Berea, Kentucky. Brookelyn Farthing was just 18-years-old when she completely disappeared under very bizarre circumstances.
Her friends and family called her Brooke, and she loved to spend her free time baking. This ended up being almost every single night that she created some delicious treats for her family.
She was an outdoorsy country girl from Berea, Kentucky, and she loved wearing cowboy boots. She lived with her older sister Tasha, her younger sister Paige, her mom Shelby and her step-dad Randall.
Tasha said about Brooke, “My sister Brooke was a spunky, tell you how it is, loveable person. She loved animals and the outdoors.”
“But she was a true girly girl, who loved pink and camouflage. She would do anything to help anyone.”
MySpace; Brooke smiles in the photo above
“She had the sweetest deep long country-sounding voice you can only find in Kentucky. Not a day goes by I don’t wonder about her.”
Even though she was pretty young, Brooke had been previously engaged to a guy named Jared. She broke things off with him not long before she went missing.
Despite that, Brooke and her ex still had a good relationship.
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Brooke had just graduated from high school, and she was really looking forward to taking the summer months to have some fun and hang out with her friends before going to college that fall.
Unfortunately, Brooke never made it to college. She went to a party that ended up altering the course of her life entirely.
MySpace; Brooke holds up a peace sign, above
June 21st, 2013. A Friday. Things started out pretty typical that day for Brooke.
She and her sister Paige both went to take their tests to get their driver’s licenses.
Brooke passed with flying colors, but Paige didn’t.
The two decided they were going to go out to a party with their cousin that night, but before they went, they stopped by their grandpa’s 70th birthday party.
As Brooke celebrated her grandpa’s life along with her family members, there was no reason for any of them to suspect that was the last time they would ever see or hear from Brooke.
Twitter; Brooke poses with one of her birthday cakes, above
Straight after the festivities, Brooke, Paige, and one of their cousins headed to the party they had already made plans to go to. It was at a house on Red Lick Road.
Brooke had brought along everything she needed to sleep over at her best friend’s house after the party.
Not long after arriving there, Paige and their cousin wanted to leave the party, but Brooke decided to stay anyway. They left sometime before 8 p.m.
Brooke was comfortable being there alone because she knew basically everyone there already. As the party started to wind down, Brooke got into a heated argument with her best friend.
Brooke was supposed to be staying with her that night, but she had decided she wanted to go sleep at a boy’s house instead of having Brooke over.
At around 2 in the morning, Brooke felt comfortable enough leaving that party with two guys that she knew.
This is where things really start to get weird and go wrong.
Facebook; Brooke snaps a picture in a mirror, above
Brooke and the two guys drove from the party to go see some horses at a farm, and then one of the guys got dropped off because he had too much to drink to get himself home.
Brooke was then alone with the other man, whose name is Josh, who took her back to his house located on Dillon Court, which was not far off of Highway 421.
Oddly enough, his house had no electricity, and it had no water because it was in foreclosure.
MySpace; Brooke smiles while wearing a camouflage hat, above
Brooke got to this man’s house at approximately 4 in the morning, and she was not there long at all before she called her younger sister Paige and asked if there was any way she and her cousin could come get her from this man’s house.
Their cousin had a few drinks that night and didn’t want to be behind the wheel, which is completely understandable, so Paige said they couldn’t come to get her.
Brooke then told Paige it was no problem, she was going to text her ex Jared to see if he was able to drive out and pick her up from the house.
Paige would later say that Brooke seemed completely alright. She was her normal self when she made that phone call. She didn’t appear to sound like she was intoxicated or that anything was wrong. She didn’t want to wake up her mom, who was sleeping at the time, and she was happy to wait for another ride.
When Brooke asked Jared to pick her up, he said he would be done with his shift at the factory where he worked pretty soon, and he could be there around 6 a.m.
But then, Brooke started sending a ton of texts from her cellphone, saying she was scared and afraid
MySpace; Brooke wears cowboy boots and poses in the photo above
Some of the texts Brooke sent went to Jared, who later explained she was saying things to him like, “Please hurry,” “Can you hurry” and “I’m scared.”
Jared told her he was going to come to get her just as soon as his shift finished up.
Brooke clearly no longer wanted to be in that house and something had to have happened to her after she hung up with Paige.
MySpace; Brooke smiles in the photo above
Jared was not the only person Brooke texted around 4 in the morning. She started calling and texting multiple friends of hers, seeing if anyone could come to get her.
About an hour and a half later, when 5:30 came, Brooke sent another text to Jared. This time, she told him she was ok, and she was going to go to a party.
“Never mind, I’m okay. I’m going to a party in Rockcastle County,” she texted Jared.
Jared questioned who she was going with, and Brooke never replied back to that text from him.
Later that day, Brooke was supposed to be in Somerset, Kentucky to go to a car show with some of her friends.
She never showed up. Her friends immediately reached out to Paige, asking where she was, and Paige had no idea either.
Brooke’s family had to wait until 24 hours had passed before they could report Brooke as missing. In the meantime, they called her. They texted her.
They tried to figure out where she was.
Paige was able to hunt up the phone number of Josh, the guy whose house Brooke was last at.
Tasha gave him a call and asked him how he even knew Brooke because none of her family members had ever heard her talk about him as one of her friends.
Facebook; pictured above is a t-shirt made to help raise awareness about Brooke
Josh said he was friends with or related to Brooke’s ex, Jared. He also said he left Brooke at his house all by herself because he had to go take care of his family’s horses.
He told Tasha that Brooke was smoking a cigarette and talking about heading to a party in Rockcastle County when he left her there, and he didn’t feel comfortable being around her because she was Jared’s ex.
With no electricity. In the early hours of the morning, before the sun had even come up.
Josh then said he came back at around 7 in the morning after he was done with the horses. And when he arrived, his house was going up in flames.
His home ended up having smoke damage to the interior, but what’s interesting is that the source of the fire was this couch he had…
…That he claims Brooke had been sitting on while smoking her cigarette.
Tasha says that after her first phone call with Josh, he called her back a second time to say he found Brooke’s things still at his home, like her purse and her cowboy boots which she had on that night.
When her family got to see what she had left behind, the only things that they confirmed were missing were her cellphone and the clothes she had on when she went to the party.
A massive search was conducted to find Brooke. Cadaver dogs were even brought out to help, but no clues were ever discovered.
Facebook; Brooke makes a face in the photo above
It’s also worth noting the area where she went missing from is very hard to search through. The terrain is treacherous, full of wooded areas, steep cliffs, and deadly copperhead snakes.
Brooke’s family maintains it’s incredibly suspicious that the very couch Brooke was supposedly on got burned right down to the frame, and they suspect there had to have been something, some kind of evidence on there that Josh didn’t want anyone to find.
Police have not commented about what the actual cause of the fire at Josh’s house was, citing that Brooke’s case is still an active investigation.
Authorities and Brooke’s family have looked into the alleged party she was going to in Rockcastle County that she had told Jared about, but they couldn’t find any evidence of one that she had gone to.
It’s very unsettling that Brooke was clearly concerned for her own safety, and then sent the text about a party saying she was then fine.
Authorities think the text had to be sent from someone other than Brooke, and they think she was abducted.
A few days after Brooke disappeared, her cellphone finally stopped being active, and it was located a few miles within where she was last seen.
MySpace; pictured above is Brooke
“My sister had no reason to run away. She made arrangements to get a ride home and had plans to spend the day on Saturday with a friend,” Tasha explained on the website she dedicated to Brooke.
“Since Brooke’s disappearance, the community we call home has shown us nothing short of amazing support.”
“We have hung flyers, pleaded to the public, and held numerous fundraisers.”
“The Kentucky State Police in Richmond along with the assistance of others have searched thousands of acres and followed up on numerous leads.”
Police have yet to name anyone as a potential suspect or person of interest in Brooke’s disappearance.
Her family is still clinging to hope that even though it’s been 8 long years since Brooke was last seen, someone out there has to know something, and perhaps they will step forward.
There is currently a $14,000 reward being offered to anyone who can provide information on where she is.
If you know anything about what happened to Brooke or where she might be, please call the Kentucky State Police at (859) 623-2404.
Facebook; pictured above is a missing flyer for Brooke
