The Trail Went Cold

August 15, 2002. Bassett, Virginia. 50-year old Michael Short and his 36-year old wife, Mary, are found shot to death inside their home, but the couple’s nine-year old daughter, Jennifer, is missing. Over one month later, Jennifer’s remains are discovered over 30 miles away in a rural area of North Carolina and it turns out she has been shot to death as well. The investigation turns up some promising leads, including a person of interest named Garrison Bowman, as well as an eyewitness sighting of an unidentified man who was seen parked across the street from the Short residence in a truck on the morning of the murders. However, these leads fail to bring about a resolution and no one can figure out a motive for this crime. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the truly horrific and baffling unsolved murders of an entire family. Special thanks to listener Jackie Elliott for providing the opening narration for this episode.
Additional Reading:
https://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/news/local/short-case-timeline/article_55042b5d-f433-5452-ab8d-e5519441a59a.html
https://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/mystery-of-who-killed-the-shorts-remains-unsolved-year-after/article_3b8582e5-a76c-59ca-b84a-74af81dd9eec.html
https://www.greensboro.com/friend-witness-wasn-t-fleeing-john-beasley-says-garrison-bowman/article_5a9adebc-249e-58af-9728-54576c95e5dd.html
https://www.greensboro.com/angry-landlord-fingered-bowman-friends-say-gary-lemons-was-furious/article_3b513ad9-d436-560a-84d0-a622c8bd6bb5.html
https://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/man-s-life-upturned-i-didn-t-know-them/article_f7037a40-68dd-5ccc-82f6-30519e08a2d7.html
https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2016/07/09/the-short-family-murders/
“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.

April 19, 1988. Suncrest, Washington. 36-year old Doyle Wheeler, a former police officer from the San Diego Police Department, is attacked inside his home by a group of armed intruders. They force Wheeler to write a suicide note at gunpoint, hog-tie him, and fire a shot which grazes the side of his head, but he winds up surviving the attack. Evidence seems to link the intruders to another San Diego police officer named Donovan Jacobs whom Wheeler had testified against at a previous murder trial. While Wheeler suspects Jacobs of orchestrating the attempt on his life, Jacobs believes the incident never even happened and accused Wheeler of fabricating the entire story in order to set him up. Did Donovan Jacobs attempt to have Doyle Wheeler killed? Did Wheeler orchestrate a fake home invasion in order to frame Jacobs? Or could an unknown third party have been behind the entire thing? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the alleged attempted murder of a police officer in one of the most unique and complex stories we’ve ever covered.
This episode of "The Trail Went Cold" is sponsored by Native. Native makes safe, simple, effective products that people use in the bathroom everyday with trusted ingredients and trusted performance. For 20% off your first purchase, please visit nativedeodorant.com and enter the promo code “cold” during checkout. 
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Ottawa Podcast Festival, being held at the “LIVE! on Elgin” venue in Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, August 24. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit their website (https://www.ottawapodcastfestival.com).
Additional Reading:
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Doyle_Wheeler
https://apnews.com/b7ce295622b630e619207b41e52b55f7
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-07-21-me-9029-story.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.

October 21, 1954. Verdun, Quebec. Nine-year old Clifford Sherwood leaves for school and meets up with his 12-year old friend, George Gumbly. The two boys never arrive at school or return home and are subsequently reported missing. Clifford’s mother, Frances Sherwood, believes that her abusive ex-husband, Nephi “Tex” Sherwood, abducted Clifford and took him across the country to British Columbia, but there is no evidence to implicate him. When Tex passes away three decades later, his family discovers that he had been living under a false identity and led a secret double life, furthering their belief that Tex raised Clifford under a new identity and giving them hope that Clifford might still be alive somewhere. But if Clifford was abducted by his father, what happened to George Gumbly? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a truly bizarre mystery which is considered to be the oldest registered missing children’s case in the history of Canada.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Clifford_Sherwood
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/208dmqc.html
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Ottawa Podcast Festival, being held at the “LIVE! on Elgin” venue in Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, August 24. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit their website (https://www.ottawapodcastfestival.com).
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.
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The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

March 29, 1995. Somerville, Massachusetts. 17-year old Deanna Cremin spends the evening with her boyfriend, Tommy LeBlanc, but fails to return home. The following morning, Deanna’s body is found behind a senior housing complex and she has been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. According to Tommy, he had walked Deanna halfway to her house before turning around and heading back home, but he denies any involvement in her murder. While Tommy and two other individuals are looked at as persons of interest, no one is ever charged with the crime.
October 27, 1989. Woburn, Massachusetts. 14-year old Melanie Melanson tells her grandmother that she is planning to sleep over at her next-door neighbour’s house. When Melanie fails to return home the following day, her family learns that she actually sneaked away to attend a party in a wooded area on the outskirts of town. Two older boys are named as the last people seen with Melanie, but they give conflicting stories about what happened to her. While investigators are certain that something happened to Melanie at the party, no trace of her is ever found.
On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover two unsolved cold cases involving teenage girls which took place in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Deanna_Cremin
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2015/03/29/20-years-without-deanna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Melanson
http://charleyproject.org/case/melanie-jo-melanson
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Ottawa Podcast Festival, being held at the “LIVE! on Elgin” venue in Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, August 24. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit their website (https://www.ottawapodcastfestival.com).
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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 10, 1958. Monterey County, California. 26-year old First Lieutenant Paul Whipkey leaves Fort Ord, the Army base where he is stationed. When he fails to return, he is declared AWOL before being declared a “deserter” 30 days later. Five weeks after he went missing, Whipkey’s abandoned car is discovered nearly 500 miles away in a remote section of Death Valley. Since Whipkey’s body cannot be found, the Army believes he suffered a mental breakdown and wandered into the desert and died. However, Whipkey’s family discovers troubling discrepancies to make them suspect the Army staged his disappearance. In 1982, Whipkey’s status is officially changed to “died in the line of duty”, but he is never found and the full truth about what happened to him is not revealed. Could Whipkey have been recruited by the CIA and sent on a secret mission? Or was his disappearance connected to a previous assignment involving atomic testing? We shall explore all the different potential scenarios as we cover a bizarre military-themed mystery on this week’s edition on “The Trail Went Cold”.
Join us on August 3 at 8:00pm Eastern Time for an online streaming Unsolved Mysteries marathon where we will be watching segments covered on episodes of "The Trail Went Cold." For more details, please visit our Facebook or Twitter pages.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/paul-whipkey/
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/24/us/brother-still-pursues-mystery-of-army-pilot-who-vanished-on-coast-in-1958.html
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Ottawa Podcast Festival, being held at the “LIVE! on Elgin” venue in Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, August 24. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit their website (https://www.ottawapodcastfestival.com).
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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.

April 26, 1980. St. Kilda, Australia. 43-year old Louise Faulkner and her two-year old daughter, Charmian Faulkner, are seen climbing into a car driven by an older man. Louise had told a neighbour she was planning to visit her boyfriend at his farm, but she does not return and both Louise and her daughter are reported missing. The investigation eventually focuses on George Sutherland, a married man who had been carrying on an affair with Louise and is believed to be Charmian’s biological father. 26 years later, the media receives an anonymous letter from someone who claims they heard George confess to Louise and Charmian’s murders. This leads to a coronial inquest, but in the end, there is not enough evidence to implicate George and neither of the two victims are found. “The Trail Went Cold” is going back down under this week for an episode which explores one of the infamous missing persons cases in Australian history. Special thanks to listener Mel Badger for providing the opening narration for this episode.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Louise_and_Charmian_Faulkner
https://enacademic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/7375411
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/letter-points-finger/news-story/6700035701279d7570932a49fc193b3c
“Badlands: Australia’s 13 Most Intriguing True Murders” by Liam Houlihan
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Ottawa Podcast Festival, being held at the “LIVE! on Elgin” venue in Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday, August 24. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit their website (https://www.ottawapodcastfestival.com).
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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.

April 30, 1991. Santa Clara County, California. After spending the night in downtown San Jose with his friend, Jean, 36-year old Dick Hansen notices that he is being watched by a man in a car. When Dick and Jean leave the city in their respective vehicles, they are followed by this man for over ten miles, prompting Dick to leave the freeway and pull over. When Dick walks over to the man’s vehicle to confront him, he is shot twice before the driver flees the scene. Jean is left alive as a witness and the only theory investigators can formulate is that the murder might be connected to Jean’s personalized licence plate for the San Francisco 49ers football team. Was Dick shot because he was mistaken for a 49ers player? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine a truly baffling and senseless murder. In addition, will also briefly discuss another senseless crime committed by a motorist, where a woman known only as “Carol” is shot in the face by a man driving a black pick-up truck on a rural Connecticut highway in August 1988.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/dick-hansen/
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Dick_Hansen
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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.

January 19, 1944. Chicago, Illinois. 54-year old Adele Born Williams returns to her eighth-floor suite at the Drake Hotel alongside her daughter, Patricia Goodbody. A woman dressed in black suddenly emerges from the bathroom and fires a shot into Adele’s head before fleeing the scene and Adele dies the following day. To everyone’s surprise, one police lieutenant suspects Patricia of being the killer and believes that the mysterious “woman in black” did not exist. However, other evidence seems to point to the crime being a botched robbery attempt committed by one of the hotel clerks, but in the end, no one is ever charged with the murder. In preparation for our appearance at the True Crime Podcast Festival this coming weekend, this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” covers one of Chicago’s most bizarre unsolved murders.
This episode of "The Trail Went Cold" is sponsored by Native. Native makes safe, simple, effective products that people use in the bathroom everyday with trusted ingredients and trusted performance. For 20% off your first purchase, please visit nativedeodorant.com and enter the promo code “cold” during checkout.
Additional Reading:
“Chronicles of Old Chicago: Exploring the History and Lore of the Windy City” by Adam Selzer
“Mysterious Chicago: History at Its Coolest” by Adam Selzer
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at True Crime Podcast Festival 2019 on July 13th at the Marriott Downtown in Chicago. Please visit their website for more details.
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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 23, 2009. Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. 29-year old Toni Lee Sharpless attends a party with her friend, Crystal Johns, but when Toni becomes intoxicated and starts displaying erratic behaviour, both she and Crystal are asked to leave. While driving away, the two friends get into an argument which leads to Crystal being kicked out of the car. This is the last time Toni or her vehicle are ever seen and there is concern that her disappearance might be connected to her struggles with bipolar disorder. Two weeks after Toni goes missing, her car’s licence number is flagged in Camden, New Jersey, and years later, an anonymous letter surfaces which claims that Toni was killed after an altercation with a police officer. Did Toni vanish because she accidentally drove her vehicle into the Schuylkill River? Or did something a lot more sinister happen? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover a tragic missing persons case and explore all the different potential theories.
Additional Reading:
http://charleyproject.org/case/toni-lee-sharpless
http://www.mainlinetoday.com/Main-Line-Today/July-2017/Eight-Years-After-Her-Disappearance-the-Search-for-Toni-Lee-Sharpless-Continues/
https://lancasteronline.com/news/tips-on-whereabouts-of-lgh-nurse-missing-since-give-family/article_332a875a-a5e8-5e9a-963b-520bd2040327.html
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/anonymous-letter-offers-clue-case-missing-nurse-article-1.1238873
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at True Crime Podcast Festival 2019 on July 13th at the Marriott Downtown in Chicago. Please visit their website for more details.
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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 4, 1992. Houston, Texas. While working her shift as a waitress at a strip club, 23-year old Tara Breckenridge volunteers to go home early. Tara leaves at around 12:30 AM, but when she fails to return to her apartment by morning, Tara’s boyfriend, Wayne Hecker, goes searching for her. Wayne soon discovers Tara’s abandoned car next to a freeway and the vehicle’s alternator belt is missing. Wayne becomes a potential suspect, as his relationship with Tara was troubled and he has a shaky alibi during the approximate time period Tara went missing, but there is no evidence implicate anyone. Was Wayne actually responsible for Tara’s disappearance? Or could she have been victimized by one of her patrons at the strip club? We shall explore all the different theories, as we cover a baffling missing persons case on this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”.
Additional Reading:
https://unsolved.com/gallery/tara-breckenridge/
http://charleyproject.org/case/tara-suzette-breckenridge
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/She-left-work-25-years-ago-then-disappeared-10925781.php
“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at True Crime Podcast Festival 2019 on July 13th at the Marriott Downtown in Chicago. Please visit their website for more details.
The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website.
“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.