Small Town Mysteries

Send us Fan Mail Today we are traveling to Tennessee, specifically to the unincorporated community of Drummonds, Tennessee. Here, the brutal murder of 36-year-old Starr Harris shook the small, tight-knit community.  Sources: 1) https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/spr-crt-ten-at-jac/1748758.html 2) https://www.actionnews5.com/story/17296068/jury-deliberating-in-starr-harris-murder-trial/ 3) https://s...

Send us Fan Mail Today we're going to be talking about the murder of Shirley Ann Duguay, who went missing in 1994 and was later found dead in a shallow grave.  Shirley Ann Duguay was from Canada and a 32-year-old mother of five. Most reports don’t go into any sort of detail about who she was as a person or really anything about her personal life, mostly due to the nature of her death and the...

Send us Fan Mail On the morning of November 15, 2004, Peter Porco woke up as usual and carried out his typical morning routine: he packed a lunch, he filled the dishwasher, and he wrote and signed a check to his son Christopher. He even locked himself out of the house, found his spare key, and let himself back in.  And then, Peter Porco fell over and died. It would seem so random – he had a comple...

Send us Fan Mail On September 7, 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian defector living in London, was on his way to work. He left his car and crossed the Waterloo Bridge, which was part of his everyday routine. While waiting for the bus, Markov felt a stinging sensation in his right thigh. When he turned around, he saw a man picking up an umbrella from off the ground and running away. Not feeling well,...

Send us Fan Mail Today, we’re going to Norway! We’ve got another international case on our hands this week, with some parallels to The Somerton Man, which was recently covered. This one goes back to the autumn of 1970, to a place nicknamed “The Ice Valley”. It is the story of the (still unidentified) Isdal Woman -- a woman with no name, two suitcases, and perhaps a secret. Sources:  1) https://en....

Send us Fan Mail Did this famous Brazilian television presenter and politician really murder for more views? Let's talk about it on this new episode of Small Town Mysteries. Sources:  1) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-10785494 2) https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32377654 3) https://www.mamamia.com.au/wallace-souza/ 4) https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32573467 5) https://medium.com/l...

Send us Fan Mail The murder of teenager D'Andre Green remains unsolved - and someone knows who his killer is.  Sources:  1) https://www.wdel.com/news/video-7-years-on-family-of-teen-killed-in-brookside-community-center-shooting-still-seeking/article_9f234312-3f20-11eb-a652-6b6d733d7c1c.html 2) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/31/delaware-teen-killed-seeking-community-help/42...

Send us Fan Mail Today we're talking about The Somerton Man - a case that reads like a novel and frustrated investigators for over seventy years. Sources: 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_Man  2) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/27/somerton-man-mystery-identity-solved-identified-australia 3) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-enduring-mystery-somerton-man-o...

Send us Fan Mail The 1970s and 80s was a hotbed of excellent paranormal horror films – The Exorcist, the original Amityville Horror, Halloween, Carrie, Eraserhead, Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, Invasion of the Body Snatchers…. I could go on. It was quite the era of film – and remarkably, some of these legendary tales are based on true stories. One of the lesser known films of this era is The Entity....

Send us Fan Mail Today on STM I’m taking it back to the early 1800s and the village of Hammersmith, located in foggy London.  Nowadays, Hammersmith is a populated area within the Greater London area, home to almost 200,000 people . In December of 1803, However, the village only had about 5,500 inhabitants - the perfect setting for local gossip to run amok.  And amok it ran! Tales of an ominous spe...

Send us Fan Mail The Dybbuk box first gained popularity in 2003, after a man by the name of Kevin Mannis posted the Dybbuk box for sale on ebay. He claimed that the Dybbuk box was haunted and was causing a lot of strange and supernatural things to happen to both him and his family.  Sources:  1) https://jewitches.com/blogs/blog/the-deal-with-the-dybbuk?srsltid=AfmBOooiwzKe-kwg8ZBK2fCzzIa10aX_7PbGL...

Send us Fan Mail Hello and welcome to Small Town Mysteries, spooky season edition! This October we’re bringing you some truly bizarre cases – ones that we think simply scream Supernatural…are they truly the works of ghosts and phantoms? Are these crimes caused by otherworldly beings…or are humans the most depraved creature of all? I’m Kate, here with Christine and Rachael, bringing you our the fir...

Send us Fan Mail On a Monday morning in February 1986, in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, Sherri Rasmussen’s life came to a violent end. Sherri, a young nurse, was found dead in her condo. She had been brutally beaten and shot three times. Following this discovery, the Los Angeles Police Department quickly labeled the case as a botched burglary. But to Sherri's father, Nels, this fe...

Send us Fan Mail On July 4, 2016, David Isaiah Goodwin (age 25)  murdered Wendy Tamagne (age 37) and then dismembered her body and shoved her remains into trashbags. Sources:  1) https://wcti12.com/news/local/deliberations-finish-jury-begins-discussion-of-sentencing-for-david-godwin 2) https://www.wnct.com/news/david-godwin-sentenced-to-death-justice-has-been-served/ 3) https://www.jdnews.com/news...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes on this podcast, or in true crime in general, there’s discussion over so-called “black widows,” or women who have had multiple husbands die mysteriously, with the implication that they were responsible for those deaths.  But that’s not why we’re here today. Today, we’re going to talk about a bluebeard – yes, a man rather similar to a black widow, whose wives or partners...

Send us Fan Mail Over 40 years ago, on July 15th, 1984, in the rugged wilderness of the Madison Range in Montana, 22-year-old Kari Swenson went missing.  Kari was a recent Montana State University graduate and rising star in the world of biathlon, a sport that combines cross country skiing and rifle shooting. One sunny morning in July, Kari went for a run on a scenic forest trail. She was actually...

Send us Fan Mail One unhinged person murders their in-laws and the sister of her mother-in-law via death cap mushrooms.  Sources:  1) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy3ngr2n3vo 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leongatha_mushroom_murders 3) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-02/police-charge-erin-patterson-mushroom-poisoning-deaths/103056694 4) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/a...

Send us Fan Mail On May 13, 1998, the body of a woman was found on the side of I-85 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On September 25 of the same year, the body of a young boy was found underneath a billboard off of I-85 in Mebane, North Carolina. The bodies were found about 3 hours away from each other – in different months, in different stages of decay, even in different states. But more than 20 y...

Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 2005, Melanie Metheny’s family had a cookout. For Catherine Moles, it's a vivid memory of her niece, Melanie, then 20, doting on her three-year-old son, Ryan. Catherine remembers Melanie as "very, very watchful," and "very protective." The cookout was just a small glimpse into Melanie's world: her kids were everything to her. But litt...

Send us Fan Mail On September 21, 1909, six members of the Meadows family were murdered and had their log cabin set on fire. George and Lydia Meadows, as well as their children: Will, Noah, and Lafayette, and Lydia's mom, Elizabeth, were all hit in the head with an axe or hatchet.  Sources:  1) https://blueridgetruecrime.substack.com/p/death-rides-a-fast-train-the-laurel?open=false#%C2%A7an-u...

Send us Fan Mail Listen to Kate talk about how truly witless this man was! Sources:  1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wozniak_(murderer) 2) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/theater/inspired-by-true-events-true-crime-play.html 3) https://abcnews.go.com/US/community-theater-actors-final-performance-chilling-confession-double/story?id=63181588 4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_(musical)...

Send us Fan Mail Today, Christine talks about a person whose mission to complete a charitable act ended in tragedy. We are going to uncover the truth that was buried in the remote Scottish Highlands for three, long years. This is the story of Tony Parsons. Sources:  1) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-66614488  2) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-56927878  3...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are going back in time to the 1890s to talk about the murder of the Meeks Family. Sources:  1) https://www.murderbygaslight.com/2011/04/meeks-family-murder.html 2) https://sullivan.mogenweb.org/meeksmurders.html 3) https://www.hannibal.net/archive/article/history-in-hannibal-folktale-relates-towns-horror-over-meeks-family-murders/article_78cc9a66-7ce1-521a-a5e6-10c7363aa4...

Send us Fan Mail Over the course of just two days, so began a panic that ultimately led to the deaths of at least 7 people directly, and more from copycats – and borderline hysteria that would change the pharmaceutical industry forever. Sources:  1) https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/09/30/the-tylenol-murders-40-years-ago-an-infamous-chicago-area-crime-took-these-7-lives/ 2) https://www.pbs.org/n...

Send us Fan Mail On December 5th, 1872, about 400 miles off the coast of the Azores, crew members on the British ship Dei Gratia spotted a ship adrift in the sea. The Captain of the ship was shocked to find that the unguided ship was the Mary Celeste, which had departed from NYC eight days before him, and had been well past-due to have arrived in Genoa, Italy. A small crew was sent to the ship. Be...