Fla. Mom Appeared on The People's Court, Then Vanished: Inside the Case of Michelle Parker, Missing for 13 Years

Michelle Parker, then 33, vanished on Nov. 17, 2011, after appearing on an episode of The People's Court with her ex-fiancé.

Thirteen years later, there is still no sign of the Florida mother of three and no charges have ever been filed.

"Thirteen years ago, she was alive and well,” Parker’s stepmother Gayle Parker told WESH. “She had hopes, dreams, and plans."

"In one flash of a moment, she was gone, and it’s unbelievable how that kind of thing can happen," she said. “I do what I can to find her, and I will follow through with that." 

Parker was last seen dropping off her then 3-year-old twins at the Orlando condo of her ex-fiancé, Dale Smith.

The dropoff was just hours after the former couple appeared on a recorded episode of The People’s Court, where they fought over the loss of an engagement ring.

After the dropoff, Parker planned to run some errands in her Hummer before heading to her job as a bartender — but she never arrived.

Her Hummer was found the next day abandoned in a parking lot.

And then, three weeks later, divers found her iPhone in a nearby lake.

Shortly after Parker’s disappearance, police turned their attention to Smith, saying he was the only suspect in the case, but no arrests have ever been made. Fox35 reports that as of 2023, he was still considered a suspect.

In 2013, the Orlando Police Department released a red-light camera video showing what they believed to be Parker’s Hummer at 8:55 p.m. — less than a mile from where her vehicle was found - on the same day she disappeared.  

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"This is an important part of a timeline that we've had," an Orlando Police Department investigator said at a press conference, per ClickOrlando.

The investigator, Michael Moreschi, said he believed Parker's disappearance was a "two-person crime," according to ClickOrlando.

In an episode of Real Life Nightmare on HLN, which aired in 2019, Smith’s former attorney Mark NeJame denied that Smith had anything to do with Parker’s disappearance.

NeJame acknowledged that it was “odd” that Parker vanished on the same day as The People’s Court aired.

“Those are the serendipitous things that happen in life,” NeJame says. “So it was wholly appropriate that law enforcement would’ve, should’ve, did fully completely investigate him from top to bottom. But they came up with nothing.”

In Aug. 2023, police searched the Orange County backyard of Smith’s father but found nothing, according to Parker's mother Yvonne Stewart.

"I was like please let her be there," she told MyNews13 at the time. "They’ve found other people under concrete before — [police] had reason to believe there was an unturned stone."

Anyone with information on Parker’s disappearance can report tips to the Orlando Police Department at 407-246-2979 or Crimeline at 800-423-TIPS (8477).