Small Town Mysteries

Send us Fan Mail The 1970s and 80s was a hotbed of excellent paranormal horror films – The Exorcist, the original Amityville Horror, Halloween, Carrie, Eraserhead, Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria, Invasion of the Body Snatchers…. I could go on. It was quite the era of film – and remarkably, some of these legendary tales are based on true stories. One of the lesser known films of this era is The Entity....

Send us Fan Mail Today on STM I’m taking it back to the early 1800s and the village of Hammersmith, located in foggy London.  Nowadays, Hammersmith is a populated area within the Greater London area, home to almost 200,000 people . In December of 1803, However, the village only had about 5,500 inhabitants - the perfect setting for local gossip to run amok.  And amok it ran! Tales of an ominous spe...

Send us Fan Mail The Dybbuk box first gained popularity in 2003, after a man by the name of Kevin Mannis posted the Dybbuk box for sale on ebay. He claimed that the Dybbuk box was haunted and was causing a lot of strange and supernatural things to happen to both him and his family.  Sources:  1) https://jewitches.com/blogs/blog/the-deal-with-the-dybbuk?srsltid=AfmBOooiwzKe-kwg8ZBK2fCzzIa10aX_7PbGL...

Send us Fan Mail Hello and welcome to Small Town Mysteries, spooky season edition! This October we’re bringing you some truly bizarre cases – ones that we think simply scream Supernatural…are they truly the works of ghosts and phantoms? Are these crimes caused by otherworldly beings…or are humans the most depraved creature of all? I’m Kate, here with Christine and Rachael, bringing you our the fir...

Send us Fan Mail On a Monday morning in February 1986, in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, Sherri Rasmussen’s life came to a violent end. Sherri, a young nurse, was found dead in her condo. She had been brutally beaten and shot three times. Following this discovery, the Los Angeles Police Department quickly labeled the case as a botched burglary. But to Sherri's father, Nels, this fe...

Send us Fan Mail On July 4, 2016, David Isaiah Goodwin (age 25)  murdered Wendy Tamagne (age 37) and then dismembered her body and shoved her remains into trashbags. Sources:  1) https://wcti12.com/news/local/deliberations-finish-jury-begins-discussion-of-sentencing-for-david-godwin 2) https://www.wnct.com/news/david-godwin-sentenced-to-death-justice-has-been-served/ 3) https://www.jdnews.com/news...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes on this podcast, or in true crime in general, there’s discussion over so-called “black widows,” or women who have had multiple husbands die mysteriously, with the implication that they were responsible for those deaths.  But that’s not why we’re here today. Today, we’re going to talk about a bluebeard – yes, a man rather similar to a black widow, whose wives or partners...

Send us Fan Mail Over 40 years ago, on July 15th, 1984, in the rugged wilderness of the Madison Range in Montana, 22-year-old Kari Swenson went missing.  Kari was a recent Montana State University graduate and rising star in the world of biathlon, a sport that combines cross country skiing and rifle shooting. One sunny morning in July, Kari went for a run on a scenic forest trail. She was actually...

Send us Fan Mail One unhinged person murders their in-laws and the sister of her mother-in-law via death cap mushrooms.  Sources:  1) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy3ngr2n3vo 2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leongatha_mushroom_murders 3) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-02/police-charge-erin-patterson-mushroom-poisoning-deaths/103056694 4) https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/a...

Send us Fan Mail On May 13, 1998, the body of a woman was found on the side of I-85 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On September 25 of the same year, the body of a young boy was found underneath a billboard off of I-85 in Mebane, North Carolina. The bodies were found about 3 hours away from each other – in different months, in different stages of decay, even in different states. But more than 20 y...

Send us Fan Mail In the summer of 2005, Melanie Metheny’s family had a cookout. For Catherine Moles, it's a vivid memory of her niece, Melanie, then 20, doting on her three-year-old son, Ryan. Catherine remembers Melanie as "very, very watchful," and "very protective." The cookout was just a small glimpse into Melanie's world: her kids were everything to her. But litt...

Send us Fan Mail On September 21, 1909, six members of the Meadows family were murdered and had their log cabin set on fire. George and Lydia Meadows, as well as their children: Will, Noah, and Lafayette, and Lydia's mom, Elizabeth, were all hit in the head with an axe or hatchet.  Sources:  1) https://blueridgetruecrime.substack.com/p/death-rides-a-fast-train-the-laurel?open=false#%C2%A7an-u...

Send us Fan Mail Listen to Kate talk about how truly witless this man was! Sources:  1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Wozniak_(murderer) 2) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/16/theater/inspired-by-true-events-true-crime-play.html 3) https://abcnews.go.com/US/community-theater-actors-final-performance-chilling-confession-double/story?id=63181588 4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_(musical)...

Send us Fan Mail Today, Christine talks about a person whose mission to complete a charitable act ended in tragedy. We are going to uncover the truth that was buried in the remote Scottish Highlands for three, long years. This is the story of Tony Parsons. Sources:  1) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-66614488  2) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-56927878  3...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are going back in time to the 1890s to talk about the murder of the Meeks Family. Sources:  1) https://www.murderbygaslight.com/2011/04/meeks-family-murder.html 2) https://sullivan.mogenweb.org/meeksmurders.html 3) https://www.hannibal.net/archive/article/history-in-hannibal-folktale-relates-towns-horror-over-meeks-family-murders/article_78cc9a66-7ce1-521a-a5e6-10c7363aa4...

Send us Fan Mail Over the course of just two days, so began a panic that ultimately led to the deaths of at least 7 people directly, and more from copycats – and borderline hysteria that would change the pharmaceutical industry forever. Sources:  1) https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/09/30/the-tylenol-murders-40-years-ago-an-infamous-chicago-area-crime-took-these-7-lives/ 2) https://www.pbs.org/n...

Send us Fan Mail On December 5th, 1872, about 400 miles off the coast of the Azores, crew members on the British ship Dei Gratia spotted a ship adrift in the sea. The Captain of the ship was shocked to find that the unguided ship was the Mary Celeste, which had departed from NYC eight days before him, and had been well past-due to have arrived in Genoa, Italy. A small crew was sent to the ship. Be...

Send us Fan Mail This week, we talk about the murder of Patricia Richmond. This case will throw you for a loop! Sources: 1) Murder in the Heartland, Season 3, episode 3: Beautiful Mess  2) https://www.yampavalleyfh.com/obituary/5151291 3) https://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/24/man-pleads-guilty-to-killing-cousins-fiance-in-routt-county/ 4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_County,_Massachusett...

Send us Fan Mail An online connection that Vickie Edge thought was fate, turns out to be a nightmare.  Sources:  1) https://www.wkrg.com/true-crime/vickie-edge-owner-of-destin-day-spa-murdered-by-man-she-met-online/ 2) https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/vickie-edge-allegedly-murdered-by-boyfriend-jerry-odum 3) https://www.wkrg.com/video/family-remembers-murder-victim-vickie-edge/5754161/ 4) https:/...

Send us Fan Mail When Bobbi Parker vanishes one day, her family is concerned. She was thought to be taken by an inmate under her care. However, over a decade later, the mystery begins to unravel, and let's just say that everything is not as it seems! Sources:  1) https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Bobbi_Parker 2)https://www.reddit.com/r/UnsolvedMysteries/comments/f6nhp0/bobbi_parker_su...

Send us Fan Mail Often in true crime spaces we come across cases where a murder is never solved, where a murdered person’s family never finds justice, where a body is never properly laid to rest. Sometimes we get one of these things, or two, and, more rarely than it SHOULD happen, sometimes we get all three. Today’s case is all 3: a body found, a murder solved, and justice served. This is the case...

Send us Fan Mail Do you know the expression: "The Dingo ate my baby"? Okay, but did you know that it was based on an actual case in Australia in the 1980s? This week, Christine covers the famous Australian case - and talks about how one of the most publicized cases of its decade was botched, in large part due to public pressure.  Sources:  1) https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resou...

Send us Fan Mail Rachael walks us through the murders of Bruce and Darlene Rouse. As always, there's a niiiiice little twist in there...just to keep you all on your toes. Sources:  1) https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/crime-news/william-billy-rouse-confesses-parents-murders-illinois 2) https://vocal.media/criminal/the-libertyville-murders 3) https://www.lhsdoi.com/3511/news/libertyvilles-own-ame...

Send us Fan Mail Daniel Williams was 21 years old when he was sentenced to one year in prison for non-violent drug charges. He was bounced around to multiple facilities during this year, and was set to finish out the last few weeks of his sentence at Staton Correctional Center in Elmore, Alabama. Little did Daniel know that he would die in that prison, both at the hands of someone yet to be convic...

Send us Fan Mail On the morning of September 16th, 2010, Greg Fleniken's body is found in his hotel room. Police are puzzled - they cannot find any motive for his murder and no explanation for his strange internal injuries. Greg’s wife, Susie turns to a private investigator in order to crack the case...and he does, revealing a series of truly stupifying events. Sources:  1) https://www.vanity...