Speaker 1: Hello, It's Richard mcclinsmith here with Unexplained. On a short
Speaker 1: break for the holiday season, we'll be dipping back into
Speaker 1: the archive for one more week. In this week's episode,
Speaker 1: we returned to Bennington, Vermont, where between nineteen forty five
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty four people vanished without trace in an
Speaker 1: area dubbed the Bennington Triangle, so called because of the
Speaker 1: many strange and weird occurrences said to have taken place there.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty six, eighteen year old Paula gene Weldon
Speaker 1: became the second of those four people to disappear, in
Speaker 1: a case one investigator described as the most baffling he'd
Speaker 1: ever come across. This is Unexplained, Season six, episode eleven,
Speaker 1: slide away in southwest Vermont in the United States. It
Speaker 1: was sometime around three pm on December one, nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: when a truck pulled up to the bottom of the
Speaker 1: long Trail road a few miles east from the town
Speaker 1: of Bennington, at the edge of the Green Mountains National Forest.
Speaker 1: A light snow had just begun to fall. As a
Speaker 1: young 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
Speaker 1: top time vanishes as the topless swish of the car
Speaker 1: rushes past. At the wheel is twenty seven year old
Speaker 1: Robert Singly, a music composition teacher from Bennington College. It
Speaker 1: is now late September twenty oh eight. Singly parks up
Speaker 1: at the end of the road and jumps out of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. He grabs a rucksack from the back packed
Speaker 1: with a small lunch for his walk. Then, after taking
Speaker 1: a deep breath of the wet, pine scented air, he
Speaker 1: places a wooly hat on his head and sets off
Speaker 1: into the trees. A few hours later, after eating lunch
Speaker 1: on the slope of Bald Mountain, roughly two miles from
Speaker 1: his car. Singly continues on the same path for another
Speaker 1: mile or so before deciding to head back the way
Speaker 1: he came. But as he walks, it appears to Singly
Speaker 1: that something strange has happened. Where before the path was clear,
Speaker 1: a fallen now lies strewn across it. Singly turns to
Speaker 1: examine 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 GPS, 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 a seven thirty that morning, a little tired
Speaker 1: and cold, but otherwise safe and well. Quite what had
Speaker 1: happened to him, he couldn't be sure, as he put
Speaker 1: it to the local Bennington Banner newspaper, either he took
Speaker 1: a wrong turn, something he was adamant he hadn't done,
Speaker 1: or something really weird happened out there. For some that
Speaker 1: Singly got lost on Glastonbury Mountain was no coincidence. Much
Speaker 1: of Vermont's Green Mountain's forest is steeped in mythology and mysticism,
Speaker 1: in particular Glastonbury Mountain, where, according to folk legend, there
Speaker 1: is even a vast ancient boulder that swallows people whole,
Speaker 1: taking them from the earth without so much as a
Speaker 1: stifled cry. Like much of New England, the area reads
Speaker 1: like a strange psychogeographic experiment, where place names like Manchester, Sunderland,
Speaker 1: Somerset and Dover can be found only a stone's throw
Speaker 1: from each other, all dragged from another world by English
Speaker 1: settlers and pinned haphazardly onto a strange and unfamiliar landscape,
Speaker 1: a place that in reality was never for taming, as
Speaker 1: it continues to this day to wriggle and squirm underneath,
Speaker 1: alive with unknowable mystery. And it isn't just the land
Speaker 1: that visitors and locals alike are told to be cautious of.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty five, it's claim that famed horror writer
Speaker 1: Howard Philip's Lovecraft once traveled to Richmond, Vermont, a little
Speaker 1: further north, on the hunt for a strange winged creature
Speaker 1: that had been dubbed the Awful by local observers, described
Speaker 1: as having the tail of a serpent, gray wings, and
Speaker 1: huge claws, having presumably traveled right over the Green Mountains,
Speaker 1: it is alleged to have been seen again in Berkshire, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: just to the south, where it reportedly swooped down and
Speaker 1: grabbed something from the ground. Some claim it was a
Speaker 1: dog or a lamb, others that it was in fact
Speaker 1: a small child. Of course, many vast wilderness regions have
Speaker 1: generated similar myths and legends, no less terrifying, But where
Speaker 1: the Green Mountain's forest seems to differ is in its
Speaker 1: propensity for the genuinely inexplicable. In nineteen ninety two, local
Speaker 1: 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 mile 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. Midy,
Speaker 1: an experienced hunter who knew the forest well, was last
Speaker 1: seen close 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 Tetford
Speaker 1: got on a bus in the town of Franklin, about
Speaker 1: one hundred sixty miles north of Bennington, en route for
Speaker 1: the Bennington Soldier's home where he lived. Teedford was reportedly
Speaker 1: 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, where 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 McLean Smith.
Speaker 1: When seventeen year old Paula Gene 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 nearby rural Putney, having grown up
Speaker 1: on a horse ranch. The pair soon hit it off, however,
Speaker 1: quickly bonding over their mutual love of the great out
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: and ever 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 Moultae Equinox near Manchester, when the pair
Speaker 1: were joined by two young men from nearby Williams 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 hitch hiking. Paula had been nervous
Speaker 1: to try it at first, but soon realized what a
Speaker 1: joy it could be, never quite knowing what fun or
Speaker 1: interesting character might pick you up next. In the holidays,
Speaker 1: Paula and Elizabeth would visit each other's families, where Elizabeth
Speaker 1: first got the sense that all was not well with
Speaker 1: her roommate. As the oldest of four daughters, there's been
Speaker 1: speculation that Paula didn't feel quite as loved as her sisters.
Speaker 1: Though she'd been close to both parents before college, something
Speaker 1: in the course of her first year had changed. She
Speaker 1: described her home to Elizabeth as the ice box. It
Speaker 1: was a term Elizabeth never quite understood, since Paula's parents
Speaker 1: seemed 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 caused such a frosty relationship. But Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six, while Elizabeth went home and 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 Dewey 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 one, however,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth thought she seemed a little distracted as she strummed
Speaker 1: listlessly on her guitar, gazing out at the window at
Speaker 1: the gray skies above Elizabeth suggest test that Paula take
Speaker 1: a walk to clear her head, since that had always
Speaker 1: helped them both in the past. Later that afternoon, it
Speaker 1: appeared that Paula took her friend's advice when she was
Speaker 1: seen 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
Speaker 1: falling when a couple traveling along Route nine stopped to
Speaker 1: put snow chains on close to the turn off for
Speaker 1: the long trail road. Stepping out into the silent night
Speaker 1: with their flashlight, the couple was surprised to find fresh
Speaker 1: footprints in the snow that appeared to be about a
Speaker 1: size five, similar to Paula's. Fearing that someone could be
Speaker 1: in 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 her 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 too 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 gene 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 Stephenson
Speaker 1: to tell him he'd seen the exact same woman only
Speaker 1: a few days before. Back around four p m. On
Speaker 1: the afternoon of Sunday, December first, Whitman and three friends
Speaker 1: were walking back from a camp on Bickford Hollow Road,
Speaker 1: which branches off from the Long Trail Road, when they
Speaker 1: were approached by a young woman matching Paula's description. The
Speaker 1: woman wanted to know if the road went all the
Speaker 1: way over the mountains. Confirming it did, The group then
Speaker 1: watched bemused as she continued heading deeper into the forest,
Speaker 1: despite 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 Stephenson and The Banner's editor Frank Howe,
Speaker 1: but the men found no sign of her. The following day,
Speaker 1: local builder Lewis Knapp 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, to be dropped off as
Speaker 1: close to the Long Trail as possible. Knapp claimed to
Speaker 1: have driven her all the way to Woodford Road, where
Speaker 1: he lived, where she got out of his truck and
Speaker 1: proceeded toward the Green Mountains on foot. As per Ernie
Speaker 1: Whitman's description, NAP's wife confirmed that her husband returned home
Speaker 1: that day about three point fifteen p m. Meanwhile, as
Speaker 1: temperatures 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 Parker jacket, walking through a covered
Speaker 1: bridge across a fast moving river. But William wasn't to worry.
Speaker 1: The young woman was alive and would be found before long.
Speaker 1: Sheltering in an old shack close to the river, Wheldon
Speaker 1: returned immediately to the Long Trail Road and the Wooloomsac
Speaker 1: River that snaked alongside it, finding the two covered bridges
Speaker 1: that spanned it, he searched desperately again for any sign
Speaker 1: of Paula, but found nothing. About the same time, Vermont
Speaker 1: state detective Almo Franzoni joined the search, heading straight out
Speaker 1: to the Long Trail Road where Paula was last seen alive.
Speaker 1: Franzoni noticed a gully close to the Route nine Highway,
Speaker 1: about one hundred and twenty five feet from where Lewis
Speaker 1: Knapp claimed to have dropped Paula off. Searching the area
Speaker 1: a few moments later, Franzoni caught sight of some soggy
Speaker 1: material that appeared to have been discarded under a nearby bush.
Speaker 1: Moving in for a closer look, he took a pen
Speaker 1: from his pocket and hooked the material out, then spread
Speaker 1: it out on the ground to reveal a small pair
Speaker 1: of pink underpants covered in blood. The item of clothing
Speaker 1: was later shown to Bennington College Director of Admissions Mary Garrett,
Speaker 1: who declared confidently that they couldn't possibly have belonged to Paula,
Speaker 1: and so the lead was quickly discarded with little progress
Speaker 1: being made. Thirty five year old detective Robert Brundle and
Speaker 1: police officer Dorothy Scoville were drafted in to assist in
Speaker 1: the case. The pair led a renewed effort to interview
Speaker 1: everyone and anyone who'd known Paula or had for any
Speaker 1: reason come into contact with her recently. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: before their efforts coalesced around the Maxwell family, who were
Speaker 1: determined to be the last people to see Paula alive.
Speaker 1: The Maxwells owned a house about two thirds of the
Speaker 1: way up the Long Trail road, roughly half a mile
Speaker 1: from where it turned into the forest path. Interviewing them
Speaker 1: one afternoon in their home, Rundal and Scoville listened carefully
Speaker 1: to Viola Maxwell and her fifteen year old daughter Mary
Speaker 1: as they described coming out of their cowbarn sometime around
Speaker 1: four pm on Sunday, December one, when they saw a young,
Speaker 1: blondhaired woman wearing a red Parker jacket, blue trousers and
Speaker 1: trainers heading up the road toward them. As mother and
Speaker 1: daughter talked, Alfred Godett, Viola's on and off boyfriend, who
Speaker 1: sometimes stayed with them, sat listening quietly in the corner.
Speaker 1: When the pair finished their account, the officers turned to
Speaker 1: Alfred to ask if he'd also seen the woman in
Speaker 1: the red Parker, to which he replied no, since he'd
Speaker 1: been away in New York State for most of that day.
Speaker 1: When Rundal and Scoville returned a few days later to
Speaker 1: interview the family again, Alfred changed his story, telling them
Speaker 1: he hadn't been in New York State at all, but
Speaker 1: had in fact gone to Bennington early in the morning
Speaker 1: before returning to the house just after midnight. Concerned by
Speaker 1: the sudden change of story, Rundle and Scoville had each
Speaker 1: of the Maxwell children four in total, pulled out of
Speaker 1: school and interviewed separately, though ten year old Preston was
Speaker 1: confirmed to have been out all day with his grandparents
Speaker 1: at the time. Mary reiterated that on December first, only she,
Speaker 1: her mum, and her brother Stanley were at home because
Speaker 1: Alfred and her brother Clarence had gone to town early
Speaker 1: in the morning. Though she couldn't be sure exactly what
Speaker 1: time they came home, she was adamant they were both
Speaker 1: back in time for supper in the early evening. Sixteen
Speaker 1: year old Clarence backed up Mary's statement, telling police also
Speaker 1: that he and Alfred had left the house in the
Speaker 1: morning and driven into Bennington, adding curiously, however, that at
Speaker 1: some point while he stayed in town, Alfred left him
Speaker 1: there and drove off somewhere else. Twelve year old Stanley
Speaker 1: Maxwell agreed that he was at home on the day
Speaker 1: in question, but only until about two thirty pm, when
Speaker 1: he left with his uncle to carry out some odd jobs.
Speaker 1: Stanley was certain that Alfred was also at the house
Speaker 1: around this time, After further conflicting statements, Rundel and Scoville
Speaker 1: returned to the Maxwell house for a fourth time, joined
Speaker 1: by Sheriff Peck, who had also received conflicting statements from
Speaker 1: the family. This time, Viola claimed that although Alfred had
Speaker 1: left the house early in the morning with Clarence, he
Speaker 1: then returned for lunch again early in the afternoon. Some
Speaker 1: time later, she and her daughter Mary had left to
Speaker 1: see a movie, but as they made their way down
Speaker 1: the Long Trail road, they bumped into Alfred coming the
Speaker 1: other way in his truck. The pair then traveled back
Speaker 1: to the house with Alfred, who stayed inside while they
Speaker 1: went to the cow barn to complete some chores. It
Speaker 1: was a short time later that she and Mary saw
Speaker 1: the young woman in the red jacket walking up the
Speaker 1: road toward them. Alfred, she was certain was in the
Speaker 1: house at the time and had not seen the woman.
Speaker 1: After yet another altered story, the police felt they had
Speaker 1: no choice but to arrest Alfred and bring him in
Speaker 1: for questioning, and once again he too changed its story.
Speaker 1: Alfred did confirm that he'd met Viola and Mary coming
Speaker 1: up the Long Trail in his truck and dropped them
Speaker 1: back off at home. However, her He also added that
Speaker 1: after parking up his truck, he neglected to head straight
Speaker 1: back to the house with them when he saw two
Speaker 1: men sat in a car parked up outside it. Suspecting
Speaker 1: that one of the men was Viola's new boyfriend, he
Speaker 1: decided to watch from afar as she and Mary spoke
Speaker 1: to them. Then, despite consistently stating otherwise, he told police
Speaker 1: that he had seen the young woman in the red
Speaker 1: parker after all walking past while he sat and watched
Speaker 1: the men in the car. When the men finally drove off,
Speaker 1: Alfred explained that he then chased after Viola and scolded
Speaker 1: her for cheating on him. An argument ensued between them
Speaker 1: for a good few hours until Viola's parents, who also
Speaker 1: lived at the property, returned home, at which point, he said,
Speaker 1: Viola went upstairs to bed, and he left the house
Speaker 1: in a rage and spent the night at a shack
Speaker 1: across the road where he often stayed. After being confronted
Speaker 1: with Alfred's completely new statement, Fiola once again changed her
Speaker 1: story to telling police that she'd been lying all along
Speaker 1: because she was in the middle of applying for a
Speaker 1: divorce and didn't want it known that she and Alfred
Speaker 1: were still seeing each other in case it jeopardized anything.
Speaker 1: The two men whom Alfred claimed had been parked outside
Speaker 1: the house were eventually tracked down and seemingly verified his
Speaker 1: latest version of events, saying also that they too had
Speaker 1: seen the young woman in the red coat walking. By
Speaker 1: that day, with little else to go on, Alfred was
Speaker 1: released from custody about the same time that Alfred Godet
Speaker 1: was being interrogated by police. One hundred and fifty miles
Speaker 1: to the north, in the town of South hero Vermont,
Speaker 1: a missus w Champagne tosses and turns in her sleep.
Speaker 1: Through a dark haze of soft and fuzzy light, a
Speaker 1: haunting image takes shape in her unconscious mind. Paula Jeane
Speaker 1: Weldon walking along the long trail road, her red jacket
Speaker 1: wrapped tightly around her, as a black car pulls up
Speaker 1: with a dark, faceless figure sitting at the wheel. Paula
Speaker 1: asks the driver for a ride, to which he agrees,
Speaker 1: but only after he has a cup of tea first.
Speaker 1: The young woman thanks him, then pulls open the back
Speaker 1: door and lets herself in. But now the image is
Speaker 1: twisting and morphing again and Suddenly the driver is on her,
Speaker 1: grabbing hard at her neck, as the young woman's arms
Speaker 1: flail about in a desperate effort to fend him off.
Speaker 1: And now Paula's body is lifeless in the back seat,
Speaker 1: as another image swirls into view, a bungle or a shack,
Speaker 1: the third of three running down from the top end
Speaker 1: of the long trail road. Then a pair of hands
Speaker 1: ripping up a linoleum floor and a body being slid
Speaker 1: into the gap underneath. Then the linoleum is smoothed down
Speaker 1: once more and a large black stove slid back into
Speaker 1: place on top of it. Missus Champagne informed the police
Speaker 1: of her terrifying dream the next day, and though most
Speaker 1: were reluctant to give it any credibility, it was soon
Speaker 1: discovered that the bungalow, lying third in line from the
Speaker 1: top of the long trail road just so happened to
Speaker 1: belong to Alfred Cadet. Detective Almo Franzoni was promptly dispatched
Speaker 1: to search the area, but he failed to find anything incriminating.
Speaker 1: A little more than two weeks after Paula's disappearance, a
Speaker 1: broken William Weldon collected his daughter's belongings from her dorm
Speaker 1: room and put them in the back of his Buick coupe. Then,
Speaker 1: without so much as a glance back, he drove away
Speaker 1: from the campus, vowing only to return if anything significant
Speaker 1: came up. But nothing did. On May twenty fourth, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven, with the winter snow having finally thawed, another
Speaker 1: search party of more than a hundred volunteers combed the
Speaker 1: long trail for two days, looking for any clues as
Speaker 1: to Paula's whereabouts, but once again, the forest relinquished nothing.
Speaker 1: In the following years, a number of strange reports linked
Speaker 1: to the case filtered through to the police, including the
Speaker 1: story of an armed robber arrested in Cambridge, Massachusetts in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, who was found with an article about
Speaker 1: Paula in his pocket and a sketch resembling her in
Speaker 1: his boarding room. He also admitted to once having visited
Speaker 1: the Glastonbury area, who claimed to know nothing of the
Speaker 1: woman's disappearance. In nineteen fifty two, the dying ex girlfriend
Speaker 1: of a thirty five year old lumberjack claimed that he'd
Speaker 1: once told her that he had good reason to believe
Speaker 1: that Paula was buried under a porch in a cellar
Speaker 1: somewhere close to the Long Trail. That same year, Alfred
Speaker 1: Godett told friends that he also knew where Paula was buried.
Speaker 1: Godet was promptly called in again for questioning, but told
Speaker 1: police he'd simply been joking, fully aware of the suspicion
Speaker 1: that had fallen on him at the time. When asked
Speaker 1: to give another account of his movements on the day
Speaker 1: of Paula's disappearance, however, his statement changed again. This time,
Speaker 1: instead of claiming he'd stormed out of the Maxwell property
Speaker 1: and headed straight to his place across the road, he'd
Speaker 1: actually got into his truck and driven it up the
Speaker 1: Long Trail road in the direction that Paula had last
Speaker 1: been seen walking. At the time of Alfred's last questioning,
Speaker 1: the then state's attorney, John Hart was away on National
Speaker 1: Guard training, leaving Reuben Leven as a temporary state attorney
Speaker 1: in his absence. Believing they finally had grounds to properly
Speaker 1: search two bungalows that belonged to Alfred Cadet, one on
Speaker 1: the Long Trail and one in Bickford Hollow, Reuben Leven
Speaker 1: made it one of his last duties before Hart returned
Speaker 1: to sign off on a search warrant to examine the
Speaker 1: cellars of the bungalows, But when Hart came back the
Speaker 1: next day, he immediately canceled the warrant, arguing that there
Speaker 1: simply wasn't enough evidence to justify it. As such, to
Speaker 1: this day, the fate of Paula Jane Weldon remains a mystery.
Speaker 1: But somewhere it is always to see nineteen forty six
Speaker 1: on that mile and a half stretch of the long
Speaker 1: trail road that branches off from Route nine, and there
Speaker 1: is always a light snow beginning to fall as a
Speaker 1: young woman dressed in a red Parker jacket makes her
Speaker 1: way quietly, steadily towards the forest. And as she goes,
Speaker 1: never once looking back, she takes the whole world with
Speaker 1: her as she continues deeper and deeper into the trees.
Speaker 1: Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained As an Avy
Speaker 1: Club production, the podcast created by Richard mclin Smith. All
Speaker 1: other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also
Speaker 1: produced by me Richard McLain Smith, unexplained. The book and
Speaker 1: audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase
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Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
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