The Trail Went Cold

October 31, 1975. Greenwich, Connecticut. After she fails to return home the previous night, the body of 15-year old Martha Moxley is discovered in her backyard. She has been stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a golf club and pieces of the shattered club are traced to the residence of the Skakels, a prominent family from the neighborhood. Decades later, one of the family’s children, Michael S...

1 eerie corn maze… 9 haunting figures… 9 spine-tingling tales… Will YOU find your way out This Halloween, step into a labyrinth of shadows and suspense with Shane Waters as your guide. In this chilling collaboration, you’ll encounter the hosts of nine acclaimed true crime podcasts (including Robin Warder of “The Trail Went Cold”), each offering a dark tale and a life lesson to send shivers down yo...

October 31, 1975. Greenwich, Connecticut. After she fails to return home the previous night, the body of 15-year old Martha Moxley is discovered in her backyard. She has been stabbed in the neck and bludgeoned with a golf club and pieces of the shattered club are traced to the residence of the Skakels, a prominent family from the neighborhood. Decades later, one of the family’s children, Michael S...

October 31, 1981. New York City. The bodies of 39-year old Ronald Sisman and 20-year old Elizabeth Platzman are discovered inside Ron’s apartment in the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan. Both victims have been shot to death, execution-style, and since the apartment was ransacked, there is speculation that the crime might be drug-delated. However, notorious serial killer David Berkowitz, who is s...

October 31, 1981. Wahneta, Florida. The mother of 13-year old Tina Marie Janose wakes up to discover that she is missing from their mobile home. That same morning, Tina Marie’s body is found twelve miles away on Interstate 4 and it turns out she was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered before the killer tossed her off a highway overpass. Over the years, James Norman Ulmer and Frank Potts, a p...

December 10, 1999. Los Angeles, California. After attending a party at the Dykstra Hall dormitory at UCLA, 18-year old freshman Michael Negrete returns to his room and spends a few hours playing an online video game on his computer with a friend. Mike is last seen at around 4:00 AM and when his roommate wakes up later that morning, he discovers that Mike has vanished and left behind his wallet and...

Since we are currently on vacation, “The Trail Went Cold” will not be releasing a new episode this week. Instead, please enjoy one of our exclusive bonus Patreon episodes from our archives. Thanks for your patience. During its 15-year run on television, “Unsolved Mysteries” profiled a lot of memorable murders and missing persons cases, but the show was just as well-known for its paranormal-themed...

February 18, 1976. Orlando, Florida. 15-year old Linda Kerr leaves her home in order to walk to her boyfriend’s residence, but she never arrives and is subsequently reported missing. Investigators look into the possibility that Linda may have left the area with a biker gang and become an exotic dancer in another city, but this is never officially confirmed. Seven years later, one of Linda’s brothe...

May 11, 1999. Barry County, Missouri. 34-year old Gary McCullough vanishes from his farm and his abandoned pick-up truck is found on a rural road five days later. Suspicion is directed towards Gary’s wife, Sandy, who was having an affair with another man named Kristopher Klemp and the couple immediately move in together before they get married. In 2006, Sandy’s 20-year old daughter, Lena Chapin, d...

July 20, 1986. Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. 66-year old Jim Rice phones his daughter to let her know that he will be traveling to California to undergo shoulder surgery the following week, but he never arrives and no one ever hears from him again. Jim’s common-law wife, Astarte Davis-Rice, initially claims that he took off to Australia with another woman, but evidence soon emerges that Astart...

December 6, 1991. Austin, Texas. After responding to a fire at a local yogurt shop, the authorities discover the burned nude bodies of four victims who have all been shot in the head: 17-year old employees Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison; Jennifer’s 15-year old sister, Sarah Harbison; and Sarah’s 13-year old friend, Amy Ayers. Nearly eight years later, investigators arrest four suspects for the...

December 6, 1991. Austin, Texas. After responding to a fire at a local yogurt shop, the authorities discover the burned nude bodies of four victims who have all been shot in the head: 17-year old employees Eliza Thomas and Jennifer Harbison; Jennifer’s 15-year old sister, Sarah Harbison; and Sarah’s 13-year old friend, Amy Ayers. Nearly eight years later, investigators arrest four suspects for the...

January 28, 1981. Bossier Parish, Louisiana. The decomposed body of a young woman is discovered in the woods next to a remote logging road. The victim has been stabbed nine times, but since she cannot be identified, she becomes known as “Bossier Doe”. 34 years later, Bossier Doe is finally identified as 17-year old Carol Ann Cole, a Michigan resident who had run away from Texas a few months before...

May 10, 1967. Hannibal, Missouri. 13-year old Joey Hoag, his 11-year old brother Billy Hoag, and their 14-year old friend Craig Dowell leave their homes to explore some caves, but never return. Even though a massive search effort is conducted of all the caves in the area, they fail to turn up any trace of the boys or evidence of what happened to them. Over the years, there is speculation that a co...

May 26, 1989. Kelowna, British Columbia. While taking a lengthy backpacking trip through Canada, 20-year old British national Charles Horvath cashes a cheque at a bank, but soon vanishes without a trace. After not hearing from him for several months, Charles’ mother, Denise Allan, travels to Kelowna to perform a search and learns that Charles was staying at a local campground until he abruptly dis...

May 15, 1981. East Chicago, Indiana. Jay Given, a 51-year old attorney and political operative, attends a political fundraiser at the local Elks Club, but is fatally shot through the back of the head while exiting through the building’s front doors. While a shell casing and a slug are collected from the crime scene and placed in an evidence drawer at the police station, it is later discovered that...

February 14, 1982. Coconino County, Arizona. The decomposing body of a young woman is found in a remote area alongside Interstate 40 and while her exact cause of death cannot be determined, she is believed to be the victim of a homicide. Since all attempts to identify her are unsuccessful, she becomes a Jane Doe and earns the nickname “Valentine Sally”. 39 years later, Valentine Sally is identifie...

May 30, 2009. Miami, Florida. While spending the evening partying at a nightclub, 21-year old Omar Laparra becomes very intoxicated and after leaving the club at closing time, he never returns home. Three days later, Omar’s dismembered remains are found in multiple garbage bags on the shores of Biscayne Bay. Investigators look into a number of different leads, including an individual who used Omar...

November 6, 1980. Baltimore, Maryland. Nancy Snow, a 44-year old congressional fundraiser with the Republican National Committee, is picked up from a hotel by Paul Collins, the house-sitter at her apartment in Annapolis. Nancy soon vanishes without a trace, but Collins claims that she left on an impromptu trip to Florida with a man named “Captain Jay”, so she could spend several weeks crewing his...

March 12, 1992. Huntsville, Alabama. SPC Chad Langford, an Army military policeman stationed at the Redstone Arsenal, performs a patrol of the base and sends in a radio call that he is investigating an abandoned vehicle. Shortly thereafter, Chad is found lying in the middle of the road with a gunshot wound to the head and since the Army believes that Chad was shot with his own weapon, they conclud...

April 3, 2004. La Cygne, Kansas. 23-year old Alonzo Brooks vanishes while attending a party at a farmhouse and his body is discovered on the banks of a nearby creek nearly one month later. While a forensic pathologist is unable to determine Alonzo’s exact cause of death, rumours start circulating that he was the victim of a hate crime before his body was placed at that location. In 2021, after Alo...

June 7, 1989. Beverly Hills, California. 23-year old Adam Hecht, the son of a famous Hollywood film producer, is seen driving away from his apartment in a rental car, but he never returns and the vehicle is found abandoned weeks later. In the months prior to his disappearance, Adam had befriended a homeless man named “Tony” and seemed to develop a fascination with the homeless population while bec...

March 25, 1993. London, England. After getting off a train at the Acton Town tube station, 47-year old Jean Bradley heads towards her parked car, but is attacked and murdered by a man who stabs her eight times. A witness chases after the assailant for several blocks before losing him, but manages to provide a detailed description to the police. Five months later, a suspect named Frank Marnell is c...

June 20, 2016. Penn Hills, Pennsylvania. The Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families order the Penn Hills Police Department to remove multiple children from the home of a woman named Patricia Fowler. The authorities soon realize that two of Patricia’s children, 17-year old twins Ivon and Inisha Fowler, are no longer in her custody and an investigation reveals that they have not bee...

February 23, 1946. Grandview Heights, Ohio. 24-year old Lola Celli leaves her parents’ residence in order to walk to the bus stop, but she soon vanishes without a trace. An eyewitness later reports seeing a woman struggling with a man inside a moving vehicle before a red shoe is thrown out the window. Since Lola was wearing shoes like that when she went missing, it is suspected that she was the vi...