Seriously Mysterious - Missing Persons, Unsolved Murders & Historical True Crime · John Lordan - Respectful True Crime Content Creator, Advocate and Host

Missing in Truro: Zachery Kellock and Troy Cook

·39 min·1 clip

A mother's instinct immediately tells her something is wrong when her son says 'I'll be right back' and never returns.

The episode traces the disappearance of 19-year-old Troy Cook in Truro. It starts with the ordinary details of his last known morning. Troy had spent the night at home in Kemptown, and his father Tom Cook dropped him off at the apartment he had recently set up in Truro around 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 11, 1998. Tom had car trouble and headed to a garage appointment after the drop-off. He saw Troy walking toward the house, and that was the last time he saw his son. About half an hour later, a call came into Atlantic Superstore. Someone said they were Troy and could not make the evening shift. The employee who answered thought the voice sounded like Troy's, but could not say so with certainty, and said it sounded sick and strange. The episode does not shrug off that call. Instead, it checks where it came from. The call was made from a phone booth near the Tim Hortons in Bible Hill. That spot is about two and a half miles from Troy's apartment. The host uses that distance to test the timing. Forty minutes is not much time if someone is on foot. It is possible, but only if the pace is brisk. The episode also notes that Troy apparently did not have a cell phone, and may not have had a phone at home either. That makes the booth call feel more pointed. It is one of the few concrete traces left behind that morning. Another detail keeps coming back. Troy had been close with his father. He still came home often for laundry and meals, and Tom left care packages for him at the apartment. Those habits make the disappearance feel less abstract. They show a young man still tied to home while trying to live more independently. The episode also flags a gap in the reporting. A roommate lived at the same address, but that person is barely mentioned in the articles the host reviewed. That omission stands out. The narration keeps circling back to what is confirmed and what is only suggested. It follows the chronology carefully. It stays with names, places, and distances. The result is a restrained reconstruction of a missing-person case that asks the listener to pay attention to small mismatches and the narrow time window between the drop-off and the phone call.

As heard by us

A sober missing-person story anchored by a tight morning timeline and one strange phone call.

Missing in Truro follows Troy Cook, 19, through a tight stretch of time after his father drops him at an apartment in Truro around 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 11, 1998. The piece works best when it holds that gap between the drop-off and the 10:30 a.m.

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Why you'd press play

You want the 10 a.m. drop-off, the phone booth call, and the gap between them.

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