parking lot in Tamarac, Florida.
It was not wrecked. It was not hidden. It was simply there, parked.
That detail made the discovery even stranger. There were no obvious signs of violence. No clear indication of a struggle. Nothing public that seemed to explain why Colleen’s car had been left there without her.
Rain had reportedly washed away any possible evidence outside the vehicle. Inside, there was little to work with. Some reports say her purse and cellphone were not found in the car.
Her family was left staring at a scene that offered almost nothing back.
A parked car in a shopping center lot. A daughter who had vanished. No witness who could explain what happened between those two points.
The Question That Never Went Away
Over time, one part of the case began to stand above everything else.
Who called Colleen that afternoon?
Her father would later say that, to him, that was the key to the entire case. The call came in around 3:00 p.m. Colleen answered it, left soon after, and was gone.
It is easy to understand why that moment stayed fixed in her family’s minds. Everything seems to turn on it. Whoever was on the other end of that phone may have known where she was going, who she planned to meet, or why she felt comfortable leaving so quickly.
Investigators later said they believed Colleen likely went to meet someone she trusted.
That possibility makes the case even more painful.
There was no sign of panic when she left the house. No indication that she believed she was in danger. She told her parents she would be back soon. That suggests whatever drew her out that afternoon may have felt normal to her. Familiar. Safe.
And yet she was never seen again.
A Family Left Waiting
There are details in missing person cases that stay with people long after the headlines are gone. In Colleen Perris’s case, one of them involved her cellphone.
According to long-circulated case reporting, her father kept the phone active for a time and regularly called it, leaving messages, hoping that somehow Colleen would hear them and answer. Some later accounts differ on exactly how long the phone remained active, but the central detail remains the same: he kept calling, and no one ever picked up.
It is one of those small, devastating acts that says everything about what families endure in cases like this.
Not knowing. Not being able to stop hoping. Doing the same thing again and again because the alternative feels like giving up.
While the investigation stretched on, Colleen’s parents were left with a daughter’s empty room, an unanswered phone, and a timeline that never moved forward.
The Suspicion Around Her Uncle
As the years passed, public attention also turned toward one of Colleen’s relatives.
Police acknowledged looking at her uncle, Mitch Ratisher, during the investigation. Public reporting later noted that family members had expressed discomfort about him being around Colleen. He reportedly told investigators he had offered to help her pursue a lingerie modeling opportunity. He denied involvement in her disappearance and was never charged in connection with the case.
That distinction matters.
His name became part of the public story, but no public record shows that the case against him was ever proven. Like so much else in Colleen’s disappearance, it remains part of the cloud of suspicion and unanswered questions that has surrounded the case for years.
A Life Frozen in One Moment
There is something especially unsettling about cases like this because they do not begin with obvious chaos.
No one saw Colleen forced into a car.
No emergency call came in.
No public scene marked the moment her life changed.
Instead, the known facts begin with something so ordinary it almost feels impossible that it led to this.
A young woman at home.
A phone ringing.
A promise to return in time for a baseball game.
Then silence.
Her disappearance was not treated as a runaway case. Those who knew her did not believe she would walk away from her life without warning. Over the years, that belief has only deepened the mystery. Colleen had family, plans, and a future she appeared to be moving toward. Nothing about the known facts suggests she meant to vanish.
And yet that is exactly what happened.
The Case Today
Colleen Perris has never been found. Her case remains unsolved. Though she was later declared legally dead, the circumstances of what happened to her have never been publicly resolved.
What remains is a narrow timeline and a single missing piece that seems to sit at the center of it all.
Who called Colleen Perris on the afternoon of September 30, 2000?
Because somewhere between that call and the parked car found days later, an 18-year-old young woman disappeared, and the people who loved her were left with nothing except questions.
Case Facts
Location: Plantation and Tamarac, Florida
Year: 2000
Victim: Colleen Elizabeth Perris
Age: 18
Last Seen: September 30, 2000
Vehicle Found: White 1994 Mazda MX-6, located October 6, 2000
Status: Missing, case unsolved
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