On Black Friday 2016, 22-year-old Christopher Cole Thomas vanished during a drug deal in rural North Carolina, his story told by two coworkers whose accounts kept changing. Surveillance footage proved Cole didn't run off alone—he was followed by Jeremy Carpenter—and phone data placed the group at a meth transaction with dealers before Cole disappeared. Despite four arrests and a private investigator's theory involving a possible double-cross and missing drugs, no one has been charged with his disappearance and his body remains unfound. Constantly evolving witness statements and shifting stories are often signs of deliberate deception rather than confused recollection, indicating people are actively hiding what they know.