The Skeleton Key Chronicles

14 hours ago

It's been more than 42 years since 21-year-old Wanda Line was found inside a friend’s apartment on the west side of Columbus, Ohio, and there are still people investigators would like to hear from about the final days of her life.

Wanda grew up in the Columbus area and graduated from Franklin Heights High School in 1980. By January 1984, she was 21 and temporarily staying at 100 Darien Avenue. The apartment belonged to a friend who was away in Florida, and Wanda was looking after the place while he was gone.

The last few days of Wanda’s life placed her in several different parts of Columbus and around people investigators would later try to identify. A coworker saw her on January 2nd, and by the following day, attention had turned to the apartment on Darien Avenue. Loud music was playing inside when police arrived, but the door was locked and the security chain was engaged. When officers finally entered, they found Wanda inside. She had passed away under circumstances that immediately became the focus of an investigation. But authorities were never able to establish a clear motive or determine exactly what led up to Wanda’s death. More than four decades later, no one has been held responsible.

Understanding who Wanda was spending time with during this period has always been an important part of piecing together those final days. She had previously worked at LeVeque Tower as an assistant to Mrs. LeVeque and she also spent time at Looking Kool, a nightclub on West Broad Street, where she participated in amateur nights. Both were places where people knew Wanda, and after all these years, even someone who knew her casually could remember something that helps fill in those final days.

And after 42 years, even a seemingly small memory could matter. Someone who knew Wanda in 1984 may remember a name or something she said that seemed completely ordinary at the time. For Wanda’s family, these questions have been part of their lives for more than four decades. They are still hoping someone who knew Wanda can help fill in a piece that has been missing since 1984.

Anyone with information about Wanda Line is asked to contact the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

18 hours ago

There is some new information about Patrick and Lindsay Clancy that adds quite a bit of context to what was happening in their home during the weeks leading up to January 24th, 2023. Apparently, Patrick had been turning to Reddit for help.

The New York Post obtained posts from an account Patrick used between 2017 and 2025, including several from December 2022 when Lindsay’s behavior was becoming increasingly concerning. He was posting in various communities which focused on mental health, sometimes even writing from Lindsay’s perspective and asking others for advice.

The posts are pretty detailed, and without getting into everything Patrick shared, you can tell he was genuinely concerned. He was asking questions, trying to understand the changes he was seeing and looking for some kind of explanation. By December 15th, Lindsay had been admitted to the hospital, and she would receive additional care over the following weeks before returning home.

And then of course, came the events of January 24th, that took place when Patrick had left their Duxbury home to run errands. Lindsay’s recent trial focused largely on her state of mind at the time, and earlier this month it ended in a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision.

As far as I can tell, these Reddit posts themselves were not presented to the jury during Lindsay’s trial. The New York Post obtained them after the mistrial, which means we’re now seeing things Patrick was writing at the time that the jury apparently never saw.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

24 hours ago

Forty-two years after 3-year-old Laura Ann Bradbury vanished during a family camping trip at Joshua Tree, a woman has come forward with an extraordinary claim. She believes she is Laura.
If you were around in the 1980s, you may remember this case. Laura disappeared on October 18th, 1984, shortly after her family arrived at Indian Cove Campground, then part of Joshua Tree National Monument.

According to accounts at the time, Laura walked to the campground restroom with her 8-year-old brother, Travis. He went inside while she waited outside, and when he came back out, Laura was gone.

Within days, investigators were looking at the possibility that Laura had been taken by a man associated with a blue van. Her disappearance became one of the most recognizable missing-child cases of the decade. Her face appeared on milk cartons and millions of other materials, and even Silver Spoons star Ricky Schroder, whose mother was a cousin of Laura’s mother, Patti, became involved in a nationwide campaign to find her.

Then, in 1986, portions of a skull were discovered in the desert near the campground. Early testing was inconclusive, but later DNA testing found a 99.9 percent certainty that the skull belonged to a child of Mike and Patti Bradbury. Mike still had questions about the identification, and in 2010 he asked for the skullcap to be tested again. That testing also found strong evidence that the remains belonged to their biological child, and Mike said he finally accepted that Laura had been found.

For years, that seemed to settle it. And then a woman comes forward saying she is Laura.

Valley News is now reporting on a woman who says she began digging into her own childhood after an older woman who helped raise her told her there was information she would take to her grave. While searching old missing-child cases in 2023, the woman found Laura Bradbury’s photograph and became convinced she was looking at herself.

There are enough details that a private investigator and Valley News have continued looking into her story. The woman has blue eyes, and while descriptions of Laura’s eye color have conflicted through the years, a 1985 milk carton featuring Laura described her eyes as blue. Valley News has also published side-by-side photographs of the woman with Laura as a child and with Laura’s mother, Patti. A resemblance cannot establish anyone’s identity, of course, but you can look at those photographs for yourself. And then there is the van.

The woman has identified a specific old van that she says still belongs to the family who raised her and still sits on their property. She believes it is the van connected to how she came to live with that family. A metallic-blue van was already part of the Laura Bradbury investigation in 1984. The van photographed today does not appear blue, and its history has not been established, but it is still there and could potentially be examined.

According to Part II of the Valley News investigation, published September 25th, the Bradbury family has serious doubts that this woman is Laura, but there have been discussions about comparing DNA. A documented DNA comparison was initially being discussed, but the family later asked the woman to submit an Ancestry DNA test because a Bradbury relative already has DNA in the database. The woman says she wants a direct comparison instead.

There is a pretty substantial hurdle to her claim. DNA testing of the skullcap eventually showed a 99.9 percent certainty that it belonged to a child of Mike and Patti Bradbury. Mike still had questions and requested another test in 2010, and that test again found strong evidence that the skullcap belonged to their biological child.

So maybe this woman is Laura Bradbury, and maybe she isn’t. But with her standing here 42 years later asking for her DNA to be compared with the Bradbury family, there is certainly a way to find out.

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