The Misery Machine

This week, Yergy and Drewby report on Maine's first shark related death that took place on July 27th in the town of Harpswell, on the quaint Bailey Island - a place Yergy and Drewby both grew up visiting. 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach, a New York native who, while staying at her summer home in Harpswell, was tragically killed by a great white shark while she was swimming in the ocean. We cov...

This week, Yergy and Drewby take a break from true crime to pay tribute to the legend known as Billy Herrington, highlighting his early work in male adult entertainment, and his unexpected rise to internet fame in Asia, and later the rest of the world, through the internet phenomena of Gachimuchi.   Billy Herrington was born in North Babylon, New York, and grew up on Long Island learning karate fr...

It's our anniversary! Thank you so much to all of our listeners that have been with us on this crazy ride. We appreciate all that you do and cannot wait to see what this next year brings. To help celebrate, this week we are releasing the heavily anticipated "Dahmer Episode" guest starring the one and only Eddy! Jeffrey Dahmer and his crimes in the late 80's and early 90's shook the US. The murders...

Drewby and Yergy cover the recent death of Mary Kay Letourneau, who was an American school teacher (and tabloid fixture of the 1990's) who pleaded guilty in 1997 to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child, Vili Fualaau, who was 12 or 13 at the time, had been her sixth-grade student, and had allegedly also taught him in second grade. While awaiting sentencing, she gave birth to Fualaau's...

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss in great detail the Enumclaw horse sex case, which was a series of incidents in 2005 involving Kenneth Pinyan, an engineer who worked for Boeing and resided in Gig Harbor, Washington; James Michael Tait, a truck driver; and other unidentified men. Pinyan and Tait filmed and distributed zoophilic pornography of Pinyan receiving anal sex from a stallion under the...

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the little known case of Mary Cowan, who arguably is Maine's first serial killer. We also touch base on her connections to Lewiston. Mary A. Cowan, known as The Borgia of Maine, was an American serial killer who poisoned two husbands (Willis W. Bean, and George H. Taylor), and four children between 1884 and 1894 (Gracie, Alice and Mabel Bean - as well as stepson...

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the tragic death of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death. The body of Elisa Lam was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19, 2013. She had been reported missing at the beginning of the month. A maintenance worker at...

In honor of Pride month, this week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the tragic case of Charlie Howard, a young gay man that was murdered in Bangor, ME in 1984, who never really received justice due to his sexual orientation.  As Howard and his boyfriend, Roy Ogden, were walking down the street, three teenagers, Shawn Mabry, James Baines, and Daniel Ness, harassed, assaulted, and murdered Howard for being...

This week, Drewby and Yergy cover the tragic story of Sylvia Likens. We draw comparisons to her case and that of Junko Furuta, and discuss the phenomena of bystander apathy, why no one in power stepped in to assist, why neighbors were apathetic despite numerous instances of public child abuse, and why neighborhood kids considered the ordeal to be some sort of funny sideshow or game, despite there...

This week, Yergy and Drewby tackle another listener suggestion (thank you, Amir!) - the unsolved disappearance of Randy Leach. We discuss the hard facts, and ponder whether or not the combination of the 1980's "Satanic Panic" phenomena and shoddy police work rendered his case unsolvable.   Randy was a senior at Linwood High School (Linwood, Kansas) in 1988. He left his home at 6:30 p.m. to attend...

  This week, Yergy and Drewby conclude the case of James Rodney Hicks, arguably Maine's only known serial killer - and speculate as to why Hicks got away with his crimes for so long. On 1 November 2000, Maine's Penobscot County grand jury formally charged confessed killer James Hicks, 49, with the murders of Jerilyn Towers and Lynn Willette. Hicks served six years of a 10-year prison sentence for...

This week, Yergy and Drewby discuss the crimes of James Rodney Hicks, arguably Maine's only known serial killer.  On 1 November 2000, Maine's Penobscot County grand jury formally charged confessed killer James Hicks, 49, with the murders of Jerilyn Towers and Lynn Willette. Hicks served six years of a 10-year prison sentence for killing his first wife, 23-year-old Jennie Hicks, who disappeared fro...

We hope you're all staying safe in quarantine out there! This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the case of Mona Fandey - a failed pop singer later turned shaman and murderer from Malaysia. Fandey was executed at the age of 45, after being convicted of the murder of a politician, Mazlan Idris in 1993, who had solicited Fandey to perform a "witchcraft ritual" to help his position within his political...

This week, Drewby and Yergy review the unsolved murders of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, two teenage girls from the small town of Delphi, Indiana. On February 14, 2017, the bodies of Abigail Williams and Liberty German were discovered near the Monon High Bridge Trail, which is part of the Delphi Historic Trails in Delphi, Indiana, United States, after the young girls had disappeared from th...

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the case of Joe Exotic, recently thrust back into the spotlight as the subject of the new Netflix docuseries "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness." Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, (né Schreibvogel; born March 5, 1963), popularly known as Joe Exotic, is an American former zoo operator. He previously owned and ran the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Ok...

This week we are covering a chilling and ghastly case of Fan Man Yee(樊敏儀), a young woman who was tortured and ultimately killed by three men: Chan Man-lok(陳文樂), Leung Shing-cho(梁勝祖), and Leung Wai-lun(梁偉倫) in the Kowloon District of Hong Kong over stolen money despite it being paid back over double the amount taken. The slaying gets its name from the victim's skull being discovered in...

This week, Drewby and Yergy delve deep into the chilling real-life story of Chris Benoit, a Canadian professional wrestler with an illustrious career (WWF/WWE, WCW, ECW, NJPW) that was found dead by suicide due to hanging after murdering his wife and young son. This was a high profile case given Benoit being at the top of the WWE at the time, and came with many theories about what the motive was o...

This week, Yergy and Drewby take a break from the macabre and discuss a few of the many tales and urban legends surrounding their home state of Maine. Stories we cover are: -The Sabattus Well (which we take a journey to try to find) -Colonel Buck’s Tomb in Bucksport  -The Robie-Andrews Dorm which is an allegedly haunted dorm at The University of Southern Maine's (USM) Gorham campus  -The Wood Isla...

This week, Drewby and Yergy discuss the tragic case of Junko Furuta, a Japanese high-school student who was abducted, tortured, raped, and murdered in the late 1980s. Her murder case was named "Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder Case," due to her body being discovered in a concrete drum.  Approximately 100 people knew about Furuta's captivity, but either did nothing about it or themselves pa...

This week, Drewby and Yergy cover the tragic downward spiral of New England Patriots tight-end Aaron Hernandez who was recently covered on a Netflix documentary called "Killer Inside. We discuss his early years as a star athlete, his career in the National Football League (NFL), his drug use and crimes, his eventual suicide in a Massachusetts prison cell, and whether or not the brain damage he suf...