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 and is intended for a mature
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Hello everyone.
Hello.
Welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I am your co-host, Eli, and this is my lovely wife.
Ali McLaughlin, and I'm your host for Cold and Missing.
Welcome back, everyone.
Hope you enjoyed our new intro music.
Yeah, that was a really great choice, honey.
Thank you.
Well, I narrowed it down to eight, and then I had Eli help me pick out from those finalists.
So hope you all enjoyed.
We love a spooky stringed instrument.
Always.
We love a fast-paced, nerve-wracking, spooky sound.
Love it.
That's why the violin was invented.
For scaring people.
Originally, when the violin came out, it was associated with the devil.
That's why the devil went down to Georgia, and he plays a violin, because you could be
so rhythmic with a violin, kind of for the first time, that people were like, well, this
is the devil's music for sure, because people are dancing.
Fun fact, Ali actually plays the violin.
She won't brag about herself on here, but I will for her.
She is a human of many talents, and she can slay on the old fiddle.
It's called sawing, when it's on a fiddle.
Oh, sorry.
What did I say?
She can chop the fiddle.
I didn't say that, but.
No, he said, I don't even remember what you said.
OK, so I'm about to be sad about something.
Oh, yes.
Really sad?
Is this cold or missing?
So, this is missing, but he is considered endangered missing.
So the police do not think that he is alive.
Understood.
I am ready to be hurt.
So today we're going to be talking about the missing person case of Trevell Lamar Henley,
and he was 15 years old when he went missing July 2, 1999 in Columbus, Ohio.
Today he would be 38 years old.
In July of 1999, Trevell is living on the 1300 block of Republic Avenue with his grandmother
and brother.
His grandma had raised both him and his brother since infancy.
So this is his home, really the only home he's ever known.
We love grandmas who are mamas.
Trevell was a student at Medina Middle School where it's reported that he loved sports and
reading.
He went by the nickname Nuke.
And at the time of his disappearance, it was reported that he was trying to join a gang
in Columbus called the Blood Street Villains, and it was possible that he was jumped into
the gang already when he went missing.
And I only bring this up because it's important later.
So Friday, July 2, 1999, Trevell was last seen by his younger brother walking to the
home of Daylin Green.
Now Daylin is 19 years old and he lives on the 1200 block of Republic Avenue.
So he's just one block away.
He's very close to where Trevell and his brother live.
As the day goes on July 2, into the evening, his grandmother, her name is Rhonda, Rhonda
begins to worry about him as he has not checked in.
And according to Rhonda, he was always on time and she said he always contacted her.
So this is very odd that he is not home or letting her know where she is at this time.
Okay.
So he's responsible.
We know this about him.
Yes.
Communicative.
Okay.
Yeah.
He's communicative.
He doesn't do this.
This is very strange for him to not be in touch with his grandmother.
So Saturday, July 3, 1999, this is the next day, Trevell's grandmother reports him missing
and Rhonda tells police that on June 28th, so this would be four days before he was last
seen before his disappearance, he had been shot in the hand and was wearing a cast on
his left hand.
Geez.
So on June 28th, 1999, so this was again four days before his disappearance, this is what
his grandmother reports is happening on June 28th.
So while he was walking near his home, somebody assaults Trevell and shoots him and Trevell
goes to help nearby to Daylen's house because remember, Daylen lives very close to him and
his grandma.
So he goes to Daylen's house for help after he is shot.
And Trevell comes back to his grandmother's house with Daylen who offers to drive them
both to the hospital.
So him and Daylen are now at his grandmother's house, his grandma Rhonda's house, and they
all three of them go to the hospital.
And Rhonda says while getting treated at the hospital, Daylen stayed very close to Trevell
the whole time.
So while he was being treated, while he was being stitched up and get the cast put on,
Daylen did not leave his side.
Trevell was put into a cast and discharged that same day.
He didn't have to stay in the hospital.
But later that same night, so this is still June 28th, the same day he was shot, Trevelle
tells his grandmother Rhonda that there was no assault and that he had shot himself at
Daylen's house.
To make it look like he had been initiated or something?
See, I don't know if maybe this is like two young men who have a gun and they're like,
you know, looking at it, kind of playing with it and it accidentally goes off, you know?
Because I'm thinking, and I couldn't find confirmation of this, but I'm thinking if
you're right handed, you know, you have it, the gun in your right hand with the trigger,
you know, on your right hand.
And if you're kind of holding it and looking at it, you know, your left hand's nearby,
like it could go off kind of easily and like jostling it.
So I don't know if something like that happened and maybe there was like a worry about honesty
at the hospital or honesty in the beginning.
Or if there was somebody who assaulted him and they didn't want to go further with the
police and so this is just his way to lie about it.
You know what I mean?
So I don't know exactly the truth behind the gunshot.
It's reported again and again that he says an assault happened, they go to the hospital,
later that night he tells his grandmother he actually did it at Dalen's house.
So we're still in the beginning of July and Trevell is missing, but there's really no
big effort to find this middle schooler.
There's no searches being done.
No like big grid searches like we talked about in Tionda's and Diamond's case.
Nothing, nothing even remotely close to that.
Nothing really happens with his case again, like he's not mentioned until fall of 1999.
So that's the same year that he goes missing, but summer has passed and now we enter into
the fall.
And details around these next few pieces of information are very iffy.
They have been reported a lot of different ways.
I think I have a general understanding of what happened, but there are some questions
here that we'll go over.
So fall of 1999, the home that Trevell was last seen at goes up in a fire.
So this would be Dalen Green's house.
So while investigating the fire, police find blood stains, a spent shell casing, Trevell's
ID, living room carpet that had been cut out and was missing, like a section of the living
room carpet was missing as opposed to all of the carpet was missing, just a section
of it was.
And additional clothing and handguns are also found, but unclear if those are related to
Trevell.
So there are some questions about what comes first, the fire or the search.
So I have seen it reported both ways that the police search, find these things.
They're searching for Trevell.
So they go to the house he was last seen.
I don't know why this is happening months later and not a day later.
Like he's a middle school boy.
But I've seen it reported both ways of where they search first and then a fire breaks out
at the home.
And then this narrative, which seems to be reported more.
And I found an interview with police where they say the fire happens first and then the
search happens as a result of the fire.
There are also reports that this home that Daylen Green was living in was technically
vacant at the time that Trevell went missing.
But again, this isn't very clear.
And it's only mentioned once or twice.
And I don't know if during the summer of 1999, if it was not vacant.
And then in the fall just became vacant.
I'm not sure.
But that is also mentioned about this home.
So after finding blood stains, a spent shell casing, Trevell's ID, a section of the living
room carpet missing, and then the additional clothing and handguns, police believe that
a homicide has occurred and Trevell is no longer alive.
So this is fall of 1999.
Police do suspect that Daylen Green did kill Trevell.
But to date, no charges have been brought against him.
And at this time, Daylen is 19, but he does have a pretty extensive criminal record.
And most of them are violent crimes at this time.
But Trevell, who I mentioned, it's reported that he wanted to join a gang and Daylen was
in that gang, the Blood Street Villains.
But Trevell has no criminal history at all.
So that's 1999.
That's the fall of 1999.
They suspect he's dead, but they still know searches are done to recover his body.
To date, not a single search or canvas has been done to find Trevell's remains.
And even with this home, this initial search is done, but nothing else was done to the
home that's reported, at least.
There was no ground penetrating sonar walking the grounds to see.
This would have been just a few months later, so you would have been able to just visually
see if the ground had been disturbed or something like that.
And so October of 2009, so this is 10 years later, Tywan Sanders, and this is Trevell's
brother, who was the last person to see him walking to Daylen's greenhouse on July 2nd.
So Tywan, he was shot to death during an argument at 22 years old, and the murderer was caught
and sentenced, and it's not believed that it's related at all to Trevell.
I just feel so bad for Rhonda, because this is her other grandchild that she's been raising
since he was a baby.
Yeah.
Her children.
He's murdered.
Yeah.
He was murdered at 22 years old, which is so young.
So December of 2014, the local media in Columbus, they run Trevell's story again, and Rhonda,
at this time, she is a lung cancer survivor.
She had lung cancer for six years.
She was diagnosed-
Wow, Rhonda, St. Rhonda.
St. Rhonda.
Truly.
She was diagnosed after Trevell went missing.
She went through six years of treatment, and when she-
Wow.
Yeah.
That's a long time.
Yeah.
I know part of her lung was also removed, so this woman has been through so much, and
at the very least, she deserves to have her grandson's remains.
Yeah.
So she knows where he is, and that's all she wants in this interview in 2014.
She just wants Trevell's remains, so that way, she can be at peace.
It's like the bare minimum of, quote, justice in this type of situation is just having base
knowledge and your loved one back with you in some way, even though they can never be
with you in the way that they should be.
Yeah.
But one thing that I read and I hear again and again from loved ones of people who are
missing, it's they want them home.
Yeah.
Dead, alive, they want to know where they are.
They don't want them lying out in some field.
They want a place where they can be remembered.
It's so in us as a species.
It's such an ancient practice to bury your dead or do-
To mourn.
To mourn is like, I would say, it's mourning is just as natural as living because it's
a part of life.
Yeah.
And mourning your dead for every culture has specific motions to walk through.
Rituals?
Yeah, like rituals.
And to deny family those comfort of rituals and the process of that ritual in mourning
is so cruel.
Yeah.
So with Trevill's case, when I first found it, I was like, well, there's going to be
so much news on this.
This is going to be such a juicy case, but really that's all the information I have.
And I, you know, I started to feel a little bit mad about it.
Like, why did this middle school boy, why was there no search done?
Like, why was there no search?
Why has there never been a search done to recover his body?
Like, in, you know, like kind of my anger and researching this, Trevill is a young
black man.
Yeah, I was going to say statistically, I think we all know why.
Yes.
But I found this foundation, they're called the Black and Missing Foundation.
They're incredible.
So their main purpose is just getting media involved in covering the disappearance of
black indigenous people of color.
Like that is their mission and their goal is to level the playing field in media coverage
when it comes to missing people.
So a big reason, and again, I've learned all of this from the Black and Missing Foundation,
a big reason that black children aren't a bigger priority within the media when they
go missing.
I think that's for example why this 15 year old boy, because again, he is a boy, he is
a middle schooler, a boy.
You know, black children are often classified as runaways right away, even when there's
no history of that.
And like the adultification of black children.
Yes.
And that like, their adolescence isn't the same.
Like that doesn't, yeah.
Right.
So it's going on and on, but sorry.
Please continue.
But if you're classified as a runaway, you automatically do not qualify for an Amber
Alert, which can be like such a big resource in getting children back quickly, especially
in those critical first few hours.
But if police believe that they walked away on their own, which police usually believe
that black children do, even when there's no evidence of that and evidence to the contrary
even, they will still be classified as runaways.
And then also missing BIPOC, so that if our listeners don't know, that's black indigenous
people of color.
So BIPOC.
So missing BIPOC, children and adults are labeled and associated with criminal involvement,
gangs and drugs.
So this racist idea that BIPOC people have ins and outs with crime on the daily and that
this is just part of their lives is also a reason that there's no media coverage because
it's like, well, this is just part of their day to day life.
Yeah.
Just the systemic racist assumption.
Yes.
So that is why that I mentioned Trevell.
It was rumored that he wanted to join this gang.
But police say that there's this rumor, but in my mind, I'm also like, well, is it just
a 15 year old boy who's hanging out with an older kid in the neighborhood?
You know what I mean?
Sure.
And just because Daylin was associated with this gang, did Trevell just get lumped in
automatically?
And that's why it was like, well, he wanted to join this gang.
So he was probably jumped in and they killed him on accident.
You know?
But even with that said, gang members are still people.
Yes.
You know?
I don't care.
Yeah.
Gang violence is always a product of other failings in the system.
So black children go missing because of other systemic racism issues.
No childcare.
Poverty.
Systemic poverty, generational poverty where families cannot climb out of it.
What was some of the other things?
I just want to quote black and missing as much as possible since they are the...
The resource.
Yeah.
And they are doing the work.
So around 41% of the population that is missing are by POC people.
So black indigenous people of color.
So that's 41% of the missing population.
But when you look at the number, the population, you know, white versus by POC, that it is
wildly skewed that black people, indigenous people, people of color will go missing more
than white people.
And it will take longer to find them almost always.
So here at cold and missing, you know, we are firmly black lives matter.
We firmly believe that.
Feels strange to even have to say it, but I know we do.
And part of the black and missing foundation, part of their goal is to balance the scales
in media coverage.
So this week with the disappearance of Eliza Fletcher is actually like a really great example
of the missing white woman syndrome, which is what dominates, you know, missing coverage.
Yeah.
Like if a person is missing, if she is a white attractive woman, she is going to get national
if not international media coverage.
That fact that she went missing.
And we saw this to be true with Eliza Fletcher this week.
She was a 34 year old white woman who was abducted during her morning run on September
2nd.
National coverage ensued as I think it should.
And I want to be clear, like black and missing foundation has said, like, do they think that,
you know, people like Eliza Fletcher deserve less media coverage?
No.
But every missing person deserves this kind of media coverage.
Every missing person.
More room, like more room for me doesn't mean less room for you.
Yes.
Yeah.
We also, you know, as consumers of true crime, you know, like we also have a responsibility
to like kind of seek out stories that are different from what we look at to educate
ourselves.
You know, the missing white woman syndrome really makes a hunger for stories about victims
that look like Eliza to the exclusion of all others, which is the problem.
Like we can't just focus to the exclusion of others.
We need everybody to get this kind of coverage.
National media coverage, especially with missing people, they can go missing so quickly and
move so quickly that, you know, local coverage is great.
Like we saw great local coverage with Tionda and Diamond Bradley when they went missing.
But nationally, they didn't get that coverage.
And those girls could have been in any state at that time when they've been missing for
years.
So national coverage is so important.
This missing case to me and the fact that it's in 1999 is no different from like the
black murdered and missing children of Atlanta back in the sixties.
Like Travell got as much coverage as those children 30, 40 years later.
Right.
And the thing is, it seems very solvable.
Like it seems like police kind of have everything, right?
Like you seem to know where he was killed at, like this house.
You seem to have a prime suspect.
But like, why can't you, like, why has no search ever been done for his body?
It's not like it's a city that doesn't have the money to provide the resources for a search.
Yeah.
This is a big city in Ohio, you know?
But to date, no searches for Travell's body has ever been done.
His body has not been recovered.
Rhonda, as best as I can tell, she is still alive.
I couldn't find anything that said differently for her.
But she deserves answers.
This incredible grandmother raising her two grandchildren who are both murdered.
That's completely unfair and no family should have to go through that.
But then also her going through six years of cancer treatment.
Like the very least that this woman deserves everything, but at the very least she deserves
to know where her grandson is that has been missing since 1999.
So Travell was last seen.
He was wearing a cast on his left hand.
He has black hair, brown eyes, a scar on his lower lip and a scar on the crown of his head.
He goes by the nickname Nuke.
He is considered to be dead at this time.
So if you have any information about what happened to him in 1999, July of 1999, where
his remains would be, if you have any information at all pertaining to Travell, please call
the Columbus Police Department at 614-645-4545.
Sources for today's podcast come from the Columbus Dispatch, WTTV News, The Charlie
Project and The Black and Missing Foundation.
And if you want to know more about The Black and Missing Foundation or if you want to review
some of the cases that they are handling right now, if you want to visit them, I'm going
to link their website in the show notes so that way you can go directly there.
You can donate to the cause.
There's also an incredible documentary on HBO about The Black and Missing Foundation
and the work that they do.
And it's, if you like true crime, you're going to love this.
Very good.
It's four part series and it's very good.
It dives into what they do.
It goes into some of their success stories of bringing missing people home, but then
also highlights people who are still missing.
So it's just, it's a really great watch.
And these women who run the foundation are very incredible and are doing God's work out
here.
So that's it though.
That's all I have on Travell, unfortunately.
Travell hopefully once again, this episode maybe opens some doors, uncovers some things
and this case can maybe get moving again.
Yeah.
Cause Miss Rhonda, she deserves answers to everything.
That's all I can think about.
Travell deserves justice and he deserves to be brought home.
But she deserves some peace.
She deserves much peace.
So thank y'all for listening.
If you like what you hear, please subscribe, leave us a little review.
We love it.
Also if you'd like to hop over to our Instagram, Cold and Missing is releasing some podcast
stickers that we are just doing as giveaways and our Instagram will have more information
about that.
Yeah.
So hop on over to our Instagram.
You can find us at Cold and Missing.
If you have any cases that you would like us to cover, if there's a cold case or a missing
person case that means a lot to you in your life, please email us at coldandmissing at
gmail.com.
Have a lovely week.
Have a good week y'all.