On the 20th of April 2019, Sunny Sramek (18) was last heard from whilst traveling with an acquaintance to pick up his niece 300 miles away in Omaha. Sunny left her home in Trenton, Nebraska with Cliff Coates (42) in a 2004 white Ford Explorer with Iowa license plate HGJ 341. It has never been released how the two knew each other.
At 1 pm Sunny's mother hears from her to say they've reached Holdrege, Nebraska, and everything going fine. According to a family member of Sunny's, Coates called to say that between 9 pm and midnight he had gone to a casino and left Sunny in the car (due to age restrictions.) He claims that when he returned to the car Sunny had gone missing. Her mother reported her missing the following day.
Sunny Sramek is described as standing 5′ 7″ and weighing approximately 180 pounds. she has brown hair and blue eyes. Sramek has a tattoo on her left shoulder of a feather with the letters “FLY,” as well as a red tribal sun on her right ankle.
Sramek has multiple scars on her body which include a rectangular scar on the back of her right shoulder, a small square-shaped scar in the middle of her upper forehead, scarring on one of her ankles and shin from a bike pedal, scars from chickenpox on her face, a scar on her left hand at the bottom of her thumb and forefinger and cuts on her arm.
The teen was last seen wearing denim shorts and a black tank top when she left home and was carrying a pair of jeans and a hoodie but not her cell phone.
Coates' story has changed, according to Sunny's family. In one account he says he couldn't find her after leaving the casino, and in another, he says he went to the gas station and when he returned she was gone. Coates had a lengthy criminal history including false imprisonment, drug offenses, battery, and more.
Sunny has still not been found and no arrests have been made as of December 2021.