Gertrude "Trudy" Mary Snedegar, a 49-year-old woman, was last seen in Astor, Florida on July 4, 1986. At the time of her disappearance, she was living with her ex-husband, Stephen Cabe Snedegar, from whom she had divorced in 1983. Snedegar had red/auburn hair and hazel eyes, was 5'10" tall, and weighed approximately 160 pounds. She sometimes used the nickname Trudy Romans.
The circumstances surrounding Gertrude's disappearance are complex and intertwined with a series of other mysterious events involving her ex-husband. In the time leading up to her disappearance, Gertrude had expressed fear for her life to her daughter, Brenda Challis, stating that she had woken up on multiple occasions to find Stephen holding a gun to her head. On the night she was last seen, Gertrude and Stephen were reportedly going out country dancing. She uncharacteristically left her purse, which contained her money and credit cards, at home. The following morning, Stephen told their daughter that Gertrude had left him and moved to Tallahassee. However, he provided several conflicting stories about her disappearance to relatives and investigators. Gertrude Snedegar was not officially reported missing for nearly a year.
Gertrude's case is linked to the unsolved murder of her and Stephen's 22-year-old daughter, Lora Lynn Morris, in August 1981 in Greenfield, Indiana. Lora was found shot to death in a cornfield in April 1982. Gertrude’s disappearance was the fourth in a series of disappearances of individuals connected to Stephen Snedegar over a five-year period; two other men associated with him also vanished and have never been found. In 1990, a grand jury was convened in Florida to investigate Gertrude's disappearance, but Stephen Snedegar, a key witness, died of cancer in January of that year, shortly before he was scheduled to testify. After his death, witnesses reported seeing papers being burned behind his house. Despite searches of his former property in Astor in 1994, no remains were ever found, and the case remains unsolved.Last Seen: Jul 4, 1986
