The Final Trace

📍 Denver, Colorado | October 17, 1941 🎙️ Chapter 67 | The Final Trace of Philip Peters: The Denver Ghost House When 73-year-old Philip Peters was found brutally murdered inside his Denver home, investigators were left with more questions than answers. There were no signs of forced entry. No clear motive. And no suspect. But Philip's death was only the beginning. In the months that followed, his g...

📍 New Orleans, Louisiana | 1918–1919 🎙️ Chapter 66 | The Final Trace of the Axeman of New Orleans For more than a year, someone was slipping into New Orleans homes in the dead of night. The attacks were brutal. The weapon was often found nearby. And whoever was responsible seemed to disappear as quietly as they came. Then a letter arrived. The writer claimed to be the Axeman — and warned that at...

📍 Martinsville, Indiana | September 12, 1977 🎙️ Chapter 65 | The Final Trace of Ann HarmeierTwenty-year-old Indiana University student Ann Harmeier was driving back to Bloomington for a morning class when her Pontiac overheated along State Road 37. Hours later, her mother found the car still sitting along the highway—locked, abandoned, and with its battery drained from the emergency flashers. Ann...

📍 Baltimore, Maryland → Lancaster County, Pennsylvania | December 3–4, 2003 🎙️ Chapter 64 | The Final Trace of Jonathan Luna At 11:38 p.m., federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna left his Baltimore office without his cell phone or the glasses he needed to drive. By dawn, his Honda was sitting above a creek nearly 90 miles away—and Jonathan was dead. Investigators could retrace much of his strange overn...

📍 Lower Manhattan, New York | September 10, 2001 🎙️ Chapter 63 | The Final Trace of Sneha Anne Philip On the evening of September 10th, 2001, 31-year-old physician Dr. Sneha Anne Philip was captured on surveillance shopping at a department store just blocks from her apartment. It would be the last confirmed trace of her. Hours later, the world changed. In the chaos of September 11th, Sneha’s disa...

📍 Bloomington, Indiana | June 3, 2011 🎙️ Chapter 62 | The Final Trace of Lauren Spierer For hours, Lauren Spierer’s movements through Bloomington can be pieced together almost minute by minute. Until suddenly… they can’t. In the early morning hours of June 3, 2011, the 20-year-old Indiana University student vanished. Her phone and shoes were left behind. Her apartment was only a few blocks away....

📍 Bethesda, Maryland | March 11, 2011 🎙️ Chapter 61 | The Final Trace of Jayna Murray On a Friday night in one of Bethesda’s busiest shopping districts, two coworkers returned to the Lululemon store where they worked. By morning, 30-year-old Jayna Murray was dead. Her coworker was found bound, bleeding, and alive—with a terrifying story of what had happened behind those locked doors. Police began...

📍 Spencer, Indiana | July 17, 1996 🎙️ Chapter 60 | The Final Trace of Bryan Haltom Just after midnight, 18-year-old Bryan Haltom was driving his red Trans Am through the quiet streets of Spencer, Indiana, when an encounter with another car followed him onto U.S. 231. Minutes later, Bryan was dead. The other driver vanished into the night. What initially appeared to be a senseless act of road rage...

📍 San Jose, California | October 2019🎙️ Chapter 14 Revisited | Mysterious Death: Erin Valenti We’ve told Erin Valenti’s story before. But we’ve never told it like this. After first covering Erin’s strange and unsettling final days, we went back—reexamining the timeline, digging deeper into the medical findings, and exploring new information and theories we never touched the first time around. Eri...

Today, we're doing something a little different! Introducing you to one of our favorite podcast! We're handing The Final Trace feed over to our friends Cam and Jen from Our True Crime Podcast for a special feed swap! In this episode, they take us back to March 26, 1990, and the murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh: a case we had never heard before, and one we think you're going to want to hear. If you'r...

📍 Bass Strait, Australia | October 21, 1978 🎙️ Chapter 59 | The Final Trace of Frederick Valentich 🔎 Mysterious Disappearance Twenty-year-old pilot Frederick Valentich took off from Melbourne for what should have been a routine flight to King Island. Less than an hour later, he contacted Melbourne Flight Service with a strange question: Was there any known traffic below 5,000 feet? There wasn’t....

📍 Indianapolis, IN | Year: 1976 🎧 Chapter 58 — The Final Trace of Michael Dean Riley A walk home. A missing college student. A discovery that raised more questions than answers. This week on The Final Trace, we revisit the 1976 case of Ball State student Michael Dean Riley. Fifty years later, investigators know how Michael died—but what happened during a Fourth of July party remains one of India...

📍Indianapolis, IN | Year: 2004 🎧 Chapter 57 - The Final Trace of Molly Dattilo On the night of July 6, 2004, 23-year-old Molly Dattilo spent the evening with new acquaintances, made a phone call from a pay phone outside a Thornton's gas station in Indianapolis... and vanished. The call disconnected before a single word was spoken. More than twenty years later, investigators believe Molly was the...

📍 Indianapolis, IN | Year: 1992 🎧 Chapter 56 — The Final Trace of Mark Tomich 🚘 His BMW made it to work. Mark Edward Tomich didn't. On a quiet March morning in 1992, Mark left home for what should have been another ordinary day at Eli Lilly. His coworkers never saw him. His locked BMW was later found in the parking lot... but Mark had vanished. Thirty-four years later, one question still remain...

📍 Dallas, TX | Year: 2019 🎧 Chapter 55 — The Final Trace of Prisma Reyes Some disappearances leave almost nothing behind. Prisma Reyes left behind hours of evidence. Surveillance cameras. Phone records. Witnesses. A timeline investigators can follow almost minute by minute. And yet... the most important piece of the puzzle is still missing. 📄 Official Case History & Articles WFAA News — Four Ye...

📍 Bloomington, Indiana | Year: 2000 🎧 Chapter 54 — The Final Trace of Jill Behrman Nineteen-year-old Jill Behrman set out on a routine morning bike ride through the rolling hills of southern Indiana. She never came home. What followed was nearly three years of searches, false confessions, dead-end leads, and a community desperate for answers. When Jill was finally found, investigators believed t...

📍 Bloomington, Indiana | Year: 2015 🎧 Chapter 53 — The Final Trace of Joseph Smedley Twenty-year-old Joseph Smedley had big dreams. An Indiana University biochemistry student with plans to one day create life-saving medications, he was known for his kindness, his infectious smile, and the positive energy he brought to everyone around him. Then, in the early morning hours of September 28th, his s...

📍 Xenia, Ohio | Year: 1954 🎧 Chapter 52 — The Final Trace of Mary Grimes Wallace On a bitter January morning, a train crew discovered the body of a woman lying on the railroad tracks outside of town. Authorities quickly identified her as thirty-two-year-old Mary Grimes Wallace. But almost immediately, the case began to unravel. There was little blood at the scene. A mysterious man was seen walki...

📍 Brownstown, Indiana | Year: 1971 🎧 Chapter 51: The Final Trace of Mike Sewell Three teenage friends. A handmade cabin hidden along the White River. And a winter night that would haunt a small Indiana town for more than half a century. When a fire reduced the cabin to ashes, investigators identified only two victims. The third boy, 16-year-old Mike Sewell, vanished without a trace. Rumors sprea...

📍 Boonville, Indiana | Year: 2014 🎧 Chapter 50: The Final Trace of Kristy Kelley Kristy Kelley was a 27-year-old mother of two, rebuilding her life after a divorce and looking forward to what came next. On the night of August 14, 2014, she met friends for what should have been an ordinary night out. But sometime after leaving a local VFW, Kristy vanished. For thirty-two days, her family searched...

Rogue Transmissions --the edgy, semi-annual anthology of indie podcasts--is invading your podcast feed with DUNGEONPUNK PART 2 ... a symphony of 80s nostalgia, dystopian cyberpunk, and savage swords drawn against both super sorcery & super science. Featuring an adventuring party of your indie podcast favorites! FIRST UP, Octoberpod presents "Byzantium Slab: The Shell Remember" a wrap...

Rogue Transmissions--the edgy, semi-annual anthology of indie podcasts--is invading your podcast feed with DUNGEONPUNK PART 1 ... a symphony of 80s nostalgia, dystopian cyberpunk, and savage swords drawn against both super sorcery & super science. Featuring an adventuring party of your indie podcast favorites! FIRST UP, Octoberpod presents "Byzantium Slab: Life Without A Soul" a wrap...

📍Killeen, Texas | Year: 1990 🎧 Chapter 49: The Final Trace of Deanna Merryfield Thirteen-year-old Deanna Merryfield slipped out of her grandmother’s house in the early morning hours to visit her twin sister just two miles away. By 3:30 AM, she was standing outside a bedroom window. Moments later… she climbed into a bronze-colored car with two teenage boys. She was never seen again. Labeled a run...

📍Brazil, Indiana | Year: 1957 🎧 Chapter 48: The Final Trace of Billy Martin Seven-year-old Billy Martin was playing outside his family’s home on a warm summer afternoon while his mother cleaned inside, waiting for her husband to return home from National Guard training. But sometime around 3:30 PM… Billy vanished. The last person believed to have seen him was a family friend and lodger known as...

📍Knox County Indiana | Year: 2023 🎧 Chapter 47: The Final Trace of Jared McColloch Jared McColloch left his home in Louisiana expecting to make a routine trip north. But somewhere between Illinois and Indiana… something changed. In the early morning hours, Jared’s movements became difficult to follow. A confusing timeline stretched across state lines and a daylight savings time change. His truck...