VERMONT, 1971: After more than 50 years, 24-year Rita Curran's murder finally has closure. In this two part series, you'll hear the details of an investigation spanning over half a century and the DNA evidence that finally revealed a suspect in Vermont's oldest cold case. Part 2 is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Donate & Share: Give Back for Rita View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/ritacurran Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media product...
Mar 06, 2023•30 min
MAINE, 2021: On Mother’s Day weekend in 2021, skeletal remains were discovered in a shed on private property belonging to a man who had passed away months earlier. Though it would take months for the identity of the body to be confirmed, Danielle McNaughton knew in the pit of her stomach that it was her mother, Denise Scott Ramsey. The circumstances of Denise’s death are suspicious, but will Danielle ever have answers about what happened to her mom? The story took over the headlines that spring,...
Feb 27, 2023•31 min
VERMONT, 1981: During the earliest moments of the investigation, the death of 35-year old Angela Belisle was presumed to be the result of dangerous temperatures and extreme winter weather. Instead, the autopsy revealed that Angela was the victim of a homicide. What happened to Angela? Who is responsible? What will it take for her killer to be brought to justice all these years later? If you have any information about this case, please the Vermont State Police. Tips may be submitted anonymously o...
Feb 20, 2023•27 min
VERMONT, 1971: In a homicide investigation, determining the identity of the victim is an obvious and crucial step in the pursuit of justice. Without knowing whose murder they’re investigating, authorities can’t really bring anyone to trial or even fully investigate. In the case of 34-year Vermont Veteran Ronald Rodgers, a family member positively ID’d his body, found shot and on fire on July night on Killington Mountain… But the accused killer’s defense team aimed to convince the jury that the i...
Feb 13, 2023•38 min
VERMONT, 1971: It was 10:30 p.m. the night before the 4th of July in 1971 when a family returning to their cottage near Killington Ski Resort in Vermont discovered a fire down over an embankment. When the father and son got close enough to douse the fire with water they made a grim discovery. It was the badly burned body of a man. A family member would identify the man as 34-year old Veteran Ronald Rodgers, but as the case developed over the course of an entire decade, that basic fact would be c...
Feb 06, 2023•29 min
NEW YORK CITY, 1836: In the early morning hours of April 10, 1836, the madam of a New York City brothel awoke to find 22-year old Helen Jewett's bedroom filled with smoke and flames. Helen Jewett, born Dorcas Doyen in Augusta, Maine, was considered a well-known sex worker in New York City. As her case became sensationalized and publicized around the world, it brought the taboo subject of sex into the prudish public sphere of the 1800s, inviting commentary, opinion and bias, even among those task...
Jan 30, 2023•35 min
MAINE, 2010: In January of 2023, yet another year passed without justice for Darien Richardson and her family. You first heard Darien Richardson’s story on Dark Downeast in August of 2021. Since then, I’ve stayed in touch with Darien’s mother, Judi, and this case is one I keep coming back to, especially now that I’ve become a mother to a daughter. I’ve decided to re-release Darien’s story as an extended episode in hopes of furthering the Richardson family’s fight for answers, to support their ad...
Jan 16, 2023•54 min
LIBERTY, MAINE 1973: As the wind and rain picked up on a dark December night in Liberty, Maine, Joaquin "Jack" Bettencourt closed up his popular secondhand clothing shop and headed home to his wife, Florence. Days later, the Bettencourt's car was found abandoned in the woods near their home. What police discovered next began a double homicide investigation that spanned several years and multiple states. This is the case of Jack and Florence Bettencourt and the legacy they left behind. View sourc...
Jan 09, 2023•40 min
When Steve and Renee Patten learned that their daughter, Morgan Patten, was killed in a car accident far away from her home in New England, their immediate response was shock and confusion. Morgan’s final text to her parents said that she was heading to bed, but Morgan never made it back to the hotel. What happened to Morgan after her meal at the restaurant bar? How did she end up in a fatal car accident with two strangers 15 miles away from her hotel? In Part One of this two part series, you go...
Jan 02, 2023•43 min
Morgan Renee Patten was supposed to be spending a weekend with her fiancé celebrating their engagement in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he was in the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger. On Friday, November 8, 2019, Morgan left the home they shared in Edgartown, Massachusetts for a day-long journey down south. But Morgan never got to see her fiancé. Her life ended in a car accident with two strangers in a remote town far from where she was staying. To this day, the details just don’t add up f...
Dec 26, 2022•26 min
Since February 1964, rumors have swirled across New Hampshire about the death of Rena Paquette. It has been almost sixty years and still the truth remains unknown. But Rena Paquette’s story actually begins with two other deaths — 18-year old Sandra Valade and 14-year old Pamela Mason. All three were murdered between the winters of 1960 and 1964 in Manchester, New Hampshire. To this day, only one of these killings has been officially solved. Even then, whether or not the one man accused of these ...
Dec 12, 2022•38 min
On July 25, 1989, 14-year old Carrie Moss, wearing a one-piece swimsuit, stone-washed jeans, and a white t-shirt, hopped on her bike and pedaled off to meet friends for an afternoon at a popular Goffstown, New Hampshire swimming hole. That was the last time anyone reported seeing Carrie Moss alive. In November of the same year, another family awaited the return of their 14-year old daughter and granddaughter in nearby Penacook, New Hampshire. View source material and photos for this episode at d...
Nov 28, 2022•25 min
Police first thought Susan Taraskiewicz’s murder to be a random act of violence, but soon the investigation revealed a much deeper conspiracy. Was Susan a target? It’s been nearly 30 years since Susan’s murder and nobody has been held responsible, but investigators believe somebody out there knows what happened. If you have any information about the 1992 murder of Susan Taraskiewicz, please contact the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit for Suffolk County at 1-617-727-8817. View source ma...
Nov 14, 2022•22 min
As beautiful as they are, lighthouses have a dark side, too. The legend and lore surrounding the light stations of New England date back hundreds of years. Hauntings. Ghost sightings. Paranormal experiences. When you stand in the presence of a lighthouse, whether you believe in the supernatural or not, it’s hard not to feel like you’re in the presence of something or someone . Lighthouse historian Jeremy D’Entremont tells the haunted tales of Seguin Island Light Station and Boon Island. View sou...
Oct 31, 2022•26 min
FAYETTE, 1983: When Ted Flagg returned home from work on a cold day in January 1983, he was not warmly greeted by his wife as usual. Instead, he found 23-year old Judith Flagg dead. Evidence was scattered across the house. There were boot prints in the freshly fallen snow. Suspicions were cast and stories perpetuated throughout the small town of Fayette, Maine, but it would take over two decades to bring this cold case to a close. This is the case of Judith Flagg, written and researched by Natal...
Oct 17, 2022•27 min
In February of 2001, the calm in small town Chesterfield, New Hampshire was disrupted by an investigation carried out by New Hampshire State Police. Mother and daughter Tina and Bethany Sinclair were nowhere to be found. Though the two missing Sinclairs were the focus of the small community that year, over time, updates became fewer and farther between. Eventually, the cold weather made searches of the waterways surrounding the town next to impossible. The investigation stalled out. But Tina and...
Oct 03, 2022•26 min
SOUTH PORTLAND, 1994: 22-year old Tammy Dickson was preparing for a new start in life. She was a recently divorced young mother and was looking ahead to a new beginning. But Tammy would never get to fully realize the dreams she had for herself. A trial ended in a conviction for a man named Foster Bates, but he has long maintained his innocence and continues to file for appeals in hopes of a new trial. For some though, including Tammy's family, there is no doubt that the man in prison was rightfu...
Sep 19, 2022•25 min
Robert "Bobby" Desmond's case is the oldest on the Maine State Police Unsolved Missing Persons case list but his story has never been told. Detective Steve Borst of the Kennebunk Police Department is reigniting the decades-old investigation for an 11-year old boy gone missing in 1964 and nearly forgotten. Through interviews with surviving family members, limited archival news sources, and other investigative resources, Detective Borst is learning more about the life of Bobby Desmond and what cou...
Sep 05, 2022•38 min
You’ve heard Leslie Spellman’s story on Dark Downeast before. I was initially compelled to tell Leslie Spellman’s story because I couldn’t believe a homicide on the perimeter of Maine’s most well-known national park could go unsolved for over four decades and I couldn’t believe I’d never heard her story before. That was reason enough to shed new light on it the first time, and it’s even more of a reason to revisit it now. Since the first airing of this episode, a family member of Leslie Spellman...
Aug 29, 2022•28 min
Ashley Flowers is the creator and host of the Crime Junkie podcast and founder and CEO of audiochuck, the podcast network behind even more chart-topping shows like The Deck, Counterclock, Strangeland, and more. In this conversation, Ashley shares the origin story of Crime Junkie and what goes into creating ethical true crime content. She also gets personal about her experiences with pregnancy and motherhood. Ashley also leads us through her very first novel All Good People Here and how her years...
Aug 15, 2022•42 min
Would you know how to spot a scam in your life before it was too late? For years, Johnathan Walton didn’t know that the woman he called his best friend was actually a career con artist, suspected of numerous scams and fraudulent activity across the country and internationally. Once he uncovered the truth, though, Johnathan made it his mission to stop her. If you haven’t heard Part 1 of his story on Dark Downeast yet, go back one episode and listen to The Con . This is Part 2: The Convict. View s...
Aug 08, 2022•32 min
When Johnathan Walton hosted a wine and cheese night in his Los Angeles apartment in 2013, he couldn’t have known that the event would invite a shark into his inner circle. Flyers he hung up around the building gave off the scent of a helper, a do-gooder, a warrior against injustice. It was like blood in the water. Johnathan Walton’s story unfolds thousands of miles away from New England, but the woman he knew as Mair Smith began her long career of conning and scamming in her home state of Maine...
Aug 01, 2022•26 min
He committed his first murder at 15-years old, ending the life of an innocent shopkeeper as he and his buddies made their way around Lawrence, Massachusetts holding up convenience stories “for the thrill of it”. His lawyer would later plead for mercy on the accused teenage killer, but that mercy would have unintended consequences not so far in the future. George Nassar is a two-time convicted killer, yes, but some people believe this man who started his crime streak as a young teen might also be...
Jul 18, 2022•31 min
Jessica Zernicke Holmes left work on the night of September 24, 2015 to find her phone flooded with missed calls and messages. When she was finally able to call her family member back, they delivered shocking news about her father. 58-year old Kenneth Zernicke was found dead inside his burning home in Caribou, Maine. Two days later, his death was ruled a homicide. Jess reached out to me because after nearly 7 years her father’s case remains unsolved with little public information available, even...
Jul 04, 2022•21 min
Strung up in the corner of a roadside amusement park fun house was the figure of a man coated so many times with phosphorus paint that it glowed in the dimly lit space. It was alarmingly lifelike, and yet in the several years the figure was on display, no one dared question if it was anything more than a mannequin. Elmer Mccurdy: The Life And Afterlife Of An American Outlaw by Mark Svenvold View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/elmermccurdy Follow @darkdowneast on ...
Jun 20, 2022•32 min
ACTIVE CASE, PART 3: In October of 2016, about a month after he was plucked from a life raft after a week at sea, Nathan Carman walked into the private memorial service he’d organized to honor his mother, Linda Carman. Notably missing from the private service were Linda Carman’s three sisters. It was publicly obvious that something wasn’t right. The relationship between Nathan Carman and his aunts was not a good one. Soon it would be abundantly clear how and what the aunts thought about their ne...
Jun 06, 2022•35 min
ACTIVE CASE, PART 2: Nathan Carman was 23-years old when his boat the Chicken Pox sank during a fishing trip off the coast of Rhode Island, presumably claiming the life of his mother, Linda Carman, who was also aboard the vessel before it went down. Nathan was rescued a week later – a miraculous recovery by a freight ship that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The story only got more compelling when it was learned that Nathan Carman was the grandson of wealthy real estate...
May 30, 2022•38 min
ACTIVE CASE, PART 1: When the daughter of wealthy real estate developer John Chakalos walked into her father’s Connecticut home one morning in December 2013, it set into motion a long-term investigation of not one, but two suspicious deaths in the same family within a three year span. Investigators had a prime suspect for the murder of John Chakalos from the beginning, but it wasn’t until another member of the family disappeared under mysterious circumstances that the identity of that suspect wa...
May 23, 2022•28 min
AUGUSTA, ME 1976: The murder of 70-year old Augusta resident Blanche Kimball remained a cold case for decades until a new tip, advancements in DNA technology, and a clever idea brought all the loose ends together. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/blanchekimball Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram , Facebook , and TikTok To suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low....
May 16, 2022•30 min
Missing Kim , a Dark Downeast mini-documentary is out now at missingkim.com . If you have information that could help in the investigation, please contact Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit South at (207) 624-7076 or leave an anonymous tip . View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/missingkim Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram , Facebook , and TikTok To suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted ...
May 09, 2022•8 min
