Debbie Schaffer’s disappearance transforms a night of family upheaval and unexplained danger into an unresolved missing-person case. After reporting that her dog Billie is missing and that someone tried to pull her under in the unlit pool, Debbie finds photographs exposing her father Terry’s relationship with Bret. She says she will spend the night with Susan, but never arrives; the next morning her car is gone and blood has been found at the house. The events leave the adults with alarming clues but no account of where Debbie went or what happened to her.

The Night at the Schaffer Residence

Debbie was at the family home in Stone Canyon on a Thursday night after spending the evening alone in her bedroom. Earlier, Susan had called her in distress about her confrontation with Thom. Debbie sounded high and slightly drunk, said she did not want to talk, and ended the call. Later, she contacted Bel Air Security to report that Billie was missing. A patrolman came to the house, took down the dog’s description, and advised Debbie to get some sleep. She resented his response and sent him away.

Twenty minutes later, Debbie called again. She said that she had gone swimming despite the pool lights being out and that someone grabbed her foot and tried to pull her under. The lights were later found to have had their wires cut. The security guard doubted her account, but the patrolman returned and found Debbie wet and shivering in the driveway, wearing a bikini and a towel. She maintained that someone had seized her in the dark pool and said that the phone in her room had repeatedly rung, with the caller hanging up. Police officers also arrived and searched the property. Debbie’s mother Liz and Maria, who were both asleep, later said they had heard nothing.

The Photographs and Debbie’s Last Known Plan

Debbie then called Susan and said she was coming over to spend the night. Susan agreed and waited, but Debbie did not reach North Canon Drive. Before leaving the house, Debbie had noticed a manila envelope Liz had left beside the front door. It contained explicit photographs of Terry and Bret together in a Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow. The images made the relationship impossible to deny.

At 10:15, Debbie called Bret while police and a Bel Air Security patrolman were still present. She was distraught and confronted him about being involved with her father. She said she had known about Matt and had thought Bret was experimenting, but that Terry was her father; she also lashed out at Liz and her parents’ marriage. After the call, she collapsed and sobbed among the photographs. A few minutes later, she told the officers they could leave, assuring them she would not drive and was going to bed. They reluctantly departed after checking the first floor.

The Search and the Unanswered Clues

The officers found a trail of blood near the pool. It crossed the surrounding concrete and continued over the lawn before fading. They interpreted it as evidence that a coyote had attacked and dragged away the family dog, and planned to tell Debbie later. The suspected loss of Billie therefore became part of the same night’s uncertainty: the animal was missing, blood marked the property, and Debbie had also reported an attack in the darkened pool.

By the next morning, Debbie’s BMW was gone, with blood droplets scattered across the driveway. She had not arrived at Susan’s, the empty house on Mulholland, or Buckley. Steven, calling from LAX after a flight from New York, left Bret a message saying that Terry and Liz were asking people close to Debbie whether she had spent the night with them; the family was worried because of the blood at the pool and driveway. At school, Susan told Bret that Debbie had sounded disturbed the previous night and that Liz was considering a missing-person report. Susan’s recollection confirmed the distress of their call but did not establish where Debbie had gone.

Public Rumor and Narrative Significance

By the time the senior class gathered in the courtyard, word had spread both that Spirit had been killed and that Debbie was missing. Liz questioned students through the school administration, while classmates traded rumors about Debbie’s drug use, relationships, instability, and whether she had learned something about her father. These fragments offered competing explanations rather than reliable answers. Debbie’s absence quickly became a subject for school gossip even as those who knew her had no confirmed account of her whereabouts.

The episode places intimate exposure beside evidence of possible violence. The photographs explain why Debbie confronted Bret and help account for the emotional rupture at the house; they do not explain her disappearance. Nor do the missing dog, the blood trail, the disabled pool lights, and Debbie’s report of an unseen attacker resolve into a confirmed sequence of events. In the wider pattern of the Trawler’s attacks, pets had disappeared before assaults, and animals were later found mutilated, making the night’s animal-related clues ominous in retrospect. Yet the evidence presented here leaves the immediate fate of Debbie and Billie uncertain, while showing how quickly a private crisis becomes a public story assembled from fear, inference, and rumor.