The Time-Bending Double Disappearance of the di Angelo Siblings and Their Connection to Percy Jackson

by Amanda Greengrove for NYCColdCases.com

If you thought the Percy Jackson was weird already, you haven't seen anything yet. Everything before this point could theoretically have happened in the manner suggested by theorists, no matter how slim the potential is, but the predominant theory in this section of the Percy Jackson case is so impossible that it would rewrite our understanding of science if proven to be true. 

I am talking, of course, about time travel. Three of the major players involved in the Percy Jackson sightings from December of 2007, if they are who they are believed to be by netizens, had to have found a way around the space-time continuum to appear at the ages that they do. While time-travel obviously did not occur, the fact that there is no other reasonable theory and the FBI have even stated on the record that they have no idea what happened makes this perhaps the most bizarre case I have ever covered.

Our story begins on January 23rd, 1933, when 22 year old Maria di Angelo gave birth to a baby girl named Bianca. She was unmarried and no father was ever named, something highly shameful both for the di Angelo family as devout Catholics and in the conservative culture of Italy under Mussolini. Her father Vincenzo, a powerful diplomat who had just returned from serving as the Italian ambassador to America and had sway within the Fascist party, was able to protect her from the most severe consequences, though Maria did lose her job in the film industry, where she had previously appeared in several propaganda films. The initial speculation by many was that she had been raped, but this was disproved, both by the multiple accounts of a finely dressed strange man visiting the di Angelo home (where Maria and Bianca continued to reside) and by the eventual birth of Maria's son Niccolo in 1935. The common belief then became that the father of Maria's children was either married (due to the stigma against divorce he couldn't leave his wife) or an enemy of the Fascist party that did not want to bring such scrutiny on his lover and children. 

By all accounts, the di Angelo siblings had as normal of a childhood as it was possible to have with a single mother in Mussolini's Italy, with those who knew the siblings from that time remembering them fondly and describing them as normal children for their ages, with Biancca being more introverted and Nico more extroverted. 

As the Second World War began, however, conditions became increasingly bad within Italy. For reasons completely unknown to historians, Benito Mussolini himself ordered the murder of Maria and her children in 1941, with the stipulation that Vincenzo and his wife (Maria's mother) Francesca be spared if possible. Vincenzo somehow came to advanced knowledge of the plot, likely through his government connections, and told Maria to take her children and flee the country, taking a large sum of the di Angelo family fortune with them. For this offense, the elder di Angelos were arrested and both died in prison within a year. 

Utilizing her father's connections, Maria fled east, eventually making her way through the Italian-occupied Balkans and finding passage on a ship bound for Washington DC in 1942. She took up residence in a suite at the Hamilton hotel with her children, continuing to educate them herself, likely because Bianca and Nico did not speak fluent English.

On September 3rd 1945, an extremely powerful lightning bolt struck the hotel, completely destroying the suite the di Angelos were staying in and killing Maria di Angelo. Her cause of death was listed as a lightning strike, though this is near impossible considering she was under a roof when the strike occurred. More likely she was touching something metal or electrical and died of electrocution. Why the lightning would have struck the balcony rather than the top of the hotel and why it caused so much damage is the subject of some debate. While most people at the time believed her story and the media reported only the official narrative despite its scientific unlikeliness, when Sandra Hoover wrote her 1970 book "Gone in the Dark: The Di'Angelo Family, Their Flight From Fascism and Their Suspicious Disappearance" she posited the since-popular theory that Fascist supporters within the US had planted a bomb to kill the family, succeeded with Maria, and then subsequently abducted and murdered her children. Hoover points to the Sodder family disappearances, which took place three months later and 300 miles away as either a similar case of Fascist retribution against Mussolini’s detractors or another perpetrated by the same individuals. 

In recent years, however, the idea of a Fascist bombing has been superseded by a different one; Maria was killed by the same cult that had a hand in the abduction of Percy and Sally Jackson.  Believers of this theory also argue a strategic bombing makes more sense than a lightning strike, but they think it was done to make Bianca and Nico ready candidates for the cult, and that reported sightings of them in later years were as a result of the supernatural power harnessed by this cult (though it is worth noting that some believe in the cult theory but do not believe they actually have supernatural powers, proponents of this version think the di Angelos were taken in but lived their normal lifespans).

This element of the case remains uncertain. Meteorologist Jane Stratton had this to say on the subject: "It's not likely that a series of events like this would happen, but it's not impossible. The explosion could have been a result of ball lightning or the strike could have triggered some faulty wiring within the suite to pop. As for why it didn't strike the lightning rod, I can't explain it. Lightning doesn't always make sense though, it can hit a man gardening when there’s trees in his yard. We don't always have the science to explain why, but that doesn't mean there's something nefarious at work."

While Maria's death itself is shrouded in uncertainty, the most sensational part of this case has yet to come. Bianca and Nico di Angelo survived the lightning strike that killed their mother unscathed, and they were taken into custody by their lawyer. The last confirmed sighting of them was at around 10:30 AM that day, when the desk clerk reported to the police that he had seen "a man in a black suit" walking Bianca and Nico out of the building, and when he had asked the man if he was checking out he had replied "Yes. Someone will be along to pay the bill soon. I need to get the kids taken care of."

While the identity of this man has never been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is believed by all who have looked into the case to be Maria's lawyer. He matched descriptions given by several of Maria's friends of the man, and Maria's calendar had "meeting with A" listed for 9 AM on the day she died. A is believed to be her lawyer due to Maria's will, a copy of which was obtained by the police and listed her lawyer "A. Fury" as the guardian of her children in the event of her death. The will was provided by A, T, & M Law Firm, which unfortunately was in the process of shutting down when Maria died and thus were not able to provide further records to investigators when they discovered the children were missing.

Shockingly, Bianca and Nico weren't reported missing for almost a week after their disappearance. Alarms were raised by Maria's friends when they didn't show up to their mother's funeral, and when they tried to get in contact with Maria's lawyer to inquire about their health and weren't able to, they reached out to the police and filed a missing person's report.

If Bianca and Nico's was a modern case, there would be extremely little hope for their survival. The critical period in child abduction cases is the first three hours, and most are dead within the first twenty four. Add to that that they were removed from a chaotic scene by a man who was familiar with their family but that no one could actually vouch for or get in contact with, and you have an abduction case that could be in textbooks, and would very likely end in the discovery of bodies.

Thankfully, there are several unique factors to the di Angelo case that make it much more likely that they would have survived. Firstly, Maria's funeral was paid for by an anonymous donor and was extremely extravagant. While she ran in elite circles due to her father's embassy connections, Maria was not incredibly wealthy in her own right, as the lion’s share of the family fortune remained tied up in the Italian system, in chaos after the deposition of Mussolini. No one she knew would have had motive to pay for her funeral, at least not anonymously. It's always possible she was having an affair no one knew about, but without evidence that angle would be nothing more than speculation. What many regard more likely is that the father of the children was still around and for whatever reason still didn't want to be associated with them. 

If this is the case, it is very likely he also took custody of Bianca and Nico. There would have been no legal procedure for doing this in 1945, as no father was listed on their birth certificate and Maria did not list him as a guardian for her children in her will, so if he wanted to raise his children after their mother's death, the only way to do it would have been by technically abducting them. Why he would choose to remain anonymous if this is the case is still unclear. Italy had fallen to the Allies by this point, which discounts the idea he was being persecuted under Mussolini, but what is very likely is that he may have been married. It's very possible that Bianca and Nico could have been spirited back to Italy and lived the rest of their lives on their father's grand estate with everybody believing they were some distant relations. Without any concrete leads on who this man might be and the chaotic state of post-war Italy, it is near impossible to search for them, but no Italian has ever come out publicly claiming to either be the one of the di Angelos or descended from them, so if this the case they died without ever leaving clues to who they were before. It's surprising, but ultimately completely understandable considering the amount of trauma they were subjected to up until this point.

The second theory is that the lawyer actually did take custody of them himself. Some believe he did this to exploit the di Angelo fortune, which was eventually transferred to a Swiss bank by relatives in the event of the children’s return, a bank which has repeatedly refused requests to reveal their transaction history. In this world, he forced the children to change their names and live in obscurity while he spent all of their money, but again the fact that Bianca or Nico didn't resurface after his death is surprising. Alternatively, he may have wanted to get them out of the way entirely and murdered the kids before absconding with their money and living a high-rolling lifestyle in another state or country. The fact that we know so little about the lawyer makes this by far the most plausible theory, as he could have theoretically done anything without fear of getting caught. There was a police sketch made at the time, as he was a person of interest, but it depicts nothing more than a generic white man who could easily deny it was him if ever questioned.

The case went cold incredibly quickly in 1945, with the police having shelved it completely before a year even passed. The case was heavily reported on due to the sensational details, but no real progress was made for years. The publication of Hoover's book reignited interest in the case, by bringing the di Angelos to a new generation, and some of the details she brought to light in her book, such as the police's failure to identify Maria's lawyer despite the fact that he was and remains the only viable suspect and the fact that a sighing of Nico and Bianca with a nondescript man in a black suit was reported by a Virginia man on vacation in Los Vegas later in September but never followed up on because the police didn't have the resources sparked outrage and prompted a re-investigation of the case.

DC police reached out to the man who saw Bianca and Nico in Los Angeles to get a more detailed description of events. He told the police basically the same story he had told both in 1945, and then again in 1970 to Sandra Hoover; he had been on his way back to his hotel after a night of gambling when he spotted two kids standing with a man outside of a record store. He remembered them because it was late at night and because the kids looked confused and anxious. They kept asking the man things, but he didn't respond and just kept a tight hold on their hands as he pulled them down the street. When shown the 1945 sketch of Maria's lawyer, the man positively identified him as the man seen with Nico and Bianca that day. If this is true, it means the children very likely survived, living somewhere on the west coast with the lawyer and dying in obscurity.

A sinister motive cannot be completely ruled out, however, as this investigation prompted a much more thorough search for the lawyer. No physical location for A, T & M Law Firm was ever discovered in DC, Virginia, or Maryland by going through land records, and no one matching the name A. Fury was found in BAR license records from those states in a relevant time period either. Assuming there are no records missing, this could mean Maria was the victim of some sort of scam intended to gain her fortune or that he was licensed to practice in a different state and simply neglected to take the BAR in his new home (still a crime but one likely unrelated to the di Angelo siblings). Whatever the case is, the lack of records adds to the confusion around an already murky and poorly understood case.Ultimately the second investigation of the di Angelo case produced no new leads and it was allowed to go cold, remaining that way for almost forty years until it was brought back into the limelight in a bizarre way in December of 2007.

On the morning of December 15th, 2007, the administration of the Maine military academy Westover Hall reported that two students and a teacher had gone missing during their annual winter formal. The students' names were reported as Nico and Bianca di Angelo. 

No connection was initially made between these two cases due to the time difference between them, and so it was not a factor in the immediate investigation. Search and Rescue was immediately deployed to search the woods around Westover, and they found neither the children nor Dr. Thorn (no first name known), the school's vice-principal and their suspected abductor. What was found were multiple sets of tracks leading away from the castle and to the edge of the cliff and a large flattened area of snow that showed signs of a tent having been pitched there. This heavily implies that the children were not abducted by a single individual, but rather a group. Dr. Thorn infiltrated the school, and his co-conspirators waited outside for the right moment to assist in his strike. Why they would have chosen to camp out is not entirely clear, with the two primary theories being that either the day of the abduction was not set in stone or that they weren't sure if the weather would be clear enough for a helicopter to pick them up. While the FBI has never officially disclosed their reason for believing this, it is almost certainly because of the clear use of private aircraft demonstrated later in the case.

Speaking of the FBI, they were notified on protocol by the local police, and agents from the Boston field office were dispatched to work the case. Hope was initially low, as it had been more than 12 hours since the di Angelos were last seen alive and the initial speculation by investigators was that this was a sexual crime, but when security camera footage from Westover Hall was analyzed in an effort to figure out the di Angelos’ last movements before their abduction, a shocking discovery was made that would completely change the course of the investigation. 

Within the hour before the di Angelo's abduction, the principal, Ms. Gottschalk and Dr. Thorn admitted three students into the dance. In what Special Agent Lucy Denero reported as "the strangest interview of my career," Ms. Gottschalk described how they had let the children, reportedly called Percy, Anna Beth [sic], and Thalia into the building as they claimed to be students of the school. No records of such exist, but Gottschalk maintains to this day that a filing error took place and they were actually Westover students. Following this incident she was removed from her position as principal and was reportedly seeking psychiatric care, though a follow-up interview done with her years later in response to continued sightings of Nico, she said that doctors could not find any reason for her confusion around the incident and simply recommended she reduce anxiety in her life.

Regardless of the strange details surrounding their entrance into Westover, the appearance of these three within an hour of the di Angelos’ disappearance is highly significant for several reasons. Perhaps most obvious is that the boy identified by Ms. Gottschalk is believed by the FBI to be Percy Jackson. Sally Jackson denies that her son was in attendance at the Westover dance, and without any more evidence than a name and a resemblance, a judge refused to issue federal agents the warrants for Sally’s apartment and car they would need to conduct further investigation. Denero stated in an interview with the New York Times “We’re mainly interested in pursuing the Jackson angle from an investigative standpoint. Dr. Thorn remains our main suspect, but we do believe Jackson knows more than he is letting on about this kidnapping. If serious charges come to light, we will pursue them, but as a minor and a victim himself, we think it would be remiss to focus on prosecuting Jackson for lesser charges.”

Percy Jackosn’s supposed involvement in the di Angelo case is one of the most concrete reasons to believe that he is somehow involved in a child trafficking ring. Though the modus operandi is different in the Jackson and di Angelo cases and the respective suspects have different physical descriptions, the fact that both have been sighted later in the company of teens believed to be involved (though Bianca has not been seen since 2007, sightings reported to be Nico are routinely posted across the internet) makes it extremely likely that they are connected somehow. Some have even speculated that Percy’s Latin teacher, Charles Brunner, was responsible for placing a target on his back. If this is the case, the ring must have some criteria for choosing victims, but what it is is unknown as the purported victims have nothing in common except an age range.

While the child trafficking ring still suffers from several serious problems (see related articles), the fact that it is nearly confirmed that the cases are connected means that some sort of group is targeting these children, though for what purpose is still unknown.

While the appearance of Percy Jackson is odd, it has nothing on that of the two girls with him. Thalia has remained officially unidentified, however there is heavy speculation by internet sleuths that this girl is Thalia Grace (see related articles), the daughter of Hollywood star Beryl Grace who went missing in 1996. Thalia was spotted with Luke Castellan and possibly Chase for several years following, as she matches her description exactly and is yet another speculated victim. The girl caught here on CCTV and later in videos does bear a striking resemblance the last known images of Thalia prior to her 2000 disappearance, down to the fashion choice

There are several evident problems with this theory, however. The first is that Thalia was declared legally dead in 2005 in order to be memorialized alongside her mother, who died in a car crash the same year, and the second is that she would be 20 years old in 2007, and the girl speculated to be her appears in her mid teens. It isn’t completely impossible that she could have passed for younger, especially when the only image of her is on CCTV, but the question of what she had been doing since her last reported sighting in 2000 remains.

Conspiracy theorists, however, believe that Thalia’s appearance is yet more evidence of either immortality or time travel being obtained by a party involved in these cases. It is how Nico and Bianca remained the same ages they were at their 1945 disappearance and how Thalia had only aged two or three years in the seven since she was last seen. Of course, there is no actual evidence that these three are the same as their lookalikes from the past, so time travel or immortality can’t be considered as serious resolutions to this case, but it is a significant part of the online discussion around it nonetheless. 

The third girl spotted that night is believed to be Annabeth Chase (see related articles), and it is her appearance that changed the trajectory of the investigation. Annabeth Chase was also reported missing on December 15th, by her father Frederick Chase when she missed her flight from New York to Los Angeles that day. Custody of Annabeth had been returned to her father following her unreported 2006 abduction for unknown reasons, and they were supposed to be spending their first Christmas together since she went missing as a small child. Chase was the first suspect, as Annabeth had now gone missing twice under his care, but when it became clear that she had never even entered JFK International Airport that morning an AMBER Alert went out across the state for her. 

Police began investigating the case and quickly discovered that she and another student (who remains unidentified but is heavily speculated to be Thalia) had been picked up early from school that day by one Sally Jackson. This connected the Chase case to that of the di Angelos, and with this new evidence, the FBI quickly switched tactics from looking at this as an abduction by child predators to one with more inscrutable motives. The prevailing belief is that Jackson assisted in the abduction of the di Angelos in some way, strengthened by the fact that it followed an extremely similar pattern as his own 2006 case. 

During the early investigation, the school, local police, and the FBI all tried to identify Bianca and Nico and reach out to their family. The names listed for their guardians turned up nothing, and birth records for Nico and Bianca di Angelo in California (their listed home state) did not appear to exist. They were either the children of undocumented immigrants with someone they knew on their side, or more likely children who had already been victimized in some way. While Dr. Thorn is not believed to have known the children before their enrollment into Westover, it is possible they were abducted by someone else previously, as there are several known cases of abductors enrolling their victims into schools under different names, and children who have been previously victimized by predators are at high risk to be taken advantage of again. The FBI remains unwilling to state whether they believe Dr. Thorn to be a sexual predator due to conflicting evidence, but they have not completely ruled it out as they did in the Jackson case. The connection was also made to the historical case of Nico and Bianca di Angelo, but investigators believe that was likely an intentional choice by whoever chose their names in order to obfuscate actual research with the historical accounts of the di Angelo siblings. While I loath to use the names that were likely given to them by a previous abuser, there are no leads for who Bianca and Nico could actually be, and so for the sake of understanding the case I will refer to them as such.

Three days after the di Angelos’ disappearance from Westover Hall, Jackson, Rasta Cap Boy, Bianca di Angelo, and another unidentified youth the media referred to as Silver Jacket Girl were spotted entering the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. They became involved in an incident where a stray dog (not believed to be related to the case) ran inside the museum, shooting it with nerf guns before stealing several packets of astronaut food and fleeing. This incident by itself is incredibly odd, but what is moreso is why the group was there at all. Washington DC is incredibly heavily surveilled, has a high law enforcement presence, and is a very popular tourist location, so it seems like a categorically horrible place to take an abduction victim. If you believe the Gateway Arch sighting to be legitimate, this isn’t even the first time these missing children have shown up at tourist locations, which raises the question of motives. A trafficking ring would have nothing to gain and everything to lose from this, and if some other organization is involved instead, their motives are inscrutable as well. It does gain publicity, but that clearly isn’t the goal of the people behind this, as we know nothing about them. 

This sighting came into the hands of police accidentally, as someone first posted a video of the group attacking the dog online as a Percy Jackson sighting, but a Maine native who had seen the AMBER Alert put out for Bianca and Nico recognized Bianca from the footage and reported it to the FBI. They jumped on the tip and began heavily investigating the area, but were not able to find out where the group had gone. What federal agents did discover, however, was footage of a man believed to be Dr. Thorn going into the Natural History Museum minutes before the incident began. As the museum was closed that day, it would indicate he had a connection to some staff there, but despite intensive questioning and investigation, no one who knew him ever turned up. This has led to speculation that either a museum employee was involved somehow and chose to keep their mouth shut or that Dr. Thorn has multiple identities and the police sketch of him was shown was not accurate enough to produce results. Regardless of which is true, the reason why he was in the museum at all remains another oddity of the whole DC sighting. 

The strangeness only intensified the next morning when the owner of the general store in Cloudcroft, New Mexico reported that Jackson, Bianca, and Grace had come into his store and inquired about the best way to leave the town. On questioning by the FBI, several tourists who had been eating in a local Starbucks related that they had seen Rasta Cap Boy and Silver Jacket Girl come in and ordered a large amount of food. They did not report the sighting initially even though they recognized them from the national news coverage of the DC footage because they later saw the group running into the woods pursued by several New Mexico State Police officers and assumed they were about to be apprehended. It is unknown if the group was able to escape the officers or if someone was impersonating them, because the FBI said they had never received a report from the New Mexico State Police, and when I reached out for comment I was informed that Bianca di Angelo was still considered an open case and they couldn’t comment on details of the investigation. 

While this sighting itself is not particularly odd, how the group got to Cloudcroft in the first place and why they didn’t know how to get out again remains an enduring mystery of the investigation. The only way to get between Washington DC and New Mexico in less than 24 hours is by plane, and after an extensive investigation into flight records, the FBI concluded that Jackson, Bianca, and their fellow teens could not have taken a commercial flight out of the DC area or into the Albuquerque area. Either Dr. Thorn had a means of getting them onto a private flight or they took an indirect flight and then drove to and from the remaining distance. Whatever the case is, Cloudcroft is only accessible by car, and the fact that they couldn’t leave again indicates that none of the group drove it themselves. Someone dropped them in the town for an unknown purpose and tasked them with getting to another location.

There are several competing theories about why they would do this. The FBI is unsure about what they believe the group was doing in Cloudcroft besides eating, but theorists have drawn several of their own conclusions. 

Those who endorse the theory that these children are part of a cult believe it was likely a test of loyalty for several members of the group, with Thorn putting them in a situation that would force them to interact with strangers. If they could do so without arousing suspicion or trying to escape they would raise their standing in his eyes. As Rasta Cap Boy and Silver Jacket Girl have never been identified, they were almost certainly the targets for this, but Jackson and Grace could potentially have been part of the plot at this point as well. Some have even taken the fact that the Cloudcroft sighting was the last time Bianca was seen alive to argue that she was part of an occult sacrifice that took place in the mountains there, though this theory only emerged later as a result of the potential connections to the Tristan McClean case (see related articles) and can likely be discounted.

Those who believe a child trafficking ring is to blame concur that the Cloudcroft incident was a test for whichever members of the group are participants, however they differ on the motive. To account for the fact that Bianca was not seen again while the others were, they believe Cloudcroft was the setup for a clandestine meeting with a buyer, as one of the main industries there is tourism and thus they would not arouse as much suspicion. The FBI and New Mexico State Police both heavily dispute this, however. Bianca di Angelo’s case is currently classed as a homicide, as happens to all missing persons cases in the state when they remain open for longer than five years

Interestingly, an anonymous donation was made to the same cemetery in Virginia where Maria di Angelo was buried with the intent of getting a headstone laid for modern-day Bianca, but it was ultimately rejected due to concerns that someone was trying to fuel the fires of conspiracy. The FBI investigated the donor on the off-chance that they were involved with the modern day di Angelo’s disappearance, but were not able to figure out who was behind it. 

The next sighting of the group, now sans Bianca, is another one that eerily mimics the Percy Jackson Case. Two days later, on December 21st, security guards at Hoover Dam responded to a disturbance in the visitor’s center, where some teenagers were reportedly harassing a tour group. The offenders were already gone by the time they got there, so the guards went to view the CCTV footage to discover what had happened. The footage clearly shows Percy Jackson getting into one of the elevators, and later running from several Nevada police officers. Those who have seen the footage will also note the presence of a red-haired girl with Jackson, who distracts the security guards, allowing him to escape and meet up with his associates. The FBI have never confirmed this, stating they interviewed the witness and it was “not relevant to the case” to reveal her identity but she is almost certainly Rachel Elizabeth Dare (see related articles) daughter of business magnate William Dare. Rachel and her connection to the Jackson case will be discussed in subsequent articles, but it is speculated that this chance meeting is what drew her into the dangerous web that surrounds him.

Thalia, Rasta Cap Boy, and Silver Jacket Girl did not join Jackson in exploring the rest of the monument, as CCTV shows them in the cafeteria apparently enjoying lunch, before three officers entered the room in pursuit of Jackson. Rasta Cap Boy started a food fight, which caused enough chaos with the other children in the room that the group was able to escape. The crowds outside of the dam made it difficult to pick up where they went after that.

Due to the detailed security camera footage, there can be no doubt this sighting was in fact of Jackson, Grace, and their unidentified companions, now without Bianca di Angelo, but this raises more questions than it answers. 

The first, of course, is what happened to Bianca between Cloudcroft and the Hoover Dam. There are theories, as mentioned above, but not a single sighting of her has been reported since December of 2007, and does not match the profile of any Jane Does found in the Southwest after that date. Percy Jackson, the only individual who might have any clue, has also been closed mouthed on the matter. He will not speak to police about the case voluntarily, and multiple attempts to subpoena an interview with him have been blocked, and so the case remains cold. This has, of course, given rise to the theory Jackson killed her, but considering he was a fourteen year old boy, has no known motive, and no significant history of interpersonal violence before or after, I find this to be incredibly unlikely. Almost certainly he knows what happened to Bianca, but almost certainly did not do whatever it was himself and is either too traumatized to discuss it or has been convinced by someone that he should not do so. There are, of course, speculations that the denial of requests for his testimony by judges are because they too are part of the grand child kidnapping conspiracy, but considering several judges in both New Mexico and New York State were involved, it is far more likely there is a genuine legal reason that has simply not been disclosed as of yet. 

Beyond Bianca’s permanent disappearance, there is another pressing question here: why Hoover Dam? This eerily mimics the 2006 sighting of Jackson, Chase, and Rasta Cap Boy at the St. Louis arch, and makes about as much sense. If these children really have been kidnapped, why are they being allowed to sightsee along their route? It’s almost as if whoever is directing them actively wants them to be seen, but then why? That would rule out a monetary motive, as highly visible victims would be much harder to traffic, but then what? Neither Dr. Thorn nor Jackson and Chase’s unidentified captor received much personal attention from the stunts, and there is no obvious political motive for causing the sensationalism. It is a truly unanswerable question, and one that makes the Percy Jackson case so fascinating to so many and helps to breed insane speculation.

The next sighting of the four remaining teens comes the same evening in San Francisco, where a local homeless man reported seeing Jackson mug one of his friends on a pier before one of the group got cornered by what he described as “army skeleton looking dudes” and a man he successfully identified as Dr. Thorn (whose head was apparently on a lion’s body at the time). While the exact details of this sighting can obviously be discredited by any reasonable person, it is known due to later events that the group was in San Francisco the evening of the 21st, so it is in fact very possible that he did in fact see them and drugs or mental illness simply muddled the details.

The fact that they were able to travel what would be more than eight hours by car in the space of only a few hours tells us almost without a doubt that Thorn had access to some form of private air travel, as there is no other possible way to travel that distance, and once again, extensive FBI searches of public aircraft records for the area and time found no trace of of Percy Jackson or any of his companions. 

It is worth noting that many of the same conspiracy theorists who believe the sinking of the Princess Andromeda and the existence of the Monster Donut chain are supernatural in nature, take this ludicrous account wholesale, claiming this man glimpsed the true forms of the occult creatures working against Jackson, though whether he, Chase and the others are monster hunters or simply a different faction in some secret supernatural war is contested.

Theories worthy of Supernatural aside, the reason this sighting can have any credibility leant to it at all is because of Frederick Chase. Annabeth’s estranged father told the FBI that Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace and a third girl he did not know (Silver Jacket Girl) showed up at his house and told him Annabeth was in danger and they needed his help. They apparently exclaimed that her captors were apparently holding her somewhere near Mount Tamalpais and they needed to borrow his car to rescue her. Frederick immediately complied with the request, saying in his interview “I didn’t even think to call the police. I know it sounds insane, but they were so confident they could get Annabeth back and would be dangerous for anyone else to be involved.”

The next morning, Chase’s 1998 VW Beetle was found wrecked inside Mount Tamalpais State Park, not far from Trojan Point, after having apparently been struck by lightning. The worst was initially feared even though no bodies were discovered, and San Francisco police and FBI agents conducted an extensive search within the park. Then, they got an unbelievable call from New York: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had just walked into a Manhattan police station just long enough to confirm that they were in fact alive and safe (though both had apparently had matching white streaks dyed in their hair). Subsequent calls to Frederick Chase and Sally Jackson confirmed this, allowing at least one of the investigations to end. Rasta Cap Boy and Thalia Grace would later appear again, but Silver Jacket Girl, however, has not been seen since she drove Frederick Chase’s car out of his driveway. Extensive search and rescue efforts turned up nothing, and so without any idea of who she actually was, the case quickly went cold. 

As with Sally Jackson’s escape from her captors the previous year, this portion of the case ends in something of an anticlimax, with little information on any aspect of the case known. 

Those who believe the child trafficking theory believe Jackson and Chase were simply returning back to normal lives after a job well done, presumably the delivery of Bianca di Angelo and Silver Jacket Girl, though that does not explain why Annabeth Chase was abducted from the Westover Hall dance and needed to be rescued by the others. Proponents claim it was simply a ruse to borrow Frederick’s car, which couldn’t completely be ruled out considering that Thalia (if the girl really is her) would have been twenty years old and probably capable of something like that after years living off the grid. Overall though, I do believe that previous articles as well as the material found here have thoroughly discredited this as a legitimate theory wholesale

All of that aside, however. What all of this speculation about Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, and the unknown teenagers has completely failed to do is provide any feasible explanation for what actually happened to Nico and Bianca di Angelo. They are at the heart of this entire mystery, and yet they drop out of the story halfway through with no plausible theories as to why.

Statistically, Bianca is probably dead. No one has seen her since December 19th, 2007, more than a decade ago, and she was last seen in a remote area in a dangerous situation. There are enumerable ways she could have died accidentally in the mountains in winter, and Cloudcroft is remote enough that finding a body is far from guaranteed. Considering she was being pursued by New Mexico State Police at her last sighting, some netizens have suggested Bianca was accidentally killed by officers, which is why the NMSP has been so cagey about releasing details relating to her case. This is definitely a possibility, though how the others escaped completely unharmed, or why they would not come forward to bring her killers to justice are two glaring holes in this theory. With absolutely no evidence to go on to suggest one theory over another, the disappearance of the girl known to us as Bianca di Angelo will be forced to remain another tragic mystery. 

Nico, on the other hand, is a much more interesting case. Sightings of him have been consistently reported since 2008, both alone and in the company of other people relevant to this case, most significantly a girl some believe to be Hazel Levesque (see related articles), another missing girl from the 1940s. He appears to have been homeless for at least several years, continually traveling around the US and presumably living off of donations, as there are many reported sightings of Nico at different McDonalds’ around the country. While the FBI maintains a case file on the di Angelo siblings, the actual hunt for him has virtually stopped, considering he does not appear to be actively in Dr. Thorn’s clutches and would have reached his eighteenth birthday in 2015, meaning he is now legally allowed to be missing if he so chooses. I will only be covering subsequent sightings of Nico that appear to have relevance to the wider events of the Percy Jackson case, however the subreddit r/nicodiangelosightings has put significant work into compiling and verifying a timeline for him for those who are interested. If you ever happen to run into who you believe to be Nico (or any of the other people I cover in these articles) in public, however, I urge you to contact the proper authorities and not engage in posting “sightings” or otherwise treating them like celebrities and not real people who probably just want to recover from their traumatic childhoods in peace. 

That said, there is one massively popular theory about the di Angelo case that, while I have mentioned throughout the article, I have yet to discuss in detail: the theory that they are time travelers. While the fact that the modern day missing children have the same name and lack any documentation before arriving to Westover is significant, believers have several other pieces of evidence to add to the theory. Bianca and Nico’s pictures in the Westover Hall yearbook bear a starting resemblance to the photos of them that exist from their life in Italy, and Ms. Gottschalk described Bianca as speaking with an Italian accent in her 2012 interview. Additionally, TikToker Joe Rensselaer, who attended Westover and was in the same grade as Nico, remembers him being confused on 9/11 Remembrance Day and referring to Russia as the Soviet Union. He has proved, though showing yearbook photos, that he did actually attend Westover and is the same age as Nico, but readers should remember that there is a monetary incentive for making the most sensational content possible, and so that doesn’t necessarily mean he is telling the truth, 

Due to the visual similarities and other oddities surrounding modern day Nico and Bianca, conspiracy theorists have naturally jumped on the idea that they present a compelling case for time travel. Some simply believe Nico and Bianca wandered out of the hotel and into a wormhole that day in 1945 (possibly caused by the bizarre lightning event), while others think that due to the fact that they were placed in a military academy and how discretely the group Bianca was originally with were able to be moved around the country, that this is some sort of government experiment. Others, of course, promote a cult, highlighting the di Angelos’ connection to Percy Jackson and others, and especially the connection of this case to Thalia Grace. 

While she has never been identified beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is highly believed that the girl I have been referring to throughout the article as “Thalia” is in fact Thalia Grace. Yes, this girl visually appears to be in her mid teens, while Grace would have been twenty at the time, their photos are nearly identical down to the fashion choice and have the same uncommon first name. It is not completely outside of the realms of possibility that this is an adult Thalia, who simply looks younger. Her mother was a movie star, so the genes for youthful good looks are in her system. Of course, conspiracy theorists would have you believe Thalia also managed to time travel in some way (accidentally or on purpose depending on who you are talking to, though I think the comparatively small discrepancy in ages tells us that this girl is probably just a youthful-looking adult Thalia. I certainly knew people in college who could have passed for younger if they wanted to. 

There is ultimately no explanation for Nico and Bianca’s situation however. As much as I do not believe in the supernatural in any form, there are so many similarities between the historical Nico and Bianca and these children that all I can say is that there is no evidence of time travel being real. What I can entirely dismiss, however, is the post I found positing that Thalia, the Di Angelos, and Leveque were all turned into vampires. Please put down Twilight and seek help.

The actual most important conclusion that can be drawn from this case, in my eyes, has nothing to do with the idea of time travel, but rather the proof that there is more than one adult individual involved in whatever is going on in the Percy Jackson related cases. The descriptions of Dr. Thorn and Jackson’s unidentified captor are different enough that they are incredibly unlikely to be the same person, however the fact that their MO is so similar and the cases are tied so closely together almost rules out two random similar crimes or a copycat abduction. Whatever this group is, their motives don’t seem to be the obviously nefarious ones of usual abductors, but clearly they are working toward some sort of goal, and if Bianca and Silver Jacket Girl are truly dead, might be willing to sacrifice lives to achieve it. I am extremely reluctant to suggest this is in fact a cult, considering there is literally no concrete evidence to suggest how they might maintain control over their victims, but the number of other possible explanations are slowly whittling themselves down the more work I put into investigating this case. 

There is still a ridiculous number of related cases to cover, however, so tune in next week as we look at some of the bizarre sightings of Percy Jackson in 2008 and discuss the connection of Rachel Elizabeth Dare in more detail