The Trail Went Cold - Episode 117 - Rick Hochstetler

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2019

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

January 10, 1999. Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. While walking home from a friend’s house during the early morning hours, 17-year old Ricky Hochstetler is fatally struck by a vehicle on the shoulder of a county highway in a hit-and-run. The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department soon announce that parts from a Chevrolet truck or van were found at the scene, but an extensive investigation fails to turn up the vehicle which hit Ricky. As the years go on, the sheriff’s department start facing allegations that they mishandled crucial evidence and orchestrated a cover-up, and rumours spread that an off-duty police officer may have been responsible for Ricky’s death. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore another controversial cold case which took place in Manitowoc County six years before Steven Avery was arrested for the murder of Teresa Halbach and involves many of the same law enforcement figures featured in “Making a Murderer”. Special thanks to listener Stephanie Rouleau for providing the opening narration on today’s episode. Additional Reading: https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/09/12/manitowoc-sheriff-under-fire-1999-homicide/80862938/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/09/13/missteps-hamper-1999-hit-and-run-death-probe/87390800/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/09/08/mother-wants-forgive-hersons-killer/87542208/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/09/12/whos-who-ricky-hochstetler-homicide/82207652/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2016/09/07/timeline-ricky-hochstetler-hit-and-run-homicide/82112394/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2017/01/09/ricky-hochstetler-case-unsolved-18-years-later/96339982/ https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/investigations/2017/01/09/ricky-hochstetler-case-unsolved-18-years-later/96339982/ http://www.stevenaverycase.org/ricky-hochstetler-case/ https://www.wiscnews.com/hit-and-run-death-unsolved-after-years/article_8a71d26d-ba10-5608-b7a7-9ddabd243dc8.html “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing on podcast row at CrimeCon 2019 from June 7th-9th at the Hilton Riverside hotel in New Orleans. Listeners can receive a 10% discount on the purchase of a standard badge by using the promo code “COLD19”. “The Trail Went Cold” will also be appearing at True Crime Podcast Festival 2019 on July 13th at the Marriott Downtown in Chicago. Please visit their website for more details. “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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	January 10th, 1999, Manateawak County, Wisconsin.
0:05.0	While walking home from a friend's house on a county highway,
0:09.0	17-year-old Ricky Hawk-Stetler is fatally struck by a vehicle in a hit and run.
0:15.0	Police announced that parts from a Chevrolet truck or van were found at the scene, but an extensive
0:20.4	investigation fails to turn up the vehicle which hit Ricky.
0:24.0	As the years go on, the Manateawak County Sheriff's Department
0:28.0	face allegations of orchestrating a cover-up
0:31.0	and rumors spread that an off-duty police officer may have been
0:34.6	responsible for Ricky's death. After that the trail went cold. Oh, uh, yeah. Oh, uh, uh,
0:44.0	uh,
0:45.0	and uh, and uh,
0:46.0	uh,
0:48.0	uh, uh, uh uh Oh, uh, uh, and uh, and uh, and uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Trail went cold.
1:18.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be covering a cold case involving a hit and run, the 1999 death of 17-year-old Ricky
1:26.9	Hocksteadler. That voice you just heard narrator intro with Stephanie Rulu, the winter of this month's Trail Went Cold listener voiceover contest, so thank you very much Stephanie.
1:37.0	In case you haven't heard, getting the opportunity to read the opening of one of our episodes has been a popular recurring monthly
1:44.4	contest for us and if you'd like to enter and haven't already done so I will be
1:49.2	providing instructions near the end of this episode. Anyway there are a number of reasons I've chosen to cover the Ricky Hawksdler case right now.
1:57.0	For starters, we just passed the 20th anniversary of Ricky's death back in January, but the most intriguing thing about this story is that it happened to take place in Manateauk County, Wisconsin.
2:09.0	As you probably know, that place has become pretty infamous in recent years because it is where
2:14.5	Stephen Avery was convicted of the 2005 murder of Teresa Hallbach, a
2:19.5	controversial case which captured worldwide attention on the true crime documentary making her murderer.
	...

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