Sydney Loofe believed she had found a possible romantic connection. The 24-year-old did not know that the Tinder encounter was allegedly part of a deadly plot involving a couple fascinated by witchcraft, crime and violence.
Loofe’s case is examined in the Hulu documentary Swipe Right on the Devil. She was killed in November 2017 by her Tinder date, Bailey Boswell, and Boswell’s boyfriend, Aubrey Trail. Weeks later, investigators found her dismembered remains scattered along county roads near Wilber, Nebraska, according to court documents.
The couple reportedly chose Loofe because they believed she had no family living nearby. But her relatives and friends quickly contacted police after she disappeared. One friend even created a Tinder profile to locate Boswell, whom Loofe knew only by the name “Audrey,” according to the documentary.
Boswell and Trail were arrested and later convicted in separate trials. Trail has since made new, disturbing claims about the killing, saying in the documentary that the couple committed the crime as a witchcraft ritual intended to “take her soul.”
Here is what to know about Sydney Loofe’s murder and where Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail are today:
“Bad Path” Led Bailey Boswell to Aubrey Trail
Boswell grew up in Leon, Iowa, where she was a standout basketball and track athlete before she “went on a bad path,” her friend Madison Blades told The Associated Press. That path eventually brought her into contact with Trail, who had a criminal history and an interest in dark magic.
Before Loofe’s murder, Boswell and Trail presented themselves as successful dealers in antiques, according to the outlet. They bought gold and silver coins with bad checks, prosecutors said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nebraska said the pair frequently persuaded victims to help purchase the coins for sums far greater than the amount they had paid. Both were convicted of interstate transportation of stolen property and ordered to pay more than $407,782 in restitution.
Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail Recruited Women to Coven Through Dating Apps
Prosecutors said that during the summer and fall of 2017, the couple also used dating apps to recruit young women into “dominant-submissive sexual relationships.” Court records say those relationships involved grooming, physical and sexual punishment, and repeated discussions of witchcraft and the occult.
Authorities alleged that Boswell and Trail tried to persuade the women to help plan and take part in torture and murder for sexual gratification.
Ashley Hills, one of the women, told producers of Swipe Right on the Devil that she was “terrified” of Trail. She said he beat her and other women when they disobeyed his orders, required them to remain naked inside the home and demanded that they ask his permission before doing anything.
Hills said Trail once told her she could become the 13th woman in his coven if she agreed to torture and kill someone, People reported.
Sydney Loofe Disappears After Date With Bailey Boswell
In November 2017, Boswell matched with Loofe, who worked at a Lincoln hardware store, on Tinder. Boswell used the alias Audrey.
The two women went on their first date on Nov. 14 and met again the following day. Loofe never came home after that second date, according to court records.
Her friends and family reported her missing on Nov. 16, one day after the second date.
Determined to find Loofe, her best friend, Brooklyn McCrystal, created a fake Tinder account in an effort to identify Audrey.
“I was trying to figure out who she was,” McCrystal testified, according to Nebraska Public Media. She said she was “actually very excited” when she matched with Audrey and received a phone number.
McCrystal turned the information over to police, who traced the profile to Boswell. After Boswell and Trail were identified as persons of interest, they posted a social media video denying involvement before fleeing with another woman, Kaitlyn Brandle.
“I just want the family to know I’m truly sorry,” Boswell said in the Nov. 29 video, according to The Associated Press. “I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Brandle later testified that, in the days following Loofe’s murder, Boswell and Trail began discussing the possibility of killing and torturing other women, KLKN TV reported.
Sydney Loofe’s Remains, Cause of Death Revealed
Then, in December 2017, after analyzing Boswell and Trail’s cell phone activity from Nov. 16, authorities began to search county roads and ditches near Wilber. They discovered Loofe’s dismembered remains discarded in plastic trash bags. One of the bags contained a severed arm with a distinctive tattoo that was a match to Loofe, authorities noted in the court records. Several items recovered from the disposal sites, including a latex glove and towel, were also found to have Loofe’s blood.
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The medical examiner determined that 23-year-old died of homicidal violence by strangulation.
During a search of Boswell and Trail’s apartment, investigators also found bottles of bleach, duct tape and a human anatomy book, per the court records.
Aubrey Trail, Bailey Boswell Are Arrested For Murder of Sydney Loofe
The couple was arrested in Missouri and charged with premeditated first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and improper disposal of human skeletal remains.
Though Trail initially denied killing Loofe, he later admitted to strangling her in what he insisted was a consensual act, leading to her accidental death, People reported. He insisted that Boswell had nothing to do with the death.
Trail made the same claim in a much more dramatic fashion during his 2019 trial, when he slashed his neck with a shiv and shouted, “Bailey is innocent, and I curse you all,” according to The Associated Press.
Trail was convicted and sentenced to death in 2021, telling the court he had killed Loofe because she failed to embrace his lifestyle of group sex and crime.
“I lured her there to try and pull her into our group,” he said in court, according to KOLN. “But once I sat Sydney down and explained to her our criminal activities and group sex, I knew I had made a big mistake.”
“The truth is I killed her because of her reaction to what I had told her. I had no doubt she’d tell people what I told her,” he added. “She did nothing but reject my lifestyle and threaten to expose it, and I killed her for it.”
Though Boswell’s attorney argued that she did not participate in the killing, it took a jury less than four hours to also convict her of the crime in 2020.
Where is Bailey Boswell Now?
Today, Boswell, 32, is serving out a life sentence at the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women, according to prison records reviewed by Oxygen.
She managed to avoid the death penalty after a three-judge panel was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, People reported. Boswell had pleaded for her life to be spared for her young daughter, who was being raised by her mother Priscilla Boswell.
“I don’t think she deserves to die,” her mother told the court, according to KOLN. “Her daughter loves us and so do the rest of us.”
Where is Aubrey Trail Now?
Trail, now 60, remains on death row at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.
Though he waived his right to appeals and petitioned the state for an execution date in 2023, the state did not possess the lethal injection drugs needed to carry out an execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Trail has also recently revised his account of the crime, telling Swipe Right on the Devil, that Boswell had wanted to carry out the crime because she “wanted to be a witch more than anything in the world” and could only do that by taking someone’s life.
“We dwelled on it for months, so I decided to let her kill Sydney and take her soul,” he said in the documentary, per People. “There was no erotic asphyxiation, there was no accident.”
He added that the two had also planned other killings before their arrest.
“Bailey’s aspirations were to be the world’s greatest female serial killer,” he said. “My aspirations were to do whatever the hell Bailey wanted me to do. We would’ve killed until we got cuffed.”
His only regret, he said, was choosing a victim who had been so loved by her family and friends.
“We thought Sydney would be the perfect person, but it turned out that we picked the wrong one,” he said in the doc. “She had a family that gave a damn, so they reported her [missing] immediately.”
Oxygen reached out to Boswell’s attorney for comment on the allegations, but did not receive an immediate reply.