The Trail Went Cold

July 25, 1995. Lincoln, Nebraska. 18-year old university student Tina McMenamin fails to show up for her shift at work and her body is found inside her apartment bedroom later that night. Tina has been sexually assaulted and stabbed seven times and the apartment is ransacked. Nearly one year later, DNA testing links a suspect named Gregory Gabel to a strand of hair found in Tina’s hand and he is s...

August 4, 1984. Fort Myers, Florida. 20-year old Carol Woolsoncroft fails to show up for her shift at her workplace and is never heard from again. Three days later, Carol’s parents return home from vacation and discover her car parked outside their residence, as well as a note from Carol’s boyfriend, Eugene LaFaye Jr., who claims she has gone missing without explanation. Due to their troubled rela...

April 10, 1967. Hometown, Illinois. Ralph Probst, a 30-year old officer with the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department, spends the night at home watching television with his wife before he heads into the kitchen. Moments later, Ralph is fatally shot in back of the head after an unknown assailant fires a bullet through the kitchen window. Investigators look into the possibility that Ralph’s murde...

December 15, 1996. Willingboro Township, New Jersey. After saying goodnight to her family, 12-year old Celina Mays heads for her bedroom, but is discovered to be missing the following morning. At the time, Celina was living with her father and a number of other relatives, who were all members of Gospel of Christ Ministries Inc., a church run by her paternal aunt which has been accused of operating...

October 16, 1987. Indiana, Pennsylvania. Jack Davis Jr., a 20-year old sophomore at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, spends the night partying and drinking with members of his fraternity, but he never returns to his apartment. Five days later, Jack’s body is found at the bottom of an exterior stairwell on the university’s campus and the county coroner concludes that Jack passed out there while...

In 2018, “The Trail Went Cold” released a special Q&A episode in which Robin Warder answered a number of questions from listeners. This year, we decided to do a follow-up episode and received some more interesting questions. Of all the cases you’ve covered, which ones have the best chance of being solved in the near-future? What do your family and co-workers think about the podcast? What is th...

Christmas Day 1929. Stradbally, Ireland. After completing his holiday route, 49-year old postman Larry Griffin fails to return home and his bicycle is found on a road outside the village the following morning. Once a missing persons investigation is launched, rumours start circulating that Larry was killed after an incident at a local pub and a massive cover-up took place. Ten people are eventuall...

Christmas Eve 2002. Port Allen, Louisiana. After leaving her home on a road trip to visit her husband in prison for the holidays, 65-year old Mari Ann Fowler stops at a strip mall to purchase some food from a Subway sandwich shop. When she walks back into the parking lot, Mari Ann vanishes without a trace and surveillance footage from a security camera shows that she was abducted by the unidentifi...

December 17, 1988. Miami, Florida. Lisa Bishop, a 23-year old journalism student from the University of Georgia, leaves on a trip to Haiti on a boat called the Freedon, which is being captained by a German national named Florian Meyer Bourch. When they do not arrive at their destination and Lisa does not contact her family, a search from the Coast Guard fails to find the missing boat. Months later...

November 28, 1985. Tarrant County, Texas. The family of 44-year old Joe Blount gathers together for Thanksgiving dinner in their trailer at the Hilltop Mobile Home Park. After making a trip to a convenience store later that night, they return home to discover a briefcase on their front doorstep. When the briefcase is opened, a bomb goes off, claiming the lives of Joe, his 15-year old daughter, Ang...

February 7, 1999. Kettering, Ohio. Nine-year old Erica Baker leaves her family’s home to take their dog for a walk. While a pair of eyewitnesses see Erica in a nearby park, she soon vanishes without a trace and the dog is found unattended. Six years later, a suspect named Christian Gabriel is indicted on the charges of evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse after confessing that he was in a van...

January 25, 1977. Lexington, Kentucky. 24-year old Melanie Flynn leaves her workplace, but fails to show up for an appointment and does not return home for dinner with her family. Two weeks later, Melanie’s abandoned car is discovered in an apartment complex parking lot and her purse is found washed up next to the Kentucky River later that summer. After numerous eyewitnesses claim to have seen Mel...

April 15, 2004. Forsyth County, Georgia. After finishing a phone call with a customer, 38-year old Patrice Endres vanishes from the hair salon she owns. Patrice’s purse and SUV are left behind and two eyewitnesses report having seen her in the parking lot next to an unidentified individual and a blue vehicle shortly before she went missing. Nearly eighteen months later, Patrice’s remains are disco...

March 5, 1957. El Paso, Texas. 52-year old William “Pat” Patterson and his 42-year old wife, Margaret Patterson, vanish without explanation from their home, leaving everything behind. A friend of the couple soon claims to have received a phone call from Pat, who allegedly said that he and Margaret were leaving town for awhile. Ten days later, Pat’s accountant receives a telegram from him, which st...

March 5, 1957. El Paso, Texas. 52-year old William “Pat” Patterson and his 42-year old wife, Margaret Patterson, vanish without explanation from their home, leaving everything behind. A friend of the couple soon claims to have received a phone call from Pat, who allegedly said that he and Margaret were leaving town for awhile. Ten days later, Pat’s accountant receives a telegram from him, which st...

June 11, 1980. Todmorden, England. The body of 56-year old Zigmund Adamski is found on top of a large pile of coal inside a coal yard. Five days earlier, Zigmund had vanished after leaving his home, which is located 25 miles away, but his whereabouts during that time period are unknown. Zigmund’s official cause of death is believed to be a heart attack, but there are a number of strange clues at t...

July 5, 2000. Seabrook, New Hampshire. Curtis Pishon, a 40-year old former police officer suffering from multiple sclerosis, is working the graveyard shift as a factory security guard when his car suddenly catches fire. The fire department shows up to handle the situation, but less than two hours after they leave, Curtis inexplicably vanishes from the premises. Years later, a former factory worker...

March 8, 1945. Shelby, Ohio. 34-year old Mary Jane Vangilder quits her job at the Shelby Army Air Force Depot after working there for a year. Mary Jane had previously lived in West Virginia with her husband and five children, but after the couple separated, Mary Jane went off on her own to live in Ohio. Even though Mary Jane frequently wrote letters to her oldest daughter, there is no further comm...

September 14, 1963. Bowmanville, Ontario. 13-year old Noreen Greenley leaves her best friend’s house and heads towards the bus stop, but never returns home. Shortly thereafter, one of Noreen’s sisters is nearly struck by a car and hears a female scream from inside, and it turns out the car matches the description of a vehicle seen near the bus stop minutes earlier. Five decades later, a tipster co...

May 12, 2000. The South Pole, Antarctica. While working at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 32-year old Australian astrophysicist Rodney Marks becomes seriously ill before he dies. Rodney’s death is initially assumed to be natural causes, but when his body is transported to New Zealand months later, an autopsy reveals that he died from acute methanol poisoning. The New Zealand Police attempt...

November 27, 1985. St. Augustine, Florida. While attending a neighbourhood social gathering, 12-year old Martha Jean Lambert tells her mother that she will be taking a brief trip back to their mobile home, but Martha never returns and is eventually reported missing. Suspicion starts to fall upon on Martha’s 14-year old brother, David Lambert, after he gives conflicting stories about the last time...

November 8, 1985. Harris County, Texas. A burned-out Jaguar belonging to 52-year old Ed Baker, the millionaire chairman of a Houston-based oil investment business, is discovered in a remote field. The charred remains of what is believed to be Baker’s body are in the passenger’s seat and since he had been suffering from serious financial problems and claimed he was receiving death threats, there is...

January 29, 2011. Loudoun County, Virginia. 21-year old Bethany Decker calls her place of employment to find out her work schedule, but does not show up for her shift later that night. When Bethany’s friends and family do not hear from her for three weeks, she is officially reported missing. At the time, Bethany was pregnant and her husband had been deployed to Afghanistan, but she was carrying on...

February 8, 2005. Totowa, New Jersey. 43-year old chemist Geetha Angara shows up to work her shift at the Passaic Valley Water Commission treatment facility, but turns up missing. The following day, Geetha’s body is discovered inside one of the facility’s water tanks and her cause of death is determined to be drowning. A number of bruises on Geetha’s neck and body suggest that she got into a viole...

May 16, 2006. Baltimore, Maryland. 32-year old Rey Rivera receives a phone call which compels him to race out of his house and drive away before he goes missing. Eight days later, Rey’s partially decomposed body is discovered inside a locked conference room at the Belvedere Hotel. Since there is a hole in the ceiling, police conclude that Rey jumped off the main roof of the fourteen-story building...