An exotic dancer disappears. Her boyfriend is named as a suspect.

It's not a Hollywood movie, but a real life mystery surrounding a Bakersfield mother who vanished. Nearly five years later it remains an open case.

"I pray, I do still have lots of dreams about her, " says Nassrin Mojibi, a friend of missing Bakersfield mother, Azita Nikooei. "She's always is happy, always is happy, " she adds.

Nassrin Mojibi can't help but get emotional at the mention of her missing friend, Azita Nikooei.

"I walk around the house and I call her and I cry, just like a little child I cry, " says Mojibi.

Mojibi became a sort of surrogate mother to the 29 year old Nikooei who came to America from her native Iran in 1994.

That year, she married in an arranged ceremony, eventually had a son, but kept up a working relationship with her Turkish ex-husband now living in Fresno. Ozzy, as her friends called her, worked as a waitress, sold beauty products and eventually ended up her, working for a year and a half as a dancer at "Deja Vu" on Golden State Avenue in Bakersfield. It would be the last job she worked before she disappeared."

How unusual is her disappearance? Very unusual, according to Bakersfield Police homicide detective Herman Caldas. He's been working on the case for nearly five years.

"She had a son who she adored and always, always went up to Tulare to drop off her child and to pick him up without failure, " says Caldas.

Who was closest to Nikooei more than anyone before she disappeared? Police point to her fiancee, Nathan Mowers, who we caught up to outside his Bakersfield apartment.

"I have no comment," Mowers told us when approached with a camera.

Mowers, who dated and lived with Nikooei for two years, told police the last time he saw Azita was at the Marketplace shopping center in Southwest Bakersfield, September 6th, 2004 around two in the afternoon. Mowers invited her for lunch at the Baja Fresh restaurant.

"She declines, has some errands to do and then she needed to pick up her son in Tulare, " says Caldas.

Four days later, her 1998 Nissan Pathfinder was found abandoned in a parking lot near the Marketplace Theatre.

"You know, I called her a couple days ago just to listen to her voice on her cell phone," Mowers told Eyewitness News nine days after she was last seen. According to police, it is the only media interview Mowers ever offered to give.

"I'm, uh, nervous, anxious. I lay awake at night wondering the good things all the way to the bad stuff that could be happening or happened," Mowers said.

Two weeks after the interview, the story takes a bizarre twist.

At same time police search Mowers' Southwest Bakersfield home and confiscate his BMW, the then, part-time insurance salesman turns up in Angelo, Wisconsin. He was pulled over in his 2005 Mercedes for a registration violation.

With him, he carried his dog, two handguns and nearly $20,000 in cash.

He was arrested for carrying a concealed firearm.

Bakersfield Police traveled to Wisconsin, confiscated his car and Palm Pilot and interviewed Mowers again. Mowers maintained his innocence, saying he wasn't on the run, but returning to Wisconsin following a trip to New York.

"What I can tell you is that Nathan Mowers is our one and only prime suspect in this suspected homicide, still today," says Detective Caldas.

Just what happened to Azita Nikooei remains a mystery.

If Nathan Mowers knows, he's not saying.

Police will not discuss the particulars of the case as to why they believe Mowers is their "prime suspect." No charges against Mowers have ever been filed. Detective Caldas does say Mowers' trip to Wisconsin is quote: "one of the pieces of the puzzle." Mowers petitioned a court and eventually got his Mercedes and Palm Pilot back. But to this day, police are still in possession of his guns. They also don't believe Nikooei traveled back to her native Iran.

Nikooei's description: 29 years old of Iranian heritage, black hair, brown eyes, small in stature, 5' 3", 110 pounds. She is believed to be last wearing a pink t-shirt, blue jeans and a silver necklace with a horse pendant.

If you have any information about her disappearance, contact Bakersfield Police detective Herman Caldas at 326-3556 or his email at hcaldas@bakersfieldpd.us.