Danielle Sleeper: Missing Mom Fought With Husband Before Vanishing, But Cops Say He’s Not A Suspect
Danielle Sleeper, a 33-year-old mom of three from Magnolia, Texas, has been missing from her home without trace since March 22, and police say they have no leads and no suspects — or any clue at all what might have happened to her. But the missing mom’s family feels differently. They say they have the agonizing suspicion that Danielle is dead — and that her own husband, Austin Sleeper, 32, may have something to do with her disappearance, or at least he may know what happened to his wife.
According to Meagan Smith, a good friend of missing Danielle Sleeper, the mom of three left a barbecue at Smith’s home on the day that she disappeared — and got into a screaming fight with her husband on the way out of the party.
The couple had been married for about five years, but Danielle had recently been planning to leave her husband, who is the father of only the youngest one of her three boys, for some time. According to her mother, Dina Street, Danielle was “extremely upset because Child Protective Services had removed her two older children from her home because of an incident involving her husband.”
Those two older kids are now living with their father. But the youngest child, who is only 3-years-old, remains with Austin Sleeper.
“Danielle said he had done some things and she was trying to come up with a plan so she could get back on her feet and get her own place,” Smith told The Huffington Post. “We were going to work on her resume and get it over to this place that was hiring, but then this all happened.”
“All this” began when some of Danielle’s family members came to her home to make sure she was okay following the confrontation after the barbecue party the previous evening.
Instead, they found only Austin Sleeper, who claimed that his wife never returned home the previous night and had simply disappeared. Her purse and cell phone were also missing. But for some reason, Austin Sleeper did not want to report Danielle as a missing person and appeared “extremely nervous and agitated,” according to Street.
While authorities and volunteers have conducted numerous searches throughout the area, Austin Sleeper has refused to take part in any of the efforts to find his wife, according to KHOU News. But Street’s lawyer, Katherine Shipman, denies that accusation.
But Shipman also said that she could not say what, specifically, her client had done to help find his missing wife. Sleeper is adamant that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of Danielle, Shipman says, and requests “privacy” during this “difficult time.”
Shipman also said that Austin Sleeper denies a charge of “injury to a child” that has been brought against him.
Danielle Sleeper stands 5’7″ tall and weighs between 120 and 130 pounds. She has shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen in a 1996 F-350 dually truck around one a.m. on Sunday, March 22, when she was leaving the barbecue at her friend Meagan Smith’s home in Magnolia, a suburb abut 40 miles outside of Houston, Texas.
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Danielle Sleeper, including whether she is dead or alive, is requested to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-392-7867.
But Montgomery County investigators say that Austin Sleeper has not been named as a suspect in the disappearance of Danielle — and in fact, they say they have no suspects. An anonymous donor has put up $20,000 in reward money for information that leads to Danielle Sleeper being found, a sum that has since been raised to $21,000.
[Image: Bring Danielle Home Website]
