The Cold Case Collective

This episode contains content that may be disturbing or triggering to some individuals. Listener discretion is strongly advised. It was November 1987. Ina, Illinois. A quiet farm town in the southern part of the state. When Keith Dardeen doesn't show up for work, his father goes to check on the family's mobile home. What he finds inside will become one of the most brutal unsolved crimes in Illinoi...

The death of Jeanette DePalma had all the aspects of the macabre. Her devout Italian parents reported her missing just 4 days after her 16th birthday on August 7th, 1972. On September 14th, 1972, her body was discovered after a dog brought her decomposed arm back to the apartment building it lived in. She was found high above a decommissioned quarry known as “The Devil’s Teeth” and comments were m...

Case Collection featuring cases from 1945-1979 in the state of Oregon which don't have enough information available to do a full episode but deserve attention just the same to help draw awareness and potentially spark new leads. If you have any tips or information regarding any of these cases, please email: OSP.CCU@osp.oregon.gov

On a hot August afternoon in 1992, a white 1985 Pontiac T1000 overheated. The driver, 21-year-old Tammy Zywicki, pulled over on the side of Interstate 80 where a witness stated she was seen talking to a tall man with bushy dark hair. She would not be seen again until 9 days later, when her body was discovered tightly  wrapped in a red blanket in Missouri. Who was this bushy-haired man, and did he...

Symsonia, Kentucky. Graves County. Two-lane roads, soybean fields, and a stretch of flooded timber and swamp that people around here call Kaler Bottoms. If you grew up in this county, you grew up in those woods. Early on the morning of March the twenty-eighth, 2018, a twenty-five-year-old mother of two walked out of Kaler Bottoms alongside her boyfriend's father. He says that at the edge of the hi...

On Easter Sunday, April 11th, 2004, 19-year-old Jeremiah Jamal Parker stopped at North Sherwood Forest Park in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He told the person he was with that he needed to look for a missing cell phone holder. He walked behind a row of trees near a fishing pond and never came back. His car was left running. A search turned up his cell phone and one of his shoes about 50 yards away. Jer...

A man has gone free for approximately 30 years after shooting and killing his wife and 18-year-old daughter, leaving three more children under the age of 12 at home without parents. He has been free for three decades. It is time for him to be held accountable. Do you recognize him?   We are discussing the case of Connie and Heather Henry and invite you to join in on the conversation. Comment below...

Did a drug- and alcohol-fueled house party in 1984 lead to the tragic death of 13-year-old Michelle Kasperek, or was it just an event preceding it that muddied the waters of the investigation? Michelle’s savagely attacked body would be found by a dog walker the next evening. How Michelle ended up there remains a mystery to this day.    We are discussing the case of Michelle Kasperek and invite you...

On the morning of April 15, 1973, a nineteen-year-old college student left her dorm room with her books and told her roommate she was going to study for a Spanish exam. Two hours later, two teenagers found her body in the woods. Her name was Virginia Olson, "Ginger" to her friends, and more than fifty years later, the only murder in her university's history is still unsolved.    We are discussing...

On an ordinary August morning in 2001, an eleven-year-old girl walked out her front door to play in her Alabama neighborhood — the way she had a hundred times before. She never came home. Two months later, hunters would find what was left of her in the woods fifteen miles away. Her name was Shannon Paulk. And more than two decades later, no one has answered for what happened to her.   We are discu...

In the early hours of May 1960, a metal box containing 25-30 sticks of dynamite exploded under the bedroom of Jethro and Mattie Green. Jethro was thrown from his bed into the yard, suffering minor injuries; their 17-month-old son, who was also in the room, was injured. Mattie Green did not survive. Sixty-six years later and we still don’t know who placed this bomb and why?   We are discussing the...

October 13, 1989. Warren, Indiana. Eighteen-year-old Sheri Herr was home alone in the quiet rural community where she had grown up. By the end of the day, she would be found brutally murdered inside her family's home. More than three decades later, no arrests have been made, no motive has been publicly established, and one question still haunts investigators and those who loved her: Who killed She...

This is the tragic story of Kelvin McDuffie, a 25-year-old University of Georgia student who was shot to death in a rural part of Athens-Clarke County. He had risen to Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserves, was pursuing a college degree, had plans to open a restaurant in his hometown of Elberton, and a girlfriend he planned to marry and make a home with. What went wrong? We are discussing the cas...

Just weeks before her 18th birthday, the vibrant, energetic, and loved Maggie Long did something that should have been routine and safe. She went home. On December 1st, 2017, Maggie Long walked into her home in Bailey, Colorado, to make a brief stop, not knowing it would be her last. Maggie was assaulted in the sanctuary of her own home and then set on fire. Who did this heinous thing to a beautif...

Jason Nam was 31 years old. He lived in Honolulu, Hawaii. On March 10th, 2006, he was washing his car outside his apartment building in Makiki. In broad daylight, three masked men approached him. Moments later… he was shot. The suspects fled in a stolen car that was later burned. And Jason Nam was gone. No arrests. No clear motive. Just questions that have never been answered.   We are discussing...

It was the summer of 1973, and 20 year old Donna Lemon was making the most of it like any true Montanan before the snow starts to fall again in just a few short months. The eldest of two daughters with an avid outdoorsman for a father, Donna was very active. She rock climbed with her father and went fishing, camping, skiing, sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and horseback riding. She had just a...

It wasn’t residual Christmas carols that 11-year-old Mikelle Biggs was hoping to hear on the evening of January 2nd, 1999, as she rode her younger sister’s new bike. It was the sound of the ice cream truck she was hoping for when she stayed out after her friends and sister started for home. In the time it took for her sister to go inside and come back out looking for her, approximately 90 seconds,...

August 24, 2004. For most people in Waterbury, Connecticut, it was an ordinary summer day. But for the Smolinski family, it marked the beginning of a nightmare that has never ended. Thirty-one-year-old Billy Smolinski was making plans for the future. He was working, spending time with friends and family, and navigating changes in his personal life. According to those closest to him, he wasn't a ma...

One night, three generations, the trajectory of three lives unequivocally altered. In the early hours of June 24th, 2024, in Phenix City, Alabama, a 6-month-old child went missing, his mother died of an overdose, and was discovered in a house that had been burned down a few hours later, and his grandmother has since been charged with manslaughter in the death of her daughter. Hanna Brooke Fretwell...

Brian Thomas Vargo was 20 years old when he vanished in 1976. A promising college student searching for direction, he left Texas for Colorado and was never seen again. Nearly five decades later, the mystery remains unsolved.   We are discussing the cases of Brian Vargo and invite you to join in on the conversation. Comment below with your thoughts, questions, and theories. Follow, like, and share...

On October 10th, 2003, Felipe Santos was involved in a vehicle accident in Naples, Florida. His brother witnessed him get into the back seat of the responding county sheriff deputy’s patrol vehicle and drive off. He never saw or heard from his brother again. On January 12, 2004, Terrance Williams came into contact with the same deputy sheriff and was never seen or heard from again. The deputuy She...

In a town built on cheer and childhood wonder, something unthinkable happened. Eleven-year-old Kathy Kohm stepped out for a simple jog and never came home. Weeks later, she would be found in the woods. Her life stolen, her story unfinished. And decades later, her name still echoes through Santa Claus, Indiana, waiting for answers.    We are discussing Kathy’s case and invite you to join in on the...

A four-year-old boy walks away from home… and is never seen again. No witnesses. No evidence. No trace. His name was Tristen “Buddy” Myers. On October 5th, 2000, he vanished from a quiet rural property in North Carolina… along with two dogs. Both dogs came back. Buddy didn’t. What happened in that narrow window of time… has remained a mystery for over two decades. This… is the disappearance of Tri...

On April 2nd, 1987, Anna Marie “Annie” Korynta got engaged and had big dreams for her future. Later that night, her new fiancé tragically died in a car accident. Just a little more than a month later, on May 10th, 1987, 19-year-old Anna Marie Korynta met her own tragic death in the safety of her own home. Who violently ended this young woman’s life while she mourned the loss of her fiancé? Someone...

On the evening of Monday, May 9th, 1994, the bright future of 18-year-old Cleashindra Hall went dark. Clea, as she was known to family and friends, had been dropped off at her after-school job by her mother that afternoon. She was supposed to call her mother when she finished work and was ready to get picked up, but Clea never called back and was never seen or heard from again. What happened to Cl...