A Heavy Weight

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_...

In 1993, Lola Fry went to a party in Indianapolis and never came home. The people who were with her told police a story — but it’s one that has never fully made sense. Lola disappeared along with her car. Neither have ever been found.

In October 1995, Wilma Cheek was found shot to death in her car at Willow Grove Cemetery in Fountain City, Indiana. It was late morning. Daylight. A place that should have felt quiet, familiar, safe. Thirty years later, her case remains unsolved. https://www.in.gov/isp/crime-reporting/cold-case-investigations/cold-cases-by-county/pendleton-district-investigations/wilma-cheek-10301995/

A new case in Bloomington, Indiana. An arrest tied to alleged child sexual abuse material. In part 1, we slow down the headline and walk through what’s been publicly reported so far, how these cases often start, what digital evidence can and can’t prove at this stage, and what research says about who gets caught with csam and how often this behavior happens in secrecy. This episode avoids graphic...

We're sharing our coverage of the waverly two case again as Terence and Ferrone work towards their deserved full exoneration after their release. In 1998, Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne of Waverly, Virginia, were sentenced to life for a murder they were acquitted of, exposing systemic flaws like withheld evidence and a judge’s power to override a jury’s verdict. In this episode, we e...

In Bloomington, two rape charges against a former Indiana University student ended without a trial. The charges were dismissed, a plea to battery remained, and the sentence was one year of probation. This episode follows the gap between what the public thinks the system does and what the rules of proof allow it to do.

This episode tells the story of Lisa M. Wallace, a 25 year old woman from Cadiz, Kentucky, found behind a truck stop near Interstate 70 in eastern Indiana on May 19, 1992. https://www.in.gov/isp/crime-reporting/cold-case-investigations/cold-cases-by-county/pendleton-district-investigations/lisa-m-wallace-05191992/

A Stillwater teen pleaded no contest to 11 rape related charges and walked out of court with a fully suspended 78 year sentence under Oklahoma’s youthful offender law. This episode follows the case of Jesse Butler, the outrage it sparked, and what it reveals about race, power, and who the system believes deserves another chance.

Theresa “Terry” Rideout was 36 when she vanished over Labor Day weekend in 1994. She finished a shift at Burger King in Evansville, made the night deposit, and never came back to her home in Chandler, Indiana. A week later, her fiancé, Jack Barnett, died by suicide in a Mount Vernon motel room, leaving behind a note that never mentioned Terry. With her paycheck still unclaimed, and her belongings...

A Heavy Weight is re-releasing our coverage of Wilma June Nissen, a young mother of three whose homicide remains unsolved nearly five decades later. On October 4, 1978, Wilma’s body was found along Highway 182 in Lyon County, Iowa, near Rock Rapids, by a utility worker laying cable. With little usable evidence at the scene, investigators could not identify her at the time, and she was listed as a...

In November nineteen sixty nine, twelve year old Nora Kathylene “Kathy” Jones left her house in South Nashville with her roller skates over her shoulder, headed for the roller dome on Thompson Lane. She never made it home. Two days later, searchers found her in a vacant lot. More than fifty years later, her murder is still unsolved. https://nashvillecoldcase.gov/1969-124859-nora-kathylene-jones/