The Trail Went Cold - Episode 66 - Valerie Percy

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2018

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

May 7, 1988. Mountainair, New Mexico. Steve Sandlin, a 21-year old rookie with the local police department, is found dead inside the station. He has been shot in the head and since the police chief pushes forward the theory that Steve’s death was either suicide or an accident, it is officially classified as “undetermined”. However, Steve’s family becomes suspicious when they discover several bags of marijuana planted inside his house and learn that Steve had recently arrested a local resident who was involved in drug dealing. Information is uncovered to suggest that Steve may have been the victim of a conspiracy involving other police officers and it would be several years before his death is reclassified as a homicide. This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” covers our first unsolved cold case involving the death of a police officer. Additional Reading: https://unsolved.com/gallery/steve-sandlin/ http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Steve_Sandlin https://www.abqjournal.com/201338/officers-death-still-a-mystery-after-25-years-2.html “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”. “The Trail Went Cold” is now on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. 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

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	September 18th, 1966.
0:04.0	Kenowworth, Illinois.
0:07.0	21-year-old Valerie Percy, the daughter of state senatorial candidate Charles Percy is murdered inside her bedroom.
0:15.6	She is bludgeoned and stabbed to death by an unknown intruder who breaks into her family's home,
0:20.7	and while Valerie's stepmother catches a brief glimpse of the perpetrator, he manages to flee the scene.
0:26.0	Over the years, numerous suspects would pop up on the radar, including a gang of burglars and a violent individual whose family lived in the same neighborhood,
0:35.5	but no one is ever charged with Valerie's murder.
0:39.0	After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, well. Ah, uh, uh,
0:54.0	uh,
0:55.0	uh, uh, uh, uh,
0:57.0	uh,
0:58.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, and uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.
1:21.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we will be traveling
1:24.8	back over 50 years to chronicle one of the most infamous unsolved crimes of
1:29.1	the 1960s, the 1966 murder of Valerie Percy. This case was a pretty big deal at the time it happened
1:37.2	because Valerie was from one of the most prominent families in the Chicago area.
1:41.4	At the time the murder took place, her father, Charles Percy, was in the midst of a campaign
1:46.8	for Illinois State Senator, and there's a good chance this tragic event helped him garner
1:51.4	enough sympathy votes to score an upset victory in the election.
1:55.0	But in spite of the victim's father becoming one of the most influential people in the state, the crime was never solved.
2:01.0	What really shook up the community is that Valerie was brutally murdered in her own bed
2:06.4	while the rest of her family was in the house.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Robin Warder, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Robin Warder and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.