January 18, 2001. Miami, Florida. Geralyn Graham, the foster mother of four-year old Rilya Wilson, claims that a female caseworker from the Florida Department of Children and Families took Rilya from her residence for a medical evaluation, but never returned. Rilya is not officially reported missing until 15 months later, but the authorities become convinced that Geralyn fabricated her story and is personally responsible for Rilya’s disappearance. Geralyn is eventually charged with numerous crimes and receives a lengthy prison sentence after she is convicted of kidnapping and child abuse at her trial. Since the jury is unable to convict Geralyn of murder and Rilya’s remains are never found, there are a lot of unanswered questions about what actually happened. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a heartbreaking and controversial missing children’s case which came about as the result of a major scandal within Florida’s foster care system. Special thanks to listener Jaclyn Collins for narrating the opening of this episode.

If you have any information about this case, please contact the Miami-Dade County Police Department at (305) 418-7302.

Additional Reading:

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

https://charleyproject.org/case/rilya-shenise-wilson

https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/652361189/

https://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/18/fla.missing.girl/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7210798

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/proving-murder-in-case-of-missing-girl/

https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/informer-testifies-caretaker-confessed-to-killing-rilya-wilson/1266933/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/25/woman-convicted-missing-girl/1865543/

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/geralyn-graham-faces-sentencing-in-rilya-wilson-case/2015825/

https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/rilya-wilson

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

January 31, 1985. West Seneca, New York. 21-year old Leichia Reilly spends the night hanging out at a nightclub called the Pierce Arrow, but she never returns home and vanishes without a trace. Numerous witnesses recall having seen Leichia leaving the club during the early morning hours with an off-duty state trooper named Daniel Rose, but he denies this and stops cooperating with the investigation. Even though Rose is soon fired by the New York State Police and there appear to be some holes in his story, there is no evidence to implicate him in Leichia’s disappearance and she is never found. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the controversial disappearance of Leichia Reilly, which has gone unsolved for more than 40 years. In addition, we will also discuss the unsolved 1982 murder of James Adamski, who went missing during the early morning hours of Halloween after leaving a bar in the nearby village of Depew before he was found in a shallow grave in a wooded area just under two months later.

Additional Reading:

https://charleyproject.org/case/leichia-m-reilly

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875577695/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875582162/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875637060/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875577847/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875673768/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/874757072/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/877043776/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/875897927/

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/cold-case-crime-west-seneca-missing-person-wny/71-ad11d332-e29e-44b4-a933-90d8c33edebe

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/article_b226ae35-9eb5-5afa-8c9d-64ed07491fc5.html

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/investigations/2-investigates/cold-case-leichia-reilly-disappeared-1985/71-a0527b9d-fda9-4ae4-817b-9ceb49af06e0

https://www.wivb.com/news/36-year-old-cold-case-still-haunts-lancaster-cheektowaga/

https://www.wkbw.com/news/who-killed-james-adamski

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/unsolved-37-years-later-investigators-still-search-for-clues-in-lancaster-murder/71-ba70ad6f-195d-4bf6-b3bd-e47f3cd94590

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

September 17, 1954. Salt Lake City, Utah. Five-year old Gregory MaComb is abducted from his apartment and found dead in a creek bed after he has been sexually assaulted, strangled and bludgeoned to death. A witness reports having seen a man carrying Gregory out of the apartment house and placing him inside his car and he seems to match the description of Norman Ash Fackrell, a friend of Gregory’s mother. Nearly three years later, Fackrell is charged with Gregory’s murder, but winds up being acquitted at trial, so the truth about who was responsible for the crime remains shrouded in mystery. Was Norman Ash Fackrell the right perpetrator all along or did someone else kill Gregory? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we look at both sides of this controversial case. Special thanks to listener Fran Krause for narrating the opening of the episode.

Additional Reading:

https://www.newspapers.com/image/595549367/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/599289443/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/599195293/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/597692336/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/598548447/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/595867589/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/599418869/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/595866911/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/599233507/

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

September 5, 1978. Sterling, Alaska. 13-year old Scott Fandel and his 8-year old half-sister, Amy Fandel, are dropped off at their cabin by their mother, Margaret Fandel, who then goes out to some bars with her own sister. When Margaret and her sister return home during the early morning hours of September 6, they discover a pot of warm water on the stove next to some macaroni and tomato sauce. This suggests that Scott had been in the midst of preparing a late-night snack before he was interrupted, but both he and Amy are missing. There is speculation that the two children were abducted and while investigators explore a number of different leads - including the possibility that some carnival workers or Margaret’s estranged husband could have been responsible for the disappearances - no trace of Scott and Amy is ever found. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we travel to Alaska to explore a baffling missing children’s case which has gone unsolved for 47 years.

If you have any information about this case, please contact the Alaska State Troopers at (907) 262-4453.

Additional Reading:

https://charleyproject.org/case/scott-curtis-fandel

https://charleyproject.org/case/amy-lee-fandel

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138216282/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1054276130/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138206372/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138456110/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138456273/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1054286770/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1054286791/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138280231/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138204917/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138204935/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1138204963/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1057007859/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1057007991/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1057008009/

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

November 10, 1984. Lynbrook, New York, After getting fired from her job at a roller rink, 16-year old Theresa Fusco starts heading home, but she never arrives. Her nude body is eventually found in a wooded area and she has been raped and strangled to death with a ligature. Over four months later, a 21-year old suspect named John Kogut confesses to the crime and implicates two accomplices – 26-year old John Restivo and 31-year old Dennis Halstead – and they are all charged and convicted of Theresa’s murder. In 2003, all three men have their convictions overturned after DNA testing on the evidence excludes them. Kogut winds up being acquitted at his retrial while the charges against Restivo and Halstead are dropped, but there are still questions about who was actually responsible for killing Theresa.

For the first time ever, the “Trail Went Cold” is covering a cold case in which an arrest was made while we were in the midst of putting together our episode about it, so we’re going to cover the full story and all the recent developments. Special thanks to listener Reemi Hautamaki for narrating the opening of this episode.

Additional Reading:

https://innocenceproject.org/cases/john-kogut/

https://centurion.org/cases/kogut-john/

https://exonerationregistry.org/cases/10591

https://exonerationregistry.org/cases/10504

https://exonerationregistry.org/cases/10795

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125077&page=1

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/mom-of-1984-long-island-murder-victim-decries-award-verdict/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/721897625/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/728546280/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/710299952/

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/15/us/theresa-fusco-suspect-indicted-cold-case

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/theresa-fusco-murder-indictment/

https://charleyproject.org/case/kelly-eileen-morrissey

https://archive.longislandpress.com/2010/11/18/kelly-morrissey-the-search-for-kelly-morrissey-continues-26-years-later/

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

August 20, 1966. Niteroi, Brazil. The bodies of a pair of electronics technicians, 34-year old Miguel Jose Viana and 32-year old Manuel Pereira da Cruz, are discovered on the top of Vintem Hill and they are carrying a pair of lead masks and some cryptic notes about ingesting capsules. Three days earlier, the two men had travelled to Niteroi from their homes in Campos dos Goytacazes over 260 kilometres away, but there is no direct evidence of foul play and the authorities are unable to determine their cause of death. There are a number of theories about what happened, including speculation that the two men’s deaths might be connected to UFO sightings from the area, but the whole situation is never satisfactorily explained and remains shrouded in mystery. For this year’s Halloween-themed episode, “The Trail Went Cold” is finally tackling one of the most bizarre unsolved mysteries of all time: the Lead Masks Case.

Additional Reading:

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

https://pmig96.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/the-lead-masks-case/

"Flying Saucer Review" (March-April 1967)

https://skeptoid.com/episodes/398

https://www.truecriminelle.com/the-lead-masks-case-bizarre-deaths-what-happened-on-vintem-hill/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoPHYQuAlnw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjqCQEjgzk4

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

March 6, 1939. Fingringhoe, England. After purchasing some cigarettes at a local pub, 67-year old Ada Constance Kent seems to disappear and over the course of the next decade, numerous searches are performed of her empty cottage and they fail to turn up any trace of her. Ten years later, a human skeleton is discovered beneath some rubble in the cottage’s bedroom alongside an empty bottle of poison, and after a forensic examination is performed, there is some uncertainty about who the remains actually belong to. When an inquest is held, a coroner’s jury does eventually conclude that the skeleton is likely Ada Constance Kent, but since they are unable to determine her exact cause of death, they return an open verdict. Did Ada Constance Kent die inside her cottage and remain undiscovered for an entire decade? If not, then what actually happened to her? On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we travel back to the United Kingdom to explore a truly bizarre mystery.

Join us on Saturday, October 25 at 8:00pm ET for a Halloween-themed online streaming marathon where we will be watching classic segments from “Unsolved Mysteries”. You can enter our screening room by clicking on this link.

Additional Reading:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07mvbtw

https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Ada_Constance_Kent

https://essexandsuffolksurnames.co.uk/the-fingringhoe-skeleton/

"Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in & Around Colchester" by Patrick Denney

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1182993941/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/397806138/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/791699254/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/789295887

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content.

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.