The Trail Went Cold

July 1, 1974. Beirut, Lebanon. Bashir Kouchacji is kidnapped by a group of unidentified men who spend the next five days interrogating and torturing him for reasons he doesn’t understand. Nine years later, after Bashir has moved to Washington, D.C. and become a successful restaurateur, he finds himself being tormented by a non-stop series of threatening phone calls from a mysterious figure known only as “L’Enfant”. The calls continue for an entire decade and take a toll on Bashir’s mental health, but even after they come to an end, there are still no answers about why they happened. Who was “L’Enfant” and were the phone calls somehow connected to Bashir’s unexplained kidnapping ordeal in Beirut? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” might be the most bizarre story we’ve ever featured, as it covers one of the relentless harassment campaigns imaginable.
Thanks to HelloFresh for supporting our podcast. Go to www.HelloFresh.com and use the code cold30 to get $30 off your first week of deliveries.
Additional Reading:
http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Bashir_Kouchacji
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-08-19/news/vw-5724_1_phone-call
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/07/11/the-reliable-source/b457913c-d84c-4b3d-8926-15fb01be78e6/?utm_term=.cb72eb2396f0
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

May 24, 1990. Livingston County, Michigan. After dropping her mother off at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and spending the afternoon with a friend, 30-year old Paige Renkoski starts driving home. That evening, her abandoned vehicle is discovered with the engine running on the shoulder of Interstate 96, but Paige has vanished without a trace. Before she went missing, witnesses recalled seeing Paige speak with a man outside her vehicle at that location, but he is never identified and Paige is never found.
In addition to Paige Renkoski’s story, this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold” will also be covering the recent unsolved disappearance of 28-year old Danielle Stislicki, who vanished after leaving her workplace on December 2, 2016. Her Jeep was later found parked outside her apartment in Farmington Hills, Michigan. For more details about this case, please visit the website, finddani.org, and if you have any information, contact the Farmington Hills Police Department at 248-871-2610. Be sure to check out Nina Innsted’s episode about Dani’s disappearance on the “Already Gone” podcast.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Paige_Renkoski
http://charleyproject.org/case/paige-marie-renkoski
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2015/05/24/mom-hope-can-bring-little-girl-home/27845653
https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/05/31/new-search-in-the-case-of-paige-renkoski-missing-for-over-20-years/
https://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/2011/11/cadaver_dogs_find_potential_bu.html
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

November 18, 1970. Nashville, Indiana. A barn located on the property of 52-year old Clarence Roberts burns to the ground and a charred body is found in the rubble. Clarence’s family assume the body is him, but since he was experiencing serious financial problems at the time, the authorities suspect that Clarence faked his own death, so that his wife, Geneva, could collect on some substantial life insurance policies. Ten years later, Geneva Roberts is killed in a mysterious house fire… alongside a man who is identified as her supposedly deceased husband, Clarence! But what caused the couple’s deaths and whose body was burned in 1970? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” chronicles the incredibly bizarre tale of a man who supposedly died in two different fires ten years apart.
Additional Reading:
http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Clarence_and_Geneva_Roberts
“Notorious 92: Indiana’s Most Notorious Murders in All 92 Counties” by Andrew E. Stoner
https://www.leagle.com/decision/19801787410ne2d137711761
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

August 29, 1943. Indianapolis, Indiana. 33-year old Maoma Ridings is serving as a corporal in the Women’s Army Corps at Camp Atterbury and checks into a room at the Claypool Hotel. Later that evening, Corporal Ridings is found murdered on her bed. She has been beaten and slashed with a whiskey bottle and is nude from the waist down. Less than two hours earlier, a bellboy had seen a woman dressed in black inside Ridings’ room. Who was this mysterious woman in black and was she responsible for Ridings’ murder? This week, “The Trail Went Cold” tackles an unsolved World War II-era murder of a servicewoman who once worked as a physical therapist for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Additional Reading:
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2013/10/01/indiana-unsolved-the-1943-murder-of-cpl-maoma-ridings-at-the-upscale-claypool-hotel-remains-a-mystery/2901193/
“The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large” by Nigel Clawthorne
A huge thank you to Audible for supporting our podcast. To thank you for your support, we’d like to invite you to get a free audiobook with a free 30 day trial at audible.com/cold.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

August 4, 1981. Toledo, Ohio. 20-year old Cindy Anderson shows up for her job as a legal secretary at a law firm. Later that morning, Cindy’s co-workers arrive at the locked office and are surprised to discover that she has vanished. A romance novel is lying on Cindy’s desk and is open to a page describing a scene where a woman is abducted. This would only be one of many bizarre clues in a missing persons case which includes some haunting graffiti, a pair of chilling anonymous phone calls describing Cindy’s abduction, and a drug trafficking ring involving one of the lawyers at the firm. In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we chronicle the baffling unsolved disappearance of Cindy Anderson.
Thanks to HelloFresh for supporting our podcast. Go to www.HelloFresh.com and use the code cold30 to get $30 off your first week of deliveries.
Additional Reading:
http://www.unsolved.com/gallery/cynthia-anderson/
http://charleyproject.org/case/cynthia-jane-anderson
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/08/04/Woman-s-disappearance-a-mystery-after-30-years.html
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

August 27, 1992. Tupelo, Mississippi. While Hurricane Andrew moves over the area, 13-year old Leigh Occhi is left home alone for the day by her mother, Vickie Felton. When Vickie fails to reach her daughter from work, she rushes home to discover that Leigh is missing and the presence of blood in the house suggests foul play. Weeks later, Vickie is mailed an envelope containing Leigh’s glasses. Was Leigh abducted and murdered by an unknown intruder… or could her own mother have been responsible for her disappearance and fabricated an elaborate cover story? In this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we analyze a very disturbing and bizarre missing persons case.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Leigh_Occhi
http://charleyproject.org/case/leigh-marine-occhi
https://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/13/grace.coldcase.occhi/index.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20090803091158/http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2009/07/leigh-marine-occhi.html#more
http://web.archive.org/web/20090803103803/http://blogs.discovery.com:80/criminal_report/2009/07/leigh-marine-occhi-2.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20090803103803/http://blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2009/07/leigh-marine-occhi-3.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20090803091153/http://blogs.discovery.com:80/criminal_report/2009/07/leigh-marine-occhi-4.html
Listeners attending CrimeCon 2017 from June 9th-11th at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis can receive a 20% discount on their ticket purchase by using the code “TTWC20”
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

December 17, 1967. The skeletal remains of an unidentified male are found in Balsam Lake Provincial Park near Coboconk, Ontario, Canada. Five months later, the decomposing body of another unidentified male is discovered in a field near the village of Schomberg, and the similarities between the two scenes suggest that both victims were murdered by the same killer. The victims go unidentified for 40 years until clay busts of their heads are constructed and shown on television. They are both eventually recognized and identified by their families as Richard “Dickie” Hovey and Eric Jones. However, the exact circumstances of their murders are still unknown. This week, “The Trail Went Cold” will be venturing back to its native country for an episode about two young men who may have been victims of Canada’s first known serial killer.
Additional Reading:
“Unsolved: True Canadian Cold Cases” by Robert J. Hoshowsky
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/body-found-in-68-identified-as-new-brunswick-youth-1.615309
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-shattering-conclusion-to-42-year-old-mystery/article17940176/
Listeners attending CrimeCon 2017 from June 9th-11th at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis can receive a 20% discount on their ticket purchase by using the code “TTWC20”
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Back in January, we released a minisode about the disappearance of 47-year old Pamela Butler, who vanished from her Washington, D.C. home in February 2009. Even though Pam’s house was covered by security cameras, none of the surveillance footage showed her leaving, but her boyfriend, Jose Rodriguez-Cruz, was seen entering and exiting the home on multiple occasions in the days following her disappearance. On April 8, 2017, Jose was finally arrested and charged with Pam’s murder. Incredibly, it has now been revealed that Jose is also the prime suspect in the unsolved 1989 disappearance of his estranged wife! For the first time, “The Trail Went Cold” is presenting a bonus update minisode about one of the cases featured on our podcast, as we reveal what finally led to Jose Rodriguez-Cruz being charged with Pamela Butler’s murder and some shocking secrets which have emerged about his past.
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 6, 1991. Greenford, England. While leaving her family’s home, 43-year old Penny Bell tells a group of builders that she is running late for an appointment. Later that morning, Penny is discovered dead inside her vehicle after being brutally stabbed 50 times. Three days before her death, Penny had withdrawn £8,500 from her bank account without telling anybody, but the money is never recovered and no one uncovers the reason for the mysterious appointment which led to Penny’s death. “The Trail Went Cold” will be travelling back to the United Kingdom for this week’s minisode, as we chronicle one of the country’s most baffling unsolved murders.
Additional Reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Penny_Bell
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4233444.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3199425/My-precious-Penny-baby-s-helped-reclaim-mother-murder-Daughter-woman-stabbed-50-times-horrific-unsolved-killing-parent-herself.html
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/WHAT+DROVE+PENNY+TO+MAKE+A+DATE+WITH+DEATH%3F%3B+Wealthy+career+woman…-a061177067
Listeners attending CrimeCon 2017 from June 9th-11th at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis can receive a 20% discount on their ticket purchase by using the code “TTWC20”
The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

January 6, 1982. Breckenridge, Colorado. After finishing her shift at work, 29-year old Bobbie Oberholtzer phones her husband to say she is going out for drinks with friends. Bobbie never returns home and is found shot to death the following day. Strangely, an orange sock which does not belong to Bobbie is found at the murder scene. Six months later, the body of a 21-year old missing woman named Annette Schnee is found and she is wearing the matching orange sock. This piece of evidence suggests that both victims were murdered on the same night by the same perpetrator at different locations. But who could have been responsible for such a brazen crime, and was there more than one person involved? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine the infamous unsolved case known as the “Orange Sock Murders”.
Special thanks to Casper for supporting our podcast. In order to save $50 on a mattress, please visit http://www.casper.com/cold and enter the promo code “cold”.
Also, a big thanks to Esther Gamez for providing us with another terrific piece of cover art for this episode. Be sure to check out Esther’s Facebook and Tumblr pages to see more of her artwork.
Additional Reading:
http://unsolved.com/archives/bobbie-jo-oberholzer-annette-kay-schnee
http://blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases/2014/12/06/breckenridge/9583/
http://www.rockymountaincoldcase.com/
“Monster” by Steve Jackson
Listeners attending CrimeCon 2017 from June 9th-11th at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis can receive a 20% discount on their ticket purchase by using the code “TTWC20”
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The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.
All music is composed by Vince Nitro.