Alana Gwinner went to a bowling alley with some friends on the night of Tuesday, December 9, 1997. Alana — known as Laney to her friends and family — left Gilmore Bowling Lanes in Fairfield, Ohio around 1:00 am Wednesday. The 23-year-old told her friends she was going to stop by her boyfriend’s home on Morningside Drive, which was only a couple of miles away from the bowling alley. Laney left the bowling alley alone and headed for the parking lot where her black 1993 Honda del Sol was parked, but she never made it to her boyfriend’s house.
No one realized Laney was missing until the following morning when she failed to show up for work. Laney had always been an extremely reliable employee and it was out of character for her to miss work without calling ahead of time. Once her friends and family members realized that no one had spoken to Laney since the previous night, they called the police and reported her missing.
Laney had been in a celebratory mood on Tuesday night; she had just finished finals at school and was confident that she had done well. She and a close friend had dinner at a restaurant at the Forest Fair Mall, then decided to go to the bowling alley for a few hours.
In addition to offering bowling, Gilmore Bowling Lanes had several pool tables, and Laney spent the night shooting pool with some of the people there. Around 12:30 am, she called her boyfriend and told him that she was going to stop by after she finished playing pool. She left alone around 1:00 am; investigators feared that she had been attacked in the parking lot.
Over the next week, police and volunteers searched Butler County for any sign of Laney or her car, but they were unable to find any trace of her. They combed along the banks of the Ohio River, a large Fairfield pond, and a wooded area on the outskirts of the city. They found no clues to Laney’s whereabouts. While detectives said they had no solid evidence pointing to foul play, they recognized that Laney wasn’t the type of person to voluntarily disappear and listed her as an endangered missing person.
Detectives started the laborious process of identifying all the people who had been at the bowling alley on the night Laney vanished. They ended up with a list of hundreds of people, each of whom was tracked down and interviewed. They conducted polygraphs on some patrons and ran background checks on others. Nothing brought them any closer to determining what had happened to Laney.
Laney’s loved ones distributed hundreds of missing person flyers throughout the area, hoping that someone would come forward with the information they needed to find the missing woman. Her father, John Gwinner, said he was sure that Laney hadn’t planned to disappear. “I’m certain of that. She just wouldn’t do it.”
At the time of her disappearance, Laney had just finished the fall semester at the University of Cincinnati’s Raymond Walters College, where she was an accounting major. She worked part-time at Telco, a long-distance telecommunications company, and enjoyed spending her free time dancing to country music and spending time with her friends and boyfriend. She liked to remain in close contact with her loved ones and had no history of running away.
Detectives were puzzled by the fact that they still hadn’t been able to locate Laney’s car. Fairfield Police Lt. Richard St. John admitted, “Her car is not accounted for, and that’s the big missing piece in this puzzle. It’s not what you would call the most common vehicle around.” Every law enforcement officer in the county was keeping an eye out for the distinctive Honda but no one could find it.
Lt. St. Johns said that the FBI had not been brought into the investigation because there was no reason to believe that Laney had left the state of Ohio, but noted that this could change once her car was located. Detectives followed up on dozens of reported sightings of the Honda but none led to the recovery of Laney or her car. Lt. St. Johns admitted it was a time-consuming task. “You can’t just run the license plate number. Somebody could have gotten ahold of her car and put their license plate on it.”
As the search for Laney stretched into its second week, the J.W. Harris welding company announced that they were offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to her return or the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for her disappearance. Laney’s brother, David, worked for the company and the owner decided that offering a reward was the right thing to do as everyone liked David and was worried about his sister. They hoped that the offer would bring in some new leads for detectives to follow.
Laney’s family had little to celebrate at Christmas that year; they spent the holiday praying for the phone to ring with news that Laney had been found. Detectives admitted that they didn’t have any solid leads in the case, and they were in the process of re-interviewing everyone who had been at the bowling alley the night she vanished to see if they had missed anything during their initial investigation.
On January 2, 1998, search teams from three law enforcement agencies combed through Fairfield’s Joyce Park after receiving a tip that Laney’s body was hidden there. They didn’t find anything of use. Fairfield Police Sgt. Ed Roberts said investigators were following up on every tip they received, but admitted that they were running out of leads.
Lacey’s parents, John and Sandra, continued to hope for the best but were certain that their daughter had been a victim of foul play. John noted, “I know she didn’t leave on her own free will. I know that for sure.” They had been optimistic that the large reward being offered would result in some viable tips, but so far all that had come in were a few crank calls.
The search for Laney came to a heartbreaking end on January 11, 1998, when Kentucky State Police found her body in the Ohio River near Warsaw, Kentucky, around 40 miles away from where she was last seen. Police in Kentucky had been looking for the body of Covington Police Officer Michael Partin, who had fallen into the river while chasing a suspect on January 4, 1998. A state police helicopter crew was scanning the river from above when they spotted Laney’s body.
Police were able to tentatively identify Laney based on the clothing she was wearing and the fact that her driver’s license was found in her pocket. Lt. St. John stated, “Based on the condition of the body, it appears she was in the river for a considerable amount of time, possibly as long as she’s been missing.” He noted that an autopsy would need to be performed before they would know how Laney had died, but they were treating the case as a homicide. Laney’s car was still missing.
The coroner was unable to determine the exact cause of Laney’s death but stated that she had no gunshot or stab wounds. He was also able to rule out the possibility of drowning; Laney was already dead before she was thrown into the river. The coroner believed that Laney had most likely been strangled to death.
Mike McIntyre, a Gallatin County firefighter who helped recover the body, told reporters that Laney had been fully clothed when found, though her white blouse was ripped and she had scratches on her back. Gallatin County Coroner Jack Lowder said it wasn’t immediately clear how long she had been in the water but it appeared to have been for an extended period of time.
Laney’s body had been found near Sugar Bay in Warsaw, the location where Sugar Creek and the Ohio River converged. She was found roughly 40 miles downstream from the Great Miami River, which ran through Fairfield. Detectives believed that her body had most likely been dumped into the Great Miami River shortly after she went missing and had traveled downstream until it ended up near Warsaw.
As news spread that Laney had been found, her friends gathered to remember the young woman with a bright future. She had recently been promoted to an administrator at her job and enjoyed her work; her friend Kylee Kingsley noted, “She was happy…everything was going well for her.”
Laney was a skilled pool player, and friends were glad to know that she got to spend her last night alive doing something she loved so much. She had gone to the bowling alley that night specifically to play pool, and had won just about every round she played. Pat Edmonson, one of the owners of the bowling alley, said that Laney was an attractive woman who turned heads while she was playing. It chilled everyone to think that someone inside the bowling alley might have fixated on Laney and waited for her in the parking lot.
On January 24, 1998, investigators started searching the Great Miami River for Laney’s missing Honda. They had already completed several aerial searches of the county without success and thought it was possible the killer might have disposed of the car in water. They spent several days on the river, using sonar to check the depths for vehicles. Their search came up empty.
Laney should have been celebrating her 24th birthday on March 18, 1998. Normally, she would have gathered up her closest friends and spent the night line dancing to country music. To mark the occasion, friends and family members got together to mourn her death and pray for answers. Friend Brittany Woodard noted, “It’s really hard to have closure when you don’t know why or how or who.”
Friends were especially nervous about the possibility that the killer was someone they knew. Joy Herren, one of Laney’s close friends, didn’t think a stranger would have been able to abduct Laney without anyone hearing something. “I think she left with someone she knew and trusted. Otherwise, she would have fought that person for her life.”
Detectives submitted Laney’s clothing for laboratory testing to see if it could help determine how she was killed and if she had been a victim of sexual assault, but they hadn’t received any results yet and the investigation was at a standstill. Sgt. Roberts admitted that they hadn’t been able to provide the family with much information. “We’ve let them down so far. It’s been three months now, and we haven’t been able to tell them a lot. It’s been a tough case from day one.”
John Gwinner noted that the reward for information leading to his daughter’s killer was up to $50,000. “I’d think for that kind of money, somebody would come forward if they had some information. I would like to know what happened and who did this and why. It just makes no sense.”
Detectives were still focused on trying to find Laney’s car but admitted they were running out of places to look. Divers spent a week in the Great Miami River but were unable to find any clues. Sgt. Roberts stated, “We’ve checked every area in our county where we think it’s easy to get a car into the river. We just don’t know where else to search.”
A year after Laney was last seen alive, her killer remained at large. Friends and family members held a candlelight vigil to mark the first anniversary of her death and to remind the public that the case had yet to be solved.
Years went by and the identity of Laney’s killer remained a mystery. In 2005, the Butler County Sheriff’s Department announced that they were forming a cold case squad and one of the cases they were going to take another look at was Laney’s. Her car had never been located and investigators assumed that it was underwater; they hoped new sonar technology might help them find it in the river.
In June 2005, investigators resubmitted Laney’s clothing for additional forensic testing, hoping that something might be found to help identify her killer. They also started scanning the Great Miami River with sonar, searching for anything resembling a vehicle. Butler County Detective Frank Smith believed the case was still solvable, and told reporters that the department was committed to obtaining justice for Laney. “There’s been a lot of people who have forgotten about Laney Gwinner. But I’m certain that the sheriff’s office has not and will not.”
Investigators thought they finally got a break in the case when divers found a black Honda during a search of the Great Miami River, but after checking the vehicle identification number they determined it wasn’t Laney’s car. They continued their search but were unable to find Laney’s vehicle. Over the next decade, they would search more than 150 miles of water, but the location of Laney’s vehicle remained unknown.
Detectives believe that Laney was most likely abducted by a stranger who attempted to sexually assault her but was stymied when she fought back. He most likely killed her at this point, then disposed of her body and car in the river. He may have needed to get a ride back to the bowling alley, meaning there could be people out there who assisted the killer without knowing it. To date, however, no one has come forward with any information to help identify the killer and the case remains unsolved.
Alana Jane Gwinner was just 23 years old when she was abducted and murdered in Fairfield, Ohio in December 1997. Laney was an outgoing and friendly young woman who loved dancing, country music, and spending time with her friends. She was attending night classes at the University of Cincinnati to get a degree in accounting and had just received a promotion at work. Laney had a bright future ahead of her, but it was cut short when someone abducted her as she was leaving a bowling alley after playing pool with friends. Her car, a black 1993 Honda del Sol with a sunroof, dark tinted windows, and Ohio license plate number AKP-3607, has never been found. If you have any information about Laney’s murder, please contact the Butler County Sheriff’s Department at 513–785–1236.
