KC Unsolved: Five years since Prairie Village mom Angela Green disappeared without a trace

PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. (KCTV) - Angela Green was a quiet woman, keeping to herself and rarely leaving her home. But the trail she left behind after her 2019 disappearance has somehow been even quieter.

Conflicting information from her husband, Geoff, led the couple’s daughter Ellie to keep the news of her supposed death secret for months. The story only began to unravel after Ellie, who was 19 at the time, confided in her family that something felt wrong.

In the years since, Angela’s case has received widespread media attention and is under active investigation. Her niece, Michelle, says she doesn’t want to 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.

She was born in China and maintained a long-distance relationship through phone calls and letters with her future husband, Geoff Green. In the late 1990s, she moved to the United States on a Fiancé Visa and lived with her older sister’s family, the Guos, before the wedding.

During that time, Angela’s niece Michelle Guo “gravitated towards her.” Angela was known to be a shy person, but Michelle, who was seven at the time, shared a special connection with her.

“My aunt and I had a really special bond when we were younger,” Michelle said in an interview with KCTV5. “We would do crafts together and she also helped to watch me when my parents were at work. The first couple of months when she was living with my family, we were so close, and everything just seemed so great and happy.”

After Angela married Geoff, Michelle said she became more isolated than before. Then, when the couple’s only child was born—Ellie Green—the isolation deepened. Aside from gardening or driving Ellie to and from school, Angela rarely left home.

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

Captain Taylor was a detective sergeant for the Prairie Village Police Department at the time of Angela’s disappearance. He has since become the Staff Services Department Captain but stays involved in the case.

During the investigation, Ellie told detectives that her mom was “very protective” of her. When she turned 19 and committed to attending college at the University of Kansas (KU), Angela was not happy.

“She was nervous... to the point that she didn’t want her to leave,” Captain Taylor said.

“Angela had been struggling a lot 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 mom. She knew Angela would be upset, but when she returned, they got into an argument over it and Angela kicked her out.

That fight was on June 20, 2019, and as Ellie left to stay with her boyfriend and his family, it would be the last time she saw her mother.

What Happened?

For nearly every major plot point in Angela’s disappearance, there’s a different version of the story. Only a few things are certain.

On June 20, 2019, Ellie fought with her mother and was kicked out.

Three days later, her father told her that he had checked Angela into a mental health facility against her will.

According to Michelle, Geoff said he tricked Angela into being committed by taking her to a grocery store parking lot where she was taken away by the “mental health people,” which was easier than “trying to pry her out of the house.”

Ellie asked to visit her mom, but Geoff wouldn’t allow it. He said Angela had gotten “physical” with him and would not tell her the specific facility she was supposedly in.

Several weeks passed like this, with the news of Angela’s commitment kept a secret from the rest of the family at Geoff’s request.

Then, in mid-July 2019, Geoff informed Ellie that her mother had died.

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

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

In February 2020, Ellie called Michelle’s mom to give her the news Geoff had given her seven months prior—that Angela had died.

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

Michelle’s mom called her, asking her to connect with Ellie and help figure out what had happened to Angela. After Michelle heard Ellie’s story, she called the Prairie Village police and asked them to check on Angela.

When police arrived at the Green family’s home on 7620 Tomahawk, Geoff’s story changed—he told them he didn’t know where she was or how to reach her.

“Officers kind of were trying to clarify, ‘Well, why would the family say that she’s dead?’ And he says, ‘I don’t know. That’s weird,’” Captain Taylor said.

The officers returned the next day, and there was still no Angela. This time, Geoff told them “there are times that she leaves on her own at times and doesn’t come back for several days.”

Soon, Geoff stopped talking at all.

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

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

“You could see that she’s missing her mom and for eight months it felt like she was by herself. And that’s hard to see,” he said.

As the investigation unfolded and officers talked to different family members to gather their accounts of what had happened, the story only fragmented further.

“Throughout other interviews from different people, we’re getting different versions of what they are being told as well because we’ve reached out and interviewed a lot of family members,” Captain Taylor said.

Angela truly seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

The Investigation

A major complication in the investigation is the lack of a paper trail. Angela’s phone, keys and ID were left at home. There are no records of her being forcibly committed to a mental health facility and no death certificate. There is no evidence that she had left the country.

“We don’t have any indication that she is alive, and we don’t have any indications that she’s dead either,” Captain Taylor said.

With assistance from the FBI, the search started at the Green family home on Tomahawk.

“We had cadaver dogs at the Tomahawk address and at the site with us. They did not yield any results for us, unfortunately,” Captain Taylor said.

“The site” was a 35-acre lot that Geoff used to store collectible cars and parts. Captain Taylor said his team had “Over 125 officers out there, including recruits from the police academy. We spent the whole day of searching it by grid, combing the entire lot.”

There was a pond on the lot, so the Overland Park Police Department brought its dive team out. They too came up empty-handed.

Another complication was that during the first months that Angela was missing, the new Johnson County Courthouse was being built. The dirt from the construction site was brought to the lot Geoff was renting, “And so there was like, 30 feet of dirt that was compounded from the ground up. So there was, there could be all sorts of different places during that, during that eight months time that somebody could have been out there,” Captain Taylor explained.

What’s next?

Every year, Angela’s missing poster is recirculated in hopes someone will come forward. Captain Taylor thinks someone in Angela’s family has answers they may be scared or too loyal to share.

“I think someone in the family knows something, and for some reason, they’re scared to share it. As these years pass and nothing’s happening, that has to be eating somebody else up as well,” he said.

The Prairie Village Police Department has continued to reach out to Geoff in hopes of gathering more information.

“We have reached out to his lawyer a couple times. They have decided to not have a comment,” Captain Taylor said. “He has let us talk, and he’ll sit there and listen, and then after a while, we’ll talk as much as we can to get him to kind of understand that we are not going to stop this investigation. We’re continuing with the investigation, we’re going to gather as much evidence [as] we can. And then he, he’ll say, ‘Okay, have a good day.’ And then he’ll turn around and walk away.”

Michelle was frank. She said her efforts aren’t focused on finding her aunt alive but on finding answers.

“I don’t believe my aunt is still alive. No one does,” she said. “We don’t believe she’s still alive, so we’re trying to find her remains.”

Captain Taylor’s focus is similar—put Angela Green’s story to rest, one way or another.

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

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