A Heavy Weight

On a cold morning in October 1997, the body of 28-year-old Andrea Michelle Hendrix-Steinert was found in a ditch along County Road 350 in Gibson County, Indiana. Andrea was a mother, a daughter, and a pharmacy clerk who was just turning her life around. Years later, a prison inmate confessed to her killing, but no charges were ever filed. This episode of A Heavy Weight tells Andrea’s story in full...

In May 1976, the body of 18-year-old Bennett Brown was found in rural Lawrence County, Indiana. He had no identification — only a set of keys, $1.05 in coins, and a name stitched into his clothes. Who was Bennett Brown? How did a college freshman from Evanston, Illinois, end up murdered and left in a wooded ravine nearly 300 miles from home? This episode of A Heavy Weight dives into Bennett’s stor...

In February 1981, 31-year-old Juanita Boyd vanished after a night at Snyder’s Corner Tavern in LaPorte, Indiana. A week later, she was found strangled and stabbed in the trunk of her green Pontiac Catalina, abandoned off a muddy rural road. Her killing remains unsolved more than forty years later. In this episode, we retrace the timeline from her last sighting to the 2013 cold-case re-examination,...

In the summer of 1979, a rusted barrel bobbing in a shallow Indiana creek revealed a secret the town had almost forgotten: the skeletal remains of 21-year-old Mary Ann Higginbotham. She had vanished without a trace a year earlier. No missing persons report. No search parties. No headlines. As police began unraveling the threads of her disappearance, they uncovered a web of stolen cars, criminal in...

In 1993, 16-year-old Rayna Rison walked out of her after-school job and vanished. Thirty-three days later, her body was found in a pond. No signs of trauma. No suspect in custody. For decades, the case haunted LaPorte, Indiana—tainted by rumors of sexual abuse, cover-ups, and silence. Then in 2014, prosecutors convicted Jason Tibbs, Rayna’s former middle school boyfriend. Case closed. Or so it see...

In 1987, 10-year-old Linda Weldy got off her school bus in rural Indiana and vanished. Her body was found just a few miles from her home. Her murder remains unsolved nearly four decades later. But Linda’s story is more than a cold case—it’s a reflection of the cracks in small-town systems, where children fall through and justice stalls. In this episode, we revisit Linda’s case and examine how comm...

Jessica. Holly. Linda. Rayna. These girls never met. But they may all be connected by the same man. In this episode, we examine Larry Dewayne Hall: a man suspected in over 40 abductions, but convicted in just one. His words led to search warrants, graveyard digs, and hope for families desperate for answers. But when it came time to testify… he claimed it was all a dream.

A grave digger. A Civil War re-enactor. A man with a van full of rope, duct tape, and maps marked with X’s. In this episode of A Heavy Weight , we reveal the man who may have haunted the Midwest for over a decade—Larry Dewayne Hall. Though convicted of kidnapping Jessica Roach, he’s suspected in the disappearances of more than 40 young women, including Holly Ann Anderson, who was found murdered ju...

On a cold January morning in 1992, 18-year-old Holly Ann Anderson was found stabbed to death on the side of an empty rural road in Vermillion County, Indiana. Her case went cold almost immediately. No suspect. No motive. Just silence. Nearly two years later and just three miles away, 15-year-old Jessica Roach disappeared while riding her bike home from school. Her body, discovered weeks later in a...

In 1978, Mary Beth “Pixie” Grismore — a 26-year-old mother and former pageant star — vanished from her Indiana farmhouse, just hours before she was set to start a new life. Seventy-one days later, her body was found 180 miles away, strangled and abandoned in the trunk of her car at a motel in Ohio. This is more than a cold case. It's a haunting portrait of how women’s voices were ignored, how...

For nearly 30 years, Wilma June Nissen’s name was lost —buried in a ditch in rural Iowa, remembered only as Jane Doe. In this episode of The Girl in the Ditch , we revisit the decades-long mystery through the voice of her daughter, Krissi—who has fought for justice every step of the way. We explore the latest breakthroughs in DNA technology that could finally unlock the truth behind Wilma’s murder...

In 2006, a fingerprint match gave Jane Doe a name: Wilma June Nissen. For nearly three decades, her identity was lost—but not anymore. In this episode, we uncover how Wilma was finally identified, follow her daughter Krissi’s journey advocating for her mother's case, and dig into the shadows cast by two mysterious women known only as “Sugar” and “Peaches.” We also confront the reality of what...

In October 1978, a utility worker in Rock Rapids, Iowa, made a grim discovery—a young woman’s body in a roadside ditch. No identification. No name. And for 27 years, no answers. She was buried under a headstone that read Jane Doe. What no one knew then was that the woman had a name: Wilma June Nissen. She had a daughter—an infant at the time of her death —who’d been looking for her mother the whol...

In 1998, Stacey Colbert disappeared without a trace. Six years later, her remains were found beneath brush in a wooded area of Delaware County, Ohio. But no one has ever been arrested — and the questions still remain. Who killed Stacey? And why, decades later, is her case still cold? Our latest podcast episode Echoes of a Smile unpacks Stacey’s story — from the night she vanished to the grassroots...

As a follow up to previous episodes, we go beyond the headlines and into the aftermath — where incarcerated women, brutalized inside the Clark County Jail, are still waiting for justice. This episode explores: • Why the media’s language shields institutions, not survivors • How criminal charges were quietly dismissed — and why it matters • What Sheriff Jamey Noel was punished for (and what he wasn...

This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, assault, and trauma. Please listen with care. Nathanael Sexton terrorized women in Southern Indiana for nearly two decades. Eight survivors came forward. Multiple charges, multiple releases . This episode explores how the justice system fails domestic violence survivors, the language that minimizes trauma, and why abusers so often walk free.

She went out with friends in 1979. And then she was gone.  Vali Davis’s case is just one of many cold cases from the 1970s, where slow investigations and lack of technology left too many questions unanswered. Join us as we dig deeper into this tragic mystery and explore why these cases are still so hard to solve today.

Deputy Jeffery Freeman’s arrest for assault and strangulation wasn’t just an isolated case—it revealed Indiana’s hidden crisis of police misconduct enabled by silent transfers and systemic loopholes. In this episode, we uncover how Indiana’s lack of transparency allows dangerous patterns to persist, and what communities can do to demand accountability and change.

What happens when the badge becomes a shield for abuse? In this one-off episode, I cover the arrest of Monroe County Deputy Jeffery Freeman Jr. — charged with sexual battery, strangulation, and official misconduct.

What happened to Jeremy Jourdain? We return to the moments leading up to Jeremy’s disappearance and begin to unravel theories around what could’ve happened to him that Halloween night.

In this episode, we dive into the challenges the Jourdain’s faced after Jeremy went missing, the emotional toll of searching without answers, and the systemic issues that made this case feel invisible. Who will step in to help when the system fails them, and what does it mean for a family to search for justice without support?

Episode 2 begins on Halloween night, 2016, as the search for Jeremy Jourdain unfolds in the hours after his disappearance.

17-year-old Jeremy Jourdain disappeared on Halloween night 2016, vanishing into thin air in Bemidji, Minnesota.  Season Two of A Heavy Weight explores Jeremy's disappearance.

Uncover the chilling details of Sheri Herr’s case, where a young woman was brutally attacked in her own home in rural Indiana. This episode examines the gaps in the investigation, and the disturbing questions about how such a crime could go unsolved for so long in a tight-knit community. Stay tuned at the end of today’s episode for a sneak peak into our upcoming case.

In this episode of A Heavy Weight , we delve into the case of Allison Lussier, a 47-year-old Indigenous woman whose tragic death sparked outrage in her community. Despite multiple calls for help in the face of domestic violence, Allison's cries went unheard—illustrating the deep systemic failures Indigenous women face when seeking justice and support.