The Trail Went Cold - Episode 479 - Pauline Rourke

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

Tv & Film, True Crime

4.5 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

December 13, 1976. Fairfield, Maine. The daughter of 31-year old Pauline Rourke kisses her sleeping mother goodbye before leaving for school, but when she returns home later that day, Pauline has vanished without a trace. Suspicion turns towards Pauline’s live-in friend, Albert Pat Cochran, who frequently fought with her and had developed an odd obsession with the recent murder of another woman from the area named Janet Baxter. Two decades later, Pat is charged and convicted of Janet’s murder, but even though he is suspected of being responsible for Pauline’s disappearance, there is not enough evidence to implicate him and Pauline is never found. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore an unsolved missing persons case involving a victim who has not been seen in nearly 50 years. If you happen to have any information about this case, please contact the Maine State Police at (207) 624-7143. Additional Reading: https://charleyproject.org/case/pauline-rourke https://www.maine.gov/dps/msp/investigation-traffic/major-crime-units/unsolved/missing-persons/rourke-pauline https://www.newspapers.com/image/849371494/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/856346628/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/665025806/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/855868439/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/856276259/ https://www.centralmaine.com/2017/06/28/man-serving-life-sentence-for-oakland-womans-murder-dies-at-hospital/ https://www.fosters.com/story/news/2017/06/29/police-link-recently-deceased-killer-to-1976-disappearance/20405251007/ https://www.pressherald.com/2017/07/30/a-daughters-enduring-lament-her-remains-are-out-there/ https://www.wabi.tv/content/news/State-Police-Searching-Smithfield-Area-Wells-For-Remains-Of-Missing-Woman-444463513.html https://www.newspapers.com/image/1147332553/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/309356419/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/829806532/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/830077499/ “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	December 13th,
0:02.0	1976.
0:04.0	Fairfield, Maine.
0:06.0	The daughter of 31-year-old Pauline Rourke kisses her sleeping mother goodbye before leaving for school,
0:11.0	but when she returns home later that day, Pauline has vanished without a trace.
0:16.0	Suspicion turns towards Pauline's live-in friend Albert Pat Cochran, who frequently fought with her,
0:22.6	and had developed an odd obsession with the recent murder of another woman from the area named Janet Baxter.
0:28.6	Two decades later, Pat is charged and convicted of Janet's murder, but even though he's suspected of being responsible for Pauline's disappearance,
0:36.6	there is not enough evidence
0:37.7	to implicate him, and Pauline is never found. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. And so. And so. I'm gonna be the Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.
1:24.5	I'm your host Robin Warder, and this week, we're going to be covering a missing
1:28.5	person's case which took place nearly 50 years ago, the 1976 disappearance of Pauline Rourke.
1:35.6	This case was suggested to me a while back by a listener named Amy, and I remember that when I
1:40.4	first checked out Pauline Rourke's missing profile page at the Charlie Project,
1:50.3	some of the details made my jaw drop. At the time she went missing, Pauline was the single mother of a 12-year-old daughter, and they also happened to be living with a childhood friend of hers
1:55.0	named Albert Pat Cochran. However, Pat had a violent past, and in the weeks prior to Pauline's disappearance, he seemed to develop an unhealthy obsession with the murder of another local woman named Janet Baxter.
2:07.7	This topic caused him to get into a number of arguments, and shortly after Pauline started expressing her suspicions that Pat might be involved in the murder, she vanished without a trace.
2:18.4	It would not be until over two decades later, when DNA testing finally implicated Pat and
2:23.4	Janet's murder, and he would be charged and convicted of the crime.
2:27.4	Naturally, this caused suspicion that Pat was also responsible for Pauline's disappearance,
2:32.5	but even after he was sent to prison, he never
2:35.7	admitted any culpability, and while Pat would sometimes drop hints that he knew the location
	...

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