The Vault

A Minnesota man found dead on walking path told family he was a 'goner' after identified as confidential informant. Yet despite the suspicious death, his case was closed after suicide determination.

The night before Zak disappeared, he'd been texting his mother about plans for Christmas and was arranging his work schedule at a Super One bakery in Duluth. Investigators feel that a cellphone ping may have misled the investigation from immediately searching the grounds near where he went missing.   

In this episode, reporter Tracy Briggs tells the story of Engolf Snortland, who started a life of crime as a teenager in North Dakota. He'd continue it with kidnapping and robbery in Idaho. But his return to North Dakota ended up inspiring a change in the law.

Days before the "Unsolved Mysteries" episode on Joshua Guimond aired, the Stearns County Sheriff's Office released 28 images of individuals found on the computer, along with a plea to the public to help identify those pictured. The Stearns County Sheriff's Office has had those images since — at least —2008. Joshua's father, Brian, lost a lawsuit this year to get his hands on investigative material...

Cheryl drove away from her home around 6:30 p.m., riding in style in her grandfather's beloved 1960 Studebaker. She picked up Pamela, and together they drove to the party. Somewhere along their travels to the party, however, Cheryl and Pamela would go missing, without a trace. The question about happened to them wouldn't be answered for 43 years. Written by Cassie Williams, Mitchell Republic  Host...

After six days of blindfolded isolation in a basement with minimal sunlight, Haskell Bohn learned that his release had been successfully negotiated. Finally, freedom was near. It was also the start of the FBI's hunt for his kidnapper.  By Trisha Taurinskas

Reporter Trisha Taurinskas tells the story of Haskell Bohn, who was kidnapped for ransom in St. Paul in 1932 because he was heir to a refrigeration fortune. He struck up an unlikely 'friendship' with his Sankey Gang captors, talking baseball and bull riding, according to police records exclusively obtained from a descendent by Forum News Service.  

Dave Bohn thinks that in order to really understand his father's story, you have to understand why he was a victim in the first place. Haskell Bohn was… a millionaire. Well, he was the son of a millionaire. Here's the story. By: Trisha Taurinskas

Prohibition-era runners brought thousands of gallons of booze into the area, and despite law enforcements raids and arrests, there was plenty of demand for 'the devil's water.' Narrated by Trisha Taurinskas Written by Mark Wasson 

Family and friends crowded into a Hibbing courtroom Friday afternoon to watch as Carbo, 54, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1986 rape and murder of the Chisholm mother of two. Under Minnesota sentencing laws that were in effect at the time, he'll be eligible to petition for parole after 17 years.

The mystery of who robbed a Wahpeton bank in September 1932 endured until the man bragged about it 40 years later. He was "Public Enemy #1" and "the scourge of the Midwest."

Decades ago, Minnesota conservation officers, then known as game wardens, generally didn't carry weapons on duty. But that changed following a single deadly encounter on July 12, 1940, that left three wardens slaughtered and their killer dead in less than a minute. Written by Kari Lucin Narrated by Trisha Taurinskas

As medications for tuberculosis became available, the need for the sanatorium waned. While the transition to nursing home care began in the 1950s, by 1971 it officially became a St. Louis County nursing home, known as Nopeming Nursing Home. By 2002, the county made the decision to close the facility, ending another chapter of Nopeming's history. Just a few years later, a new chapter began when the...

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, formed as male ball players were being drafted into the military for World War II efforts, allowed more than 600 female players a chance to shine and get a paycheck to play their game on a national stage. It was immortalized in popular culture by the movie "A League of Their Own" and a new streaming show by the same name.

James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok was undoubtedly carrying at least one sidearm in the gold mining town of Deadwood in what was then Dakota Territory. So what happened to Hickok's gun?

Joel Lovelien, 38, was beaten to death outside of the Broken Drum Bar in Grand Forks the weekend before Halloween on Oct. 27, 2007, while in costume as a hockey player. Written by: Meghan Arbegast Narrated by: Trisha Taurinskas

The pyramid and surrounding buildings near Nekoma, North Dakota were created to defend the country's nuclear weapons during the Cold War. They've been empty for decades. But soon the facility will be a cryptocurrency mine, whose heat will warm an on-site greenhouse.

In the minutes before 3 a.m. on June 30, 1992, as the Northland slept, a freight train carrying hazardous materials just south of Superior derailed, sending train cars carrying aromatic chemicals sailing 71 feet into the waters of the Nemadji River.  The result was catastrophic —  the chemical cocktail created an orange colored vapor cloud measuring 20 miles long and 5 miles wide — and it parked i...

Radar tracks put Michael Bratlie, an experienced military and commercial pilot, just past Two Harbors, Minnesota, in his two-engine plane. There the flight path ended, drawing exhaustive searches of Lake Superior and the thick woods and rugged terrain on shore.

Where did an infamous mobster go when he needed a little rest and relaxation? Residents of the North Shore and Iron Range have long boasted their backyard as the bootlegger's land of leisure.

On July 13, 1890, the steamer Sea Wing was returning from a carnival-like day at a military encampment when it capsized from a sudden and violent storm. Many of the excursionists made the understandable but fateful decision to retreat to the ship's passenger cabin for protection. When the ship flipped over, they were trapped inside the upside-down boat and drowned. Author: Matthew Stolle Narrator:...

In the midst of the Northern pines and quaint Scandinavian communities of the early 1930s, a sinister underbelly of organized crime was brewing in Minnesota. While St. Paul was considered a crook's haven for mobsters to lay low, the infamous Al Capone was known to wander up North for rest and respite. Some point to St. Paul law enforcement as the key instigators in making Minnesota mob-friendly.

Some people claim the devil himself visited the tiny town of Villisca, Iowa, that summer night in 1912, when 8 people were killed by an ax murderer. Others say he already lived among them. After more than a century of idle gossip and speculation, some amateur sleuths might have just figured it out.

Under the bold headline "Murdered for Money," a Bemidji Daily Pioneer story from June 8, 1904, broke the news that a father and daughter had gone missing from the tiny town of Quiring, Minnesota. Written by: Madelyn Haasken Narrated by: Trisha Taurinskas

In this final episode, reporter Trisha Taurinskas explores who Sandra and John Jacobson were, through the eyes of their family members.  Sandra and John Jacobson went missing in November 1996 from Bismarck, North Dakota. John was just 5 years old at the time. Neither of them have been seen or heard from since.