215 - The Vanishing of Chief Mel Wiley
Trace Evidence
Steven Pacheco
4.7 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2023
⏱️ 111 minutes
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Summary
In January of 1982, Melvin Wiley was appointed Chief of Police in Hinckley Township, Ohio. With a law enforcement career spanning nearly twenty years and a background in military intelligence, Mel was considered by most the be a prime candidate for the position. For more than three years, they had no reason to question that choice.
Then on a warm summer afternoon in July of 1985, Chief Wiley mysteriously vanished. After failing to show up for work for two days, rangers discovered his abandoned vehicle at Edgewater Park in Cleveland, right on the shore of Lake Erie. While some believed Chief Wiley had been the victim of a crime, others theorized that perhaps the aspiring author had written his own mysterious exit.
Nearly forty years later and the mystery of Chief Wiley remains. Friends and family never believed he'd have gone away by his own choice, and not one of them has heard from him since July of '85. He remains the first Chief of Police to have ever been listed by the FBI as a missing person and, all this time later, he has never been found.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When Mel Wiley became chief of police for Hinckley township in Northern Ohio, trustees |
| 0:14.2 | felt satisfied they've selected the right person. |
| 0:17.1 | He'd been in law enforcement for nearly 20 years at that point, having worked for both |
| 0:21.2 | the Medina County Sheriff's Office as well as the FBI. |
| 0:24.6 | Surely conquering the challenges of small town Hinckley would be easy by comparison. |
| 0:30.2 | For three years, that's how it was, until a quiet summer weekend when chief Wiley mysteriously |
| 0:36.0 | vanished. His car was discovered abandoned at Cleveland's Edgewater Park and all of the evidence |
| 0:41.7 | suggested that he may have drowned in Lake Erie. However, the longer investigators worked, |
| 0:47.2 | the more they began to believe that perhaps chief Wiley had planned his own disappearance |
| 0:51.9 | in order to leave a lasting mystery. Where that his goal, he certainly succeeded. As more than |
| 0:57.9 | 35 years later, he remains at the center of one of America's longest and during unsolved mysteries |
| 1:03.4 | involving a police officer. Mel Wiley would go on to have the dubious distinction of becoming |
| 1:09.2 | the first ever chief of police, officially listed as a missing person by the FBI. |
| 1:15.4 | While investigators were insistent that Mel did indeed plan out his own disappearance, |
| 1:20.5 | those who knew and loved him struggled to accept that he would ever abandon his job, |
| 1:24.9 | his home, and his family. Is this the story of a man looking to leave behind a legacy of unanswered |
| 1:31.4 | questions, or was a more sinister hand at play? This is Trace Evidence, Episode 215, The Vanishing |
| 1:40.8 | of Chief Mel Wiley. |
| 1:45.4 | Welcome to Trace Evidence. I'm your host, Stephen Pacheco. Today, we examine the baffling and |
| 1:56.0 | mysterious circumstances surrounding the 1985 disappearance of Chief Mel Wiley. Before getting |
| 2:02.8 | into the case, just a few quick notes about the show. Trace Evidence is a weekly true crime |
| 2:08.7 | podcast focused on unsolved murders and disappearances. Visit Trace-evidence.com for all social media links, |
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