Unsolved Mysteries may have just returned to our screens, but the latest episode about Amanda Antoni has left viewers with more questions than answers.
The fourth season of the Netflix series has arrived this week and is proving just as thought-provoking this time around. Covering decades-old cold cases and supernatural phenomena, Unsolved Mysteries often leaves us wanting to delve deeper into the subject of each episode.
As true-crime and documentary fans binge the series, many have questions about the untimely death of Amanda Antoni.
What happened to Amanda Antoni?
Amanda Antoni was a 31-year-old woman, whose body was discovered in the basement of her Calgary home. With the case sharing more than a few similarities to The Staircase, her untimely passing has remained in the public eye ever since.
Few could understand her death, especially those that were closest to her. Her husband Lee, who she’d married in 2009, particularly struggled to comprehend what had happened - having been away on that fateful October weekend in 2015.
Though they had intended to visit his mother in Saskatchewan together, but Amanda had a sudden change of heart. She’d been prone to migraines and as her headache intensified, she decided to stay home with the family dog, Ruby.
Staying in close contact all weekend, Lee called his wife on Saturday night - hoping that her pain had subsided. According to him, their call had ended abruptly with the sound of their dog barking in the background and crunching sound.
It would be their last conversation, as all his other calls went to voicemail.
When he returned home the following day, Lee couldn’t find Amanda and rapidly searched the rooms until he came to the basement. There he found Amanda's body in the middle of the floor and made a desperate phone call to 911.
The 31-year-old had already passed though, with the later investigation revealing that she’d suffered blunt-force trauma to the head and subsequently bled to death.
Recalling the moment during the Netflix doc-series, he said, "Amanda never really liked the basement that much. I don’t know why, she just had a creepy kind of feeling about the basement."
While Lee was convinced that it was a tragic accident, her family had their doubts - especially given the unusual circumstances around Amanda’s death.
As police investigated, they found fragments of a broken piggy bank were embedded in her skull and a chair that had been overturned in the dining room. Authorities also questioned why her beloved dog had not attempted to help her or even ventured into the basement.
Her footprints were also found at the base of the stairs, but the 31-year-old never attempted to walk up them.
One investigator even commented on this, telling the Unsolved Mysteries, "If Amanda fell and is in distress, why does the black Lab not go downstairs and check on her, or go to see her? Was there somebody in the house to prevent the dog from going downstairs?"
With no signs of a break-in and no DNA evidence other than the couple’s, the case was deemed an accident in 2016.
Despite this, her family remain unconvinced - especially her brother Darrell Hogg.
Amanda’s sibling even appeared in the episode of Unsolved Mysteries, stating, "She’s telling me not to quit. She’s telling me that something happened. I just know it — she doesn’t want me to give up."
