The Trail Went Cold - Episode 467 - Geoffrey Sullivan and Alex Rorke

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

Tv & Film, True Crime

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2026

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 24, 1963. Opa-locka, Florida. 29-year old pilot Geoffrey Sullivan takes off in a twin-engine Beechcraft Travel Air plane from Opa-locka Airport and is accompanied by 37-year old freelance journalist Alex Rorke, as well as a passenger believed to be a Cuban exile named Enrique Molina Garcia. Over the next several hours, Sullivan flies through the Caribbean and changes his flight plan several times, but after stopping to refuel on the island of Cozumel, the plane and its passengers vanish without a trace. Since Sullivan and Rorke were heavily involved in anti-communist missions against Fidel Castro, it is rumoured that they may have been captured and held prisoner in Cuba for years. Even though Sullivan’s daughter eventually files a wrongful death lawsuit against the Cuban government, she receives no conclusive answers about what happened. On this week’s episode, we explore a Cold War era mystery about a missing aircraft and two American men. Additional Reading: https://unsolved.com/gallery/geoffrey-sullivan/ https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Geoffrey_Sullivan https://www.newspapers.com/image/664216557/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/938207406/ https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/11/archives/25000-offered-for-lost-fliers-2-us-men-and-passenger-vanished-over.html https://www.newspapers.com/image/664065457 https://latinamericanstudies.org/belligerence/sherry-sullivan.htm https://www.newspapers.com/image/850157644/ https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19946668#.XafOjehKhPY https://www.click2houston.com/news/2012/01/16/a-daughters-mission/ https://www.bangordailynews.com/2012/04/22/news/waldo-county-woman-suing-cuba-for-nonpayment-of-21-million-wrongful-death-suit/ https://www.bangordailynews.com/2016/07/21/news/maine-woman-seeking-closure-for-dad-she-believes-was-shot-down-over-cuba/ https://fox23maine.com/news/local/after-a-30-year-search-will-new-relations-with-cuba-help-mainer-find-her-missing-father https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-med-1_16-cv-00310/pdf/USCOURTS-med-1_16-cv-00310-0.pdf https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-1st-circuit/1934306.html “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	September 24th,
0:02.0	1963.
0:03.0	Opalaca, Florida
0:06.0	29-year-old pilot Jeffrey Sullivan
0:08.0	takes off at a twin-engine beachcraft travel airplane from Opelaca Airport
0:13.0	and is accompanied by 37-year-old freelance journalist Alex Rourke,
0:17.0	as well as a passenger believed to be a Cuban exile named Enrique Malina Garcia. Over the next several hours,
0:24.1	Sullivan flies through the Caribbean and changes his flight plan several times, but after stopping
0:29.5	to refuel on the island of Kazumel, the plane and its passengers vanished without a trace.
0:35.8	Since Sullivan and Rourke were heavily involved in anti-communist
0:38.9	missions against Fidel Castro, it is rumored that they may have been captured and held
0:43.2	prisoner in Cuba, but even though Sullivan's daughter eventually files a wrongful death
0:47.7	lawsuit against the Cuban government, there are no conclusive answers about what happened to
0:51.8	the missing men. After that, the trail went cold. The
1:13.6	The Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host Robin
1:37.1	Warder, and this week we're going to be traveling back over 60 years to explore an old-fashioned
1:43.0	Cold War era mystery. the 1963 disappearances of
1:47.4	Jeffrey Sullivan and Alex Rourke. I first became familiar with this case when it was featured
1:52.5	on Unsaw Mysteries many years ago, and I finally felt inspired to cover it last month, after I
1:58.2	released my Christmas-themed episode about the 1963 murder of Lucille
2:02.2	Rinaldi, as Jeffrey Sullivan just happened to live in the same hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut,
2:07.8	and went missing only a few months before her murder took place.
	...

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