A Simpler Time True Crime

Between late 1986 and early 1987, five young Black women are found murdered in the same neighborhood just outside of Southeast Washington, D.C. The similarities between their murders, along with how close together the bodies are discovered, lead investigators to believe a serial killer is operating in the area. But then, just as suddenly as the killings begin, they stop. Around that same time, a m...

In May of 1976, a Colorado geologist gets a bizarre phone call from someone asking him to bring a specialized work truck to a remote part of Wyoming. Suspicious of the call, he brings it to his boss, who confirms that the person doesn't work for the company and the request is fake. Less than a week later, his legitimate work takes him to that same area of Wyoming, and he disappears. The months ahe...

In the summer of 1974, two teenage cousins placed a classified ad offering their babysitting services. A man responded saying he was looking for someone to babysit his five-year-old son. When the younger girl’s parents weren’t comfortable with her traveling for the job, he moved on to her 14-year-old cousin, Margaret Fox. Over the next several days, plans were made, canceled, and eventually resche...

On Friday the 13th of September 2002, a Georgia man vanished without a trace. Bill Farrer’s vehicle and fishing supplies were found abandoned at a quiet creek where he often went fishing. At first, it seemed like Bill may have suffered some kind of accident and drowned. But after an extremely thorough search of the shallow creek turned up nothing, that explanation started to seem less likely. As t...

In the summer of 2001, a woman clocks out of her shift at the Honda factory, eagerly anticipating a week away with her boyfriend. She had been telling her family about the trip for weeks and was so excited. They were going to spend some much-needed time together at a secluded cabin in Canada, and it would be the first time she and her boyfriend had been able to take a trip like this. Her family di...

Andre Rand once worked at Willowbrook and would eventually become one of Staten Island’s most notorious convicted criminals. In this second and final part of Ethel Atwell’s story, I look at Rand’s criminal history, the cases connected to his name and the crimes for which he was charged. Many believe Rand was a serial killer responsible for multiple disappearances and murders across Staten Island....

Before dawn, Ethel Atwell arrived at the Willowbrook State School for her shift and disappeared from the employee parking lot. Her murder would later become part of a much larger mystery surrounding the institution, the nearby woods and a series of missing and murdered women and children. Was convicted kidnapper and former Willowbrook employee Andre Rand responsible for Ethel’s death, or was anoth...

A young family takes a spontaneous camping trip over Labor Day weekend in 1974. On Sunday morning, everything at their campsite looks normal. There are things from breakfast on the picnic table, a dishpan filled with water, children’s belongings, and a carton of milk bought just hours earlier. But by that evening, the entire family is gone. Their truck is still parked nearby. The keys, a wallet, a...

Just after Thanksgiving in 1987, a seven-year-old boy was traveling home to California with his family after spending the holiday in Las Vegas. Heavy traffic led the family to stop at a hotel and casino along the way. The hotel had an arcade, and his family set him up with a game while they waited. They believed he would be safe there. But shortly before they were ready to leave, he was gone. Witn...

In the summer of 1999, a Toronto teenager leaves her house for what she believes is a new job. She is 15 years old, about to start high school, and had been eager to make some money over the summer. But that afternoon, she never comes home. It would take months of searching before Sharmini Anandavel's family would learn what happened to her. But they still wouldn't know who was responsible. Police...

On a May evening in 1979, an eighteen-year-old woman went car shopping with her dad. Afterward, he dropped her off at her apartment, and the two went through their usual routine. She went inside first, did a quick safety walk-through, and then came back outside to let her father know everything was okay and he was good to head home. It would be the last time he saw his daughter. The next morning,...

  In the fall of 1998, a pregnant college student gets into a car accident. She is okay for the most part, but she hit her head on the windshield hard enough to leave a large bump. She checks in with her father, lets him know she visited the campus nurse, and nothing else seems amiss. Then suddenly, she and her car vanish. People wonder: was she more seriously injured than she realized, driving so...

I am on vacation this week, so Kiley from Prime Time Krime Pod is guest hosting! You will love her so make sure you follow her podcast after listening so you never miss an episode!  In 1980 Angelina & Kevin Verville Sr were settling into life with their new baby, Kevin Verville JR when the unthinkable happened. A woman posing as a social worker kidnapped baby Kevin. He could still be out there...

In August 2002, thirty-one-year-old nurse Audrey Herron finished her shift, climbed into her Jeep Grand Cherokee, and began the 13-mile drive home on a rainy, foggy evening. She never arrived. From that night forward, neither Audrey nor her Jeep has ever been found. Some believe she was involved in a crash and that both she and her vehicle remain hidden somewhere within the region's waterways or r...

In the summer of 1987, a young New Jersey mother is found brutally murdered. The case shocks her community, but when an arrest is made not long afterward, many believe the person responsible has been caught. Decades later, advances in DNA testing reveal that the man convicted of her murder could not have been the killer. The discovery exposes a wrongful conviction, sends the investigation back to...

On an April afternoon in 1994, a fifteen year old Florida girl gets off her school bus at the entrance to the dirt road leading to her home. From there, she still had about a quarter mile to walk. The narrow road cut through thick Florida brush, with dense vegetation pressing in on both sides and tree branches overhead creating an almost continuous canopy. It was a walk she knew well and one that...

In July of 1997, an avid runner spent the afternoon running errands before driving into Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest to map out a 10K route as part of her marathon training. When she didn't return home by nightfall, her husband knew something was wrong. Friends, family, and volunteers quickly began searching the trails, believing she may have been injured somewhere along her run. But after a...

In early 2006, a 30-year-old woman in Tallahassee was four months pregnant and navigating a tricky time in her life. Cautiously optimistic about welcoming her rainbow baby, she was also going through some personal troubles. Her and her husband had been separated for a few months and she was casually seeing another man, whom she was breaking things off with to work on her marriage and prepare for t...

While recently covering the disappearance of Branson Perry, I briefly discussed the murder of his cousin's wife, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a victim of the rare and devastating crime known as fetal abduction. That conversation led me to a discussion with returning podcast guest and retired Bronx Homicide Detective Robert Klein, who investigated a remarkably similar case in 2015. In this episode, Rob join...

When we think about the natural order of life, we expect that one day we'll have to say goodbye to our parents and grandparents. It doesn't make that loss any easier, but it's a reality most of us understand is likely to come. What we don't expect is for a younger family member to die before their time. The grief of losing a child or grandchild is something most people can't imagine, and if it hap...

Just after the start of the New Year in 1996, two women are found brutally stabbed to death in their own homes in city of Clarksville, TN just days apart. This came only a month after another woman had been found stabbed to death in her Clarksville home. That case would eventually get solved, while the other two are still waiting for answers. Outside of the local area, these cases have not receive...

In April of 1985, a Montana man is working multiple jobs to save money and pursue his dreams. After getting off one job, he went straight to his second job to deliver pizzas. As he approached a regular looking house for delivery, he would have no idea that he was walking into a trap. His own brother would be the first responder who showed up to the house, a scene that has never left him. The inves...

Just before Memorial Day weekend in 1978, a college student visited a residence hall on the campus of Kent State University. Photos from that night show her smiling and laughing with friends, wearing a playful wig as part of a costume she put on to prank her friends. But sometime after midnight, she left the dorm room to make what should have been a short walk back to her own dorm, a distance repo...

In February of 1996, a pregnant woman is attacked in her Bronx apartment with her young son as a witness to the brutal crime. The case seems like it is going to be solved early on when a witness comes forward and names who they say did this. But as quickly as this comes together, it falls apart and the case goes cold for over two decades. That was until a series of events lands the case in the han...

In 2003, a young couple heads into the remote desert of Yavapai County to celebrate their anniversary. They only had time for a quick overnight trip, so they decided to spend the evening together beneath the stars, camping in the back of a pickup truck. But when the two failed to show up to obligations the next morning, friends began to worry.  Because the couple had shared their camping plans wit...