Ohio Mysteries

Peggy Andrews was just a dozen steps from the door of the boarding house where the Columbus Business School student was living when she was likely forced at gunpoint to put down her books and follow a killer to her death in a garage a few houses away. Police have DNA in this 1962 case and are hoping one day, they'll find a suspect to match it. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.p...

The 16-year-old Hamilton, Ohio teen was sweet and kind, but she was also attracted to a rowdy crowd. It led her to the parking lot of a biker bar, where she willingly entered the car of a man her friends didn't know. Her body was found two weeks later. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohiomysteries Music:...

Since the 1700s, Ohio settlers have been reporting sightings of an unusual aquatic species, describing it as 17- to 60-feet long with a sleek body. In the 90s, voters in a newspaper poll named the local legend South Bay Bessie and businessmen raised a reward fund to pay anyone who could catch it. But the Lake Erie Monster remains elusive, and speculation continues as to what the serpentine encount...

10-Minute Mystery: Sweetest DayIf you're outside of Ohio, good chance you've never heard of Sweetest Day. If you're in Ohio, good chance you're not doing it right. How Sweetest Day got started, and the mystery of how we came to be doing it wrong, as well as the debate over its origins. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www....

A story out of Newburgh Heights in 1981, authorities have never been confident on how to classify the case of 17-year-old Kurt Sova. Did he die in an accident of his own making after a night of heavy drinking? Or was he murdered. But new interest has reopened this case as forensic students try to decipher the riddles, contradictions and coverups that have made this one almost impossible to solve....

If Charlotte Nagi Pollis is alive, she'd be 54 years old today. But her family is convinced the mother of two died at the age of 28, when she was reported missing from her Girard home on March 12, 1994. Her husband, Paul Pollis, told police she was gone when he came home from an afternoon of running errands.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A story of torment, Bill and Dorothy Wacker of Massillon, Ohio spent a decade fearing every knock on the door and every ring of their phone. From 1984 through 1993, they endured break-ins, banging in the middle of the night, letters left on their porch, strange phone calls, and twice a physical attack on Dorothy inside her home. Who stalked the Wackers? www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries....

Margaret Dodd left Akron soon after marrying, and settled into a contented life with her husband in West Virginia. That is, until 1977, when witnesses saw her abducted. Soon after, her family back home in Ohio began receiving ransom demands. Did the caller really know where Margie was, or was he just hoping to take advantage of desperate parents? The case took more dramatic twists, including the d...

Dec. 10, 1977 began with a lot of promise for 23-year-old Alana Gwinner, who finished the last exam she needed for her associate's degree in business from the University of Cincinnati. But she disappeared after a night of celebrating, with her remains turning up in the Ohio River a month later. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteries...

Authorities never learned the identity of the man who was found dead of natural causes along a road outside Sabina, Ohio in 1929. But he would become the town's most famous resident over the next 35 years as his embalmed body went on display as a roadside attraction and is estimated to have been viewed in person by 1.5 million people. www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com...

Cincinnati police officer Donald Martin, a young husband and father-to-be, was cut down in the line of duty in 1961 by an unknown assailant. In 2005, two homicide detectives reopened the investigation and came to a conclusion, though their top suspect was already dead. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohio...

In one of the most famous criminal trials of the 20th century, Cleveland physician Sam Sheppard was accused in the brutal beating death of his wife, Marilyn Sheppard. The first trial returned a guilt verdict. A second trial found him innocent. The case so gripped the nation, it is said to have been the inspiration for the TV series and movie The Fugutive. www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysterie...

When Ohio Farmers Insurance (the predecessor to Westfield Insurance Companies) was robbed of $60,000 in 1865, the famed detective Alan Pinkerton thought he had it all figured out. Then the man in jail for the crime began to insist he was an undercover detective on the case, getting some law enforcement friends to back him out. But was it all just a big con game?  www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohi...

We looked for recent news on previous episodes, and also received mail from people associated with podcasts we've done. This special edition will offer updates and new insights on: Ep 12 The Corpse of John Wilkes Booth; Ep 47 John Dillinger's loot; Ep 65 Who killed the Hoods?; Ep 23 Bank Heist - The Ted Conrad story; Ep 19 The Hicks Babies; Ep 40 The escape of Lester Eubanks; 10-Minute Mystery - K...

Episode Notes: 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 l...

In 1991, Margaret and Howard Hood returned home late at night from a card party at their daughter's home. An hour later, a killer entered their New Franklin home and slit their throats. A man living with one of the Hood's daughters had previously been questioned in two other murders, though police could never find evidence connecting him to any of the crimes. www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomyst...

In 1892, newspapers around the country printed the stunning account of a Portuguese sailor serving time in the Ohio Penitentiary for killing and drinking the blood of his shipmates. Modern researchers have sought to explain why 19th century Americans thought they had a living vampire. www.ohiomysteries.com feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.f...

Actress Agnes Moorehead was a two-time Oscar nominee perhaps best known for playing Endora on the television series Bewitched. When she died in 1974, she became one of 46 cast and crew who died of cancer following the filming of The Conqueror. Movie production included 13 weeks on location at a Utah site that was downwind of a dozen nuclear bomb tests the year before. Co-stars John Wayne and Susan...

Five mysteries in Ohio that involve the gravesite of notable Ohioans. We explore the strange habits of the granite ball over the Charles Merchant Family plot, why Chief Joc-O-Sot might be haunting the Joining us is Michael Bonano, administrator of the Facebook page "Too Late For Autographs, Ohio," who has visited each of the featured sites. www.ohiomysteries.comfeedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patre...

The morning of Aug. 9, 1977, Paula Payne left her Dayton home and started her walk to where she worked, teaching nature classes to children at the local natural history museum. She didn't make it. www.ohiomysteries.com  feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohiomysteries Music: Audionautix- The Great Unknown The Great Phospher- Dani...

Gus Sapharas, an Akron native with a long history of attacks against women and a "not guilty" verdict for killing one, is awaiting trial in the deaths of two more - Karen Bentz of Summit County and Loretta Jean Davis of Portage County. But there are more questions. Could he have been connected to even more attacks, and how could someone with a documented history of brutal assaults have remained fr...

The people who lived in the hamlet of Crosswick in southwest Ohio didn't want to question the strange tracks that crossed the dirt road through town, figuring if they didn't bother the unidentified creature, it wouldn't bother them. But an attack recorded in 1882 suggested they were wrong. www.ohiomysteries.com  feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio...

History says President William Henry Harrison - one of eight presidents Ohio gave our country - died from a cold he caught while delivering his lengthy inaugural speech in a freezing winter rain. His term in the White House lasted just 30 days. But a modern medical analysis of his death suggests it wasn't pneumonia, but rather a killer lurking in a fetid marsh just a few blocks away. www.ohiomyste...

Helen Vorhees Brach is the story of an Ohio farm girl who became an heiress to the Brach candy empire. But as a wealthy widow, her American dream ended in a nightmare of con artists, show horse racketeers, a greedy handyman and murder. www.ohiomysteries.com  feedback@ohiomysteries.com www.patreon.com/ohiomysteries www.twitter.com/mysteriesohio www.facebook.com/ohiomysteries Music: Audionautix- The...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices