Part 1
In Mineral Wells, Texas, most people believed they understood what had happened to baby Kyle Collins.
His mother, Jenna Collins, was 19 years old on New Year’s Eve 1987. She worked the overnight shift at the Flying J gas station on Highway 180, just outside town. She was unmarried, exhausted, and raising a newborn alone. Whispers spread quickly in a town of 6,000. Maybe she snapped. Maybe she couldn’t handle it.
The police considered that possibility in the beginning. But Jenna passed every interrogation. Every polygraph. Every test. She did not harm her son.
Someone took him.
The Flying J sat at mile marker 47, where farmland gave way to scrub and radio signals faded. By day, truckers and families stopped for fuel. By night, it was an isolated island of fluorescent light in miles of darkness.
Jenna had started working there in October 1987. The pay was $4.25 an hour. It was not much, even then. But the manager, Dale Sutherland, hired her without hesitation, despite her visible pregnancy.
“Night shift?” he had asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“You got someone to watch the baby?”
“I will,” she had replied.
Dale, a 58-year-old Vietnam veteran who had raised 3 daughters alone after his wife left in 1976, nodded. Graveyard shift was 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Show up on time. Keep the place clean. Don’t steal.
Kyle Andrew Collins was born on December 1, 1987, at Palo Pinto General Hospital. He weighed 6 lb 4 oz. His father, Travis Donahue, a 22-year-old construction worker, had left town weeks before the birth.
Jenna’s mother was dead. Her father drove long-haul trucks. She had no childcare, no savings left after 2 weeks. So she wrapped Kyle in a blue blanket, placed him in an infant carrier, and brought him to work.
Dale discovered the arrangement during a surprise visit at 2 a.m. Kyle was asleep in his carrier on the counter behind the register.
“Company policy says no kids,” Dale said.
Jenna apologized and promised to find someone.
Dale glanced at the baby. “My youngest used to sleep like that. How old?”
“Two weeks.”
He sighed. “My back’s been bothering me. Probably won’t be doing surprise visits for a while.”
Kyle stayed.
By December 30, Jenna had developed a routine. Kyle slept most of the shift, waking twice for bottles warmed with hot water from the coffee machine. Regular customers knew him by name.
On December 31, 1987, Jenna arrived 15 minutes early. Dale was finishing the register count while George Michael’s “Faith” played on the radio.
“Quiet night,” he said. “Everyone’s already where they’re going.”
Kyle had been fed at 10:00 p.m. and was asleep in his carrier.
At 11:47 p.m., a Peterbilt semi-truck pulled into the lot too fast. The driver stumbled from the cab, clearly intoxicated. He fumbled with the diesel nozzle, nearly collapsing.
Jenna glanced at Kyle. He was asleep. The glass door was 15 feet away. The lot was empty except for the semi and her Honda.
She stepped outside to prevent a possible accident.
The driver, later identified as Russell Kemp, was barely conscious. She took the nozzle from him, guided him to sit on the curb, and pumped 32 gallons of diesel herself. She kept looking back through the glass at Kyle’s carrier on the counter.
Then she heard it.
A car door closing. Soft. Deliberate.
She turned.
A dark sedan sat near the building. Its engine started.
Jenna ran.
She burst through the station door. The carrier was exactly where she had left it.
Empty.
The blue blanket still held the shape of her son’s body. It was still warm.
Through the window, she saw taillights disappearing north on Highway 180.
She screamed and dialed 911.
Deputy Frank Hillman arrived 7 minutes later and found Jenna on the floor behind the counter, rocking the empty carrier.
Sheriff Bob Wardell reached the scene 20 minutes after that. By 12:17 a.m., January 1, 1988, roadblocks were set up across multiple counties. Alerts went out statewide.
Russell Kemp’s semi was located 8 miles north at 12:45 a.m. He was arrested for intoxication. His blood alcohol level was 0.21. After 72 hours of interrogation and investigation, he was cleared.
Texas Rangers joined the case. Officers tracked 37 overnight transactions from the Flying J and interviewed truckers from Amarillo to San Antonio. They questioned chemical plant workers, ranchers, college students.
Jenna took a polygraph on January 5. She passed.
Agent Caroline Mercer of the FBI arrived on January 8. Jenna mentioned a woman in her 30s who had asked about Kyle the week before Christmas, claiming she had once lost a son.
The security tapes had already been recorded over.
By March 1988, the case had gone cold.
Sheriff Wardell retired in 1995. Dale Sutherland moved to Arizona in 1997. Agent Mercer retired in 2003. The Flying J changed owners.
Jenna moved to Wichita Falls in 1989. She worked at a grocery store. She attended therapy. She dated briefly in 1993 but ended the relationship after explaining about Kyle.
Every December 31 at 11:47 p.m., she drove the 70 miles back to Mineral Wells and sat in the Flying J parking lot, watching the door.
She kept 47 photographs of Kyle, his birth certificate, and the blue blanket.
In 2005, she turned 30.
Kyle would have been 18.
Part 2
On December 31, 2005, Jenna parked in the same spot at the Flying J. At 11:47 p.m., she closed her eyes and repeated the prayer she had spoken 17 times before.
Please let him be safe. Please let him be loved. Please let him know I didn’t leave him on purpose.
She had no idea that 1,800 miles away, Carol Willis was packing boxes for a move from Albuquerque to Dallas.
Carol carefully wrapped a birth certificate dated December 31, 1987. It had been issued March 14, 1988, by Dallas County.
The child listed was Brian Michael Willis.
On June 12, 2006, Robert Chen, a senior loan officer at First Republic Bank in Dallas, processed Carol Willis’s mortgage application. She was 47, a surgical nurse with excellent credit.
Her son Brian, 18, was listed as a dependent.
Chen examined the birth certificate.
Date of birth: December 31, 1987.
Date issued: March 14, 1988.
An 11-week delay.
Late registrations could occur, but something felt wrong.
Chen searched the Texas vital statistics database. The certificate was legitimate. But he searched archived news reports anyway.
He found a January 2, 1988 article: Infant abducted from gas station on New Year’s Eve. Mineral Wells Gazette.
Kyle Andrew Collins. Born December 1, 1987. Abducted December 31, 1987.
Chen checked Carol’s employment history.
From 1982 to January 1988, she had worked at Palo Pinto General Hospital in Mineral Wells—the same hospital where Kyle was born.
He called Detective Raymond Torres of the Dallas Police Department.
Torres reviewed the cold case file and contacted Mineral Wells authorities.
When Torres arrived at the bank, Carol was still waiting in the lobby.
He asked about the delayed birth certificate.
She claimed a home birth in New Mexico.
Employment records contradicted her.
Torres placed Kyle’s baby photograph on the table.
“We’re going to do a DNA test,” he said.
Carol began to cry.
“I didn’t hurt him,” she said.
She confessed.
Carol had struggled with infertility for years. Three rounds of IVF had failed. Her husband left in 1986 and remarried.
In December 1987, she assisted in Kyle’s delivery at Palo Pinto General. She saw Jenna—young, alone, afraid—and convinced herself the child deserved better.
She learned Jenna worked nights. She visited the Flying J on December 23 and December 29, observing the routine.
On December 31, she returned. She had installed a car seat in her vehicle.
When Jenna stepped outside to help the drunk driver, Carol entered the station, lifted Kyle from the carrier, and drove away.
She fled to Albuquerque, where her sister lived. With help from a lawyer, she secured late birth registration documents.
By March 1988, Brian Michael Willis had a legitimate Texas birth certificate.
She moved to Dallas and raised him.
She followed the investigation in the news and expected to be caught. When she was not, she convinced herself it was meant to be.
Part 3
Detective Torres informed Jenna on June 14, 2006.
“We found your son.”
She drove to Dallas with her father.
Brian Willis, 18, tall and athletic, with Jenna’s blue eyes, met her in a conference room at the Dallas Police Department.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Can I hug you?” she asked.
He nodded.
When she embraced him for the first time in 18 and a half years, something that had been broken since 1987 began to mend.
They spoke cautiously about school, sports, and names.
“I named you Kyle,” she said.
“Brian’s fine,” he replied. “It’s what I know.”
Carol Willis pleaded guilty to kidnapping and received a 25-year sentence, eligible for parole after 12.
“You stole more than a child,” Judge Patricia Harris said at sentencing. “You stole a mother’s chance to watch her son grow up.”
Brian attended the sentencing but did not look at Carol.
He graduated from Memorial High School on June 22, 2006. Jenna and her father watched from the audience.
That summer, Brian spent 3 months in Wichita Falls, building a relationship with Jenna before leaving for the University of Texas at Austin.
On December 31, 2006, Jenna did not drive to Mineral Wells. She stayed home with her son and her father. At 11:47 p.m., she closed her eyes and said, “Thank you.”
Carol Willis was released on parole in 2018 after serving 12 years. Brian met her once for coffee. The conversation was brief.
Jenna never met Carol.
Robert Chen received a commendation and a letter from Jenna, which he framed in his office.
The Flying J on Highway 180 still operates. Most customers do not know what happened there in 1987.
In 2024, Brian turned 36. He works as a data analyst in Austin. He is married with 2 children.
He speaks to Jenna twice a week.
Jenna, now 54, still lives in Wichita Falls. She donated Kyle’s baby clothes in 2010 but gave Brian the 47 photographs and the blue blanket when his first child was born.
On December 31, 2024, 37 years after the abduction, Jenna did not return to Mineral Wells.
At 11:47 p.m., she glanced at the clock, let herself remember, then turned to her son.
“You okay?” Brian asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I really am.”
And she meant it.
