KRISTYNA KRUEGER took a deep breath, girding herself to enter her 14-year-old son Brandon’s bedroom. Then she gingerly stepped in and described the spectacle.

“Every drawer is open,” Ms. Krueger said, speaking on the phone from her home in Lake Ozark, Mo. “His desk, the night stand, his computer desk, his dresser. You cannot walk without stepping on clothes, cords for charging things, cologne and body-spray bottles. He does paintball. That stuff is all over.”

She sidestepped his workout equipment but nearly tripped over a bowl of crushed potato chips that had been obscured by a sports award plaque. “Hmmm,” she said. “That’s not like him to take the trouble to cover it up. Probably an accident.”

She continued: “There are maybe 30 hangers in his closet, but they’re empty. Except for the clothes he would never wear, like a suit, which have been pushed to the back. But the bottom of the closet, that’s where his clothes are. On top of shoes. Which are on top of papers. And empty shoe boxes.”