Hell and Gone

On January 7, 1995, at around 12:50 pm, two women, Monica Jones and her girlfriend Cheryl Edwards were driving down Highway 56 near Brockwell, Arkansas when Cheryl saw smoke coming from a trailer at the residence of 43-year-old Connie Townsend. The two women pulled over and ran up to the trailer to try to help. At around that same time, another woman, Billy Browning arrived. Monica and Cheryl both desperately tried to get inside the trailer, but the heat was too intense. The trailer was already engulfed in flames. By the time the first officer from the Izard County Sheriff's Office and the Calico Rock fire department arrived on the scene, it was chaos. According to the police report, the officer noted that there were about 20 to 25 people standing in the yard. Connie Townsend burned to death while it seemed like half the town stood outside, and multiple people told police about threats that she had allegedly received, some of them earlier that day. And yet, 30 years later no one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with her death. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 1, 1987, Theresa Ann Bier was about to go on an adventure… into the woods to look for Bigfoot. Theresa was sixteen years old, and was wrapping up her freshman year at Fresno High in Fresno, California. She was one year behind a lot of her classmates, which wasn’t surprising because she was living in a very abusive environment with her uncle John Richmond, his two young sons, and his 17-year-old girlfriend. Theresa’s plan was to skip school June 1 and drive into the Sierra Nevada Mountains for the day with a 43-year-old friend of her uncle’s, Russell “Skip” Welch. But Theresa never came home, and soon, the man who took her into the woods was rambling about Theresa being taken by a monster. The case made local news, and on Friday, June 19, 1987, The Fresno Bee published a newspaper article about this case with the headline “Man blames Bigfoot for missing girl.” But this was more than a tabloid story. This case would involve allegations of sex slavery, serial killers, drug use, Bigfoot colonies - and at the heart of this story, a system that completely failed a young woman on every single level - a system that allowed a sixteen year old to vanish without a trace. If you have a case you’d like Catheerine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was Thursday night, November 1, 2007, and 18-year-old Justin Gaines was getting ready for a night out with his friends at Wild Bill’s, a club in Duluth, Georgia. Justin was a freshman in college. He had just started at Gainesville State college, which was about an hour away from where his family was. Justin was 5 '11, 210 pounds, with blue eyes and brown hair in a buzz cut. He was a handsome, clean cut, preppy guy. Justin didn’t take a wallet out with him that night, so he had no credit cards, just cash, a couple fake IDs, and his cell phone. He caught a ride with his friends to the club. But when they arrived, his friends didn’t want to pay the cover charge and left. Justin saw someone in line who he knew and was able to get in for free and went into the club on his own. He said that it was no problem. He would find a ride. This was something he did often. A while later, in the early morning hours of November 2, 2007, Justin walked out into that parking lot in Duluth, and no one ever saw him again. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On February 15, 2024, 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham, a fifth grade student at Creekside Elementary in Livingstone, Texas, never made it to the bus stop. And when she didn’t come home after school, her family knew that something was very wrong. Audrii lived with her dad, and on that property, there was someone else living there: a 42-year-old friend of the family’s who lived in a camper. And even though he had a very disturbing criminal record, this man was allowed to babysit for Audrii. Once Audrii went missing, people started taking a look at what was really going on behind the closed doors of this house in rural Texas. We talk about stranger danger, but with this case, sometimes the most terrifying people can be living inside our home. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. Listen here and subscribe to Betrayal: Season 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2012, six years after 21-year-old college student Nina Ingram was strangled at her apartment in Fayetteville, there was an arrest and a man named Rico Cohn was charged with Nina’s murder. But after a key witness died suddenly, the criminal case against Rico was dismissed. His legal team filed a CIVIL LAWSUIT against the Fayetteville Police Department, suing several officers who worked on his case as well employees as the Arkansas State Crime Lab. They alleged that the case against Rico Cohn was weak, basically nonexistent - that there was no physical evidence against Rico Cohn and that the witness, Randee Applewhite, told them that she was NOT at all sure that Rico had committed the crime. Eventually, the lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed. And the ENTIRE case against Rico Cohn was sealed by a judge. Now as we said last week the lawsuit is obviously only one side of the story. But there are a lot of details in the civil lawsuit about investigations that were done by Rico’s attorneys for both the civil and criminal lawsuits - and about leads that the Fayetteville Police Department allegedly failed to follow up on. One of them was a person described as Person of Interest B - who, from reading through the events of the case file, appeared to match the description of Jarvis Allan Harper, a man who worked with Nina Ingram at the Sixth Street Walmart at the time she was murdered. So we went back and tried to figure out how did Jarvis's name first come to the attention of the Fayetteville Police Department and if there were other leads that should have been investigated. What else did the police miss?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometime after ten pm on April 21, 2006, 21-year-old college student Nina Ingram was brutally murdered inside her apartment in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The cause of death was ligature strangulation, and The Arkansas State Crime lab ruled the death a homicide. Despite the fact that detectives interviewed dozens of Nina’s friends, coworkers and her significant other, they had no viable suspects for years. The Fayetteville Police Department considered this a cold case, their only unsolved one at the time since the 1970s. But then in 2012 they arrested and charged 26-year-old Rico Tavarous Cohn with Nina’s murder. But the case against Rico Cohn was not as solid as it appeared to be on the surface. He spent over three years behind bars, and then, the case against him was dismissed. Three years later in 2018, Rico filed a civil lawsuit against the Fayetteville Police Department detectives and employees at the Arkansas State Crime Lab who he alleged violated his civil rights. This lawsuit claimed that there were several people of interest who police interviewed who were potential suspects...suspects that the lawsuit alleges were overlooked. The person who murdered Nina has never been found. This person is still out there. Could the answers to finding Nina’s killer be there and is this person still out there? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometime after 10 p.m. on April 21, 2006, 21-year-old college student Nina Ingram was brutally murdered inside her apartment in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It became big news, at the time it was one of only two unsolved murder cases in Fayetteville since the 1970s. Police interviewed Nina’s neighbors, her boyfriend, her friends and family but failed to identify a single suspect. Her case went cold. Until six years later in 2012 when a 26-year-old man named Rico Tavarous Cohn was arrested and charged with Nina’s murder. If you have a case you’d like the Hell and Gone team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What Happened to Talina Zar unravels the chilling mystery of a woman who vanished during the COVID-19 lockdown, the internet sleuths who wouldn’t let it go, and the dark subcultures and betrayals they unearthed. Listen here or on the iHeartRadio app. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was April 21, 2006, and 21-year-old college student Nina Ingram was coming home after a long day. Nina had a very busy life. She was two years into her business degree at Northwest Arkansas Community college in Bentonville, Arkansas and also worked full time at Walmart, part of the loss prevention team, basically a security officer. That night, Nina had worked her shift, ate dinner at her boyfriend's apartment, and then drove back to her apartment complex a little after 10 pm. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. But the next day, no one heard from Nina. At around 2 pm her other brother, Noah, and his partner, Chad, drove over to Nina’s apartment to check on her. They knocked on the door, but Nina didn’t answer. So her brother climbed through an open window into the kitchen. Chad waited outside while Noah unlocked the door and the deadbolt, which were both locked. Seconds later, he heard Noah scream. Chad went in through the now unlocked front door and raced into Nina’s bedroom in the back of the apartment; he and Noah saw her lying face up on the bed with what Chad described as very visible red scratches and bruises around her neck. Chad told police that he knew immediately that she was dead. Was Nina Ingram murdered by a serial killer, was this a random attack, or was it someone she knew?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Sept. 1, 1995, a police officer in Fort Smith, Arkansas pulled over a vehicle. A man named Jerry Cogan was driving and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Lori Murchison, was the passenger. Lori worked at a local nursing home. She had a four year old daughter, Britney, and adored her little girl. But Lori had been battling an addiction to drugs, according to what her friends told police, mainly to methamphetamines and also alcohol. Because of that, Lori had been living with her mother, Nancy, in between staying at different local motels, and Nancy had been taking care of Lori’s daughter on and off. Lori and Jerry had been at a bar that night. When the officer pulled them over, he believed that both of them had been drinking. So, he placed Jerry under arrest for DUI, and Lori for suspicion of public intoxication. Lori was taken to the Sebastian County jail. And she was released sometime after 5 AM on September 2nd. She told detectives that she planned to get money and come back to bail Jerry out. But she never returned to jail. The last time she was seen alive was at the Continental Motel, when she was picking up a key to a room. Her family had no way of knowing where she was - or that the hunt for this missing mother would eventually involve charges of corruption at the highest levels of government. If you have a case you’d like the Hell and Gone team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On April 12, 1971, a 27-year-old woman named Pauline Storment was walking down South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She didn't know someone was following her in the darkness. And then, while she was walking and just a few blocks from her apartment, someone attacked her, stabbing her eight times in a frenzy that lasted several minutes. When Pauline started screaming, a lot of people in the area heard her, and there were several witnesses. But her killer escaped into the night, and despite the police questioning tons of people, lots of theories being explored over the years an arrest, Pauline’s killer has never been found. If you have a case you’d like the Hell and Gone team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In October of 1995, something strange was going on inside the Flick home at 302 McNabb Street in Rector, Arkansas. This family was made up of 36-year-old David Flick, his wife 34-year-old Barbara, their daughter 11-year-old Andria Flick, and Barbara’s son 17-year-old Aaron Michael Hodge, who she had from a previous relationship. Barbara was a nurse, and her husband David had a transmission shop that specialized in fixing transmissions. Friends and family said that they were a happy couple. Andria played basketball and did beauty pageants. Aaron was well liked by his friends as well, and both Andria and Aaron were popular at school. Andria, Barbara and David were planning on going to Florida to visit relatives, leaving Aaron at home. And like many teens at home alone, he threw a party. This seems perfectly normal… except that David, Barbara and Andria never arrived in Florida. And several days laters, the police discovered their bodies, all shot to death in their house. On the surface, this appeared to be a perfect family, but detectives quickly discovered that things behind closed doors were far from what they seemed. What happened to turn the seemingly perfect family into a house of horrors? If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Saturday, November 2, 2024 15-year-old Tripp Brazeale headed out of his house in Forrest City, Arkansas on a four-wheeler. After dark and into the early morning hours of Sunday November 3, Tripp, two family members, and a friend were hanging out in a part of the woods called Crow Creek, riding ATVs. Now it’s mostly illegal to ride four-wheelers on paved roads in Arkansas and in many other places, but out there in the country, it’s a common mode of transportation for teens. There were police officers nearby that night. Deputy Trey Bynum and Sgt. David Kinney from the St. Francis County Sheriff’s Office were responding to a call regarding with a missing girl and boy from Cross County. Deputy Bynum wrote in his report that while they were checking out a residence in the woods, they heard ATVs driving around erratically. When they finished up and got back into their vehicles, Sgt. Kinney went to go find them. He was the first one to make contact; he was talking to the people on one of the four-wheelers, basically telling everyone to slow down. As Deputy Bynum approached, he saw one of the four-wheelers slow down like he was about to stop but then, he said, take off and pass him at “a high rate of speed.” The driver of that ATV was Tripp Brazeale. At that point Deputy Bynum started his pursuit, trying to pull Tripp over. The high speed chase went on up a hill and back down a hill, and that’s when something happened...something that caused Tripp to abruptly stop and jump off his four wheeler at 12:42 AM and run into the woods. He didn't come back after Deputy Bynum called after him. He fled into the woods and kept running. And then, he disappeared. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Kevin Abel died, and his death was ruled a suicide, Stacie Reeves was scared. Kevin’s friend Jordan said that Stacie told her that Kevin was in serious trouble - that he owed a lot of drug money to people - and that she was planning on talking to police officers about what she knew. One of the officers she spoke with was Jerome LaStraps, an officer Jordan didn't trust. There’s no evidence that Jerome LaStraps did anything wrong, but police did later call him in for questioning about KK’s Corner, asking what he knew, and when he knew it. We’re trying to understand all these relationships, because in Calcasieu Parish, they run deep. Jordan told us about one of her last conversations with Stacie: "Stacie goes, 'Hey, do you know a Jerome LaStraps?' And I looked at her and I said, 'Yes, I do.' And she said, 'Because I've been talking to him about Kevin's case.' And I said, 'Stacey, you don't need to do that. He's dirty.' She said, 'Well, I know who killed Kevin.' And I said, 'Who?'" If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 6, 1997 in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, Marty LeBouef, Stacie Reeves and Nicole Guidry were all shot execution style in the head. Their bodies were left in the cooler at KK’s Corner. Thedr murders were shocking. And soon, people were talking about another death. One that some people in the community thought could be linked to KK’s Corner’s massacre. On Saturday, May 17, 1997, not even three weeks before the triple homicide at KK’s Corner, Kevin Abel was fatally shot in the head at home. Police ruled Kevin’s death a suicide, but Stacie Reeves, who had been dating Kevin, believed that he had been murdered and that his murder could be tied to law enforcement, and possibly to alleged drug deals at KK’s Corner. Stacie Reeves arrived at that crime scene with her young twin daughters only minutes after police showed up there. She told police that she and Kevin were going on a date that night and that she had been planning to pick him up with her girls. And she said that he owed a LOT of money to drug dealers, who had been taking his truck as collateral. What really happened to Kevin Abel. Did he kill himself? Who were the drug dealers that he owed money to? And did Kevin’s death have anything to do with the KK’s Corner killings? If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just after midnight on July 6, 1997, 21-year-old Marty LeBouef, 26-year-old Stacie Reeves and 14-year-old Nicole Guidry were fatally shot in a triple homicide at KK’s Corner convenience store near Lake Charles, Louisiana. The killings shocked the community. For months police struggled to find answers. No one seemed to have seen anything, and there was no real physical evidence. Eventually, a suspect was arrested: Thomas Cisco. Police questioned Cisco. He confessed that he had been at KK’s Corner on the night of the murders and said that he was involved. But as we explained last week, Thomas told a lot of conflicting stories, and a lot of the details that he gave to detectives trying to confirm his stories didn’t make sense. Was it Thomas or something else? Was he even there that night? And if he was there, who was the second man? And could the killers or killers still be out there? If you have a case you’d Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a few minutes before midnight on Saturday July 5, 1997. 21-year-old Marty LeBouef was working behind the counter as a cashier at KK’s Corner convenience store on Highway 14 in Calcasieu Parish, a few miles from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Marty and his co-worker, 26-year-old Stacie Reeves, were working together that night. There was someone else there too. Stacie had a friend, 14-year-old Nicole Guidry, there with her. Nicole sometimes babysat for Stacie’s twin daughters, who were 23 months old, and was keeping Stacie company until the store closed. Then the plan was for her to ride home with Stacie and spend the night with her kids while Stacie went crabbing. Nicole was turning fifteen later that summer and was about to start the ninth grade. Marty hadn’t been scheduled to work that night, but one of his coworkers had called in sick, so Marty stepped in. Closing time was midnight. That time came and went. And Marty, Stacie and Nicole never made it home. Around 5 a.m. on July 6, one of Marty and Stacie’s coworkers showed up to open the store, and she immediately noticed that something was very wrong. The cash register was open. Money was missing from the drawer. The alarm was off. And Marty and Stacy were nowhere to be found. The employee went to the office to use the phone there and called the police. Once the deputy got to the store, he noticed Stacie and Marty’s cars in the parking lot. Inside, he found the door to the back office had been kicked in, and the safe was open. At first he thought that this had been a robbery and that Stacie and Marty may be restrained in the back of the store, locked in the cooler. But once he opened the door to the cooler, he saw the bloodbath. There were three bodies - Marty, Stacie and Nicole lying on the floor. All three had been shot multiple times, execution style. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 12, 2017, somewhere in the tiny town of Oil Trough, Arkansas, a 37-year-old mother of three named Brooke Allensworth vanished. Two weeks later, the police found Brooke’s car. The car was near a boat ramp and looked like it had been abandoned there for days or possibly weeks. The tire was flat, the doors were locked, and the keys were missing. And so was Brooke. Her family, including her three children and a father and half sister, never saw her alive again and are still searching for answers. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 5, 2005, a jogger found the body of 32-year-old mother of three Brandy Dyson floating in a lake behind the Lake Charles Civic Center. Brandy had been struggling with mental health issues and with addition. For a while she was doing well, and settled into an apartment. But then she lost her apartment after taking refugees in from Hurricane Katrina. She then moved to the Civic Center in Lake Charles with a lot of other evacuees from the storm. After that, Brandy was caught drinking, which broke the rules of the Red Cross, the organization that was running things at the Civic Center, so she was asked to leave. This seemed to start what would turn out to be her final downward spiral. Police believe she set up camp on a pier nearby and had been living there for a few weekends when the next massive hurricane, Hurricane Rita, hit and devastated the state. Sometime in the midst of the storm chaos, Brandy was brutally murdered. The bruising on her neck was so bad that her father said that she had to be buried in a turtleneck sweater. It’s been almost 20 years. The person arrested and at first charged with her murder has been released, and no new suspects have come forward. But the unsolved case is still on the minds of the detectives at the Lake Charles police department. Down there, Brandy’s family tells me, they have a nickname for her. They call her The Lady in the Lake. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On November 5, 2005 a jogger was out running beside a lake in Lake Charles, Louisiana, behind the Civic Center, when he saw something floating in the water. When he took a closer look, he realized it was the body of a woman. Police identified the body as 32-year-old Brandy Renee Dyson, a mother of three who had recently been made homeless after Hurricane Katrina and then Hurricane Rita, which devastated the state. It’s been almost 20 years, there’s been one arrest and a lot of controversy, but her case is still unsolved. There's a lot we don't know about Brandy's murder, but we do know that it was violent. Her father Adley Dyson told a local news station, "We had to bury her in a turtleneck sweater because she was strangled and she was thrown in the lake." If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was July 29, 2022, just another quiet summer night in Atlanta, Texas. The sun had just gone down when 28-year-old Shommaonique Oliver got a panicked phone call. That’s when her nightmare began. Three of her children- her middle daughters, nine-year-old Zi’Ariel Robinson-Oliver, eight-year-old A’Miyah Hughes, and little five-year-old Te’Mari Robinson-Oliver were missing. Law enforcement found them a few hours later. Divers dragged their lifeless little bodies out of a neighboring pond. Initially this was described as a drowning in the local media, but months later, law enforcement said that these three little girls had been murdered. The cause was strangulation. And this person could strike again at any time. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 30, 2020, in Starke County, Indiana, a 911 call came from North County Road 1025 East just before 3:30 a.m. The caller, a man named Zachary, had worked late that night and had gotten home and climbed into bed when he said that he and fiancé were woken up by someone pounding on their door. The man was 27-year-old Nicholas Rudd. Nick said that he had been shot, but neither Zachary nor his fiancé had heard gunshots. What he didn’t know was that Nick had not been shot, he had been attacked with a hammer, and stabbed in the neck. He was bleeding to death on their doorstep, and the killer was still outside. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six bodies were found in Wonder Valley between December of 2019 and January of 2021. Some of the bodies in the desert, including the disappearance of 37 year old single mother Erika Lloyd, started making local, then national, news. But there were no national news reports about James Escalante. We’re going to dive into the missing persons report and compare accounts from the last people who saw James to see if we can shed more light into what really happened out there in the desert on June 25, 2020. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 25, 2020, 56-year-old James Escalante, who also went by Blackhawk, left home on a red mountain bike to help Dee, a friend of his and his girlfriend Sherry’s, whose truck had gotten stuck in the desert. But he never made it back home, and no one reported him missing until September 7th. Heather Escalante and her husband Jon, James’ son, began their own search. After Heather started posting on social media and looking for information, she heard that remains were found in the desert on August 8th by a hiker. The body was a John Doe. Half his face was missing, he had long black hair and there was no ID found. Heather contacted the detective working the case to say that she believed that the body could be James, and on December 15th, the family’s worst fears were confirmed. They got a call from the coroner. James Escalante was dead. His cause and manner of his death were undetermined. What happened out there in the desert? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 25, 2020, a 56-year-old named James Escalante, who had Native American heritage and was also known by his nickname, Blackhawk, left his home in Wonder Valley, California on his mountain bike James lived with a girlfriend, Sherry, and she told law enforcement that he left the home that day to head down the road about 10 minutes from their place to help a friend of theirs named Dee whose car had gotten stuck in sugar sand, which is almost like dry desert quicksand. It’s hot out there; the average temperature for that part of the desert in July and August is 89 degrees and highs regularly top out over 100, or even 105. And out there in the desert it’s dry heat so it feels like you’re baking in an oven. It happens every year - hikers go missing or people just wander off and get lost and don’t come back. But the terrain also means that when people do go missing under mysterious circumstances it can be easier for local law enforcement to write it off as just an accident. Now supposedly the friend, Dee, had been out looking for rocks near Highway 62 and Shelton Road east of Twentynine Palms. And James had lived in that desert for a long time, and knew the area well. So the plan was for James to meet her at a specific intersection to rescue her. But once he got out there, according to Sherry, he couldn’t find Dee. So James called Sherry on his cell phone to figure out what was going on. At that point, Sherry called Dee on a three way call, and James told Dee to honk her horn so that he could find her. He seemed to think he could hear her, so he hung up. But he never got to Dee’s car. And no one ever saw James Escalante alive again. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 29, 2023, just over nine months after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor in Clarksville Arkansas, his house caught on fire and burned down under very suspicious circumstances. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christine Harron, a book-loving teenager from Hanover, Ontario, leaves for school in the spring of 1993 and is never seen again. A suspect emerges, confessing to her murder, but the case falls apart and Christine's family are left without answers. In Season 9 of the award winning podcast Someone Knows Something, David Ridgen, along with Christine's mother, reopen the investigation and come face to face with the man who said he killed Chrissy. Someone Knows Something is the investigative true crime series by award-winning documentarian David Ridgen. Each season tackles an unsolved case, uncovering details and bringing closure to families. More episodes are available at: lnk.to/beLwSGEq See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 23, 2023, just six days after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor at 1954 County Road 3259 in Clarksville Arkansas, police did a welfare check on his wife Larenda’s mother, 72-year-old Martha McLean, who lived in a detached house on the property with William and Larenda. They found Martha struggling to breathe with drugs including lorazepam and morphine around her. Martha had overdosed and was close to death, but paramedics administered Narcan, a drug that blocks opioids. So Martha's breathing improved, and she survived. Matt Foster with the Arkansas State Police wrote that Martha had a pen and a partially handwritten note in her hand when he found her. The note stated that Martha didn’t want to hurt anyone. And after he found her, he executed a search warrant for the property, and he found a second handwritten note where Martha confessed to tampering with William’s medication and to killing him. But why did Martha kill William, and what really happened to her? If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 17 2023 at 11: 22 PM the Johnson County deputy coroner arrived at 1954 County Road in Clarksville Arkansas and found the body of 53-year-old William Vick. The case of death on William’s autopsy was listed as a combined mixed prescription and illicit drug toxicity. Manner of death: homicide. William’s family was suspicious of his wife, LaRenda, but someone else confessed: LaRenda's mother, Martha McLean. She was in her late seventies, terminally ill with throat cancer, and lived in a separate structure on William and LaRenda's property. And she had written a letter confessing to the murder. So why would LaRenda’s 72 year old mother want to hurt William. And with her supposedly being frail and ill, would she even be physically capable of something like that? If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On January 17, 2023, 53-year-old William Vick was recovering at home in Clarksville, Arkansas. William was in good health. He loved making videos for his YouTube channel. But William had gone in for tonsillectomy operation the week before, and had been experiencing some complications. He had texted his daughter, Ashley to say that he believed that something inside him was broken and that he was throwing up a large amount of blood in the sink.  Ashley was worried, and told her dad that this didn't seem normal to her - she encouraged him to go see the doctor. But LaRenda had worked as an ER nurse and Ashley believed that her stepmother was taking care of her father. A lot of what we know is pieced together after the fact from coroner's reports and case notes. We do know that  at 11: 22  PM, the Johnson County deputy coroner Dave Cogan arrived at 1954 County Road responding to an unexpected death.  They spoke to LaRenda who, according to the coroner's report, told the deputy coroner that she had been staying in a separate room because she had been sick recently and was worried about COVID.  The deputy coroner noted that William was already in full rigor mortis; meaning that he had been dead, lying on that floor, for a long time. William Vick was fifty three years old. He went in for what was supposed to be a routine operation, and a few days later, he was dead. And this  was just the beginning of an investigation that involves charges of insurance fraud, two mysterious deaths, and a family torn apart.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, we talked about the mystery regarding whether or not Deputy Blake Hassell ever went out to the area in Kingston where on August 5th at 12:34 AM, a 911 caller reported that she heard a woman screaming - that it sounded like she was being raped or tortured.  The dispatch report reads, "A caller advised she believes that she heard a woman in the woods behind her house yelling. Stated she believes at one point the woman screamed for help. Caller advised there is not a physical address but it is in area where a bunch of homeless people were camped out.”  We know that the caller waited all night for the Madison County's Sheriff's Office to respond, but no one ever came.  And that a few weeks later on September 9, Taylor Barksdale's remains were found just a few hundred feet from where that 911 call was placed. Her death was labeled a homicide. The Madison County Sheriff's Department said that only one deputy, Blake Hassell was working the overnight shift from August 4 to August 5. And Sheriff Ronnie Boyd said that Blake Hassell  told dispatch that he responded to the call when he didn't.  Later that same day, August 5 when his supervisor Sergeant Drew Scott questioned him, he said that he didn't respond to the call because he ‘had just been out to that area 30 minutes or an hour earlier.”  But is that true?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've been trying to figure out what happened to Taylor Barksdale in the last few weeks of her life that led her to Kingston, Arkansas At 12:34 on August 5, a 911 caller reported that it a woman was screaming on a rural property in Kingston  and that she sounded like she was being raped or tortured.  Just over a month later, on September 9, Taylor's remains were found in a field near where the 911 call was made.  We have made some headway in finding out what was going on in Taylor Barksdale's life during the last few weeks of her life. We know that she had been staying on and off with her ex-boyfriend, Kenny.  Apparently, Taylor and Kenny got into an argument. After that, Kenny's neighbors say that they didn't see her come back to Kenny's residence. After July 20th, Taylor was staying on and off with different friends, and two of those friends who she was hanging out with were men. Men who were also, and two of those friends who she was hanging out with were mutual friends of hers and Kenny's. One of the men lived in a camper on a piece of land near where the 911 call originated from.  So who are these men? How do they know Taylor, and what happened to Taylor on that last day of her life that ended with her remains being found in a field?  If you have a case you'd like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Madison County Sheriff's Office got a 911 call in the early morning hours of August 5, 2024 from caller who heard sounds that she believed could be from a  woman being raped or tortured.  But the police never came. Then a few weeks later, people were expressing concern about Taylor Barksdale, a 30-year-old woman who had been living in Huntsville and who had gone missing. When police finally went to the area of the 911 call to investigate on September 9, they went out to a residence in Kingston, and they found Taylor's remains. Taylor was a mother of two young children, someone who was loved by her friends and family and someone who was vulnerable. Someone who died screaming in a dark field, desperately waiting for help that never came.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 9, 2024, searchers on a property in Madison County in the area of Kingston, Arkansas, broke open a hay bale and found a body.  Police have shared almost no information about this investigation. And while Sheriff Ronnie Boyd at the Madison County Sheriff's office has publicly denied this, some people in Madison County think this body was discovered while the police were searching for Jason Lierl.   We did several episodes about that case: 41-year-old Jason Lierl was going through a tough time. His 14-year relationship with his wife Jamaica had deteriorated and they were divorcing. Jason had had issues with drugs in the past and then sometime in the winter of 2022, it seems he relapsed. In January of 2022, Jason Lierl was visiting friends in Madison County. He was last seen at various residences in Huntsville and then...Jason disappeared. His abandoned car was found in the parking lot of a mall in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  His car keys, motorcycle and other belongings were found in different places, spread across Arkansas and Missouri, but to this day, no trace of Jason has ever been found. And some people a serial killer is on the loose.  If you have a case you'd like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

American Homicide explores mysterious and iconic murder cases from all across America. Whether it's the spacious skies and vast deserts of New Mexico or the backwaters of the Louisiana bayou, these murders are connected to their settings. Journalist Sloane Glass leads you through each crime with interviews from the victim's family and investigators. Listen here and subscribe to American Homicide on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this summer we covered the case of Shannon Lee Collins, the 48-year-old veteran who vanished without a trace from his family home in Pottsville Arkansas.  I am thrilled to report that we have a major update in this case: federal fraud charges have been filed against Shannon's wife Treasa and her daughter, Brittany. And now that the fraud has been uncovered could murder charges come next? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After Doug Janis was murdered in 2020, police were focused on one suspect: his wife, 31-year-old April Mae Janis.  Was April a loving wife who adored Doug or a master manipulator who orchestrated his murder? In Hemphill, Texas, it depends on who you ask. Half the town thinks that April was this vixen who has murdered multiple people, while the other half see her as a victim of sexual abuse.  This week, we finally got in touch with April Janis. And we learned about an alternative suspect...someone the police apparently never considered.  If you have a case you'd like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're in Sabine County, Texas, investigating the area where Doug Janis was murdered. We've talked a lot about April and Doug's relationship - one that went on for years - but what I wonder is, if April did kill Doug, why did she choose that moment? What was her motive?  I think that solving Doug Janis murder starts with figuring out what really happened to April's mother, Anna, on the night she was fatally shot, September 3, 2004. That's the same night when Anna told her friend Yvonne that she found out that April was being molested by Doug Janis.  Last week, we heard from April's father's book, which gave his version of what happened the night his wife was fatally shot. But Yvonne has a very different version of what went down that night.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Catherine and Amy head to Sabine County, Texas, where on December 13, 2020, there was a massive explosion on Toledo Bend lake. The houseboat belonging to 64-year-old Doug Janis, a well known commercial catfisherman, went up in flames. Doug Janis was found dead inside the boat. At first, police assumed that it had been a propane leak, but then the medical examiner found the two bullets in the back of Doug's head.  Doug Janis had been murdered. And his much younger wife, 30-year-old April Mae Janis was nowhere to be found. A witness told police that they saw April leaving the scene shortly before it blew up.  And as we said last week we found out that April's mother, Anna, had also died of a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Another a mysterious death that was never fully explained.  April's dad Bob Thompson wrote a book which he self published called A Different Ballgame. In that book, he described in detail what happened the night Anna was shot and his version of events. And we've talked to some of the other people who were around that night, and let's just say that we will be taking everything that Bob says with a very large grain of salt. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On December 13, 2020, in Hemphill, Texas, police in Sabine County got a call about a houseboat on fire.  The houseboat was docked behind 322 Echo Ridge, off of Cedar Grove Road on Highway 21 in the Pendleton area of Toledo Bend. And the scene very quickly descended into total chaos.  The firefighters had trouble getting out to the remote location, and by the time they got there the boat was engulfed in flames. Firefighters and paramedics rushed to the boat but it was too late. By the time they got there the walls had caved in. And then, when they dug through the remains of the boat, they found the body of 64-year-old Doug Janis.  At first, they thought that the fire had been some kind of accident and that Doug had died as a result of a propane leak. But then, they took Doug's body in for an autopsy, and they found two bullets in his head.  Doug Janis had been murdered. And his much younger wife April Mae Janis was nowhere to be found. But Doug's death was just the beginning of a story that goes back twenty years and involves sex, allegations of corruption, and multiple murders. If you have a case you'd like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello Hell and Gone listeners! We'll be back on September 26th with brand new episodes of Hell and Gone Murder Line.  If you have a case you'd like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.