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248. “Soap Opera” - The Case of Diane Wolf - Hanover, Pennsylvania · Least of These

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to least of these, where I cover the cases that need it most because every life matters and everyone deserves justice.
0:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Leia D. Today I'll be covering the case of Diane Wolf and Hanover Pennsylvania.
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get right to it.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane Louise Althoff grew up in Littleston, Pennsylvania, the oldest of seven children Diane had two sisters and four brothers.
1:02
[SPEAKER_00]: She graduated from Littleston High School in 1971.
1:06
[SPEAKER_00]: She married her first husband, had two children, and began working at the Hanover Food Plant along Route 116 and 1980.
1:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane was the life of the party, social, talkative, and the one at family gathering
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: She remained close with her family, especially her sister Bonnie.
1:26
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1982, tragedy struck.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane's husband died suddenly of a heart attack.
1:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane poured herself into her children in her job, and that is where she met Merrill Wolfe.
1:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Merrill also worked at Hanover Foods and had for years.
1:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Diana Murrell began talking and their relationship grew.
1:45
[SPEAKER_00]: She found a second chance at love and on September 14th, 1985, Diana Murrell were married.
1:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The couple worked a lot but in their free time they enjoyed going to antique steam tractor shows together.
1:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Diana wasn't all that interested in the tractors, but she loved the yard sales that seemed to pop up around the shows.
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Life for the Wolf family was good.
2:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Murl recalled to the evening son that he and Diane had a happy marriage.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we talked about before, Diane remained close with her family.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only did Diane and her husband Murl work at Hanover Foods, so did Diane's mother Shirley.
2:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Her sister Bonnie worked nearby at a grocery store, and they spent time together as much as they could.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: On the night of January 28, 1999, 45-year-old Diane came into work and relieved her mother Shirley on the machine they both operated at the plant.
2:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirley and Diane work different shifts and Merrill too.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Merrill and Shirley both work second shift, which was 3 to 11 pm.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: As for Diane, she was third shift.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: coming at 11pm and working overnight until 7am.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So that day of January 28, Diane came in just before 11 and relieved Shirley.
2:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirley had had a home and Diane got to work.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The New York dispatch reported that at some point during her shift, she called Merle and told him that she planned to go grocery shopping after work that morning.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The evening sun reported that when Diane shift was over at around 6.50 a.m. on January 29th, a coworker handed her some avon product she had ordered, and Diane told her she would bring her the money to pay for her order when she came in that night.
3:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all remember Avon?
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, those really were the days.
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyhow, Diane went back to her home at 19 Sikomor Lane and Kanna Wago Township.
3:36
[SPEAKER_00]: She set her pink and white lunch box and her Avon order on the kitchen table.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane left the house and went to all for Spank on Dart Drive and Hanover, which was less than a 10 minute drive from her home.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: She went through the drive-through ATM and deposited $300 into her account.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: By this point, it was about 7.33am.
3:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, 45-year-old Diane Wolf vanished into thin air.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane Wolf made that deposit at all first bank on dart drive and hand over at 733am on Friday, January 29.
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: She had told her husband Murl that she had plans to go grocery shopping that morning.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane also had a routine of filling her car with gas on Friday mornings.
4:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And on that particular Friday, she had a tending appointment in the evening.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But Diane never showed up for her appointment, and she never called and canceled it either.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane also had plans with a friend later that day, and she never showed.
4:55
[SPEAKER_00]: When her friend called and asked Murl where Diane was, he was concerned immediately.
4:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like Diane at all to skip out on a friend without so much as a phone call.
5:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Murl reportedly called around to some family and friends, but nobody had heard from Diane.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, so that brings us to Saturday, January 30th, Shirley went in for her shift.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: When Diane wasn't there to relieve her, she went over and asked the girls on the line where her daughter was.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: They said that she probably just overslept, but Shirley knew deep down that her daughter had not simply overslept.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Something was terribly wrong.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: After making phone calls and searching with Diane's immediate family, according to the New York Dispatch, Murrell went to the Connawago Township Police Saturday night to report his wife missing.
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: At first, according to the family, police didn't take Diane's disappearance all that serious.
5:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems they believe that Diane had just skipped out for the weekend and that she'd be back.
5:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But to her family, that didn't make a lick a sense.
6:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane would have never just left without telling anyone.
6:04
[SPEAKER_00]: She wouldn't have missed a shift at work, and she certainly wouldn't have just opened a band in her family.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane had spent her life in the hand over area.
6:12
[SPEAKER_00]: She grew up there, raised her family there.
6:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And Diane had so much in her life to look forward to.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Her children were grown now, her son 21, and her daughter 22.
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And Diane was about to become a first-time grandmother.
6:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Her daughter was expecting twins, and even better than that.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: She was moving back home to Pennsylvania from Virginia.
6:34
[SPEAKER_00]: To say that Diane Wolf was excited would be an understatement.
6:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane had already taken time off work to help her daughter move home from Virginia that next weekend.
6:44
[SPEAKER_00]: She was planning a baby shower.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: She had already put two crubs on lay away and had requested vacation time when the twins were due, so she'd be able to be with her daughter to help her with the two babies.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: She had so much to look forward to, so many plans had already been made, and now she was missing.
7:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the next two days, Diane's family searched relentlessly.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Then something strange happened.
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The Gettysburg Times reported that at 6.15 a.m. on January 31, Diane's sister Bonnie pulled up to her job at the wise market grocery store on Baltimore Street.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: There in the back of the parking lot was Diane's 1994 turquoise Pontiac Grand Prix.
7:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnie raised over to the car thinking her sister was inside waiting for her, but the car was locked and frozen over with a thick layer of vise.
7:34
[SPEAKER_00]: She scraped the windshield only to find it empty.
7:38
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no sign of Diane.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: She notified police.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd love to tell you that a full forensic examination of the car was done immediately.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But that wasn't the case.
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators didn't initially believe there was any evidence of foul play.
7:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And the car wasn't processed as a crime scene.
7:57
[SPEAKER_00]: However, a few things were noted.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane's dry cleaning was hanging in the back.
8:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Her cell phone had been left behind in the car, but her purse had been taken.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The family as well as investigators also noted that the car was covered in a light dusty coating, as if it had been on a dirt road or driven in a quarry.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was one more thing.
8:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The car was parked towards the back of the parking lot.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: While that doesn't exactly sound like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, those that knew die in best knew she'd never parked that far back in the parking
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Her sister Bonnie told the evening son that Diane would drive around for 10 minutes until she found a spot close to the store.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: She just wouldn't have parked her car that far back.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnie also told the outlet that co-workers of the store told her that her sister's Pontiac wasn't parked there at 10pm the Saturday before, which would have been January 30.
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: but the baker at the grocery store noticed the car on the lot when he came into work at 4am that Sunday.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: If the co-workers were correct, that meant Diane's car had been left at the wise market.
9:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometime after 10pm on the 30th and 4am on the 31st, so roughly a 6-hour window.
9:10
[SPEAKER_00]: At the request of the family, Diane's missing person's case was handed over to the Pennsylvania
9:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators New Diane had left her job at Hanover Foods around 6.50am on January 29.
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: She made it home and left her pink and white lunchbox in a vann order on the kitchen table.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Surveillance video from all-first bank on Dart Drive had been obtained that showed Diane depositing $300 into her account at the Drive-through ATM at 7.33am.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: As we know, Diane had plans to get gas, go to the grocery store that morning, a tanning appointment, and plans to meet up with a friend that evening, but she did none of those things.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: The last place investigators could put her was at the ATM at Ulfers Bank.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: After that, she completely dropped off the map.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators also learned that none of her belongings minus her purse were missing.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: None of her clothes none of her suitcases, absolutely none of the things she would have needed if she were going on some sort of trip.
10:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family told police and the press that Diane had a habit of overpacking.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnie stated that even on a weekend trip, Diane would pack at the very least two or three suitcases.
10:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But nothing had been taken.
10:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Her card been left behind with her cell phone.
10:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The only two things missing were Diane and her purse.
10:35
[SPEAKER_00]: A purse that she kept multiple credit cards in, credit cards that had not been used since Diane vanished and a bank account that hadn't been touched.
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators continued to tell the press that they had no reason to suspect foul play.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you asked those that knew Diane best, they had plenty of reasons.
10:54
[SPEAKER_00]: The New York dispatch reported that five days before her disappearance, Diana approached Shirley at work.
11:00
[SPEAKER_00]: She told her that neither she nor her husband had a will.
11:03
[SPEAKER_00]: She wondered if her two children would be taken care of if something happened to her.
11:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Diana seemed really upset.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirley tried to calm her down and promised to have a conversation about the will later.
11:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Shirley could have never known that that time, it would never come.
11:21
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, Shirley didn't think all that much of it, Diane was about to become a grandmother for the first time, maybe that got her to think about the future, and shoring things up just in case something were to happen.
11:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But in hindsight, that conversation held a hell of a lot more weight.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: The Diane knows something that she was too afraid to tell her family, had she been threatened by someone, and if so, who?
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: As a weeks past investigators had little to go on, but a few leads did come in, including several reported sightings of Diane, a man who said he knew her claimed he saw her in Gettysburg on February 1.
12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There was another sighting by a relative who told the state police that he had spotted Diane and Chambersburg on February 4.
12:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And Diane's own father thought he saw Diane driving an abit's town, and the days after she disappeared.
12:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The evening sun reported that Diane's father, Cyril, saw a woman driving in a car who was the spitting image of Diane.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed her and watched her get out of the vehicle, but it wasn't his daughter.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: None of the sightings were confirmed by police.
12:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The days turned in a weeks and the weeks in a month with no sign of 45-year-old Diane Wilk.
12:51
[UNKNOWN]: You
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: In the months after Diane vanished, her daughter's due date grew closer.
13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: She was expecting twins, one boy and one girl.
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But tragically, she lost her son.
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Four and a half months after Diane went missing, her granddaughter Alexis was born.
13:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family held on to hope that Diane would be home in time for the arrival of her first grandchild.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But she wasn't.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: The months turned to years and Diane Wolf remained missing.
13:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Murl told the evening son that the family told stories about Diane to her granddaughter, and they told her the truth that Diane had disappeared and no one knows what happened.
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane's family fought to keep her story in the press and her face in front of the public.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: A reward was offered for information, and Bonnie kept a photo of Diane on a bulletin board in the front lobby of wife's market.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But as the years passed, it seemed investigators were no closer to locating Diane than when they first begun.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: 7 years after Diane went missing, Merle had Diane legally to clear dead.
14:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Her date of death listed was January 30, 2006.
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just because in the state of Pennsylvania, it takes seven years of an unexplained absence before the courts will make the determination that the person is to seize.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Over those years, there was no activity on Diane's credit cards.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: She never touched the money in her bank account.
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no activity on her social security number and not a single confirmed sighting.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane was declared dead for legal purposes, like the assets that were in both her and girls' name.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But the family still held out a sliver of hope that she could be out there somewhere.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They tried everything.
14:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The family even appeared on the Montel William Show, where Psychics Sylvia Brown told them Diane was alive and living in Omaha, Nebraska, but Diane had zero
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 years after Diane vanished, the Pennsylvania State Police launched a full-blown reinvestigation of the case with Trooper Scott Denish at the forefront.
15:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Around 100 witnesses were interviewed again, and Trooper Denish told the evening son that they were competent Diane was a victim of foul play, and that's someone in the hand over area.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone local knows something about what happened to Diane.
15:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family agrees, Sister Bonnie told the media that the person probably knew her family and wanted them to find the car, which is why it was parked at her place of employment.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: In 2012, Diane's husband Merle died at the age of 58, never knowing what happened to his wife.
15:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, this was another blow to the family, but also the investigation.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Merle was one of the last people to have contact with Diane, and as her husband, he knew many of the intimate details of her life.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe not quite all.
15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: While Murl said there were no issues in their marriage, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Scott Denish later told the evening son that Diane Wolf had been involved in a number of extramarital affairs, and was said to have been romantically involved with co-workers.
16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unclear if Murl knew any of this before his death, but it certainly seems as if he had no clue at the time his wife went missing.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Murl didn't know and neither did Diane's family.
16:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnie told Fox 43 that she wasn't aware of anything unusual at the time, but is since discovered that Diane was involved in multiple affairs.
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, she never told me she never kept secrets, but things do happen in your life as you get older.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane's family might not have known it, but it sure seems like employees at the hand of her food's plant knew something.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Fox 43 reported that investigators described Diane's job at Hanover Foods as a quote soap opera of sorts.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And as it turned out, investigators also learned that one couple connected to Diane through Hanover Foods had allegedly threatened her.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time Diane disappeared, however, that couple had reportedly moved out west.
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators publicly revealed one more clue.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: A hotel card had been found on Diane's nightstand with a handwritten phone number on it.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Trooper Denich said the FBI had tracked the number and it came back to a man in Maryland.
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: In the early days of the investigation, police had spoke to the man.
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: He claimed the number was an old facts number and that he had never seen Diane Wolf.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Years later, that man was tracked down again, by this point he was living in York.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He denied having ever spoke to investigators previously, and again denied ever seeing Diane.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Police plan to re-interview him, but he lawyered up and left the area.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Odd, isn't it?
17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And that certainly raised questions for investigators, but to date of this recording,
18:07
[SPEAKER_00]: more than a decade after Diane's disappearance, so many questions are made, but her sister Bonnie still pushes for answers.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Their father Cyril passed away at the age of 88 in February of 2022.
18:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Their mother Shirley, an October of that very same year at the age of 87, like Merrill without any
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane Wolfe punched out on her time card around 7 am on January 29, 1999, and that was the last time anyone ever physically interacted with her.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: At the time of her disappearance, Diane was 45 years old, five foot six inches, 180 pounds with brown eyes.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: She had recently died her hair red.
18:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane wore glasses, has three earrings on each ear, and a purple rose tattoo
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: She would be 72 years old today.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Her sister Bonnie still holds out hopes that her sister and best friend could be out there, and she just wants her to come home.
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Bonnie spoke to Fox 43 and said, Diane, please come home.
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: We miss you and we love you.
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: No questions asked.
19:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Just come back.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone with information regarding the disappearance of Diane Wolf has been asked to contact PSP Gettysburg at 717-334-8111 or Adams County Crime Stoppers who are offering a cash reward.
19:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And that, my friends, is all I've got for this week.
19:42
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19:47
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19:53
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20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for caring.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: If you know something, say something.
20:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, be good to each other.
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There is so little to go on since Diane's disappearance doesn't appear to have been taken seriously in the beginning.
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: That has to be frustrating for her family.
21:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, let's frustrating for me.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wonder what evidence was missed or overlooked inside Diane's car?
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like was a driver seat in her normal position?
21:24
[SPEAKER_00]: The dirt could have been tested.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Fingerprints?
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the list goes on.
21:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just don't understand why it wasn't.
21:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, I guess she could have been off-gallivant in a round, but isn't it highly unlikely that she would have left her car and cell phone behind?
21:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And never touched her credit cards?
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: She was always responsible, she wouldn't have missed work.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the car was found, you'd think investigators would have went over it with a fine tooth comb, but it sure doesn't seem like they did.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to know more about this man with the facts phone number.
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it really a facts number or was that a lie?
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but I'm sure the police do.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And what about the soap opera going on at the plant?
22:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Who were the people dying was involved with?
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And is it possible that someone got jealous?
22:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's where my suspicion lies.
22:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course, I'm not accusing nobody of nothing.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's really no older motive in the book that someone find out about an affair or did someone not want someone else to find out about an affair and silence the only other witness.
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The possibilities are endless and I'm sure police have looked into them.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Diane didn't just leave.
22:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't think that's what happened.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: She was excited to become a grandmother.
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way she was walking out on that and it's tragic that she never got that chance.
22:41
[SPEAKER_00]: for her daughter to lose a child in her mother at the same time, that's too much for anyone.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the fact is that someone out there knows, and it's probably more than just one someone.
22:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's certainly beyond time to come forward and give this family answers.
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a very lease that can be done.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: This case is just sad all the way around.
23:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's about all I got to say about that.
23:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You all know I love you more of my luggage and I can't wait to talk at you next week.
23:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, bye, buh, buh, thanks!