Kansas : Megan Foglesong
This case takes place in what I believe is the smallest town we have discussed before. Alden, Kansas is situated in Rice County with a population of 122. Alden is so small, that it doesn’t even show up on the neighborhood Scout’s crime ratings. Alden is just over 80 miles northwest of Wichita. There isn’t much about Alden out there because there isn’t much to the town. It was originally a railroad stop and the depot is still standing today. It looks just like what you would imagine a typical Kansas town to look like. Flat land surrounded by farms and the skyline dotted with a few grain silos. Due to the small town nature, I couldn’t find any fun facts about the town. My case is the only missing person case I could find in this small town.
Megan Renee Foglesong was born January 20, 1994, had naturally sandy blonde hair, and green eyes, and according to a friend, was full of life, energetic, and pretty happy. Megan wasn’t an Alden native. In 2012, she graduated from ROWVA High School in Oneida Illinois, and found her way over to Kansas in hopes to reunite with her biological mom. There isn’t a lot of information about Megan in the early years of her life but her parents divorced at an early age and Megan developed a close relationship with her stepmom, Dawn.
The then 22-year-old had been introduced to her mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend, David Madden. He was 14 years her senior and a former marine with a history of the battery. Friends and Megan's own mother weren’t too keen on this relationship, but what would become an on-again, off-again romance would kindle. It seemed to be plagued from the beginning. There were signs of physical and emotional abuse running rampant within their courtship.
Megan lived with David in Alden where the two engaged in methamphetamine use regularly. Friends voiced their concerns and Megan even mirrored them on occasion. At one point she told her friends if she ever disappeared David was likely the culprit.
Everyone’s concerns gained merit when in December 2014 when a disturbing 911 call came into dispatch.
Kelly Starnes, one of David’s friends called 911 and if you didn’t quite hear, he said that David had kidnapped Megan from his house about 30 miles away from Alden. Kelly says he heard David say he was going to put Megan in a straight jacket, throw her in a closet, and had threatened to kill her. He proceeds to mention in the 911 call that David has issues with authority and is a bit of a hothead when it comes to the government or law enforcement.
Police officers are dispatched to David’s house back in Rice County where they found David and Megan. Police proceed as if it was a domestic abuse call and asked Megan if she was okay or being held against her will. She claimed to have been there of her own volition and that she wasn’t kidnapped. Police had no choice but to consider the matter settled and called the call as complete.
Now whether this incident is the reasoning behind Megan’s decision to make the almost 10-hour journey back to Illinois to spend time with her father and stepmom or not, we may never know. Megan and her stepmother, Dawn had several conversations about what Megan’s future may look like if she stayed with David. Statistically, domestic violence situations rarely improve. They almost always get worse. Call it young love, a mistake, toxic, or even stereotypical if you want, but Megan ended back in a relationship with David in Kansas by June.
David was busted for driving with a license suspended and had to be incarcerated. Thanksgiving rolls around and on November 25, 2015, the day before David’s scheduled release, Megan decides she is ready to leave. She reaches out to a friend, and her stepmother, letting them know that she was going to spend the holiday with her friends but she was done with David. Megan texts a friend asking for a ride because she was walking in the rain. The friend wasn’t able to pick her up. This is where things begin to get questionable. From this day forward only one other message from Megan was made. It is unknown if Megan was picked up that day, the friend she had contacted did not pick her up.
Some believe that maybe Megan and David’s relationship was “on again” and that she had spent the last five days with him as he had just been released from jail. Others speculate that maybe it wasn’t Megan at all messaging and perhaps someone was just using her account.
This same day, David texts the Rice County Sheriff’s office claiming that Megan had stolen from him. The following day Maddon sent a second message to the sheriff saying he had confronted Megan about the thievery and that they got into an argument and she stormed out.
December 7 Megan’s friend received the text that simply said “I’m Fine’ but the friend wasn’t sure Megan actually sent the message. Another friend claims to have received a phone call from her requesting a ride that the friend declined.
It wouldn’t be until Christmas Day 2015 Megan was allegedly seen about 50 miles away at Guy’s Liquor Store in Larned.
It wouldn’t be until February 10, 2016, before Megan is officially reported as missing by her family. Who do you believe the first person law enforcement wanted to talk to was?
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner, David. He already had a rap sheet and continued to be a public nuisance. When authorities spoke to him, he claimed to not know where Megan was or where she would have gone. David’s friend Kelly said that David told him that “no one will ever have to worry about her again.” This made law enforcement think that there may be the foul play here. Not just a woman stepping away from a domestic violence situation and staying hidden. Megan’s stepmom felt that if Megan did step away for her own safety she would have returned home to them in Illinois again.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation got involved and several searches were conducted. At least 6 large searches and a couple of smaller unofficial searches happened to no avail.
On February 22, 2017, David led police on a high-speed chase through multiple counties in Kansas. It ended at David’s house where a standoff took place ultimately ending in David’s arrest.
A search warrant was executed two days later at the house Megan shared with David on Steinmetz St in Alden. Law enforcement found 2 wooden crates with 24 metal pipe bombs, 12 types of fuses, 12 containers of smokeless powders, AND 2 live 25mm TPOS-T ATJ military ordnance projectiles in the storage shed outside of the residence. Inside they found an AK 47 machine gun and a Standard Fusee Corporation railroad torpedo which is a regulated explosive along with a 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.
David stated that he has made and deployed pipe bombs since he was a kid almost as if it was a hobby. He also claimed to have brought the AK47 back from a deployment overseas. The other projectiles weren’t discussed in the affidavit but law enforcement did request in the affidavit for an arrest warrant for David violating the federal firearm statutes. He was sentenced to probation for the charges of attempting to elude a law enforcement officer and aggravated assault.
It wasn’t until April 29, 2019, that an arrest warrant was issued and an undersheriff attempted to take him into custody at a traffic stop about 8 miles outside of Alden near Sterling Kansas. A shoot-off between David and the undersheriff commences and David hits the officer 4 times before taking off. In the car with him were David’s girlfriend at the time, Erin Baker, and her 7-year-old child.
David then went to his house, gathered a laundry basket full of weapons and ammunition, and went to his father’s house in nearby Raymond, Kansas where he fatally shot his father, Thomas Madden.
A sheriff found David at his father’s house and yet another standoff ensued. Around 6 pm gunfire rang out and the sheriff was struck in the leg. Several hours pass and more departments are getting involved. The Kansas Highway Patrol’s Special Response Team, Barton County Sheriff’s Office, Reno County Sheriff’s Office, Wichita Police Department, Rice County Sheriff’s, Sterling Police Department, Lyons Police departments, and others all come in to assist in this standoff. Around midnight, David turned his gun on himself. Both the sheriff and undersheriff recovered from their injuries.
David’s girlfriend would be arrested later on charges of child endangerment for knowingly being in a relationship with a convicted felon who was in possession of a firearm and for being in the vehicle that day and she was ultimately sentenced to 60 days in jail.
In October 2019, the KBI was able to search David Madden’s property and was given permission to excavate a grave on the property in hopes to find some sign of Megan. Theories swirled at the time about David murdering Megan and feeding her remains to his dog before also murdering his dog and burying it. No evidence is recovered. This would be the second time this grave was excavated. The first time was by Megan’s stepmother who had gained permission from David’s father to dig at the site back in 2016.
This is where Megan’s story goes cold. The only person of interest law enforcement had is now deceased. No new leads have come in related to Megan’s disappearance.
At the time of her disappearance, Megan was described as 5’3”-5’6” tall, with sandy blonde hair but had dyed it before, 140-170 pounds, and she had several tattoos. An infinity sign on her chest, a black heart on her wrist, a dream catcher on her left calf, and a flower on her left hip. She also had her tongue, nose, and ears pierced. And had a long scar on her right thigh.
If you have any information about Megan’s disappearance please contact Rice County Sheriff’s Office at 620.257.7876 or the Kansas Bureau of Investigations at 785.296.8200.
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Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alden,_Kansas
https://www.gbtribune.com/news/local-news/law-enforcement-seeks-information-on-missing-person/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FbqVl6Vqp6t2jEBxAVxSAl5J37aaadCF/view
https://www.kake.com/story/34608527/search-warrant-executed-in-rice-co-missing-person-case
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/32549/details?nav
https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Large-police-presence-in-Rice-County-509238361.html
https://www.kake.com/story/32416012/foul-play-suspected-in-disappearance-of-kansas-woman
https://www.kbi.ks.gov/MissingPersons/Search/Details/M223097423
https://charleyproject.org/case/megan-renee-foglesong
https://apnews.com/article/e32307813a0b4723a916453473b766c0
https://www.facebook.com/bringmeganhomesafely/?ref=page_internal
https://www.facebook.com/KansasLostnmissing/posts/1927930057250579
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ks-megan-foglesong-22-alden-25-nov-2015.301709/page-2
https://uncovered.com/cases/megan-foglesong/timeline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9067vxTUQ0
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PsCFpg5U3DnmPrlealTWU6SnrEE1cho_/view
