Unresolved: A True Crime & Mystery Podcast

On July 3rd, 2015, Crystal Rogers was last seen by anyone. She had been planning to spend the evening with her boyfriend, Brooks Houck, and had excitingly told a friend about finally enjoying a child-free night. Crystal, a mother of five, had been dating Brooks for a few years. The two had one child together (an infant son named Eli), and even though their relationship wasn't perfect, it seemed ok...

Through the first half of 2014, rumors continued to proliferate the region of Bardstown. Many believed that the Bardstown Police Department was involved - somehow - in the death of Officer Jason Ellis. However, it wasn't until March of that year that these conspiracy theorists were given some fodder in the form of a disgraced former-officer. This is a brief interlude in my new Unresolved series, B...

On April 22nd, 2014 a mother and daughter from Bardstown, Kentucky are noticeably absent from work/school. 48-year old Kathy and 16-year old Samantha are rarely even late, so their absence is noted as being very unlike them. When family is called to check in on the two Netherland ladies, it soon becomes apparent that something is wrong. Soon, the region finds itself facing its second high-profile...

In the early morning hours of May 25th, 2013, an officer in the small town of Bardstown, Kentucky was headed home. That officer - Jason Ellis - was a Cincinnati native who had moved to the region a little less than ten years prior. He was married, with two sons, and had left behind his childhood dreams of becoming a professional baseball player to become a member of law enforcement. But before Off...

On the evening of January 18th, 2016, a young man named Daniel Shaver was checked into a hotel room in Mesa, Arizona. He was in-town for business, having left his wife and two daughters behind at their home in Granbury, Texas. Daniel was enjoying life, and invited two guests to his hotel room for some drinks. There, he decided to show them his pellet guns (which he used for his work at a pest remo...

This is an update for episodes 31 - 35 of the podcast, which detailed Belgium's infamous Brabant Killers: a trio of gunmen that terrorized residents in the region surrounding Brussels. They killed 28 and wounded dozens of others in a series of attacks aimed at grocery stores. For more information about the original series, head to: https://unresolved.me/brabant/ Written, hosted, and produced by Mi...

On November 22nd, 1987, Chicago's channel 9 (WGN) was briefly interrupted. During the Sunday evening news, viewers were greeted by a bizarre masked man, who came upon their screen for a little under 20 seconds before disappearing. Then, just two hours later, this masked weirdo appeared again - this time, on channel 11 (WTTW - the local PBS provider). Even though he was barely intelligible, the man...

On February 10th, 1990, a bowling alley in Las Cruces, New Mexico was stirring. Four people - two staff members and and a pair of teenagers that were going to work in the building's day care - were inside the building, preparing for the busy Saturday ahead. At around 8:20 AM, two armed men entered the bowling alley through an unlocked door. They took the four people inside hostage, and began pilfe...

On July 17th, 2009, a Reddit user named /u/2-6 announced that their friend - another Reddit user named /u/ReligionOfPeace - had passed away. This announcement was made on Reddit to very little fanfare. Other than serving as a moderator on a creepy subreddit, /u/ReligionOfPeace was known for being an old, gruff weirdo, who claimed to have a storied military history. However, over the coming months,...

On October 13th, 2011, an animal rescue group in Bethany, Oklahoma made a startling discovery: two bags, which contained the dismembered human remains of a young woman. Police would eventually identify the remains as 19-year old Carina Saunders, a bright-but-troubled young woman that had disappeared just days before. Despite having a history of drug abuse, she had been on the road to recovery in t...

Every morning, a group of retirees - who jokingly referred to themselves as the "Board of Directors" - met up at a Huddle House in North Augusta, South Carolina for coffee. They had done so for nearly two decades. On the morning of November 22nd, 2005, this group of friends separated for the day. They began going their separate routes just after 6:00 AM - right around the same time that an armed g...

On December 25th, 1964 - Christmas Day - a housewife living just outside of the English town of Warminster reported an odd experience. She claimed to have heard an odd sound that reverberated across the countryside, described as "branches being dragged across gravel." A small newspaper clipping would report this woman's finding several weeks later, but the woman's account was verified by dozens of...

Between April and November of 1971, five young black women were abducted and murdered along the Washington Beltway. All had been killed by an enigma nicknamed "The Freeway Phantom," who had become known for leaving the bodies alongside major roadways. The sprawling investigation was headed by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPDC) - who were then joined investigators...

On March 26th, 1998, thirteen-year-old Tristan Brübach went to school (in the Höchst district of Frankfurt). He had tried to skip class, telling both his father and his teachers that he needed to see a doctor, but he would be in-attendance for most of the school day. Early that afternoon, Tristan would be granted an early release (by school officials) to see a doctor. Using public transportation,...

On February 3rd, 1980, the riot at the New Mexico State Pen carried on into its second full day. Negotiations continued, but with a handful of prison guards still captive, the inmates were holding most of the leverage. Eventually, a peace would be brokered and order would be restored to the penitentiary. The facility itself, though, was in total disarray, and the expensive cleanup effort that foll...

In the early morning hours of February 2nd, 1980, a dozen inmates at New Mexico's State Penitentiary took four prison guards hostage. Within an hour, more than ten guards would be taken captive, and hundreds of inmates were freed from their cells. The facility, which had been made aware of the dangers in the months preceding the riot, had done little to prepare for it. The rioting inmates made eas...

Throughout the 20th century, the New Mexico State Penitentiary earned a reputation of being, ironically, a lawless place - where violent and non-violent prisoners were forced to co-exist in cramped and deplorable conditions. Violence was constant, and certain cell blocks were allowed to run rampant over others. To make matters even worse, the prison's revolving door of wardens through the 1970's k...

In the early morning hours of October 9th, 1995, Amtrak's Sunset Limited - which regularly traveled between coasts - slipped off of the tracks in rural Arizona. As investigators began looking into the cause of this wreck, they discovered that this was no accident. A group (or an individual masquerading as a group) had conspired to make this derailment happen, leaving four copies of a rambling & po...

Between 2004 and 2006, a married couple took the Florida real estate market by storm. Victor and Natalia Wolf, who had immigrated to the U.S. a few years earlier from Russia and Germany, had a plan to reinvigorate the central Florida coast. In particular, they set their sights on a town called Citrus Springs, hoping to build a thriving community. Through a number of companies and subsidiaries, the...

On June 15th, 1985, the body of a young man was found in San Francisco's SoMa district. Despite being unable to learn the man's identity, police quickly discovered that the young man had been tortured and mutilated before his death. Just days after his discovery, the Santa Ana Orange County Register declared that the victim had been "bled to death and that he was butchered in ritualistic fashion i...

LeRoy Carter Jr. was a Vietnam veteran, who returned to the states and struggled to get his life back on-track. He became a transient, who spent several years trying to stay out of jail for a litany of petty crimes. On the evening of Saturday, February 7th, 1981, Carter found a quiet alcove along Alvord Lake, in the scenic-yet-troubled Golden Gate Park, where he proceeded to fall asleep. The next...

To celebrate the three-year mark of Unresolved, I decided to field some questions and do an impromptu "Ask Me Anything." I would like to thank everyone listening for supporting the podcast over the last three years. I cannot believe the podcast has been around for that long, but it would not have been possible without your patience and support. Thank you. Also, a special thank you to those that su...

On June 5th, 2010, Kenyan authorities reported that a 32-year old man living in Nairobi - named Philip Onyancha - had been taken into custody. Onyancha had come into police cross-hairs during a kidnapping investigation, exploring the circumstances in which a nine-year old boy had gone missing. Weeks after the boy disappeared, a ransom note appeared, demanding money be sent through a mobile applica...

On August 14th, 1977, a pair of blackberry pickers were walking in a wooded area of Everett, Washington - nearby Mariner High School and Paine Field. There, they found the decomposing body of a young woman, who had been brutally murdered.  Over the next week, police focused in their investigation on a single suspect: a man named David Marvin Roth, who had confessed to a friend (and who had also be...

In May of 1946, a violent crime unfolds just outside of Texarkana. A farm owner and his wife are shot multiple times by a mysterious attacker, who seems to have disappeared into thin air. While the assault bears a resemblance to a recent string of murders in Texas, it features a number of notable outliers; outliers which make investigators hesitant to officially name it a part of the recent spree....