Episodi

  • Upright Cup, Locked Cellar: The Arsenic Secret of Denton Township

    Upright Cup, Locked Cellar: The Arsenic Secret of Denton Township
    Oct 16 2026
    Upright Cup, Locked Cellar: The Arsenic Secret of Denton Township

    Fear and curiosity collide: a white porcelain cup upright in the dirt, a padlocked cellar door, and a twenty-four-year-old woman found dead on March 14, 1936 - signed off as exposure while a discarded bent wire latch suggests someone locked her in. Who replaced the wire loop with a steel padlock while Rachel Meyer was inside, and what did the kit of preserved jars and a kerosene lamp really leave behind?

    In this episode, we walk through the discovery, the official notes, and the one person who returned with a camera and questions. Listen to how small details - a cup, a lamp, a bent wire - begin to contradict the coroner's certificate and point toward a very different story.

    Person: Rachel Meyer
    Date: March 14, 1936
    Location: Farmstead eleven miles east of Harlan, Kansas
    Status: Death recorded as exposure and dehydration; certified by Dr. Emmet Voss
    Witness: Nancy Nelson returned with a camera and a notebook

    - A white porcelain cup with a blue painted rim was found upright in the soil at 9:30 AM.
    - Rachel Meyer was twenty-four and owned 160 acres, with only 40 acres workable.
    - Constable Ira Solt and Deputy Clarence Webb broke a padlock and found Meyer at the bottom of seven wooden cellar steps.
    - Dr. Emmet Voss had certified 44 deaths in the previous 18 months, including Rachel's on the same afternoon.
    - Rachel's cellar inventory included 14 jars of tomatoes, 6 jars of green beans, 2 jars of pickled beets, a lard tin with 4 pounds of cornmeal, and a barrel nearly 40 gallons full.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 min
  • A Dry Tin on a Drowned Man: The Grant Cook Murder

    A Dry Tin on a Drowned Man: The Grant Cook Murder
    Oct 15 2026
    A Dry Tin on a Drowned Man: The Grant Cook Murder

    Fear that the ordinary can mask murder: a perfectly dry Monarch pipe tobacco tin was found sealed on a drowned man's chest while his coat was saturated and ice had formed around his legs - why was the tin dry, and what did it reveal about where he spent his last days? This episode centers on a missing river broker, an insurance policy taken out under a false identity, and a lividity pattern that pointed away from the river.

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of discoveries and the people whose small acts unlocked the case, following how a coroner's lividity reading, an insurance examiner's file, and a dry tin led investigators to reconsider when and where the man died. How did a policy dated weeks earlier and a borrowed identity connect to a body that had been kept off the river for eleven days?

    Person: Grant Cook
    Date missing reported: January 29, 1894
    Date body found: February 9, 1894
    Cause of death: Drowning (per coroner Amos Vetch)
    Policy date: December 14, 1893

    - The Monarch pipe tobacco tin on Cook's chest was completely dry on every surface despite his coat being saturated to the shoulder.
    - Coroner Amos Vetch estimated Cook died around February 5, about eleven days after his January 29 disappearance.
    - A $1,200 life insurance policy was arranged on December 14, 1893, by a man posing as Cook's business manager, naming Melvin Slater as sole beneficiary.
    - Insurance examiner Bruce Snyder noted the December policy, Slater's beneficiary status, and the lividity inconsistency and began inquiries at the Merchants' Exchange.
    - Partial human remains and oilcloth were found while clearing disturbed stone fill at a warehouse on Ashby Slough about a mile and a half upstream, discovered February 19.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min
  • A Shoe Standing Upright: The Murder of Todd Barrett

    A Shoe Standing Upright: The Murder of Todd Barrett
    Oct 14 2026
    A Shoe Standing Upright: The Murder of Todd Barrett

    A single brown leather shoe, men's size nine, sat tied and upright on a coal pile in the Crestline Hotel basement on January 11, 1923 - no second shoe, no coat, no voice. The shoe led to a four-foot excavation that revealed thirty-two-year-old Todd Barrett buried under bituminous coal; how did a punctual Omaha broker vanish from his room into a hotel coal pile?

    In this episode, we present the known facts of Barrett's disappearance and the discovery in the Crestline Hotel coal room, following the timeline from his arrival to the moment Detective Terry Armstrong called for shovels; could routine hotel procedures and a scheduled coal delivery have enabled a calculated killing?

    Person: Todd Barrett
    Date: January 11, 1923
    Location: Crestline Hotel basement, Grainger Alley entrance
    Detective: Terry Armstrong
    Delivery Worker: Pete Hollis

    - The shoe was a brown leather men's dress shoe, size nine, with the lace still tied in a neat bow and standing upright on the coal surface.
    - Todd Barrett checked into the Crestline Hotel on January 8, 1923, paid three nights in advance for room nine on the third floor for $5.25.
    - Barrett worked as a grain futures broker in Omaha and was expected in Council Bluffs on January 10 by Iris Nolan; letters were later found in his leather bag.
    - Hotel staff relet room nine midmorning on January 10; chambermaid Vera Showalter moved Barrett's bag to lost-and-found with the receipt folded into the pocket.
    - Four tons of bituminous coal were delivered through the Grainger Alley chute on January 8 while bookkeeper Paula Vickers asked driver Pete Hollis about the coal depth; Barrett was found under roughly four feet of that coal.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min
  • Dead Man in the Front Row: The Raymond Armstrong Case

    Dead Man in the Front Row: The Raymond Armstrong Case
    Oct 13 2026
    Dead Man in the Front Row: The Raymond Armstrong Case

    A dead man in white tie and a playbill from a theater 280 miles away: Raymond Armstrong sat upright in the third row of the dark Delmore Theater, dead for at least two days with no sign of forced entry or struggle-how did a 53-year-old touring mentalist end up arranged like a prop? What ledger entry would unravel the mystery?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Armstrong's last confirmed performances and routines to the discovery by janitor Lauren Williams and the investigation led by deputy detective Kimberly York, asking whether theater ledgers and union placement records hold the answer to his final movements.

    Person: Raymond Armstrong
    Date found: December 11, 1923
    Age: 53
    Location: Delmore Theater, Packard Street, Kellston, Ohio
    Investigator: Deputy Detective Kimberly York

    - Armstrong was found seated in the third row on the morning of December 11, 1923, dressed in white tie and tailcoat with a top hat and a playbill in his right hand.
    - The playbill in Armstrong's hand was from a theater 280 miles to the south and dated December 7.
    - Armstrong had been performing since approximately 1905 and had a routine Thursday card game for 11 years at the Hotel Greystone.
    - He canceled shows starting December 6, 1923, citing illness and never arrived back in Cincinnati for his scheduled engagements.
    - Union placement records showed Douglas Miller, a 31-year-old regional carpenter, worked at the Delmore for approximately three weeks and returned his key to owner Samuel Birch on November 28, 1923.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min
  • A Gloved Hand Inside the Ice: The Murder of Shannon Adams

    A Gloved Hand Inside the Ice: The Murder of Shannon Adams
    Oct 12 2026
    A Gloved Hand Inside the Ice: The Murder of Shannon Adams

    The discovery of a gloved left hand protruding from a three-foot square block of commercial ice turned a routine November morning into a six-week courtroom drama; the ice block bore the Pryor Lake Ice Cooperative harvest seal and two-letter grade code, and photographs of perpendicular tong marks in the mud would become crucial evidence. Who arranged a carefully posed, strangled body inside a sealed ice cavity, and why did the imprint of the tongs point back toward stacked, partially thawed blocks?

    In this episode, we tell what happened from the morning Pocket the retriever stopped at the Pryor Lake dock through the county coroner's findings and the photographic work that redirected the investigation; what do the tong impressions, the stamped ice block, and delivery records reveal about the movement of that block?

    Person: Shannon Adams
    Date: November 4, 1893
    Location: Pryor Lake dock, Portsmith County
    Cause of death: Manual strangulation (per Dr. Martin Crews)
    Witness/Photographer: Jean Hall, deputy county registrar

    - The ice block was roughly three feet square and eighteen inches thick and stamped with the Pryor Lake Ice Cooperative harvest seal and a batch number with a two-letter grade code.
    - Pocket, a young retriever, stopped at the pilings beneath a dock on Pryor Lake on the morning of November 4, 1893, leading Gordon Wallace to find the ice block.
    - The left hand inside the ice was gloved in dark wool, palm facing inward, fingers slightly curved; the body’s limbs had been deliberately arranged.
    - Dr. Martin Crews, the county coroner aged sixty, recorded the cause of death as manual strangulation with bruising consistent with large hands.
    - Jean Hall photographed perpendicular tong marks in the cooperative yard mud and measured the spacing between the two prong impressions, noting the rear wall of the pen had been accessible during a recent thaw.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 min
  • The Ledger, the River, and the Boy Whose Name Vanished

    The Ledger, the River, and the Boy Whose Name Vanished
    Oct 11 2026
    The Ledger, the River, and the Boy Whose Name Vanished

    A found body on the Cutter River, a sealed wax-paper envelope that stayed dry, and a school ledger that kept collecting a dead child's federal payments - what links a drowned accountant to a nameless boy buried without a marker? Who manipulated the attendance books and why did one man end up in the river while a child's existence was erased?

    In this episode, we tell the story contained in records, marginal notes, and a single piece of paper: how Warren Bennett, supply administrator at Whitehall Mission School, tracked anomalies in the attendance folios and supply accounts that pointed to a child who never appeared in any teacher's register. What did Bennett discover in the columns, and how did that discovery lead to his death?

    Person: Warren Bennett
    Date: October 1917
    Location: Cutter River (east bank) and Whitehall Mission School near Danner, Nebraska
    Person: Thomas Swiftwind
    Event: Unreported death and continued attendance entries

    - A woman found a man floating face-down near the reeds on a Tuesday morning in October 1917.
    - The body worn a wool overcoat with the second button in the first buttonhole, offsetting the front panel by one position.
    - Warren Bennett arrived at Whitehall Mission School in spring 1915 and was 28 by autumn 1917.
    - Thomas Swiftwind arrived at Whitehall in September 1916 at age eleven and died of influenza about six weeks later according to a 2011 forensic analysis.
    - For fourteen months after Thomas's death, his name continued to appear in the school's official attendance records while he was absent from the teacher Frances Odom’s personal register.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 min
  • Surveyor Finds a Dry Shoe in Three Inches of Mud: The Lloyd Russo Case

    Surveyor Finds a Dry Shoe in Three Inches of Mud: The Lloyd Russo Case
    Oct 10 2026
    Surveyor Finds a Dry Shoe in Three Inches of Mud: The Lloyd Russo Case

    An impossible detail uncovers a slow-moving danger: a size 10½ black Oxford stood upright in three inches of mud on September 11, 1943, its sole and interior perfectly dry despite seventeen days of rain-what message was meant by the folded ID tucked in its toe? Searchers would find two civilian men dead of blunt trauma months apart, the same office connecting them, and a single shoe that should never have stayed dry.

    In this episode, we follow how routine records, personnel files, and a single surveyor’s discovery connect a missing logistics coordinator to a pattern of falsified inspections and unexplained deaths, asking whether the shoe was a warning, a clue, or a staged provocation.

    Date: September 11, 1943
    Person: Lloyd Russo
    Location: Callum Yards, eastern retaining wall
    Item: Size 10½ black Oxford shoe with folded ID
    Cause of death: Blunt trauma to posterior skull

    - The shoe was found standing sole-down between two creosote pilings in three inches of standing mud after seventeen days of rain.
    - A folded replacement identification card for Lloyd Russo, issued July 1943 and reported lost, was tucked into the toe of the shoe.
    - Lloyd Russo, age 54, had worked nineteen years for a Baltimore shipping firm and joined the Navy in 1941 as a civilian logistics coordinator.
    - Jerry Green, age 31, a dock worker, had been falsifying hull inspection records over months before Russo vanished on August 26, 1943.
    - Roy Adler, age 47, a civilian supply clerk last assigned to Russo’s office, disappeared in November 1942 and his body was found September 19, 1943, with blunt trauma to the posterior skull.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 min
  • The Midway Photo: How One Frozen Figure Solved A Murder

    The Midway Photo: How One Frozen Figure Solved A Murder
    Oct 9 2026
    The Midway Photo: How One Frozen Figure Solved A Murder

    A single five-by-seven contact print from August 14, 1937 shows roughly 400 moving people and one motionless young woman pressed between a wheel-game booth and a canvas partition - she had been dead for approximately four hours. How did an insurance photographer’s routine crowd shot become the central evidence in a 1938 murder trial, and what did it reveal about the summers before the murder?

    In this episode, we tell the story contained in that photograph and the investigation that followed. You will hear how the image sat undeveloped in an insurance file for three days, the discovery of the body behind a canvas partition, and the questions that image forced investigators to answer.

    Person: Patricia Johnson
    Date: August 14, 1937
    Location: Millhaven fairgrounds, Millhaven, Indiana
    Status: Found deceased behind a canvas partition
    Investigator: Detective Sergeant Bruce Carter, Indiana State Police, Indianapolis field office

    - The photograph was a five-by-seven contact print showing roughly 400 people moving while one woman remained perfectly still.
    - Patricia Johnson was twenty-three years old at the time of her death.
    - The image sat undeveloped in Howard Vick’s insurance file for three days after he shot six exposures from the Ferris wheel housing.
    - Curtis York discovered Patricia’s body on Tuesday, August 17, while performing post-fair privy inspections.
    - Bruising on Patricia’s throat and neck was consistent with sustained compression and her lower body was covered with a section of cut canvas tarpaulin.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min