August 15th, 2002, Bassick, Virginia.

50 year old Michael Short and his 36 year old wife Mary are found shot to death inside their home.

The couple's nine yearold daughter Jennifer is missing.

Five weeks later, Jennifer's remains are discovered over 30 miles away in a rural area of North Carolina,

and it turns out she's been shot to death as well.

The investigation turned up some promising leads, including a person of interest named Garrison

Bowman, as well as an eyewitness sighting of an unidentified man in a truck who was parked across

the street from the short residence on the morning of the murders. However, these leads

fail to bring about a resolution, so the short family murders remain unsolved.

After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, I'm not. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Trail went cold.

I'm your host Robin Warder and we've got a pretty harrowing case to cover today, the 2002 murders of the Short family.

That voice you just heard narrating her intro was Jackie Elliot, the winner of our most recent Trail Went Cold listener voiceover contest, so thank you very much Jackie.

This is a recurring monthly contest which we've been carrying on for two years now, and if you'd like to enter and haven't already done so I will be

providing instructions near the end of this episode. Anyway today's case was actually

requested to me nearly two years ago by a listener named Tori and while I was familiar with the case at that time,

I didn't really start delving into it until recently. This is a disturbing story about a married couple who were shot to death inside their home and had their nine-year-old daughter abducted before her remains were discovered over one month later.

It's always horrific when an entire family is murdered, but it's especially disturbing when there's very little idea about what the motive could have been.

The crime almost seems to resemble a professional hit, but what could a seemingly or nary blue-collar family like the show? a of twists and turns in this story, including an individual who seemed like a promising suspect on the surface, as well as a corruption scandal involving the sheriff's department who investigated the case.

But after all these years, there still aren't any conclusive answers about who did this and why, so this mystery deserves further exploration on today's episode.

However, before we get started, just a quick reminder that the Trail Went Cold is a weekly

podcast, which is currently available for download on several platforms, including iTunes, Stitcher,

Google Play Music, and Spotify.

...