Dawn of Mantis: True Crime, Mysteries and More

Send us Fan Mail Way back in 1925, 8 year old Buddy Schumacher left with his friends to visit a local swimming hole and never returned. After missing for nearly two months, Buddy's body was finally found. What seemed to be an open and shut case fell apart when all of the witnesses suddenly changed their stories, and his killer has never been positively identified. (Subject Matter Begins @ 20:...

Send us Fan Mail This is a short snippet from our upcoming episode on the Buddy Schumacher case. It didn't make the episode but we thought it was worth sharing as it's own little clip. Enjoy! Redbeard Sound RedBeard Sound specializes in live sound engineering, recording, music production & audio editing. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may re...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss two cases of one very unusual method of suicide- death by guillotine. Both cases involved men who each invented a contraption that would remove their own head. The first was in 1876, and the other was nearly 130 years later, so the guillotine they invented were quite different- but had the same devastating result.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail In 1970, on a mountaintop outside the Norweigan city of Bergen, some hikers discovered the body of a badly burned woman. Her cause and time of death was quickly determined, but her identity remains a mystery, even to this day. We discuss her strange case and the many theories as to who she may have been.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail Larry Bader was a cookware salesman who lived and worked in Akron Ohio in the 1950s. He had a beautiful wife named Mary, three children and another on the way. One day in the Spring of 1957, Larry headed off for a short business trip from which he was supposed to return later that evening- but never did. As the police, and Mary, were searching for Larry in Ohio, a man calling hims...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we tackle an age old question- what is the meaning of life? What is our purpose? Sure, we're not intellectuals, philosophers or great thinkers, but even regular-ass folks like ourselves have the right to ponder their existence. (Subject Matter Begins @ 8:00)  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The Petersons were a hard working, tight-knit family who lived in the small farming community of Shell Lake, Saskatchewan. Early one August morning nine of the ten family members were found murdered in the modest farm house they all shared.  It only took a few days for the RCMP to track down the killer, and his reasons for the massacre would shock the authorities and the entire co...

Send us Fan Mail One morning in the winter of 1855 in the south of England, people awoke to find thousands of strange footprints in the fresh fallen snow. The tracks meandered in and around the farms and villages of County Devon for over 40 miles, and seemed to defy physics. They would lead up to a wall or haystack and re-appear on the other side, as if whatever made them had passed right through...

Send us Fan Mail In early August of 2013, a young lady named Alexis Murphy left her home in rural Virginia for a hair appointment, and never returned. A massive search followed, and although Alexis wasn't found, enough evidence was uncovered to reveal she had been abducted and murdered, as well as the man responsible. That man, Randy Taylor, was arrested and based on a mountain of physical, v...

Send us Fan Mail This is a special episode coming at you from over 30 years in the future. The world has collapsed, due to a drastic and over reaching reaction to a localized mosquito infestation.  Now, nearly all of the world's population have perished. Of the few that have survived, a curious common trait has emerged- and no one can figure out exactly why. Join us for this short but sweet b...

Send us Fan Mail Between 1945 and 1950, five people vanished from an area in Vermont known as the "Bennington Triangle". An elderly hunter, an old WWII veteran, a college girl, a middle aged woman and a young child all disappeared in close proximity to each other and shared some strange similarities. To this day, none of the cases have been solved, although there's no shortage of th...

Send us Fan Mail In the mid 90s an inventor named Stanley Meyer claimed he had invented a system that would enable any internal combustion engine to run off of- water. Sound impossible? Many believe it was, but Stanley did have his supporters, and supposedly a host of people ready to invest in his invention. It was during a meeting with two of these potential investors that Stanley fell over dead....

Send us Fan Mail We all do it, and let's be honest- it's hilarious. In what is perhaps our classiest episode yet, we cover the entire history of farts in the arts.  We dive all the way back to nearly 4,000 years ago, to the ancient Sumerians and the first written joke (which yes, involved farts). Then we follow the trail throughout early literature and into the main medium of the modern...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss one of the more bizarre spectacles in our entire history- an event that is known as "The Cadaver Synod". It took place in Rome in the late 9th Century- a very unstable and volatile place and time. Pope Stephen 6th had one of his predecessors, Pope Formosus, exhumed from his grave and placed on trial. His body was propped up on the stand and yel...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we cover the strange case Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat who vanished somewhere in Germany in 1809. Though a few articles of his clothing were later found, the young man himself has never been seen or heard from again. Join us as we dissect this case and venture down the many rabbit holes the multiple theories take us.  Redbeard Sound RedBeard Sound special...

Send us Fan Mail Merry Christmas, one and all! Tis the season once again, and your pals here at Dawn of Mantis podcast have been working harder than Santa's elves to bring you a brand new and improved Christmas Special! This time we discuss the history of Christmas movies, as well as some of the best and worst ever made. Ivan whips up some more helpful holiday tips, we play one of our favorit...

Send us Fan Mail It's that time of year again! While we work on a brand new and improved Christmas Special to drop next week, we thought we'd re-release our previous episode from last year to tide you over in the meantime. Enjoy!  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail In our 205th episode we invited James Dunham to join us once again in studio to discuss one of our favorite topics- UFOs! Specifically the Val Johnson UFO sighting in 1979, and the Phoenix Lights sightings in 1997. We also talk about aspects of several other UFO cases, as well as anti-gravity, lost time experiences and other dimensions.  Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We open this episode with another installment of "Bidet Mate", then discuss the origins of the Ancient Olympics, and the history of the Modern Olympics, which began 1,500 years later. We also cover the first few Olympic Games, which were plagued by issues caused by poor planning, bad luck and plain old ineptitude. But far and away the best story we cover is that of Cuban...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we cover some bizarre deaths throughout history. From one of America's founding Fathers who caused his own death with a whale bone, to a man who managed to golf himself to death,  we cover a whole list of deaths you'd expect to see in one of the "Final Destination" films.... but these really happened! (Subject Matter Begins @ 16:48) Redbeard Sou...

Send us Fan Mail In  the second and final part of our 27 Club series, we talk about the lives and deaths of Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, and of course Kurt Cobain. We also examine the data and reveal whether or not 27 truly is the  most common age for musicians to die.  Redbeard Sound RedBeard Sound specializes in live sound engineering, recording, music production & audio editing. Disclaimer:...

Send us Fan Mail The "27 Club" is the group of unfortunate young souls, mostly musicians, who have passed away long before their time. The mystique of the 27 Club really took off with the death of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain in 1994, but it began many years sooner with the death of Blues pioneer Robert Johnson. In this episode we give a brief summary of Johnson's life and premature d...

Send us Fan Mail In our 200th episode, we discuss the life, career and strange death of television's original Superman- George Reeves. His official cause of death is listed as suicide, but other details at the scene have spawned several conspiracy theories suggesting he was murdered. We also go down multiple rabbit trails, such as "sex with superman" and "Joe's hatred for...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our 5th Annual Halloween episode. This year we decided to cover the life and death of one of our favorite 80s comedic actors- John Candy. We talk about his early life, introduction to acting, his amazing career and the fantastic movies it produced.  Redbeard Sound RedBeard Sound specializes in live sound engineering, recording, music production & audio editing. Disc...

Send us Fan Mail In our 198th episode we delve into part two of our Little Rascals series. In part one we covered the saga of Robert Blake- did he kill his wife or not? In our second and final episode we cover quite a long list of cast members who went on to face a horrific end. One was found dead in the desert near Las Vegas, another drank himself to death in a seedy hotel room in San Diego, one...