Mysteries and Histories

In June 1934 the dismembered torso of a woman was found at Brighton train station before her legs were found the following day at Kings Cross. To this day she remains unidentified, but her discovery led to the uncovering of the similar but apparently unrelated murder of Violette Kaye.

In October 1972, a rugby team were catching a flight from Uruguay to Chile for a match but after a pilot error, they ended up crashing in the middle of the Andes. For 72 days, 16 men managed to survive against all odds before a remarkable feat of bravery led to their rescues. 

29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Everest, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine attempted the same. They made one last attempt but tragedy struck and they never made it back down the mountain - for many years neither of their bodies were found and when one was, it only provided more questions than answers. Did they make it?

Joseph Merrick was sadly born in a time before modern medicine, born into a world where people with deformities were forced to either live life in the shadows or put themselves on display as a novelty, as freaks. Joseph chose the latter. He never received a proper diagnosis for his illness, that caused him to form growths and tumours all over his body, and still to this day scientists can't answer...

Today we're going to be covering 3 Jane Doe cases, St Charles Jane Doe from Missouri and two Davidson County Jane Does from Tennessee, one from 1976 and another from 1998. More and more Doe cases are being solved every single day, but these stories need more eyes and ears on them, do you live in any of these areas?

Back in December 1981, 14 year old Dana Bradley hitchhiked on her way home from a friend's house and she was never seen again. Her body was found four days later, but 41 years on we still haven't found her killer, despite four witnesses seeing the man and car in question. 

We all know the story of how penicillin, the life-saving antibiotic, was discovered right? An Alexander Fleming accident. But what if I told you there was actually a lot more to the story and it turns out multiple people were actually involved in the creation of the antibiotic we know and love today? Crazy, right?!

Throughout the latter part of the 20th century crime rates in the USA and across the world started to grow exponentially, before reaching a peak in the early 1990s and rapidly falling from there. Plenty of theories have been put forward over the years, but what if the reason is as simple as the huge usage of lead in the aftermath of World War 2?

Back in 1887-1889, body parts started washing up along the banks of the River Thames in London, victims who for the most part still remain unidentified today as well as the perpetrator. Who was skulking in the shadows, attacking women and dismembering their bodies? Some think it may have been Jack the Ripper, using a different MO from his 1888 Whitechapel murders, but we may never have the answer.

49 years ago to this day, an arsonist set a fire at a gay bar in New Orleans, leading to the deaths of 32 people. Despite many witnesses knowing who set the fire, investigators didn't care enough about the deaths of 32 gay men to investigate properly and no justice was ever brought.

In 2002 the body of a teenage girl was discovered behind a strip mall in Tempe, Arizona after she had died following a cocaine overdose. Despite a man coming forward saying he was the last person to see her alive with a detailed description of her last moments, investigators have never been able to find the girl's identity. 

Holly Bartlett was found unconscious at the base of a bridge in 2010 after a night out with friends. The taxi driver insists he dropped her outside her apartment building the night before but somehow Holly, who was a blind woman, travelled 300m in the wrong direction and somehow became so injured her family made the decision to turn off life support the next day. How did this happen?

Today we're taking a look at some old cases I've covered and sharing some big and some small updates that have recently come out about them. We have new suspects in the Madeleine McCann and Mr Cruel cases, Jane Doe updates and one exciting identification, a new victim announced for San Francisco serial killer the Doodler and more.

This week we're going to be discussing the case of Lorraine Stahl, the alias of a woman who's body was found in Ledyard, Connecticut in 1974. Whilst we do have an alias of hers and someone was even convicted for her murder, we still don't know her real identity, her family have never been notified.

This week let's talk all about vaccines, from inoculation to the creation of the smallpox vaccine to Louis Pasteur, all the way up to the recent creation of the COVID-19 vaccines. A real one to nerd out to!

This week we're going to be talking about Jesse Pomeroy, who at 14 years old became the youngest person to ever be convicted of first degree murder in Massachusetts after killing two children, but suspicion runs deep that he may have been responsible for the deaths of many more.

This week we're going to New Hampshire to take a look into the Bear Brook murders and the web that has unravelled in the authorities attempts to find the identities of four murder victims found in barrels. Somehow, this case eventually led to them solving the identity of the Golden State Killer.

14 year old Alicia Navarro went missing from her home in Glendale, Arizona on 15th September 2019 after leaving her mum a note promising that she would be returning. She hasn't been seen since and it's thought that she was lured away from her home by a person she met online through her love of gaming.

This week we're looking at the disappearance of 6 boys from Pickering, Ontario back in 1995. After telling friends they were going to 'goof off' at the marina, they all disappeared and after an unhelpful cursory search, police immediately assumed they died in the lake. But no trace of them or the boats have ever reappeared. 

Something a bit lighter hearted this week as we explore the strange phenomenon of 'time slips', people momentarily, unintentionally travelling back in time before appearing back in the present. This seems to happen more in certain places than others, one of which being on Bold Street in Liverpool. Why?

In 2010 a body was discovered outside an old carpark by Angel's Meadow, Manchester. It was clear that she had been there undiscovered for many decades, but 12 years since her discovery and investigators are no closer to finding out her name or her killer. 

On 12th June 1977, three Girl Scouts went to camp in Oklahoma for the week, but would never arrive home, instead being brutally murdered on their first night away. After an extensive manhunt for the person police believed to be responsible, he was acquitted at trial. Will there ever be justice?

Very rarely today we're talking about what is technically a solved case, but a solved case that a lot of people still have doubts about to this day. In 1985, Derek and Nancy Haysom were found dead in their Virginia home and their daughter's boyfriend was found guilty of the crime. But did he really do it? Or was it their own daughter?

In 2005, Anna Ayala sat down to eat at a Wendy's restaurant and found a human finger in her chilli. What would follow was a media whirlwind, allegations thrown in all directions and eventually, an arrest. What actually happened and who did the finger belong to?

Following on from last week's episode, this is part two of the Texas Killing Fields; a series of unsolved (and some solved) murders that happened along the I-45 corridor in south Texas from the 70s all the way through to 2006. Last episode we spoke about the 70s, this week we focus on crimes from the 80s onwards.