Bill Rundle & Traci Kenley

[grbush82]

I found this while I was surfing the UM site.





Rebroadcast Date: November 20, 2002 (Originally broadcast on July 5, 2001)

NOTE: THIS STORY WAS RECENTLY SOLVED. AN UPDATE WILL APPEAR ON A FUTURE BROADCAST.

SYNOPSIS: On August 17, 2000, Bill Rundle and Traci Kenley set out to drive 45 miles out to Traci's parents' farm in rural Edgar, Nebraska. The pair had vague plans to meet Traci's boyfriend later that evening. Bill and Traci had met six months earlier and by all accounts their relationship was platonic. They got together at around 4:30 p.m. to retrieve a second set of keys she needed, and Bill wanted to look at a car Traci's father was thinking about selling. Around 10:30 p.m., Bill and Traci said good-bye to Traci's parents, climbed back into Bill's brand new, black, Jeep Wrangler Sahara and headed for the highway.
Around 10:45 p.m., the two stopped at The Country Store in neighboring Clay Center to use the restroom and buy a couple of sodas. The clerk behind the counter and a few high school kids would be the last people known to have seen them. Back on the road, at 11:00p.m., Traci called her boyfriend, Doug Wolfe, who worked the 2:00 p.m. to midnight shift in Hastings. According to Doug, Traci asked him what his after-work plans were, and Doug told her he was thinking about getting a beer at the Halftime Lounge. Traci, Doug reports, said that she and Bill would meet him there around 12:30 a.m., if she wasn't too tired. They said goodbye. Doug would be the last person known to have heard her voice.

The following day, neither Bill Rundle nor Traci Kenley showed up for work. Residents of the tightly knit community who knew Bill and Traci are stumped. The Clay and Adams County Sheriff's Departments organized a search of the intersection where Traci had spoken to Doug and the surrounding area. Authorities worried that Bill may have crashed his car into the towering cornfields. A thirty square mile area was painstakingly searched to no avail.

Police considered whether Bill and Traci left voluntarily. They left, with only the cash in their pockets and the clothes on their backs. There has been no ATM, phone, or credit card activity on either Traci's or Bill's accounts since their disappearance. One week after their disappearance, Bill Rundle's hat mysteriously surfaced at the intersection where Traci made the call to Doug--an area that had already been thoroughly searched. Police believe the hat was planted.

Authorities are looking for Bill Rundle's Jeep Wrangler Sahara. The sports utility vehicle is a year 2000 model, black, with the Nebraska license plate number 14-B 954. A $5000 reward has been offered for any information leading to the discovery of Bill Rundle and Traci Kenley. Bill Rundle is twenty-six years old, one hundred and fifty pounds and five feet eight inches tall. Traci Kenley is twenty-nine years old, five feet eight inches tall and has blond hair.

If you have any information on the disappearance of Bill Rundle and Traci Kenley, please contact The Adams County Sheriff's Department in Adams County, Nebraska or call the Unsolved Mysteries hotline at 1-800-876-5353.

____________________________

I've been both the orginal broadcast and the rerun. Since it's been stated that the case has been solved,it doesn't give any information as to what happened to both of them. I hope they will update it soon.

[TJ]

http://www.nmco.org/gallery/resolved/kenley-traci.html

Traci and Bill Rundle were last seen in Clay Center at approximately 10:45pm. They indicated that they were traveling back to Hastings but never arrived. On Wednesday, July 31, 2002, Bill's Jeep was found in a feedlot drainage pond one mile west of Glenvil. Traci and Bill's bodies were located inside the Jeep, both were not wearing seatbelts. Damage to the Jeep's front fender was consistent with a low-speed impact involving water and investigators are ruling their death as an accident.

[Zero]

I know this thread is old but I just saw the story with the update. A lady was giving the story of how they found them. They showed pictures. It gave me this sick feeling. So sad. At least they weren't murdered.

[UMfan77]

I clicked on the link and I couldn't find anyting pertaining to Traci or Bill. Do I have to click on something else after clicking on the link?

[Zero]

http://www.rinokids.com/Closed/Kenley/

[TheCars1986]

This update always bugged me. If it was a low level impact in a pond why didn't they escape? Especially if they were found without seatbelts. Makes me think they were both intoxicated.

[cocytus]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

This update always bugged me. If it was a low level impact in a pond why didn't they escape? Especially if they were found without seatbelts. Makes me think they were both intoxicated.

They probably had a few before the drive.
And they probably were going a little too fast.

The tragic and frustrating part of this (especially for the families) was that the police officers on here INSISTED that they had done a thorough search of the area.This , however, didn't include putting a boat in the water and locating their Jeep. Or apparently following the tracks on the bank where the Jeep rolled, or was driven, into the pond.

The police should have taken the opportunity during the update to apologize to the family for their less than competent search.

[Guardian]

I understand that this case is closed and that it was an accident. I can understand that the police are human and make mistakes as they obviously didn't find the jeep the first time around. Obviously if they missed an entire jeep, they could also have missed Bill's hat.

But...
The hat was completely dry when found a week after the two vanished even after what they said was a heavy rain in the area. they said the hat was definitely Bill's. Now even if they missed the hat during their search, it seems unlikely it would be found bone dry at an intersection a week later.

I am not suggesting anything other than an accident here, but the hat thing has always bothered me even after the update. Very strange.

[Janel "Jaycee" Miller]

It's been a long time since I've posted, but I've never stopped reading all the interesting theories on the various cases.

Given how this family was in the news before, I thought this was the appropriate place to put an update (which in itself, is a little old). Link is first, full text follows. Maybe its been posted elsewhere and if so, I apologize for wasting your time.

I certainly hope we can all keep this family (and all the families profiled on Unsolved Mysteries and similar shows) in our thoughts. Life for many of these families will never be the same, and hopefully more of them will find the answers they seek in the coming year.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/fa...true&cid=print


Family town struggle with deaths after Edgar shooting
Billy Kenley, 37, died Monday after being shot by Dave Mazour, 33, who then shot himself, authorities said.

May 12, 2007 7:00 pm • CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star

EDGAR — Billy Kenley had planned to spend today at his parents’ home.

He would have brought food. He would have done odd jobs around the house and farmstead — anything Sharon and Bill Kenley needed.

That’s what Billy and his siblings did every Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and for their parents’ birthdays, too.

“He worked like a house on fire,” Sharon Kenley said Saturday. “He wasn’t slow.”

Billy Kenley, 37, died Monday after being shot by Dave Mazour, 33, who then shot himself, authorities said. The shooting happened after what the Nebraska State Patrol described as a brief encounter at The End Zone bar.

Kenley was pronounced dead Monday night at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital in Hastings. Mazour was placed on life support and died the next morning.

Details of what happened were fuzzy.

On Friday, a “closed” sign hung in the window of the End Zone, and sheets covered the windows. A man who answered the phone there declined to be interviewed.

Clay County Attorney Ted Griess said Saturday he hadn’t heard of a motive for the shooting and that he didn’t remember having legal contact with Mazour or Kenley before Monday. The shooting remains under investigation, he said.

Sharon Kenley said her family isn’t sure what happened.

“I just don’t know,” she said. “We don’t really know the particulars.”

What the family does know, Sharon Kenley said, is how many friends Billy had.

Hundreds attended his funeral Friday.

Pastor Sharon Ruzicka spoke of a man who was quick to smile and joke, loved kids and engines and farming and NASCAR and sports — especially the Sandy Creek football team, on which his 14-year-old son Blake played.

He never missed one of Blake’s football games, Ruzicka said, even if it meant leaving work early. He went to Blake’s track meets, too.

The two also went camping and fishing together, Sharon Kenley said. They worked on cars together.

And a few nights ago, she said, Blake told his grandparents he wants to go to Southeast Community College in Milford to become a mechanic, just like his dad.

Sharon Kenley worries about her grandson.

“(Blake) and his dad were great pals,” she said. “They did a lot together.”

She is less worried about herself. She knows she and her husband will cope — they have before.

In 2000, their 28-year-old daughter, Traci, and her friend Bill Rundle disappeared after visiting Sharon and Bill.

Two years later, Rundle’s Jeep was pulled from a livestock waste pond near Hastings. His and Traci’s bodies were inside. Investigators determined the deaths were the result of a rollover accident.

Sharon Kenley said she was overwhelmed by the food and hugs and other support Edgar residents offered after her daughter’s death.

Now, the community has reached out again, she said.

“We have a lot of people who are willing to just do anything,” she said.

Her son always has been a part of the town, she said. He owned the tire shop in Edgar for a few years. He worked as a mechanic and, later, as a farm hand. He was an umpire for as many Legion baseball games as time would allow.

Everyone knew Billy, she said.

Less information was available about Mazour.

He was living in Edgar with his wife, LaDonna, and daughters, MaKayla and Emma, at the time of his death, but his last listed phone number was in Lawrence. He worked as a truck driver and also did some farming, according to his obituary. His funeral services were Saturday morning at the funeral home in Edgar.

Community members were in shock, Sharon Kenley said.

“They’re just lost for words,” she said. “They don’t know what to think.”

Today, Sharon Kenley’s three surviving children plan to continue their Mother’s Day tradition of helping out around their parents’ place.

Sharon Kenley said she told them not to bring food this time because friends and neighbors have brought so much.

Billy would have brought as much food as anyone, she said. And he was always in charge of putting up the electric fence.

This year, someone else will have to do that.

“We’re holding up,” she said. “But it’s hard.”

Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.

[TheUntouchables]

So they believe the hat was planted, but then the jeep is found with both of them inside without their seatbelts on? Seems rather strange, or maybe the hat was carried by the wind to that intersection.

[Necco]

I've always wondered if the hat was planted by a well meaning friend who wanted to get the cops do more searching.

[nikkispence1989]

Was an autopsy done to confirm that both drown?

[TheCars1986]

This case is a perfect example of many "mysterious" things that turn out to be nothing more than red herrings in many true crime disappearances and mysterious deaths. The police were convinced that Bill Rundle's hat was planted a week after he and Traci disappeared because the area had been thoroughly been searched before. It also shows you how common it is for people (and even vehicles) to be overlooked despite extensive searches. They weren't found until 2 years after the fact.

[cordwainer1453]

You have to wonder how convinced the police really were, and how much was just UM making the story have more "meat". They really didn't have much to go on, but I'd guess most of the time a car is missing with a person or people, the car is in some body of water.