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.

New episodes of Hell and Gone Murder Line start September 26th!

In the meantime, if you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend and her team 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.

Hell And Gone is a new podcast launching October 17 that follows writer and private investigator Catherine Townsend as she moves back to the Arkansas Ozarks to solve the 2004 murder of 22-year-old college student Rebekah Gould. 

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.

On Friday, December 12, 1980 at approximately 6: 45 in the morning, the Mississippi County Sheriff’s Department got a call about a female body lying on the side of Highway 181, just south of Highway 158. 

The woman was dressed in a striped red colored dress and velveteen jacket and was five foot five. She weighed around 115 pounds. 

It wasn’t hard to figure out the cause of death - Barbara had massive holes blown into her body by a shotgun. The shots were so violent that pieces of her hair and skull were found 20 feet away. 

And just like in Amanda Tusing’s case, there were suspicions that a police officer may have been involved - and the murder is still unsolved.

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 Tuesday July 25 1989, 18 year old Dana Stidham went home to do some laundry. She drove from her home in Centerton to where her parents Lawrence and Georgia lived in Hiwasse, Arkansas. 

After she put her clothes in the wash cycle, she headed out to run an errand for her dad. His stomach was upset and he needed some medicine. 

She left the Phillips food store - which is now a Harp’s grocery - in Bella Vista at 3:17 pm. 

We know this because the receipt was later found in her car, and the cashier and a lot of other people working in the store confirmed that she was there that day - she knew them because she worked there for three years in high school.

We’re going to explore some theories that have come up over the years and ask - was  this someone Dana knew, or a stranger, maybe even a serial killer?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On July 25, 1989, 18-year-old Dana Stidham had just graduated from high school in Gravette, Arkansas and had her whole life in front of her.

Dana had moved out on her own for the first time to Centerton where she was living with her older brother Larry and a cousin.

She was starting her life and excited about the future, but on that day, she had to do some laundry and like a lot of kids that age, she was going to do her laundry at home. And she was a little homesick; she wanted to spend some time with her dad. 

Her parents Lawrence and Georgia Stidham lived in Hiwasse, an unincorporated area in Benton County about a ten minute drive to where she liveD. So Dana drove home. She started doing a big pile of laundry with her dad. And then her dad said he was not feeling well, so he asked Dana to run some errands for him and she said yes.

She was planning on coming right back. She had clothes in the wash cycle, and her dad said that he would put them in the dryer if she wasn’t back by then.

There has been a lot of publicity about this case, but no real answers. 

We're going to try to relive the last day of Dana Stidham’s life and see if there's anything that was missed that can help get us closer to finding out what happened to her and who killed her.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 14, 2000, there was a huge storm brewing in northeast Arkansas. It had been raining heavily all day and according to local weather data, tornados had hit. Over 100 trees were downed, power lines were down and homes were destroyed. 

Twenty year old Amanda Tusing was hanging out with her fiancé, Matt Ervin, at his apartment in Jonesboro.

Amanda lived 40 miles away in Dell, Arkansas, which is in Mississippi County, with her father Ed, her mother Susan and her twin brother, Andy. She also had an older brother who worked out of state. 

Matt didn’t want her to go home that night. It was about a 45-minute drive on a good day, and the weather was bad, but Amanda wanted to get home. So she left Jonesboro at around 11:30 pm and should have gotten home around 12:30 at the latest.

Amanda told Matt that she would call him from her parents landline as soon as she got home. She did have a cell phone but never kept it charged. But Matt never got that call and by 1:30 he was concerned.

Matt called Amanda’s mother, Susan Tusing, and woke her up. She went to check to see if Amanda was in bed, and when she went into her bedroom, she saw that the bed had not been slept in and that Amanda was not home. 

This was totally unlike her, and they knew something happened. So her dad and brother drove toward Dell, and Matt left his house in Jonesboro and started driving down Highway 18 in the opposite direction. Their plan was that they would meet in the middle and hopefully see her or her car along the route.  

Matt saw her 1992 Pontiac Grand Am parked under a streetlight on the shoulder of AR Highway 18 about a mile west of the small town of Monette.

It was on the side of the road and looked like it was parked there intentionally - not like she randomly swerved over. Matt got out of his car, walked over and looked inside. 

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 March 11, 2021, Shannon Lee Collins, a 48-year-old veteran, came back from a work trip to his home in Pottsville, Arkansas. Then, he seemed to vanish into thin air. 

Catherine continues her investigation from last week, focusing on two things: one, what angles are the police investigating, and are they making any progress in finding out what really happened to Shannon?

And two, what do you do if you suspect foul play but there is no body or sign of a struggle?  And what will happen to the family who will not let him go and NOT stop asking questions?

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 March 11, 2021, Shannon Lee Collins, a 48-year-old veteran, came back from a work trip to his home in Pottsville, Arkansas. He was working a part time job delivering packages, which sometimes took him on the road out of state.

He had been married to his wife Treasa for more than 20 years, and they raised their family together. They had their son Josh, who was in his early twenties, and Shannon’s step daughter Brittany, who was in her early thirties. But Shannon had raised Brittany since she was very young, and been a father figure to her. They were a close family - they attended a local church Russellville First Assembly, and were very active in their church community.

And yet, after March 11, 2021, when Shannon Collins walked into his family home in Pottsville that he shared with his wife, son and stepdaughter, he seemed to vanish into thin air. There has been no sign of him since then. How could a veteran disappear? And why did no one report him missing for nine months?

If you have a case for 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 18 2012, a contractor was walking along a road In Dover Township Pennsylvania, called Schoolhouse road in York County when he noticed a plastic bag there.  

It was heavy and had a weird kind of liquidy consistency. 

At first he said he thought it might be a dead animal but then he saw the blood and what looked like long, gray human hair and skin he called the police…he realized what he was looking at was a human scalp.

The lab confirmed that this was human but they ran the DNA and could not find a match to anyone in the system. So the head became a John Doe officially but unofficially, the Foodsaver bag case. 

So that bag and that strip of skin remained in that crime lab.

Until five years later. This would lead them to a 67 year old diminutive grandmother who looked like a sweet little lady  - and who was guilty of pathological lies, horrific murder - and who some believe could even be a black widow.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Sunday June 17, 2024, Jay Slater, a 19 year old bricklayer’s apprentice who lived in Lancashire, England was on his first ever foreign holiday - and he seemed to be having a blast.  

He had gone to the island of Tenerife in Spain with a female friend named Lucy and a guy named Brad. That night he and Lucy went out to a music festival called New Rave Generation. It was held at Papagayo Beach Club, along a strip called Veronica’s Strip that has a ton of nightclubs and neon signs.

It was there he met two British men and somehow they made a plan to go on to their airbnb. 

The next morning Lucy got one last frantic call from Jay just after 8 am - saying he was lost, didn’t know where he was, and was panicked. He never showed up again. 

So was Jay kidnapped and murdered, did he wander off into the wilderness or did something else happen to him? 

This case is wild- it has exposed the seedy underside of this island and the criminal underworld that are operating there -including drug lords and mobsters dubbed the timeshare killers - and everyone from police detectives to psychics and TikTok stars have descended on this tiny island in the Canaries to find a young man who was partying and vanished without a trace right in the middle of an island full of tourists.

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.

On the night of Saturday, November 21, 2015, Victor Collins, a 47-year-old former police officer who worked in loss prevention at Walmart, was hanging  out with some friends, Owen McDonald and Sean Henry, who all also worked at Walmart, and 31-year-old James Bates.

The four friends went back to James' house in Bentonville, Arkansas to watch a Razorbacks football game. According to court documents, these four guys were drinking. At some point, the guys went out to the back patio to have some beers in the hot tub. Sean left first then Owen sometime shortly after midnight, leaving Victor and James alone at the house.  

Now James claimed that after that at around 1 AM he went to bed to crash and left Victor in the hot tub. But in the morning, Victor was floating face down in the hot tub.

Now what happened next depended on who you asked this began a multi-year ordeal that involved allegations of murder, police corruption and what devices in our houses are listening when you think you’re alone.  

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 30, 1963, just eight days after president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas - across the country in  Los Angeles, friends of a 23-year-old actress named Karyn Kupcinet were getting concerned.

She was supposed to get to their house to eat at 6:30 PM but arrived an hour late at 730 PM. When she did arrive, she was acting strangely. She barely touched her food and was acting like she was under the influence.

At 8:30 PM that night, they sent her home in a taxi. A few days later when they went to check on her, they found her dead on her couch.  

What happened after hours in that West Hollywood apartment? This case has a broken relationship, stalking, Hollywood glamour and even a suggested connection to the assassination of JFK - but really after you get through the conspiracy theories and all of the Hollywood stuff, at heart ,it's a story about a young woman who went out to Hollywood in search of her dreams and ended up dead.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 14, 2018, in Galesburg, Illinois, a 23-year-old graduate of Western Illinois University named Tyler Smith headed out to party with some friends. The next day, he was due to report for drills. But he never showed up. And twelve hours later, his body was found in the Cedar Fork Creek area, just two blocks from where he was last seen the night before. Since then, Tyler's family has been trying to find out what happened to him: did he fall, did he drown, or was he murdered? And after lingering questions about his autopsy, Tyler Smith's body was exhumed for a second opinion. 

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 September 14, 2018, in Galesburg, Illinois, a 23-year-old graduate of Western Illinois University named Tyler Smith headed out to party with some friends. 

Tyler had dreams of becoming a police officer. He was super athletic, played football in high school, and after graduating from Western Illinois University, he applied to and was accepted into the police academy in San Jose, California.

Tyler hoped to eventually possibly become a DEA agent or working with a K9 unit. He was starting his life and chasing his dream and it was happening. But Tyler also had been in the Army National Guard since 2013 and came back to Illinois to fulfill his commitment. 

Tyler and his friends went out drinking that night, and the next day, he was due to report for drills. But he never showed up. And twelve hours later, his body was found in the Cedar Fork Creek area, just two blocks from where he was last seen the night before. Since then, Tyler's family has been trying to find out what happened to him: did he fall, did he drown, or was he murdered?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was April 12, 1971, a 27-year-old woman named Pauline Storment was walking down South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a few blocks from her apartment. 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, her attacker came out of the darkness and attacked her, stabbing her eight times in a frenzied attack that lasted several minutes. 

It was a hot night so at 9:45 pm 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.

On Sunday October 17, 2021 in Los Angeles, a 39-year-old mother of one named Heidi Planck went to watch her 11-year-old son Bond play football. When Heidi left the game, she said that she would call her son later, but even though she ALWAYS talked to him every day she never called him. In fact  Bond never talked to his mother again. Because that day, Heidi Planck vanished. 

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.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been covering two cases in Arkansas: the murder of Gail Vaught, whose body was found on March 17, 1980, and Dennis Flowers.

Police believe that Dennis was responsible for the execution style murders of Lee Dickson, a pharmacist who had become addicted to cocaine and started dealing it with Dennis, and Lee’s wife Karen Dickson who was eight months pregnant. A few days after the brutal double homicide, Dennis’ body was found under extremely mysterious circumstances, cause of death was listed as drowning in less than three feet of water and his manner death was ruled suicide.  

One of the questions that have come up in these cases and so many others is were these crime scenes as they appeared to be, or could they have been staged?

This week Catherine Townsend speaks with investigator Arthur Steve Chancellor. who runs a company called Second Look Training and Forensic Consulting that provides investigative and forensic case consultation and training.You can find the company online at secondlooktraining.com or reach them at 919 360 3518. 

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 the morning of March 22, 1984, at around 6:30 am, police came to the one-story nondescript home in Fayetteville, Arkansas that belonged to a quiet unassuming 33-year-old pharmacist named Lee Dickson and his wife Karen. 

When police came to the Dickson home, they knocked, but Lee and Karen didn’t answer. Finally, their young son came to the door. He told the police that his mother was sleeping and that daddy went out. 

Police entered the home looking for his parents, and it didn’t take long to find their bodies. Lee was in the garage, lying face down. He had been shot point blank.

Then the killer came for Karen. Police found her in the living room Police later discovered that she had also been shot multiple times, execution style. Karen was pregnant. 

What started as a family massacre turned out to have ties to another mysterious death of a man who drowned in under three feet of water. Later there would be allegations that Lee, this quiet local pharmacist, had been making backdoor deals with local criminals to provide the power players of Fayetteville with pharmaceutical grade cocaine.

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. 

Here is the link to the Coroner Talk podcast episode. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Catherine Townsend continues her investigation into the death of Gail Vaught. 

On the morning of Friday, October 17, 1980, a man was on his way to work, driving his truck down Highway 16 that runs between Siloam Springs, Arkansas near the Oklahoma border through the Ozark National Forest near Searcy when he saw something out of the corner of his eye down a small dirt road.

It looked like a person lying in the road. The driver doubled back and saw to his horror that it was the body of a young woman, lying rolled over on her right side with her head and shoulders face down. She was very tall and had a flannel shirt on and a blue Michelin jacket that had been pulled over her face, her legs were slightly open, and she was naked from the waist down except for a pair of torn and filthy white socks.  

She started out being a Jane Doe. But soon, police ID’d the victim as 21-year-old Gail Vaught.    

Was she sexually assaulted? Could that crime scene have been staged? Could her death have connections to drug dealing or domestic violence or something else?

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 the morning of Friday, October 17, 1980, a man was on his way to work, driving his truck down Highway 16 that runs between Siloam Springs, Arkansas near the Oklahoma border through the Ozark National Forest near Searcy when he saw something out of the corner of his eye down a small dirt road.

It looked like a person lying in the road. The driver doubled back and saw to his horror that it was the body of a young woman, lying rolled over on her right side with her head and shoulders face down. She was very tall and had a flannel shirt on and a blue Michelin jacket that had been pulled over her face, her legs were slightly open, and she was naked from the waist down except for a pair of torn and filthy white socks.  

She started out being a Jane Doe. But soon, police ID’d the victim as 21-year-old Gail Vaught.    

Was she sexually assaulted? Could that crime scene have been staged? Could her death have connections to drug dealing or domestic violence or something else?

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 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.

On May 21, 2023, Dr. John Forsyth, a 49-year-old ER doctor, was due to work the evening shift at Mercy Hospital in Cassville, Missouri. He had already worked the overnight shift the day before and finished up at 7 am. After that he went to crash for a few hours before starting his next shift that night. 

This was a normal day for John. He had a habit of pulling long shifts and working between 80 and 100 hours per week. But John never showed up for work that night, and it wasn’t long before his family and colleagues realized that he had disappeared.

John Forsyth was a hard working, well respected doctor and a father of eight children, but he also had a complicated personal life, one that he kept compartmentalized. One that involved an expensive divorce, a new fiancée, and a crypto company that he co-founded with his brother that had been involved in some shady dealings.

What happened to Dr. Forsyth? Was he kidnapped by someone with bad intentions? Did he walk away on his own? Could he have been living a double life?

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 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 the evening of Sunday, September 14, 2014, 15-year-old Cassie Kay Compton went out for a pack of cigarettes down the road from her small white house in Stuttgart, Arkansas...and never came back. At least that’s the official story. 

We know a few things for sure: Cassie had been spending the weekend with a friend of hers named Hunter, and Cassie slept over there on Saturday night.  

Hunter’s mother has said that this was not out of the ordinary. In fact, Cassie spent a lot of time at her house because, she said, things were chaotic at Cassie’s house.

Hunter drove her home on Sunday early evening and an hour later, she vanished. 

What really happened to Cassie Compton? And was she running from something at home? 

If you have a case for 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.

This episode continues the investigation into the disappearance of Ieshia Jackson. 

It was Halloween night 2020, and 22-year-old Ieshia was getting ready to go to a party. She lived in El Dorado, Arkansas just a short distance away from her mother, her younger brother, and the rest of her family, but because she had had a couple of break-ins at her new home, she was staying at her uncle’s.

Ieshia and her mother were very close and normally spoke a few times per day. So by November 2, 2020 when Laquita had not heard from her daughter, she was getting worried. Laquita, her boyfriend, and her son jumped in the car and headed to Ieshia’s. 

When the family got there they could see immediately that something was very wrong. Laquita went in and found her daughter’s stuff there, including her wallet and cell phone. The place looked like she had just stepped out for five minutes. But Ieshia never came back 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.

It was Halloween night 2020, and 22-year-old Ieshia Jackson was getting ready to go to a party. She lived in El Dorado, Arkansas just a short distance away from her mother, her younger brother, and the rest of her family, but because she had had a couple of break-ins at her new home, she was staying at her uncle’s.

Ieshia and her mother were very close and normally spoke a few times per day. So by November 2, 2020 when Laquita had not heard from her daughter, she was getting worried. Laquita, her boyfriend, and her son jumped in the car and headed to Ieshia’s. 

When the family got there they could see immediately that something was very wrong. Laquita went in and found her daughter’s stuff there, including her wallet and cell phone. The place looked like she had just stepped out for five minutes. But Ieshia never came back 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.

Catherine continues her investigation into the disappearance of Jason Lierl.

In January of 2022, Jason Lierl was visiting friends in Madison County Arkansas when he disappeared off the face of the earth. 

Jason was last seen in Madison County, Arkansas. 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. What happened to Jason Lierl?

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.

In January of 2022, Jason Lierl was visiting friends in Madison County Arkansas when he disappeared off the face of the earth. 

Jason was last seen in Madison County, Arkansas. 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. What happened to Jason Lierl?

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.

Sometime between the evening of September 2 in the early morning hours of September 3, 1994, 35-year-old Billie Jean Phillips was brutally beaten to death at her home in Alabam, Arkansas.

The case soon became the biggest story in Madison County, and there was a long list of potential suspects. 

But in 2002, there was an arrest in the Billie Jean Phillips murder case. One that would shock the community. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Saturday September 3, 1994, a federal poultry inspector named Chic Philips was taking his seven-year-old son MacKenzie back to the home of his mother and Chic’s ex-wife, 35-year-old Billie Jean Philips. 

When they arrived, Billie Jean’s son ran inside the house and walked back to the bedroom he saw his mom lying on the floor a few feet from the bed with her head kind of propped up against a wall. She wasn’t moving. So the little boy ran outside to the car and told his dad, “Mommy fell painting”.  

Chic put his son back in his truck and walked in to see what he was talking about and that’s when he found his former wife’s body and realized his son thought the blood spattered all over her bedroom were paint. 

Of course, the house became a crime scene, and it wasn’t long before the whole town heard what happened. Billie Jean had been brutally murdered. 

There was a long list of suspects including a sheriff living a double life, the prosecutor and his son who were sleeping with the victim, and a tale of conspiracy theories, arson, meth, and murder in Arkansas. So what really happened to Billie Jean Phillips?

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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.

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In this season of Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows, we travel back to a pivotal moment in the history of this country, and we trace how, decades before Covid-19, a virus tore through some of our most vulnerable communities while the wider world looked away. We go to a pediatric ward in Harlem, a women’s prison in upstate New York, a drug market in the South Bronx, and the inner sanctum of the National Institutes of Health. And we meet people who demanded that they, and their illness, be seen: mothers and children, doctors and nurses, nuns and sex workers, and a woman who literally helped change the definition of AIDS.

The first episode comes out on Jan. 18.

Blindspot is a co-production of The HISTORY® Channel and WNYC Studios, in collaboration with The Nation Magazine. Cover photo by Donna Binder.

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Elderly couple David and Mina Swan lived in a quiet neighborhood in Clearwater, Florida. But on Saturday September 29, 2018, a neighbor of theirs was concerned when their newspapers started piling up outside. The neighbor called Mina’s daughter, and the pair of them went inside the house. What they found was horrific. David and Mina were at the kitchen table slumped over in pools of blood. The police have admitted that they are stumped, and over three years later the case is still unsolved. Who would have killed David and Mina Swan? 

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.

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In Arkansas, some people think that a slew of child deaths in the early 1990s are related. Those children are Christina Pipkin, who went missing in May of 1991, Steve Branch, Michael Moore, Christopher Byers, the three eight-year-old boys who were murdered in West Memphis in 1993, and also includes 16-year-old Gardenia Cross Jones and 13-year-old Geneva Smith, whose bodies were both found near Wynne, Arkansas just a few miles from Hickory Ridge shortly after they went missing.

After Catherine’s investigation into these deaths for a few months, there haven't been any obvious connections among the children in east Arkansas. But there are a lot of weird coincidences in these cases. In three of the four cases, suspects were arrested and ultimately released. All of them were found in or near bodies of water. And all of them are unsolved. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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On December 28 2017, 19-year-old Natalie Bollinger was at home in her apartment in Broomfield, Colorado. But when her boyfriend Joey got home from work that afternoon, Natalie was gone. So was his 9mm Glock. Joey tried to call Natalie but noticed that her cellphone was still at home. So he called the police and reported Natalie missing.   

 The next day, December 29, police got a tip that a body had been found on land belonging to the McIntosh Dairy farm in a wooded area north of Denver, Colorado. They confirmed it was Natalie Bollinger. And the killer was someone no one expected. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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In May 1991, nine-year-old Christina Pipkin headed out to sell jewelry for her school fundraiser. But she never made it back home. Her body was found in a ditch several days later. Who, or what, killed Christina Pipkin?

Catherine Townsend tracks down other witnesses who saw Christina the night she disappeared and identifies inconsistencies in the case file. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. 

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In May 1991, nine-year-old Christina Pipkin headed out to sell jewelry for her school fundraiser. But she never made it back home. Her body was found in a ditch several days later. Who, or what, killed Christina Pipkin? Catherine Townsend continues her investigation in Arkansas. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine 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.

In May 1991, nine-year-old Christina Pipkin headed out to sell costume jewelry for her school fundraiser. Her father gave her strict instructions: Stay on your side of the railroad tracks, and be home by dark. But Christina didn’t make it back home before dark. And she never made it home alive. Her body was found in a ditch several days later. Who, or what, killed Christina Pipkin? And could her death be connected to other dead children found in East Arkansas?  

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.

Hello, Hell and Gone listeners! Catherine is headed back to Arkansas this week to investigate a slew of child deaths that have never been solved. We'll be back next week with a full episode of Hell and Gone Murder Line. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine 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 May 10, 2005 when police in the tiny town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, a sleepy picturesque little town on Cape Cod, got a horrifying phone call. Fifty-one-year-old Shirley Reine had been found, slumped on the garage floor, hanging out of her Nissan Maxima in a pool of blood. 

Police rushed to the scene and later said that she had been shot twice, once in the chest, and then when she fell out of the car, police believed that the killer shot her a second time in the head. There was no sign of forced entry, and it seemed that the killer had been lying in wait for Shirley in that dark garage. But who would stalk and kill a fifty-something woman execution style in her garage? And why? It turns out that there were a lot of suspects. 

If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend and her team to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

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In winter of 2011, something was very wrong with 57-year-old Robert Wayne Cox. 

Robert had always been healthy and athletic, and according to his sister Lydia Cox, he was basically a happy homebody on his property in Havana, Arkansas. He had a son, lived near his father and sister, and had been happily married for over 20 years. 

But then suddenly, he started to decline physically. By November, he could not really walk, he just shuffled with his chin dropped down to his chest. He was nonverbal. His sister Lydia was terrified by what was happening to her brother, and took him to doctor after doctor trying to find answers. Then, on February 19, 2011, Robert Wayne Cox disappeared without a trace. He has never been seen again

If you have a case you’d like Catherine to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.

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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. 

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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. 

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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 August 3, 2009, police found Shannon Hercutt dead inside her car, which had plunged off a cliff just off of Walker Trail in Sevier County, Tennessee. At first, the Tennessee highway patrol said Shannon had died in a car accident. But a few days later, Shannon Hercutt’s manner of death was changed to homicide. Who killed Shanoon Hercutt? 

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.