The Trail Went Cold - Episode 362 - Margaret Dash, Retha Hiers, and Donyelle Johnson

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

June 14, 1974. Clearwater, Florida. After borrowing her daughter’s car and leaving her home, 38-year old Margaret Dash never returns and the abandoned vehicle is discovered in St. Petersburg one month later. It turns out that Margaret had been involved in an extramarital affair with a man named Cleveland Hill, who supposedly threatened to kill her. Over the next 15 years, two other Florida women – 43-year old Retha Hiers and 21-year old Donyelle Johnson – also vanish without a trace after conducting an affair with Cleveland and there are allegations that he made threats against them as well. While there is suspicion that Cleveland was responsible for all of these disappearances, there is not enough evidence to implicate him and the three missing women are never found. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover a trio of unsolved missing persons cases which are linked together by the same man. If you have any information about the disappearance of Margaret Dash, please contact the Clearwater Police Department at (727) 562-4242. If you have any information about the disappearances of Retha Hiers and Donyelle Johnson, please contact the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office at (727) 582-6200 Additional Reading: https://charleyproject.org/case/margaret-r-dash https://charleyproject.org/case/retha-lee-hiers https://charleyproject.org/case/donyelle-chrishum-johnson https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2022/08/16/where-are-3-missing-tampa-bay-women-the-answer-may-rest-with-the-devil/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/339481582 https://www.newspapers.com/image/339683584 https://www.newspapers.com/image/339674295 https://www.newspapers.com/image/870341879 https://www.newspapers.com/image/331032163 https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/pinellascounty/largo-excavation-retha-hiers/67-c7c41e55-acd0-4f2e-afbd-37262055cf9c “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 UK” in London on September 21-22, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting their website. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	June 14th, 1974. Clearwater, Florida.
0:06.1	After borrowing her daughter's car and leaving her home,
0:09.2	38-year-old Margaret Dash never returns, and the abandoned vehicle is discovered in St. Petersburg one month later.
0:16.7	It turns out that Margaret had been involved in an extramarital affair with a man named Cleveland
0:21.0	Hill who had supposedly threatened to kill her.
0:24.4	Over the next 15 years, two other Florida women, 43-year-old Rita Hires, and 21-year-old
0:30.4	Danielle Johnson, also vanished without a trace after conducting an affair with Cleveland
0:35.3	and alleging that he had made threats against them. While there is suspicion that Cleveland
0:40.0	was responsible for all these disappearances, there is not enough evidence to
0:44.0	implicate them, and the three missing women are never found. After that, the trail
0:49.4	went cold. old. I'm going to Oh, uh, yeah.
1:13.0	Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail went cold.
1:30.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be exploring not one, not two, but three
1:36.4	unsolved missing persons cases. The disappearance of Margaret Dash, Rita Hires, and
1:42.1	Danielle Johnson.
1:44.4	Each of these victims were African American women who went missing from Pinellas County, Florida,
1:49.3	and since they all vanished during a 15-year window, you ordinarily wouldn't assume that the cases were connected.
1:56.3	However, what links them all together is a man named Cleveland Hill, who had been in a relationship
2:01.5	with all three women before they vanished,
2:03.7	even though two of them were already married and had children.
2:06.7	While Cleveland had a wife and children of his own
2:09.9	and was considered to be a prominent member of the community, he also had a troubling criminal history
	...

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