Who Is She? | The Woman in the Woods

Erin Moriarty (0:00)

Hi, listeners, it's 48 Hours correspondent, Erin Moriarty. This week, we're introducing 48 Hours listeners to the first two episodes of our new six-episode miniseries, The Woman in the Woods. Episode three releases this Wednesday, September 30th, on The Woman in the Woods podcast feed. Follow the series, if you haven't already, so you don't miss an episode. Here's episode two.

Just a warning, this episode includes graphic descriptions of a crime scene. Please listen with care.

So what do you call this area?

Philip McCaller (0:42)

This is the intersection of Jones Road and the Hunt Club known as the New Road.

Erin Moriarty (0:48)

Philip McCaller drove me in his white pickup truck to a rural wooded area, about 50 miles south of Savannah, Georgia. Come out here pretty regularly?

Philip McCaller (0:59)

Every Friday and Saturday we hunt. We was hunting that block of woods that particular day.

Erin Moriarty (1:03)

He and his hunting buddies bring their dogs regularly here to track deer.

Philip McCaller (1:07)

We start hunting at 6.3 in the morning and hunt till dark.

Erin Moriarty (1:10)

That's why he was here on December 2nd, 2022 Philip and I returned to that spot and parked on a dirt road to retrace his steps.

Philip McCaller (1:22)

We got radios in our trucks and somebody had called and said that they killed a deer and was to come right here and start catching dogs. And that's when we found it.

Erin Moriarty (1:30)

But it wasn't a deer.

Philip McCaller (1:34)

Well, I kind of thought it was a mannequin to start with. It didn't look real. It didn't have no color. It was pale white. And then once we got to looking at it a little better, we kind of figured that it was real.

Erin Moriarty (1:43)

Philip and his friends called 911

Philip McCaller (1:46)

Told them we had found what we thought was a body.

Erin Moriarty (1:48)

A dismembered body, human arms and a torso. As the hunters waited for deputies, they discovered more evidence.

Philip McCaller (1:59)

And this area right here and all around this is where all the trash, the bags of clothes, the tote, the knife, that's where all that was found right here.

Erin Moriarty (2:07)

And what kind of knife? Do you remember the kind of knife?

Philip McCaller (2:10)

It was like a sheetrock knife. You bite loads to cut sheetrock with.

Erin Moriarty (2:14)

The blade, he says, was about six inches long.

Philip McCaller (2:18)

It was wrapped up in a towel like a sheath.

Erin Moriarty (2:20)

Law enforcement arrived on scene to investigate, but the horror of what he witnessed wasn't over. The next day, McCaller was hunting two miles away.

And then what did you find the next day? The leg. McCaller found a human right leg. Investigators then expanded their search area in the middle of a 25,000 acre tract of land, filled with planted pines, swamp bottoms and creeks. They brought in their canine team. And less than a mile south of where the right leg was found, they found the other leg.

Investigators thought the remains belonged to a woman, but they had no face, fingerprints, height or weight to make any kind of identification.

Jack Frost (3:12)

At that point, I mean, it's trying to figure out who that person is.

Erin Moriarty (3:15)

Days later, on December 7th, Investigator Jack Frost with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office went back out to the woods. He spotted an area near an oak tree.

The dirt looked like it had been disturbed.

Jack Frost (3:32)

And that is where I discovered the head. It's something you can't prepare yourself for.

Erin Moriarty (3:37)

Now that they knew what the mysterious woman's face looked like, investigators released two sketches to the public asking for leads.

Heather Thomas (3:48)

I was like, whoa, wait a minute. Like, that looks like Mindi. That looks like Mindi.

And I just froze.

Erin Moriarty (3:58)

The person who recognized the sketch while looking at news stories online was the ex-wife of Mindi's husband, Nick Kisotis.

Heather Thomas (4:08)

You know, it was just too close for comfort.

Erin Moriarty (4:12)

I'm Erin Moriarty. From 48 Hours, this is The Woman in the Woods, Episode 2, Who is She?

Well, let's go back in time. When did you meet Nick Kisotis?

Heather Thomas (4:31)

It was 2008

Erin Moriarty (4:34)

Heather Thomas and I talked in 2025 near her home outside Washington, DC. She told me how she first met Nick Kisotis.

Heather Thomas (4:45)

We met on eHarmony. And back in those days, you know, it's, it was still kind of new, the whole online dating, which I know I'm dating myself, but that's just kind of how it was. And I was a student, and I was also, I was working for a credit union, and then he was a JAG Corps.