Casey Lavonne Young
Young, circa 2023; Young's car; Da'Ron Collins
- Missing Since 05/15/2023
- Missing From Boiling Springs, North Carolina
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Sex Female
- Race Black
- Age 44 years old
- Height and Weight 5'5, 147 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A dark gray "Regional Strong" t-shirt, black scrub pants and black and white sneakers.
- Associated Vehicle(s) White 2009 Nissan Infiniti G37 with tinted windows and the South Carolina license plate number LCK688 (accounted for)
- Distinguishing Characteristics African-American female. Black hair, brown eyes. At the time of her disappearance, Young's hair was styled in a long weave with box braids.
Details of Disappearance
Young was last seen in Boiling Springs, South Carolina on May 15, 2023. At the time of her disappearance, she lived in the 5000 block of Pratt Drive with Da'Ron Jerome Collins; a photo of him is posted with this case summary. He initially told police she never arrived home from her job at Spartanburg Regional Hospital that day.
Neighborhood surveillance video footage showed Young arriving home in her car at about 4:50 p.m., though, and Collins changed his story, admitted she'd gotten home at around 5:00 p.m. as the cameras indicated. Collins said they argued after she got home and she took a shower and left in her car, and this was the last time he saw her.
On May 17, Young's car was found in the parking lot of the nearby Windsor Palms apartment complex, backed in behind some bushes like someone had tried to hide it. The car is a white 2009 Nissan Infiniti G37 with tinted windows and the South Carolina license plate number LCK688; a photo of it is posted with this case summary.
Surveillance footage showed Collins driving the car into this parking lot where it was later found. The video showed him parking it and wiping down its surfaces at 7:34 p.m. He was wearing gloves at the time he was doing this. Afterwards Collins walked to a dumpster and discarded some things. Then he walked away in the direction of home.
He left his cellular phone at home when he drove Young's car to the parking lot, as if he was trying to conceal the fact that it was he who'd put the car there. He also manually deleted video footage from his own home surveillance footage system from around the time Young disappeared, and the surveillance system's event logs showed that home cameras were unplugged at critical times.
Two days before she went missing, the police had responded to a domestic violence incident at the couple's home: Collins had allegedly choked Young. No arrest was made at the time, as she declined to press charges against him. It's unclear if this incident was related to Young's disappearance two days later. Police stated Collins has a history of intimate partner violence but has never been convicted in connection with this.
In June 2023, Collins was charged with obstruction of justice and witness tampering in the federal investigation into Young's alleged kidnapping. In July 2024 he pleaded guilty. He is facing up to forty years in prison. The charges are not related to Young's actual disappearance but to his actions after she went missing.
Young has never been located but foul play is suspected in her case.
Investigating Agency
- Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office 864-503-4500
Source Information
Updated 1 time since October 12, 2004. Last updated August 4, 2024; casefile added.