Episode Details

May 21, 1983. Yukon, Canada. The remains of a male homicide victim are discovered in a shallow grave in a remote area and since he cannot be identified, he becomes known as the “Dawson City John Doe”. Thirty-eight years later, DNA testing identifies the victim as 46-year old Theodore Kampf, who had left his home in New Jersey in 1981 to make a cross-country road trip to Canada before he disappeared. It turns out that an unknown individual cashed Theodore’s traveller’s cheques and stole his pick-up truck before abandoning it in Montana, but the actual circumstances of how Theodore was killed are unclear.

June 23, 1989. Winnipeg, Manitoba. After completing his shift, 20-year old Patrick Rosner vanishes without a trace and his abandoned car is discovered two blocks away from his workplace. One year later, skeletal remains are found in a remote field over 220 kilometres away and the victim is initially believed to be female. However, in 2012, DNA testing shows that the remains actually belong to a male and he is eventually identified as Patrick Rosner, but no one knows how he wound up dead at that location.

On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we cover a pair of Canadian cases involving male victims whose remains were discovered a great distance away from their hometowns, but their deaths remain unsolved. Special thanks to listener Natalie Galloway for narrating the opening of this episode.

If you have any information about the death of Theodore Kampf, please call the Yukon RCMP’s Historic Case tip line at (867) 667-5500. If you have any information about the death of Patrick Rosner, please contact the Manitoba RCMP’s Historical Case Unit at (204) 984-6447 or call Manitoba Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

Additional Reading:

https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2021/09/15/teddy-kampf-oaklyn-yukon-missing-man-identified-after-40-years/8356472002/

https://www.nj.com/news/2021/09/murder-victim-found-40-years-ago-in-canada-identified-as-nj-man-police-say.html

https://www.njpen.com/remembering-teddy-kampf-remains-of-oaklyn-man-discovered-in-yukon-canada-after-40-year-investigation/

https://dnasolves.com/articles/yukon_rcmp_kampf/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/181395325/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/181395331/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/329206336/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/498753248

https://www.newspapers.com/image/735099172

https://www.newspapers.com/image/735099497

https://www.newspapers.com/image/735434457

https://winnipegsun.com/2012/08/10/1989-cold-case-re-opened-with-dna-evidence

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/historical-death-case-reopened-by-rcmp-1.1246695

“The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a