The Unexplained Disappearance of Jean Moore

Episode # 57 the Unexplained Disappearance Of Jean Moore

[Shaun] 

Jean Moore and Al Henderson seemed like a happy older couple. They took a trip to Laughlin Nevada for a few days of gambling, won some money, and visited their favorite casinos in the smaller Las Vegas-like resort town.

[John] 

However on the final day of their trip, Jean disappeared without a trace, leaving Al in a panic trying to find her. Over the next few weeks though, authorities started to wonder if Jean had actually ever made it to Laughlin… 

(Music - Pause for 8 seconds)

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence, as well as missing persons and unsolved cases. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

The case we’re sharing this week is a genuine head-scratcher of a mystery from over 30 years ago. It’s one that's been covered a few times by podcasts and on TV, but it’s never been solved, and you'll see why as we get into it. 

Today we’re talking about the disappearance of Jean Moore from Laughlin. Do you want to tell us about Jean and her boyfriend Al?

[John] 

Sure. Jean Moore was born Jean Marie Traxler on July 27th, 1932 in Menomonie, Wisconsin, so she would be 92 years old today. Her parents were Henry and Mabel Traxler, and she was the oldest of TEN children, three of whom died in early childhood. Her 6 living siblings are Everett, Norma, Jerome, Raymond, Barbara, and Bernard. Her mom died in 1990 and her Dad died in 1996. 

The family moved from Wisconsin to Pasadena, California in 1960, moving around a bit in those early years to a few places in Pasadena.

She’s been married twice, first in 1954 to a man named James Hamilton who was an electrician's mate at Great Lakes Naval training station. They had a son named Joe Hamilton and a daughter named Connie (whose last name is now Christie). 

Later she married Glenn Moore in 1968, but they were divorced in 1971, and they didn't have any children together, but she ended up keeping his name.

She eventually settled in Apple Valley, California which is near Victorville and Hesperia just about 45 minutes northeast of Los Angeles right along Route 15. We know that area well because we drive through there whenever we drive to LA or San Diego.

Jean was very successful in her career. She worked as an escrow officer for a bank until her (early) retirement and then started working as an independent real estate agent. She was a well-known and respected member of the community and she was even elected “honorary mayor” of Apple Valley in 1987. She loved gardening, traveling, and entertaining her many friends and family. 

[Shaun] 

She met and started dating Al Henderson in 1972. At the time, she was 39, and he was 50. Al was a very successful businessman. He was in real estate too and built a multi-million dollar real estate empire. We’ve seen him described as a real estate “mogul” in several places. 

The reason that’s important is that it’s very clear that money wasn't a problem for this couple. They were both very successful in their careers and were both retired even before they started dating.

From the beginning though, Jean’s kids Joe and Connie didn’t like Al much. In an interview, Joe said that he wanted his mother to be happy, and she really liked Al and wanted her children to like him too. Joe tried, but he really just didn't, and on several occasions tried to talk her into breaking up with him.

Connie said that although Al always said he loved Jean, he would put her down in front of their friends, and that REALLY bothered her, so she didn't like him much either.

We know that Al also had children, and of course, he and Jean weren't married, Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot to go on with Al, so that along with his very common name made it difficult to find his records. 

Al and Jean dated for 20 years without getting married, but finally, in December of 1991, Al proposed, and Jean accepted, and they planned to get married in November of 1992.

[John] 

In April of 1992, the couple decided to take a trip to a place they enjoyed, Laughlin, NV. Laughlin is essentially like a mini Las Vegas located about 95 miles south of Vegas right on the Colorado river, just across from Arizona, also, importantly, it’s about 190 miles east of Apple Valley on the I-40, about a 3-hour drive under the best conditions. 

The plan was to stay from Monday, April 6th through Wednesday, April 8th, gamble, enjoy the food, and things like that. Al preferred the Colorado Belle Casino Hotel because he had built up comps there, so he got things like free rooms and free food there. That’s typical in Laughlin, and Vegas too. If you spend a certain amount of money in a hotel, they start giving you free things like that for you to keep you happy even if you aren't winning

It’s a fun place, but it's even hotter than Vegas. It’s normally 5-10 degrees hotter there than here in Vegas so that can get pretty intense. Since it's right on the river, there are a lot of water activities like parasailing, boating, jet skiing, and of course, gambling, many of them being similar to the ones here in Las Vegas.

Jean and Al planned to stay at the Colorado Belle, which was a permanently docked riverboat, pretty cool. Also interesting, the Belle closed during the pandemic and hasn't reopened, and it’s unclear if it will. 

That happened here too to several large casinos.. They just closed, and never re-opened. The owners took the opportunity in some cases to build other newer properties and just demolish the old ones, often not rehiring workers who have been with them for years which we find sketchy.

[Shaun] 

On the way into Laughlin on the 6th, they stopped at a diner and had breakfast, and then recorded that they checked into the Colorado Belle around 1 pm. 

According to several sources (like Al, and some others we’ll mention), Jean won $600 or so playing a slot machine on Wednesday the 8th at the Hilton Flamingo Laughlin (we’ll just call it the Hilton). At the time, that hotel was the sister property of the Las Vegas Hilton, now the Westgate, and the Laughlin Hilton Flamingo is now the Aquarius Casino Resort, but it’s still there.

Later that night, Al called his bookkeeper Geraldine Fender to talk about something work-related, and then Jean also spoke to her, and told her about how she’d had a run of luck and they’d be staying a little longer, until Thursday the 9th. There was a small discrepancy here in that in the interview Geraldine recalled that Jean said she had a run of luck on the “poker machine”, but Al said she won the money playing slots. 

On Thursday the 9th, the couple was going to check out of the Belle around 12, but Jean said she wanted to go back to the Hilton to play her favorite slot machine again, hoping to hit another jackpot.

What follows here is Al’s account of what happened that morning. Al and Jean drove from the Belle to the Hilton (about a half a mile), but driving that short distance is understandable given that she was 59, and he was 70, and it was likely pretty warm even in April.

[John] 

Al dropped Jean off at the front entrance to the Hilton, and attempted to find a parking spot, when he couldn't find one, he returned to the valet, which is also right in the front. 

He gave the valet the keys to his 1987 Cadillac, got the claim check and headed inside where he found Jean and gave her the claim ticket around 9:30 am. 

The plan he says they agreed on was that she’d claim the car, and then drive back to the Colorado Belle, where they’d meet in the hotel room (at the Colorado Belle) at 11:45, pack up the rest of their things, check out, and head back to Apple Valley.

Since he liked playing at the Belle, he headed out to catch a cab back to the Belle, but for some reason, there were no cabs available, and none showed up (which is in itself a bit weird.. There always seem to be cabs waiting, but it's possible).

So he headed back inside thinking that he’d just play blackjack or something at the Hilton instead, but when he went back inside, he couldn't find Jean near her favorite slot machine, in fact, there was someone already on it. He waited for them to be done, and started playing the slot, hoping that she’d come back and he could just turn it over to her, and he did this from 9:45 am-10:15 am.

[Shaun] 

At that point, she hadn't shown back up so he decided to go back to the Belle again.. .so this time he DID get a cab and headed to the Belle, where he played blackjack until 11:45 and went to the room expecting that she’d be showing up at any minute so they could go.

When 12 pm rolled around, and she hadn't shown up, he went downstairs, checked out, and took another cab back to the Hilton to look for her.  

All of this would have been so much simpler in the age of smartphones.

At the Hilton, he first visited the valet to ask about the car. The valet told him that no one had come to get the car, and from what Al said that’s the first time he got worried. 

He went into the Hilton and she was nowhere to be found near her favorite slot machine, on the casino floor, in the lobby, or in the nearby shops… he couldn't find her anywhere.

At that point, Al started to freak out a little, he called security and the police and told them she was missing. 

[John] 

I just want to talk briefly about this morning, and how strange it all seems to me. When we were researching it, we read several descriptions of their convoluted plan for that morning which all seemed to be slightly different. It was all pretty hard to wade through and digest.

What did you think about the whole plan as Al described it?

[Shaun] 

Honestly, I thought it was convoluted like you said, and a little strange. Why would they drive the car to the Hilton, drop her off in the front, just so he could park the car, only to take a cab back to the Colorado Belle a half mile away?

The idea that SHE would then pick up the car, drive that half mile, presumably park the car again, go inside, help pack everything up, and then leave is a lot of steps, not to mention that is a LOT of unnecessary cab rides.

Why not just have her take a cab to the Hilton herself to play the slots, and have Al swing by on the way out of town to get her.. Or maybe they could take a cab together and play at the Hilton for that couple of hours. 

We’re only talking about 930am until 1130am at the latest .. Because check out time was 12pm.

Even putting aside the annoying back and forth of cabs and multiple valets, that’s a lot of time lost if she just wants to go and play the slots for a bit.

Depending on the weather, that’s a short walk really, no more than 5 minutes.. So she could have even walked, played, then walked back.

[John] 

I agree with you, it's a very convoluted plan. We’ve been there and you’re right, that’s not far at all. The other thing was that Al said she may have had $6-700 in cash on her, but even that isn't very much money for a place like Laughlin. It’s not like she hit a large jackpot everyone saw and then had to walk down the street with that cash. 

The whole thing is weird.

So over the next few hours and days, Al had 4,000 fliers printed (at his own expense he points out) that offered a $25,000 reward for her safe return. Oddly though the fliers read “possible amnesia” which is also strange because up until that point I didn't read anything about any reason he might have thought she could have had amnesia, so that seems like a leap to me.

He also spent $1200 chartering a helicopter to search the surrounding area for her (this also seems like a reach to me.. If they weren't willing to walk the half mile from the Belle to the Hilton, how likely is it that she “walked off into the desert”?)

[Shaun] 

So at that point, it just seemed like Jean had just disappeared from the Hilton in Laughlin.. But here’s where it starts getting weird. The Las Vegas Metro Police Department got involved in the investigation because apparently at the time the Laughlin police were a “substation” of the LVMPD.

Regardless, if you know anything about casinos in Nevada they take security very seriously. A lot of people seem to think that casinos are run by the mafia, but in fact the mob’s power and influence over casinos started waning in the 1970’s and by the late 1980’s it was mostly dismantled, replaced by something even more powerful and insidious……corporations. 

Corporate control by companies like MGM, Caesars Entertainment, The Sands Corporation, Wynn Resorts, and Boyd Gaming (to name a few) became the standard and that is still the standard, so it’s safe to rule out mob involvement.

So, casinos take security very seriously because these corporations also take theft and loss very seriously, so if you’re in a casino in Las Vegas or Laughlin you can be absolutely sure the “eye in the sky” is watching you. There are cameras in all the public areas that are recording at all times, and that was true in 1992, so of course the police had a mountain of video surveillance footage to review.

Based on Al’s account, they expected to see footage of him giving her the valet ticket, but they couldn't find it. The same was true of Al at Jean’s slot machine. They had no footage of that.

In fact, there was no footage found of Jean at the Hilton at all, not only on April 9th, but there was also none from any day that week, and also no record of her willing that $600 from a slot machine.

[John] 

Police did find footage of Al parking the car and getting the ticket, but no footage at all of Jean.. so they started to wonder if this was all made up. Was Jean ever even in Laughlin?

The only record of Jean in Laughlin from April 6th-9th came from the waitress at the diner where they had breakfast on the way into town. She said she remembered the couple specifically, but of course, she didn't know Jean well so it’s possible that it wasn't Jean, but we don't know that.

It's about to get even weirder. Police did finally locate a witness who was sure she saw andand spoke to Jean at around 4:30 pm on April 8th and this was someone who knew the couple well. 

The problem was that it was back in Apple Valley at a convenience store/gas station.. 3 hours away when the couple was supposed to be in Laughlin.

This witness is credible, not only because she knew the couple, but also because she pinpointed the time and date she saw them based on the fact that at that time she was on her way to a school function for her children, and that function was around 5pm on April 8th. 

[Shaun] 

When confronted with this evidence, Al had some pretty convincing counterevidence.  Back in the 1990s long distance calls outside of the local area code were VERY expensive from a hotel, so people typically used “calling cards”, which allowed you to call an 800 number for free (even from a hotel), and then give them an ID number (like a credit card number)  and then type in the long distance number you were calling, and then you paid the lower rate of that calling card company.

It was annoying and a lot of numbers had to be dialed. 

Well, Al had a “Call USA” long-distance card, and he turned over the call records from that calling card, and the police also had his call records from the hotel, and sure enough, he dialed that 800 number, and then made calls using his calling card at 4 pm and also 6:59 pm on April 8th… from the Laughlin hotel room. 

He claimed that only he had access to the hotel room, but one of these things isnt true. Either the witness in Apple Valley was mistaken somehow, or someone must have made those calls from Al and Jean’s hotel room at the Colorado Belle, using Al’s calling card.

Unfortunately, investigators could never prove that he didn't make those calls. There was just no way to verify further.

Al didn’t have an explanation for why they couldn't locate Jean on the surveillance recordings though. He just said they were looking in the wrong place or at the wrong machine. To me, that's very suspect. The detective from Metro, Thomas Ball was adamant he’d scoured through hours of footage, and there’s no reason not to believe that, and we know that casinos record everything, so to me, that points to her never having been in Laughlin.. But if that's the case… where was she? Why wasn’t she there? What was the motive? Why pretend she was?

[John] 

There were other things that seemed strange, too. For example, Jean had left all of her jewelry including her engagement ring in the room in the Colorado Belle. 

Well, what I should say is that they seemed strange to her kids. They told investigators she always had her jewelry on and wouldn't just leave it behind. Personally that doesn't seem that strange to me, but they knew her best.

Her daughter also mentioned that Jean talked to her about hiring an attorney because of some problems she was having with Al, but we don't have any information about what that was. They weren't married yet, so it's unclear.

It's also worth noting that unlike the case we covered about Tom Randolph, there was never any question about Jean’s will or life insurance policies, meaning that one of the key aspects investigators would normally look for… motive for any potential foul play, simply wasn't found. Both of them were independently quite financially comfortable and both retired. There was also no reporting of fighting and no record of any domestic violence.

[Shaun] 

And that's really the problem with this case. There’s no apparent motive and only very thin theories about what “might have happened”. There’s a good amount of evidence that Al was being forthcoming about things like his phone records and seemed to be genuinely searching for her, but on the other hand, we have this reliable witness who says they saw Jean 190 miles away

To further muddy the waters, Unsolved Mysteries Season 2 Episode 1 from 1995 covered the case, did a great job with re-enactments, and got a lot of interviews with Al. In the interviews, he comes across as completely credible and concerned. There’s absolutely no sense that we got that he was trying to hide anything and he didn't have the same creepy vibe we got from someone like Murderer Tom Randolph.

They do ask about the fact that Jean isn't seen on ANY surveillance footage anywhere in Laughlin that week, and he has no satisfactory answer though, which is truly baffling.

He also offered up a different account of events than he originally gave police. He told Unsolved Mysteries that he dropped Jean off at the Hilton’s side entrance (not the front), and then gave Jean the ticket in the front of the Hilton.  That shifting narrative is really concerning, and of course, there’s no video footage of that version either!

It was this shifting narrative that had Jean’s children thinking that he must have had something to do with her disappearance. They didn’t trust him before, and his changing story made that even worse.

The police eventually searched his motor home and found what they described as a “Kleenex with blood” but it wasn't proof of anything, and no testing established that it had anything to do with Jean’s disappearance.

[John] 

There are a lot of theories among the web sleuths that Al must have had something to do with Jean’s disappearance, but there simply wasn't enough evidence to support that, and Al was never charged.

Al passed away in September of 2001, and Jean’s family finally had her declared dead in 1999. Her obituary appears in a local paper on Sunday, April 4th, 1999, almost 7 years to the day from her disappearance. Her date of death is listed as April 9th, 1992.

Her family had a memorial service for her a week later on April 10th, 1999 in her hometown of Menomonie, Wisconsin, and she has a funeral plot there. Her case has remained cold since then, for over 30 years. 

[Shaun] 

The cases of missing people are so frustrating, and so much more so for the families who are left behind. 

At the time of her disappearance, Jean was 5’2” and 125 lbs. She had a scar on her abdomen, and both of her ears were pierced. We’ll be sure to post some photos of her on social media. 

If you have any information about Jean Moore or what happened to her please reach out to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department at 702-828-2907.

This holiday season we are again putting together a special MIssing at the Holidays episode highlighting missing persons cases from around the country. If you have a missing persons case you’d like us to highlight please email us at podcast@sinsandsurvivors.com. And be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss that important episode. 

Thank you for listening, and remember what happens here, happens everywhere.