Episode description

April 12, 1994. Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 23-year old Karen Denise Wells has left on a cross-county road trip from her hometown in Oklahoma in order to visit her friend, Melissa Shepard, in New Jersey. After checking into a motel, Denise phones Melissa and asks her to come meet her there, but when Melissa arrives, Denise has vanished. Later that morning, Denise’s abandoned rental car is discovered 35 miles away on a remote road. The gas tank is empty and it turns out there are 700 miles on the vehicle’s odometer which cannot be accounted for. Investigators eventually start noticing discrepancies in Melissa’s story, leading them to believe she is withholding information about Denise’s disappearance. What actually happened to Karen Denise Wells? Why did her vehicle wind up in such a remote area? Where did those additional 700 miles on her odometer come from? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” chronicles one of the more baffling missing persons cases we’ve ever covered.

Additional Reading:

http://charleyproject.org/case/karen-denise-wells

https://www.abc27.com/news/midstate-mystery-the-disappearance-of-karen-denise-wells/

https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/04/evidence_sparse_in_15yearold_d.html

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

All music is composed by Vince Nitro.