Those They Left Behind: The Victims of Roy Melanson

Michele Wallace was a freelance photographer who disappeared hiking in Colorado in 1974. She was a free spirit, a pretty and adventurous 25-year old woman with long dark hair she wore in two thick braids.It was late August when Michele told her parents she was going on a backpacking trip with her dog in the Rocky Mountains. Many parents would have been worried, but Michele was an experienced traveler. Her parents trusted her to be safe.But smooth-talking deviant Roy Melanson was unlike any predator Michele had ever encountered before. When she found herself alone in her car with him, her fate was sealed. Melanson had a history of abducting and raping women. And Michele would not be the first woman he murdered.It took nearly 20-years for investigators to get justice for Michele after a new detective and new evidence came into the picture. When Melanson was captured for Michele’s cold case, his DNA was entered into CODIS, helping to solve other murders across the country.Join us at the quiet end today as we discuss the disappearance and murder of Michele Wallace and how solving her murder led to taking a dangerous man off the streets and solving another 1974 cold case murder, that of 51-year old Anita Andrews.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-brewery--4126935/support.