What Really Happened to Monique Christine Daniels?
By: Brenda Thornlow
Tags: True Crime, Crime, Missing Persons, True Story, Murder

Monique Christine Daniels — missing since 1992

Monique Daniels was born on June 16, 1976, and was the oldest of six children; three siblings and two half-siblings. By all accounts, the Daniels household appeared to be a less than happy home. In 1992, Monique and her siblings were living with her mother Candyce and step-father Charles “Chuck” Daniels in Moore, Oklahoma. Chuck was a sergeant in the Air Force and Candyce was also in the military.

Years prior, Candyce divorced Monique’s biological father who was sexually abusive and would later be thrown in prison for sex offenses. However, little is known about him. Candyce’s marriage to Chuck wasn’t much better. According to their children, the couple fought often and were phycially and verbally abusive to one another and the children.

On June 2, 1992, a neighbor claimed to have seen fifteen-year-old Monique loading clothes into a blue Chevrolet pickup truck driven by an unidentified Caucasian male. On this particular day, Monique’s mother was on a choir trip with a couple of her siblings, Angelique and Bryan, and her step-father took her other siblings, Andrew and Charlie Jr. on an impromptu fishing trip. No one would ever see Monique again after that day.

In addition, Monique’s disappearance wouldn’t be reported to authorities for almost two years.

According to her parents, their reasoning behind not reporting Monique as missing was because she had run away from home and assumed she would come back. Monique had run away months earlier after she became pregnant and her parents forced her to have an abortion, but her best friend convinced her to return home.

Monique’s aunt Leslie discovered that a report had never been filed when, six months after Monique’s disappearance, Leslie attempted to contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and have them add Monique into their database. Candyce told Leslie that she would get the police report, but never followed up. Candyce and Chuck made it appear to all as if they respected their daughter’s decision to run away. They wouldn’t report her missing for two years and only after Monique’s sister Angelique ran away.

Upon returning home from the choir trip that Candyce, Angelique, and Bryan were on, Chuck would simply tell them, “She’s gone again.” Angelique would later mention that the house, which was normally kept very clean, was a complete mess. Beer cans and cigarette butts were lying out, and there was an empty pregnancy test box sitting on the bathroom counter.

Roughly one week after aunt Leslie’s inquiry, the Daniels family received a phone call and a couple of letters supposedly from Monique, postmarked Dallas, Texas. The family had been informed that Monique was now married and gave birth to a daughter named Chelsea, and she and her husband and child they were currently in Alaska but frequently traveled for his job. Relatives were suspicious and asked police to analyze the handwriting on the letters and see if it was really hers. The day before Candyce was to bring them to the police for examination, the letters, along with some CDs and a boombox, were supposedly stolen in a burglary at the Daniels’ home.

While Chuck claimed that their home was much more peaceful without Monique, life would not get much easier for the Daniels family. In January of 1994, Angelique ran away from home to live with her aunt in Michigan. When she left, unlike with Monique, Candyce and Chuck reported Angelique missing immediately. As soon as she arrived at her aunt’s house, she filed criminal complaints against her parents, alleging physical and mental abuse to which Candyce and Chuck later pleaded no contest. Angelique also admitted to police that Chuck had made her write the letters and fabricate the phone call that were supposed to be from Monique. Chuck even drove her to Texas specifically for the postmark. Chuck admitted that the allegations by Angelique were true. According to Chuck, Candyce had become suicidal in the wake of Monique’s disappearance and attempted to convince Candyce that her eldest daughter was safe and happy. After finally filing a missing persons report on Monique, Chuck and Candyce were asked to take a polygraph test and both declined.

Two decades later, in 2013, Monique’s brother Andrew would offer more information on that fateful day.

According to Andrew, Chuck and Monique had been fighting earlier in the day. Chuck suddenly announced that he was taking Andrew and Charlie Jr. fishing in the rain. Before leaving, Andrew claims he said goodbye to Monique through a crack in her bedroom door where he thought he saw her sitting on the floor, not moving nor speaking. Charlie Jr. claims she hugged him goodbye. Oddly, the three left for their fishing trip without their fishing poles.

Chuck and the boys drove in one direction for two hours, stopped at a fast food restaurant, then drove back home. Chuck parked the car in the garage where he told the boys to wait as he went inside the house. The boys would be waiting inside the car for their father for approximately an hour. When the boys were permitted back in the house, Chuck rushed them in, forbidding them to look around the bathroom. Chuck proceeded to tell them that he was off to search for Monique and locked them in their bedroom for two days. During their confinement, Charles took one of his other sons for a ride in his truck ride in the middle of the night. His son recalls seeing an oil barrel in the back of the truck but knows nothing about what it contained.

Before long, the Daniels family was forbidden from talking about Monique. Chuck and Candyce were determined to remove any trace of their eldest daughter from their lives. Photos of her were taken down and replaced with new family portraits. All traces of Monique having lived in the Daniels’ home vanished.

When questioned about their other children’s allegations, Chuck and Candyce deny everything, claiming that Angelique and Andrew are unstable and have substance abuse issues. They now live in Florida and refuse to make any further statements about their daughter. Prior to ending up in Florida they would move to Germany. Coincidentally, Chuck had gotten a military transfer to a new base out there after Angelique and her aunt appeared on ‘A Current Affair’ to discuss the case.

Monique’s case remains unsolved.