True Crime in the 50

The Evergreen Murders: Return to Evergreen premieres Tuesday, November 19th

On the night of February 22nd, 2002, a woman named Taylor Schabusiness picked up her boyfriend Shad Thyrion and a friend in her Town and Country minivan in Green Bay, Wisconsin to go buy drugs. The three friends did meth, marijuana and Trazadone until the friend left. Then, Taylor and Shad went into the basement of his mother's house to continue doing drugs and to have sex. They carried on until a...

Danny Casolaro was a journalist on the verge of discovering something huge. A U.S. Intelligence military breach, lies, scandal, computer data hackings, killings and bribery that went up to the top of the government. The conspiracy even involved President Reagan himself. So when Danny Casolaro was found dead in a hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia, many thought he was murdered, even though th...

David Anderson and Alex Baranyi werhe best of friends. They were also murderers. Both boys had bad childhoods and were abused. But no one could have known that they would commit the ultimate sin.  Show Notes: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Secrets-School-Crime-Killers/dp/038080087X

Michelle Castillo was 43 years old and lived in Ashburn, Virginia in a 10,000 square foot mansion with her four young children. Michelle had recently been estranged from her husband, Braulio Castillo and had obtained a restraining order against him. She was enjoying her newfound freedom, and had just found out she had acheieved a dream of hers: to participate in the Boston Marathon in 2014.  But l...

George Peacock, 76, and his wife, Catherine, 73 were creatures of habit. So much so, that when George did not show up at a local convenience store one morning in his hometown of Danbury, Vermont to get the paper, the clerk noticed. He also did not show up for his part time job at the Rutland Travel Lodge on Sunday, September 17, 1989. Friends of the couple were asked to go check their home.  What...

Lauren McCluskey was an excellent 21-year-old athlete who competed on the track at field team at the University of Utah. At the beginning of Lauren's senior year there, in 2018, she met a man named Sean Fields while out at a club. Sean was 28 years old and went to the local community college. Sean and Lauren started dating for a few weeks in September and October and things were going great...or s...

Mary Lou Morris and Mary McGinnis Morris were two middle-aged women with short, dark curly hair and brown eyes. Mary Lou Morris was a bank loan officer and lived in Baytown, Texas. Mary McGinnis Morris was a healthcare medical director and lived in Sugarland, Texas. Mary Lou Morris was murdered by being burned alive in her car on a country road on October 12, 2000. Mary McGinnis Morris was murdere...

Blair Adams was from Surrey British Columbia, Canada, was 31 years old and had a good job as a construction site manager. He had struggled with drugs and alcohol at one point in his life, but, at the time of his death, had been sober for two years. On Friday, July 5th, 1996, Blair went to the bank and drained his checking and savings accounts. He then tried to get over the Canadian border to Seatt...

South Dakota's cold cases include: Tammy Haas, Eugene Prins, Morgan Bauer, Pamela Dunn and Morgan Lewis Show Notes: Tammy Haas: Yankton Police Department: 605-668-5210 FBI Office in Sioux Falls: 605-334-6881 tips.fbi.gov Anonymously at Yankton CrimeStoppers: 605-665-4440 Eugene Prins: Sanborn County Sherriff's Office: 605-796-4511 SD DCI: 605-773-3331 Morgan Bauer: Atlanta PD: 404-546-4235 Atlanta...

David Smith met Susan Vaughn at the local Winn Dixie in Union, South Carolina when the two were teenagers working as cashiers. Soon, they started dating and fell in love and Susan became pregnant. The two married and started a life together. They then had a second son.  But things were not perfect, not even close. Susan and David both had affairs and they fought over things like money constantly....

Ernest Brendel was an attorney who lived with his wife, Alice, a library assistant, and their young daugther, Emily in Barrington, Rhode Island. Through a mutual friend, Ernie met Chris Hightower, a twice-married financial advisor and the families became close. They even vacationed together in the New Hampshire moutains. But Ernie had invested $11,000 of his money with Chris and Chris lost it all....

Andrew Bagby was a well-liked and gregarious guy who always knew he wanted to be a doctor. He went to medical school in Newfoundland, Canada, and that is where the 28-year-old met 40-year-old Shirley Turner. Shirley was twice divorced and had left three kids behind with three different fathers when she went to medical school. Andrew Bagby broke things off with Shirley Turner when he started his re...

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, 1974, the Cowden family, which consisted of Richard Cowden, 28, Belinda, 22, David, 5, and Melissa, 5 months, made a spontaneous decision to go camping at one of their favorite spots, Carbury Creek, 40 miles to the Southwest from where they lived in White City, Oregon. They packed the truck then stopped off at the General Store in Copper, Oregon to visit Belin...

Brittany Phillips had just moved back home to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend nearby Tulsa Community College, with plans to transfer to Oklahoma State. She aspired to work in the medical field. She had a lot of friends nearby, and was very close with her mother, whom she talked to at least once a day and made the two hour drive to visit every weekend. But at the end of September, 2004, Brittany's mom, M...

On the morning of Sunday, August 12th, 2012, a 16-year-old High School student, Jane Doe, woke up in Steubenville, Ohio, about 15 miles from her hometown of Weirton, West Virginia. She woke up in a strange basement and had no idea where she was. She was missing her earrings, underwear and cell phone. In the room with her were tow boys, aged 16 and 17, named Trent May and Malik Richmond. Jane remem...

In February 2019, a young couple from the Cincinnati, Ohio area left their baby with his grandparents and made the two-and-a-half-hour drive up to Central Ohio to spend the night at the Hilton Hotel at Easton Town Center, a luxury shopping mall in Columbus. They were Tyler Davis and his wife, Brittany, whose birthday was the next day. But what started out as a fun evening with another local friend...

Barbara Cotton was born on November 10th, 1965 in Tayoga, North Dakota. She had 9 brothers and sisters and a hard life. Her family was poor and her father abused many family members. When her mother finally divorced her father in 1973, she took Barb and two siblings and moved to Williston, North Dakota. There, Barb went to High School, partied some, had a bussing job at a local restaurant, The Cou...

After the sudden and tragic death of his wife, Margaret in 2006, Ireland native Jason Corbett needed a nanny for his two children, Jack, 3 and Sarah, 12 weeks. Along came Molly Martens, a Montessori school teacher from the United States. Molly had a bubbly personality and was great with kids, so, soon, she was hired and the Corbett's started to heal. But Molly was not who they thought she was. She...

When Florida native Jake Nolan was 14 years old, he started showing signs of mental illness and depression. By the age of 17, he was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and had tried to kill himself. Because of this, his mother sent him to live with his second cousin, Dr. Pamela Buchbinder, in New York City. Pamela was a psychiatrist, could help Jake, prescribe him medicine, and, in turn, Jake would h...

In January of 1998, a 911 dispatcher in Las Cruces, New Mexico, received a call from a student at nearby New Mexico State University. The student was calling to say that she had not seen her roommate, Carly Martinez in over a day. The night before Carly had gone out with a man named Jesse Avalos to a roller skating rink and was later joined by Avalos' friend Jason Desnoyer. The three had left the...

February 13, 2001 started out like any other day for the Viola family. Patricia Viola got her two kids ready for school, and her husband, Jim, went to work. At around 8:30 am, Patricia set off on foot for her volunteer librarian position at the local school. Patricia, who went by Pat, had lost her license for a few months because of a seizure disorder that had flared up. At around 9 am, the burgla...

On January 19th of 2001, a man named Andrew Patti was relaxing in his vacation home in Vermont, just over the New Hampshire border, a little past 10 pm, with his son, Andy when he heard a knock on the door. Before him stood two teenage boys who asked if they could come inside and use the phone, since their car needed a jump. Sensing something was off, Andrew said no, but that he would call someone...

Brookey Lee West was born in June of 1953 to LeRoy and Christine Smith. Her parents were drug addicts and frequently left her and her younger brother, Travis, alone at home for days on end with no food to eat. When Brookey was seven years old, her mother attempted to kill an ex-boyfriend in a fit of rage with a shotgun at a bar, and subsequently went to prison. Brookey graduated High School and en...