Ohio Mysteries

In 1999, Ashtabula native Melanie Doyle died of uterine cancer. Her family calls it murder. Melanie was viciously assaulted three years earlier and never woke from the coma caused by blunt force trauma. Because Melanie was unconscious and unable to fight the cancer that invaded her body, some say she was as much a homicide victim as if she died that day in 1996. Making it unbearable: The police th...

In 1964, a Canton, Ohio couple asked the nationally renowned spiritualist Arthur Ford to help them contact their son, Martin Jones, who was killed in a US Air Force accident. This is the story of Arthur Ford, Martin Jones, and what skeptics have had to say about the whole affair. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebo...

In 1965, Beth Franks vanished after a fight with her husband, who told Toledo police she stormed out of their home and never returned. Decades passed, and even the Toledo detectives forgot about the case. Until Beth's sister reminded them.www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.comwww.patreon.com/ohiomysterieswww.twitter.com/mysteriesohiowww.facebook.com/ohiomysteriesAudionautix- The Great Unk...

In 1972, 12-year-old Brad Bellino was walking from his buddy's home in Boardman, Ohio to his own home when he vanished. His brutalized body was found a few days later, but his killer has never been found.  www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohiomysteries Music: Wrong Together, by Benjamin Marshall. https://ww...

Special: Podcast host Carol Costello discusses the Phyllis Cottle caseFormer CNN anchor and Akron, Ohio TV journalist Carol Costello discusses her new podcast, Blind Rage, about Phyllis Cottle. In 1984, Cottle was abducted, raped and tortured, then left blinded inside a burning car, yet she survived to help detectives catch her assailant and become an advocate and icon for strength, determination...

The last of a 3-part series on Ohio's famous WWII codebreakers: Agnes Meyer Driscoll spent 20 years breaking every Japanese code the Imperial Navy tried to use, helped form the US Navy's codebreaking office OP-20-G, and trained countless cryptologists. But it took years for this woman in a man's world to gain any recognition for her achievements. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com ww...

Part 2 of a 3-part series on Ohio's famous WWII codebreakers: Dayton native Joseph Rochefort was the naval officer most responsible for America's tide-turning victory against the Japanese at the Battle of Midway, having decrypted the code that allowed for an ambush. But superior officers who didn't like that this high school dropout who never attended the Naval Academy was in charge of the Pacific...

Much of America's success in breaking the Enigma, the message encrypting machine used by Germany during World War II, can largely be traced to two different men from Dayton, Ohio. In this episode, the story of Joe Desch, a brilliant engineer at National Cash Register who designed a machine that could read coded messages - even though it led to a nervous breakdown and a lifetime of trying to hide h...

In April of 2002, a suicidal Stephanie Van Nguyen left her husband and parents a note saying she intended to kill herself by driving into the Ohio River - and that she was taking her 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son with her. It took 20 years for police to find her and her vehicle. But where were the children?www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.comwww.patreon.com/ohiomysterieswww.twi...

Before 1870, the tomato was a wild plant that most found hard, ugly and inedible. Most homes that had a plant just kept it as an ornamental curiosity. But after 15 years of work, A. W. Livingston of Reynoldsburg developed a sweet, juicy, smooth-skinned variety that made the tomato a commercial crop for the first time. Does Livingston deserve credit for "inventing" one of the world's favorite foods...

In January of 2009, residents of a mobile home park in Heath, Ohio grew concerned that they hadn't seen their bubbly, outgoing neighbor Dawn Hickman since the start of the new year. They called police. Police called Dawn's families. That's when Dawn's sisters made the chilling discovery of Dawn's body, strangled, wrapped in a blanket, and tucked into a corner of her closet. www.ohiomysteries.com f...

In 1890, Col. James Forsyth - Maumee, Ohio born and bred - led the 7th Calvary into Wounded Knee, South Dakota to disarm 250 Lakota Indians who white settlers were fearing after the murder of their spiritual leader, Sitting Bull. What followed was a massacre of mostly unarmed warriors, women fleeing with babies clutched to their chests, and children hiding in ravines.    www.ohiomysteries.com feed...

In December of 2022, Kentucky State Police announced they had identified a 1988 Jane Doe as 38-year-old Linda Bennett of Columbus, Ohio. Linda was reported missing a month after Kentucky found their murder victim on the side of a road, and yet the connection was never made. But do police already have a prime suspect in Ohio-bred Samuel Little, America's most prolific serial killer?www.ohiomysterie...

Gallipolis, Ohio was born of a scam. In 1790, some 500 Parisians eager to distance themselves from the aftermath of the French Revolution thought they'd bought deeds to land along the Ohio River in America's new Northwest Territory. But when they arrived in the New World, they learned their contracts were worthless. So, what happened to them?  www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.p...

In 1928, 4-year-old Melvin Horst left his home in Orrville, Ohio to show his friends the shiny red firetruck Santa had brought him. Then, he vanished in a case that captivated the country with twists and turns for more than a year. We talk to Melvin's surviving sister, Elgie, who is now 96 years old, and Orrville Sgt. Jaime McGreal, who has done some recent sleuthing on the ancient case. Ohio Myst...

For more than 50 years, the country accepted without question that Wooster, Ohio immigrant August Imgard was the first to decorate a Christmas tree in America. His charming story was told and retold by newspapers from coast to coast every December. But was Imgard really the first? Ninety-nine years after he spruced up a fir and enchanted his neighbors, a Wooster professor would go looking for the...

On Christmas Eve in 1933, a stranger walked through the streets of Willoughby, Ohio - a young woman dressed head to toe in blue, with 90 cents in her purse and hopes of getting home to Pennsylvania by Christmas. No one understood her intent as she sprinted for an approaching train, running into its side and glancing off with a fatally cracked skull. The town would bury the unidentified girl in a g...

For a century, Americans feared the Poinsettia, believing it to be poisonous to people and pets. In 1971, the Ohio State University was asked to test this longstanding myth. What did they learn? Why did we think this cheerful Christmas plant was a killer? And how many of us still believe it today? www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/myster...

In 1977, the US Justice Department sought to revoke the citizenship of a Ukrainian immigrant they believed to be guilty of World War II war atrocities. For the next 35 years, John Demjanjuk, an auto factory worker from Seven Hills, endured deportation hearings in the US, murder trials in Israel and Germany, and was almost hanged. But there are still questions about whether he was the sadistic guar...

In 1986, the most complete mastodon skeleton in the world was found in Ohio's Licking County. Researchers found more surprises than they expected: Butcher marks that hinted at how ice age hunters survived, and 13,000-year-old gut bacteria that was still alive and for a time hailed as the longest-living organism on the planet.www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.comwww.patreon.com/ohiomyster...

Kentucky-born Edgar Cayce dazzled generations with what appeared to be a unique talent for diagnosing illnesses and offering treatments, all while in a trance and with no medical training. During the two years he lived in Dayton, Ohio, he used his "gift" to explore the idea of reincarnation. His clairvoyant talents have modern historians calling him the founder of the New Age movement. www.ohiomys...

Betty Johnson from Ironton, Ohio had five husbands and an adult son die, most of them from gunshot. After North Carolina authorities charged her with trying to hire a hitman to take out husband No. 4, authorities in Ohio, Florida and Georgia began to wonder if they overlooked something. www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.comwww.patreon.com/ohiomysterieswww.twitter.com/mysteriesohiowww.fac...

Garrett Morgan's descendants hope a DNA test will prove what the family has believed for more than a century - that the inventor is the grandson of Confederate Col. John Morgan, of the Civil War's "Morgan Raiders." But even without that distinction, Garrett earned his place in history for designing the three-light traffic signal, and a gas mask he used to rescue men trapped in a Cleveland tunnel....

In 2006, Sam Hughes was found beaten to death in his home in Akron's North Hill neighborhood. Hughes was a small-time drug dealer who mostly sold marijuana to friends, but his new addiction to cocaine might have let new and dangerous people into his life. He left behind family and friends who had been trying to help Sam get his life back in order. Our UNRESOLVED series is in partnership with the A...

We take a look at six cases from NamUs, the national database of unidentified remains and missing persons, that come from the shoreline of the Ohio River. They include a car discovered that likely belongs to an Ohio murder victim, a Kentucky man missing from a damaged boat that was drifting in circles, and a partial skeleton buried in the muck at the river's edge.www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohio...