The Murder of Sydeny Loofe - Tinder Date Murder

April 02, 2022

On the 15^th of November 2017, 24 year old Sydney Loofe of Lincoln, Nebraska, set off to meet a woman she had met through the Tinder dating app. She posted a selfie on Snapchat after getting dressed and applying her makeup, “ready for my date” the caption read.

The following day she neglected to show up for work at Menard’s home improvement where she worked as a cashier. She failed to call in sick to work, which was completely out of character for her, so her worried parents filed a missing persons report with the local police.

Posters with a description of Sydney and images of her tattoos circulated online and throughout the local area. The poster described the missing woman as standing at 5”7 and weighing 135lbs, with blue eyes and blonde hair. The flyer also noted that there had been no activity on her bank account and that her cell phone had been turned off that night.

The first persons of interest in the case were a 23 year old woman named Bailey Boswell, and a 51 year old man (believed to be her boyfriend) named Aubrey Clifton Trail. Both individuals already had outstanding warrants in their name. Bailey Boswell was the Tinder date that Loofe was expected to meet and Trail was her roommate.

Snaps from the evening the 24 year old went missing show Loofe and Boswell enjoying a night out on the town together in Wilber. They were also seen together by numerous witnesses who came forward to police when they heard of the disappearance. Loofe had contacted a friend about how successfully the date had gone and her plans to go on another date with Boswell in the future.

For three weeks there was no news of Sydney Loofe's whereabouts. Her car sat untouched in the driveway of her Lincoln apartment and she never returned home.

Then, in early December, news spread that a body had been discovered on farm land in a rural part of Edgar, Clay County. It was Sydney.

Although no cause of death was released to the public, police did state that they believed foul play was involved.

Boswell and Trail had been arrested on unrelated charged just 6 days before Loofe’s body was recovered. Before they were taken in, the suspects made videos giving an account of their involvement with Sydney and publicly posted them online.

Sitting in a vehicle and talking into the front-facing camera of a cell phone, Boswell claimed that she’d picked up Loofe from her residence and the two had gone on a ride around town and smoked pot together. They did much the same the following evening, although on the 2^nd date Loofe wound up at Boswell's basement studio home. She claimed that the night ended with her dropping her date off at a friend’s house per her request.

That was the last time that she claimed to ever hear from Sydney. The video ends with Boswell and Trail offering their condolences to the missing girl’s family and describing what a nice person she was. They attempt to convince the viewers that they had been cooperating with the local authorities and had been attempting to aid them in finding Loofe.

Unhappy with the media’s portrayal of them and the authorities’ suspicion of their involvement, they bid farewell to the police with a “fuck you”.

In a second video Trail fully admits his criminal history saying: "I'm a crook, I'm a thief, but I've never in my life hurt a female".

In January 2018, Aubrey Trail confessed to the murder of Sydney Loofe. He claimed that he had accidentally suffocated the 24 year old woman during a group sex session that involved two other individuals at around 4am on November 16th. According to an interview with the Herald, he claimed that she had accidentally suffocated and had something wrapped around her neck at the time. “She was not meant to die” He said. Trail also requested the death penalty as a punishment- “An eye for an eye” he said.

He went on to supply the media with details of a business he claimed to run, providing clients with sexual fantasies at a price. He claimed that the girls involved could get paid hundreds or thousands of dollars to act out a customer’s sexual fantasy and that his workers were provided with weekly comepnsation.

The 52 year old also went on tell investigators that Boswell had no role in the girl’s death. In fact he claimed she was unconscious in another room at the time as she had passed out after a drug binge. Trail claimed that he ran this alleged sexual fantasy business from their rented basement home in Wilber, Nebraska.

Further research into the man revealed that he had a long criminal history rooted in fraud, forgery and scamming across several states. This document states that he was in possession of a firearm and was wanted for 2^nd degree forgery and cashing a bad check over $1200.

I looked for information pertaining to Trails possession of a firearm and found this article in the Columbus telegram which mentions Trail meeting an antiques dealer in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Beatrice, Nebraska, where he received $5000 in cash and a gun.

This article describes some of the numerous scams both Boswell and Trail had been involved in. Apparently the partners in crime were quite the showmen and once showed up to an auction dressed as upper class antique dealers claiming to be father and daughter. They bid on and purchased a gold coin which they paid for with a fake check. As far as I can gather from various different articles, they used a rare 1879 coin to scam two victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars by claiming the coins value was much higher than it was. Over time, they managed to get their victims to hand over numerous valuable antiques and cash that they claimed was going on evaluation fees for the coin and plane trips to Europe to sell it for one million dollars.

This article references the witness statements regarding the firearm exchange in the parking lot and highlights part of the statement that alleges Trail intended to use the gun to kill a coin dealer in the local area. This has not been officially confirmed and both the names of the witnesses (a couple) and the coin dealer have not yet been released. One of the witnesses alleges that she was forced to assume the role of a coin dealer and was verbally threatened to comply in the scam. She revealed in her statement that in order to make it believable a website was created for the phony company she was supposed to represent.

Apparently stealing and selling antique and rare gold coins is Trails thing. He was arrested in 2010 for the same crime: “Aubrey C. Trail, 43, Falls City, Neb., was sentenced to serve 12 months in prison and to pay $2,700 in restitution after being convicted of felony theft for stealing gold coins from Four Corners Auction House back in August 2010. He remains in the Osage County Jail awaiting transportation to the KDOC.” – The Osage county herald-chronicle

Boswell hailed from Iowa where she was known in school for her sports talents. Once a good student, she apparently fell in with the wrong crowd and things began to go downhill from there. This article states that her father was killed by meth dealers in the mid-nineties.

When interviewed about Sydney Loofe’s character, close friends told police that they didn’t peg her for the type of person to be involved in such a scenario- especially if it involved sex acts with a male.