Speaker 1: In southwest Vermont, in the United States. It was sometime
Speaker 1: around three pm on December first, nineteen forty six, when
Speaker 1: a truck pulled up to the bottom of the long
Speaker 1: Trail road a few miles east from the town of Bennington,
Speaker 1: at the edge of the Green Mountains National Forest. A
Speaker 1: light snow had just begun to fall as a young
Speaker 1: woman with dark blonde hair wearing a red Parker jacket,
Speaker 1: blue jeans, and white trainers jumped out. She thanked the
Speaker 1: driver for the lift, then shut the door and continued
Speaker 1: on foot down the mile and a half stretch of road,
Speaker 1: leading her deeper and deeper into the forest. On and
Speaker 1: on she walked, as the snow continued to fall, her
Speaker 1: hands thrust into the pockets of that red Parker jacket.
Speaker 1: From off in the distance, the sound of a car
Speaker 1: approaching draws nearer and nearer. The young woman walking in
Speaker 1: the red Parker, now just an imperceptible echo from another time,
Speaker 1: vanishes as the dopplers swoosh of the car rushes past.
Speaker 1: At the wheel is twenty seven year old Robert Singly,
Speaker 1: a music composition teacher from Bennington College. It is now
Speaker 1: late September twenty eight Singly parks up at the end
Speaker 1: of the road and jumps out at the vehicle. He
Speaker 1: grabs a rucksack from the back packed with a small
Speaker 1: lunch for his walk, Then, after taking a deep breath
Speaker 1: of the wet, pine scented air, he places a wooly
Speaker 1: hat on his head and sets off into the trees.
Speaker 1: A few hours later, after eating lunch on the slope
Speaker 1: of Bald Mountain, roughly two miles from his car, Singly
Speaker 1: continues on the same path for another mile or so
Speaker 1: before deciding to head back the way he came. But
Speaker 1: as he walks, it appears to Singly that something strange
Speaker 1: has happened. Where before the path was clear, a fallen
Speaker 1: tree now lies strewn across it. Singly turns to examine
Speaker 1: the path behind him, then looks back to the tree,
Speaker 1: running his eyes over its soaking, wet, moss covered bark
Speaker 1: with a sinking realization the path he is on is
Speaker 1: not the same path he was on before. Trying not
Speaker 1: to panic, Robert figures he'll find his way eventually if
Speaker 1: he just keeps heading roughly in the right direction, But
Speaker 1: after another mile or two of walking, there is still
Speaker 1: no sign of the long trail road or anything else
Speaker 1: that he recognizes. It was as though the entire forest
Speaker 1: had shifted secretly around him. With no mobile phone, map,
Speaker 1: or cheaps, Robert Singly had no choice but to simply
Speaker 1: press on and hope for the best. Before long, however,
Speaker 1: dusk descended, bringing with it a thick fog that appeared
Speaker 1: from out of nowhere, obscuring the path ahead. Just then,
Speaker 1: Robert looked up to see a large maple tree a
Speaker 1: little off the trail that seemed to be beckoning him,
Speaker 1: taking shelter under its branches. He eventually succeeded in lighting
Speaker 1: a fire to keep warm, then slumped back against the
Speaker 1: trunk of the tree and waited for dawn. At first light,
Speaker 1: Singly set off again in what he assumed to be
Speaker 1: the direction of his car, but after another few hours,
Speaker 1: believing he was only a quarter of a mile away,
Speaker 1: he came across a sign for the Goddard Shelter on
Speaker 1: Glastonbury Mountain, a place roughly seven miles from where he
Speaker 1: thought he was, in a completely different stretch of forest. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: Robert was eventually discovered by a Vermont State Police search
Speaker 1: team around eleven thirty that morning, A little tired and cold,
Speaker 1: but otherwise safe and well. Quite what had happened to him,
Speaker 1: he couldn't be sure, as he put it to the
Speaker 1: local Bennington Banner newspaper, Either he took a wrong turn,
Speaker 1: something he was adamant he hadn't done, or something really
Speaker 1: weird happened out there. For some that Singly got lost
Speaker 1: on Glastonbury Mountain was no coincidence. Much of Vermont's Green
Speaker 1: Mountain's forest is steeped in mythology and mysticism, in particular
Speaker 1: Glastonbury Mountain, where, according to folk legend, there is even
Speaker 1: a vast ancient boulder that swallows people whole, taking them
Speaker 1: from the earth without so much a stifled cry. Like
Speaker 1: much of New England, the area reads like a strange
Speaker 1: psychogeographic experiment, where place names like Manchester, Sunderland, Somerset and
Speaker 1: Dover could be found only a stone's throw from each other,
Speaker 1: all dragged from another world by English settlers and pinned
Speaker 1: haphazardly onto a strange and unfamiliar landscape, a place that
Speaker 1: in reality was never for taming, as it continues to
Speaker 1: this day to wriggle and squirm underneath, alive with unknowable mystery,
Speaker 1: and it isn't just the land that visitors and locals
Speaker 1: alike are told to be cautious of. In nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: it's claimed that famed horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft once
Speaker 1: traveled to Richmond, Vermont, a little further north, on the
Speaker 1: hunt for a strange winged creature that had been dubbed
Speaker 1: the Awful by local observer, described as having the tale
Speaker 1: of a serpent, gray wings and huge claws. Having presumably
Speaker 1: traveled right over the Green Mountains, it is alleged to
Speaker 1: have been seen again in Berkshire, Massachusetts, just to the south,
Speaker 1: where it reportedly swooped down and grabbed something from the ground.
Speaker 1: Some claim it was a dog or a lamb, others
Speaker 1: that it was in fact a small child. This podcast
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Speaker 1: forward slash unexplained one zero. Of course, many vast wilderness
Speaker 1: regions have generated similar myths and legends, no less terrifying.
Speaker 1: But where the Green Mountains forest seems to differ is
Speaker 1: in its propensity for the genuinely inexplicable. In nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: local resident and folklorist Joseph Citro coined the term Bennington Triangle,
Speaker 1: which covers a region of the Green Mountains between the
Speaker 1: towns of Bennington, Woodford, and Somerset, in an effort to
Speaker 1: encapsulate the area's many strange stories. In particular, a spate
Speaker 1: of unexplained vanishings that occurred there between nineteen forty five
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty all occurred close to the Long Trail,
Speaker 1: a two hundred and seventy miles stretch of hiking path
Speaker 1: that leads straight through the Green Mountains all the way
Speaker 1: to the Canadian border. The first to disappear was seventy
Speaker 1: four year old Middy Rivers in nineteen forty five, who
Speaker 1: vanished while out on a hunting trip with friends. Middy,
Speaker 1: an experienced hunter who knew the forest well, was last
Speaker 1: seen most to the Long Trail Road, a short section
Speaker 1: of road at the southern end of the Long Trail.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty nine, sixty eight year old James Tedfoot
Speaker 1: got on a bus in the town of Franklin, about
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty miles north of Bennington, on route
Speaker 1: for the Bennington Soldier's Home, where he lived. Tedford was
Speaker 1: reportedly seen on the bus after the last stop before Bennington,
Speaker 1: but when the bus arrived at his final destination, the
Speaker 1: man had inexplicably vanished, leaving behind his bag and an
Speaker 1: open bus timetable on his vacant seat. Then, in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, year old Paul Jepson was accompanying his mother
Speaker 1: to a local dump not far from the Long Trail
Speaker 1: that she and her husband managed, when he too disappeared.
Speaker 1: Paul had been left in the family truck while his
Speaker 1: mother left to complete some chores, but when she returned
Speaker 1: he was gone. Some believe he simply walked into the
Speaker 1: forest out of curiosity, then somehow lost his way back.
Speaker 1: Others that something came out of the forest and took him,
Speaker 1: and some say his parents may in fact have been responsible.
Speaker 1: And then there is Paula Jean Weldon. Weldon, a student
Speaker 1: at Bennington College, went missing in nineteen forty six after
Speaker 1: reportedly setting off for a walk on the Long Trail.
Speaker 1: As one of the detectives tasked with locating her put
Speaker 1: it it was the most baffling case he'd ever been
Speaker 1: connected with. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith.
Speaker 1: When seventeen year old Paula Jean Weldon arrived for her
Speaker 1: first term at Bennington College in nineteen forty five, she
Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure what to make of her new roommate, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Both had very different backgrounds, with Paula growing up in
Speaker 1: the city, the daughter of an industrial designer in Stamford, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth hailing from near by rural Putney, having grown
Speaker 1: up on a horse ranch. The pair soon hit it off, however,
Speaker 1: quickly bonding over their mutual love of the great outdoors
Speaker 1: and reveled in their new found freedom out on campus
Speaker 1: away from their families. They even took a job together
Speaker 1: in the college canteen, working two hour long shifts each
Speaker 1: day to help cover their boarding fees. Paula arrived at
Speaker 1: what was then a female only establishment located a few
Speaker 1: miles north of the city of Bennington, with her ambitions
Speaker 1: firmly set on becoming an artist. During her freshman year, however,
Speaker 1: exposed to subjects and ideas she'd never encountered before, somewhere
Speaker 1: along the line, those ambitions seemed to change. She developed
Speaker 1: a passion for botany, which dovetailed perfectly with her growing
Speaker 1: love for long afternoons spent trekking through the surrounding countryside.
Speaker 1: End Eva present by her side was Elizabeth, always ready
Speaker 1: to set off with her friend on one of their
Speaker 1: many adventures into the Green mountains, like the time they
Speaker 1: hiked up toward Mount Equinox near Manchester, when the pair
Speaker 1: were joined by two young men from nearby William's College.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, they hiked until dusk, then, after grabbing dinner together,
Speaker 1: the four went out to a square dance, but got
Speaker 1: stuck in a rainstorm on their way back. In the end,
Speaker 1: thanks to a sympathetic farmer, they were forced to take
Speaker 1: shelter in a hay barn for the night. Such adventures
Speaker 1: became a habit for Paula and Elizabeth, who cultivated a
Speaker 1: lively social life that, for Paula at least, seemed a
Speaker 1: far cry from her more stilted upbringing and only served
Speaker 1: to strengthen her burgeoning independent spirit. Encapsulating this was Paula
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth's love for hitchhiking. Paula had been nervous to
Speaker 1: try it at first, but soon realized what a joy
Speaker 1: it could be, never quite knowing what fun or interesting
Speaker 1: character might pick you up next. In the holidays, Paula
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth would visit each other's families, where Elizabeth first
Speaker 1: got the sense that all was not well with her roommate.
Speaker 1: As the oldest of four daughters, there's been speculation that
Speaker 1: Paula didn't feel quite as loved as her sisters. Though
Speaker 1: she'd been close to both parents before college, something in
Speaker 1: the course of her first year had changed. She described
Speaker 1: her home to Elizabeth as the ice box. It was
Speaker 1: a term Eizabeth never quite understood, since Paula's parents seemed
Speaker 1: so attentive, always asking her how she was getting on,
Speaker 1: while Paula seemed never to want to discuss anything with them.
Speaker 1: It seemed to Elizabeth that perhaps Paula felt a little
Speaker 1: guilty about her new interests but didn't quite have the
Speaker 1: means to articulate it, or simply didn't want to discuss it,
Speaker 1: fearing the inevitable argument it would cause. Or perhaps it
Speaker 1: was the realization she'd come to in that first year
Speaker 1: of college that she might never live up to her
Speaker 1: father's expectations that had caused such a frosty relationship. But
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving in nineteen forty six, while Elizabeth went home, then
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Paula decided to stay in their room
Speaker 1: at college. When Elizabeth returned the next day, something seemed
Speaker 1: to have shifted again in Paula. Later that night, while
Speaker 1: Elizabeth studied, Paula seemed happy and upbeat as she hung
Speaker 1: out with other students from their halls Dewy House, staying
Speaker 1: up late into the night and taking part in an
Speaker 1: impromptu wrestling tournament. By the following day, Sunday, December first, however,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth thought she seemed a little distracted as she strummed
Speaker 1: listlessly on her guitar, gazing out at the window of
Speaker 1: the gray skies above. Elizabeth suggested that Paula take a
Speaker 1: walk to clear her head, since that had always helped
Speaker 1: them both in the past. Later that afternoon, it appeared
Speaker 1: that Paula took her friend's advice when she was seen
Speaker 1: walking down the long Collige drive toward the main road,
Speaker 1: dressed in a red Parker jacket, blue jeans, and white trainers.
Speaker 1: But when Elizabeth returned to their room later in the
Speaker 1: evening after some studying, Paula was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: Assuming her roommate was out studying herself, she thought little
Speaker 1: of it when she got into bed and switched out
Speaker 1: the light to sleep. A few miles from the college,
Speaker 1: it had just gone midnight with a heavy snow now falling,
Speaker 1: when a couple traveling along Route nine stopped to put
Speaker 1: snow chains on close to the turn off for the
Speaker 1: long trail road. Stepping out into the silent night with
Speaker 1: their flashlight, the couple were surprised to find fresh footprints
Speaker 1: and the snow that appeared to be about a size
Speaker 1: five similar to Paula's. Fearing that someone could be in
Speaker 1: trouble since there seemed to be no buildings anywhere nearby,
Speaker 1: the couple followed the prince for about four hundred yards
Speaker 1: along the road until they stopped abruptly alongside a set
Speaker 1: of car tracks that disappeared into the dark. When Elizabeth
Speaker 1: awoke the next morning, Paula's bed was empty. Elizabeth ran
Speaker 1: to the canteen to work at breakfast shift and was
Speaker 1: troubled to find that Paula wasn't there, and neither had
Speaker 1: she requested to take the morning off. At the end
Speaker 1: of the shift, Elizabeth headed straight to the college director
Speaker 1: of admissions and informed them that she had no idea
Speaker 1: where Paula was. Later that afternoon, Paula's parents, Jean and William,
Speaker 1: received a call from the college president at their home
Speaker 1: in Stamford, asking if Paula had gone back to visit them,
Speaker 1: but they two hadn't heard from her. The next day, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: December third, the story broke in The Bennington Banner that
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Bennington College student Paula Jean Weldon was missing.
Speaker 1: Ernie Whitman, who worked night watch at the offices of
Speaker 1: the Bennington Banner, was sweeping the floor in the press
Speaker 1: room on Wednesday afternoon when he saw the front page
Speaker 1: of Tuesday's paper with a picture of the missing Paula.
Speaker 1: Grabbing a copy, he ran straight to reporter Pete Stevenson
Speaker 1: to tell him he'd seen the exact same woman only
Speaker 1: a few days before. Back around four pm on the
Speaker 1: afternoon of Sunday, December first, Whitman and three friends were
Speaker 1: walking back from a camp on Bickford Hollow Road, which
Speaker 1: branches off from the Long Trail Road, when they were
Speaker 1: approached by a young woman matching Paula's description. The woman
Speaker 1: wanted to know if the road went all the way
Speaker 1: over the mountains. Confirming it did, The group then watched
Speaker 1: bemused as she continued heading deeper into the forest, despite
Speaker 1: the daylight already beginning to fade. Later that Wednesday afternoon,
Speaker 1: armed with the new information, Paula's father, William, arrived in
Speaker 1: Bennington and immediately set about trying to retrace his daughter's
Speaker 1: footsteps alongside Pete Stevenson and the Banners editor Frank Howe,
Speaker 1: but the men found no sign of her. The following day,
Speaker 1: local builder Lewis Napp contacted police to inform them that
Speaker 1: he'd been heading home on Route sixty seven A, the
Speaker 1: main road out of Bennington College, around three pm on
Speaker 1: the Sunday, when he saw a young woman in a
Speaker 1: red jacket trying to hitch a lift. The woman, who
Speaker 1: said her name was Paula, asked to be dropped off
Speaker 1: as close to the long trail as possible. Napp claimed
Speaker 1: to have driven her all the way to Woodford Road,
Speaker 1: where he lived, where she got out of his truck
Speaker 1: and proceeded toward the Green Mountains on foot. As per
Speaker 1: Ernie Whitman's description, NAP's wife confirmed that her husband returned
Speaker 1: home that day about three fifteen pm. Meanwhile, as temperatures
Speaker 1: steadily dropped day by day, reaching below zero at night,
Speaker 1: a number of search parties were arranged to help find
Speaker 1: the missing student. On Thursday, December fifth, roughly five hundred people,
Speaker 1: led by County Sheriff Clyde Peck, including three hundred students
Speaker 1: and faculty members from Bennington College, scoured the woods alongside
Speaker 1: the Long Trail, as well as large swathes of Bald
Speaker 1: and Glastonbury Mountain, but nothing was found. After news of
Speaker 1: Paula's disappearance broke in the national press, police were alerted
Speaker 1: to numerous apparent sightings from all over Connecticut, New York,
Speaker 1: and Massachusetts, but all came to nothing. Frustrated by the
Speaker 1: police's inability to find even a hint of a clue
Speaker 1: as to his daughter's whereabouts, William Weldon increasingly took it
Speaker 1: on himself to follow up potential leads, but as one
Speaker 1: after another led nowhere, in desperation, he turned to local
Speaker 1: self described psychic, Clara Jepson at her home in Pownell,
Speaker 1: not far from Bennington. Jepson took hold of William's hand
Speaker 1: and closed her eyes. She saw a young woman, she said,
Speaker 1: dressed in a red park a jacket, walking through a
Speaker 1: covered bridge across a fast moving river. But William wasn't
Speaker 1: to worry. The young woman was alive and would be
Speaker 1: found before long. Sheltering in an old shack close to
Speaker 1: the river. Weldon returned immediately to the Long Trail Road
Speaker 1: and the Woolloomsac River that snaked alongside it, finding the
Speaker 1: two covered bridges that spanned it. He searched desperately again
Speaker 1: for any sign of Paula, but found nothing. About the
Speaker 1: same time, Vermont State detective Almo Franzoni joined the search,
Speaker 1: heading straight out to the Long Trail Road where Paula
Speaker 1: was last seen alive. Franzoni noticed a gully close to
Speaker 1: the Route nine highway out one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: feet from where Lewis Knapp claimed to have dropped Paula off.
Speaker 1: Searching the area a few moments later, Franzoni caught sight
Speaker 1: of some soggy material that appeared to have been discarded
Speaker 1: under a nearby bush. Moving in for a closer look,
Speaker 1: he took a pen from his pocket and hooked the
Speaker 1: material out, then spread it out on the ground to
Speaker 1: reveal a small pair of pink underpants covered in blood.
Speaker 1: The item of clothing was later shown to Bennington College
Speaker 1: Director of Admissions Mary Garrett, who declared confidently that they
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly have belonged to Paula, and so the lead
Speaker 1: was quickly discarded with little progress being made. Thirty five
Speaker 1: year old detective Robert Rundle and police officer Dorothy Scoville
Speaker 1: were drafted in to assist in the case. The led
Speaker 1: a renewed effort to interview everyone and anyone who'd known
Speaker 1: Paula or had for any reason come into contact with
Speaker 1: her recently. It wasn't long before their efforts coalesced around
Speaker 1: the Maxwell family, who were determined to be the last
Speaker 1: people to see Paula alive. The Maxwells owned a house
Speaker 1: about two thirds of the way up the long Trail road,
Speaker 1: roughly half a mile from where it turned into the
Speaker 1: forest path. Interviewing them one afternoon in their home, Rundeland
Speaker 1: Scoville listened carefully to Viola Maxwell and her fifteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter Mary as they described coming out of their
Speaker 1: cowbarn sometime around four pm on Sunday, December first, when
Speaker 1: they saw a young, blondhaired woman wearing a red Parker jacket,
Speaker 1: blue trousers and trainers heading up the road toward them.
Speaker 1: As mother and daughter talked, Alfred Godet, Viola's on and
Speaker 1: off boyfriend who sometimes stayed with them, sat listening quietly
Speaker 1: in the corner. When the pair finished their account, the
Speaker 1: officers turned to Alfred to ask if he'd also seen
Speaker 1: the woman in the red Parker, to which he replied no,
Speaker 1: since he'd been away in New York State for most
Speaker 1: of that day. When Rundell and Scoville returned a few
Speaker 1: days later to interview the family again, Alfred changed his story,
Speaker 1: telling them he hadn't been in New York State at all,
Speaker 1: but had in fact gone to Bennington early in the
Speaker 1: morning before returning to the house just after midnight. Concerned
Speaker 1: by the sudden change of story, Rundle and Scoville had
Speaker 1: each of the Maxwell children four in total, pulled out
Speaker 1: of school and interviewed separately, though ten year old Preston
Speaker 1: was confirmed to have been out all day with his
Speaker 1: grandparents at the time. Mary reiterated that on December first,
Speaker 1: only she, her mum, and her brother Anley were at
Speaker 1: home because Alfred and her brother Clarence had gone to
Speaker 1: town early in the morning. Though she couldn't be sure
Speaker 1: exactly what time they came home, she was adamant they
Speaker 1: were both back in time for supper in the early evening.
Speaker 1: Sixteen year old Clarence backed up Mary's statement, telling police
Speaker 1: also that he and Alfred had left the house in
Speaker 1: the morning and driven into Bennington, adding curiously, however, that
Speaker 1: at some point while he stayed in town, Alfred left
Speaker 1: him there and drove off somewhere else. Twelve year old
Speaker 1: Stanley Maxwell agreed that he was at home on the
Speaker 1: day in question, but only until about two thirty pm,
Speaker 1: when he left with his uncle to carry out some
Speaker 1: odd jobs. Stanley was certain that Alfred was also at
Speaker 1: the house around this time. One lesser known fact about
Speaker 1: Unexplained is that it actually started life as a website
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Speaker 1: used the offer code unexplained to save ten percent of
Speaker 1: your first purchase of a website or domain. After further
Speaker 1: conflicting statements, Rundle and Scoville returned to the Maxwell house
Speaker 1: for a fourth time, joined by Sheriff Peck, who had
Speaker 1: also received conflicting statements from the family. This time, Viola
Speaker 1: claimed that although Alfred had left the house early in
Speaker 1: the morning with Clarence, he then returned for lunch, leaving
Speaker 1: again early in the afternoon. Sometime later, she and her
Speaker 1: daughter Mary had left to see a movie, but as
Speaker 1: they made their way down the long trail road, they
Speaker 1: bumped into Alfred coming the other way in his truck.
Speaker 1: The pair then traveled back to the house with Alfred,
Speaker 1: who stayed inside while they went to the cow barn
Speaker 1: to complete some chores. It was a short time later
Speaker 1: that she and Mary saw the young woman in the
Speaker 1: red jacket walking up the road toward them. Alfred, she
Speaker 1: was certain was in the house at the time and
Speaker 1: had not seen the woman. After yet another altered story,
Speaker 1: the police felt they had no choice but to arrest
Speaker 1: Alfred and bring him in for questioning, and once again,
Speaker 1: he too changed its story. Alfred did confirm that he'd
Speaker 1: met Viola and Mary coming up the long trail in
Speaker 1: his truck and dropped them back off at home. However,
Speaker 1: he also added that after parking up his truck, he'd
Speaker 1: neglected to head straight back to the house with them
Speaker 1: when he saw two men sat in a car parked
Speaker 1: up outside it. Suspecting that one of the men was
Speaker 1: Viola's new boyfriend, he decided to watch from afar as
Speaker 1: she and Mary spoke to them. Then, despite consistently stating otherwise,
Speaker 1: he told police that he had seen the young woman
Speaker 1: in the red parker after all walking past while he
Speaker 1: sat and watched the men in the car. When the
Speaker 1: men finally drove off, Alfred explained that he then chased
Speaker 1: after Viola and scolded her for cheating on him. An
Speaker 1: argument ensued between them for a good few hours until
Speaker 1: Viola's parents, who also lived at the property, returned home,
Speaker 1: at which point, he said, Viola went upstairs to bed,
Speaker 1: and he left the house in a rage and spent
Speaker 1: the night at a shack across the road where he
Speaker 1: often stayed. After being confronted with Alfred's completely new statement,
Speaker 1: Viola once again changed her story too, telling police that
Speaker 1: she had been lying all along because she was in
Speaker 1: the middle of applying for a divorce and didn't want
Speaker 1: it known that she and Alfred were still seeing each
Speaker 1: other in case it jeopardized and think The two men
Speaker 1: who Alfred claimed had been parked outside the house were
Speaker 1: eventually tracked down and seemingly verified his latest version of events,
Speaker 1: saying also that they too had seen the young woman
Speaker 1: in the red coat walking by that day. With little
Speaker 1: else to go on, Alfred was released from custody about
Speaker 1: the same time that Alfred Godet was being interrogated by police.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty miles to the north in the
Speaker 1: town of South hero Vermont, a missus w Champagne tosses
Speaker 1: and turns in her sleep. Through a dark haze of
Speaker 1: soft and fuzzy light, a haunting image takes shape in
Speaker 1: her unconscious mind. Paula Jean Weldon walking along the long
Speaker 1: trail road, her red jacket wrapped tightly around her, as
Speaker 1: a black car pulls up with a dark, faceless figure
Speaker 1: sitting at the wheel. Paula asked the driver for a ride,
Speaker 1: to which he agrees, but only after he has a
Speaker 1: cup of tea first. The young woman thanks him, then
Speaker 1: pulls open the back door and lets herself in. But
Speaker 1: now the image is twisting and morphing again, and suddenly
Speaker 1: the driver is on her, grabbing hard at her neck,
Speaker 1: as the young woman's arms flail about in a desperate
Speaker 1: effort to fend him off. And now Paula's body is
Speaker 1: lifeless in the back seat, as another image swirls into view,
Speaker 1: a bungalow or a shack, the third of three, running
Speaker 1: down from the top end of the long trail road.
Speaker 1: Then a pair of hands ripping up a linoleum floor
Speaker 1: and a body being slid into the gap underneath. Then
Speaker 1: the linoleum is smoothed down once more, and a large
Speaker 1: black stove slid back into place on top of it.
Speaker 1: Missus Champagne informed the police of her terrifying dream the
Speaker 1: next day, and though most were reluctant to give it
Speaker 1: any credibility, it was soon discovered that the bungalow, lying
Speaker 1: third in line from the top of the Long Trail
Speaker 1: road just so happened to belong to Alfred Cadet. Detective
Speaker 1: Almo Franzoni was promptly dispatched to search the area, but
Speaker 1: he failed to find anything incriminating. A little more than
Speaker 1: two weeks after Paula's disappearance, a broken William Weldon collected
Speaker 1: his daughter's belongings from her dorm room and put them
Speaker 1: in the back of his Buick coupe. Then, without so
Speaker 1: much as a glance back, he drove away from the campus,
Speaker 1: vowing only to return if anything significant came up. But
Speaker 1: nothing did. On May twenty fourth, nineteen forty seven, with
Speaker 1: the winter snow having finally thawed, another search party of
Speaker 1: more than a hundred volunteers combed the Long Trail for
Speaker 1: two days, looking for any clues as to Paula's whereabouts,
Speaker 1: but once again, the forest relinquished nothing. In the following years,
Speaker 1: a number of strange reports linked to the case filtered
Speaker 1: through to the police, including the story of an armed
Speaker 1: robber arrested in Cambridge, Massachusetts in nineteen forty eight, who
Speaker 1: was found with an article about Paula in his pocket
Speaker 1: and a sketch resembling her in his boarding room. He
Speaker 1: also admitted to once having visited the Glastonbury area, who
Speaker 1: claimed to know nothing of the woman's disappearance. In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, the dying ex girlfriend of a thirty five
Speaker 1: year old lumberjack claimed that he'd once told her that
Speaker 1: he had good reason to believe that Paula was buried
Speaker 1: under a porch in a cellar somewhere close to the
Speaker 1: Long Trail. That same year, Alfred Godet told friends that
Speaker 1: he also knew where Paula was buried. Godet was promptly
Speaker 1: called in again for questioning, but told police he'd simply
Speaker 1: been joking, fully aware of the suspicion that had fallen
Speaker 1: on him at the time. When asked to give another
Speaker 1: account of his movements on the day of Paula's disappearance, however,
Speaker 1: his statement changed again. This time, instead of claiming he'd
Speaker 1: stormed out at the Maxwell property and headed straight to
Speaker 1: his place across the road. He'd actually got into his
Speaker 1: truck and driven it up the Long Trail Road in
Speaker 1: the direction that Paula had last been seen walking. At
Speaker 1: the time of Alfred's last questioning, the then state's attorney,
Speaker 1: John Hart was away on National Guard training, leaving Reuben
Speaker 1: Leavin as a temporary state attorney in his since believing
Speaker 1: they finally had grounds to properly search two bungalows that
Speaker 1: belonged to Alfred Godet, one on the Long Trail and
Speaker 1: one in Bickford Hollow, Reuben Leavin made it one of
Speaker 1: his last duties before Heart returned, to sign off on
Speaker 1: a search warrant to examine the cellars of the bungalows,
Speaker 1: But when Hart came back the next day, he immediately
Speaker 1: canceled the warrant, arguing that the simply wasn't enough evidence
Speaker 1: to justify it. As such, to this day, the fate
Speaker 1: of Paula Jean Weldon remains a mystery. But somewhere it
Speaker 1: is always December first, nineteen forty six, on that mile
Speaker 1: and a half stretch of the Long Trail Road that
Speaker 1: branches off from Route nine, and there is always a
Speaker 1: light snow beginning to fall as a young woman dressed
Speaker 1: in a red park a jacket makes her way quietly,
Speaker 1: steadily toward the forest, and as she goes, never once
Speaker 1: looking back, she takes a whole world with her as
Speaker 1: she continues deeper and deeper into the trees. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can
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Speaker 1: All elements have Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the
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