The Trail Went Cold - Episode 273 - Laurie Murninghan

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

July 9, 1970. Lansing, Michigan. 16-year old Laurie Murninghan, the daughter of the city’s former mayor, is abducted from her workplace by a black male during a robbery gone wrong. Eleven days later, Laurie’s decomposed body is discovered in a remote swampy pond and her cause of death is determined to be manual strangulation. Since Laurie’s employer witnessed the abduction, she picks out a promising suspect from a photo line-up who has an extensive criminal record. However, the authorities do not believe they have enough evidence to arrest this man, so the murder is never solved. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover the unsolved abduction and murder of Laurie Murningham and we will also briefly discuss another cold case involving the murder of 14-year old Karen Oatley, which took place in Lansing nine years later. Special thanks to listener Michelle Beleski for narrating the opening of this episode. If you have any information about the murders of Laurie Murninghan and Karen Oatley, please contact the Lansing Police Department at (517) 483-4600. Additional Reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/21/archives/body-of-girl-16-seized-in-holdup-found-in-michigan.html https://www.newspapers.com/image/204070287/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/206091802/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/206091804/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/204884983/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/204885016/ https://99wfmk.com/lauriemurninghan/ http://mja–inc–investigations.webs.com/apps/blog/show/5016525-laurie-murninghan-still-seeks-justice-after-40-years https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/mi-laurie-murninghan-16-lansing-9-july-1970.12877/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/98969533/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/206180693/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/109188751/ “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 going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon 2022: Vegas” at Paris & Bally’s in Las Vegas from April 29-May 1, 2022. To get a 10 % discount off a standard badge, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.com/. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” at the Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on June 11-12, 2022. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD22”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” is now doing a weekly livestream show on GetVokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	July 9th, 1970, Lansing, Michigan.
0:05.0	16-year-old Lori Murningham, the daughter of the city's former mayor, is abducted from her workplace by a black male during a robbery
0:16.4	gone wrong.
0:18.4	Eleven days later, Lori's decomposed body is discovered in a remote swampy pond and her cause of death is determined to be strangulation.
0:29.0	Even though Lori's employer picks out a promising suspect from a photo lineup who has an extensive criminal record,
0:38.0	the authorities do not believe there is enough evidence to arrest this man.
0:42.0	So Lori's murder officially remains unsolved.
0:47.7	After that, the trail went cold. I'm going to Oh, uh, so good. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, okay. Oh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail went cold.
1:31.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be covering the unsolved
1:34.6	the abduction of a teenage girl which took place over 50 years ago the 1970
1:39.4	murder of Lori Murninghand. That voice you should just hear narrating this intro was
1:44.2	Michelle Bileski, the latest winner of our most recent trail went called
1:48.2	listener voiceover contest so thank you very much Michelle. This is a recurring monthly contest which we've been holding for nearly four and a half years now,
1:56.1	and if you'd like to enter and haven't already done so,
1:58.8	I will be providing instructions near the end of this episode.
2:02.4	Anyway, the murder of Lori Murninghand is the case Michelle suggested I cover when she originally entered the contest as she hails from Lansing, Michigan, the city where this crime took place.
2:12.0	In fact, Lori's father had recently served a four-year term as
2:15.8	Lansing's mayor, so this case wound up being a pretty big deal when it happened.
2:19.8	It seemed like Lori was a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as she was in the middle of working her shift at a local gift slash antique shop when someone attempted to rob the place and abducted Lorry when things went wrong.
2:33.6	For a week and a half, there was hope that the perpetrator had simply kidnapped
2:37.2	Lori in a panic and would do the right thing and return her unharmed, but that was not to be, as her body would be found in a remote area outside the city.
2:46.0	Even though Lori's boss had been present when her abduction took place and was able to identify
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Robin Warder, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Robin Warder and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.