July 9th, 1970, Lansing, Michigan.

16-year-old Laurie Merninghan, the daughter of the city's former mayor, is abducted from

her workplace by a black male during a robbery gone wrong.

11 days later, Laurie's decomposed body is discovered in a remote swampy pond, and her

cause of death is determined to be strangulation.

Even though Laurie's employer picks out a promising suspect from a photo lineup who has

an extensive criminal record, the authorities do not believe there is enough evidence to

arrest this man, so Laurie's murder officially remains unsolved.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail, Wet Cold.

I'm your host Robin Warder, and today we're going to be covering the unsolved abduction

of a teenage girl which took place over 50 years ago, the 1970 murder of Laurie Merninghan.

That voice you just heard narrating this intro was Michelle Bolesky, the latest winner

of our most recent trail went cold, listener voiceover contest, so thank you very much,

Michelle.

This is a recurring monthly contest which we've been holding for nearly 4 and a half

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, the murder of Laurie Merninghan 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.

In fact, Laurie's father had recently served a four-year term as Lansing's mayor, so this

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