So Dead

For nearly a month, a picturesque cabin on northern Lake Michigan hid a ghastly secret. The bodies of wealthy ad executive Dick Robison, his wife Shirley, and their four children lay waiting for someone to find them following a brutal attack on a summer afternoon. From the moment a caretaker stumbled upon the murder scene while investigating reports of a foul odor coming from the property, nothing would ever be the same in the small town of Good Hart. 

From haunted neighborhoods built atop cemeteries to sweet afterlife connections and more, our Halloween episode once again features listener stories. Violent Ends is sponsored by BetterHelp.  To learn more about microdosing THC, visit microdose.com and enter code violentends for free shipping and 30% off your first order.

In 1903 Chicago, a peculiar murder unfolded on the city's south side. Despite her insistence that a burglar broke in and shot her husband in bed, authorities immediately suspected Jane Quinn, who was covered from head to toe in blood. And that was BEFORE they found out about the pile of dead bodies Jane left behind when she fled Michigan years earlier. Violent Ends is sponsored by BetterHelp. 

In 1981, a 23-year-old woman was dragged kicking and screaming from her East Lansing apartment in front of an entire building full of onlookers. In 1982, a rebellious teen vanished while hitchhiking in a Detroit suburb. In 1983, almost exactly one year later, another pretty brunette teenager disappeared while hitchhiking in the same neighborhood. Three years, three murdered women, three cold cases. One would become the first case in Ingham County to use DNA as evidence. One would be solved through new advancements in DNA technology decades later. And one would be solved by a team of eagle-eyed students at Michigan State University's School of Criminal Justice. But for decades, their grieving families waited for invisible strings to connect and lead to justice. To learn more about microdosing THC, visit microdose.com and enter code violentends for free shipping and 30% off your first order.

On a Monday afternoon in May of 1930, the world's first set of identical quadruplets were born in Lansing, Michigan- even though nobody knew they were coming. Instant celebrities, the Morlok quads were treated like a sideshow attraction by the community that insisted on naming them and claiming them as their own. While the girls were paraded around the country in matching dresses performing adorable song-and-dance routines as they racked up Guiness World Records, their sweet smiles hid ghastly secrets. Behind the picture of a wholesome American family was a house of horrors. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/violentends and get on your way to being your best self. To learn more about microdosing THC, visit microdose.com and enter code violentends for free shipping and 30% off your first order.

When a young boy vanished from a small Northern Michigan town, authorities believed he'd run away with the circus. As outlandish as that sounded, it was more plausible than the awful truth- that he'd fallen victim to a killer clown hiding in plain sight. 

It's been 100 years since a Lansing socialite was murdered inside the brand new manor her politician husband built for her. Was she the victim of a traveling carnival run by outlaws? Targeted by an enemy of her husband's? Or was the police department's wide-reaching witch hunt an attempt to cover up something much more diabolical?  

The only thing they had in common was their love of the ice. One was from the east coast, the other from the west coast. One was blonde haired and blue eyed, while the other resembled Snow White with her fair skin and dark features. One came from a loving family, while the other suffered horrors no child should have to endure. When their paths collided on the road to Olympic Gold, the result was one of the biggest scandals the world of sports has ever seen. MICRODOSE GUMMIES:  For 30% off your first order and free shipping, visit microdose.com and enter promo code: violentends 

Since opening its doors in 1850, The University of Michigan's School of Medicine has been one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country. But not all of its pupils perfected the art of saving lives. Some of them went on to do the exact opposite. In 1882, two men with similar names and matching handlebar mustaches entered the program. One went on to become America's first serial killer, while the other became the subject of the most infamous transatlantic manhunt in history. Both men would eventually be sent to the gallows and hanged for murder. But not before each, separately, was accused of being Jack the Ripper. Did the world's most infamous unknown serial killer get his start at Michigan's most infamous college?

On March 8, 1994, residents in 42 of Michigan's 82 counties reported seeing an unidentified flying object in the night sky. One of the best-documented UFO sightings in history, a lighted chrome aircraft with capabilities beyond any technology known to man was spotted hovering over the Great Lakes by law enforcement agencies, pilots, government officials, scientists, and hundreds of frightened civilians. To this day, no answers have been provided as to what happened that night. The crazy part? It wasn't the first well-documented alien encounter in Michigan. Do you believe? By the end of this episode, you just might.

In honor of 100 episodes, we celebrated with a live show at The Robin Theatre. Special guests included Michigan State University's School of Criminal Justice, author Rod Sadler, and the co-host with the most, our old friend Dani Fairman.

What do America's original aviatrix, the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, a seductive government spy, and an unorthodox civil rights icon have in common? They were all trailblazing women from Michigan whose stories deserve to be remembered.

It was 35 below, the wind was howling, and the snow was waist-deep when three young men burst through the door of Hotel St. James in the remote town of Ironwood, Michigan during the early morning hours of Feb 1, 1959. They were inadequately dressed for the dangerous weather, disheveled, and visibly shaken from a near-death experience. Even still…there was something about them. They were handsome. Charming. Special, even. That much, the townsfolk knew. What they didn't know, couldn't have known, was that the events that unfolded on the desolate highway that separates Northern Wisconsin from Michigan's Upper Peninsula started a chain reaction, leading to an unspeakable tragedy that rocked the world less than 48 hours later. (And yes, I said toin coss.) Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

An episode I never fathomed I'd have to record, but I suppose was inevitable. Because when it comes to mass shootings, it's no longer a question of "if," but "when." This is what it's like when it happens at home. Donate to the Spartan Strong Fund HERE. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

With a blood lust so strong no prison could hold him, a Michigan man preyed on a coastal California town still reeling from the Bundy murders. And even with the world's most infamous serial killer behind bars, pretty young girls with long hair parted down the middle still weren't safe. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

Season five begins February 7th! Listen in for a big announcement.

The Vanished is a true crime podcast that explores the stories of those who have gone missing. The Vanished goes beyond conventional news reports to take a deep dive into the story of a different missing person each week.  Host Marissa Jones brings you exclusive interviews with family members, friends, law enforcement and experts on mainstream cases, as well as little known ones. Listen in to hear what The Vanished will uncover next: http://wondery.fm/thevanished.

The news was shocking. Occult obsessed cult leader Benny Evangelist, his wife, and their four young children had been murdered in their lavish Detroit home by an ax-wielding maniac. Beheaded. Dismembered. As police ran down the long list of suspects, an unfathomable possibility emerged. Was Benny himself behind the murders? The 1929 St. Aubin Street Massacre is one of Detroit's oldest and most notorious cold cases, but it is not alone in its tragedy. In 1990, it happened again. And while the circumstances were very, very different, the end result was the same- six lives lost, and many more destroyed in a massacre on St. Aubin Street.

Listener ghost stories, including the haunting of a town with a tragic past. 

As the Great Depression sunk its teeth into America, a Lansing man's fortune was on the rise- literally. Auto magnate R.E. Olds built a decadent sky scraper, the tallest building in Michigan's capital city, to house his bank. But less than a year after the Olds Tower opened its doors, blood and bullets tarnished its immaculate reputation. What drove a pillar of the community to a shooting rampage? Deak Mead wasn't motivated by money. He was after revenge. To pledge Creepy Kawaii's Mothman Kickstarter, visit here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creepykawaii/mothman-plush?ref=1swpf2 

When a young woman was found lying gravely injured on the side of the road, a mystery that would take nearly two decades to solve began to unfold. Who was she, really? And who was the strange older man claiming to be her husband? This episode's sponsor is Magic Mind. Visit magicmind.co/sodead and use code SoDead20 to save 20% off a single purchase, or 40% off a subscription!

In Depression-era Cleveland, a madman stalked the streets of the Kingsbury Run neighborhood, leaving body parts in his wake.

In the late 1970s, an FBI task force targeted a massive interstate auto theft ring headquartered in Mid-Michigan. Building their case proved difficult, though, because their key witnesses kept meeting grim fates.

The summer of 1967 was an especially violent one in the United States. Known as "the long, hot summer," there were 159 race riots in America over the course of just a few months, the deadliest of which occurred in Detroit in late July. What led to the deaths of nearly fifty citizens, mostly at the hands of law enforcement officials called in to quell the violence? And what really happened inside The Algiers Motel?

When a beloved wife, mother, and grandmother suddenly fell ill and died, her family was shocked to learn she'd been intentionally poisoned. Even more shocking was the identity of her murderer.

A charismatic waitress in a Yugo headed north to visit the man she hoped to marry. A young father in a Bronco driving south, back toward home. Though their paths did not cross in life, their fates are forever linked by the tragedy that befell them both on the Mackinac Bridge, one of the world's longest (and most treacherous) suspension bridges.

A sideshow performer, an unknown serial killer, and an ice skating chimpanzee. Luke Karamazov seems like outlandish fiction at times, but is the true story of the Ranes brothers from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the only serial killer siblings in American history, And soon, it will be a movie starring Zachary Quinto and Jacob Elordi.

A disgraced Lansing doctor out to make a quick buck by performing "illegal oprations" left countless bodies in his wake. A socialite unable to live with the shame of being an unwed mother took her own life in a Charlotte hotel room. A Benton Harbor farmboy felt murder was the only way out when his flapper girlfriend wound up pregnant. This was the harsh (but not uncommon) reality of the early 1900s, when abortion was illegal in Michigan. Are we headed there again?

When a leisurely Sunday drive near the Michigan/Indiana border turned into a scene out of a horror movie for Ray and Marie Thornton, their lives were changed forever. Their experience, quite literally, inspired a horror movie. But the true story was so much more terrifying than anything Hollywood could conjure up.

In 1998, the body of a young boy was found beneath a billboard along a North Carolina highway. With very little to go on, authorities were not able to determine who the boy was, or who killed him. But one investigator was determined to solve the case no matter how long it took. So he kept the case file in a box beneath his desk, right in his way, so that he bumped his leg on it every time he turned in his chair. The box never let him forget, and he watched and waited for the scientific advancement that would crack the case wide open. When it finally happened, a heartbreaking story emerged, leading authorities to a small Michigan town and another unsolved murder.

Promising wellness and everlasting youth, Dr. Linda Hazzard lured wealthy patients to her "health retreat" in Washington state. Once she'd captured her prey, she held patients hostage and bled them dry- literally and figuratively. 

In the early 1900s, the auto industry reigned supreme in Lansing. But another, more deadly industry was making moves in the shadows. Fruit. When two rival fruit companies owned by Italian immigrants with strong ties to La Cosa Nostra went to war, no one was safe. Using fruit stands as a front throughout the city, a secret battle raged for years- contract killings, bombings, murder, extortion. Lansing's Fruit War was among the Capital City's best kept secrects...until now.

What led two young brothers from Chechnya to commit one of the most shocking terrorist attacks in American history? Acclaimed journalist Masha Gessen aims to answer that question.

The young caller's voice waivered only slightly as she detailed a ghastly scene to the 911 operator. It almost sounded like a prank, too wild to believe. But what happened in the house on Sunnydale Street was very real, and ultimately worse than anyone could have imagined.

When a young couple was attacked on a Lover's Lane one stormy Halloween night, the pressure was on police to arrest someone. So they did. 

The name Tom Toaz was well-known in Mid-Michigan at the turn of the 20th century. He was a celebrated lawman, infamous for throwing more citizens behind bars than all of the other constables combined. He had a hand in all of the scandalous, headline-making cases in Eaton County in the late 18 and early 1900s, but no case he was involved in was quite as scandalous as his own.

When a young woman is found dead in her Tijuana hotel room, authorities have more questions than answers. Mainly- why doesn't the photo on the driver's license match the body on the floor?

Out on the open water, there is a hotspot of unusual activity- ships disappearing in broad daylight, planes vanishing into thin air, unexplainable weather phenomena. Not the infamous Bermuda Triangle, but a similar danger much closer to home- the Lake Michigan Triangle.

When a serial killer was sent to the gallows in Victorian-era London, his infamous last words were, "I am Jack the..." before the noose snapped his neck. Were the Lambeth Poisoner and Jack the Ripper one in the same?

Born just outside Detroit to a single teenage mother and a violent criminal, Aileen Wuornos had the cards stacked against her from birth. She was raised in a house of horrors, amidst rumors of incest and unspeakable abuse. A child sex worker who gave birth at the age of 15, Aileen lived in the woods behind her family home after she was kicked out by her sadistic grandfather. And that was just the beginning of the cruelty and abuse Aileen would face in her 46 years on Earth. Listen in for more on how one woman's horrific childhood in Michigan led to her becoming the world's most notorious female serial killer.  

In celebration of the new Scream movie coming to theaters this week, here is a Patreon bonus episode from a couple years back exploring the true story behind the inspiration for the Scream movies.

On February 20, 2016, the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan found itself under siege. From a father/son duo out car shopping to a group of friends meeting for dinner, a madman was methodically gunning down unsuspecting citizens with no rhyme or reason. When the family man responsible for the rampage was apprehended, authorities were not prepare for the story he told them. Did Jason Dalton simply snap on that winter afternoon? Or was he possessed by evil, as he claimed?

A real estate mogul gunned down in cold blood. A young girl brutally slain in a cornfield. A secret serial killer. And the wildest twist a So Dead story has seen yet. This episode explores the oldest cold cases in Michigan's capital city.

Ghost stories sent in by listeners, and the tragic truth behind the haunting of a Downtown Lansing business.

Season three of Wondery's Over My Dead Body is live NOW! Listen to Over My Dead Body: Fox Lake wherever you get your podcasts, or at the link below:  wondery.fm/FL_SoDead

When the Detroit Police Department returned Helen Kaminski's three-year-old son to her just days after he was kidnapped by a disturbed young woman, Helen thought her troubles were over. But they were only just beginning. Because three days later, the same woman kidnapped the little boy again, leading to a decade-long nightmare involving corruption, con men, and murder.

As the 1920s came to a close, 22-year-old Bugs Morehouse and 21-year-old Hawthorn Sutton were poised to conquer the world. They were dashing, charming, and whip smart. They both came from well-to-do families and had beautiful young brides. The two friends truly had it all. But they wanted more. What started as a small-town crime spree quickly turned into a nationwide manhunt and a sensational trial, the likes of which one small Mid-Michigan town had never seen.

Only once in history has a monarch been crowned on American soil. And of course it happened in. From pirates to polygamy and kings to killers, the tale of the King of Beaver Island is almost too strange to be believed.

A new podcast about the war on drugs, beginning 9/7/21.

When Detroit native Robert Wagner moved out to California as a child, he had dreams of making it big. But his obsession with a Hollywood starlet turned those dreams into a nightmare. Named an official person of interest in his wife's tragic death decades after she drowned in the Pacific Ocean, will the 91-year-old face charges (or be exonerated) before time runs out? Or will the ghost of Natalie Wood haunt him to the grave? 

In anticipation of Jenn's latest book, "The Cereal Killer Chronicles," all episodes of the So Dead miniseries that inspired it will be released in the main feed this week. Enjoy this deep dive into some of Michigan's strangest history! Ghosts of the past haunt the streets of Cereal City, and the Kellogg legacy lives on. A look at Battle Creek today.