In the summer of 1999, 46-year-old Maria Bozi, a Romanian immigrant living in the United Kingdom, met and married a man after a whirlwind romance. Within months, she would move to the United States to live with him. And soon after, she would disappear. This week we’re joined by guest reader Ann Pirvu. Ann is a Romanian-Canadian actress and producer…

On the night of December 17, 2013, 20-year-old Heather Elvis goes on a first date with a former high school classmate. The two eat dinner, look at Christmas decorations together, and he tries to teach her to drive a stick shift. And then, after he says goodnight to her, Heather gets a call. It’s her ex. He says he’s leaving his wife and he wants he…

In 1956, the brutal murder of family man Thomas Hotard at a Louisiana lover’s lane leaves a trail of unanswered questions. Investigators quickly discover a mysterious connection to Audrey Moate, a woman whose sudden disappearance raises even more chilling suspicions. Was Audrey a victim, or does her vanishing hide a darker secret? As the investigat…

Summary In 1946, Paula Welden, a college student at Bennington College, mysteriously disappears, leaving behind a chilling unsolved case that has haunted the region for decades. As her disappearance unfolds, it sparks a dark fascination that even inspired famous writers like Donna Tartt and Shirley Jackson as well as spurred the creation of the Ver…

Barbara Newhall Follett had published her first novel at 12, traveled the world by 14, and regularly corresponded with scientists, artists, and sailors. So at age 15, when she ran away for the first time, it was because she couldn’t understand why she would be forced into a life not created wholly on her own. It won’t be the first time, Barbara dis…

By age 9, Barbara Newhall Follett had written her first novel draft. By age 12, she’d published it with a major publishing house, selling out of the initial print run before it even made it to stores. By age 14 she left her Connecticut home to travel to Barbados, Tahiti, and Samoa chasing new story ideas and escaping the turmoil of her parents’s di…

In November 1934, new mother Etta Riel mysteriously disappears just hours before she’s set to attend a crucial paternity hearing. Her family believes she was preparing to reconcile with the man she claimed was the father of her baby, and that they were planning to elope to New York for a fresh start. But the man in question insists they were never …

September 1934, a 21-year-old newlywed, Olga Schultz Mauger, heads to Togwotee Pass in Wyoming to hunt elk on her honeymoon with her new husband. He says he last saw her sitting on a boulder in the mountains when they stopped to rest. Then, she simply vanished. Now, 90 years later, Olga is considered Wyoming’s oldest known missing persons case. Thi…

Memorial Day weekend in 2007 was supposed to be a weekend of celebration for the Henry sisters. They traveled from New York City to Miami to see friends, family and celebrate the younger sister’s birthday. But by the weekend’s end, only one of them would return home. The other, 22-year-old Stepha Henry, an aspiring lawyer, would be missing. Join us…

Special Episode, Behind the poem - Battle Lines from episode 13. Aimee and Vanessa talk about the inspiration and process of writing the poem Battle Lines, about the unidentified person known as Bitter Creek Betty.Von She Goes By Jane

Special episode, Vanessa and Aimée discuss God of the woods, by Liz Moore.Von She Goes By Jane

How quickly can someone just…disappear? One minute there, the next gone. How could someone leave a dorm party at a busy college campus and not make it to their own residence, just 300 yards away? In 1978, a 22 year old college sophomore, Judy Martins, stepped out of a dorm building at Kent State University and into darkness. This week we’re joined …

In 1980, a worker at Westfield High School in Thousand Oaks, California, is annoyed when he sees a mannequin on a slope near one of the school’s parking lots. The school had been experiencing vandalism in the recent months and this was yet another example of things being left at the school. But as he drew closer, he realized that what he was seeing…

Michelle Doherty should have had a lifetime to come into herself. Instead, the 17-year-old mother was pressured into becoming a narcotics informant to help police bust a drug ring. That one decision likely got her killed. Michelle Doherty is one of the missing women of the Texas Killing Fields, but her story is often overlooked. This week we’re joi…

In 1976, Iris Brown returns to her apartment and learns that her boyfriend is about to be released from Federal Prison the next day. The man who tells her this had been in prison with her boyfriend and he’s received a telegram informing him of this news. He suggests the two of them leave immediately and drive the nearly 300 miles there so they can …

In August 1949, friends of Mimi Boomhower arrive at Mimi’s home to find that despite the lights on inside and outside her Bel Air mansion and her car in her garage, the wealthy widow is nowhere to be found. Seven days later her purse is found inside a grocery store telephone booth with a cryptic message written in pen on its side sending police int…

One late afternoon in 1950, a mushroom hunter finds the body of a woman off a little used road in West Virginia. It is clear she was murdered and dumped in this remote location. Despite there being few clues to her identity, investigators get to work trying to identify her and her killer. Within the first year of discovering her body, investigators…

Summary “If it’s a kidnapping, I’d have a ransom note by now,” says private investigator Ernest Rizzo about the 1977 disappearance of candy heiress Helen Voorhees Brach. But despite his confidence that Helen Brach is still alive, no one has seen her. And as the days turn into months turn into years, it becomes more and more clear just how wrong Ern…

In 1994, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office enters a property in Loxahatchee, Florida and finds a chilling sight. Hundreds of exotic birds including parrots and macaws are dead or dying inside their enclosures. While they work frantically to save the remaining birds, their focus shifts to how they got in this state. Where is their caretaker, 36 year o…

In 1998, Suzanne Renee Richerson, a Texas A&M student at their Galveston campus, headed to work as a night clerk at a hotel and condo complex. She expects to study overnight and leave at 7am. At 6am, the security guard checks on her before he leaves, but by 6:15am, as a couple goes to check out, Suzanne is no longer at her desk. This week we’re joi…

“Did you find the body?” a killer asks law enforcement 38 years after his wife went missing. When Gloria Kidder met her future husband at work, little did she know she was also meeting the man who would force her to experience an escalating pattern of violence ending only in her death. This week we’re joined by Patrisha McLean who started on her jo…

In 1937, a young college woman, Ruth Baumgardner, says good night to her friends and heads to her dorm room. That’s the last anyone sees of her. The next day her friend finds Ruth’s car key on the dorm building staircase, but Ruth is nowhere to be found. The week we are joined by guest reader Mallory Kennedy. Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana,…

In 2000, model Lourdes Gruart disappears. Her brother says that she told him she was leaving for Europe for a modeling job and left their shared apartment. But Lourdes doesn’t have an active passport, nor has she told anyone else of her travel plans. In the 24 years since, Lourdes’s disappearance has remained a mystery. Join us on Patreon! Your sup…

In 1928, Bessie and Glen Hyde take a scow down the Colorado River in their attempt to have Bessie become the first woman documented to have gone down the river through the canyon. Their plan is to leverage their experience into a career on the lecture and vaudeville circuit. They are last seen heading down the river in mid November. This week we ar…

Known to the courts as a glamor girl, 26 year old Jean Spangler was trying to make her way in Hollywood as an actress and dancer while raising her young daughter as a single mom. And then the unthinkable happens, on the night of October 7, 1949, Jean Spangler left her home telling her family she would be doing a bit part at one of the studios. She …

Summary Known to the courts as a glamor girl, 26 year old Jean Spangler was trying to make her way in Hollywood as an actress and dancer while raising her young daughter as a single mom. And then the unthinkable happens, on the night of October 7, 1949, Jean Spangler left her home telling her family she would be doing a bit part at one of the studi…

In 1998, an unidentified woman’s remains are found near a highway truck stop in Weatherford, Texas. It is believed that she died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but in the past 26 years no one has come forward to claim her. Today, little has been publicized about her case, making her one of the many unidentified women whose stories aren’t told. …

Everyone knew Evelyn Throsby’s fifth husband wasn’t right for her. Everyone except Evelyn that is. But what they didn’t know was that he was a conman. He used his skills to isolate Evelyn from her friends and family, steal her money, and, ultimately, kill her while keeping everyone in the dark for months. Evelyn’s murder would go on to become a lan…

It’s 1946. Twenty-four year old Lola Celli is visiting her parents in Grandview Heights, Ohio when she decides to take a bus into Columbus to buy some nylons. But her neighbors don’t report seeing her on the morning bus nor is there any record of her making a purchase at the store she planned to visit. Is it possible that something happened to Lola…

On the Fourth of July weekend in 1966, three young women head to Indiana Dunes State Park to enjoy the beach and swim in Lake Michigan. Despite the over 8000 other beach goers there that day, the women somehow vanish without a trace. They’re disappearances spawn many theories over the years, but none bring investigators closer to finding out what h…

A serial killer sends investigators a series of notes, detailing his crimes. In them, he mentions a married woman who drove a white grand am. He claims he murdered her and that investigators should be able to use his clues to identify her. There’s one problem though, investigators can’t find any missing person or murder cases that match these clues…

In 1990, a mushroom hunter finds the burned skeletal remains of woman in rural Arkansas. Due to the brutal treatment of these remains by her killer, she will become known as Bone Woman, and, less often, as Benton County Jane Doe. In 2022, Benton County authorities make a major announcement. Using investigative genetic genealogy, they were able to i…

It’s June 1989 and Kansas is rocked by a series of attacks on young women. Twenty-four year old Terri Maness was found murdered in her townhouse and eleven days later 24 year old Joan Butler goes missing from her apartment. Just days after that, two roommates, Theresa Brown and Christine Rusch are abducted as well. These abductions spur a manhunt a…

Summary In June 1989, Terri Maness is found murdered in her townhouse in Wichita Kansas. Over a week later and 200 miles away, Joan Butler doesn’t show up for work worrying her family and co-workers, but when they go to her apartment, she’s nowhere to be found. Initially, there’s nothing to connect these two cases, but within a week, investigators …

In 1979 the body of a woman was found on or under a porch in North Camden, New Jersey. Years later, her skull is found in another residence. Despite this shocking find, little information is known about her. This week we try to shine light on her story and the factors that have worked against her identification. This week our guest reader is Shay M…

Though Dr. Sneha Philip, who lived just blocks from the World Trade Center, is last seen on September 10th, she is added to the list of 9/11 victims. That is until the NYPD starts investigating her personal history and this investigation leads to her removal. Over the years her family fights for her to be recognized as one of the victims and, in 20…

New York City, September 10th, 2001. The day before the attacks on the World Trade Center is a day when most New York City residents are going about their regular business. The same was true for Dr. Sneha Philip who left her Battery Park apartment that evening to run some errands. It wasn’t unusual for her to spend the night out in the city, but wh…

In December 1990, a woman accidentally drowned in the Passaic River in New Jersey. Despite these tragic circumstances, her story garners little media attention. She becomes one of the tens of thousands of individuals who are currently unidentified in the United States. Researchers call these tens of thousands of unidentified our “silent mass disast…

On March 22, 2011, employees at Dr. Promila Mehta-Paul’s medical office arrive and get ready for another busy day of patients and appointments. There’s one problem? The Doctor never arrives. Always reliable and communicative, they know it’s unlikely that she wouldn’t have called if something came up and soon they, along with Promila’s family and fr…

At 3:30am, a 13-year-old Deanna Merryfield shows up at her uncle’s trailer and wakes her twin who is sleeping inside. The two talk for just a moment before Deanna, startled by her uncle waking up, bolts. This is the last confirmed time she was seen alive. Since 1990, the year she disappeared, until now, there are a few clues that she might be out t…

In 1952, a man comes across the burned body of a woman in Cottonwood Gulch, just outside of Black Hawk, Colorado. He returns to this site several times before reporting what he found to the sheriff’s office, a fact that will immediately cloud his actions in suspicion. Without any identifying information, she becomes known as Maria to some, or more …

Perhaps you’ve seen the photo before. A young woman with her hands bound, tape over her mouth, laying in the back of a van with a similarly bound little boy. This photo has, for better or worse, become synonymous with the case of Tara Calico, a 19 year old young woman who disappeared while riding her bicycle in New Mexico in 1988. But beyond that p…

In 1977, a young female hitchhiker catches a ride from a man who offers to bring her to her home. Within an hour, the man murders her and leaves her body to be found by a group of blackberry pickers a few days later. She has no identification on her. Though it’s not long before they pinpoint him as the murderer, but he doesn’t know her name. Invest…

In 1968, the body of a young woman was found in rural Pennsylvania. She’d been shot to death. Months later, another young woman is found just a few miles away. Their only connection? They wore the same leather sandals. It will take nearly fifty years and an online database dedicated to missing and unidentified persons to identify who they are. But …

In August 1993, a man walks into a police station and gives a statement about the disappearance of 16-year-old Sequoya Vargas. In it, he details the brutal assault and murder of the teenager, placing blame for these on his two friends. This statement of what happened to Sequoya will be just one of many that’s given over the years by the three men. …

In 1993, 16-year-old Sequoya Vargas hitchhikes with a friend to her friend’s home. Later that evening, the man who gave them a ride asks her to go to his cousin’s house to watch movies. She never returns home. Despite this being out of character for her, the police brush aside her mother’s pleas to search for her daughter, sending her family and fr…

Detective Lorie Howard was once told that the only way the case of the unidentified woman she was working on would be by the grace of god. This gave her the name Grace Doe and she was known by this for years until she was finally identified as Shauna Garber. A few weeks ago, investigators made public new information, filling in gaps in Shauna’s sto…

Tot Tran Harriman survived the Vietnam War. She witnessed history when she was evacuated on the last boat out of Saigon before it fell. She lived through being held in a refugee camp in Pennsylvania along with 20,000 other refugees. And made a life for herself in Maine, raising three children, starting new businesses, and helping other refugees. Bu…

On a hot summer’s day in 1992, 63-year-old Bessie Kutnak goes to look for her missing cattle near her home in Cameron, Texas. Witnesses say she seemed disoriented and was seen asking for directions before she disappeared. When family members realized she was missing, a full-scale search of her began, but no trace of her was ever found. This week ou…

On July 11, 2007, a 31-year-old Carma Purpura was last seen getting into the cab of a truck driver at a rest stop near Indianapolis. The next day, he’s arrested in Nashville under suspicion he’s involved in the murder of another woman. Inside his cab, investigators find Carma’s phone and credit card and so much of Carma’s blood detectives are certa…