Caitlin Tressler, 36, was last seen at her home on Web Street near Linwood on March 27. She wasn’t reported missing until April 2. That six-day gap is now at the center of a Detroit Police Department investigation that has named her boyfriend as a person of interest.

He has not been charged. Police aren’t releasing his name.

What they are saying is this: neighbors called police before Tressler vanished, reporting a violent argument between the couple. Officers responded to the domestic violence call, spoke with Tressler through an open window, and made contact with the man inside. Then they left.

“We made contact with Ms. Tressler through a window, an open window, where she spoke with police,” said Major Crimes Unit Commander Rebecca McKay. “We also made contact with the male inside. At some point, officers determined that there was no threat, and the decision was made to clear the run and notate their findings.”

The department now questions that call. A bad one, potentially.

“There is an internal investigation looking into the procedures that were taken on that particular day,” McKay said.

The boyfriend left. Then Tressler disappeared.

Neighbors told police the boyfriend loaded up a U-Haul truck and left town the day after the reported argument. Detroit police have since recovered the truck but won’t say where it was found or where the man is now. They have spoken with him since he left.

Three well-being checks followed the initial domestic violence response. The Missing Persons Unit eventually took over and executed a search warrant at Tressler’s home. Investigators have searched her vehicles and the surrounding neighborhood near Linwood.

Larissa Moore, a close friend of Tressler’s, said she’d spoken with her in the days before she went missing. Going back through her messages recently, Moore found a photo that stopped her cold.

“The other day, I’m going through all my messages just to see like if I missed anything in that picture, like lo and behold, shows up and you could see her face was, was badly injured,” Moore said. “It was sent at about 3:58 a.m. on March 27.”

March 27 is the same day Tressler was last seen.

When asked directly if she feared the boyfriend was involved, Moore didn’t hesitate. “I do, yeah, I do.”

Police won’t say whether the responding officers noted any visible injuries on Tressler’s face during their visit. That silence is its own kind of answer, and it’s almost certainly part of the internal review now underway.

What the department is doing now

McKay told reporters the investigation is pulling in technological tools and other agencies, though she didn’t specify which ones. Missing persons cases involving domestic violence carry significantly higher lethality risk, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a fact that adds weight to every hour Tressler remains unaccounted for.

The Detroit Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit is leading the investigation. McKay described the case as fluid, with more developments expected in the coming weeks. That framing suggests investigators believe there’s more ground to cover.

This story was first reported by WXYZ (7 Action News), which aired a full interview with McKay.

The neighborhood and the timeline

Web Street sits just west of Woodward, in a residential stretch of the Dexter-Linwood area. It’s not a neighborhood that gets a lot of attention from city hall or the development crowd. It is, however, the kind of place where neighbors notice things, and in this case, they called it in. They saw something wrong. Police came and cleared the scene.

Now Caitlin Tressler is gone.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System tracks cases like this at the federal level, and families can register missing persons directly through the database. Whether Tressler’s case has been entered there wasn’t confirmed by police.

Anyone with information about Tressler’s whereabouts can contact the Detroit Police Department directly or reach Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP. Tips to Crime Stoppers can be anonymous.

The internal investigation into the responding officers’ conduct is separate from the missing persons case but runs parallel to it. Both are open. Watch for updates from the Major Crimes Unit as investigators process what they found in the U-Haul and continue tracking the boyfriend’s movements.