Transcript of The Terrifying Disappearance of Madison Fields — Her Parents' Plea for Help New

Hi, everybody. It's Anne Emerson. Welcome to Cribsly Obsessed. And this story had three things that off the top, as a mom, as a parent, made me completely crazy. I mean, if you have a teenager that uses Snapchat, that likes to go on sleepovers, you need to hear what happened to Madison Fields.

Nobody should go through this. It's breaking us down.

That was Tyler Hearn, who you just heard. His daughter, Madison Fields, disappeared on Friday, February 13th. Madison had a backpack on her shoulder and a plastic bag in her hand as she walked through a parking lot next to where she lived in Coleraine Township. That's in Ohio. Her parents thought she was headed to a sleepover at her friend's house. That's what she told them. But it wasn't a friend's mom that was waiting to pick her up in a black Jeep. If you have a sinking feeling in your stomach right now, your gut instincts are correct, because here's where the story is going to make you so sick and seriously pissed at the same time. Today, I'm talking to Madison's parents who are literally beside themselves with worry at this point. And later on, I'll be speaking to a volunteer who led this search and rescue effort to try and find Madison early on. But first, I need to lay out the terrifying timeline for you. The only way I can tell this story is through this seven-page federal criminal complaint. It doesn't tell us where Madison might be right now or what might have happened to her, but the details sure do paint a picture.

So right after she left for the sleepover, Madison got into the Jeep. Police say it was run into 43-year-old Kyle Lawrence from Buffalo, New York. Minutes later, her phone was turned off, and she hasn't been seen or heard from since. We learned from this document that Lawrence told police that he had taken Madison to hotels twice in January after talking to her on Snapchat. That's right, Snapchat. And that she referred to him as Dad Bod with the Blue When I spoke with Madison's parents, her mom did most of the talking. And after hearing all of this, you can probably understand why her father stayed quiet. Kari and Tyler, I can't believe I'm even saying this, but we are on day 23 of looking for Madison. Am I right?

Yes.

Okay. Tell me, how are you doing right I don't know.

Just trying to hold in.

What have the days been like?

They've been horrible, but I have a lot of friends and family support us in the community.

You have a good community there at Coleraine?

Yes.

I've been trying to go back to work, so I've been back to work.

You've got other children, am I right?

Yes, we have a younger daughter.

I understand. How's she doing?

She's having a hard time because her sister, Madison, they're best friends, and they're very close, and she's having a hard time.

What do you want us to know about Madison? Tell me about your daughter.

She's a very smart girl. She's very sweet and innocent, and she always has a smile on her face.

She's beautiful.

Thank you.

What does she like to do with her friends?

She likes to make TikTok videos of how kids are today making these little singing videos and stuff.

We want our viewers to do everything they can to help you. And that's That's why I'm going to ask you some questions so that we can start painting a picture of what happened so we can help you, everybody that watches my show or hears me right now, on the podcast. Please listen to this story. Listen to Kari and Tyler. Let's figure out where Madison is, okay? Tell me about what happened the day that Madison husband disappeared February 13th.

She came home from school. My husband was at work, and when she came home from school, she asked me if she could go spend the night at her friend's house because they had a three-day weekend. I told her that it was okay because she spent the night with her friend the week before. I thought she was going straight to her friend's house. She was supposed to be picked up from her friend's mom from the place we're staying at on the cameras. It shows her walking away. She disappeared off the cameras everywhere. We just seen her walking away on the street. That's right where she went missing, and she disappeared right behind there. It didn't show her getting into a car. I'm not sure if it's the police or the FBI. If they were able to see her get into this black Jeep that that guy was driving. They said they had it on video, but we've never seen it.

Okay.

But it shows her getting into a Black Jeep with a New York license plate from what they said.

Okay. And when did you realize that she wasn't with her friend?

We didn't realize she was missing until when she quit. She didn't respond to us or anything on Monday, and it was starting to get late, and she had school the next day.

Mm-hmm.

It wasn't like her to not respond to us or call us to let us know. She was on her way home.

Mm-hmm.

Mondays, that evening, that's when we filed with the police that she is missing because we hadn't heard anything from her.

Friday was the last time you saw her, but when was the last time you spoke with Was that at that same time? Was that the last time you spoke with her?

Yeah, it was on Friday. Her phone, actually, the police When they tried pinging her phone, it had been turned off right where she was in the cameras where the video shows her on her her phone texting her. It shows that her phone was turned off during that time. So it was literally maybe 15 minutes after she left, and we've not been able to get it, like, pin her phone or anything since Friday.

When you realized that she was gone, you called the police on that Monday. Tell me what the police were doing, how you started looking for her right away.

Just giving all the information that Madison told us and where she was supposed to be at. And then we were looking at the cameras from where we're staying at as well, seeing her go in the hallways and leave. The police have searched back even the month before and had her on camera. They took all the electronics from her sister Mm-hmm. Our electronics and everything and just trying to look to see if they could see her, try to communicate at all on the electronics or any messages that could lead where she is at. Then that's when we had found out about this Kyle Lawrence man.

Kyle Lawrence, the 43-year-old man who was arrested in Buffalo, New York, on February 26. The three federal charges are: transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and the transportation of child pornography. Now, what they have not charged him with is the disappearance of Madison Fields. Here's the thing. This is not the first time Lawrence has been on the FBI's radar. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got two cyber tips in August 2023 and July 2025. In 2023, Snapchat user, Kyle2227, that's Kyle spelled K-Y-E-L-L, claimed to have girls do sexual things for him. The IP address was plotted to Kyle Lawrence's address. In July 2025, the file sharing platform Dropbox reported three files of CSAM, child sexual abuse material, from the screen named Kyle Lawrence. And then there's this. In May 2024, a citizen vigilancy group confronted Lawrence when they say he traveled to Canada to meet with another young girl, a 15-year-old, for sex. The group posted the confrontation online. The complaint states Lawrence never returned the FBI's calls. It sounds like he should have absolutely been behind bars before he ever met Madison, and we'll be looking further into why he wasn't previously arrested.

What Madison's parents say next sounds eerily similar now that we have that background.

That's when the police told us that she had been talking to a man on that encrypted website, and that's how the FBI found out about him.

We know Madison and Kyle Lawrence had been communicating on Snapchat, a photo sharing and messaging app where the content disappears. And this app I hadn't heard of before called Session. It's a fully encrypted messaging app where you don't need a phone number or an email address to sign up. We'll talk more about these apps and the dangers they can pose later in this interview. This man out of Buffalo, that's when you found out that that was this man, this 43-year-old man.

Yes.

What have investigators been able to share with you about what they know right now? I know he's now down in Butler County Jail.

Yeah, he's in Butler County. We've been told they've been questioning him and trying to figure out. They showed us The pictures of him in the previous months, a picture with him in the swimming pool at a hotel with Maddie, and they have him on camera in two gas stations getting a drink. They showed us that at the police station. Then I heard that he has came down from Buffalo, New York, like two times in the prior months. We've been being kept in the dark a little bit about their investigation right now.

What I understand is that the FBI got involved rather quickly, didn't they? When they realized what they were dealing with.

Yes. They were questioning us as well, and they thought that they were asking us questions. If we knew Maddie was talking to anybody online or anything. That's when we were being questioned, and they showed us the picture saying that we have a guy in custody from Buffalo, New York.

Do you know he's given them any more information about where your daughter is right now?

No, they won't tell us anything.

Okay. So this is a really tough time, huh? This is a very, very tough time in the investigation.

Yes.

As far as how we can support you, and as you search for Madison, what would you like to say to folks? How can they help support to support you right now? Because we want to help.

We keep trying to repost her missing pictures and getting the word out there. If anybody sees her or knows anything, to come forward and call the chlorine police, let them know any information they might know.

They must come forward. If they know anything at all, anything at all about where she could be, that's exactly what need to do. And she could be wearing different clothes. Her hair could look different, right?

Yeah.

Anything that we can do, if for whatever reason, if this gets to Madison, if somehow she could hear us talking right now, what would you like Madison to know right now?

That we love and miss her, and that we're not mad at her, and we just want her back home.

How are you doing, Tyler?

Day by day. Day by day.

As far as this search goes on your own, are people out there looking right now?

We've had several search parties throughout the past weeks and get together just with family. We've even had people in the community help make us little pins with Madison's picture on it.

I wanted to ask you, that surveillance video you saw, I just want to make sure, you've never seen this man before. You've never... Have you?

No. No.

Did you see the surveillance video of her getting in that car?

No. Did.

Okay, Kari. Well, I want to just reach out to all of our viewers out here, all of our listeners, wherever you're hearing this interview with Kari and Tyler. Herne, please share this episode. Please share their story. Please share the information about Madison because we want to bring her home as soon as possible because she's missed dearly and she's loved dearly. Just know that we're here with you and we'll be following closely, and hopefully you're going to get some really good news. So we'll be thinking about you every day, okay?

Thank you. I really appreciate you and all the help in trying to help us try to find our daughter. It means so much. We would have been able to probably get the to get this far without help and support from friends and family and the community. Just everybody, we're just thankful for everybody.

Everybody's got to keep it up because we got to bring Madison home. So that's everybody's job is to keep it up and keep looking for her. So we'll share all of the information that we possibly can. If there's anything that you want us to share, please just we will do that. You can just hear the heartbreak in their voices. And that's why it's so important to do everything we can to share Madison's story. Now, let's hear from John Adams He's with the Ohio Land Search and Rescue. You're the Ohio Land Search and Rescue. Can you tell me about that and what this organization does?

Yeah. We're a nonprofit, 501(C)(3), all a voluntary organization. We assist law force, loss of missing persons. It can be anywhere from Alzheimer's, dementia, autism, paranoid schizophrenia, mental health issues. We do a lot of wilderness searches, urban searches, disaster services, things of that nature. We don't look for recognition, stuff like, This is something we enjoy doing. We love doing it. We got a passion for it. We got a strong team. We got 50 members, pretty strong and solid.

That's fantastic.

Basically, what we do is that we have a recruitment every year. We have two recruitments a year, and we take all walks of life. It doesn't matter what your experience is. We're built on... We do have firefighters, EMTs, Police officers on our team. However, we have carpenters, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, lawn keepers. We have it all.

That's great. Chief Adams, I understand that in those first few days, you were boots on the ground and instrumental in helping organize this search for Madison Fields. Can you tell me a little bit about how you started searching for Madison? How did you get involved in that?

I believe it was day 6 or day 7, we was reached out by the family, I believe it was the mother, requesting our services. Then we don't respond immediately, even though anyone comes missing, it's It was very critical. The first $48 is very critical. However, we operate under the authority of the law enforcement agencies or EMA, or if it's OD&R, something like that, that would request our services. The mother reached out to us. We then got verified through the Colerain Police Department. They then gave us the okay to go out of the CIS.

At that point, already, you're telling me six seven days have already passed. What was going on during that period? Do you know if anybody was on the ground looking for her besides the family?

As far as I believe, it was just family, the friends, and the community, people from the community helping out.

When you were looking for her, tell me what that looks like. How did you organize the search?

Initially, when we get on a scene, we get up there, we speak with the family members, we get the lapse of everything, what happened between day one until the day we was there from them. Then we base off what areas they had checked into. Therefore, we went ahead and went over their steps of the areas they had searched. We had done that as well, and we went beyond that area. We hit areas sometimes that family people don't think about hitting. It could be dark terrain, drain pipes, sewerage areas, culverts, creek beds, things It was like that in that nature.

When you were searching, did you ever get any hits of where Madison might have been?

No, we got a lot of tips. People call in, and unfortunately, some people do it for just to get recognition, just get the name out there. Like, Hey, look, I've seen her over here, but we look into it. We take every tip seriously out there in the field. We check everything, and there was nothing, nothing going on.

You didn't get any direct... Did you use dogs in your search? Do you use dogs?

At the time, we didn't bring any canines in. From getting on a certain circumstances that she left her home and was seen getting to another vehicle. Therefore, even if we were to bring a canine out, they were so contaminated with so many people. It had been hard.

That's a really good point. Yeah, they had surveillance video that she was getting into a car, and they're learning a lot more about that as well. Now, how long did your team stay involved?

I believe it was four and a half days, four and a half, five days. It had broke that gentleman from New York was involved in this case. The FBI was involved It was it. That then told us, Hey, look, we'll take a step back. We're always available, but the FBI is involved. They have more resources that we'll relouse. We just took a step back.

What does that look like? When the FBI steps in, do you feel their presence coming into the investigation? Are they also boots on the ground?

Yeah. Anytime you have an agency as large as the FBI is or any government agency, anytime they come in, we're always standing on the sideline ready for them. But when they come in, actually, it's a relief because, like I said, the resources are so large. It's unbelievable. Obviously, the evidence is already showing that.

Well, exactly, because then they can bring in their digital forensics teams, right? So now they're looking at license plate readers, cell phone connections, and they are learning a lot about. When you communicated with Madison's mom, in this case, when your organization comes in, what does that conversation look like? What do you offer as far as the mom? What was that conversation like?

Initially, once a family member reaches out to us, we get on scene. Actually, we bring them in to our instance of a command trailer, and we speak with them. We go over from day one, what was the activities during the day? Was there disagreements? With something? Did they not follow the rules? It's just teenager things. We go with steps like that, then we move up until the action that was taken up to the day she walked out of the house. That moment, she walked out. Then we tried to figure Okay, so have we reached out to the friends, the family members? Do you have any family members local in this area? The answer was no. That's pretty much what we do. We just go through 30 to 50 questions about things.

What did you learn as far as about what the family was doing at that point? I understand they were in a town suite, an extended stay place. What were you learning about where they were and where Madison was?

Well, everybody's living situation is different. Apparently, this facility that they was at, this establishment, they do long-time rentals and stuff like that. Some people just find that's the easier way out for them. But I didn't find nothing negative about anything. Nothing raised flags to me. I wasn't concerned about their living, the way they live. I overlooked those type of things. It's none of my business, to be honest with you. My concern is to bring a missing loved one regardless.

100 %. As you saw the urgency of this situation, you were like, it seems like there was a lag of time between when she left, When she left with the family, when she was no longer with the family. Then you have Friday to Monday, where then you don't know, then you're reporting her missing because you're like, She's not where she's supposed to be. Do you have any information about where she was in those first critical hours or where she told her family she was so that you had something to go on?

That was not even brought into the conversation. We was more concerned If there was a disagreement at home, but there's something that was said to the child, you're grounded, whatever the circumstances. But they just left, so she was going to a friend, I believe it was.

Okay.

She left, and that was that. I guess from the time frame when she left, we had the video footage to where she was behind the establishment next door to them.

She was at a place right next door?

She was cut across the parking lot, yes.

When she cut across the parking lot, you could see that on the video?

Yes.

Is that when she got in the car?

I believe after the fact, yes. After she walked across the lot. It was an area where the vehicle was at. We couldn't see. Whether if law enforcement or the FBI had received other footage, because we did go around and ask anybody with video footage, the police turned it into a Colerain Police Department.

I mean, as far as technology that you use, you've got people, you've got power of people getting out there and ask them questions, right? Is there any other technology that you like to use when you're doing these searches?

Well, every case is different. It depends on the circumstances. You allocate your resources to certain Each certain scenario. But our resources would have been, if we were to call out initially the same day, that evening, whatever, she went missing, we would have had canines out immediately that day. We would have had every camera we could have seen in that vicinity, and then knock on doors, you know what I mean? Businesses, stuff like that. That's all we could do. Sure. Drones, if it comes to around water or wilderness, something like that, the overcast isn't too bad or the coverage is too bad on trees, stuff like that. We hit drones out there, thermal drones, and infrared, stuff like that.

How many searches have you done like this looking for?

Hundreds. Hundreds.

When you are going through the steps of the Madison Fields case, as you learn that there's now been this man, 43-year-old Kyle Lawrence, arrested in connection, and that he admitted to meeting Madison twice, January 19th and the 31st. What's going through your head?

I think it's awful. I mean, any missing child, it's very serious to me. Any missing person, period. But when it comes to children, teenagers, stuff like that, it's very concerning.

It's horrible.

A lot of times when we can... You just have that feeling when you're out there and you're doing certain cases, like something's not right here, this isn't When you're in doubt, you go another route. That's when you start reaching out to other resources and stuff like that and see what you can get done. We knew there was more to than her just walking around the city of Colerain. I'll be honest with you, there's some apps out there that no teenager should be on right now. This Snapchat is awful. That's one of the biggest ones that's getting these teenagers in trouble.

Have you seen cases like this with Snapchat before where kids are gone missing?

Yes, ma'am. Thankfully, they were recovered. They were found.

Chief, I'm so worried about this, too, because there's some telltale signs, right? You got a person who was allegedly impersonating an 18-year-old guy named Josh.

Yes.

You've got an app called Session 2. Yes. I'm trying to help parents and our viewers understand what this means. When you've got a 43-year-old man telling a an 18-year-old, that he's an 18-year-old, it's so bad. It is the worst.

Truthfully, I think that these apps, Paris, there needs to be a big awareness about these apps. I wasn't familiar with this app, too. I just heard about it.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. Can you tell me what Session app is? Because...

I don't know what it is. I've never heard of the app. This is all new to me.

I told you earlier that this app, Session, would come up again. It struck a chord me as a parent myself. I was familiar with Snapchat, but this Session app was new to me. It's an encrypted messaging app with extreme privacy, which sounds like a potential recipe for disaster for access to our kids. This reminded me of our conversation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where he blew my mind about the modern day version of the kidnappers in the white van. I briefly mentioned the white van scenario of a kid being kidnapped. The reality is the white is in your kids' pockets now.

It's in your living room. It's in your house.

Navigating social media with kids is something else. I know a lot of you listening or working through this scenario every day. We have conversations like this one, not to scare you, but to inform you so we can all do what we can to keep our kids safe. Let's get back into our conversation with Adam's and Madison's case.

I'm thinking, okay, so did he meet her on a separate app beforehand? Say, Hey, let's go to this app and talk. You know what I Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

They can't be tracked.

Exactly. I don't know. Yeah. Snapchat, that's the biggest thing. I don't even have my own son on there. He don't even get on it. There's so much crooking people out here in the world. It's unreal. I've never heard a session. I just never have.

I know. Well, I guess what's also bugging me about this is that we now know this man who has been charged in connection, not with her actual disappearance, but in connection to this case, that he has a record of some activity involving miners before. This is a major cautionary tale right now.

It is. Very much it is. I can't imagine what the family is thinking right now, going through for this.

I mean, he lied to her, too. He lied to Madison, too, about who he was. He He's not even from around here. So he's not from the Cincinnati area. He's all the way up in Buffalo. Does this mean that the search has now got to be looking at all the way up to Buffalo? I mean, is that what the feds are doing? Is looking for where Madison could have gone between here and Cincinnati and Buffalo?

And again, FBI, their resources just don't end. They just got to brought us back. So if it continues up to New York, which Me as an individual would think, Okay, yeah. If this man's from New York, he drove down there two times to meet her, they picked him up in New York. I could imagine they're probably in New York doing their own work, too.

Yeah, they've got to broaden that search, right? They got to look. Absolutely. We don't know what happened to Madisonfield at this point, but we know what we've seen in cases like this. And trafficking is always something I immediately worry about when I hear a scenario like this. Have you worked any trafficking cases before?

I must say in the last five years, maybe three.

Okay. Does it look like this?

Some has, yes. I mean, we've actually found a girl here, local, missing, and we found her in Texas.

Okay. Tell me what that looks like. Just so we understand what the different scenarios are that we're dealing with here.

Started out with Snapchat. Okay.

That just made my stomach hurt.

Yeah, so started out with Snapchat. It turns out they They met. They spoke with each other. Then they met. They drove up here to pick the person. I'm not going to mention the names in this. Sure. They took her to Texas. She was down there three to four days, maybe, before we actually found out she was there.

Okay. How did you find out?

Hard investigator in Texas.

Okay.

We had some tips, and it turned out the girl had actually lived in Texas probably 10 years prior to this, and she has her friends. But they haven't talked so long, but now they're talking, social media, whatever, and then Snapchat, and then They came up and got her, and she was calling up to an older guy in his 40s and stuff like that.

Same crap. I mean, that just sounds like the same stupid crap. Yeah, that is very interesting to me. I hope that we'll learn more through these digital records, because there's no way this guy, if he is in any way involved, will not have a digital footprint of where this activity is going. That would be the whole point. What can the public do to help in this case? What can we do? What can our viewers do right now to help find Madison Field and bring her home?

It's always share her photo far and wide, as far as that sky goes. Where the sky is at, that's where you need to share it at. Just get her out there. It doesn't matter if you do it once a week, but we like to see it done twice a day. Just keep sharing. Some people are like, Well, why should we retire to see her? I mean, seeing her. We've seen this fly her. So what? She's missing. She's a teenager. She's got a family at home. They love her, and they want to see her. They want her back home. We always do that. We share this far and wide. That's what we ask for, is to keep their eyes out. Now, we don't know if... I'm sure, but she left in her pants and her hoodie, but I'm sure by now, she will be in different clothing. She may have, if she's with someone else, may have dye her hair, change her color wear, stuff like that scenario. She got to think about.

Well, let's hope that Madison's watching. That's always what I hope, too, is when we air stories and talk about these cases, that it's not only just people that might have run into her at the 7-Eleven or the grocery store, but that the victim themselves can hear us and know that we're looking for as well, or that someone involved with where she is, because I have every hope in the world that we're going to bring her home. So I really appreciate your time. Absolutely. And thank you for doing what you do. It's so important. Drop a comment below. How do you feel about teams using Snapchat? Be sure to like and subscribe to Crumly Obsessed. And also share this interview if you can. We need to find Madison Fields, and if you've seen her or know her whereabouts or know anything about her disappearance, you're urge to call the Coleraine Township PD in Ohio. The number is in the caption.