Featured Image Credit: Snapchat/ CBS
Topics: Crime, US News, Tinder, Social Media
Emily Brown
A 24-year-old woman shared a selfie of herself ready for a Tinder date just hours before she was strangled to death by the man she was meeting.
Police in Lincoln, Nebraska launched a search for Sydney Loofe in November 2017, after she went missing under what police described at the time as 'concerning' circumstances.
Sydney, who worked as a cashier at a Lincoln hardware store, had last been seen on 15 November.
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Family members told local media she had been planning to meet someone for a date after they'd started talking online; a story which was backed by a photo Sydney had sent to her friends on Snapchat.
Sydney had taken the image herself, and showed herself giving a soft smile to the camera with her hair straight and loose around her shoulders.
The caption of the photo read: "Ready for my date."
It was accompanied by a heart-eyes emoji, indicating Sydney was looking forward to meeting the person she'd been chatting to.
Tragically, she had no idea the photo would be the last one she'd ever send to her friends.
Sydney met a 23-year-old woman named Bailey Boswell, who, along with a man named Aubrey Trail, is believed to have planned the abduction and killing of Sydney.
Surveillance footage shows the pair buying tools, which police believe were later used to dismember the 24-year-old after they lured her to the apartment where they both lived.
It wasn't until weeks later that Sydney's remains were found stuffed into garbage bags, which had been dumped in a field near Edgar, about 90 miles southwest of Lincoln.
Trail, who was in his 50s at the time, admitted to investigators that he strangled Sydney using an extension cord, after which he and Boswell then dismembered and disposed of her body.
Trail was convicted in 2019 of first-degree murder for Sydney's killing and was sentenced to death. Boswell was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 2020 as an active participant in Sydney's death.
Speaking in 2021, Judge Vicky Johnson commented: “Ms. Loofe was completely harmless and her murder was completely unnecessary."
Trail later appealed his sentence, arguing in part that he should be granted a mistrial because he disrupted the proceedings by cutting his own throat.
However, in 2022 the high court rejected all of his appeal claims, with Trail's act of self-harm described as a 'calculating gesture' by the district court.
Bowell also appealed her conviction, but last month the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld her conviction and life sentence.