Coffee and Cases Podcast

Vacations are supposed to be carefree—a time to disconnect from stress and reconnect with loved ones. But for the Bradley family, a Caribbean cruise aboard Rhapsody of the Seas became the start of a nightmare. Just three days into their trip, 23-year-old Amy Lynn Bradley vanished without a trace. No signs of struggle. No clear answers. How does someone disappear from a ship filled with thousands o...

Often considered “The Strangest Missing Person’s Case in Europe,” this week we explore the case of Juan Pedro Martinez-- a boy who vanished under bizarre circumstances. A grandmother’s concern led to a full-scale investigation into a missing 10-year-old boy whose parents had just been involved in a deadly, and inexplicable, accident. In a case that involves corrosive acid, drug trafficking rumors,...

For more than 50 years, the world knew her only as Little Miss Panasoffkee—a Jane Doe science once “proved” was a young woman from Greece. In this episode, we revisit her case now that she finally has her name back: Maureen “Cookie” Minor Rowan. Her daughter, Ann, shares with us the truth of growing up in the shadow of her mother’s disappearance and reveals the haunting, intimate details of her li...

For more than 50 years, the world knew her only as Little Miss Panasoffkee—a Jane Doe science once “proved” was a young woman from Greece. In this episode, we revisit her case now that she finally has her name back: Maureen “Cookie” Minor Rowan. Her daughter, Ann, shares with us the truth of growing up in the shadow of her mother’s disappearance and reveals the haunting, intimate details of her li...

For thirteen months from 1966 to 1967, a creature (or creatures) terrorized several small communities across Ohio and West Virginia, particularly the West Virginia town of Point Pleasant. The stories that come from witnesses to the phenomena are the stuff of nightmares, so much so that they were later made into a hit film. Was this all just a big media storm and all hogwash? Some say it was anothe...

Due to a tragic circumstance when he was sixteen, Cecil Gaddy knew loss, and he learned to be resilient. But no amount of inner strength could have saved him from the circumstances in which he found himself only three years later-- circumstances that resulted in his untimely death. Even though Cecil Gaddy’s death was ruled an accident, odd details of the crime scene and confusing details on the de...

We never knew that our bodies could give so much of our personal backgrounds, until we heard about the science in this case. Could that science, in turn, lead to answers in the murder of Little Miss Panasoffkee? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On February 19, 1994, at Riverside General Hospital in California, 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez—a mother of two battling late-stage cervical cancer—was rushed into the ER struggling to breathe. But what began as a desperate fight to save her life quickly spiraled into one of the most baffling medical mysteries in modern history. What happened inside the trauma bay that night would terrify even the m...

PART TWO: On January 26, 2011, twenty-seven-year-old first-grade teacher Ellen Greenberg was found dead in her Philadelphia apartment with twenty-three stab wounds and more than thirty bruises. Despite the violence of the scene, her death was ruled a suicide—a ruling that has been challenged for more than a decade by Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandee Greenberg. The case has since become one of the...

PART ONE: On January 26, 2011, twenty-seven-year-old first-grade teacher Ellen Greenberg was found dead in her Philadelphia apartment with twenty-three stab wounds and more than thirty bruises. Despite the violence of the scene, her death was ruled a suicide—a ruling that has been challenged for more than a decade by Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandee Greenberg. The case has since become one of the...

We first brought you this case in July 2020, when Maggie covered it solo. We’re re-issuing it now because there have been developments—and Maggie and I will be sitting down together to discuss the updates in a new companion episode. On January 26, 2011, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg left school early ahead of a snowstorm and headed home to the Venice Lofts. A locked do...

It was supposed to be a quiet weekend. On October 24, 2015, in the Castleridge neighborhood of Calgary, Alberta, 31-year-old Amanda Antoni stayed home alone to recover from a migraine while her husband was hundreds of miles away. The two spoke on the phone that evening, sharing the kind of small-talk conversation every couple has—until a strange sound broke through the line. Moments later, the cal...

When 52-year-old Shannon Lee Collins vanished from his home in Pottsville, Arkansas, on March 12, 2021, there were no tire tracks leading away, no note left behind—just silence. A phone that suddenly went dark. A man who never missed a call simply stopped answering. At first, his loved ones were told he’d left on his own. But as the months passed, the stories about where he’d gone began to shift—a...

When 52-year-old Shannon Lee Collins vanished from his home in Pottsville, Arkansas, on March 12, 2021, there were no tire tracks leading away, no note left behind—just silence. A phone that suddenly went dark. A man who never missed a call simply stopped answering. At first, his loved ones were told he’d left on his own. But as the months passed, the stories about where he’d gone began to shift—a...

On July 24, 1997, 24-year-old Amy Wroe Bechtel set out for what should have been an ordinary afternoon near Lander, Wyoming. A rising athlete with Olympic dreams, Amy was in the middle of mapping the course for a 10K race she was organizing. By the end of the day, her white Toyota station wagon sat abandoned, her to-do list unfinished, and Amy herself was nowhere to be found. Despite a massive sea...

In late August 2016, the Tromp family of Silvan, Victoria—Mark, Jacoba, and their three adult children—suddenly fled their successful berry farm and thriving businesses without phones, wallets, or passports. Over the next week, their strange journey would stretch hundreds of miles across Australia, leaving behind a trail of abandoned cars, disoriented wanderings, and desperate pleas for help. What...

On March 2, 1996, 25-year-old Alicia Showalter Reynolds set out before breakfast, pointing her white Mercury south from Baltimore toward Charlottesville for a shopping day with her mom. Somewhere along U.S. Route 29 in Central Virginia—near Culpeper—that ordinary drive met an extraordinary danger, the kind that hides in plain sight on the shoulder of a busy highway. By nightfall, Alicia hadn’t arr...

A bent bell. A bike tossed six feet into a field. A rush of leads that cancel each other out: a bloody handkerchief, conflicting train sightings, a black Morris, a red-and-gray van. In this episode, we trace April Fabb’s 1969 disappearance minute-by-minute and ask the question residents of Norfolk, England have asked for decades: what happened in the nine minute window during which April disappear...

On April 15, 2005, Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar of Pennsylvania left work for what seemed like an ordinary day off. He called his girlfriend while driving his red-and-white Mini Cooper, promised to be home later, and then—he was never seen again. His locked car was found the next day near the Susquehanna River, his phone still inside but his laptop mysteriously missing. Did Gricar wa...

On November 1, 1986, 51-year-old Morro Bay fisherman Hugh Harlin vanished along Highway 1 between San Simeon and Cambria, California. His truck was discovered roadside under suspicious circumstances—but not a trace of Hugh. Did he flee secrets tied to his wife’s unsolved murder, or did the same hand that strangled Dian Harlin in 1982 come for him, too? For context, you’ll likely want to start with...

In the fall of 1982, the quiet rhythm of Morro Bay, California was shattered when the body of 43-year-old Dian Harlin was discovered beneath a cluster of cypress trees near the high school. She had been strangled with a dog leash—an eerie detail that raised more questions than answers. Was her stormy marriage to blame? Or was Dian the victim of a predator who struck by chance? And what are we to m...

July 1995. Ada, Oklahoma. A small city with a long memory for tragedy. When 15-year-old Daniel Furr vanished, the search ended in a place that seemed to hold more questions than answers — the bottom of an abandoned brick quarry. What happened to Daniel in the days before a body was found has become the subject of rumor, fear, and conflicting theories that still divide those who knew him. Was it ga...

She was tiny, fierce, and fighting for survival from the moment she was born. On October 4, 1978, Wilma June Nissen’s body was discovered along a quiet country road in Lyon County, Iowa. For decades, no one knew her name—only that someone had brutally taken her life. Today, we explore the haunting questions: Who wanted Wilma gone? What really happened at the parties she attended that summer? And w...

An unregistered ship. A haunting distress signal. A crew found dead, their faces twisted in terror—and then, an explosion that swallowed the vessel forever. This isn’t the plot of a horror movie. This is the real (or is it?) story of the SS Ourang Medan. In this episode, we dive deep into one of the most unsettling maritime mysteries ever recorded—or invented. What really happened aboard the ghost...

On December 7, 1958, the Martin family of Portland, Oregon—Kenneth, Barbara, and their three daughters—set off for a Sunday drive to gather Christmas greenery. They were never seen alive again. What began as a cheerful holiday tradition ended in one of the most baffling disappearances in Oregon history. Was it a tragic accident on the winding roads of the Columbia River Gorge? Or was something far...