Just The Tip-Sters: True Crime Podcast

This time around we focus not just on another missing persons case where we KNOW that SOMEONE knows something that could close it - but also a look into an amazing organization working hard to solve that case and dozens of others around the United States.  The case: 41 year-old Jeffrey Combs from Wilkesboro North Carolina, a sweet and caring fellow who, after a hard-knocks youth filled with traged...

25 year-old Jennifer Morey had just moved into her Houston,Texas-area apartment - her very first - on April 14, 1995.  She went out to dinner with friends to celebrate her move-in, then had a  friend drive her home, where she went to bed in her brand-new place...and then around 4 am on April 15, Jennifer was awakened to the terrifying realization that she was being straddled by a stranger with a k...

It was sometime after midnight in February 1974, not long after the Valentine's Day Dance at Western Hills High School had ended in the Fort Worth suburb of Benbrook, Texas.  17 year-old Carla Walker and her boyfriend, high school football star Rodney McCoy, were in the front seat of Rodney's mom's 1969 LTD doing what teenage couples in love tend to do in cars on a Saturday night.  Suddenly,the pa...

In 1999, the remains of a young boy, probably no older than five or six, were found in a cemetery in DeKalb County Georgia - just outside of Atlanta.  The remains were compelling - and heartbreaking.  The boy had obviously been well taken car of - obviously loved.  The attire was impeccable - his clothing was new, clean and not inexpensive.  He had clearly been dressed by a caring parent - probabl...

Here's a major change of pace to bring a little springtime to your soul in this weird winter of our discontent - a stirring story of human redemption through the beauty of giving to, and caring for, other living beings -  which, in turn, redeems and restores  the lives of humans who find in themselves in the most dire of circumstances.  Jon Grobman, in his own estimation, was not a good person in...

Hal Arthur was pretty much what anybody would want from a high school teacher.  One of the most respected and beloved instructors at Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, Mr. Arthur was a real hero - something every teacher should strive for.  A true advocate and helper of his students, Hal Arthur gave his own time and resources to make sure all kids in his charge had e...

You may recall, dear Tip-Ster, way back in Episode 8, when Melissa recalled the tragic-yet-amazing story of "Tent Girl," a young woman whose body was  found wrapped in a canvas designed to wrap circus tents, on the side of a road near Georgetown Kentucky in May 1968.  Tent Girl's story is remarkable for two reasons.  The first remarkable fact is that after a couple of years of trying everything th...

On a warm summer Oklahoma day in 2008, two best friends - 13 year-old Taylor Paschal-Placker and 11 year-old Skyla Whitaker - went for a walk along a desolate dirt road near Taylor's home in the small town of Weleetka, on their way to a local creek, where they were going to hunt for pebbles and shells.  When they didn't return after darkness fell, Taylor's grandfather went looking for the girls -...

In the cold early morning hours of February 11, 1987, 37 year-old Peggy Hettrick left the Prime Minister nightclub in Fort Collins, Colorado, heading across the street to an open field, toward her ex-boyfriend's apartment on the other side of the field, where she hoped to get some shelter until she could get back into her own apartment, for which she had lost her key.  As the sun rose a few hours...

Melissa was lucky enough to be in beautiful Laguna Beach, California a couple of weeks ago,when a longtime friend of the show - "Detective Joe," a law enforcement officer who spent some serious time on loan to the U.S. Marshals, was able to drop by for a chat.  And what a chat it is!  You see,Detective Joe was attached to the U.S. Marshals unit that tracked down and finally caught suspected serial...

On Valentine's Day 1982, eleven miles west of the traveler-stopover town of Williams Arizona, the body of a beautiful young woman was discovered in a ditch on the side of Interstate 40.  She was impeccably dressed, had not been sexually assaulted, but had - according to the coroner - been suffocated somehow.  What baffled police - and baffles them to this day - is why no one ever claimed her.  Ove...

In 2019 Melissa covered the 1980 missing person case of 17 year-old Randy Sellers, who disappeared after attending the Kenton County (Kentucky) Fair, becoming drunk and disorderly and after taking a swing at one of the Sheriff's Deputies sent to deal with him.  He was last seen in the company of four officers, who claimed to have dropped him off a mile from his home so he could avoid getting in tr...

This is the case that inspired Melissa to start this very podcast.  As she has since the first January of "Just The Tip-Sters," Melissa recaps and updates the "shouldn't-be-a" cold case of Will Cierzan, a regular guy living a simple life with the love of his life in the Southern California suburb of Santa Clarita - whose wife came home from work one early evening in January 2017 to find dinner sit...

In 1988 Diane Sherman Young was a 22 year-old working mother living in rural Indiana.  Diane was married to Scott Young,  whose brother -Mike - was actually married to Susan, one of Diane's sisters.  Diane worked in a local convenience store and seemed by all appearances to be leading a normal, everyday life.  Then, suddenly, everyday became a horror story.  On May 21, 1988 a local man driving his...

Terry Brisk was your average Minnesota family man and sportsman - not a big game hunter, but someone who did enjoy deer hunting during Deer Season - and who doesn't like a hot bowl of venison stew on a chilly autumn evening?  So when Terry took off early from work in November of 2016 to spend a couple of hours on his family's 100-acre property hunting for dinner, it wasn't anything out of the ordi...

Season 3 open with the story of Joe Bryan, a high school principal who lived with the love of his life - his wife Mickey, an elementary school teacher - in (seemingly) idyllic Clifton Texas.  The Bryans were known not only as pillars of their community, but truly good people who cared about their young charges and even spent their own money to buy clothing and lunches for those most in need.  Ever...

Say what you will about Dan Rather - the famed newsman and former anchor of the CBS Evening News has had an ... interesting ... time of it over the years.  There was that time that viewers of the broadcast in the Eastern and Central time zones saw a black screen instead of Rather because he'd walked out in a huff over a tennis match digging into his time.  Then there was the time a cab driver in C...

In 1975 a series of murders of young women in Dade and Broward Counties in South Florida baffled police.  They were dubbed the "Flat Tire Murders" because evidence strongly suggested that tires on the victims' cars were deflated as they shopped or were otherwise away from their vehicles - and then "assisted" by the killer when they returned.  But wait just a second.  Officially, the still-unsolved...

In 1974 and 1975 five white gay men were savagely stabbed to death by a young African American man who attracted his victims by sketching their likenesses in the bars and cafes of San Francisco's Castro District, eventually luring them away to their doom.  He has never been identified, let alone arrested.  So how do we know so much about this killer and his modus operandi?  We know because three a...

In 1970 and 1971, the bodies of six girls and young women were tossed onto the side of various freeways in the Washington DC metropolitan area.  Most had been sexually assaulted and then strangled - none were over the age of 18.  Like so many serial killers, the so-called "Freeway Phantom" not only tortured his victims before slaying them - he also taunted police, and worst of all, the families of...

Scott Cox is a monster - the question is, how big of a monster - and can the immensity of his monstrosity be proven?  Convicted of the rape and murder of two women in 1990 and 1991, Cox - a trucker who frequented the two major interstates in and around his home town of Seattle - is the ONLY suspect in an additional 20 homicides up, down and across the I-5 and I-90 corridors, some as far north as C...

When your cousin and his best friend are attacked - and your cousin is killed - and his best friend suffers permanent brain damage - by three random thugs - for no reason whatsoever - and then all three disappear into thin air - for THREE DECADES - what would you do?  Well here's what Audry McDonald did:  Audry McDonald never stopped looking, that's what.  And when as the case got colder, she beca...

In the aftermath of the horrific shooting deaths of two innocent high school students on November 14, 2019 - and the suicide of the shooter - in our home town of Santa Clarita, Melissa examines the facts known to date about this tragic incident and celebrates the hero first responders who ran toward the sound of gunshots.  And in a moving dialogue on the causes and lifelong effects of such an even...

When you kill someone and you're sentenced to prison "for the rest of your natural life," without the possibility of parole, you're done.  Finished.  Kaput.  No more freedom for you, ever.  Right?  Right.  Except.  What does the "your natural life" mean, exactly?  Especially when we live in an age where technology can actually revive someone who has literally died for a few seconds?  And how does...

Setting fires is bad.  Setting fires that destroy property and businesses is worse.  But setting fires so recklessly as to take innocent lives in service of some hidden, inexplicable lust for flame and heat is evil.  And the most evil among those fire-starters are those who are sworn to protect us from that very danger - those in the uniform of firefighters.  And the very worst of all is one John...