We pick up the Danny Wood Jr. murder with his parents taking polygraphs, and 1954 creeping toward 1955 with no more progress on figuring out who killed the Gray, Maine, 12-year-old. Not that there weren’t plenty of suspects. What’s happened in the 71 years since Danny was killed and will his case ever be solved? […]
In July 1954, 12-year-old Danny Wood Jr. told his mom in Gray, Maine, that he was going fishing with a friend. Ten minutes later, he called her from a payphone three miles away, in town, telling her he was going to help a door-to-door salesman. She told him not to go with the guy, but […]
In Episode 85 we brought you the story of Kathleen McLean, killed in her Dover, Mass., home in May 2020 by her husband, Ingolf Tuerk, a doctor. This episode we bring you the rest of the story, after Tuerk finally goes to trial. Maureen presents. Rebecca also does an NNW review of the Hulu doc […]
Our sister Liz, the history professor, joins us from the Pacific Northwest with another tale of of (possible) murder from that dark corner of the country. The Martin family — Mom, Dad, and three daughters — left their Portland, Oregon, home for a drive up the Columbia River gorge December 7, 1958. They never came […]
What does the Karen Read case have to do with Brian Walshe (Episode 136) and Ingolf Tuerk (Episode 85)? Our update explains it all. We also bring back fan favorite Am I the Asshole? To cap it off, Maureen does an NNW review of the movie “American Fiction.” If you’re interested in checking out Maureen’s […]
Emma Cline should’ve been thrilled — at 25, she’d achieved every writer’s dream. But her $2 million book deal for her bestselling debut novel “The Girls” was too much for her ex, who slut-shamed her, threw false plagiarism and cyber-spying charges at her, and dragged in friends in a years-long campaign to bring her down. […]
The state of Maine recorded 35 homicides in 2024, a pretty high number, though the rate has been steadily going up in recent years. Ages of victims ranged from 22 months to 90 years. We’ll take a look at some of their stories. Rebecca gives NNW treatment to the classic movie 12 Angry Men.
A decade after he was acquitted — twice — of charges related to Jon Pownall’s murder, Truman Dongo finds himself at the wrong end of a gun. Dongo disappeared from his apartment in Falmouth, Maine, on Sept. 21, 1983. His body was found nearly a month later, in the woods of Stowe, Maine, nearly 60 […]
Like the Little Drummer Boy, we bring to you what we can — a holiday gift that includes a JonBenet mea culpa, some very special holiday Am I the Asshole discussions, some recommendations, some gripes, and lots of fun! Happy Holidays and here’s to a great 2025! If you’re interested in checking out Maureen’s Maine-based […]
The Jon Pownall murder case didn’t end with the trial of Herb Schwartz and Truman Dongo. There was so much more… particularly with the prosecution’s star witness, who couldn’t stay out of trouble after he moved back to his native New Jersey. Rebecca continues to report. Maureen gives the NNW treatment to the Netflix doc […]
All Jon Pownall wanted was to make his own movies after two decades of filming marketing spots and commercials. It looked like it was all coming together, too, as production began on his film “The Salem Six.” It all ended, though, on August 30, 1973, when he was found shot to death in the Portland, […]
We take a look at the official report on the Lewiston, Maine, Oct. 24, 2023, shooting, that killed 18 people, and injured many more. The report, released on Aug. 20 by a governor’s commission set up to look at the shooting spent nine months investigating, and it goes step by step through the months that […]
Back by popular demand! Am I the asshole? Asks the guy who’s pissed because his wife wrote a “secret book” that netted a book deal. The woman who yelled at her boyfriend because he thought that it was emasculating to him that she talks to her cat. The guy who’s divorcing his wife because her […]
Rebecca picks up the story with Sabato Raia’s trial. Will his self-defense strategy for shooting Nick Patenaude, Dana Matthews and Kevin Pinette pass jury scrutiny? Maureen gives NNW treatment to the Amazon Prime doc series “Debi Marshal Investigates: Frozen Lies.” Also, Maureen gives the NNW treatment to the Netflix doc How to Rob a Bank. […]
On a hot June night in 1997, a dispute between Portland, Maine, bar owner Sabato Raia and three acquaintances – Nick Patenaude, Dana Matthews and Kevin Pinette – ended with the three men lying dead in the street in front of Raia’s apartment house. They’d all been shot in the head. Self-defense? Or just a […]
How did a simmering lead-up to war between England and Spain, a 16th-century government coverup, fake news about piracy, a likely hoax by a college professor, dismissal of indigenous culture, early American white Christian nationalism and misogyny (of course) influence California history and short- change Oregon? Our sister Liz, the college professor, guest-hosts to discuss […]
When Everett Savage staggered out of the woods of Fairfield, Maine, on a June day in 1958, the Augusta businessman had been missing for two days and had quite a story to tell. But it took a while for him to get to the lead – that mother of five Patricia Wing, who’d also been […]
In the early morning hours of Easter in 2006, Joseph Gray was shot through the window of his living room in Milo, Maine. Several hours later, William Elliott was shot when he answered the door of his home in Corinth, Maine. What drove Stephen Marshall to kill two men he never met? The question spurred […]
Many members of Lori Jane Kearsey’s family didn’t consider her lost, even though they hadn’t heard from her since November 1983. But the 21-year-old left behind a daughter when she “joined the witness protection program” eight months after marrying into the powerful Massachusetts Angiulo crime family. It turns out that there was much more to […]
There’s no doubt that Kenneth Eugene Smith, along with another man, killed Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama in 1988, a murder paid for by her husband, Charles Sennett. But the long road to Smith’s execution, which took place in January 2024 by a new method, nitrogen hypoxia, raises troubling questions about the death penalty, how it’s […]
We explore the age-old question, “Am I the asshole?” with situations curated by Rebecca from the sub-Reddit world. Maureen also does an NNW on the Max docuseries Onision In Real Life. Enjoy!
Charles Terry wasn’t a good guy, especially when it came to women. He liked to beat, rape and strangle them. He was convicted for several attacks and just out of prison in 1951 when Shirley Coolen, a Brunswick, Maine, single mother was found dead, strangled in a yard on the town’s fancy Park Row. But […]
In our third episode looking at the “justified” killings of Maine citizens by the state’s law enforcement agencies, we go back to one that spurred a lot of changes over the past decade, but also — spoiler! — not some of the things that really matter. Katherine Hegarty, shot in her remote Maine cabin by […]
Ambroshia Fagre was just 18 and likely an innocent bystander when she was killed by police in Maine in February 2017, along with Kadhar Bailey, 25, who police suspected of an armed home invasion. The two were among 13 people shot by police in Maine that year, nine of whom died. Maine police have shot […]
One of Maine’s 2022 homicides was Drew McKenna, 24, accidentally shot by his older brother Shay. In 2023, the McKenna family suffered a second tragedy when the lost Shay, who was shot by police. We also update the 2023 homicide list — it’s up to 54 now, and talk about the texts dismissed by police […]
We bring you our annual Maine homicide list with 2023’s 51 homicides, a record year and more than twice the average annual number. Even without the Lewiston shootings that killed 18, it was the worst year for homicide in Maine in decades. The list wasn’t yet available from the Maine Department of Public Safety, but […]
Enjoy the figgy pudding, fireworks, airing of grievances, or however else you celebrate! Here are some recommendations on what to watch to get you through until our next episode in two weeks. Happy holidays!
Miriam Stoltz was found shot in the head on a cold February afternoon in the woods in New Hampshire, where she’d lain for 15 hours before being found by a runner. The next day, Roger Whittemore was found dead in Miriam’s Windham, New Hampshire, backyard, shot, stabbed and beaten. Miriam wasn’t expected to recover, but […]
Racial injustice on the high seas and in the courts plays out in a 1905 mass murder on a cargo ship, the Harry A. Berwind. Captain ER Rumill and three other crew members, all but one of them white, are killed, leaving just black crew members Henry Scott, Arthur Adams and Robert Sawyer to explain. […]
Presumption of guilt. Consciousness of guilt. The magical shell casing. Testilying. Giving the dogs credit. These are just some of the lessons learned as we wrap up discussion on the Logan Clegg murder case after Maureen spent more than three weeks in the courtroom covering it as a journalist. We also disscus the latest mass […]
