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Good morning and thanks for joining me for Rise in Crime.

Your morning caffeine hit, all about crime.

Let's start out today with a case suggestion out of Maline, Illinois, a case that has haunted longtime locals for nearly 30 years

and may have some answers as of last week. First off, Moline, Illinois. On August 21st of 1996,

Moline was pretty much the same size that it is today. Roughly about 43,000 people live in that city. But the greater area of the

quad cities is where the region gets its size. The industrial city is located on the border of Illinois

and Iowa, and the four cities intersect at the confluence of the Rock River and the Mississippi River,

which is why we have four cities bordering each other,

Molin and Rock Island in Illinois, and we have the other two, Davenport and Bertendorf, in Iowa.

Now, when you add up the population of the Quad Cities, you reach a much higher density of

380,000 people. And just like other Middle American cities,

Molin has a mainstay, and that's the farming equipment industry.

John Deere is the big one here,

but Case, Caterpillar, and International Harvester

have all had operations in the area.

So what happened on August 21st of 1996?

That was the day that 11-year-old Trudy Appleby was last seen in the driveway of her East Maline home. This was at about at 9.30 in the morning. She has yet to be found. And like I said, if you're a longtime resident of the area, you know Trudy Appleby's story.

The day before she disappeared, family friend Kelly Dunlap remembers that Trudy was being an 11-year-old, playing outside on a summer evening.

Trudy had come over to Kelly's house to play with her daughter, and the two ate hot dogs, mac and cheese,

and they rollerbladed out front of Kelly's house. Kelly said Trudy excitedly mentioned the start of the

school year, which was just around the corner. Well, the next day, Dennis, okay, that's Trudy's father.

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