Just The Tip-Sters: True Crime Podcast

If you look up the March 3, 2014 death of 50 year-old interior designer Dana Jones in the official records of the Long Beach, California Police Department, you’ll see that the case is considered closed, and Jones’ death listed as accidental – a contention backed up by the coroner.  According to Dana Jones’ husband, Cain Finn “Huck” Jones, he took the dog out for a walk on the morning of March 3, a...

This week we take another small diversion from murder and mayhem and enter the lighter side of the world of law enforcement with retired New York City detective Vic Ferrari – who makes his second visit to “JTT” – this time to talk about his new book, NYPD: Law and Disorder – Ferrari’s latest batch of true, hilarious stories from his days on the Force.  Listen in as Vic regales Melissa with some of...

On January 15, 1988 in a semi-residential pocket in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, 25 year-old Catherine Braley – just recently relocated to Southern California from Iowa – was walking home from her job at a local specialty retail outlet when she decided to drop in to a local bar called The Hunter.  There she encountered three L.A. County Sheriff’s detectives – off-duty and out of their jurisdi...

By all accounts Cyle VanKomen was more than just a good kid.  He was the kind of young man that drew others to him.  Kind, friendly and generous to a fault, the 24 year-old lived with his older brother and several other young men in what was known as a “party house” in a quiet neighborhood in South Ogden Utah.  Neither Cyle, his brother nor anyone else in the house had any known enemies or connect...

Ten years is a long time no matter how you look at it.  But for the Stephenson family of Northern Kentucky, ten years is just simply too long.  Because that’s how long it’s been since their family patriarch and matriarch Bill and Peggy Stephenson were murdered – brutally – in their Florence Kentucky townhome on Memorial Day weekend in 2011.  And the devoted minister and his wife – both beloved mem...

For the second time this month we feature the troubling, tragic, SAD murder of a young girl during the Christmas holiday season a long time ago.  This one is incredibly tragic because it’s pretty clear who the killer is and he was never arrested.  On December 26, 1980 six year-old Avery "Peaches" Shorts left her home in Knoxville, Tennessee with 58 cents in her pocket, bundled up by her mother Haz...

Ten year-old Judith Barsi was a bona fide, in-demand child actor in the 1980s.  Between her fifth and tenth birthdays she appeared in 72 commercials and dozens of television movies and series.  And her acting abilities and professional demeanor, even at such a young age, made it clear to everyone who worked with her that young Judith was destined for even greater things as she grew up.  Sadly, Jud...

The holiday season was in full bloom in the small North Carolina town of Benson on Thursday December 14, 1972 when 33 year old Bonnie Neighbors was planning to pick up her oldest son Ken from school, taking her three-month old baby boy Glenn along with her.  A witness even saw Bonnie’s car leave her driveway that afternoon – although, strangely, she seemed to be driving erratically and at a high r...

This week Melissa brings forth another unnerving “unsolved” murder – this one from May of 1997 - that really isn’t unsolved at all; a case where the search for justice has been unrelenting for nearly a quarter of a century.  And despite the fact that the culprit is alive and in plain sight of God and everybody – no arrests have ever been made.   The victim – then 44 year-old Monika Luise Rizzo (ne...

Penelope Edwards had all but put her life back together in March 2012.  After years of struggling with addiction and psychological problems – so bad that she had turned temporary custody of her two children over to her sister Gloria – Penelope was now sober, working  through therapy, had her children back and even had a new boyfriend – Troy Dunn.  By all accounts, Penelope, Troy and the two kids w...

This time around we have what a 1980s television marketing whiz would call a “Very Special Episode” of the podcast.  And that’s because what is normally the intro is actually half the show – and there’s an important reason why. It’s because Melissa has had some things she’s been wanting to say for a while about kindness – being nice – and those things came to the fore this past week in the form of...

Matthew Chase was just like a lot of young artists who move to Los Angeles to seek out their creative development and success.  Back in 1988, then 22 year-old Matthew and his friends, brother-and-sister Steve and Teresa Dahl, were living together after all moving from their childhood homes near Medford Oregon.  And – again, like so many other young transplants to Southern California, Matthew, Stev...

January 2, 1999 was an average day in sleepy suburban Mesa Arizona when, as dusk was falling, 11 year-old Mikelle Biggs and her sister Kimber thought they heard the sound of an ice cream truck coming up the street as they were playing outside their house.  Mikelle ran into the house and convinced her mother – who was just starting dinner, to give her some quarters so she and Kimber could buy a tre...

In March 2012, the quiet town of Urbana Ohio (about 50 miles west of Columbus) was rocked to its core when a local murder became national news – not just because of the horrendous nature of the crime, but the affiliation of the perpetrators with a loose-knit “family” whose insistence on loyalty turned twisted beyond belief.  The victim, 21 year-old Jessica Rae Sacco , was found by her landlord, de...

Sometimes it’s so crystal clear that a crime was committed, who did the crime, why the crime was committed and where to go find the bad guy – it’ll drive you nuts.  And that is pretty much the story of the disappearance of 23 year-old Austin “Jay” Smith exactly 28 years ago on March 23, 1993. when he left his home in the suburbs of Southern California's San Gabriel Valley and never returned.  It’s...

This week we focus on a murder from December 1993 that occurred literally less than a five-minute drive from the Homestead Studios – although long before Melissa and Producer Mark moved there.  The victim was a beautiful and accomplished 29 year-old martial arts instructor and black belt named Veronica Estrada, who left the studio where she was an instructor and, having had an argument with her bo...

This week Melissa’s special guest is the engaging (and really nice guy) Detective Matt Wharton from the Sweetwater County Wyoming Sheriff’s Office .  It’s definitely Big Country in Wyoming, and Sweetwater County is big indeed – the 8th largest county by land in the United States – with miles and miles of rugged beauty – and winters that are not advisable to take on alone unless you know what you’r...

Hey Tip-Sters!  Surprise!!!  We have a special between-regular-episodes MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder)!  Last week Melissa appeared as a guest on a terrific podcast – the Don’t Assume Podcast hosted by Dave Kimball – a truly interesting and interesting guy who hosts people from all over the country from a wide array of professions and backgrounds and challenges his listeners to not assume th...

This week’s episode involves a twisted web of convictions (perhaps wrongful), acquittals (also possibly wrongful), the murder of a young woman and the disappearance and probable murder of a second young woman – all wrapped around two potentially really bad guys and one no-doubt-about-it nasty scumbag.  The story unfolds in tony Putnam County, an affluent New York City suburb north of Manhattan in...

On the night before Valentine’s Day 2000 (which, like this year, was also part of a three-day Presidents Day weekend), a beautiful 9 year-old girl named Asha Degree and her ten year-old brother O’Bryant went to bed in their Shelby North Carolina home.  Sometime around 2:30 am, O’Bryant heard his sister go to the bathroom and return to bed – but when he was awakened in the morning by his frantic mo...

Sometimes when researching a case, Melissa discovers threads that lead her in multiple directions.  Every once in a while one of those threads leads to a clue in the case she’s investigating.  But other times, they lead to cases clearly unrelated – but eerily similar – to the matter at hand.  This week’s episode brings together two such cases.  The cold case Melissa started researching involves th...

One day in March 1980, a member of the U.S. Army (her rank still not clear) named Tamara Tigard , who was living (or was she stationed?) in Las Vegas , went for a walk.  And then vanished.  One month later, 1,200 miles away near the small town of Jones, Oklahoma – on Tamara’s 21st birthday, as it happens – the unclothed body of a young woman was found in a shallow grave on the banks of the North C...

This week’s sad and (like most unsolved cases) totally frustrating case was discovered when Producer Mark read a bio of Academy Award and Emmy-winning actress Cloris Leachman upon her recent passing.   In the article, a fascinating side note about the show “ Phyllis ,” a spinoff of the “ Mary Tyler Moore Show ” (which starred Leachman as the title character) mentioned that the spinoff lasted only...

On October 10 1996, a 65 year-old retired eyeglass maker named Otha Young, Jr. , who had been admitted to a hospital in his hometown of Louisville Kentucky for a medical episode related to his Alzheimer’s - against the advice of the attending physicians and staff – checked himself out of the hospital, got in his car and headed north on Interstate 75 .  Along the way he was stopped by law enforceme...

This week Melissa jumps into the Tip-Ster Wayback machine and journeys to the rough-and tumble era of 1950s Los Angeles , where corruption ran rampant, the mob still held sway, mean jamokes with ill intent lurked in the shadows –and where Hollywood influenced everything from clothing to language to the very news being home-delivered every day.  And right near the outset of that turbulent era – on...