Matt and Gail Palmgren in Italy
Just before Signal Mountain's Gail Palmgren and her crimson red Jeep Rubicon vanished from the face of the earth her marriage was crumbling around her.
Her closest friend, Arlene Durham, said Ms. Palmgren spoke with her many times a day and confided the escalating problems with husband, Matt, a top BlueCross BlueShield official.
She said Gail told her about finding out her husband was having an affair with another member of the BlueCross brass, hiring a private eye to follow him around, placing a tracking device on his vehicle and going through his credit card records to track the motels he had booked.
Just before she drove off into the sunset, Gail told Arlene that Matt had called to say he was going to see a lawyer the following Tuesday about getting a legal separation.
Ms. Durham knows many of the details of those last few days of Gail Palmgren's known existence and she has worked relentlessly to try to find some trace of her best friend.
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It was an odd happenstance that brought successful pharmaceutical rep Gail Palmgren and divorced Titus, Ala., lake resident Arlene Durham together.
Arlene, who lives on scenic Lake Jordan northeast of Montgomery with a strange menagerie of animals, said their first acquaintance was in 2006. There was an A frame for sale next door, and Arlene learned that a woman named Gail Palmgren had bought it.
She said there was a 14-foot storage shed on the property and Arlene looked up her number and called the new owner to ask if she had any interest in selling it. Gail said she did and they reached a price of $300. Arlene asked if she wanted the $300 "in trade." She said Gail asked what that meant, and she told her she would cut the grass and keep the place up for her. Gail readily agreed.
The A frame had stood vacant for years, but Gail told her she "had always liked it." She didn't need it for herself. She and Matt and the two children had a more substantial lake retreat on the other side of the lake at Wetumpka. But she thought Matt's parents from Chattanooga might want to move into the A frame. They never did, and that A frame that brought the two fast friends together still sits empty.
The Palmgrens were living in Kentucky then, and the Alabama lake home was a convenient retreat for Gail, who often was on the road in Alabama and Florida on her job with Novartis Pharmaceuticals.
Though they were never actual neighbors, Arlene became soulmates with Gail - talking often on the phone and visiting when the Palmgrens or Gail by herself were at Lake Jordan.
The close friendship continued as Matt Palmgren took a job in Chattanooga in July 2009 as BlueCross' director of pharmacy programs for its government business and emerging markets business unit. They bought a house in the upscale St. Ives subdivision on Signal Mountain.
She and Matt took a trip to Italy last summer that she had won at Novartis. Arlene said Gail had been telling her about some of the troubles popping up in the marriage, and she said three days into the trip "I had a feeling that things were not going well." She said she finally was able to reach a downcast Gail. She said she asked her, "Bad, huh?" and Gail replied, "Really bad."
Arlene recalls there was a big layoff at Novartis, but Gail was not on the cut list. But she was among a large group of employees who were hit by the second wave. She said Gail was not so concerned because she received a generous severance package and she "was thinking she had been on the road for so long that it was time she stayed home and be a mother to the children." There was a job offer from a pharmaceutical firm in Atlanta, but Arlene said Matt didn't want Gail to take it.
However, she said the sudden drop in the family's income to one paycheck escalated the problems. She said in November when Gail got her last paycheck there was an incident where their dog, Dottie, got loose and Matt became enraged. She said Gail told her she had told her husband that she "couldn't take it any more" and she was thinking of moving out. She said Gail told her she retreated to her bedroom and her husband broke the bedroom door down.
She said on a more recent occasion Gail showed up with a black eye. She said Gail maintained that she had run into a door. Arlene said she did not quiz her any further.
Arlene said Gail confided that the marriage continued to bottom as the Palmgrens went to St. Martin for a wedding in March. She said Gail told of Matt drinking heavily and of taking long strolls on the beach out of her earshot.
She said Gail told her, "Arlene, I think Matt's having an affair."
Arlene, who had gone through a divorce herself but remains cordial with ex-husband, Mike, said she advised her, "Maybe, you had better get ready for a divorce."
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Arlene said Matt Palmgren was very careful to keep his dealings close to the vest. "Everything was password protected," she said.
But she said after the St. Martin trip, one night when Matt let his guard down that Gail spotted the password for his cellphone. She was able to get into his phone and check the text messages. Arlene said Gail told her there were numerous "sexting" entries between Matt and another high-ranking BlueCross employee, Tammy Helton, who had recently gotten a divorce.
Arlene said from that point "Gail was very smart. She did not confront Matt, but she began to think ahead and prepare for a divorce."
She said Gail was able to check Matt's Hilton Honors records and found that he had paid for a number of motel stays that she had been unaware of in Chattanooga and elsewhere. She said Matt had paid cash, but there was a record of the stays that she was able to access because he had gotten credit toward Hilton Honors reward points.
She said the motel stays included the four-star Doubletree in downtown Chattanooga and the Hampton Inn in Lookout Valley.
Another motel stay was in Batesville, Miss. Tammy Helton has bought a house at Batesville.
Arlene said Gail told her that Matt became pressed for cash and he asked her to withdraw $20,000 from her retirement account. She said Gail told her that money was gone in three weeks and Matt asked for another $20,000, which she assented to.
She said Gail told her she went to their bank to review the records and was startled to find "that Matt was getting $400 every couple of days from an ATM."
Arlene said the private investigator that Gail hired confirmed the affair.
Gail Palmgren saved all the records she found about her husband's activities, and she sent them all to Arlene Durham - for safe-keeping in far-away Alabama.
Arlene said, "When you have two kids, you want to make sure all your ducks are in a row."
She was still preparing for the inevitable divorce.
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It was planned for the weekend of April 23 that the Palmgrens would make a trek to Lake Jordan. Gail drove down with the kids and Matt was to join them in a separate vehicle.
Arlene said that Saturday night Gail called her three times begging, "Please come get me. I'm afraid."
Arlene said she was not in a position to go over, but she told Gail that Mike would be glad to come get her.
But she said before Mike could arrive at Wetumpka, Gail left the lake house with the two children and went to Birmingham to stay with a friend. She said Gail left some jewelry and some of her mother's jewelry with the friend.
The next week Matt had told Gail he was headed to Minneapolis for an insurance conference. Investigators say Matt was not seen at any of the conference sessions and that he met Ms. Helton at another location and they returned by car to Chattanooga.
She said Gail told her that Matt was due to fly back into town on Friday at 11:35 p.m. from the conference. But she said he was back before noon.
Gail said she only talked with Matt once on the phone that week. He told her he "would be filing for a legal separation on Tuesday."
She said Gail replied, "Okay."
Arlene said, "She had all the proof. She was ready for him."
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On April 29, Arlene said Gail Palmgren called her while en route on the four-and-a-half-hour trip from Signal Mountain to Wetumpka. She said, "We're on our way. Can you meet us in town?"
Earlier in the day, the Signal Mountain Police had been called to the Palmgren home. They provided Gail with "phone numbers of a safe place to stay." It was the third time in a week police made domestic calls to 40 Ridgerock Dr.
Arlene said Gail told her the plan was for Matt to come down to the lake house on Easy Street and tell the kids about the upcoming separation.
Gail and Arlene visited that night for about an hour at Mike's house. They were preparing for Mike's 50th birthday celebration the next day on the 30th. She said, "Gail was quiet. It was not the normal Gail." She said she had no idea it was the last time she would ever see Gail Palmgren.
Arlene said she was expecting to visit with Gail and the children again on the 30th. Then she found that Gail had suddenly driven back to Chattanooga.
Arlene said, "If I had any idea she was going to do that, I would have hidden her keys."
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Gail dropped the kids off at the house. Then she drove off in the crimson red Rubicon with the "Life is Good" tire cover and the Goofy emblem on the trailer hitch. A neighbor who waved said Gail just looked straight ahead.
Arlene said it was unusual for her not to hear from Gail. She called her cellphone on Sunday, but uncharacteristically there was no answer. She said she called the Palmgren home and Matt answered. He told her, "She just dropped my kids off and left."
By Wednesday Arlene was getting really worried and she headed for Chattanooga. She stayed with a neighbor of the Palmgrens, who was also very concerned.
Arlene said she confronted Matt, asking him why he had waited two days to report her missing, why he was not involved in an active search, why the police were not working the case, why he was still going to work.
She said Matt told her, "You're making things very complicated."
Arlene said she took her pile of information to the Signal Mountain Police and they did not seem very interested. She said a county detective finally came to Titus to interview her.
She said she asked the detective why no search has been made of the Palmgren home, and he told her they did not have cause to get a search warrant there.
Arlene has been carrying out her own investigation. She got the cellphone and work phone of Tammy Helton, but she only got voice mail when she dialed.
She traveled to Ider, Ala., to speak with the ex-husband of Ms. Helton. He told her, "I didn't hear about the affair until everybody started calling me."
She drove to Batesville and rode by the house where Tammy Helton now lives.
She talked to Jeep dealers and was told that the crimson red was an unpopular color for the Rubicon. They only knew of one like it in a 200-mile radius.
She is part of a bringgailbackhome Facebook page that has 1,347 followers at last count.
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The red Jeep has not been seen since, though there have been several reported sightings.
Someone on Facebook was sure they saw the Jeep and Gail herself in a campground in Tallahassee, Fla. Arlene drove to the campground and back home in one day - 1,032 miles. She saw no sign of Gail Palmgren.
She can't understand. "You can't make a 2010 Rubicon go poof in thin air. You can't do it."
She believes Gail is dead and she was a victim of some sort of foul play. "It's going on six weeks. She would never leave her kids that long," she muses.
Matt stressed in legal papers he filed, then withdrew, that Gail had mental issues. Arlene said, "She's about as mentally off as I am the queen of England."
She added, "She was a little depressed. Who wouldn't be in her situation?"
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Since Gail Palmgren disappeared, it has had a marked effect on Arlene Durham.
She said, "I can't sleep. I can't eat. I've lost 27 pounds since this started.
"It's bad when you have no closure. It's the not knowing that bothers you."