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in: Ohio, 1994, Disappearances,
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Charlotte Pollis

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Charlotte pollis1

Charlotte Pollis

Real Name: Charlotte Nagi Pollis
Nicknames: Char
Location: Girard, Ohio
Date: March 12, 1994

Bio[]

Occupation: Unrevealed
Date of Birth: July 4, 1965
Height: 5'2"-5'7"
Weight: 260-300 lbs.
Marital Status: Married
Characteristics: White female with long, dark black/brown hair and brown eyes. She has an olive complexion. Her ears are pierced. She was taking medication at the time of her disappearance for an ear infection. Her medicine was left behind. She was last seen wearing pajamas or nightclothes.

Case[]

Details: Twenty-eight-year-old Charlotte Pollis and her twenty-seven-year-old husband, Paul, lived in Girard, Ohio, with their two young children, Layla and Aden. She grew up in a large, close family, and was the oldest of six children. Her family described her as a loving, caring person who loved to bake and do crafts. On Saturday, March 12, 1994, she vanished from her house. At first, Paul seemed to be the typical concerned husband, searching for his missing wife. But her family is now convinced that he knows exactly what happened to her.
Charlotte’s mother, Charlotte Nagi, thinks that Paul got in a fit of rage over something. She thinks he got angry and struck Charlotte. She thinks he could not stop himself. She thinks Paul killed Charlotte. Paul says that Charlotte’s family can point the finger at him all they want; he maintains that he did not do anything wrong. He says he cannot change what other people think about him.
There are only two possibilities. One is that Paul is totally innocent, a bereaved husband wrongly accused. The other is that he has gotten away with murder. The police cannot say. There is not even enough evidence to prove a crime was committed. Until solid leads develop, Paul will very likely remain locked in an ugly dispute with Charlotte’s family over just what happened back in March 1994.
About the only thing everyone agrees on is that Charlotte was sick on Friday, March 11, the day before she vanished. She was dizzy and in pain. That night, Paul’s parents looked after the couple’s two children while he took her to the emergency room at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. She was diagnosed with an acute ear infection, given some medicine, and sent home. She was also given a prescription to be filled.
After Charlotte and Paul returned home and his parents left, she phoned her mother. It would be the final moment that she was indisputably alive. According to her mother, she said, “I’ll talk to you in the morning.” The two ended their conversation at 1:25am and Charlotte went to bed. That was the last time her mother ever spoke to her.
Charlotte’s mother says she and Charlotte usually talked on the phone between ten and fourteen times a day. At 8:50am on Saturday, March 12, she called the Pollis house to check on Charlotte. Paul answered the phone. He said that Charlotte was doing a little bit better but was still in bed. Her mother was surprised that she was still sleeping and asked if she was okay. He said that the doctors told them that the best thing for her was to get some rest. Her mother asked him to have Charlotte call her whenever she got up. However, that call never came.
Paul says the last time he saw Charlotte was shortly after the phone call with her mother. He checked on her while she was still in bed. She was awake by that point. He told her that he was going to take the children with him to do some errands. He told her to stay in bed and relax, and that he would pick up her medication. According to him, he buckled the children into their car seats and headed off around 11am. They made stops at the pharmacy, the laundromat, and the scrapyard. Then, they got burgers at a fast-food restaurant. And finally, they spent a couple of hours looking at houses for sale.
However, Paul’s account of that day is disputed by several people. For example, Charlotte’s mother claims that she called the house several times when Paul, by his own account, should still have been there. She says she called at 10, 10:10, and 10:20am. She kept calling and calling. She thought something was not right. No one answered the phone, and the answering machine did not pick up. She wondered where Charlotte was, and why no one was answering. Charlotte’s aunt also went to the house that day to check on her. She knocked on the door, but no one answered.
One of Paul’s neighbors, Nancy Hubbard, contradicted his claim that he simply put the children in the car and left. She says that at 11:10am, she pulled out of her driveway. As she backed out, she looked over at Paul’s house and noticed that he had his car backed up to the porch. The trunk and all four doors were open. It was completely packed with boxes and bags. There was no sign of the children. And there was no way they could be in the car. She says there was no possible way that car seats could fit in the car as packed as it was. As she drove by, he looked at her with a very strange, eerie look.
Captain Ronald Vince of the Girard Police Department says that Paul indicated that he had the children with him all afternoon. Captain Vince has talked to people who reportedly came in contact with Paul that day; no one saw the children with him, and some claimed to have not seen him at all. It was discovered that the scrapyard he allegedly went to was closed that day. Paul maintains that his account of that afternoon is true and that the children were with him the whole time. He says he does not abandon his children and would not leave them in the house or car unattended.
Paul says that when he returned home at around 4pm, Charlotte was not there. At that time, he had no concerns for her safety. He did not think anything was wrong. He figured that she was feeling better and had gone out (despite the fact that the couple only had one vehicle, which he was using). After returning home, he put the children to bed so that they could finish their nap. He then watched TV and finished cleaning the house.
At about 7:30pm, Paul noticed Charlotte’s purse up on the cabinets. He says she never went anywhere without it. He could not believe she would have left without it. So, he started calling around to see if she had gone out with anybody. Charlotte’s brother, Ali Nagi, thought Paul sounded odd and thought he was under the influence of something. He also thought it was strange that Paul was so concerned when she was only missing for a few hours.
After Charlotte’s family learned that she was missing, they rushed to the house. Paul’s parents were already there. It appeared that she had left wearing only her nightclothes, as her winter coats were left behind. Her jewelry, shoes, money, medicine, and identification were left behind as well. It appeared that she had taken no belongings with her.
After talking to Paul, Charlotte’s sister, Amriah Nagi, decided to take a look outside. She noticed two sets of footprints in the snow: one of dress shoes and one of boots. They stretched from a side door towards a small shed and then back around the house. She noticed that the shed doors were bulging out of the shed. There was a regular padlock on it. She says it kind of bothered her the way the shed was, because the doors were not flush against it.
Amriah went into the house and asked Paul for the keys to the shed. According to Charlotte’s mother, he got very angry. He said, “the shed has nothing to do with Charlotte, and I’m not giving you the keys.” According to her mother, Amriah repeatedly asked him for the keys, and he got angrier and angrier. Paul says that the shed just has garden tools and a lawnmower in it. He claims the key to it was on Charlotte’s key ring. He says he would have given them the key if he had it. He does not remember refusing to give them a key or getting angry about it.
At around 11pm, at the request of Charlotte’s family, Paul reported her missing to the police. By the next morning, his parents were staying at the house, and the air was thick with suspicion. Charlotte’s brother, Omar Nagi, says that when he arrived there, he saw that the shed doors were closed normally. He cut off the lock and looked inside. He noticed that all of the items had been shoved to one side.
According to Omar, when he came inside the house, he noticed that there was an “extreme” amount of cleaning going on. He says that Paul and his parents were cleaning everything from the attic to the basement. They were washing the walls. Paul did the laundry and scrubbed the kitchen. Omar says it is not characteristic for Paul to do that much cleaning. Charlotte’s mother wonders what Paul’s parents were cleaning and why they were doing it.
Ali claims that Paul’s father, the county’s deputy coroner at the time, also seemed to be telling Paul “what to say and what not to say.” Paul’s mother, Jane, says that the only floor she scrubbed was the kitchen floor. She says she did that because the baby had dropped his food there. Paul says there was nothing wrong with him and his parents cleaning. He says he likes to “live in a clean house.”
Captain Vince says the Ohio State Bureau of Criminal Investigation came in to examine the house. They sprayed it with luminol and looked for any signs that a crime of violence had been committed there. They said the house was “spotless.” It was cleaned from top to bottom. Captain Vince says it is very unusual that a house is cleaned this way. It was reported that Paul’s father was there during the search, telling them where they could and could not spray the luminol.
Ali claims he saw a blood-spattered blanket and two bloodstained pillows in the house, but these items were not recovered. An employee at the laundromat that Paul visited also reported that he had washed a comforter with a large “dark red” stain on it. He also told the employee not to let anyone near the washing machine he was using. Some blood was reportedly found in the hallway of the house, but Jane claimed it was menstrual blood, so it was not tested.
Investigators did find a stain of human blood in the trunk of Paul and Charlotte’s car. The sample was too small to allow positive identification via DNA or blood type. But it was quite enough to fuel speculation that her body had been there (unfortunately, the sample was later accidentally destroyed). Paul’s attorney, John Leopardi, notes that Paul weighs 150 pounds and Charlotte weighs approximately 300 pounds. Paul would have been required to transport a body that was twice his weight and take it out into the open and put it in the car trunk. To Leopardi, it does not seem possible at all.
For Charlotte’s family, however, the pair of footprints in the snow hinted at an explanation: Paul had help. Amriah looked at his shoes and noticed that they matched the footprints in the snow. The other footprints were fairly large; she believes they were his father’s. Charlotte’s mother believes that either his parents were brought in after the fact to help him or they were there at the time it happened. Neighbors reported seeing his parents’ car parked in front of the house since the night before Charlotte disappeared.
Jane says the allegations are “positively ludicrous.” She says she and her family have lived in the area for forty years and are “not that type of people.” She cannot imagine why Charlotte’s family would think that about them. Paul believes it gives her family an outlet to vent their anger. He says he can only explain himself and his actions. He says he has been very straightforward in explaining where he was and what he did that day.
Paul even agreed to take a polygraph test. He made an appointment for Tuesday, March 15, three days after Charlotte disappeared. But he did not show up. He was not at home either. He had left a note on the bureau, which read, in part: I love my wife and would never do anything to harm her intentionally. He stayed out of sight for three months. Then, he resurfaced with an explanation. He says he had a lot of mental anguish that he was going through at the time, and he wanted some time alone. He says people were driving in front of the house nonstop; they were not coming to comfort him, just “to look.”
Police arrested Paul for obstructing their investigation. The charges were later dismissed, however, after a judge ruled that he had a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. The judge also said Paul had cooperated by speaking with them and initially allowing a search of his house. For years, he has proclaimed his innocence. But according to Charlotte’s family, there is at least one eyewitness to the alleged crime: the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Layla. Since Charlotte vanished, Layla has lived with Charlotte’s parents. They claim she has volunteered several disturbing comments, some of which they recorded. Charlotte’s mother feels that Layla witnessed the violence and that it is locked into her memory.
Charlotte’s mother says that they had to get rid of all the dark trash bags in their house and get light colored trash bags. Layla was reportedly paranoid of dark trash bags. She screamed and cried because “mommy was put in a dark trash bag” and “grandpa helped daddy hurt mommy and put her in trash bags.” Leopardi thinks Layla is being coached and the tapes are being made with the coached information that is being given to her. He says that is very detrimental to her, and that they are “destroying” her.
Paul maintains that he did not kill Charlotte and does not know where she is. He says he did not have anything to do with her disappearance, nor did his family have anything to do with it as far as he knows.
Charlotte’s family says she had been acting as if she felt troubled just before she disappeared. Ali believes she may have been poisoned in the weeks leading up to it. According to him, Paul was having her drink milk before bedtime. She began to feel ill and tired after drinking it. She planned to see a doctor about it but vanished a week before her appointment. Also, a few weeks before she vanished, she asked Ali to take care of her children if anything ever happened to her. He asked her if Paul was abusing her; she said no, and that everything was fine. There is no known history of violence in their marriage.
Charlotte’s family, however, remains convinced that Paul was responsible. They note that he seemed to be the “controlling” type. He reportedly had several affairs during their marriage. They claim to have found divorce papers drawn up by Charlotte in a bedside table drawer. They also claim that he held a yard sale shortly after her disappearance and sold all of her belongings. Furthermore, they claim that a few weeks after she vanished, a concrete floor was dug up in Paul’s parents’ garage. Paul’s family refused to say what they were doing with it, and it was later filled in.
Charlotte’s family also claims that there have been issues with the police investigation into her disappearance. After she disappeared, Paul reportedly had scratches from his elbows to his wrist. He initially claimed he got them from installing a hot water tank, but Ali says there was no recent installation of one at the house. He then claimed he got them while installing drywall. Ali says that is not true either, because he was with Paul when the drywall was installed. Police took photos of the scratches on Paul, but the photos have since disappeared.
About a month after Charlotte’s disappearance, Ali says he went to the house and noticed what appeared to be blood spatter on several items in several different rooms. He claims he took photos of the spatter and gave copies of them to the police. When the copies disappeared, he agreed to give them the originals. The originals later disappeared as well.
Charlotte’s family and police searched much of the surrounding area for her. However, no trace of her has ever been found. They do not believe she would have left her children and gone this long without contacting anyone.

PaulPollis

Paul Pollis

Suspects: Paul is considered a suspect in Charlotte's disappearance. Although there was no evidence of abuse in their relationship, her family felt he was a "controlling" type. A few weeks before she vanished, she asked Ali to take care of her children if anything ever happened to her. Paul's account of the day of her disappearance is contradicted by several witnesses. His and his family's actions have also been considered suspicious. According to her family, he did not want them looking in a shed on the property which seemed to contain something large and had footprints around it. The footprints seemed to match Paul and his father's shoes. The day after her disappearance, he and his family did an "extreme" amount of cleaning in the house.
A few days after Charlotte disappeared, Paul was supposed to take a polygraph. He did not show up; a note was left behind, in which he said he would never hurt her "intentionally." A few months later, he returned to the area. Statements from their young daughter seem to indicate that Charlotte was put in a trash bag by Paul. According to her family, sometime after her disappearance, he had a garage sale and sold all of her belongings. Ali also noticed scratches on his arms. Her family learned that Paul had had several affairs while married. They also found divorce papers in her bedside table.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the April 19, 1996 episode.
  • Since Charlotte Pollis and her mother, Charlotte Nagi, share the same name, to avoid confusion, Charlotte Nagi is referred to here as “Charlotte’s mother”.
  • Ali contacted his congressman, Jim Traficant, for help in publicizing Charlotte’s case. Jim wrote a letter to the show, which led to the case being profiled.
  • Some sources say Charlotte’s mother called at 8:30am on Saturday.

Results: Unsolved - According to the police, Paul remains the only suspect in Charlotte's disappearance. They have said they believe they know who is responsible, but they have never been able to gather enough evidence to prove it. In January 1998, Charlotte’s mother abducted Layla, apparently in order to keep her away from Paul, as he was trying to seek custody of her. Several years later, the two were found safe. However, Charlotte has never been found.
One night in February 2005, Ali received an anonymous phone call; the caller told him to check the dumpster near the Trumbull County Police Department. He and a friend went there and discovered several police files, including Charlotte’s, in the trash. He then contacted the FBI about the find. He was later told that a janitor for the police department had “accidentally” thrown them away. When the police threatened to jail Ali for theft, he agreed to return the files to them.
Paul later remarried and moved to Howland, Ohio. In the years since Charlotte's disappearance, he has been in trouble with the law several times. In May 2005, he showed up unannounced at Howland Police Chief Paul Monroe’s house, gave Chief Monroe a false name, and asked whether he knew where Charlotte was. Chief Monroe asked him to step out of the car, but he refused and drove away. Chief Monroe called Howland officers. They arrested Paul and found a handgun between the driver’s seat and the console.
In August 2005, Paul was arrested for domestic violence against his second wife, Debra. He allegedly slammed a door on her, pushed her to the floor, and threatened to beat her. He was sentenced to five years’ probation for carrying a concealed weapon in the previous case. It is not known if he was convicted in the domestic violence one.
In 2006, Paul and Debra were charged with money laundering. They reportedly embezzled $1.6 million from a dialysis clinic where she worked. The charges against him were reduced in exchange for his cooperation. Debra, meanwhile, was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. In November, he pleaded guilty to probation violation after he tested positive for cocaine.
In March 2007, Paul was convicted on the charge of failing to obey a police officer. He did not appear at his sentencing, allegedly because he had switched attorneys and was not notified of the hearing. He was later located and taken into custody for failing to appear in court. He was sentenced to one year in jail; his license was also suspended for three years.
In June 2009, Paul was sentenced to eighteen months in jail after testing positive for marijuana and failing to report to his probation officer. In August 2014, he was arrested and charged with felony drug possession. He was pulled over for an expired license plate tag and was found in possession of suspected crack cocaine. He has never been charged in Charlotte’s disappearance.
In March 2019, Charlotte's friends and family held a "memorial celebration" for her. Sadly, her father has since passed away.
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