July 13, 2007. Nannup, Australia. 27-year old Chantelle McDougall lives with her six-year old daughter, Leela, Leela’s 45-year old father, Simon Kadwell, and their 40-year old friend, Tony Popic. Chantelle tells her parents that they are all taking a trip to Brazil together, but the group never returns and no paper trail can be found to suggest they left the country. It turns out that Simon Kadwell has been living under a stolen identity for years and is the leader of a doomsday cult called The Truth Fellowship. Did Simon convince his family to disappear with him in order to prepare for an impending apocalypse… or could something far more sinister have happened? This week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold” chronicles the story of a bizarre cult and four people who seemingly vanished into thin air.

Additional Reading:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/baffling-mystery-of-a-cult-and-a-wa-family-who-vanished-10-years-ago/news-story/a941ec7b534905e59c7ec6f6b2997e36

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/fate-of-australian-doomsday-internet-cult-family-from-nannup-western-australia-remains-mystery/news-story/838f1baa6a6d069e3033df8b57ce88ee

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-13/police-say-new-lead-on-disappearance-of-family/4884546

The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

October 14, 1965. Atlanta, Georgia. After having dinner with a friend, 25-year old bank secretary Mary Shotwell Little vanishes without explanation. The following day, her abandoned vehicle is discovered with traces of blood and Mary’s neatly folded undergarments inside. Mary’s gasoline card is also used at two separate service stations in North Carolina by a woman matching her description and two unidentified male companions. The case would contain a number of bizarre developments, including an odd kidnapping story from a prison inmate, allegations of a scandal at Mary’s workplace, and the subsequent unsolved murder of the woman who took over Mary’s job. Was Mary Shotwell Little abducted and murdered… or could she have actually staged her own disappearance? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” is undoubtedly one of the strangest, most convoluted missing persons cases we’ve ever covered.

This episode also contains a promo for “The Fall Line”, a new investigative true crime podcast on the disappearances of Jeannette and Dannette Milbrook.

Additional Reading:

http://charleyproject.org/case/mary-shotwell-little

http://www.buckhead.net/history/mystery/msl_a.html

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1102670/posts

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article9204080.html

http://maryshotwelllittle.blogspot.ca/2010/06/mary-shotwell-little-and-diane-shields.html

The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

February 25, 2014. Perranporth, England. The nude body of an unidentified male is discovered after washing up on Perranporth Beach. The victim has a sock stuffed in his mouth, which has been tied in place by headphones. He is soon identified as Alan Jeal, a 64-year old loner from the town of Wadebridge. Investigators use CCTV footage to track Alan’s movements on the night before he was found and learn that he travelled to two other nearby towns before he went to Perranporth. The footage opens up a lot of perplexing questions, but no answers about how Alan wound up dead. Did Alan commit a very bizarre suicide or was he a victim of foul play? We look at both angles on this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”.

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”.

Additional Reading:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-27505054

http://www.cornwalllive.com/police-reveal-information-case-wadebridge-man/story-21119561-detail/story.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-26674176

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-27678525

The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote.

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

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.