Crime Clueless

For over a decade, Sheriff Howard Sills has carried the unsolved murders of Russell and Shirley Dermond with him — a case that's outlasted every other investigation of his forty-year career. In this episode, we go deep into the man behind the badge, the staggering range of theories the public threw at this case — mafia, cult, extremism, even an alligator — and the family who's spent twelve years a...

Russell and Shirley Dermond had been married for over 60 years. Retired, well-liked, and settled into a quiet gated community on Lake Oconee, Georgia, they were the kind of couple who never missed a neighborhood gathering — until the weekend of the 2014 Kentucky Derby, when they simply didn't show up. Days later, concerned friends walk into their unlocked home and find a horrifying scene.  No forc...

This is part two of two. If you haven't listened to part one, do that first, then join us for part two. The Gary Triano case had been cold for nearly nine years when a tip to America's Most Wanted led investigators to a storage unit in Yorba Linda, California. Inside: microcassette recordings, thousands of emails, financial documents, a map of Tucson, a Ramada Inn receipt dated four months before...

On the evening of November 1st, 1996, more than 100 people were waiting at Gary Triano's Sabino Canyon home to surprise him for his upcoming 53rd birthday. He never arrived. Gary Lee Triano was a larger-than-life figure who served on hospital boards, and earned a Medal of Merit from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Task Force. He was also a man whose financial life had left a trail of lawsuits, fail...

On the night of September 12th, 1985, 23-year-old CJ DeLuca was working an overnight shift at a Connecticut gas station he wasn't even supposed to be covering. By morning, he was dead — and three hours later, a second gas station attendant had been shot with the same gun. This wasn't a random act of violence. It was a spree. Forty years later, investigators believe they know who did it. They just...

On the morning of June 27th, 2000, sixteen-year-old Molly Bish was dropped off for her second day as a lifeguard at Comins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. She walked toward the water with her things, her mom watched her go, and drove away. Less than fifteen minutes later, the chair was empty. Molly's flip-flops, her first aid kit, her lunch and her towel were sitting at the water's edge — but Molly...

This is episode two of two. Please listen to episode one first, this story has too many details to be one part.  When a former employee named Steven Durst was caught collecting ransom money for the missing couple, the investigation took a dark turn. Durst failed a polygraph and had been telling people the Markleys owed him exactly $1,000 — the same amount withdrawn at the bank.  He was convicted a...

On a Friday morning ten days before Christmas 1995, John and Shelly Markley helped their five children get ready for school. By the time their kids came home that afternoon, both parents had vanished — leaving behind Shelly's purse and cigarettes, John's wristwatch, an open gun cabinet, a ransacked safe, and a coffee pot that had nearly boiled dry. The only confirmed sighting that day came from a...

Hey, Crime Clueless family — we're doing something a little different this week. We're bringing you a two-part crossover from our sister show, Vanished Voices , hosted by Jenna and Shannon. This is part two of two, if you haven't listened to Part One yet — start there. This story deserves to be heard from the beginning. On the morning of April 20th, 2011, workers near the Conowingo Dam on the Susq...

Hey, Crime Clueless family — we're doing something a little different this week. We're bringing you a two-part crossover from our sister show, Vanished Voices , hosted by Jenna and Shannon. Vanished Voices focuses on cases that deserve far more attention than they get.  This week's case is Phylicia Barnes. She was sixteen years old. A straight-A honor student from Monroe, North Carolina, with a sc...

The murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison at the Amana Holiday Inn in September 1980 left investigators with a hotel full of witnesses and not a single person who heard a thing. In Part Two, Jenna and Laura dig into the suspects — and there's no shortage of them. There's Danny Burton, Rose's ex-boyfriend who stalked her relentlessly, killed her dog, and was the person Rose herself told police...

September 1980. A young couple drives four hours from Missouri to a Holiday Inn in rural Iowa for a secret weekend together. When they arrive, the hotel is fully booked — a morticians' convention has taken every room. But a last-minute cancellation opens up Room 260. By the next afternoon, both are found dead — hacked with an ax, face down on the bed, in one of the most disturbing crime scenes in...

Holly Searcy lost her mother to murder at 10. She lost her father to murder at 19. She battled her own addiction before getting sober and becoming a substance abuse counselor. Now, she's the one fighting for the case no one else has been able to solve. In Part 2, Holly opens up about what it's like to grow up with both parents taken by violence, the moment she decided to pick up the torch from her...

In the weeks following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 32-year-old Brandy Renee Dyson was living alone on a pier behind the Lake Charles Civic Center in Louisiana. She'd lost her apartment after taking in friends displaced by the storms. On the morning of November 5th, 2005, her body was found floating in the lake — just feet from where she'd been sleeping. She had been strangled. A man named Jeremia...

This is Part 2 of a two-part episode. If you haven't listened to Part 1, we strongly recommend going back — this story builds on itself, and the full weight of what you're about to hear depends on understanding everything that came before. In Part 1, we introduced you to Mitrice Richardson — a 24-year-old honors graduate from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in psychology, a dream of going to gra...

On the evening of September 16, 2009, a 24-year-old Cal State Fullerton graduate named Mitrice Richardson walked into an upscale Malibu restaurant and immediately alarmed everyone she encountered. She told the valet she was there to avenge Michael Jackson's death. She told strangers she was from Mars. She couldn't pay her bill. The staff didn't just call the police — they called because they were...

It was supposed to be a quick trip into town. Twelve-year-old Sherry Lynn Marler — Little Farmer, tractor operator, country music lover — climbed into her stepfather's red pickup truck on the morning of June 6th, 1984, and rode twelve miles from their farm into Greenville, Alabama. He had to run into the bank. He gave her a dollar for a soda from the vending machine across the street. Meet me back...

On July 8th, 2014, airport security cameras in Varna, Bulgaria captured a young German man sprinting through a terminal in what looked like absolute terror. He climbed a barbed wire fence. He ran into a sunflower field. He left everything behind — passport, wallet, phone — and vanished completely. His name was Lars Mittank. He was 28 years old. It was the first time he had ever left Germany. Sixte...

On the morning of June 27th, 1995, 27-year-old KIMT-TV news anchor Jodi Huisentruit answered a call from her producer, saying she'd overslept and was on her way in. She never arrived. What police found in the parking lot of her Mason City, Iowa apartment — a bent car key, a pair of red heels, a hairdryer, drag marks leading away from her car — told them immediately that this was no ordinary missin...

Thirty years. No arrest. No body. No answers. In Part Two of Dead Air, we get into the people investigators have looked at — a serial rapist who lived two blocks from Jodi's studio, a suspected serial killer whose ex-girlfriend lived next door to the last person to see Jodi alive, and the man who showed up at the crime scene before police finished processing it, named his boat after her, and said...

A husband is found dead in a locked bedroom. A glass sits nearby. And a note suggests he took his own life. Open and shut… right? But when investigators take a closer look, the details don’t quite add up. What was in the glass… raises questions. The evidence doesn’t fully support the story. And then they discover something even more unsettling— This isn’t the first time. As the investigation unfol...

In October of 1965, 25-year-old Mary Shotwell Little left work in downtown Atlanta, ran a few errands at the Lenox mall, had dinner with a friend… and vanished. Her car was found the next morning parked exactly where she left it—except now it was covered in blood smears, red dirt dusting, 40 extra miles on the odometer, and groceries from the stop before dinner. After dinner, Mary was never seen a...

Judy Smith left her hotel in downtown Philadelphia for a day of sightseeing. She had a simple plan. Walk the historic district. Visit places like Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Meet her husband later that afternoon. A normal day. But by that evening… she was gone. Five months later, her remains were discovered in a remote section of Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina — more than 600...

It starts with a normal morning in Houston, Texas. An early morning, a goodbye. A drive to work. A day that should’ve been completely routine. Until it isn’t. When one woman disappears, her family does what anyone would do — they start searching. Driving her usual route. Calling anyone who might have seen her. Trying to find even the smallest clue. But as the hours pass, the silence becomes harder...

This is part two of two, there is too much to unpack, for just one episode. If you haven't listened to part one yet, do that first, and then join us for the rest of this case here. In November 2012, what looked like a messy breakup in Omaha, Nebraska slowly grew into one of the strangest digital stalking cases investigators had ever seen. At first, it appeared to be a story about jealousy. A woman...