A 22-year-old German model disappeared in 2015 after a scout sent her photos to Jeffrey Epstein, and that scout's recent death in France, with prosecutors now testing for poison, has left her family with fewer answers than ever.
Michele, whose surname has not been publicly released, walked out of her mother's home in early September 2015 carrying a suitcase and her passport. She told no one where she was going. By October her family had reported her missing. More than a decade later, she has never been found, never made contact, and remains listed in Germany's official missing-persons database.
What has changed is the paper trail. Millions of pages of files released by the U.S. Justice Department in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein reveal that a Swedish-born model scout named Daniel Siad had sent Epstein photographs of Michele in 2014, when she was 21, and discussed obtaining a plane ticket for her. The Sun reported that Siad wrote to Epstein: "You will love her."
Siad himself is now dead. French authorities found his body at his home in Colombes, a suburb northwest of Paris, on July 20, 2026. He was 69. An autopsy ordered by prosecutors in Nanterre found no evidence of violence, but a source close to the investigation told The Sun that further toxicological and pathological testing was ordered "because of suspicions that the deceased had been poisoned."
German broadcaster ZDF searched the Justice Department document trove and found 1,840 references to Daniel Siad among emails, messages, and telephone records. German investigative magazine Der Spiegel reported that Siad's communications with Epstein stretched back to at least 2009, a correspondence that spanned roughly a decade.
The content of those messages is disturbing on its face. In a 2014 email, Siad compared himself to a "fisherman," writing that sometimes he made a good "catch" and sometimes there was "no fish." In the same exchange, he referred to five Scandinavian girls aged 16 and 17 and mentioned a 15-year-old French girl whose parents, he said, were delighted she was becoming a model. ZDF also reported messages in which Siad described a 26-year-old woman as looking 18.
The New York Post reported that at least two women accused Siad of grooming them for Epstein, including former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, who alleged rape. In a June 2009 email to Epstein cited by the Post, Siad wrote:
"Hello Jeffrey, I just found an amizinng one. She is 20 years old but she looks younger, from Latvia."
Siad denied wrongdoing. In a February 2026 video statement, he said, "I have nothing to blame myself for." When challenged about his conduct, he insisted he had simply been doing his professional job as a model scout and did not know women were being abused.
Michele first met Siad in 2012 in Dubai, where she was working as a waitress. He approached her in a restaurant and introduced himself as a model scout. Her mother, Annett, met him as well and came away reassured.
"He actually made a serious impression."
Annett described Siad as open and friendly. Over the next several years, Michele traveled to China, Britain, and South America, trips she told her parents were for modeling work. The family had no reason to suspect she was in danger.
Shortly before Michele left home for the last time, her father Vlado overheard her on the telephone with Siad. He was scolding her. Vlado told ZDF that Michele was visibly frightened after the call. Days later, she was gone.
There is no direct evidence that Michele ever met Epstein. The released files do not establish that the proposed plane ticket was ever purchased or that any meeting took place. There is also no evidence Michele knew Siad had sent her photographs to Epstein at all.
But her mother believes the worst. Annett told journalists:
"I think she is no longer alive. That something was done to her."
She added:
"Michele was a family person. She would always come back. She loved us."
In July 2026, German prosecutors announced they had found "no concrete indications of a criminal offence" and declined to open a criminal investigation into Michele's disappearance. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said "the mere possibility of a crime" was not sufficient to launch one.
That decision drew disbelief from the journalists who uncovered the connection. An unnamed Der Spiegel reporter told ZDF:
"For me, that was difficult to understand at first, just as it was for the family."
German police had earlier checked whether Michele had surfaced in another German state or a neighboring country. They found nothing. As of spring 2026, police said there were no plans for a public appeal in her case. Germany's Bundeskriminalamt, the federal criminal police office, confirmed the case was known to it in its coordination role but offered no further action.
Annett's frustration was plain:
"I am very disappointed that the authorities are not responding. After all, we have been living with worry and uncertainty for eleven years."
At the time of his death, Siad was under active investigation by French authorities on separate allegations of suspected rape and human trafficking. He was also due to be questioned about his links to Epstein. That questioning will now never happen.
French prosecutors believe Siad could have been targeted because he knew too much about Epstein's global sex-trafficking operation. The Post noted that Siad's death follows a pattern: Jean-Luc Brunel, another Epstein-linked modeling figure based in France, was found dead in 2022.
Michele's father Vlado offered a quiet, devastating reaction to Siad's death:
"A piece of hope has been taken away again."
The investigation by ZDF, Der Spiegel, and the outlet paper trail media went deep into Epstein's network and surfaced Michele's case as one thread among many. Siad's last known correspondence with Epstein came shortly before the financier's death in a New York prison cell in August 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
Several questions remain unanswered. What was Siad scolding Michele about on that phone call? Did she travel to meet Epstein or someone in his circle? What modeling work, if any, did she actually perform through Siad's connections? And with the scout now dead, who, if anyone, will face accountability for what happened to a young woman who packed a suitcase one September morning and vanished?
A family has spent eleven years waiting. Two governments have shrugged. The one man who might have provided answers is on a slab in a French morgue, and the authorities want to know whether someone made sure he never talked.
