Beyond the Ferns

This week we are headed to Georgia! On a cold January morning in 2002, 20-year-old Christopher "Chris" Thompkins was working with a land surveying crew in rural Ellerslie, Georgia, when he took off in a dead sprint out of nowhere. According to those with him that day, there was nothing chasing him nor any signs that he wanted to leave his life behind. What investigators found only deepened the mys...

In this week's episode, we are headed to Canada! Hidden in the quiet town of Penetanguishene, Ontario, the Oak Ridge Psychiatric Facility was once home to some of Canada's most dangerous offenders—and some of the country's most controversial psychiatric experiments. What began as an ambitious attempt to rehabilitate violent patients eventually evolved into a series of unconventional treatment prog...

In this week's episode, we are headed to Canada! On a stormy night in November 1980, a brilliant and eccentric mechanic named Granger Taylor seemingly vanished without a trace from his hometown of Cowichan Bay. Long before his disappearance, Taylor had gained a reputation as a mechanical genius, capable of restoring old locomotives, rebuilding aircraft, and creating incredible machines despite hav...

In this final road trip stop in the US of A - we are headed to Hawaii! In the mid-1980s, a series of murders transformed what many considered paradise into a community gripped by fear. Between 1985 and 1986, five women disappeared from the Honolulu area and were later found dead in isolated locations across Oʻahu. The victims came from different backgrounds, but investigators began noticing striki...

On this week's episode we are headed to the greate state of Alaska! On April 26, 1993, 20-year-old Sophie Sergie was found murdered in a women's restroom inside Bartlett Hall at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Sophie, a Yup'ik student from the small village of Pitkas Point, had traveled to Fairbanks for orthodontic appointments and was staying with friends in the dormitory. Investigators determine...

This week we are headed to Rhode Island! On the evening of August 31, 1990, Adam and Elena Emery were enjoying dinner with friends in Rocky Point, Rhode Island, when a passing vehicle sideswiped Adam's parked Ford Thunderbird. Rather than stopping to exchange information, the driver sped away into the night. Furious over the damage and determined to find the person responsible, Adam started chasin...

In this week's episode, we are headed to Iowa! Towering above the graves of Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City stands one of the most highly debated, ominous monuments in the Midwest — the Black Angel. Darkened with age and looming beneath the trees, the massive bronze statue has watched over the cemetery for more than a century, its hollow eyes and blackened wings turning it into the center of whisper...

This week we are headed to Maryland! We will be stepping inside the mind of Edgar Allan Poe to explore the darkness that shaped some of his most haunting works. Poe’s writing wasn’t simply created from imagination — it was deeply rooted in his own grief, isolation, fear, and a lifelong sense of never truly belonging anywhere. After enduring repeated loss throughout his life, including the deaths o...

This week, we are staying in Indiana to finish out Belle Gunness' horrifyingly shocking legacy! After arriving in La Porte, Indiana, Belle Gunness seemed determined to build the kind of life she had always wanted—land, financial security, and control. To neighbors, she appeared hardworking and capable, running her farm with a steady hand while raising children and welcoming a steady stream of hire...

This week, we are headed to Indiana! Belle Gunness didn’t just chase a better life—she seemed to study where money followed misfortune, and then quietly position herself in its path. Born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth in rural Norway in 1859, she grew up in poverty, where survival meant hard work and very little security. But when she immigrated to the United States in the 1880s, something shif...

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In this week's episode, we are headed to Tennessee! On the surface, Janet March seemed to have built a beautiful life. She was an artist, a mother of two, and living in an affluent area of Nashville with her husband, successful attorney Perry March. Perry was intelligent, ambitious, and by many accounts, difficult to be around. He had built a reputation as a sharp attorney, but behind the scenes,...

In this week's episode, we are headed to Arkansas! In 2005, in the quiet college town of Russellville, AR, 19-year-old Nona Dirksmeyer was found brutally murdered inside her off-campus apartment. A student at Arkansas Tech University, Nona was known for her easygoing nature and close relationships— a talented woman who was crowned beauty pageant queen at Miss Jean Petit. In the earliest moments of...

In this week's episode, we are headed to North Dakota! Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind was a 22-year-old woman from Fargo who was eight months pregnant and preparing for a new chapter in her life. In August 2017, she vanished from her apartment complex after briefly going upstairs to help a neighbor with a simple request. When she didn’t return, concern quickly escalated into a desperate search led by...

On this week's episode, we are headed to the great state of Alabama! Tucked away in the quiet stretches of rural Alabama, Jack Cole Road doesn’t look like the kind of place that would carry a reputation. It’s just a narrow, winding road—lined with dense woods, long shadows, and the kind of stillness that seems to press in around you the deeper you go. But over the years, stories have gathered ther...

In this week's episode, we are headed to New Orleans, LA! In the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans was still struggling to find its footing, a volatile love story was quietly unraveling behind the doors of a French Quarter apartment. Addie Hall — a free-spirited bartender known for her magnetic personality and fiercely independent nature — had fallen into a passionate, often...

This week we are headed to Mississippi! On a quiet December evening in rural Mississippi, a stretch of backroad became the center of a tragedy that would shake an entire community. Nineteen-year-old Jessica Chambers was found severely burned near her vehicle — alive, and barely able to speak. To the first responder's surprise, she was able to respond to who had done this to her. The man's name was...

In this week's episode, we are headed to Maine! We're stepping back into the late 1800s to explore the unsettling story of a woman who would eventually earn one of the most chilling nicknames in New England true crime — the “Borgia of Maine.” Drawing comparisons to the infamous poison-wielding Borgia family of Renaissance Italy, this case centers around Mary Cowan, a woman whose life became surrou...

In this week's episode #60, we are headed to Oklahoma! On a cold December morning in 1996, 21-year-old dance student Juli Busken was preparing to leave Norman, Oklahoma behind for the holidays. She had just finished her final semester at the University of Oklahoma and was looking ahead to a future of dance. But before she could return home to her family in Arkansas, something happened in the quiet...

In this week's episode, we are headed to North Carolina - Lake Norman, NC. Lake Norman looks peaceful at first glance — miles of open water stretching across North Carolina’s Piedmont, dotted with quiet coves, sailboats, and lakeside homes. But beneath that calm surface lies a drowned valley. Entire communities once stood where boats now drift. Roads end abruptly underwater. Foundations, churches,...

In this week's episode, we are headed back to New Hampshire in Part II (final part) of the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray. We will be diving into details concerning the 22 year long investigation, the many person of interest leads that have been chased throughout the years, and the circulating theories of what could have happened on that fateful day in February 2004. PLEASE NOTE: If you...

In early February 2004, 21-year-old Maura Murray was a nursing student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Smart, athletic, and known for her quiet determination, Maura had once attended United States Military Academy at West Point before transferring to UMass to pursue nursing. On the surface, she looked like someone building a future — clinical rotations, classes, a tight circle of famil...

For decades, ranchers across the United States have walked out to their fields expecting an ordinary morning — only to find one of their cattle dead under circumstances that make no sense. No signs of struggle. No tracks in or out. Although troubling, the state that they are in gives the most cause of concern. The animal is often found with certain tissues and organs missing with what witnesses de...

In this week's episode we are headed to Kansas! The Sallie House in Atchison, Kansas, looks like an ordinary small-town home — but its history tells a far darker story. What began as a young couple’s fresh start quickly spiraled into one of the most infamous haunting cases in America. Strange scratches appeared on walls. Objects moved on their own. And then the violence turned personal. The attack...

In this week's episode we dive right into Part II! The Hi-Fi Shop murders left Ogden, Utah reeling—an act of violence so extreme it demanded answers, accountability, and justice. This episode follows the painstaking investigation that unfolded in the aftermath: the evidence recovered, the witnesses who survived, and the courtroom battles that would ultimately decide the fate of those responsible....