The Trail Went Cold - Episode 65 - Kristen Tomlin

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

November 13, 1981. Stinson Beach, California. 44-year old John Paul Russell and 34-year old Bob Dozier emerge from the Pacific Ocean, claiming that their yacht, the Freedom II, sank after a large freighter crashed into them. John’s 30-year old wife, Suzanne Russell, and their 20-year old friend, Kristen Tomlin, were also on the boat and presumed drowned. However, when no trace of the Freedom II can be found, investigators begin to suspect that the whole incident is an elaborate scam orchestrated by the two men. Evidence also suggests that Suzanne Russell may have been in on the scam and faked her own death. After hiding out as fugitives for over a decade, John Paul Russell and Bob Dozier are captured and serve time in prison for fraud, but no trace of Kristen Tomlin is ever found. Was Kristen also a part of the scam and did she stage her own disappearance? Or was she an innocent victim who fell prey to some con artists? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” covers an incredibly bizarre fraud scheme involving a missing boat which eventually turned into an unsolved missing persons case. Additional Reading: http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Kristin_Tomlin_and_Suzanne_Russell https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/11/17/Ketch-mystery-deepens/7430788022132/ https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/us/san-franciscans-puzzled-over-missing-ketch.html http://articles.latimes.com/1991-05-01/local/me-766_1_theft-suspect “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing on podcast row at CrimeCon 2018 from May 4th-6th at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville. Listeners can receive a 10% discount on their ticket purchase by using the code “TTWC”. We would like to thank our sponsor, Winc, for supporting this week’s episode. To receive a $20 credit and free shipping on 4 bottles of wine on your first order, go to trywinc.com/cold. 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	Weink for supporting the trail went cold.
0:05.0	Wink is offering our audience members who are over 21 and live in the US,
0:09.0	a $20 credit, plus free shipping on their first order of four bottles of wine as a new member of Wink.
0:15.6	So please visit triwink.com. That's TRY Winc.com.
0:23.0	Thank you and enjoy the show.
0:27.0	November 13th, 1981. Stinson Beach, California.
0:34.0	44-year-old John Paul Russell and 34-year-old Bob Dozier emerged from the Pacific Ocean, claiming
0:41.4	that the yacht, The Freedom II, sank after a large freighter crashed into them.
0:46.0	John's 30-year-old wife, Suzanne Russell, and their 20-year-old friend Kristen Tomlin were also on the boat and presumed drowned. However, when no trace of the freedom too can be found,
0:57.6	investigators suspect the whole thing was an elaborate scam orchestrated by the two men and that Suzanne Russell may have been in on it and
1:05.2	faked her own death.
1:07.2	After hiding out for over a decade, Russell and Dozier are both captured and served time in prison
1:12.1	for fraud, but Kristen Tomlin has never found, and her fate remains a mystery.
1:18.0	After that, the trail went cold. when called. I'm going to be Oh, uh, yeah. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.
2:01.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today I will be covering one of the more unusual
2:05.5	missing persons cases I've ever done, the 1981 disappearance of Kristen Tomland.
2:10.9	It was just over a year ago when we released our first episode involving a missing boat, the Patanella, and I thought it was about time we released another one.
2:19.0	It involves a yacht called The Freedom 2, which supposedly disappeared off the Pacific coast near San Francisco, but there is a lot more to this story.
2:28.0	It seems likely that the Freedom 2 never went down at all, and the whole thing was an elaborate attempt at insurance fraud.
2:34.6	The case was profiled on unsolved mysteries and is one of those dreaded missing segments which
2:38.6	was not uploaded to Amazon Prime last year, so I was extra motivated to cover it, since I consider it to be one of the
2:45.1	more underrated stories featured on the show.
	...

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