The Trail Went Cold

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 states that he and Margaret are on an extended vacation and provides instructions about how to handle their assets and business. However, there is speculation that Pat did not actually write the telegram and evidence eventually emerges to suggest that the couple were victims of foul play. The case attains further notoriety when rumours spread that the Pattersons’ former home is haunted and their remains might be buried somewhere on the property. On this week’s Halloween-themed episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a baffling unsolved cold case involving a missing couple which contains numerous theories involving murder, espionage and the paranormal.
This episode of The Trail Went Cold is brought to you by Best Fiends, a unique and exciting puzzle experience unlike other puzzle games out there. Download Best Fiends FREE on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That’s FRIENDS without the R, Best Fiends!
Additional Reading:
http://charleyproject.org/case/william-durrell-patterson
http://charleyproject.org/case/margaret-m-patterson
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/2017/03/06/el-paso-familys-disappearance-remains-mystery/98702680/
https://kfoxtv.com/news/special-assignments/vanished
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/history/blogs/tales-from-the-morgue/2009/03/04/48-years-many-theories-no-leads-still-missing/31519165/
http://www.ephistory.com/the-patterson-files/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/68700556/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/68700643/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/68702771/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430520778/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/460319450/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/430521118/
https://www.newspapers.com/image/436273013/
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

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 the scene, including some unexplained burns on his head. Months later, one of the police constables who found Zigmund’s body experiences what he believes to be a bizarre encounter with a UFO, leading to speculation that the two events might be connected. Could alien abduction have played a role in Zigmund Adamski’s death? If not, what did happen to him and how did he wind up dead at that particular location? For this month’s first Halloween-themed episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we will be travelling to the United Kingdom to explore one of the strangest mysteries we’re ever covered.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Godfrey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/yorkslincs/series2/ufo_alien_abduction_yorkshire_pennine_sighting_adamski_mystery.shtml
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/west-yorkshire-news/unsolved-baffling-case-missing-miner-14150127
http://www.thedefectivespodcast.uk/blog
“Close Encounters of the Fatal Kind” by Nick Redfern
“Acknowledged: A Perspective on UFOs, Aliens and Crop Circles” by Andrew Johnson
“The Book of Ghosts, UFOs and the Unexplained” by James Paton
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 allegedly brags about causing Curtis’ disappearance and even though it is theorized that Curtis was killed after interrupting a theft, there is no evidence to arrest anyone. Did Curtis Pishon become the victim of foul play? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the odd unsolved disappearance of a security guard who went missing during the middle of his shift.
Additional Reading:
http://charleyproject.org/case/curtis-pishon
http://www.unsolved.com/gallery/curtis-pishon
http://findcurt.com
https://patch.com/new-hampshire/hampton-northhampton/missing-seabrook-man-case-still-haunting
http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20120629/NEWS/206290326
https://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20150709/news/150709069
http://www.wmur.com/article/15-years-after-man-s-disappearance-family-seeks-answers/5201660
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-unsolved-case-file-curtis-pishon/22039680
https://lostnfoundblogs.com/f/curtis-pishon-burning-questions
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 communication from her after she leaves her job and she is never heard from again. Did Mary Jane go off to start a new life somewhere or was she was a victim of foul play? At the request of Mary Jane’s surviving family, this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” will explore a baffling 75-year old missing persons case that has become an active investigation in recent years. If you have any information about the disappearance of Mary Jane Vangilder, please contact Officer Adam Turner of the Shelby Police Department at (419) 347-2242.
This episode of The Trail Went Cold is brought to you by Best Fiends, a unique and exciting puzzle experience unlike other puzzle games out there. Download Best Fiends FREE on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That’s FRIENDS without the R, Best Fiends!
Additional Reading:
http://charleyproject.org/case/mary-jane-vangilder
https://www.register-herald.com/news/crime/the-search-for-mary-jane-vangilder-missing-since-1945/article_022e391b-0838-5ec4-8805-0aa3931ab684.html
https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/2019/08/26/body-exhumed-case-shelby-woman-who-disappeared-1945/2118728001/
https://www.richlandsource.com/news/what-happened-to-shelby-s-mary-jane-vangilder-in/article_c0afacbc-a8ce-11e9-bec2-8359e67b24db.html
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/ohio/police-reopen-case-of-woman-missing-from-richland-county-since-1945/95-617994872
“Mysterious WV” Youtube Video Part 1
“Mysterious WV” Youtube Video Part 2
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 comes forward with an allegation that his deceased father confessed to killing Noreen and buried a car containing her body, but an excavation fails to turn up any evidence. In addition to Noreen Greenley’s disappearance, this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” will also chronicle another unsolved missing children’s case from Ontario involving the disappearance of 10-year old Marianne Schuett, who also became the victim of an apparent abduction on April 27, 1967. Special thanks to listener Dagan Cardinal for providing the opening narration for our episode.
Additional Reading:
https://bringnoreenhome.wordpress.com
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2782dfon.html
https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news/peterborough-region/2019/07/14/cold-case-family-relentless-in-quest-to-bring-missing-bowmanville-teen-home.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/police-excavation-in-55-year-old-cold-case-was-incomplete-forensic-expert-says-1.4871169
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/teen-who-vanished-in-1963-may-be-in-trunk-of-buried-car-family-1.4139614
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2018/10/18/bowmanville-missing-teen/
https://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/4086670-fifty-years-of-searching-for-missing-bowmanville-girl/
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/534dfon.html
https://www.mississauga.com/news-story/9209395-ontario-cold-case-parents-beg-abductor-to-phone-or-write-us-after-daughter-disappears/
https://www.insidehalton.com/news-story/2942514-what-really-happened-to-marianne-schuett-/
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1968/1/1/a-little-girl-is-missing
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 to launch an investigation, but run into jurisdictional issues and since Rodney’s American-based employers prove to be uncooperative, a coronial inquest fails to reach a conclusion about how Rodney died. Was Rodney Marks’ methanol poisoning a tragic accident or was he the victim of foul play? We shall explore all the different possibilities on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, which covers our very first mystery from Antarctica.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Marks
https://www.mensjournal.com/features/a-mysterious-death-at-the-south-pole-20131125/
http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/public/mkivelso/refs/PUBLICATIONS/polar%20death.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/14/antarctica.robinmckie
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10415310
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10534046
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10534295
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10561809
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10561811
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/17/us/scientist-dies-at-south-pole-research-site.html?module=inline
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 he saw her. Over the course of the next 24 years, David makes two separate confessions about killing Martha and disposing of her body. Investigators find David’s second confession to be believable enough that they decide to close the case, but almost immediately after this news is made public, David recants his story. Was Martha’s brother actually responsible for her disappearance, or did something else happen to her? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” covers a very controversial and divisive missing persons case which has yet to find a conclusive resolution.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Martha_Jean_Lambert
http://charleyproject.org/case/martha-jean-lambert
https://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-girl-cold-case-solved-cops/story?id=9465748
https://www.staugustine.com/article/20100102/NEWS/301029981
https://www.staugustine.com/article/20100107/NEWS/301079953
https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20100109/NEWS/801259468
https://web.archive.org/web/20141202205242/http://staugustine.com/stories/112804/new_2730440.shtml
https://crimeblogger1983.blogspot.com/2020/06/what-happened-to-martha-jean-lambert.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LinZik2MPtQ
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 suspicion that Baker was murdered by people he owed money to. However, some people suspect that Baker staged an elaborate suicide in order to ensure his family could collect on his life insurance policies. Did Ed Baker kill himself or was he the victim of foul play? Or could he have actually faked his own death and fled the country? We shall explore all the different theories on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, which covers a very bizarre unexplained death.
This episode of The Trail Went Cold is brought to you by Best Fiends, a unique and exciting puzzle experience unlike other puzzle games out there. Download it FREE on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/ed-baker/
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Ed_Baker
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19861001/1703.html
Houston Chronicle (November 10, 1985)
“Interlock: Art, Conspiracy and the Shadow Worlds of Mark Lombardi” by Patricia Goldstone
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 an affair with another man named Ronald Roldan, who may have been her unborn child’s biological father. Ronald is alleged to have been abusive and controlling towards Bethany, and years later, he is charged with attempted murder after shooting another woman. Was Ronald responsible for Bethany’s disappearance? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore an unsolved cold case involving a missing pregnant woman who seemed to be trapped in a nightmarish situation.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Bethany_Decker
http://charleyproject.org/case/bethany-anne-decker
https://truecrimedaily.com/2016/06/02/update-person-of-interest-in-decker-disappearance-takes-plea-deal/
http://crimewatchdaily.com/2015/10/04/military-wife-goes-missing-while-husband-deployed-overseas/
https://wjla.com/news/crime/gone-without-a-trace-search-for-local-pregnant-mom-missing-for-4-years-113572
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/husband-boyfriend-of-missing-pregnant-woman-questioned
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1103/10/ng.01.html
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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 violent struggle before she was placed in the tank, so her case is classified as a homicide. While police investigate a number of Geetha’s co-workers, the killer is never identified. Who was responsible for murdering Geetha Angara and what was their motive? Or could her death have actually been a tragic accident caused by negligence? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore an horrific unexplained death which has stymied the authorities for over 15 years.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geetha_Angara_homicide
https://www.nj.com/news/2015/02/from_the_archives_accident_or_murder_former_invest.html
https://www.nj.com/news/2015/02/death_in_the_water_tank_nightmarish_case_remains_u.html
https://www.nj.com/news/2015/02/from_the_archives_at_plant_a_chilling_idea_killer.html
https://www.nj.com/news/2015/02/from_the_archives_state_to_take_up_probe_in_death.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jun-12-na-drown12-story.html
https://people.com/archive/a-killer-among-us-vol-65-no-11/
https://nypost.com/2006/02/06/zeroing-in-on-n-j-chemists-killer-3-suspects-eyed-1-yr-after-water-plant-slay/
https://nypost.com/2006/05/01/murder-may-be-mishap-scientist-might-have-fallen-into-tank/
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
“The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.