January 29, 1976. Auckland, New Zealand. 13-year old Tracey Ann Patient leaves her friend’s house to walk home, but never arrives. The following day, Tracey’s body is discovered in some bushes located sixteen kilometres from where she was last seen. She has been strangled to death with a pair of pantyhose which were tightened around her neck with a stick. Nearly two years later, police receive an anonymous phone call from a man who claims that a missing signet ring Tracey had worn can be found in a rubbish bin and he also provides a series of numbers which he says are connected to the case. Even though investigators do recover the ring from this location, they are unable to figure out the meaning of the caller’s numbers and Tracey’s killer is never identified. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we travel down under to New Zealand to explore one of their most prominent unsolved murder cases. Special thanks to listener Kimberly Wyse for narrating the opening of this episode.

Additional Reading:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tracey-ann-patient-killing-the-40-year-murder-mystery-that-has-haunted-nz/VSMDAWN5KFCBONOD6FMFMCD3VM/

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/80206223/tracey-ann-patient-cold-case-new-witness-comes-forward

https://nz.news.yahoo.com/hope-theyve-had-awful-life-222731350.html

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/police-flooded-calls-cold-case

https://www.nowtolove.co.nz/news/real-life/i-want-justice-for-my-sister-5628

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/man-questioned-on-34-year-old-unsolved-tracey-patient-murder/Z7H662EVGI72VBKFFDO7DUBTRU/

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/cold-cases-the-murdered-and-the-missing-new-information-revealed-for-rotorua-cases/HRCOEZU4V3HDRRK25IOJAM4ZVE/

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“The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Westin Park Central Hotel in Dallas, Texas on August 27-28, 2022. To purchase tickets, please visit https://truecrimepodcastfestival.com/

“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.