The Trail Went Cold

November 29, 1987. Millions of people tune in to NBC to watch a television special about unsolved mysteries which is hosted by a legendary, well-respected Hollywood actor. The special is eventually turned into a full-time series and this actor becomes the permanent host. Three decades later, after this TV show and the host have become pop culture icons, they inspire a true-crime podcast called “The Trail Went Cold”. For our very first bonus Patreon episode, we will be chronicling the amazing life of Robert Stack from his instant success as a young actor in Hollywood to his incomparable run as the host of “Unsolved Mysteries”.
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

November 22, 1997. Aiken County, South Carolina. The daughter of 47-year old Janice Wessinger returns home to discover that her mother is missing. The following morning, Janice’s body is found in a wooded area near her house and she has been raped and stabbed to death. It is theorized that Janice was attacked after going out for a walk the previous morning, but her killer is never identified. At the personal request of the victim’s daughter, we will be exploring the unsolved murder of Janice Wessinger on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”.
For more information on this case, please visit the Facebook page, “Janice Wessinger – Help Us Find Her Murderer”.
Additional Reading:
https://www.aikenstandard.com/news/after-years-aiken-county-murder-case-remains-unsolved/article_f822be2a-fd5b-11e7-9b8d-9b6bef056c54.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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

July 2, 1966. Porter County, Indiana. 21-year old Ann Miller, 19-year old Patricia Blough and 19-year old Renee Bruhl leave their homes in Illinois in order to travel to the Indiana Dunes State Park. After taking a spot on the beach next to Lake Michigan, the three women venture into the water, leaving all of their belongings behind. Eyewitnesses would recall seeing them climb into a boat with an unidentified man before they vanished without a trace and there would be a number of different theories about why they went missing. Did the women take off voluntarily? Were they murdered over possible connections to notorious criminal Silas Jayne and his “horse syndicate”? Could their disappearance have been the result of an illegal abortion gone wrong? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we shall explore the truly baffling disappearance of the “Indiana Dunes Women”.
We would like to send out a special thanks to Smithsonian Channel Plus for supporting “The Trail Went Cold”. Visit www.getscplus.com/cold and get 50% off your first three months of Smithsonian Channel Plus.
Join us on March 21 at 8:00pm Eastern Time for an online streaming Unsolved Mysteries marathon where we will be watching segments about cases covered on episodes of “The Trail Went Cold”. You can enter our screening room by clicking on this link.
Additional Reading:
http://charleyproject.org/case/ann-miller
http://charleyproject.org/case/patricia-blough
http://charleyproject.org/case/renee-bruhl
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-06-21-8702170368-story.html
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/3-girls-beach-found-article-1.1216303
“Silas Jayne: Chicago’s Suburban Gangster” by Bryan Alaspa
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

August 18, 1987. Manatee County, Florida. Todd McAfee, the 27-year old manager of a tomato farm, is discovered to be missing from his trailer after his employees arrive for work. Todd’s body is soon found in a nearby drainage ditch and he has been shot four times. Since a valuable gun collection was stolen from Todd’s trailer, he was apparently killed during a botched burglary, and police investigate a sighting of some potential suspects who were seen in the area in an orange van on the day of the crime. Years later, Todd’s former housekeeper, Ruthie Mae Anderson, is indicted for his murder, but the charges are dropped when the case against her falls apart. Was Ruthie actually involved in Todd’s death, or was someone else responsible for the crime? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” explores a cold case which was featured on one of the rarest segments of “Unsolved Mysteries”. In addition, we will also discuss the bizarre unexplained death of 19-year old Tim Molnar, who vanished from his hometown of Daytona Beach, Florida in 1984 before his skeletal remains were inexplicably discovered over 1,200 miles away in rural Wisconsin.
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://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Todd_McAfee
http://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20020826/unsolved-murders-not-forgotten
https://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20120818/News/605214130
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Tim_Molnar
“101 Wisconsin Unsolved Mysteries” by Mary Balousek
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

October 7, 1949. Los Angeles, California. 26-year old actress Jean Spangler leaves her home and asks her sister-in-law to watch over her daughter. Jean says she is planning to meet with her ex-husband and spend the night working on a film shoot, but she soon vanishes without a trace. Two days later, Jean’s purse is discovered in Griffith Park, containing a cryptic note addressed to someone named “Kirk”. Since Jean had recently worked on a film starring actor Kirk Douglas, there is speculation that the note might be addressed to him, but he denies any knowledge of what happened. There are numerous theories surrounding Jean’s disappearance, including speculation about a botched abortion, rumours about her becoming involved with organized crime figures, and even a potential connection to the “Black Dahlia” murder. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we shall cover an unsolved missing persons case which has remained one of Hollywood’s most baffling mysteries.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Spangler
http://charleyproject.org/case/jean-elizabeth-spangler
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-oct-20-me-then20-story.html
https://www.palmspringslife.com/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-jean-spangler/
https://welkerlots.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/the-jean-spangler-premonition/
“Hard Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles” by Jon Lewis
“Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story” by Steve Hodel
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 29, 1991. New York City. Su-Ya Kim leaves her children with their grandmother to go shopping, but never returns. Ten hours later, Su-Ya’s nude body is discovered in a dumpster after she has been stabbed nine times. A security guard reports interacting with an unidentified white male who drove away from the dumpster before the body’s discovery, but even though his vehicle’s licence number is checked, the lead goes nowhere and Su-Ya’s killer is never found.
May 13, 1997. New York City. 11-year old Quin-Rong Wu is walked partway to school by her mother, but after they go their separate ways, Quin-Rong disappears. Two weeks later, Quin-Rong’s body is discovered in the East River and it turns out she has been strangled to death. While a witness reports seeing Quin-Rong on the subway with a middle-aged white male on the day she went missing, police start directing suspicion towards her parents. Was Quin-Rong abducted and murdered by a predator? Or could her own family have been involved in what happened?
On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover two separate unsolved cold cases involving female victims who emigrated from Asia to New York before they were brutally murdered.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/su-ya-kim/
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/nyregion/on-henry-st-a-cold-trail-for-a-girl-lost.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/tears-chinatown-girl-cops-hunt-suspect-grim-tragedy-article-1.758198
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1997/05/29/Missing-Chinese-girl-11-found-slain/5424864878400/
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 13, 1977. Mayes County, Oklahoma. While attending a summer camp for Girl Scouts, 10-year Denise Milner, 9-year Michelle Guse, and 8-year old Lori Farmer spend the night together in a tent. When morning hits, the murdered bodies of the three girls are discovered 150 yards away in the woods. Michelle and Lori have been bludgeoned to death while Denise’s cause of death is strangulation. Evidence seems to point to Gene Leroy Hart, a wanted fugitive who has been on the run for nearly four years, and after a lengthy manhunt, he is captured and charged with the murders. Hart eventually goes on trial for the crime, but is acquitted by the jury and dies of a heart attack two months later. Over the next four decades, attempts are made to use forensic testing to link Hart to the murders, but the results are always inconclusive. Did Gene Leroy Hart actually commit this crime or did the real killer get away with it? For our special four-year anniversary show of “The Trail Went Cold”, we will be chronicling the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, a very infamous and controversial case which was voted on by our listeners. Special thanks to listener Aislinn O’Brien for narrating the opening of this episode.
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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Girl_Scout_murders
http://www.girlscoutmurders.com
https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/specialreports-databases/the-camp-scott-girl-scout-murders/article_a7d3d9c1-fe96-5c7b-8b3e-bcbc9b5c7df9.html
https://oklahoman.com/article/5552738/girl-scout-murders-in-oklahoma-remain-unsolved-40-years-after-tragedy
https://oklahoman.com/article/3261879/was-a-female-involved-in-1977-girl-scout-slayings
“Unsolved Child Murders: Eighteen American Cases, 1956-1998” by Emily G. Thompson
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

December 7, 1958. Portland, Oregon. 54-year old Kenneth Martin, his 48-year old wife Barbara and their three daughters – 14-year old Barbie, 12-year old Virginia and 10-year old Susan – leave their home in their station wagon to take a trip to the Columbia River Gorge. When the family fails to return, they are reported missing the following evening. Just under five months later, the bodies of Susan and Virginia are discovered in the Columbia River and while the rest of the family cannot be found, evidence suggests that their vehicle went off a cliff into the water. While some people believe the whole thing was tragic accident, there are other pieces of evidence that point to foul play, including the discovery of a blood-stained gun which is traced back to the Martins’ surviving son. Were the Martins the victim of an elaborate murder plot? If so, who was responsible and what could their motive have been? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” explores the bizarre disappearance of a family in which three of the five victims are still missing.
Additional Reading:
“Echo of Distant Water: The 1958 Disappearance of Portland’s Martin Family” by J.B. Fisher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_family_disappearance
http://charleyproject.org/case/kenneth-r-martin
http://charleyproject.org/case/barbara-jean-martin
http://charleyproject.org/case/barbara-martin
https://www.koin.com/news/martin-familys-1958-disappearance-remains-a-mystery/
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

February 14, 1986. Sugar Land, Texas. 43-year old insurance agent Stephen Geri phones the mother of his 33-year old wife, Marilu Geri, and asks her to visit Marilu at their house to help her prepare for a party. When Marilu’s mother arrives, she discovers that her daughter has been shot four times. Since there were troubles with the marriage and Stephen stands to collect on a substantial life insurance policy, he is viewed as a person of interest in Marilu’s death, but he also seems to have an alibi during the time period she was killed. However, there is suspicion that Stephen’s alibi might be fabricated, but since there is no direct evidence to implicate him, the crime remains unsolved. Did Stephen Geri orchestrate the murder of his wife? If not, who else could have killed Marilu? We explore both sides of this controversial case on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/marilu-geri/
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Mystery-still-surrounds-Valentine-s-Day-slaying-12611859.php
https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/sugarland/news/article/Valentines-Day-murder-1986-victims-family-Marilu-12613932.php
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-Rangers-unit-would-probe-unsolved-murders-2001754.php
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

December 1, 1987. Chicago, Illinois. While speaking with his mother on the phone, 39-year old Charles Southern shares his plans about taking a trip to India. After not hearing from him for weeks, Charles’ parents check his house and discover he is missing, but they find what appears to be a Last Will and Testament naming a woman named Terri Hoffman as executor of Charles’ estate. Hoffman is the founder of a new religious movement Charles had joined called “Conscious Development of Body, Mind and Soul”, but they are accused of functioning like a cult and over the course of several years, a number of people associated with them would die under suspicious circumstances. Was Conscious Development responsible for Charles Southern’s disappearance? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” not only covers an unsolved missing persons case, but also explores the story of a bizarre cult and their potential culpability in several deaths. Special thanks to listener Carolina Young for providing the opening narration on this episode.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/charles-southern/
http://charleyproject.org/case/charles-southern-jr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Hoffman
“Texas Monthly” Vol. 18, No. 5 (May 1990)
http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1990/march/the-aura-of-murder/
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19900304&slug=1059149
“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 produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.