A Heavy Weight

In the final episode of the Bryan Haltom series, A Heavy Weight returns to what we know: Bryan’s car, the road, Trevor’s account, the missing maroon car, and the unanswered question of why Bryan stopped. Episode 10 also honors Lynn, Bryan’s mother, and the decades she has spent carrying the weight of an unsolved murder. If you know something about what happened in Spencer, Indiana in July 1996, De...

Episode 9 examines the rumor map around Bryan Haltom’s unsolved murder: the road-rage story, Trevor’s account, Keith Flynn, money, drugs, law enforcement, and the people who may have stayed quiet. Rumor is not proof, but after nearly thirty years, the same names and questions still point back to one thing: someone knows why Bryan stopped. If you know something about what happened in Spencer, India...

Nearly thirty years after Bryan Haltom was killed, Episode 8 looks at the classmates, friends, rumors, party houses, drug scene, and fear that surrounded his case. What did people know, what did they only hear, and what did they carry for years without realizing it might matter? If you know something about what happened in Spencer, Indiana in July 1996, Detective Kent Rohlfing with Indiana State P...

Bryan Haltom was shot on Highway 231, but his final day may have started somewhere else: Keith Flynn’s house near Stinesville. In Episode 7, we look at the adult world forming around Bryan, the rumors that followed Flynn’s name, and why one house became impossible to ignore. If you know something about what happened in Spencer, Indiana in July 1996, Detective Kent Rohlfing with Indiana State Polic...

Episode 6 of the Bryan Haltom series focuses on Trevor Powell, the passenger in Bryan’s red Trans Am and the only known surviving witness to Bryan’s murder. His account shaped the case from the beginning: a maroon car, a traffic confrontation, a chase through Spencer, and one shot on Highway 231. But nearly thirty years later, that story still has unanswered questions. If you know something about...

Episode 5, Sixty Feet, of the Bryan Haltom series goes back to the road itself. After following Bryan’s final known hours, this episode examines the physical scene: where Bryan’s car was stopped, where his body was found, what the autopsy showed, where the shell casing was reported, and why the official road-rage story still leaves so many questions. If you know something about what happened in Sp...

In episode 4, The Last Night, we follow Bryan Haltom through the final known hours before he was shot and killed on Highway 231 outside Spencer, Indiana. From the fair to Falk’s, from Trevor getting into the car to the road-rage account that shaped the case, this episode asks what we actually know about Bryan’s last night. If you know something about what happened in Spencer, Indiana in July 1996,...

In Episode 3 of A Heavy Weight’s Bryan Haltom series, we look at the months before Bryan was killed, when small moments that once seemed like normal teenage trouble began to look different in hindsight. A missing T-top, a black eye, a school incident, a party, a worried girlfriend, and a new crowd all raise the question Bryan’s family has been asking for nearly thirty years: was something building...

If you want to understand Bryan Haltom’s case, start with who he was. Not the rumors. Not the theories. Not the road-rage story. Bryan. The son. The friend. The first love. The kid in the red Trans Am. Episode 2 is out now. If you know something about what happened in Spencer, Indiana in July 1996, Detective Kent Rohlfing with Indiana State Police can be reached at krohlfing@isp.in.gov or 812-837-...

Episode 1: The Sign on Highway 231 For years, I drove past a small sign on Highway 231 outside Spencer, Indiana. It asked one question: Who killed Bryan Haltom? Bryan was eighteen years old when he was shot and killed on July 17, 1996. The early story was road rage. A stranger. A maroon car. A driver who disappeared into the dark. But the deeper I looked, the less simple that story became. This we...

In June 1985, 19-year-old Cassandra Rhines disappeared from Minneapolis after telling a friend she planned to attend her goddaughter’s birthday party. Nearly thirty years later, her remains were found in a secluded part of Gooseberry Falls State Park. Her murder is still unsolved.

In July 1975, 21 year old Diane Marie Schofield was found murdered in the trunk of her own car near the Des Moines airport. This episode follows Diane’s final known movements, the timeline investigators had to revise, and the unresolved questions that still surround her case more than 50 years later.

Charlotte Lysdale was 68 years old when she disappeared from Pine River, Minnesota. She loved needlework, knitting, family dinners, geraniums, and reading the paper. More than 40 years later, her disappearance remains unsolved. In this episode of A Heavy Weight, we look at Charlotte’s life, the case that followed, the trial of Jerome Bye, and the unanswered question that still remains. Where is Ch...

On a freezing February night in 2001, Rachel Anthony vanished while closing a small-town liquor store in Pine River, Minnesota, leaving behind her car, purse, and coat. Six weeks later, her body was found, but more than two decades later, the question remains: who killed Rachel Anthony?

In this special episode of A Heavy Weight, we look at the federal conviction of former Kokomo police officer Sinmi Asomuyide, who was found guilty of sexually assaulting a fourteen year old girl while on duty. This case raises urgent questions about power, vulnerable youth, police accountability, and what happens when the person expected to protect a child becomes the source of harm.

Renata Fernandez-Ramon was thirty years old. She was a mother to two young children. In October 2011, Renata was last heard from. The next day, her husband, Jose Francisco Munoz-Teran, picked up their children from school and said they were moving to Mexico. Weeks later, Renata’s body was found in a shallow grave in rural Big Stone County. This case is solvable. Investigators know who they are loo...

On December 30, 1987, 20-year-old Marie Kline answered the door at her home near Elkhart, Indiana. She never came back inside. For years, her father Wayne held onto the sound of that doorbell, the sound of his daughter leaving the room, and the questions that followed. This episode of A Heavy Weight follows Marie’s case, the investigation that stalled, the family that kept pushing, and the DNA evi...

In September 2024, Indiana University student Gregory Gabler was arrested after a reported assault inside an on-campus dorm. He was originally charged with serious felony offenses, but in 2026, the case ended with a plea to felony criminal confinement resulting in bodily injury, six years of probation, a no-contact order, and no prison time. In this episode, we break down the timeline, the plea de...

Two young women. Two Minnesota roads. Two cold cases still waiting for answers. In part one, we look at the unsolved homicide of Juanita “Wendy” Wear, a seventeen year old who was last seen at a party in Farmington in December 1976. She was reported missing on December 25, and nearly two months later, her body was found by juveniles in a construction area in Apple Valley. The public record is pain...

In June 1987, twenty-two year old Anita Carlson was working the late shift at Pete’s Place West, a gas station and convenience store just outside Bemidji, Minnesota. Anita had recently graduated from Bemidji State University with honors and was building toward a future in broadcasting. But sometime after customers last saw her around 11 p.m., Anita disappeared. The next morning, her car was still...

Two young men disappeared from South St. Paul on May 2, 1993. Eleven days later, Chad Birkeland’s body was recovered from the Mississippi River near Hastings. Todd Hanson was never found, and the case remains unresolved.

A woman works an overnight shift she wasn’t supposed to take. Sometime between 3:10 and 4:30 in the morning, Toni Monette is stabbed to death inside a 7-Eleven in Mounds View, Minnesota. She’s found in the store’s back room. Nothing is taken. No clear motive is ever established. More than 40 years later, the case remains unsolved.

A woman gets into a van at 3 a.m. and disappears. Days later, Eden Young is found beaten to death in a quiet yard miles away from where she was last seen. Her clothing is discovered along a highway. Investigators later say her killing wasn’t random. But no one is ever charged. Eden Young wasn’t the only one. In the early 1990s, multiple women connected to sex work in the Twin Cities were found dea...

An 18-year-old leaves work to run an errand and never returns. In August 1973, Teresa Osborne disappeared after picking up pastries from a bakery in Seymour, Indiana. Ten days later, her body was found in the trunk of her burned car in a remote wildlife refuge. Investigators interviewed hundreds of people and followed countless leads, but no one was ever charged. A detail uncovered months later su...

Seventeen-year-old Hailey Buzbee left her home in 2026 after months of online communication with a man she thought she knew. What followed exposed the realities of grooming and the gaps in a system still trying to catch up. https://www.change.org/p/pass-hailey-s-law-pink-alert-and-mandated-grooming-awareness-education-in-schools?utm_medium=custom_url&utm_source=share_petition&recruited_by_...