The Trail Went Cold

Christmas Eve 1945. Fayetteville, West Virginia. George and Jenny Sodder are preparing to celebrate the holidays with nine of their children, but shortly after they go to bed, their home burns completely to the ground. When the smoke clears, five of the Sodder children - whose ages range from five to fourteen years old - are nowhere to be found and a search of the rubble fails to turn up any trace of their remains. Due to a number of suspicious events surrounding the fire, the Sodders begin to suspect their five missing children were the victims of a bizarre kidnapping. Did the Sodder children really die in the fire that night or did they somehow survive and remain hidden from their family for the rest of their lives? And if the children did perish in the fire, who was responsible for starting it? In this week’s special holiday-themed episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we chronicle one of the most infamous Christmas mysteries of all time. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodder_children_disappearance http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-children-who-went-up-in-smoke-172429802/ http://charleyproject.org/case/jennie-irene-sodder http://charleyproject.org/case/maurice-antonio-sodder http://charleyproject.org/case/louis-erico-sodder http://charleyproject.org/case/betty-dolly-sodder http://charleyproject.org/case/martha-lee-sodder 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.

June 28, 1981. Tilden Township, Michigan. After a night of drinking at a local club, 48-year old Helen Dymond and her husband Roy get into an argument in the parking lot. Roy drives home without his wife and Helen decides to walk from the club to her son’s house in order to spend the night. However, Helen never arrives and vanishes without a trace. Unfortunately, potential resolution for this case would be hampered by a faulty police investigation, contradictory stories from eyewitnesses, and the spread of misinformation. Join us for this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold” as we examine the perplexing disappearance of Helen Dymond. Special thanks to Helen`s granddaughters, Holly Letson and April Lawer, whose Facebook page, “The Disappearance of Helen Dymond” is the source of most of the information you’ll hear on this podcast. Additional Reading: http://charleyproject.org/case/helen-leone-dymond http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/cold-case-spotlight/granddaughters-missing-woman-helen-dymond-push-answers-decades-later-n609536 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.

February 19, 1982. Woonsocket, Rhode Island. 27-year old Susan Laferte and 22-year old Doreen Picard are both attacked in the basement of their apartment house by an assailant who bludgeons them with a pipe. Doreen is killed and Susan remains in a coma for a month, but when she wakes up, she has no memory of the attack. Ten years later, a suspect named Raymond “Beaver” Tempest is convicted of Doreen’s murder and sentenced to 85 years in prison. However, since the prosecution’s case was fraught with problems, Tempest’s conviction is vacated in 2015 and the state is currently deciding whether or not to retry him. Is Beaver Tempest innocent of this horrific crime, or did they have the right guy all along? In this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine a very controversial case which has still not reached its final resolution. Additional Reading: https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Doreen_Picard https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/07/13/man-murder-conviction-vacated-after-years/fbbdnVyj0rVKmI1N0WLdUJ/story.html https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20160714/ri-high-court-rules-beaver-tempest-is-entitled-to-new-murder-trial https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1935215/state-v-tempest/ http://caught.net/2018/beaver1.htm http://caught.net/pdf/tempestruling.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20141001230150/http://caught.net/cases/beaver1.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20150208032655/http://caught.net/cases/beaver2.htm 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.

February 4, 1990. Orlando, Florida. 26-year old Deborah Poe shows up to work the graveyard shift at a Circle K convenience store. At around 4:00 AM, the store is discovered to be empty and Deborah is reported missing. Less than an hour beforehand, a customer had frequented the store, but for unknown reasons, an unidentified man was standing behind the counter and sold her some cigarettes. Did this mysterious man play a role in Deborah Poe’s unsolved disappearance or was someone else responsible? We attempt to answer this perplexing question in this week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold”. Additional Reading: https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Deborah_Poe http://charleyproject.org/case/deborah-deann-poe http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1990-02-06/news/9002063308_1_poe-boyfriend-aunt http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2002-03-28/news/0203280229_1_grassy-field-human-remains-county-sheriff-detectives http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-deborah-poe-missing-anniversary-20150203-story.html 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.

November 12, 1976. Inverness, Scotland. 36-year old Renee MacRae and her 3-year old son Andrew leave on a weekend trip, supposedly to visit Renee’s sister. Later that night, their flaming vehicle is discovered at an isolated lay-by next to the A9, but Renee and Andrew have disappeared. In a shocking twist, it turns out that Renee was actually planning to visit Bill MacDowell, a man she’d secretly been having an affair with for years and who also happens to be Andrew’s biological father. While the evidence suggests Renee and Andrew were murdered, their bodies have never been found. Join me for this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” as I examine one of the most famous unsolved mysteries in the history of Scotland. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_MacRae http://www.scotsman.com/news/renee-macrae-are-police-nearing-the-truth-1-543570 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/659663/A9-roadworks-uncover-bodies-Renee-MacRaeson-forensic-expert http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-37936116 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.

May 1, 2008. Lawrenceville, Georgia. Millionaire real estate developer Hal Wenal returns home to discover that his 60-year old wife, Eva Kay Wenal, has been murdered. The only lead is an eyewitness sighting of a suspicious man in the neighbourhood around the time of Kay’s death. A newspaper soon receives an angry anonymous letter from someone who confesses to killing Kay because she wouldn’t leave her husband. When Hal passes away two years later, his family goes through his belongings and finds photographs of a man who bears a striking resemblance to the murder suspect. However, no one associated with the Wenals has any idea who this guy is. This week’s minisode of “The Trail Went Cold” explores the unsolved murder of Eva Kay Wenal, who may have unknowingly had her killer’s photo stashed away in her home. If you think you recognize the man in this composite sketch or any of these photographs, please contact the Gwinnett County Police tip line at (770) 513-5480. Additional Reading: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/crime/2015/04/24/millionaire-model-murder-mystery/26298715/ http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/archive/years-later-clues-emerge-questions-remain-in-slaying-of-millionaire/article_bf4b49b5-bbd1-5297-9351-2c79da0740aa.html 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.

June 18, 1977. Tucson, Arizona. After disappearing from his family for eleven days, the body of escrow company owner Charles “Chuck” Morgan is found outside his vehicle in the desert. He has been shot in the back of the head and is carrying a two-dollar bill which appears to have a coded message written on it. Even though Chuck had allegedly survived a kidnapping ordeal three months earlier and there are of lot suspicious things surrounding his death, the official police ruling is suicide. Thirteen years later, a Phoenix man named Doug Johnston is shot to death… but was his murder actually intended for a journalist investigating Chuck Morgan’s case? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we examine two cases featured on “Unsolved Mysteries” which may be linked together by a frightening conspiracy. Additional Reading: http://unsolved.com/archives/chuck-morgan http://tucson.com/news/local/crime/cold-case-strange-evidence-found-in-on-near-man-s/article_e84a1034-c078-5a43-81a1-e602f52eda02.html https://www.cochise.az.gov/sites/default/files/treasurer/WillcoxMurder.pdf http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Doug_Johnston 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.

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

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 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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.