Episodi

  • She Was Already Dead When the Camera Clicked: The Murder of Denise Russo

    She Was Already Dead When the Camera Clicked: The Murder of Denise Russo
    Aug 22 2026
    She Was Already Dead When the Camera Clicked: The Murder of Denise Russo

    A single photograph taken at 2:14 PM on August 21, 1937 captured a fairground that looked loud and ordinary while Denise Russo lay dead thirty yards away in a four-foot service corridor; the image includes her lemonade stall with a handwritten "BACK IN 10 MIN." sign that she wrote. How could a woman who left a deliberate note, kept a ledger, and had her father's pocket watch in the cash box be gone with no witnesses and no money taken?

    In this episode, we present the known facts of the case as recorded by investigators and contemporary records, laying out the photograph, the ledger comparisons, the pawnshop mistake, and the civil complaint that tied a neighbor to the victim; did a calculated disguise and one pawnshop error expose the killer?

    Person: Denise Russo
    Date: August 21, 1937
    Location: Millhaven County Fair, Dellwood
    Case: Civil complaint filed June 1937 over $32; ruling in Russo's favor late July 1937
    Event: Photographer Philip Morse took 22 insurance photos; one at 2:14 PM showing Russo's stall sign

    - Time of photograph: 2:14 PM on August 21, 1937, showing Russo's stall with "BACK IN 10 MIN." in her handwriting.
    - Time of death estimate: between 1:15 PM and 2:00 PM on August 21, 1937.
    - Cash drawer contents: $41.60 found beside Russo's body with every coin accounted for.
    - Discrepancy amount: $32 shortage that Russo identified in summer 1936, leading to a civil complaint in June 1937.
    - Pawnshop error: killer pawned a pocket watch fourteen miles from Dellwood weeks after the fair, linking investigators to Clement Street.

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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
  • The Dock, the Trunk, and the Man Who Stamped Death

    The Dock, the Trunk, and the Man Who Stamped Death
    Aug 21 2026
    The Dock, the Trunk, and the Man Who Stamped Death

    Dread mixed with fascination: a bone-dry steamer trunk marked T.E. sat on a soaked dock hours after a squall, and inside was 57-year-old Todd Edwards whose death certificate had been dated two days earlier and stamped from the station’s own record room - so how had a bureaucratic paper trail been turned into a murder weapon?

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events on Dunmore Reach that led from a routine passenger voyage to a forged death, following the people, documents, and small discrepancies that held the answer: could a station clerk and a ship steward have engineered a corpse and a certificate to steal an estate?

    Person: Todd Edwards
    Date: July 9, 1883 (arrival morning)
    Location: Dunmore Reach quarantine intake station
    Case: Forged death certificate and estate fraud
    Investigation year: 2019 multispectral imaging confirmation

    - The trunk was found bone-dry on a dock still slick with standing water at 6:30 AM.
    - Todd Edwards was 57 years old and a wool merchant traveling alone from Charleston.
    - The death certificate for Edwards was dated two days before the trunk was discovered and ink came from the station’s record room desk.
    - Eric Gallagher, 38, had been assistant registrar and knew where blank certificate stock and Dr. Pryce’s rubber signature stamp were kept.
    - Martin Ogle, the ship steward, was paid $400 per “successful passage” and had already received $200 for an earlier victim, Silas Pratt.

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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
  • The White Shoe on the Ladder: How a Culvert Held a Secret

    The White Shoe on the Ladder: How a Culvert Held a Secret
    Aug 20 2026
    The White Shoe on the Ladder: How a Culvert Held a Secret

    A clean, size six white shoe sat on the second rung of an iron ladder two hundred yards from where a woman’s body was found, with no footprints in the mud nearby-placed deliberately after six days of rain. Who arranged that shoe to send investigators the wrong way, and why would someone stage evidence to point away from a culvert where a strangled twenty-two-year-old lay?

    In this episode, we present the sequence of events and the physical evidence that shaped the Kearns County investigation into Shannon Thompson’s disappearance and death, and we follow Detective Glenn Carter’s methodical steps as he pursued the question of who placed the shoe and how it led to a confession and a jury verdict.

    Person: Shannon Thompson
    Age: 22
    Location: Starlight Drive-In lot, Kearns County
    Date of death estimate: Night of June 3, 1953
    Investigator: Detective Glenn Carter

    - Shannon Thompson earned $31 per week working as a bookkeeper at Harwick Farm Supply.
    - She volunteered every Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. at Dellwood General Hospital and missed her shift on Thursday, June 4, 1953.
    - Shannon’s green 1949 Ford coupe was seen in the Starlight Drive-In lot the night of June 3; she was spoken to at intermission and later did not return to her car.
    - Melvin Perry called the Kearns County Sheriff from a gas station payphone at 7:51 a.m, on June 9, 1953, reporting the discovery; Dr. Phillip Oakes ruled cause of death strangulation.
    - The right shoe, size six white leather and clean with a faint transfer of dark soil along the toe lining, was bagged as Exhibit Seven after being found on the second rung of the iron ladder near the rear screen tower.

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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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    22 min
  • A Shoe Twelve Feet Up: The Murder of Karen Chambers

    A Shoe Twelve Feet Up: The Murder of Karen Chambers
    Aug 19 2026
    A Shoe Twelve Feet Up: The Murder of Karen Chambers

    Fear that something ordinary hid a deliberate cruelty: a size six oxford balanced twelve feet two inches up on a two-inch ledge, containing a Monarch Steam Laundry claim ticket stamped May 9, 1926. Who left that shoe, and why would someone place it where only an interior hand could have set it?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery and early inquiry surrounding a missing billing clerk whose laundry ticket tied her to a single, impossible clue. What do a crumbling mortar pattern, a transposed fire marshal report, and a dark green panel truck idling at 8:30 p.m. reveal about where Karen Chambers went?

    Person: Karen Chambers
    Date: May 9, 1926 (laundry ticket stamped)
    Location: Fordham Building ledge, alley between Sycamore Lane and Monarch Steam Laundry
    Status: Downgraded to missing person by August 1926
    Detective: April Wilson, Crestfield Police Department Women's Bureau

    - Shoe found upright on May 14, 1926, twelve feet two inches above alley floor on a limestone ledge only two inches deep.
    - Shoe described as brown leather oxford, size six, left foot, with a Cuban heel containing a Monarch Steam Laundry claim ticket.
    - Claim ticket stamped May 9, 1926, linked to customer C-114; Monarch records confirm the transaction that evening.
    - Karen Chambers, age thirty-eight, worked nearly six years as a billing clerk at the Ashford Hotel and lived six blocks from the alley.
    - Witness Dorothy Pruett observed a dark green panel truck idling on Clement Street at approximately 8:30 p.m. the evening Karen dropped off laundry.

    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 Brass Pan on Copper Drum: Proof That Ruth Was Framed

    The Brass Pan on Copper Drum: Proof That Ruth Was Framed
    Aug 18 2026
    The Brass Pan on Copper Drum: Proof That Ruth Was Framed

    Fear that someone close to the ledger bent the rules: a sealed assay pan stamped with the Varick County inventory mark was found half-buried on the opposite face of Copper Drum Mountain after a woman who never mislaid instruments vanished-how did a government bench pan travel forty degrees of talus and April snowmelt with no trail, and who wanted four ounces of ore shifted so badly?

    In this episode, we lay out the movements, objects, and ledger entries tied to a missing county assay official and the strange evidence discovered afterward to ask whether the physical clues point to accident, theft, or deliberate framing. What do the stamped pan, the burnt lamp, and the ledger's four-ounce discrepancy add up to?

    Person: Ruth Was
    Date: April 14, 1893 (pan found)
    Location: Copper Drum Mountain (eastern face)
    Case: Varick County Territorial Assay Office disappearance
    Event: Four-ounce discrepancy in logged ore samples

    - Ruth Was was sixty-two and the sole credentialed field geologist at the Varick County Territorial Assay Office.
    - The brass balance pan was found half-buried on the eastern face of Copper Drum Mountain despite the office being on the opposite side.
    - The mountain face was separated by a forty-degree loose talus slope with no connecting path and April snowmelt making it impassable.
    - The assay vault samples were logged by Ruth on April 3 with ledgers showing no erasures; by reweighing trays a four-ounce surplus was discovered.
    - Ruth's lamp was found burned down to the collar the morning after she disappeared; she had been seen leaving a study circle at about 9:30 PM on April 12.

    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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    21 min
  • A Foot in the River: The Murder of Gordon Ward

    A Foot in the River: The Murder of Gordon Ward
    Aug 17 2026
    A Foot in the River: The Murder of Gordon Ward

    A single brown oxford, size ten, laced and bow-knotted, washed up in a trotline on March 14, 1936 - its ankle cleanly cut and the laces threaded back through the eyelets. The shoe belonged to twenty-six-year-old radio technician Gordon Ward, last seen three days earlier, and the scene points to a staged message that the evidence later shows was anything but straightforward; who was at KWFT the night Ward died, and why was his transmission log forged?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from Ward's missing-shift report to the discovery at the Calvert River and the forensic clues that tied the station, the tower lamp outage, and a forged log entry to the hours around his death. How did a twenty to thirty minute outage of a one-hundred-forty-foot tower lamp, a mismatched initial in the transmission log, and a parked car at Birch Terrace combine to reveal who was in the building after Ward stopped writing?

    Person: Gordon Ward
    Date: March 14, 1936
    Location: Calvert River / KWFT station, Wharton Falls
    Age: 26
    Occupation: Transmission technician at KWFT

    - The foot was found at 7:20 AM on March 14, 1936, inside a brown leather oxford size ten.
    - Gordon Ward had been missing for three days and was last recorded working a shift that ended with a genuine log entry timed at 11:47 PM.
    - The station's 140-foot latticed steel broadcast tower lamp went dark at approximately 12:04 AM and returned between 12:25 and 12:30 AM.
    - A forged transmission log entry, initialed G.W., was timed at 12:15 AM and showed different handwriting, notably a rounder, two-stroke W.
    - Deputy Chad Weber opened a case that lasted nine days and produced one of Nebraska's most precisely documented confessions.

    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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    19 min
  • Inspector Finds a Dead Man Who Crossed the Border That Morning: The Kent Holt Case

    Inspector Finds a Dead Man Who Crossed the Border That Morning: The Kent Holt Case
    Aug 16 2026
    Inspector Finds a Dead Man Who Crossed the Border That Morning: The Kent Holt Case

    A polished passport stamped the morning a man was already dead: Kent Holt’s passport shows he crossed at Corda Pass five days before his body was found face-down in an irrigation channel on February 11, 1943. How did a broker’s abandoned notebook, inspector shift notes, and a sealed federal file all connect two purchasing agents killed by the same blunt force to the head-and who was using Holt’s identity after his death?

    In this episode, you’ll hear the sequence of crossings, the timeline of disappearances, and the investigative trail that drew federal inspector Roy O’Connor into a wartime Southwest mystery. What did Gina Stevens’ shorthand notebook and Holt’s passport stamps really reveal about those four hours the document was on the Mexican side of the line?

    Person: Kent Holt
    Date: February 11, 1943
    Location: Hidalgo County, New Mexico
    Person: Gina Stevens
    Case: Passport stamped after death

    - The body of Kent Holt was found face-down in a dry irrigation channel by Stanley Vogel at 6:40 a.m, on February 11, 1943.
    - Holt’s passport indicated he had crossed at Corda Pass five days before his body was found, though the coroner estimated he had been dead six to eight days.
    - Holt was 49 years old and worked as a purchasing agent for a Tucson mining supply company, with at least eleven crossings at Corda Pass over four years.
    - A second victim, Elliot Crane, 44, was found buried beside a county road south of Reata Station and had been in the ground for roughly ten months; both victims suffered blunt force trauma to the back of the head.
    - Gina Stevens’ palm-sized notebook contained compressed shorthand documenting crossing dates, inspector shift rotations, and vehicle backup patterns covering entries back to 1941.

    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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    21 min
  • The Clean Brand: How a Missing Iron Proved Premeditated Murder

    The Clean Brand: How a Missing Iron Proved Premeditated Murder
    Aug 15 2026
    The Clean Brand: How a Missing Iron Proved Premeditated Murder

    Fear of controlled danger: a clean brand iron, missing from a ten-month-old nail, rested on a frozen corpse’s chest the morning after a rancher vanished - and a single marginal note in an archive would later link a neighbor’s campaign to buy the land with a plan hatched months earlier. How did a spotless iron travel from a dusty barn nail to a dead man’s chest overnight, and who needed that trace erased?

    In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events, witness testimony, and county records that connect Glenn Evans’s disappearance to the missing Ox-Bow brand iron and a suspicious land dispute - can those details prove premeditation?

    Person: Glenn Evans
    Date: January 7-9, 1884
    Location: Caldera Creek, Harlan County
    Case: Missing Ox-Bow brand iron and death of rancher
    Event: Brand registration collected March 22, 1883; registered April 1883

    - Glenn Evans, age 31, was found face-up and frozen in a stock pen cistern on January 9, 1884.
    - The Ox-Bow brand iron was collected from the Harlan smithy on March 22, 1883 and registered in April 1883.
    - Ranch hand Pete Voss last saw the iron hanging on a nail in Evans’s barn the evening of January 7, 1884 before leaving for choir practice for about three hours.
    - Investigator Jerry Zeller noted a clean circular impression in ten months’ worth of dust on the barn nail when he inspected on January 12, 1884.
    - County investigator Zeller wrote in his report, “the iron is the question,” and a marginal note in the file later connected events to a plan dating back at least six months.

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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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    22 min