Andrea Knable was last seen in the early hours of the morning, walking away from her sister’s home in Louisville, Kentucky.
It was almost midnight in Louisville, Kentucky, and Andrea Knable was becoming increasingly frustrated and desperate. Returning home from an ER visit, she found the doors of her family home locked and no one was responding to her knocking. After a few more minutes of banging on the door, she gave up and began to walk the mile to her sister Erin’s house.
Andrea found Erin sitting on the porch sharing a bottle of wine with a friend, Michelle. However, Erin told her she couldn’t stay due to renovations being carried out on her own house, which meant she and her kids were having to camp out in the sitting room.
Erin drove Andrea back home and dropped her off, but Andrea being unable to get an answer at home, was back knocking at Erin’s door, 15 minutes later. Again Erin explained to Andrea that she couldn’t stay, and although Andrea was upset, she seemed to accept this. Erin anxiously watched Andrea walking away into the night from her kitchen window.
It would be the last known sighting of Andrea.
Andrea Knable was mom to two boys aged six and eight, and everyone who knew her said her kids were the center of her world. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, 37-year-old Andrea was part of a large family and was very close to her younger sister, Erin.
Andrea had been going through a rough patch in the months before disappearing. This was largely because she was laid off from her job as an analyst at Humana and could not find such secure work, so she defaulted on her rent, ultimately leading to her losing her home in the summer of 2019.
Feeling like she needed to regroup, Andrea decided to move back into her mother Cheryl’s house, while her two young sons went to stay with their fathers.
Andrea’s mom was having her home remodeled by Andrea’s youngest sister Sarah and fiancé Ethan, who also were living there during renovations. Cheryl was staying elsewhere due to the building work but would return daily to eat with the family.
There was a lot of friction within the family at this time, and most of it was centered around Andrea. She was a sociable and outgoing person with a huge circle of friends, but some of them were sketchy people with criminal connections that the family disapproved of. Andrea had met most of them through her ex-boyfriend Brian Downy who had been involved in dealing meth. It was such a problem that Cheryl took Andrea’s key away because she didn’t want any of these people coming into the house.
Alongside being a mum, a large chunk of Andrea’s life was dedicated to her work as a volunteer investigator with the Missing in America group, which investigated missing person cases in the Louisville, Kentucky area. She had formed close bonds with the women in the MIA group and although the investigations had the potential to be risky, they all described Andrea as being a natural at this type of work. Andrea also worked with another group led By Private Investigator, Tracey Leonard, and was involved in breaking a local sex trafficking case.
The evening of Andrea’s Disappearance
12th August 2019
On the evening before Andrea went missing, she had argued with several members of her family. Her mother Cheryl had brought a Chinese takeaway to the house for everyone to share a sit-down meal. Unfortunately, this didn’t go to plan and just minutes into the meal, Cheryl started questioning Andrea about her poor life choices with Sarah backing her mother up. Cheryl was concerned about a sore on Andrea’s face that appeared to be infected. Feeling ganged up on, Andrea left the table and bolted to her room.
Later that evening, at the request of Andrea’s mom Cheryl, Ethan dropped Andrea off at the hospital to have the sore examined. Her mother gave her a Lyft gift card so she could get home herself.
9.50 pm: Andrea attends the Kentucky Medical Center to get the sore on her face looked at.
11.22 pm: Andrea leaves the hospital and gets a Lyft car home.
11.34 pm: Andrea arrived back home at her mom’s house, but nobody answered the door to let her in. Furious, she began to walk the mile and a half to her sister’s new home, where she found Erin sitting on her porch drinking wine with a close friend Michelle.
12.15 am: Andrea asks Erin if she can stay the night, but Erin refuses as due to renovations on the bedrooms of her own house, her kids were asleep in the front room and she didn’t want them disturbed. Instead, she drops Andrea back at their mom Cheryl’s house.
1.34am: Andrea still couldn’t get into her mom’s house, so once again she arrived back at Erin’s. Again, Erin refused to let her stay the night. Although Erin has now said she regrets this deeply, at the time she was listening to guidance from the family about maintaining boundaries with Andrea.
Erin watched Andrea from her window and saw her walking away while scrolling down her phone as if trying to contact someone. This would be the last sighting of Andrea to date.
1.54 am: Cell phone records place Andrea at the house or its vicinity from1.54 am, but after carrying out a forensic search of Andrea’s phone data, the police have now said she may have only stayed in that area for around 5–10 mins.
The phone was turned back on again around 6.31 am but not long enough to indicate where it was located.
13th August 2019: Andrea’s mother Cheryl begins contacting everyone in the family when she realizes Andrea didn’t make it home.
Erin began texting Andrea’s friends in hopes they might know something.
17th August: Erin files a missing persons report.
27th November: The family is suspicious about a gold Chevy Impala being driven up and down the road past Erin’s property by a noticeably thin man with a woman in the passenger seat. The police run the licence plates are the car comes up as reported stolen.
Theories about what happened to Andrea
Given that no trace was left behind once Andrea vanished, many competing theories have emerged.
Andrea was picked up by someone who harmed her.
The family believes that Andrea may have called someone to come pick her up, and something nefarious happened from there. There is some evidence to back this up, as some of Andrea’s friends and colleagues did receive Facebook messages from her that night but due to the late hour, they missed them and the police have corroborated this.
Andrea’s family had concerns that she ended up calling one of her less trustworthy friends. The police have stated that although she did contact a lot of people through Facebook Messenger, no one responded.
She was walking in a very safe area (Audubon Park), but given that it was in the early hours of the morning with very few people around, abduction by a stranger couldn’t be ruled out.
Something happened at the house.
Phone signal data locations show that Andrea made it home a second time, it is not clear whether she entered the house. It has been confirmed by Andrea’s family that there was an argument between Sarah and Andrea on the night she disappeared. This wasn’t unusual, and some of the neighbors have said they heard a lot of loud arguments coming from the house all that summer.
The reaction of Sarah and Ethan has raised eyebrows for some and led the police to interview them twice before they stopped talking to the police altogether. Initially, they claimed they did not hear Andrea banging on the door, but at a second police interview, they changed their story and said although they heard her banging on the door they decided not to let her in to avoid another confrontation as she might still be upset. They didn’t get involved in the search for Andrea and within weeks moved back to their own house, even cutting contact with some of the family.
Andrea left of her own accord
The possibility that Andrea may have chosen to leave was a serious consideration at the beginning of the investigation. She spoke to friends about often feeling like the black sheep of the family. With so many family arguments around the time of the disappearance, it would be understandable that she wanted to get away for a while but as time goes by, this seems less probable as she would be unlikely to abandon her boys.
Many of Andrea’s friends and family have been open about the fact that she was having problems in the months before going missing. Whether it was drug problems or mental health issues is unclear and Andrea was unwilling to talk about it. Her father offered to pay for rehab but Andrea turned him down. Her sister Erin did say that Andrea was trying very hard to get her life back on track and had been actively looking for work and trying to fix her car.
Andrea’s Investigative work may have put her in harm’s way
Andrea worked on several cases with PI Tracey Leonard’s group, the Locators. One of these cases busted a sex trafficking situation, where a young girl was being held against her will. Andrea was key to solving this case and she went undercover and opened the missing girl’s locker at her school and found the address where the girl was being held. In another case, Andrea pushed for further investigation into the apparent suicide of a young man found dead in his car. The police eventually ruled the case a homicide and drug connections were found.
These types of cases inevitably put investigations in the crosshairs of dangerous people and it is possible Andrea could have fallen victim to someone wanting revenge.
Further developments
There has to date been no credible evidence relating to Andrea’s disappearance and her family continues to try to reach as many people as possible with Andrea’s story, in the hopes someone will eventually come forward with information.
Sources:
Creeps and Crimes Podcast: episode 2
Uncovered: Missing andrea Knable
