A Simpler Time True Crime

UPDATED EPISODE: When I first covered this case in October 2025 the case was unsolved. As of November 24th, 2025 a suspect was confirmed in the case with advanced DNA evidence and NHSP Closed the case. Today I go through the evidence police have released after their big press announcement. This is the full original episode with an updated ending.  Rest Peacefully, Judy. The truth is known.  A youn...

On a Tuesday morning in late November of 1981, a newlywed met up with a man she thought was purchasing her wedding dress from her. She was scraping together any cash she could for a down payment on a house. Little did she know, the man had no intention of buying her dress. Her murder has stuck with the Tulsa community for over four decades, but with DNA advancements there is still hope. TIPS: http...

“I don’t know if it is a joke or not. The timer is not ticking or anything, but if it is a joke, it is a very poor one. I would like someone to come over and look at it please.” Those were some of the last words Andrew Puskas ever spoke to a Middlesex, New Jersey police officer. Moments later, his home exploded, killing both Andrew and his wife and stunning an entire community. The Puskas family w...

In November of 1996, two co-workers are closing up their retail store in large mall outside of Richmond, Virginia. Their closing routine is like clockwork so when they don’t return to their homes, alarm bells went off. The next morning would reveal a horrific scene inside the mall. How could two women be brutally murdered inside a popular mall with security nearby? Nearly thirty years later, this...

In Part 2, we pick back up on what happens after John Rodney McRae is released from prison. In this episode, we leave off after discussing Kip Hess's disappearance and the early conviction of McRae in Joey Housey's murder. After his sentence is commuted, McRae relocates to Florida and other boys begin disappearing.  While these cases may appear solved on the surface, the boys have never been locat...

When a young teen vanishes on his way to school, a single note left behind pushes police toward the idea that he was a runaway. But the people who knew him best never believed that. As the days stretched on, that theory began to crumble and a prime suspect emerged. On this podcast, I never center the perpetrator, and that remains true here. But to show just how unsafe the so-called simpler times c...

A family of three is brutally murdered in their rural New Jersey home in 1978. Police dismissed early rumors of connections to a violent motorcycle gang, but as the years went on they began to lean into that theory more, especially after a chillingly similar crime 3.5 years later. While many accept this theory, some say the killings feel more personal and fall outside of the way outlaw motorcycle...

In 1987, the owner of a small lingerie shop was closing up for the night, looking forward to a busy evening of plans ahead. Plans she would never make it to. When her brother came by later, he found her body inside the store. Investigators believe she was ambushed by someone pretending to be a customer, trapped in her own business. She fought hard for her life and injured her attacker in the proce...

It’s late August of 2001, and a bubbly teenager from a tiny town just outside Bowling Green, Kentucky, answers a phone call on her family’s landline. Everything that happens after that call becomes a mystery. No one knows who was on the other end, but it’s believed she slipped out of her house that night to meet the caller and never came back. Weeks later, her body was found the day before a natio...

On a hot summer day in 1993, recent college graduate Katie was making sales calls in downtown Portland, Oregon. It was her first day working solo after weeks of training and shadowing. She finished her morning calls and was on her way to her afternoon appointments—appointments she never made it to. When her car was found abandoned in an industrial lot, investigators explored several theories, incl...

In 1975 Sacramento, a young girl named Harriet went out to play at the park and never returned home. Her concerned mother called police and tragically, the next day, her body was found in a dumpster just a mile away. Police quickly focused on two local boys who claimed it was all part of a child’s game that went terribly wrong. But as you’ll hear, there’s so much more to this story. Her father — a...

Note: When I first covered this case in October 2025 the case was unsolved. As of November 24th, 2025 a suspect was confirmed in the case with advanced DNA evidence and NHSP Closed the case. Rest Peacefully, Judy. The truth is known.  A young woman is living in a small Concord, New Hampshire apartment with her husband and their little boy. Their marriage is rocky, and he comes and goes often, leav...

In the early morning hours of August 19, 1984, a Virginia State Trooper answered his front door and was ambushed. In an attack lasting no more than three minutes, he was fatally stabbed more than 40 times in front of his wife, brother, and sister-in-law, as well as his toddler daughter – who had been asleep in bed with him prior to the attack. From the over-the-top disguises left behind at the cri...

In May 1983, a young couple parked near the Loch Raven Reservoir in Baltimore County, Maryland, was suddenly ambushed when gunfire shattered the quiet night. Just four weeks earlier, another couple had been shot in a similar lovers’ lane attack, but they managed to survive. This second tragedy claimed the life of a 22-year-old woman and left the community shaken with fears that a serial predator w...

High in the mountains of northern New Mexico, overlooking the village of Questa, a father and his young daughter lived in the dream home he built with his own hands. Friends and neighbors knew him as the kind of man who always offered help and kept his door open to anyone in need. But that open door would one day invite in evil. In early September 1999, both he and his 9-year-old daughter were fou...

It was the end of the semester at UCLA. Students were finishing exams, celebrating, and preparing to head home for the holidays. A freshman named Michael joined friends at a dorm party before winding down with a late-night computer game with another friend in the building. In the early morning hours, he stepped out to congratulate his friend on the win, then headed back toward his room. From that...

In the spring of 1991, a three-year-old girl was playing outside with her siblings and cousins while her mother and aunt were inside. She knew the rules her mom had set—especially not to cross the parking lot alone. That simple rule left her briefly apart from the older children, and in those few unguarded moments on the apartment playground, she disappeared. At first, her mother believed she had...

If you look up this case online, you’ll see one version of events repeated over and over: A young girl leaves a hangout spot to walk home, takes a cut-through trail, and never makes it back. Her body is later found in a nearby ditch, and a witness claims they saw a man follow her into the woods. That’s the story I first read, and it’s the one most people believe. But in recent years, Donna’s cousi...

Sharon was a talented high school dancer with a bright future in ballet. One afternoon, a phone call pulled her from the safety of home. She told her mom she’d be right back, then stepped outside and into a waiting vehicle. She was never seen alive again. Days later her body was found, leaving her family and the small New Jersey community reeling. More than forty years have passed, but those who k...

A 41-year-old Texas woman is trapped in a violent marriage. After barely surviving a previous attack, she gains distance and the hope of a fresh start. But slowly he lures her back into his web. And then one day, she vanishes. Her family receives a letter from her stating she’s leaving her husband, but they grow suspicious when they don’t hear from her. Her husband was uncooperative and maintained...

In scary movies, there’s always that moment—the chase, the panic, the victim just steps away from help when they’re suddenly pulled back into danger. It’s a trope meant to shock us and keep us on the edge of our seats. But in 1970, in a quiet Oregon town, that moment wasn’t fiction. It was real. A young woman, terrified and desperate, made it all the way to the doorstep of help, only for the kille...

People in the midst of a mental health crisis are at a much higher risk of going missing. In the late summer of 1989, a 64-year-old man from North Carolina became part of that troubling reality. That evening, police had been called to his home multiple times in response to what seemed like episodes of paranoia. But later that night, he stepped outside into the dark and was never seen again. It was...

  An 8-year-old boy in Clearwater, Florida spends the evening with his mother and asks if he can sleep in her bed. After putting him to sleep, his mother struggles to fall asleep due to typically working the overnight shift. As the hours tick on, she finally decides to leave Zach alone to get some fresh air. When she returns, he is nowhere to be found. This is a complex case with very few confirma...

It was late January of 1973. Across the country, people were mourning the passing of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. His funeral was set to be broadcast on national television, and schools across the U.S. closed for the day so families could watch. In a quiet neighborhood near Dayton, Ohio, that unexpected day off meant a teenage girl was home alone—just for a short while. But during that smal...

A beautiful and vivacious 32-year-old woman had hit a sweet-spot of success in her life. She was a high-ranking sales consultant for the beauty company Mary Kay and on pace to be one of the top ranks in the company. But one evening in 2002, all of her momentum would be halted when her life was snuffed out by a violent sexual predator.  When she realized she was in danger, she heroically placed a c...