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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
Hello everyone and welcome back.
I'm Ali.
And I'm Eli.
And this is Cold and Missing.
We are on episode 83 this week.
We've both been working quite a bit, so I have just been seeing little peaks of you
researching this, so I'm really eager to get into it.
Does that sound good to you?
Yep.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
So today we are covering a missing person case, and we are going to be covering the
case of Angela Angie Hammond.
And this takes place in Clinton, Missouri in April of 1991.
But first a little bit about Angela.
Angela, or Angie, as I'll be referring to her throughout the podcast, as that's what
she went by with family and friends, is 20 years old in 1991.
And she is the life of the party.
She's an outgoing young woman who is really starting out her life.
She was taking classes at Central Missouri State University and also working as a bank
clerk who was tallying evening accounts.
Angie starts dating Rob Schaffner, who is a high school senior at this time and 18 years
old.
But the two are instantly connected and smitten with each other.
In January of 1991, Angie finds out that she's pregnant and the two are engaged shortly thereafter
and moving together in a trailer right there in Clinton, Missouri.
Their baby would be due in late August or early September.
And now a timeline of events.
On Thursday, April 4, 1991, Angie got off of work.
She's wearing a white shirt with black polka dots, black pants, and tennis shoes.
Rob and Angie attend a family barbecue that was near Angie's mother's house.
Angie is four months pregnant at this point.
The couple left around 9pm and Angie drove Rob to his family's house and dropped him
off so Rob could babysit his younger brother.
Angie spent the rest of the evening cruising around town and chatting with her best friend
Kyla.
She was also excited to hang out with a friend who was visiting from out of town.
Angie and Kyla parted ways just after 11 and Angie headed to the center of town to use
one of the payphones that was outside of the food barn, the grocery store.
Rob and Angie didn't have a phone at their home yet so she needed to call Rob to tell
him that she had a change of plans.
The plan originally was for Angie to stop by Rob's parents' house and hang out with
him for a while, but she wanted to call him and tell him that she was too tired.
She planned to go straight back to their place and take a bath.
Phone records will later confirm that Angie was on the phone from 1123 to 1137pm.
During her phone call with Rob, Angie begins to feel nervous about a green truck that keeps
circling the block.
Eventually, the green truck pulled into the parking lot and parked right next to Angie
and the payphones.
She tells Rob that the truck had a decal on the back window that showed a fish jumping
out of the water.
The driver gets out of the truck and goes to use the payphone on the other side of her.
He picks up the receiver but quickly puts it back down again before making a phone call.
Angie tells Rob that it's a white man who looks dirty.
He had glasses, a full-grown beard and mustache and was wearing overalls.
The man went back to his truck and rifled with something under a seat.
He then got back out of the truck and approached Angie at her phone booth.
Rob could hear Angie ask, quote, do you need to use the phone?
End quote.
Just a few moments later, Rob hears Angie scream in the phone and what sounded like
the phone hitting the side of the phone booth.
Then the phone line goes dead.
Someone hung up the receiver.
Without hesitating, Rob jumped into his car and started speeding towards the payphone
in the center of town, which was only seven blocks from his family home.
On his way there, he sees what he describes as a yellow truck speeding in the opposite
direction.
But he hears a woman scream Rob.
Rob told the local paper, quote, when she screamed at me out the window, I put it in
reverse and started chasing him.
End quote.
Rob turned his car around as fast as he could and starts speeding after the truck, which
he describes as a 1969 or 1970 Ford.
Rob chases the truck down Second Street, which is a main street there in Clinton, Missouri.
The truck then turns left on Calvert Drive.
But that's when Rob's car begins to stall out.
When Rob had made the quick reverse turnaround to follow the truck, he had shot his transmission.
And after two miles of chasing the truck, it stalls out and he's unable to follow
it any further.
He loses the green truck when it turns down a gravel road and disappears over a hill.
As fast as Rob can, he gets somewhere where he could call police.
And police arrive at the parking lot and find Angie's car still there.
Her purse was still inside the car.
The only items missing were her license and car keys.
But her friends and family said that she usually kept those items in her front pocket.
Police immediately take Rob in for questioning.
They don't quite believe his story.
Over the next several days, they'll question him extensively.
Meanwhile, Angie's family and friends are all looking for her.
Her mom and dad work day and night searching for her with frantic energy for several days.
That's Sunday, April 7.
Angie has been missing for three days.
About 250 volunteers gathered to search the woods and fields around Clinton.
Police also launch an air search looking for any sign of Angie, but nothing is found.
Police continue to search for Angie, but also for the truck.
And the county sheriff, along with the FBI, are involved in the search.
Police continue to get tips over the next several days.
But they're not optimistic about Angie's well-being.
Detective Parson says, quote, I'm in hopes that she's alive, but I have to be somewhat
realistic at this point.
And I feel doubtful of her being found alive, end quote.
On Wednesday, April 10, police decide to administer lie detector tests to Angie's fiance and
an ex-boyfriend.
Police are very suspicious of Rob still.
He told a local paper that the FBI agents giving the test didn't seem to believe him,
quote, they don't think my story is very good.
I told them everything I know.
I think they're barking up the wrong tree here.
They need to focus on who really did this and not on people who didn't, end quote.
Police are also spending a lot of time searching on dirt and gravel roads in the area that
are mainly known to fishermen.
I'm assuming that this is because of the decal that Angie and Rob saw on the back of the
truck.
On Monday, April 15, Angie has been missing for 11 days.
The Clinton police asked for the Missouri Rural Crime Squad for help.
This is a squad made up of a few police officers from several different agencies to cover more
rural parts of the state.
Police at this point are focused on finding the truck that Angie described and that Rob
chased.
Police believe the truck is green.
They also say that there could be damage to the front left bumper, and they do believe
that there's a water or fishing scene that takes up the entire back window.
Police are hopeful that the additional manpower will be helpful in the case.
The crime squad spokesperson, Tom Van Zart says, quote, at this point, we've got a lot
of leads, a lot of good information.
We're running down leads, but there is nothing at this point to report, end quote.
That Thursday, April 18, Angie has been missing for two weeks.
The team investigating Angie's abduction asked the residents in rural parts of West
Central Missouri to check their property and any abandoned buildings for any information
that could lead to Angie.
Spokesperson Van Zart says, quote, there's a lot of wooded, desolate area, a lot of strip
mines and a lot of cabins in the boondocks that we're trying to cover, end quote.
On Friday, April 19, the Clinton police chief holds a press conference to tell the community
about two witnesses that have come forward that were also able to place the pickup truck
near the phone booths the day that Angie was abducted.
Chief Bob Pattinson says, quote, it's really the best information we've gotten on the
truck so far.
It helps nail down that the vehicle was at that location, end quote.
However, just as quickly as the rural investigation team came together, they are disbanded that
Friday evening, just five days after starting.
The squad bylaws said that the investigators could only work the case for five days without
a credible lead before they had to focus on other cases.
Despite the two witnesses coming forward that week, that wasn't considered a big enough
lead to keep the squad active.
Chief Pattinson says, quote, sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't.
The squad has done a good job of eliminating some things and strengthening the investigation,
end quote.
The two witnesses, however, were able to give more details about the man.
The two witnesses, both women, saw Angie using the telephone.
These two witnesses are not together.
They're both driving independently, but they're just a few minutes apart.
However, both of the women see Angie at the payphone and they think that it's a friend
of theirs.
They both pull into the parking lot and pull up near the payphones.
Both women ended up parking on the other side of the truck.
The women said that there was a man in the driver's seat who leaned back when they pulled
in so he was harder to see and more obscure.
Both women say that the man was wearing a dark colored baseball cap that further blocked
his face.
Once the women determined that Angie was not their friend, they left.
Police believe that Angie was probably abducted just moments after the last woman pulled out
of the parking lot.
Over the next week, the reward fund for information grows to over $10,000 thanks to donations
from the community.
And another witness comes forward to say that they also saw the truck near Angie the night
that she was abducted.
Police feel confident that they are looking for a Ford truck that was made between 1968
and 1970.
They believe there is a fishing scene decal in color that takes up the whole back window
of the truck.
One of the witnesses thought that the license plate included the letters X and Y.
Witnesses said the truck is dark green on the upper portion and then light green on
the lower portion.
A chrome strip separates the two colors.
The truck also has a white roof.
The three witnesses described the man as white, between 20 and 35 years old, medium build.
He had dark hair that went to his collar and a mustache.
Angie also told Rob that he had a beard.
Police are continuing to try to locate the truck but have not been successful in this
pursuit.
On May 5th, so it's been a month now since Angie was abducted and there have been no
new leads in the case since those witnesses came forward, police, friends and family have
spent the past month searching for her across the town and county.
Her mother says quote, I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst and yet trying to hope
for the best.
I'm taking it one day at a time until they find something.
I'm trying to stay optimistic, end quote.
But by October 4th, 1991, it had been six months since Angie's abduction.
Her family has kept looking for her but are starting to run out of places to check around
town.
Her father said quote, we checked creek beds, all old houses, barns and wells every day
from daylight to dark.
After two weeks of doing that, the leaves started drying up.
That's about where we are now.
We hope and pray that she's alive, end quote.
Her mother Marcia says quote, I know the statistics aren't good at this point for finding her,
but until something happens, you can't give up.
The hope is always going to be there, end quote.
After Angie's disappearance, Rob decides to join the military as a national guardsman.
His mother says that he's shut himself off and has taken her abduction really hard.
It took some time but police eventually clear him from being involved in her disappearance.
Police say the case hasn't progressed at all over the last few months.
Detective Damon Parsons says quote, there's someone out there who has information, but
they just may not realize it.
Until they come forward or until she's found.
There really is not much more we could do, end quote.
In December of 1991, so it's been eight months now since her abduction, a man in Selkirk,
Manitoba, Canada, which is near Winnipeg, contacts authorities because he is sure that
he saw Angie leaving a drug store and getting into a green pickup truck.
The man said the truck had a white roof and a mural in the rear window.
The man said quote, I know that I saw the girl.
I know that for a fact.
I may not remember someone's name, but I never forget a face, end quote.
The man said the sighting happened in September.
That would have been five months after Angie was abducted.
Police Chief Bob Pattinson had this to say about the tip, quote, whether it's good
or not, who knows?
It was good enough to alert the Canadian authorities, but so far nothing has turned up, end quote.
Canadian police have also followed up on the tip trying to track the truck down and hopefully
Angie, but according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, quote, we're at a dead end.
We've tried about everything we can do here, end quote.
The Canadian police had showed photos of Angie to workers at gas stations, restaurant, baby
stores, motels, hospitals, everywhere they could think of, hoping someone would recognize
her and nobody else had.
The man who called in the tip initially learned about the case when he was visiting relatives
in a nearby town in Missouri.
He saw a missing person flyer in a shop window and thought she looked familiar.
He later recalled where he had seen her before and reported the tip.
In January of 1992, so nine months since Angie's disappearance, a segment runs on unsolved
mysteries about Angie.
This results in a flood of new tips.
To help sort through all the tips, the Rural Major Case Squad comes back together to run
all the leads down.
Over 700 tips come in together.
But by the middle of February, the squad will have dissolved again.
The spokesperson, Vanzart, says, quote, we've run down just about all the leads and wrapped
things up today.
The matter has been turned back to Clinton police and Henry County authorities, end quote.
Over the years, Angie's case will be featured on various true crime shows and her mom will
even go on Oprah to talk about it.
But nothing brings Angie home or police to the man in the green truck.
In April of 1993, so it's been two years since Angie's abduction, tips have really stopped
coming in on Angie's case.
And this prompted the editor of the Clinton newspaper, his name is Malon Miles, to reach
out to a psychic.
He says, quote, I'm a former police officer and I once used a psychic on a homicide case
and she was pretty accurate.
So I searched around and found this woman and she started steering us towards Odessa
before the cops had anything going on up there, end quote.
However, the police maintained that long before the newspaper editor reached out to the psychic,
they had developed a tip that was leading them towards a farm in Odessa.
The man who had owned that farm had also owned a blue Chevy truck, not a green Ford, but
there was a rumor that the man had a green Ford on his farm.
Police remain unconvinced about the psychic.
Police Chief Pattinson says, quote, I don't have any faith in psychics.
The particular person that's being looked at as a possible suspect, we've 95% cleared
him.
He has a pretty good alibi.
He took a lie detector and we feel like he passed it, end quote.
Ultimately, cadaver dogs are brought onto the farm to, as police put it, either find
a body or stop the rumors.
Nothing is found in this search.
Over the years, the Clinton community continues to pray for Angie, but there are no major
searches.
Police will find a few people that they think could be involved over the years, but ultimately
they rule them all out.
The occasional tip comes in, but it won't be until April of 2009, 18 years since her
abduction, that the newspaper will run her story again.
Clinton Police Sergeant Paul Abbott says, quote, we've been working on this case diligently
for the last 18 years.
On occasion, we've had fewer and fewer leads, but here recently it seems like there's
been renewed interest by the public.
We feel like this is an open, active investigation right now, end quote.
It's also revealed around this time that police did collect evidence in 1991 and still
have it.
Police aren't specific about what they have, but they are hopeful that they're going
to be able to get DNA off of it with the advances in technology.
In 2021, so it's been 30 years since Angie's abduction, and police hold a press conference
on Facebook Live to unveil a brand new theory in the case, that the abductor took the wrong
Angela.
During this time in 1991, police had an undercover informant in the narcotics department whose
cover had recently been blown.
On the date that Angie is abducted, a ransom note is mailed to the family of the informant
boasting that they had kidnapped their daughter who was also named Angela.
The letter read, quote, we know who you are.
People like you deserve what you get.
We know where your foxy daughter is at, and she will see us soon.
Tell redacted, she has our deepest sympathy in her further loss, end quote.
The letter is made out of letters from newspapers and magazines.
Police hope that the public will be able to identify the suspect that Angela described
the night of her abduction.
And the police also asked that whoever mailed that letter in 1991 to come forward to further
the conversation.
However, as of recording this in 2024, that was the last update that I could find.
So with that, if you know anything about the abduction of Angie Hammond in April of 1991
or her whereabouts today, please call the Clinton police at 660-885-5561.
So that is the case of Angie Hammond.
I felt like there was a lot of information available to me on this one, thanks to your,
you know, investigative research.
I found myself having a lot of questions and circling back to something you had just said
and trying to keep up a little bit, not because of storytelling.
It was great.
I just, you know, with missing person cases, I think it's very natural to start trying
to fill in the blanks, which I think I've said on an episode before.
So that's what I was doing.
I was like very happy to hear that there was kind of a blip of an update, you know?
I'm always happy to hear when there's movement in a case.
So yeah, I didn't know if you had any comments on that part, at least.
So the 2021 update is really interesting and it does raise a lot of questions because it's
this completely new theory and piece of information that police had never talked about up until
this point that Angie was this mistaken target for an Angela that was going to be like payback
for a narcotic informant that was mailed to the family of this Angela the day that
Angie was abducted.
So that is really interesting or not interesting, but it just raises a lot of questions and
like who mailed that?
And maybe they're unrelated completely, but maybe they're not.
I think that's where I began to, the questions in my brain began to fire off with the two
Angie or Angela's.
And was it the same last name?
No, it was different last names.
Okay.
I don't know.
This was definitely a case I had never heard of before, but the amount of research you
did and that you were able to find it.
I'm just sad again.
Like it feels like because there was quite a bit of information at least like leading
up to the moments before or like when she was kidnapped that there's, I don't know,
like witness testimony.
And I just feel like it's a case that people should know more about.
I'm really glad that you brought it to my attention and to our listeners attention.
I had a few more questions for you about, I don't know, just your opinion on her boyfriend
and did you, you mentioned that he was questioned, right?
Yeah.
Her boyfriend, they were engaged.
So her fiance, he was questioned, he was given a polygraph test and ultimately he was eliminated
by police.
What's your opinion on polygraphs?
I don't know if I put a lot of faith or stock into them because I think if you gave me a
polygraph test on what color is the sky, I could probably fail it because I'm an anxious
person.
So I don't know.
And I've also heard of people beating polygraph tests who were really guilty just because
they were able to like be pretty like calm during it.
So yeah, I don't know if they're really to be trusted.
They definitely, they're not allowed in court, so they're not evidence.
I actually did not know that.
That's really interesting.
I'm sure some people are learning that along with me or maybe not, but I had no idea.
They're just so, they're brought up so often.
Yeah, they're definitely still used today.
You see them all the time, but they're, yeah, they're not allowed to be submitted as evidence.
I'm sure at one time they were, but as of today, you can't use them.
One thing that I just have questions about or that I just wonder about is how nobody
could have seen this truck before because it just seems so unique.
It was like a two toned green truck with a white roof and a fishing decal on the back.
Like it is a very noticeable truck.
Like if I saw that truck today, I would notice it.
So it's very odd to me that in a town, Clinton is small.
I think at this time it had less than 10,000 residents that nobody had seen this truck
before or couldn't point to somebody and say, oh, it's my neighbors or it's in my neighborhood
or whatever.
Like nobody knew where this truck came from and nobody that's never been found.
Yes, the truck and the description of the person driving it was, it was that man, correct?
Yes.
So the picture and like the physical description of him, that man, it was, it was very terrifying
and I think he would have been noticeable in that community via the descriptors you
said.
So I don't know.
Serial killer definitely popped into my head.
I wanted to know more of your thoughts on, you know, just his description and the sketch.
Yeah.
So there was a sketch made of the suspect and at the time of Angie's disappearance,
two other women had also disappeared within like 80 miles of each other, of Angie and
then these two other women.
So police did kind of investigate a possible link between all of the women's abductions.
But as of 2024, they maintained that they've never found any connection and they've never
investigated the cases together.
Sometimes it's just that like one thing, you know, that they don't have to connect them
all because it's, I would imagine as an investigator, it's really difficult to climb and to try
to climb inside of the mind of someone who is doing things like that, you know, kidnapping
people.
So like it's a difficult thought process to understand if you are someone who doesn't want
to do that, you know.
So it's easy to maybe for them to like hide the missing link of the crimes they commit
because you know, they know we won't naturally think of them or discover them.
Anyway, I was very happy to hear that there was movement in the case.
Did you say that there were any other updates since 2021?
No, the last update was the letter that was mailed to the family and this like kind of
alternate theory that police put on their Facebook.
That was the last update.
Well, I'll definitely include an image on our Instagram page of just a graphic of what
that letter looked like.
So hopefully folks can take a look along with other pictures as per usual.
Again, if you know anything about the abduction of Angie Hammond in April of 1991 or her whereabouts
today, please call the Clinton police at 660-885-5561.
Like Eli mentioned, we will have photos on our Instagram of Angie.
There's been an age progression.
There's the suspect sketch and then also a photo of the letter that was mailed to the
other family.
So all of that will be up on our Instagram.
If you could, while you're listening, take a moment to rate and review us, especially
if you are in Apple podcasts, a written review really helps us become more visible on the
true crime charts, which helps us accomplish our mission here at Cold and Missing.
As Eli mentioned, and I mentioned earlier, you can check out our Instagram, Cold and
Missing.
You can also go to coldandmissing.com.
We have transcripts of the show and also our show notes.
That's all I have.
Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Allie.
And I'm your cohost, Eli.
Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.
Stay safe, y'all.
See you.