Episode 151: Sunny Sramek – Bite-Sized Crime

A young woman goes on a road trip but doesn’t return, and the last person to see her has several stories to tell. What happened to Sunny Sramek?

Episode Media

The route Sunny and Cliff may have taken on April 20, 2019 *(Google Maps)*

Clifford Coates’ 2004 Ford Explorer with Iowa license plate HGJ341 *(A&E/LivePD)*

Floyd Clifford Coates, Jr. *(Kansas Department of Corrections)*

Sunny’s parents, Paula Johnson and Jody Sramek *(KNOP)*

Episode Sources

Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a missing persons case that has largely been kept under wraps by investigators, but one that I feel is close to being solved. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Sunny Jone Sramek was born in February of 2001 in southern Nebraska. From a young age, Sunny’s bright personality and creative mind shone through. She loved to draw and took dance classes as a young girl, but she was also outdoorsy, helping her dad Jody on his ranch and hunting for wild turkeys. Sunny was close to her family, especially to her mother Paula, who she considered to be her best friend.

In her teen years, Sunny started to have trouble at school. She was a victim of bullying, and her grades began to suffer. She eventually left Hitchcock County High School in Trenton, Nebraska, and transferred to McCook Senior High School in a town 20 miles east, hoping for a fresh start.

In July of 2018, when Sunny was just 17 years old, she married 25-year-old Kaleb Straub. Her parents told KNOP that Sunny truly believed it was the right choice for her at the time, but within a few months, it was clear that she needed to make some changes. Shortly before the new year, Sunny left Kaleb and moved back in with her mom. She turned 18 in February, started working on her GED, and set about getting her life back on track.

In April of 2019, Sunny told her mom that she was going on a short road trip. It was Easter weekend, and a friend of a friend was driving to Omaha to pick up his teenage niece. The man, 42-year-old Cliff Coates, had invited Sunny to come along so his niece would have company on the way back to Trenton. Paula had met Cliff before, so he wasn’t a stranger, and Sunny seemed excited about the chance to get out of town for a short time. Sunny told Paula that they were going to drive the 300 miles to Omaha, pick up Cliff’s niece, then head back to Trenton that night. It was a long trip – about 10 hours of driving – so Paula asked Sunny to check in at regular intervals, making sure that Cliff had her phone number since Sunny didn’t have a phone of her own.

Cliff picked up Sunny from Paula’s house on the morning of Saturday, April 20th. Sunny was dressed for the warm weather in shorts and a tank top, but had taken a pair of jeans and a hoodie with her in case she got cold along the way. Paula watched as her daughter drove away in Cliff’s white Ford Explorer, heading east along Highway 34.

A few hours later, just before 1pm, Sunny called her mom from Cliff’s cell phone. She said they had made it to the town of Holdredge and would soon be getting on Interstate 80, which would take them all the way into Omaha. According to Paula, Sunny sounded completely normal – the trip was going well, and they were making good time on the road. Sunny said she would check in again later, then told her mom goodbye.

But hours passed, and Paula didn’t hear from Sunny. When her phone finally rang late that night, Paula was relieved. However, it wasn’t Sunny on the other end of the phone – it was Cliff. He told Paula that they had stopped at the Prairie Flower Casino in Carter Lake, Iowa, a suburb of Omaha. He had gone inside to gamble, but because Sunny was under 21, she had to stay in the car. Cliff said that when he came out of the casino three hours later, Sunny was gone. He drove around for a while to look for her, but eventually he gave up and left the city.

Stunned, Paula pressed Cliff for more details, but that’s all he would tell her. When he suddenly ended the call, Paula felt a rising panic. She started calling and texting Cliff repeatedly, but he didn’t respond. When he finally called her back the next morning, Paula demanded that he tell her where Sunny was. Cliff again told her that he didn’t know, but this time, his story was slightly different. He told Paula that he had last seen Sunny at a gas station – not at the casino like he had previously claimed. He said that he had gone inside the convenience store to pay for the gas, and when he returned to the car, Sunny was gone. He didn’t remember which gas station it was, though – probably one somewhere on the interstate. He assumed that Sunny had just decided to head out on her own; he wasn’t too worried.

Paula, however, was worried. Had her daughter even made it to Omaha? Cliff hadn’t even bothered to call the police when he supposedly discovered that Sunny was gone – he had just driven away without a care.

Paula knew that Sunny wouldn’t just walk away in a strange city, not without a plan to get back home. Sunny didn’t have a cell phone, but if she was in trouble, she would have done everything in her power to contact her mom. But Sunny didn’t call, and Paula didn’t believe a word of Cliff’s story. She decided to contact the Hitchcock County Sheriff’s Office and report Sunny missing.

While they waited for an official investigation to begin, Sunny’s family took to social media, putting out a call for any information that could help them find her. Paula’s cousin Reni started the Find Sunny Sramek group on Facebook and began sharing pictures and missing posters, quickly amassing thousands of followers invested in Sunny’s case. Family members reached out to local news outlets across southern Nebraska and traveled to Omaha to hang flyers in areas where Sunny may have been seen.

Once Hitchcock County investigators took up the search, they moved quickly. Sunny was listed in the National Crime Information Center – NCIC – a federal database that tracks criminal investigations and missing persons reports. Detectives reached out to authorities in Carter Lake and pulled security footage from the Prairie Flower Casino. They also began digging into the last person who had seen Sunny: Clifford Coates.

Floyd Clifford Coates, Jr. had a long history of criminal activity in multiple states, racking up charges for theft, possession, false imprisonment, battery, and weapons-related offenses. According to Sunny’s family, Cliff spoke to detectives early on in the investigation, but it’s unclear what version of the story he gave them.

The Hitchcock County sheriff requested assistance from the FBI’s field office in Omaha. With the added resources, investigators were able to cover more ground in the case. Although little information was released to the public, behind the scenes, Sunny’s case was very active. Less than a month after Sunny disappeared, federal agents executed multiple search warrants on Clifford Coates’ property in Struble, Iowa, where he lived with his wife and young child.

According to a sworn affidavit by an FBI agent in charge of the investigation, the first warrant was for the white Ford Explorer that Cliff and Sunny had taken on their trip to Omaha. The agent indicated in the complaint that the warrant was “for the purpose of locating evidence related to the disappearance of [Sunny Jone Sramek].” After the initial search on May 2nd, the vehicle was seized and taken into evidence.

On May 3rd, agents executed a second warrant on Cliff’s house, “for the purpose of locating any and all persons being held against their will, both alive and deceased, within the target’s home.” Inside the house, agents discovered multiple rounds of ammunition, which Cliff was prohibited from owning due to his previous felony convictions.

After these two searches, things were quiet for a few weeks. Then, on May 31st, federal agents and SWAT team members descended on Cliff’s home once again. This time, they searched a white Dodge Durango that belonged to Cliff’s wife. Inside, they found a .45 caliber pistol with a laser sight and 15 rounds of ammunition locked in a safe. According to the affidavit, the pistol was not registered to Cliff or his wife, but to a third party who claimed it had been stolen. The pistol was taken into evidence and sent to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for fingerprinting and DNA analysis.

The affidavit does not indicate that any evidence directly related to Sunny’s disappearance was ever found on Cliff’s property. Iowa court records show that on May 31st, Cliff was charged with two misdemeanors – possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia – but he bonded out and was released on his own recognizance.

However, the FBI wasn’t done with Clifford Coates. Agents interviewed multiple individuals who knew Cliff and could speak to his drug use and illegal possession of weapons. Several of these witnesses told agents that they had seen Cliff with a gun in his possession and syringes of meth in his car on and around April 20, 2019, the day he and Sunny had driven to Omaha.

In June of 2019, two months after Sunny disappeared, her parents spoke with local news station KNOP about her case. Paula talked about her close relationship with Sunny and how she knew her daughter would reach out if she could. “There’s no way she would go this long without letting me know she was ok.”

Sunny’s dad Jody got emotional as he spoke. “I’ll give you my house, I’ll give everything I have… just to have her back.”

From the beginning, Sunny’s family has been committed to respecting the wishes of law enforcement and not sharing information that could jeopardize the investigation. Jody told KNOP, “They know more than they can say, and we do not want to put my daughter in more danger.”

Months turned into years, and Sunny still did not come home. The FBI released an official missing poster, and in 2023, they announced a $10,000 reward for information in Sunny’s case.

Once again, Paula and Jody spoke with KNOP about trying to hold onto hope after years of agony. Paula said, “It’s all consuming. I mean, your mind is always there when you lay down and when you wake up.” Jody agreed, commenting, “It’s surreal.”

But they are not giving up the search, and they renewed their call for the public’s help. Paula said, “Just keeping her story and her face out there continually so nobody forgets about her… She’s still missing and there’s been no justice. Something has got to come out of this.”

In April of 2024, Clifford Coates was indicted on weapons charges dating back to the 2019 searches of his property. He and another man, Dennis Lawson, were also charged with tampering with evidence and physically intimidating another person. However, the court documents do not indicate if these charges are directly related to Sunny’s case. Both men pleaded not guilty and were scheduled to go to trial in Sioux City, Iowa, in July of 2024, but there have been no public updates since their arrests, and it appears that the case is still moving through the court system.

As of this recording, Sunny Jone Sramek has been missing for six years. She was last seen on April 20, 2019 at her mother’s house in Trenton, Nebraska. Her last known contact was at 12:45pm that same day from Holdredge, Nebraska. She was traveling to Omaha with Floyd Clifford Coates in a white 2004 Ford Explorer with Iowa license plate number HGJ341, and may have been spotted at the Prairie Flower Casino in Carter Lake, Iowa.

At the time of her disappearance, Sunny was 18 years old. She is described as a white female standing 5’7” tall with brown hair and blue eyes. She has a tattoo of a red tribal sun on her right ankle and a tattoo of a feather with the word “FLY” on her left shoulder. She was last seen wearing denim shorts and a black tank top and had a pair of jeans and a hoodie in her possession. She may be using the last name Straub.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Sunny Sramek, please contact the FBI Omaha Division at (402) 493-8688. There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to her recovery or to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for her disappearance.