The views and opinions expressed in Cold and
Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All
parties mentioned are considered innocent until
proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing
also contains adult themes and languages. Listener
discretion is advised. 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 to Cold and Missing. I'm your
host, Ali. And I'm your co -host, Eli. Welcome
back, everyone, and welcome back to me. I'm back
this week to co -host with my lovely, intelligent,
incredible wife, and we've got a new case for
you this week. That's right. I am back from my
work travel, so we're in the same space, in the
same house again, and we're ready to bring you
this new case. That's right. We are on a missing
person case this week. And this is going to be
episode 147. All right, let's get into it. Let's
do it. Today, we are talking about the missing
person case of Willie Ann Rucker. And this takes
place in April of 1979 in Waterloo, Iowa. But
first, a little bit about Willie Ann. Willie
Ann Rucker was just 27 years old when she disappeared.
By all accounts, it seems like she mostly went
by her middle name Ann, so you'll hear me kind
of flip back and forth between those two names.
She was a young mother of three, two daughters,
ages 10 and 9, and a baby boy who was just over
a year old in 1979. Her loved ones described
her as kind and hardworking, someone who always
put her children first. She was a wonderful mother.
At the time, Ann had recently gone through a
divorce and was doing her best to rebuild her
life on her own. She stood about 5 '3 and weighed
around 110 pounds. Small in stature, but strong.
She worked long hours to provide for her family.
Willie Ann worked as a cocktail waitress at Riddell's
Living Room Lounge, located at 1428 East 4th
Street in Waterloo, Iowa. Today, the building
still stands, but it's vacant. She lived in an
apartment at 429 West Donald Street, apartment
103, which was only about five minutes away from
where she worked. In the days leading up to her
disappearance, Ann had reached out to police.
She told them that her ex had been frightening
her and that he was stalking her. She was scared,
but she reached out and asked for help. And now
a timeline of events. Sunday, April 8th, 1979.
That Sunday, Ann had spent part of the day with
her sister, Mary Lee, as she got ready for work.
It was a regular shift for Willie Ann at Riddell's
Lounge. There aren't any reports about anything
unusual happening during her shift. After the
bar closed, she called Mary Lee from a grocery
store. and asked if their brother could pick
up the kids and bring them back to her apartment.
Now, from here, there are a couple of different
things that are reported over the years. There
is one mention that a few minutes later, Willie
Ann calls her sister again. In this report, it
says that Willie Ann called her sister Mary Lee
again, but this time she was actually at her
apartment, and she called to ask where the kids
were at. her sister told her that her brother
was still bringing them over to her apartment.
But during that call, Ann said something that
was terrifying. She told her sister that her
ex was trying to break into the apartment. Now,
over the years, that second phone call where
she says that her ex is breaking into the apartment
has dropped out of the reporting. The story that's
told today and most often in the reports is that
the children arrived at the apartment. but their
mother never did. That was the last time that
anyone in Ann's family ever heard from her.
It's unclear exactly what was done searching
for Willie Ann over the next couple days. We
know that her family noticed right away. Of course,
her sister did, and her children, of course,
noticed that she was missing. But it's not until
four days later, on Thursday, April 12th, that
she's officially reported missing to the police.
It's unclear if this is when the family wanted
to report it or if this is the first time the
police would take the report, because it does
seem like the family was aware she was missing
and was worried about it right away. On Sunday,
April 15th, so it's a full week now since anybody
has seen Willian, and police began actively searching
for her, so they're a week behind. Her family
told investigators that it was completely out
of character for her to leave without a word.
She loved her children deeply. There was no way
she would abandon them. And it didn't really
add up. Why would Willie Ann call and ask for
her children to be brought to her apartment if
she was just going to leave suddenly and unexpectedly?
Why would she do that? Police begin looking into
it, but pretty quickly, they run into dead ends.
On Tuesday, April 17th, so this is nine days
after Willie Ann was last heard from, Police
ask the public for help in finding the young
mother. Police say they don't have any leads
at this point. The next week, on Sunday, April
22nd, so this has now been two weeks since Willie
Ann vanished, and police learned that someone
had broken into her apartment. Police say that
the lock had been picked and that the only thing
stolen from the apartment was one of Ann's warm
-up suits. Nothing else was reported missing.
Investigators publicly stated that they didn't
believe the break -in was related to her disappearance.
By early May, approaching a month since Willie
Ann vanished, police had very few clues. They
suspected foul play and revealed that they were
looking for a man. However, detectives fear that
this man that they're looking for has fled the
state. Police never publicly name him in the
paper he's just kind of referred to as an ex
of hers. Ann's family still holds out hope that
she's alive and that maybe she had gone to Arkansas,
where her mother and father lived. The family
thought that maybe she had gone out there to
lay low if she was experiencing trouble with
this ex, but none of the family in Arkansas had
heard from her in the month or seen her. Pretty
quickly, After this, the case goes cold. It doesn't
seem like police ever find the person who broke
into her apartment, and they certainly don't
find Willie Ann or the person responsible for
her vanishing. In 1992, so 13 years had passed,
and there were still no answers. Police admitted
that they still had no leads. They said at this
point, they have entered her information into
national databases. hoping that if she ever was
pulled over or identified anywhere in the country,
it would alert law enforcement that this person
was missing and they could get back to Waterloo
police. But that never happened. Willie Ann never
requested a driver's license. Her social security
was never active. There was no movement on any
of her information. Sergeant Paul Fitzgerald
told the press, quote, And by this time, 13 years
later, Willie Ann's three children were either
grown adults or they had moved in with her mother
in Arkansas. Decades will continue to pass. In
2001, so more than two decades after her disappearance,
Willie Ann's name would resurface from time to
time in the media whenever they were talking
about other missing person cases in the area,
but there were never any leads or new information
in her case. Her family accepted what their hearts
felt, that there was a chance that Willie Ann
was never coming home alive. Her cousin, Corla
Rucker, who was just seven or eight when Willie
Ann vanished, told the paper, quote, I thought
the same thing I think with Ann. that she's dead.
She has kids and she hasn't tried to make any
kind of contact with them. If she was alive,
she would have tried to make contact with her
children. Over the years, Willie Ann's children
grew up. Her daughters shielded their little
brother from the truth, telling him that their
mother had died in a car accident. Her son, David
Barrett, didn't learn what had actually happened
until he was in his 20s. It was at a family reunion
around the year 2000, an uncle accidentally let
it slip that his mother had actually disappeared
and that no one knew what happened to her. David
later said, quote, it was a shocker. I had gone
all my life trying to figure out what actually
happened. Every time I'd ask somebody, they'd
be like, go ask him, go ask her. They kept pushing
it around. David and his sisters had been raised
by their grandparents, Willie Ann's parents.
When his older sister finished her undergraduate
degree, she became David's legal guardian and
moved him to her house. It was there that David
met his high school football coach, Clinton Gore,
the man who would help launch his career. David
Barrett would go on to be drafted by the Arizona
Cardinals in the fourth round of the NFL draft.
He later became a starting cornerback for the
New York Jets. As he traveled across the country,
playing in stadiums packed with thousands of
people, he said he had always hoped that maybe
one day his mother would show up at one of his
games. In 2007, nearly three decades after she
vanished, Ann's family is still searching for
the truth. Her daughter Kim told reporters, quote,
We've had private investigators work on the case.
We think it was an ex -boyfriend who killed her,
but we've never been able to prove it. As of
2025, it's been 46 years since Willie Ann Rucker
disappeared. She was a young mother, a sister,
and a daughter, a woman doing her best to raise
her kids and move forward after a difficult divorce.
She asked for help when she was scared, and she
deserved protection and safety. Her children
grew up without answers and her family has spent
nearly five decades wondering what happened to
her that night in April of 1979. So if you have
any information about the disappearance of Willie
Ann Rucker or her whereabouts today, please call
the Waterloo Police Department at 319 -291 -2515.
or the Missing Person Information Clearinghouse,
Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation at 515
-725 -6036. So that is the missing person case
of Willie Ann Rucker. Um, first of all, I just
love her name. It's such a cool name and such
a unique name that I'm sad I didn't hear it until
today. There's so much behind this case. There's
a lot of missing pieces. It goes back and forth,
the timeline. I have a lot of clarifying questions.
But first, just to speak on Willie Ann, the description
of her being small but mighty or brave. I definitely
align with that. I'm a small guy. I still feel
very powerful and empowered even in my size.
So it always feels comforting to hear someone
else described like that. But all the more heartbreaking
to know her size and that maybe in this case
she was harmed or taken advantage of or much
worse. And I'm just really looking forward to
talking about this case with you. Yeah. Willie
Ann seems like a very tough woman. You know,
she's 27 years old. She has these three young
kids that she's taking care of by herself. And
she's working as a cocktail waitress, which is
a tough job. Working as a cocktail waitress,
I personally have never done it, but I know my
mother has. And I know it's tough work and you
got to be tough to do it. Yeah, I mean, statistically
and especially during that time, Not that a ton
has changed in behaviors everywhere, but I think
being a woman in that environment while you're
trying to do your job and being surrounded by
people who have been drinking, mostly men, you're
putting up with a lot, a lot of what I imagine
bullshit and misogyny. Just not easy shifts.
So it was very easy for me to picture her. And
especially after I did look at her picture, I
could picture her in that environment and like
running it the way that she was described. So,
yeah, I totally agree. She sounded tough and
like a badass. Completely agree. Yeah. I do want
to move into the timeline a little bit and particularly
starting with. Her fear surrounding her ex, either
it's her husband or ex -boyfriend. Maybe we can
get some clarity on that, but I also know that
maybe you might not be sure with the information
out there. Yes, it is very thin. You know, the
reports back in 1979, the media coverage is very
thin in Willian's case. So there were reports
that she had gone through a divorce recently.
But then, you know, her family talks about an
ex -boyfriend. Maybe it wasn't a divorce per
se. Maybe it was, you know, a breakup where they
had lived together for a long time and it just
felt more like a divorce. But it does seem like
she had separated from somebody recently and
that was causing issues in her life. Yeah. Hearing
that instantly, my body was shaking. I just was
so... angry because time and time again, we have
heard cases like this and almost always women
and specifically women of color are failed in
these instances over and over again. Like the
fact that there is mismatching information around
this case is unforgivable. And just heartbreaking
because she did reach out. She did say something.
And for it to not be taken seriously, for it
to not be looked at more closely. Yeah, I mean,
I know I could maybe be maybe I'm speaking in
an echo chamber right now, but it was painful,
painful to listen to because instantly I knew
that the system was failing her. Yeah, it is.
It is really frustrating that. Here she is raising
the alarm days before she disappears that, you
know, somebody is stalking her, somebody is harassing
her. She has these three young kids. She's by
herself. It's really frustrating to think that
she raised this alarm, had these concerns, her
family knew about these concerns, and yet police
don't know who did this to her. You know, to
me, it seems, you know, what the family thinks,
you know, that an ex -boyfriend is involved.
You know, a lot of evidence seems to point that
way with her sounding the alarm, being stalked,
being harassed. Like, that's all a recipe for
disaster. And it's painful to think that she
was trying to stop it from happening and nothing
she did, you know, prevented it. Nobody, you
know, the police didn't step in and stop it.
And not to mention just, you know, prior to her
disappearance. or foul play with her disappearance,
the toll that that takes on a person of constantly
worrying and looking over your shoulder and living
life in survival mode and in pure fear is exhausting.
And she was doing this as a single parent to
not one, not two, but three kids. And I know
I've said it before, but like for the love of
God, like why did no one help her? I'm really
glad that you brought this case here today because
it feels like we can maybe be even just a little
bit helpful with getting her name back out there.
And I do want to circle back to the first 72
hours or the way. Her being reported missing
happened and how law enforcement handled it.
We know if you're interested in true crime or
engage with it, that the first 72 hours are critical
in a missing person case. And that window of
time just fucking flew by. And it was a week,
I think you said, until they started looking
for her. And it's like, I never want to say it's
too late, but the ball was dropped. And again,
this woman, Willie Ann, was failed. Yeah. So
she officially gets reported four days after
she went missing. So she goes missing late Sunday,
early Monday morning. She's reported missing
that Thursday. But police don't start looking
for her officially, it seems like, until that
Sunday. I don't know for sure the reasoning.
You know, they never came out and said this is
why we waited. I imagine they assumed that, you
know, she would show up, she would turn up, she'd
call somebody, she just needs to get away. You
know, we see that again and again, and especially
in older missing person cases. But it seems like
at one week when nobody had heard from her, when
her family insists how strange that is, that's
when they finally start to take her disappearance
seriously. But like you said, they're a week
behind, you know, the trails. already cold at
that point. They're not hot on the trail. They're
a week behind it. So it's difficult to come back
from that. Well, you bringing this case to us
means that we are taking it seriously. So I do
want to get into some of the details and just
clarify some of them. I want to just recap or
go back to the section of the phone calls and
what happened, what was said about the kids.
So the phone calls. So these all take place late
Sunday, early Monday morning. We don't have exact
times of them, but it's after she works her shift
at Riddell's lounge, living room lounge. So after
she works her shift, we know for sure she calls
her sister from a grocery store and asks that
the kids be brought to her apartment. You know,
she's headed that way. Go ahead and bring the
kids home. So that phone call. for sure has happened.
The second phone call is the one that I question.
It's only mentioned once in newspaper reports
that Willian called again. And this time she
was at her apartment, not at the grocery store,
at her apartment asking where the kids were.
And her sister says that, you know, her brother
is bringing them. They're not there yet. They're
still there. And Willian says that somebody's
breaking into the apartment. She says her ex
-boyfriend. Again, he's not named, but I assume
she knows who it is and names the person to her
sister. So that phone call, that second phone
call, drops out of the timeline later. And when
this case is reported today, when it's talked
about today, that second phone call is not mentioned.
So I don't know if it didn't happen, but it seems
so specific for it not to have happened, for
it to be reported on, or if it just kind of got
brought out of the timeline. in the official
media report because police wanted to keep that
detail closer to the vest. I'm not sure about
the second phone call. But today when we talk
about Willie Ann's case, they say the phone call
at the grocery store happened and then the kids
arrive at the apartment, but Willie Ann never
shows up. So that is the official statement of
events today. Okay, thank you for compiling that.
I know it's hard for it to be. because it's just
not, but I have a much greater understanding
of what happened during that section of the timeline,
which begs the question, I don't understand how
that conclusion wasn't drawn, that the break
-in that did actually happen, whether she said
it in a phone call or not, we can confirm that
that did happen. How the robbery... And her disappearance
were not linked at all or wasn't even looked
at. I don't know what to say on that. I was baffled.
The break -in is a very strange detail in this
case and one that I don't think is talked about
enough. So the break -in seems to happen weeks
after Willie Ann goes missing, maybe a week and
a half, two weeks after she goes missing in the
timeline. That maybe second phone call where
she says an ex is trying to break in. In that
scenario, she's in the apartment while it's happening.
This, however, police discover it later. And
the only thing missing, they say, is a warm -up
suit. So I interpret that as like a track suit.
Why is that the only thing missing? Why is that
the thing missing? No money, no cash. A jogging
suit? Why? I have so many questions around that,
and I agree. To me, it seems so strange for this
woman to go missing and then an article of clothing
be stolen from her apartment and nothing else.
It seems very suspicious to me and strange that
they wouldn't be connected. And if they're not
connected, show me the math on how they're not.
Like, who did the break -in? And why did they
do it? And how do you know they had nothing to
do with the disappearance? Like show me how that
all works out. Because to me, I have huge questions
around the break -in. Thank you again for clarifying
that the two are separate and that one may be
conflated and kind of does and does not exist
in the timeline. Certainly not confirmed. I do
understand that the two are separate and that
one may not have happened. Even still, after
a woman goes missing and someone breaks into
the house and steals something personal, there's
no link? Come on. What? Like, what? And again,
where the math doesn't make sense here, with
how you described her, the way her family described
her, She does not seem like someone who would
leave her children behind unprotected with no
plan. I think in these instances where you are
maybe trying to run from someone who is causing
you great harm and or fear, there is often, if
there can be, a plan in place. Maybe someone
in your family also knows about it and is helping
you. I that does not seem like what was happening
here. And the family, you know, never says anything
about that. All they say over and over again
is this is odd. This is outside of her behavior.
So a lot of things don't add up here. And I really
hope that with people hearing this case, some
things start to come to the forefront and we
can make sense of some of the timeline and just
justice for her. Yeah, I really hope that we
can get some energy in Willie -Ann's case and
get answers for her children, get answers for
her family. I know her children, you know, they've
talked about it. They've hired a private investigator
over the years. They've spent their own money
trying to figure out what happened to their mother.
And they still don't have answers. And I agree
with what you said. And from everything the family
said, that was... The thing that was most concerning
is that she would never leave her children. She
would never abandon them. She would never run
away without contacting them. Like, so the fact
that after all these years, she has never reached
out to her children. She had a son who was in
the NFL and never reached out, never tried to
contact. It makes me believe that she's unable
to contact them. Like, Willie Ann would have
found a way to get to her children if she could.
And the fact that she hasn't. after all these
years is not OK. And somebody needs to answer
for what happened here. Somebody knows. Somebody
did something. Somebody made it so that way this
mother could not get back to her children. And
they should have to answer for that and have
to tell her children what happened if they want
to know what happened. So I really hope we can
get energy in William's case because it feels
solvable. It feels like there's some really good
leads. Police say they don't have any. And it's
like their feet. There feels like there's some
good ones here, some good suspects to look into.
And if police have, let's get that out there.
Let's say ex -husband, ex -boyfriends have all
been ruled out. So that way, more people can
rack their brains and focus somewhere else. Because
we need answers here. Willie Ann deserves justice.
And more people should be talking about her case,
I feel like. So again, if you have any information
about the disappearance of Willie Ann Rucker,
As always, I will be providing graphics for Willian's
case and those will be... on our Instagram at
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You can engage with our posts. We post other
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hope you consider giving us five stars, leaving
us a review. It would really help us and these
cases. so much. So if you have the time today,
thank you so much. Appreciate it. And if you
or someone you love is hard of hearing, we do
have official transcripts on our website, www
.coldandmissing .com. So if you need those, you
can follow along there. And it has all of our
old episodes. If you're looking for the backlog,
you can find it all there. That is all I have
for you this week, though. Thank you so much
for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm your host,
Ali. And I'm your co -host, Eli. Have a good
week and stay safe, y 'all. Stay safe y 'all.