Site features local cold case in search for answers

Woman went missing in 1997 after leaving Gilmore Lanes in Fairfield.

FAIRFIELD — Although Alana “Laney” Gwinner cannot speak for herself, she still has a voice.

Gwinner is the current featured cold case on StillTheySpeak.com, a Web site designed to profile unsolved cases. The year-old site was created by Northern Kentucky consultant and victim's advocate Virginia Braden.

The site features cases within Kentucky and states that border the commonwealth.

“I was really struck by the picture that was taken before she disappeared,” said Braden, who heard about the case while working another. “The hopefulness of her face, there’s absolutely no evidence in her body language that she would be afraid that night.”

Butler County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit Detective Frank Smith has investigated this case since 2005 — including when he was in and out of the hospital for a year recovering from cancer. Smith believes a key to solving this 12-year-old case lies in Northern Kentucky.

Gwinner, 23, of what is now West Chester Twp., was abducted after leaving Gilmore Lanes, a Fairfield bowling alley on Ohio 4, on Dec. 10, 1997. She was found 31 days later in the Ohio River six miles east of Warsaw, Ky.

Smith wants to know who brought her from Fairfield to Warsaw. He said there is a “person of interest,” who is the only one since he took over the case in May 2005.

A key piece of evidence for the case is Gwinner’s 1993 Honda Del Sol. Investigators have searched 120 nautical miles of the Ohio River for the car and have narrowed their search to Northern Kentucky. Smith believes the suspect killed Gwinner in Fairfield and drove her body in her car to Northern Kentucky and deposited both in the Ohio River.

Braden, a victim of a violent sexual assault 20 years ago, is trying to get Gwinner’s story to the Northern Kentucky residents. Smith said while the Gwinner case is well-known in Butler County, it is not known across the river. Braden hopes her site will “jog someone’s memory.”

“I’m confident that someone in Northern Kentucky knows something that can really tip this,” Braden said. “I feel is that someone does not realize they are an integral part of what’s going on.”

Smith believes someone got a call from the suspect in the early morning hours of Dec. 10, 1997, asking them to pick them up from Northern Kentucky and bring them back to Fairfield. Smith doesn’t believe they hailed a taxi cab.

Anyone with information is asked to call Smith at 785-1236 or Crime Stoppers at 352-3040.

Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5112 or mpitman@coxohio.com.

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