June 1, 1983. Louisville, Kentucky.

12-year-old Ann Gottliffe leaves her friends' residence in order to ride her bicycle back to

her family's apartment, but she never arrives. When Ann's mother goes searching for, she discovers

Ann's abandoned bicycle outside a department store, but no trace of her can be found. 25 years later,

investigators announce that new evidence seems to point towards a convicted sex offender named Greg

Rioquely, but since he is currently deceased, there is no resolution in Ann's disappearance.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host

Robin Warder, and this week we're going to explore an unsolved missing children's case,

the 1983 disappearance of 12-year-old Ann Gottliffe. I originally received a request to cover this

one last year from a listener named Tyler, and surprisingly, it does not look like it has been

featured on too many other podcasts, even though it's often cited as one of the cases which

signaled a major turning point in missing children's investigations. Ann Gottliffe was originally

born in the Soviet Union before she emigrated to the United States with her parents, but only

three years after their arrival, and vanished while biking home. Ann's bicycle would be found outside

a mall department store, and the evidence clearly seemed to indicate that she had been abducted.

But what was particularly shocking is that Ann's disappearance occurred in broad daylight in a

public place that was pretty much across the street from her family's apartment, yet no one saw

anything. This demonstrated that child abductions could occur at any place at any time, and would be

one of the cases which helped lead to the formation of the National Center for Missing and Exploited

Children the following year. In 2008, investigators would publicly announce their belief that a

convicted fella named Gregory Oakley was responsible for Ann's disappearance, and even though he passed

...