The Trail Went Cold - Episode 391 - William Mathews & Scott Morris

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

January 7, 1990. Daviess County, Kentucky. The nude body of a white male who appears to be in his thirties is found in a remote wooded area. The victim has been shot and severely beaten and his hands and feet were removed, but since he cannot be identified, he becomes known as the “Daviess County John Doe”. Seventeen years later, investigators announce that the victim has been identified as Scott Morris, a 14-year old boy who went missing from Indianapolis, Indiana in 1978, but this turns out to be mistake, as DNA testing later shows that the decedent has no genetic connection to Scott’s family. Finally, in April 2024, the Daviess County John Doe is correctly identified as William Mathews, a former Louisville resident who was 37 years old at the time of his death, but his murder remains unsolved. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore two separate unsolved cold cases which wound up being linked together in a very unlikely fashion. Additional Reading: https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/William_Mathews https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/133umky.html https://www.the-messenger.com/news/local/article_6f162764-e767-11e4-a441-8bdf44f3238c.html https://www.14news.com/story/1753449/stefanie-silvey-investigates-alleged-murders-of-james-cable/ https://transdoetaskforce.org/index.php/articles/case-solve-owensboro-ky-doe-1990 https://fox56news.com/news/kentucky/victim-in-34-year-old-daviess-county-cold-case-identified/ https://www.wdrb.com/news/crime-reports/37-year-old-louisville-man-identified-as-victim-in-1990-daviess-county-cold-case-ksp/article_b6f1ee08-fea3-11ee-a482-4bfd956cc402.html https://charleyproject.org/case/scott-michael-morris https://www.14news.com/story/7059575/brutally-murdered-john-doe-identified/ https://www.14news.com/story/7077566/family-prepares-to-bring-home-body-of-murdered-man/ https://www.14news.com/story/145375/unsolved-murder-unidentified-man/ “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 either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting Crimecon.com or Crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the Berkshire Podcast Festival, taking place in North Adams, Massachusetts on October 18-20, 2024. To get a 30 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD2024”, by visiting https://www.berkshirepodcastfestival.com/. 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	January 7th, 1990.
0:03.6	Davies County, Kentucky.
0:06.3	The nude body of a white male who appears to be in his 30s is found in a remote wooded
0:10.6	area.
0:11.9	The victim has been shot and severely beaten and his hands and feet
0:15.1	were removed, but since he cannot be identified, he becomes known as the Davies County
0:20.0	John Doe. Seventeen years later, investigators announced that the John Doe has been identified as
0:25.8	Scott Morris, a 14-year-old boy who went missing from Indiana in 1978, but this turns out to be
0:32.2	a mistake.
0:33.0	Finally, in April of 2024, the decedent is correctly identified as 37-year-old William Matthews,
0:41.0	but his murder remains unsolved. After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, uh, and uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.
1:27.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and on this episode we're going to be covering a pair of cold cases, the 1990 murder of William Matthews,
1:36.3	and the 1978 disappearance of Scott Morris.
1:39.6	On the surface, there would be no reason to assume these two cases are connected, but they wound up being linked together in a truly unusual fashion.
1:47.0	Over the years, I've received a couple of requests to cover the story of an unidentified decedent known as the Davies County John Doe who was brutally
1:56.1	murdered in Kentucky in 1990. While just over three months before this episode's
2:01.0	release it was announced that DNA testing and genetic genealogy
2:05.3	had finally identified the victim as a 37-year-old Louisville resident named William Matthews.
2:11.1	Of course, while it's wonderful that William got his name back this is still
2:14.4	technically an unsolved cold case since a new investigation is currently underway
2:18.9	to try and figure out who was responsible for killing him. Now if you're wondering how Scott Morris fits into this,
2:25.0	he was a 14-year-old boy who went missing from Indianapolis, Indiana in August of 1978,
	...

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