Around 10:45 p.m., the two stopped at The Country Store in neighboring Clay Center to use the restroom and buy a couple of sodas. The clerk behind the counter and a few high school kids would be the last people known to have seen them. Back on the road, at 11:00p.m., Traci called her boyfriend, Doug Wolfe, who worked the 2:00 p.m. to midnight shift in Hastings. According to Doug, Traci asked him what his after-work plans were, and Doug told her he was thinking about getting a beer at the Halftime Lounge. Traci, Doug reports, said that she and Bill would meet him there around 12:30 a.m., if she wasn't too tired. They said goodbye. Doug would be the last person known to have heard her voice.

The following day, neither Bill Rundle nor Traci Kenley showed up for work. Residents of the tightly knit community who knew Bill and Traci are stumped. The Clay and Adams County Sheriff's Departments organized a search of the intersection where Traci had spoken to Doug and the surrounding area. Authorities worried that Bill may have crashed his car into the towering cornfields. A thirty square mile area was painstakingly searched to no avail.

Police considered whether Bill and Traci left voluntarily. They left, with only the cash in their pockets and the clothes on their backs. There has been no ATM, phone, or credit card activity on either Traci's or Bill's accounts since their disappearance. One week after their disappearance, Bill Rundle's hat mysteriously surfaced at the intersection where Traci made the call to Doug--an area that had already been thoroughly searched. Police believe the hat was planted.

UPDATE: Two years after Traci Kenley and Bill Rundle vanished, unusual weather gave authorities the answer to the mysterious disappearance.  Drought conditions lowered the level of a feedlot runoff pond near the road where the two had been traveling.  A farm worker noticed the outline of a car in the pond and contacted police-- who theorized that because Traci and Bill were unfamiliar with the area and they mistakenly drove down the narrow private road.   Police believe that when they attempted to turn the car around it went into the pond—and because of the mud were unable to escape.  Investigators have ruled out foul play.