November 25, 1991. Middle Township, New Jersey.

11-year-old Mark Heimball leaves his residence in order to watch firefighters extinguishing

a brush fire, but he never returns home, and a search turns up Mark's left shoe on the

nearby beach. Over one year later, a witness tells police that a man named Thomas Buttcavige

screamed a video of himself sexually assaulting Mark before he confessed to his murder. While

Buttcavige eventually goes to prison for other sex crimes, the incriminating videotape is

never found, and no evidence links him to Mark'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 Warrter, and today we're going to be covering a troubling missing children's

case, the 1991 disappearance of 11-year-old Mark Heimball. That voice you just heard narrating

our intro was Julie Highland, the latest winner of our most recent trail went cold listener

voiceover contest, so thank you very much Julie. This is a recurring monthly contest which

we've been holding for nearly five years now, and if you'd like to enter and have an

already done so, I will be providing instructions near the end of this episode.

Anyway, the disappearance of Mark Heimball was the case that Julie requested I cover when

she originally entered this contest, and this is definitely an ideal time to put together

an episode. Late last year, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Mark's disappearance,

Richard McHale, a retired detective who was once the former lead investigator on this

case, released a book titled Where Is Mark, the Abduction of Mark Heimball.

McHale revealed a lot of new information which had never been made public before, and as

a result, this story has been pushed back into the spotlight. But I'm going to warn you

right up front. Where is Mark is one of the most disturbing true crime books I've ever

...