167. Smells Like A Hunting Trip Into Oblivion - The Ed Nichols Case With Special Guest Detective Coy Cox

Murderers are evil – and yes they’re evil because they take the lives of innocents – but also because of the lives and futures they affect for those left behind.  Sometimes the murder itself is so disturbing or maddening that it’s easy to forget that the friends and colleagues – and particularly family –  who are left to pick up the pieces of a murdered or disappeared loved on are often victimized  themselves.  Broken marriages, depression – even suicide – can all rear their heads in the residue of a killer’s actions.  Especially when you don’t know where the victim is – and you can’t prove who it was who did the killing.  But sometimes the loved ones of the victim overcome the temptation to give up and simply decide to find answers – whether they’re helped by the police or not.  Such is the story of the three living sisters of one Edward (“Eddie”) Nichols of Gallatin County, Kentucky, who went hunting with a friend (or should we say “friend”?) on December 3, 1974 at a place called Shady Nook Bottoms in neighboring Boone County – and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.  Since that time – for 46 years now – Eddie’s family has refused to give up the search to bring him home.  And to their credit, the Boone County authorities, after initially dropping the ball, have not let go of the case either.  On this episode, Melissa interviews returning guest Detective Coy Cox of the Boone County Sheriff’s Department, who currently leads the Nichols investigation, to go over the known facts of the case and to suss out some possible answers to this most perplexing disappearance – and the persistence of three loving sisters who won’t let their brother’s memory fade for even a moment.