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Presenting The Trail Went Cold · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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  Speaker 1: Released in twenty sixteen. The Trail Went Cold is a
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  Speaker 1: weekly true crime podcast that explores unsolved mysteries and cold cases.
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  Speaker 1: On each episode, host Robin Warder examines a new murder
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  Speaker 1: or missing person's case, tackling a wide variety of mysteries
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  Speaker 1: from different countries and time periods. After sharing all the
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  Speaker 1: details about each case, Robin offers his own personal analysis
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  Speaker 1: and theories about what happened at the time of this recording.
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  Speaker 1: The Trail Went Cold has released over four hundred episodes
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  Speaker 1: and is approaching its nine year anniversary as a podcast.
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  Speaker 1: Some of the cold cases it has covered over the
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  Speaker 1: years have even wound up being solved. If you're a
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  Speaker 1: fan of the original Unsolved Mysteries TV show, The Trail
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  Speaker 1: Went Cold is the podcast for you, as it covers
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  Speaker 1: many of the cases that were featured on the show
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  Speaker 1: which are still unsolved to this day, and sometimes they'll
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  Speaker 1: share additional information which may cause you to look at
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  Speaker 1: the cases in a different light. One of these stories
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  Speaker 1: is the nineteen eighty seven murders of sixteen year old
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  Speaker 1: Don Henry and seventeen year old Kevin Ives, more commonly
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  Speaker 1: known as the Boys on the Tracks case. This is
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  Speaker 1: one of the most controversial and convoluted cases you're ever
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  Speaker 1: going to find, and The Trail Went Cold provided extensive
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  Speaker 1: coverage about it on episodes two hundred and thirteen and
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and fourteen. Here's a preview of their series.
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  Speaker 2: Our Story begins in Seline County, Arkansas, in nineteen eighty seven.
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  Speaker 2: Our central figures are sixteen year old Don Henry and
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  Speaker 2: seventeen year old Larry Kevin Ives, who goes by the
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  Speaker 2: name Kevin. Don lives with his father and stepmother, Curtis
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  Speaker 2: and Marvel Henry and Bryant, a suburb of Little Rock,
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  Speaker 2: which has a population of around five thousand people. Kevin
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  Speaker 2: resides in Benton, a larger Little Rock suburb, and lives
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  Speaker 2: with his parents, Larry and Linda Ives. Even though Don
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  Speaker 2: and Kevin have only known each other for six months,
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  Speaker 2: they have become very close friends and are preparing for
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  Speaker 2: their senior year at Bryant High School. On Saturday, August
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  Speaker 2: the twenty second, the last weekend before school was scheduled
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  Speaker 2: to start, Don and Kevin met up with some friends
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  Speaker 2: and spent much of the evening hanging out in a
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  Speaker 2: commuter parking lot on the outskirts of Little Rock. The
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  Speaker 2: two boys eventually headed back to Don's mobile home, where
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  Speaker 2: Kevin told his parents he was planning to spend the night,
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  Speaker 2: and they arrived shortly after midnight on August to twenty third.
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  Speaker 2: While Kevin waited on the porch, Don went inside and
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  Speaker 2: told his father Curtis, that he and Kevin were planning
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  Speaker 2: to go out hunting in the woods behind their residence,
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  Speaker 2: so he grabbed his twenty two caliber rifle as well
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  Speaker 2: as a large flowlight. The two boys were likely going
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  Speaker 2: to engage in a form of night hunting called spotlighting,
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  Speaker 2: where Kevin would shine the flashlight directly into the eyes
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  Speaker 2: of an animal before Don fired his rifle at it,
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  Speaker 2: and while the practice was technically illegal in Arkansas, it
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  Speaker 2: was still a very widespread activity in the area. After
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  Speaker 2: Dawn left the mobile home, he and Kevin walked off
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  Speaker 2: into the woods, but sometime over the course of the
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  Speaker 2: next four hours, they would find themselves at the center
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  Speaker 2: of a bizarre unsolved mysteries. Later that morning, a three engine,
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  Speaker 2: six thousand ton Union Pacific Railroad cargo train, which was
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  Speaker 2: seventy five cars and one mile long, was traveling on
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  Speaker 2: its run from Texarkana to Little Rock. It passed by
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  Speaker 2: the town of Alexander and was traveling through a wooded
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  Speaker 2: area in Saline County, and the crew consisted of engineer
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  Speaker 2: Steven Schroyer, conductor Jerry Tomlin, and brakeman Danny de Lamar.
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  Speaker 2: At around four to twenty five am, they had passed
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  Speaker 2: by a crossing at Show Road when the crew suddenly
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  Speaker 2: noticed what appeared to be two people lying on the
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  Speaker 2: tracks ahead of them. Even though he immediately hit the
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  Speaker 2: emergency brakes, the train was traveling at fifty two miles
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  Speaker 2: per hour at this point, so there was no way
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  Speaker 2: it would be able to come to a complete stop
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  Speaker 2: before reached the people on the tracks. Schroyer kept frantically
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  Speaker 2: sounding the diesel horn in order to warn them about
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  Speaker 2: the oncoming train, but said he never saw any movement
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  Speaker 2: or reaction. The train barreled right through the two people
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  Speaker 2: and wound up dragging them for a half mile before
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  Speaker 2: it finally came to a stop. The victims were horribly
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  Speaker 2: mangled and their body parts spread across the area after
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  Speaker 2: the Saline County Sheriff's Office were summoned to the scene.
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  Speaker 2: The victims were eventually identified as Don Henry and Kevin Ives. Ironically,
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  Speaker 2: Kevin's father, Larry Ives, was also employed as an engineer
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  Speaker 2: for Union Pacific Railroad and had traveled that same route
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  Speaker 2: for years before he was transferred and replaced by Stephen
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  Speaker 2: Schroyer two months before this incident. If this had not
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  Speaker 2: taken place, Larry could have been the engineer inside the
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  Speaker 2: locomotive when his son was killed. The location on the
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  Speaker 2: tracks where this incident took place was about a mile
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  Speaker 2: away from Don's mobile home. The train's crew members all
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  Speaker 2: maintained that before the locomotive ran over the two boys,
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  Speaker 2: they had both been lying parallel on the tracks in
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  Speaker 2: identical positions, with their arms straight down by their sides
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  Speaker 2: and legs over the rails. Don's twenty two caliber hunting
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  Speaker 2: rifle and flashlight had also been lying on the gravel
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  Speaker 2: beside them before they were shattered into pieces. The crew
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  Speaker 2: had also reported seeing a light green tarp partially covering
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  Speaker 2: Dawn and Kevin's bodies, even though neither of the boys
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  Speaker 2: owned such a tarp. Jerry Tomlin would later claim that
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  Speaker 2: after the police arrived, he walked the tracks and discovered
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  Speaker 2: the tarp of his flashlight before he directed one of
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  Speaker 2: the deputies towards it, but curiously, the deputy later denied
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  Speaker 2: that this exchange ever took place, and since there was
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  Speaker 2: no official record of the tarp having been found, law
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  Speaker 2: enforcement would question its existence and even allege that the
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  Speaker 2: crew may have been experiencing a quote unquote optical illusion
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  Speaker 2: when they originally saw it. However, Schreier, Tomlin, and de
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  Speaker 2: Lamar would all maintain that the tarp had been there. Indeed,
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  Speaker 2: there were a lot of questions about how the Saline
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  Speaker 2: County Sheriff's office handled the investigation, as they failed to
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  Speaker 2: secure the scene and properly collect evidence. It seemed like
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  Speaker 2: they were content to treat the scene as an accident
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  Speaker 2: or even an elaborate double suicide, rather than explore the
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  Speaker 2: possibility of foul play. In fact, the county Sheriff Jim
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  Speaker 2: Stead never even bothered to show up at the scene
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  Speaker 2: that morning. Believe it or not, one of Kevin's severed
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  Speaker 2: feet was never collected and was left behind on the
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  Speaker 2: tracks inside its tennis shoe for nearly two days before
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  Speaker 2: it was discovered by a civilian. Later that week, Larry
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  Speaker 2: Ives and some of his friends were exploring the site
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  Speaker 2: and found a large piece of cardboard which appeared to
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  Speaker 2: have a blood stain on it. Around that same time period,
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  Speaker 2: Curtis Henry found pieces of what appeared to be a
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  Speaker 2: gun in the same area. While both of these items
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  Speaker 2: would be turned over to a representative of the Arkansas
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  Speaker 2: State Police to be examined by the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory,
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  Speaker 2: they wound up going missing without explanation. Don and Kevin's
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  Speaker 2: bodies were also sent to the State Crime Lab to
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  Speaker 2: be examined by the Arkansas State Medical Examiner, doctor Falmy Mollak,
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  Speaker 2: and he was soon ruled at their desks accidental. According
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  Speaker 2: to doctor Malick, the two boys had both passed out
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  Speaker 2: on the tracks because they were under the quote unquote
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  Speaker 2: psychedelic influence of THHC after having smoked the equivalent of
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  Speaker 2: twenty marijuana cigarettes, which left them in such a deep
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  Speaker 2: sleep that they were unable to hear the oncoming train well.
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  Speaker 2: Needless to say, the victims' families had a hard time
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  Speaker 2: accepting this ruling. While there were witnesses who reported having
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  Speaker 2: seen the boys smoke marijuana in the hours prior to
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  Speaker 2: their deaths, and two grams of weed were found in
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  Speaker 2: the pocket of Kevin's pants, it seemed very unlikely they
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  Speaker 2: could have smoked up to twenty joints. Curtis Henry maintained
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  Speaker 2: that Don was completely lucid when he stopped by their
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  Speaker 2: home after midnight, and since the noise level produced by
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  Speaker 2: the train reached a volume as loud as ninety eight decibels,
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  Speaker 2: it was not believable that both boys could have been
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  Speaker 2: stoned enough to lie down on the tracks in virtually
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  Speaker 2: identical positions and sleep through the entire thing. Furthermore, since
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  Speaker 2: Don always took good care of his hunting rifle, Curtis
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  Speaker 2: was skeptical that his son would have risk scratching it
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  Speaker 2: by lying the rifle down on the gravel. There were
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  Speaker 2: also concerning eyewitness reports from that night of an unidentified
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  Speaker 2: man dressed in camouflage military fatigues who had been seen
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  Speaker 2: walking down a road located less than two hundred yards
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  Speaker 2: from the spot where the boys's bodies were discovered. One
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  Speaker 2: week earlier, Danny Allen, an officer from the Bryant Police Department,
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  Speaker 2: had received reports of a suspicious looking man in military
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  Speaker 2: fatig leagues and the same vicinity. Alan came across this
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  Speaker 2: man walking down the road and pulled over to question him,
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  Speaker 2: but without warning, the man pulled out a gun and
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  Speaker 2: fired a shot through the patrol car's blue light before
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  Speaker 2: running away. Alan was not harmed and organized a search
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  Speaker 2: of the area for this man, but he was never located,
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  Speaker 2: and there was speculation that he might somehow be connected
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  Speaker 2: to the deaths of Dawn and Kevin. The Ives and
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  Speaker 2: Henry families would hire their own private investigator to work
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  Speaker 2: on the case for five months, but he kept getting
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  Speaker 2: stonewalled and running into resistance from all the investigating agencies. Finally,
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  Speaker 2: in February of nineteen eighty eight, the two families decided
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  Speaker 2: to hold their own press conference in order to express
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  Speaker 2: their personal frustration about how the case was being handled,
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  Speaker 2: and the story would run statewide in newspapers and on television.
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  Speaker 2: This strategy seemed to pay off, as Linda Eyes was
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  Speaker 2: soon contacted by Richard Garrett, the newly appointed Deputy Prosecuting
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  Speaker 2: Attorney of s Celine County. Jarrett expressed an interest in
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  Speaker 2: re examining the case and decided to hold a public
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  Speaker 2: three day prosecutors hearing at the Saline County Courthouse in
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  Speaker 2: front of seventh Judicial District Circuit Judge John Cole, where
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  Speaker 2: testimony would be heard from a number of key witnesses,
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  Speaker 2: and new evidence would be presented.
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  Speaker 1: If you'd like to hear the whole story, be sure
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  Speaker 1: to subscribe to the Trail Went Cold and listen to
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  Speaker 1: episodes two thirteen and two fourteen about the boys on
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  Speaker 1: the tracks. You can find them at the website Trailwentcold
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  Speaker 1: dot com, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you
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  Speaker 1: like the show, you'll have over four hundred episodes to binge.
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  Speaker 1: Don't miss out. It's one of the best out there.