January 31, 1976.

Bastrop County, Texas.

73-year-old John Wattley and his 68-year-old wife, Fay Wattley, failed to show up for the wedding of Ph.D.

So the police are asked to perform a wellness check at their ranch.

John and Fay are discovered to be missing, but there's a bullet hole in their bedroom window,

and the bedroom door has been removed from the residents.

Years later, serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confesses to having murdered the Wattley's and disposing of their bodies,

but there is no evidence to cooperate with his story, and the couple are never found.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.

I'm your host Robin Mortar, and today we're going to be exploring a truly bizarre missing persons case involving an elderly married couple,

the 1976 disappearances of John and Fay Wattley.

That voice you just heard narrating our intro was Diane Daley, the latest winner of our most recent trail went cold voice over contest,

so thank you very much Diane.

This is a recurring monthly contest which we've been carrying on for over three years now,

and if you'd like to enter and have it already done so, I will be providing instructions near the end of this episode.

Anyway, I recently learned about this particular case when I came across the profile pages for the two victims at the Missing Persons website, the Charlie Project.

Last month, I participated in a podcast-a-thon fundraiser to raise money for the Charlie Projects founder Megan Good,

and did a live stream in which I discussed some of the more interesting profile pages for obscure missing persons cases that I had found on the website.

The disappearances of John and Fay Wattley was one of them, and after doing some additional research into the story, I decided it would be the perfect topic for an episode of the trail and cold.

In spite of their ages, John and Fay had only been married for a few years at the time they went missing,

and John was a self-made millionaire who lived to rather reclusive lifestyle on a remote ranch.

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