February 14, 2000. Shelby, North Carolina. The parents of nine-year old Asha Degree wake up to discover that she has vanished from her bedroom. After she is reported missing, witnesses come forward to report having seen Asha walk down the highway earlier that morning. This seems to indicate that she voluntarily left her home in the middle of the night for unknown reasons. Eighteen months later, Asha’s book bag is found buried 26 miles away, but she is still nowhere to be found. In this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”, I examine one of the most baffling and unusual missing children’s cases of recent memory.

Please check out the Charley Project profile page for Asha Degree, which contains her vital statistics, age-progressed photographs, and contact info for the proper authorities should you happen to have any information: http://charleyproject.org/case/asha-jaquilla-degree

Additional Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Asha_Degree

About Finding Shelby’s Sweetheart: Asha Jaquilla Degree

https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/new-clues-in-asha-degrees-disappearance/214961800

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

January 4, 1935. The nude body of a young man named Roland T. Owen is discovered inside Room 1046 of the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri. He has been tied up, beaten and stabbed and dies after being taken to the hospital. It turns out that “Roland T. Owen” is not the victim’s real name and after a mysterious anonymous benefactor sends money for his funeral, he is buried without anyone uncovering his true identity or the story behind his murder. Nearly two years later, a woman in Alabama recognizes the victim as her missing son, Artemus Ogletree, but then reveals that she was receiving letters from him months after he was murdered! In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, I shall examine the “Mysa

January 4, 1935. The nude body of a young man named Roland T. Owen is discovered inside Room 1046 of the Hotel President in Kansas City, Missouri. He has been tied up, beaten and stabbed and dies after being taken to the hospital. It turns out that “Roland T. Owen” is not the victim’s real name and after a mysterious anonymous benefactor sends money for his funeral, he is buried without anyone uncovering his true identity or the story behind his murder. Nearly two years later, a woman in Alabama recognizes the victim as her missing son, Artemus Ogletree, but then reveals that she was receiving letters from him months after he was murdered! In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, I shall examine the “Mystery of Room 1046”, one of the most bizarre stories we’ve ever featured on this podcast.

Additional Reading:

https://kchistory.org/blog/mystery-room-1046-pt-1-roland-t-owen

https://kchistory.org/blog/mystery-room-1046-pt-2-love-forever-louise

https://www.historicmysteries.com/roland-t-owen-murder-room-1046/

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/133934437

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

tery of Room 1046”, one of the most bizarre stories we’ve ever featured on this podcast. Click here to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Click here to listen to the podcast on Stitcher. Click here to subscribe to the podcast on Google Play Music. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

September 6, 1970. South Lake Tahoe, California. 25-year old nurse Donna Lass is nearing the end of her shift at the Sahara Tahoe Hotel-Casino when she vanishes without explanation. Her landlord and boss soon receive phone calls from an unidentified man, who claims that Donna will be absent for awhile because of a family emergency. However, this claim turns out to be false and Donna is never seen again. Months later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives a cryptic postcard which is allegedly sent by the infamous Zodiac killer, who implies that Donna Lass was one of his victims. Was the Zodiac responsible for Donna’s disappearance or was the postcard nothing more than a giant red herring? We attempt to answer that question in this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”.

Additional Reading:

http://charleyproject.org/case/donna-ann-lass

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2000/nov/15/was-tahoe-disappearance-linked-to-zodiac-killer/

http://www.zodiacciphers.com/lake-tahoe-disappearance.html

http://www.zodiacciphers.com/zodiac-news/category/donna-lass

“Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America’s Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed” by Robert Graysmith

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 8, 1989. Richmond, British Columbia. Two weeks after she disappeared, the body of 44-year old Cindy James is found in the yard of an abandoned house. Her hands and feet have been tied behind her back and her cause of death is determined to be an overdose. Cindy’s death brings an end to six-and-a-half-years of terror, where she reported nearly one hundred incidents of being stalked, tormented and attacked by an unknown assailant. However, police believe that Cindy was a mentally ill woman who staged all the attacks against herself before committing suicide. Did Cindy concoct an elaborate hoax before taking her own life or was she murdered by her mysterious tormentor? In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, I analyze one of Canada’s most baffling and hotly debated unsolved mysteries.

Additional Reading:

http://unsolved.com/archives/cindy-james

http://www.melaniehack.com/

“The Deaths of Cindy James” by Neal Hall

“Who Killed Cindy James?” by Ian Mulgrew

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

May 5, 1968. After not hearing from him for three days, the fiancee of 62-year old character actor Albert Dekker (star of such films as “Dr. Cyclops”, “Kiss Me Deadly” and “The Wild Bunch”) enters his Hollywood apartment. She is horrified to discover him hanging dead inside the bathroom. The bizarre manner in which Dekker is found suggests that he was involved in some sort of sadomasochistic sexual activity when he died. The initial ruling is suicide before it is changed to accidental death via autoerotic asphyxiation, but since a large amount of money and valuables seem to be missing from the apartment, suspicion mounts that Dekker was a victim of foul play. On this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine one of the strangest unexplained deaths in Hollywood history.

Additional Reading:

“Tales of Hollywood: The Bizarre” by John Austin

“The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals” by Michelle Morgan

http://www.lauriejacobson.com/hollywood_heartbreak_ex.php

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

July 26, 1974. The nude decomposed body of a young woman is discovered at the Race Point Dunes outside of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The woman has been murdered via blunt force trauma to the head, but carries no identification. In spite of an extensive investigation, police are unable to uncover the identity of the victim or her killer, so she simply becomes known as the “Lady of the Dunes”. Over the years, there are a number of intriguing leads in the case, including a potential connection to a notorious mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, and an alleged sighting of the victim in one of the biggest Hollywood blockbusters of all time. Join me for this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” as I try to figure out the true identity of the “Lady of the Dunes”

As a bonus, this episode will also contain a review of the true crime book, “The Blood on My Hands”, an autobiography written by Shannon O’Leary, which is available for purchase at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Blood-My-Hands-Autobiography/dp/151969587X

Also, please check out the Doe Network profile page for the “Lady of the Dunes”, which contains facial reconstructions for the victim, her vital statistics, and contact info for the proper authorities should you happen to know who she is: http://doenetwork.org/cases/119ufma.html

Additional Reading:

http://www.masslive.com/bostonspirit/2014/10/whitey_bulger_gays_and_the_lad.html

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2014/07/23/40-years-later-provincetowns-lady-of-the-dunes-remains-a-mystery

“The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes” by Michael Newton

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

December 10, 1971. Middlebury, Vermont. 18-year old Middlebury College student Lynne Schulze is scheduled to take one of her final exams. While walking to the exam with her friends, Lynne remembers that she has forgotten her pen and returns to her dorm room to retrieve it. Lynne never shows up for the exam and vanishes without a trace. Four decades later, an unlikely connection is made between this case and one of the most sensational crime stories of the modern era. Was Lynne Schulze’s baffling unsolved disappearance somehow connected to notorious millionaire Robert Durst? We shall try to answer that question on our latest minsode of “The Trail Went Cold”.

Additional Reading:

http://charleyproject.org/case/lynne-kathryn-schulze

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/24/robert-durst-linked-disappearance-lynne-schulze-vermont-student-1971

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/robert-durst/robert-durst-case-missing-student-lynne-schulze-shopped-his-business-n329551

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Christmas Eve 1975. Winter Garden, Florida. Police respond to call for help at the W.T. Zeigler Furniture Store and find one of the store’s owners, 30-year old Tommy Zeigler, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Inside, they discover that four people have been murdered: Tommy’s wife, Eunice Zeigler; her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards; and a customer named Charlie Mays. Tommy claims he was attacked and shot by unknown intruders, but authorities believe Tommy committed the murders himself and that his gunshot wound is self-inflicted. Months later, he is put on trial and sentenced to death. In Part 1 of this convoluted story, we chronicled this horrific crime and Tommy Zeigler’s trial. Now, in Part 2, we shall examine the many shocking developments from the past four decades which have cast doubt on the conviction. Did Tommy Zeigler actually commit these murders or has an innocent man spent 40 years on death row?

For this episode, we have consulted with Tommy’s full time pro bono private investigator, Lynn-Marie Carty, who has spent the past five-and-a-half years uncovering new evidence in her attempts to get Tommy out of prison. Be sure to check out her website about the case, “Tommy Zeigler is Innocent”, along with her personal website about her investigation services, “Reunite People”. We thank Lynn-Marie for her assistance at helping us put together our most extensive episode of “The Trail Went Cold”.

Additional Reading:

“Fatal Flaw: A True Story of Malice and Murder in a Small Southern Town” by Philip Finch

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-tommy-zeigler-medill-justice-project-20160308-story.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/defense-seeks-touch-dna-to-question-death-row-inmates-guilt/2236115

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 28, 1991. An elderly couple named Gord and Jackie McAllister drive their motor home into an isolated rest stop near Blind River, Ontario, in order to spend the night. They are awakened by an armed man, who robs them before shooting Jackie to death and wounding Gord. When a motorist named Brian Major pulls into the rest stop, the suspect fatally shoots him as well before fleeing the scene. Years later, a former Blind River resident is tied to two unsolved murders from 1970 and becomes a potential suspect in the rest stop killings. This terrifying case was featured on “Unsolved Mysteries” and is our first Canadian story. Join us for the very first minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”.

Additional Reading:

http://unsolved.com/archives/gordon-jackie-mcallister

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/dna-leads-to-arrest-in-30-year-old-sex-slayings-1.176374

“Cold North Killers: Canadian Serial Murder” by Lee Mellor

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Christmas Eve 1975. Winter Garden, Florida. Police respond to call for help at the W.T. Zeigler Furniture Store and find one of the store’s owners, 30-year old Tommy Zeigler, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Inside, they discover that four people have been murdered: Tommy’s wife, Eunice Zeigler; her parents, Perry and Virginia Edwards; and a customer named Charlie Mays. Tommy claims he was attacked and shot by unknown intruders, but authorities believe Tommy committed the murders himself and that his gunshot wound is self-inflicted. Months later, he is put on trial and sentenced to death. However, the prosecution’s case was shaky at best and over the years, evidence has emerged to cast doubt on the conviction. Tommy Zeigler has remained on death row for over 40 years, but has never stopped maintaining his innocence and his supporters continue to fight to get him released. This is undoubtedly the most convoluted case “The Trail Went Cold” has ever profiled, so we will be making this a two-part episode. This week, Part 1 will chronicle the incredible series of events surrounding this horrific crime and the controversial trial of Tommy Zeigler.

Additional Reading:

“Fatal Flaw: A True Story of Malice and Murder in a Small Southern Town” by Philip Finch

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-tommy-zeigler-medill-justice-project-20160308-story.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/defense-seeks-touch-dna-to-question-death-row-inmates-guilt/2236115

http://tommyzeiglerisinnocent.com

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.