The Trail Went Cold - Episode 438 - Mike Hearon and Barbara Bolick

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

August 23, 2008. Blount County, Tennessee. After leaving his condo in Maryville, 51-year old Mike Hearon drives to his rural farm with plans to mow the lawn and some neighbours see him driving away from his residence on his ATV. Mike vanishes without a trace and the abandoned ATV is eventually found on a steep hill located a mile from his property. Mike’s family suspects that he may have stumbled upon something he wasn’t supposed to see and became the victim of foul play, but there is no evidence to work with and Mike is never found. July 18, 2007. Ravalli County, Montana. 55-year old Barbara Bolick goes hiking in the Bitterroot Mountains on the Bear Creek Overlook Trail alongside a friend named Jim Ramaker. According to Jim, they were headed back down the trail together when he stopped at a scenic overview, but even though he only took his eyes off Barbara for about a minute, Jim claims that she vanished without a trace and he was unable to find her. A massive search effort fails to turn up any trace of Barbara and while Jim is not considered to be a suspect in her disappearance, there is no evidence to explain what happened. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore two baffling missing persons cases involving victims who seemingly vanished into thin air in remote areas. Join us on Saturday, July 5 at 8:00pm ET for an online streaming marathon where we will be watching classic segments from “Unsolved Mysteries”. You can enter our screening room by clicking on this link. Additional Reading: https://charleyproject.org/case/michael-edwin-hearon https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/50-volunteers-join-search-for-missing-maryville-man-ep-411119166-359796801.html/?page=1 https://www.thedailytimes.com/news/family-of-missing-man-still-searching/article_26118160-9967-54c5-8f13-1aed52c1a285.html https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2012/aug/27/missing-man-still-mystery-4-years-after/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/128530073/ https://www.wbir.com/article/news/local/mike-hearon-man-missing-in-the-mountains/51-354008626 https://www.wbir.com/article/news/special-reports/the-vanished/vanished-mike-hearon-missing-in-the-moutains/51-d4855ea8-13ba-4710-a534-0ce8f1dc8441 https://parkpredators.com/the-local/ https://charleyproject.org/case/barbara-assunta-bolick https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/ground-search-for-missing-woman-suspendedposted-on-aug/article_623e4d47-a337-5984-bfa5-aa64697c3439.html https://www.newspapers.com/image/411502280/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/352194122/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/352194127/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/352194122/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/352194127/ https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/missing-bitterroot-woman-still-a-mystery "The Trail Went Cold" will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Boston North Shore in Boston, Massachusetts on July 18-20, 2025. To get a 20 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “ROBIN20”, by visiting https://www.truecrimepodcastfestival.com/. “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 produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	August 23, 2008. Blunt County, Tennessee. After leaving his condo,
0:07.9	51-year-old Mike Harron drives to his rural farm with plans to mow the lawn, and some neighbors
0:12.8	seem driving away from his residence on his ATV. Mike vanishes without a trace, and his abandoned
0:19.0	ATV is eventually found on a steep hill located a mile from his property.
0:24.2	Mike's family suspects he may have stumbled upon something he wasn't supposed to see and became the victim of foul play,
0:30.1	but there is no evidence to work with, and Mike is never found.
0:34.2	After that, the trail went cold.
1:18.3	Music After that, the trail went cold. The trail went cold. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host Robin Warder,
1:25.0	and today we're going to be exploring two very bizarre missing persons cases, the 2008 disappearance of Mike Herron and the 2007 disappearance of Barbara Bollick.
1:29.3	I first became familiar with both these cases over a decade ago when I was writing for
1:33.8	listverse.com, and I featured them in an article I published there titled, Ten People
1:39.0	Who V vanished into Thin Air. And since I have received numerous requests to cover these
1:43.5	disappearances over the years,
1:44.9	and they each contained a limited amount of information, I thought it would be a good idea
1:49.2	to cover them both on the same episode. Not to sound hyperbolic, but they really do seem like
1:54.7	missing persons cases in which the victim literally vanished into thin air, as Mike Heron
1:59.5	and Barbara Bollock both disappeared in remote wilderness
2:02.3	areas without leaving any evidence behind. Mike Harron traveled to his farm in rural Tennessee
2:07.9	with plans of mowing the lawn on a nearby property, but shortly after he arrived, he was seen
2:13.2	driving away on his ATV, and this was the last time he was confirmed to be alive.
2:22.9	When a search effort was launched for Mike, his abandoned ATV was eventually discovered on a hill located about a mile from his property. According to Mike's family, he had no reason to travel
2:28.2	to this particular location, and they suspected that someone else planted the ATV there.
	...

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