Ray Eddleman crossed his fingers Tuesday as he watched a backhoe enter the backyard of a house on 8th Street in Colona.
"My toes are crossed, too," he said. "And everything else I have is crossed.
"I'm just hoping this is the day they find Trudy. I just really want this to be it, you know?"
Trudy Appleby was 11 years old when she was last seen leaving her residence in Moline on Aug. 21, 1996. She reportedly was seen at approximately 9:30 a.m. with a white man in his 20s driving a gray box-style car similar to a Chevrolet Cavalier.
She was last seen wearing a black one-piece swimsuit, spandex shorts, blue tennis shoes, socks and a t-shirt. She also had a beach towel.
The Moline Police Department executed a search warrant Tuesday morning at a home in the 600 block of 8th Street in Colona. The search included investigators from the Moline Police Department and the Illinois State Police.
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By 12:30 p.m., a portion of the backyard was screened off from the public before a backhoe started digging.
Eddleman, Trudy's uncle, said the sight of the work filled him with hope.
"I've been a search-and-rescue volunteer for years now and when they bring in the equipment and all these investigators, it's a sign that at least they think they have serious information," he said.
Trudy Appleby was grounded to her home when she disappeared. Her father, Dennis Appleby, returned from work that evening and discovered she had vanished. There was no note or phone call.
Trudy's best friend showed up on 8th Street Tuesday shortly before the dig started. Amber Dunlap spent the day with Trudy the day before she disappeared.
"It was like any other day," Dunlap said. "We went rollerblading and we played video games and we picked on my brother. I walked her home that night and I never saw her again.
"You just hope they find her, and it feels terrible to say that."
Eddleman said waiting for answers has been his life.
"I think about this every day," he said. "I think about what happened to her and why it happened to her and how it happened to her.
"And then standing here you realize it's real: Somebody killed her. That happened. Twenty-seven years ago somebody really did kill her. What would make somebody kill an 11-year-old kid?"
Eddleman was 22 and getting ready for work when the phone rang. Trudy's father was on the other end asking if anyone in the Eddleman family had seen his daughter.
Eddleman said it was the moment that changed his life and the lives of everyone in Trudy's family. Trudy's mother, Brenda Appleby, and grandmother, Willa Ann, were camping, and Dennis Appleby called, hoping to learn Trudy was with them.
"I knew Trudy wasn't with them," Eddleman recalled. "But I drove out there just to check. She was gone. Trudy was just gone."
Over the years, Trudy's great-grandmother, grandparents and mother all died without knowing the outcome of her story. Of the persons of interest identified, only one remains alive.
According to the Moline Police Department, Jamison A. "Jamie" Fisher might be the last person alive with knowledge of what happened on Aug. 21, 1996. In 2020, the department issued a release identifying Fisher, of Silvis, and David L. Whipple, of Colona, as persons of interest.
Whipple died in 2022.
In 2017, Moline police publicly named William “Ed” Smith, who died in December 2014 at the age of 72, as a person of interest. They believe he was the last person to see Trudy the day she disappeared.
The family continues to hold yearly vigils for Trudy on the anniversary of her disappearance.
Ray Eddleman said his hope is tempered by the past and fills him with fear.
"They did a dig like this out on Campbell's Island," he said. "They had what they thought was good information back then. And that's all they can do is follow the information they are given.
"All I know is that I want this so bad. I want this to be over. I want this so bad and it scares me. It scares me to think that she's dead and this might be really over."
Reporters Anthony Watt and Gretchen Teske contributed to this story.