Five years since Prairie Village mother Angela Green disappeared without a trace

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kansas (KCTV) — Angela Green was a quiet woman who kept to herself and rarely left her home. But the trail she left behind after her disappearance in 2019 was somehow even quieter.

Due to conflicting information from her husband Geoff, the couple’s daughter Ellie kept the news of her alleged death a secret for months. The story only came to light when Ellie, then 19, confided in her family that something was wrong.

In the years since, Angela’s case has received a lot of media attention and is currently under intense investigation. Her niece Michelle says she won’t stop until she and her family have answers.

Who is Angela Green?

At the time of her disappearance, Angela was a 51-year-old wife and mother of one child.

Born in China, she maintained a long-distance relationship through phone calls and letters with her future husband, Geoff Green. She moved to the United States on a fiancé visa in the late 1990s and lived with her older sister’s family, the Guos, before marrying.

During this time, Angela’s niece Michelle Guo felt attracted to her. Angela was considered a shy person, but Michelle, who was seven years old at the time, had a special connection with her.

“My aunt and I had a very special relationship when we were younger,” Michelle said in an interview with KCTV5. “We did crafts together and she also looked after me when my parents were at work. The first few months she lived with my family, we were so close and everything just seemed so great and happy.”

After Angela married Geoff, Michelle says she was even more isolated than before. When the couple’s only child, Ellie Green, was born, the isolation deepened. Apart from gardening or driving Ellie to and from school, Angela rarely left home.

“She was never employed. She never had a credit card. She only went to the dentist twice and to the doctor once when Ellie was born,” said Captain Adam Taylor.

Captain Taylor was a Detective Sergeant with the Prairie Village Police Department at the time of Angela’s disappearance. He is now a Captain of the Staff Services Department but remains involved in the case.

During the investigation, Ellie told investigators that her mother was “very protective” of her. When she turned 19 and decided to attend the University of Kansas (KU), Angela was not happy.

“She was nervous… so much so that she didn’t want to leave,” Captain Taylor said.

“Angela had a lot of trouble with Ellie’s growing independence,” Michelle agreed.

The problem came to a head when Ellie went on a study abroad trip in the spring of 2019 without telling her mother. She knew Angela would be upset, but when she returned, they got into an argument about it and Angela kicked her out.

This argument took place on June 20, 2019, and when Ellie went to see her boyfriend and his family, it was the last time she saw her mother.

What happened?

For almost every major plot point surrounding Angela’s disappearance, there is another version of the story. Few things are certain.

On June 20, 2019, Ellie got into an argument with her mother and was kicked out.

The next day, her father told her that he had placed Angela in a psychiatric hospital against her will.

According to Michelle, Geoff said he tricked Angela into committing the crime by taking her to a grocery store parking lot where she was picked up by the “mental health people,” which was easier than “trying to drag her out of the house.”

Ellie wanted to visit her mother, but Geoff wouldn’t allow her. He said Angela had become “physical” with him and wouldn’t tell her what facility she was supposedly in.

A month passed while Geoff kept the news of Angela’s engagement secret from the rest of the family.

Then, on July 19, 2019, Geoff told Ellie that her mother had died.

“He just told Ellie that her mother died of a stroke at the facility and that the staff found her dead that morning. And just like he had told Ellie before, he said she had to keep this secret from my family,” Captain Taylor said.

According to Michelle, Ellie resisted, but Geoff told her, “He needed time to process things and he would tell my family when he was ready.” And for seven months she did as her father asked, “but after a few months, Ellie just couldn’t carry this heavy secret around with her anymore.”

In February 2020, Ellie called Michelle’s mother to tell her the news Geoff had given her seven months earlier – that Angela had died.

“My mother was in complete shock,” Michelle said. But she was not only shocked, she was also suspicious.

Michelle’s mother called Prairie Village police and asked them to check on Angela. When police arrived at the Green family home at 7620 Tomahawk, Geoff’s story changed – he told them he didn’t know where she was or how to reach her.

“The officers tried to clarify: ‘Why does the family say she’s dead?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. That’s weird,'” Captain Taylor said.

The next day, the officers came again and Angela was still not there. This time, Geoff told them: “Sometimes she goes off on her own and doesn’t come back for several days.”

Soon Geoff stopped talking altogether.

“Before we could introduce ourselves or even say hello, he had on a flannel shirt and a bag, pulled out a card, handed it to us and said, ‘You can contact my lawyer. I’m not saying anything,'” Captain Taylor recalled.

It was around this time that he met Ellie and he remembers seeing her for the first time in a police interview room. She was 19.

“You could see that she missed her mother, and for eight months it felt like she was alone. And that’s hard to see,” he said.

As the investigation progressed, officers spoke to various family members to gather their accounts of what happened, and the story became increasingly fragmented.

“Through further interviews with different people, we get different versions of what they are being told because we have contacted and interviewed many family members,” said Captain Taylor.

Angela actually seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

The investigation

A major complication of the investigation is the lack of any paper trail. Angela’s phone, keys and ID were left at home. There is no record of her being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital and no death certificate. There is no evidence that she left the country.

“We have no evidence that she is alive, nor do we have any evidence that she is dead,” Captain Taylor said.

With the assistance of the FBI, the search began at the Green family home in Tomahawk.

“We had cadaver dogs at the Tomahawk address and on site. Unfortunately, they were unable to produce any results,” said Captain Taylor.

“The site” was a 35-acre property where Geoff stored collector cars and parts. Captain Taylor said his team had “over 125 officers out there, including police academy recruits. We spent the entire day searching it on a grid and combing the entire site.”

There was a pond on the property. The Overland Park police sent their dive team there. They also came away empty-handed.

Further complicating matters was that during the first few months that Angela was missing, the new Johnson County Courthouse was being built. Dirt from the construction site was brought to Geoff’s property. “There was like 30 feet of dirt piled up from the ground. So it could have been all sorts of places in those eight months that someone could have been there,” Captain Taylor explained.

What happens next?

Every year, Angela’s missing person poster is recirculated in the hope that someone will come forward. Captain Taylor believes that someone in Angela’s family has answers that they may not be sharing out of fear or loyalty.

“I think someone in the family knows something and for some reason they are afraid to share it. If these years go by and nothing happens, it must be eating away at someone else too,” he said.

Prairie Village Police have continued to contact Geoff in hopes of obtaining additional information.

“We’ve reached out to his attorney a couple of times. They’ve decided not to comment,” Captain Taylor said. “He’s let us talk, and he sits there and listens, and then after a while we talk as much as we can to make him understand that we’re not going to stop this investigation. We’re going to continue the investigation, we’re going to gather as much evidence as we can. [as] we can. And then he says, “Okay, have a nice day.” And then he turns around and walks away.”

Michelle was open. She said her goal was not to find her aunt alive, but to find answers.

“I don’t believe my aunt is alive. Nobody believes that,” she said. “We don’t believe she is alive, so we are trying to find her remains.”

Captain Taylor’s goal is similar: to bring Angela Green’s story to an end, one way or another.

“Our ultimate goal is to find Angela and either bring her home safely or provide closure for Ellie and the rest of the family.”

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