The Disappearance of Patty Vaughan Part 2

Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

Vincent Strange

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Part 2 of 3. After the disappearance of Patty Vaughan in the fall of 1996 under suspicious circumstances, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office was reluctant to name her husband JR a suspect, although they admitted the investigation was centered around him. The circumstances surrounding Patty’s abandoned Dodge Caravan were highly suspicious, as was the idea that she would leave her children behind. Blood evidence found in the minivan and in her Wilson County home certainly indicated foul play but still, with no body, authorities declined to make an arrest, or, it seemed, treat the case as a homicide. When a year had passed, the police were no closer to finding Patty than they were on day one.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Patty Vaughan, please contact the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office at 210-335-6000.

If you’re experiencing domestic abuse, please get help by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE, or 800-799-7233. You can also text “start,” S-T-A-R-T to 88788 or visit thehotline.org

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The Wilson County News, The San Antonio News-Express, foxsanantonio.com, and news4sanantonio.com were used as sources for this episode.

#JusticeForPattyVaughan #WhereIsPattyVaughan #BexarCounty #SanAntonio #Texas #TX #TexasTrueCrime #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #Podcast #Unsolved #ColdCase #MissingPerson #Disappearance #Vanished #UnsolvedMysteries #Homicide #UnsolvedMurder #ColdCase #CrimeStories #PodcastRecommendations #CrimeJunkie #MysteryPodcast #TrueCrimeObsessed #CrimeDocs #InvestigationDiscovery #PodcastAddict #TrueCrimeFan #CriminalJustice #ForensicFiles

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Before we start the episode, we'd like to offer our utmost thanks to new supporters at patreon.com
0:07.7	slash gone cold podcast.
0:10.3	So thank you, Casey M and Wayland L for your generous support.
0:15.8	If you'd like to listen to Gone Cold, Texas True Crime, add free, and have access to exclusive episodes,
0:23.5	go to patreon.com slash gone cold podcast. We immensely appreciate all the folks who support us there.
0:31.3	Thanks y'all. Now on to the episode. The Gone Cold Podcast may contain violent or graphic subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.
0:42.6	32-year-old Patty Vaughn was last seen on Christmas Day, 1996. According to her estranged husband,
0:50.9	J.R., who came to spend the holiday with their three children. The two had
0:55.4	heated arguments resulting in Patty storming out of the house. The next day, her light blue
1:01.4	Dodge caravan was found at Farm to Market Road, 1937 and Loop 1604 in South Bear County, about
1:09.5	15 miles from her Wilson County home, and approximately
1:13.2	5 miles from Quinny Electric, her place of employment. The vehicle was locked. The exhaust
1:20.3	manifold was still warm to the touch, and the vehicle was reported not to have been in that
1:25.3	area earlier in the day. After retrieving keys from JR, who didn't want anything to do with the minivan or its retrieval,
1:34.3	Patty's boss and a coworker changed the flat tire it had and took it to Quinny Electric.
1:40.3	The driver's seat was all the way back, but Patty was hardly tall enough to drive with the seat in that position.
1:48.8	At first, Patty's family found it difficult to enlist the help of police, so they did some searching themselves, and also re-inflated the flat tire.
1:58.9	It held the air.
2:01.0	There were no punctures or road wear
2:02.8	that would have caused the tire to go flat,
2:05.5	meaning someone had purposely deflated it,
2:08.5	a discovery that only added to the already long list
	...

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