A Baltimore County doctor disappeared 13 years without a word or a trace. Then, a sudden courtroom confession in Tennessee finally brought closure, though not one the family would've wanted.

Dr. Henry Peter Ackerman was killed, according to the confession, and his body disposed of and never found. The Sun's Tricia Bishop recounts the tale of the missing man, whose story has never been told in full detail.

You can read the full story here. Tricia's opening:

Henry Ackerman had plans — big, cross country, into-the-wild plans.

It was 1998, and he was 48 years old, alone, sad and somewhat peculiar. He lived with three cats and a big, sandy-colored dog in an unkempt Baltimore County apartment and worked as a child psychologist in the city school system.

His beloved wife had died of leukemia four years earlier in Memphis after a long illness, and he had moved immediately afterward, first to Oregon and then to Maryland to be closer to his sister's family, acquaintances said.

But he yearned for Alaska. He reached out to a tiny school system there in the eastern part of the state, in a town called Circle, and was in the process of quietly securing a new job. He planned to live in a camper out there, in the Last Frontier, a former neighbor told police.

He made all the arrangements, and on June 18, 1998, he set out to purchase a used GMC. He never came back.