Case Timeline & Updates
Not-guilty plea. Bench trial pending.Latest development Sep 29, 2026 · Last checked Nov 11, 2026
Fisher waived a jury. A bench trial was scheduled for March 2027.
Entries distinguish event dates, report dates and routine source checks. Earlier milestones remain available as the case develops. Scheduled hearings are not reported as completed events.
On August 21, 1996, eleven-year-old Trudy Appleby asked her father if she could go swimming with a friend. Dennis said no. Moline police later said phone records suggested she had tried to make plans anyway. Someone saw her getting into an older gray car that morning. There the accounts of people who had seen Trudy went quiet.
Years later, investigators were still trying to follow that car. In 2017, police said a witness had seen William “Ed” Smith in a similar vehicle near his home on Campbell’s Island the day Trudy disappeared. Police believed the car might have been scrapped soon afterward. Smith had died in 2014. By the time detectives publicly asked for help with the sighting, they could no longer question him about it.
A tip led police to excavate the site of an old house on the island. Another led them to a boat. In 2019 they sent it to an FBI lab because someone had told investigators it might have carried Trudy. Four years later they dug at a property in Colona. The searches gave detectives specific places to test what people had told them. None brought Trudy home.
What a judge will have to weigh
In August 2025, a Henry County grand jury indicted Jamison Fisher on three counts of first-degree murder and one of concealing a homicidal death. Prosecutors say they have witnesses who can give an account of an assault near a train bridge in Colona and of Trudy’s death. Fisher has pleaded not guilty. In an interview with KWQC, he maintained his innocence. He also disputed the prosecution’s account of his dealings with Trudy’s father, on which its theory of motive depends.
In July 2026, Judge Norma Kauzlarich ruled that contested witness testimony could be heard. In September, Fisher told her he wanted her to decide the case without a jury. His lawyers then withdrew their request to move the trial out of Henry County. The court set aside the last two weeks of March 2027. A November 18 hearing concerns a separate contempt motion arising from a television interview.
At trial, the defense can question witnesses about what they actually saw and how they remember it after thirty years. The judge may ultimately be able to answer whether Fisher killed Trudy. The searches of the island, the boat and the property in Colona leave her family waiting for an answer no verdict can give by itself. Where is she?
Research Sources
The following resources were consulted to verify and update this article.