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 f...
Apr 11, 2024•47 min•Season 5Ep. 30
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 woma...
Apr 04, 2024•28 min•Season 5Ep. 29
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. ...
Mar 28, 2024•46 min•Season 5Ep. 28
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 fa...
Mar 21, 2024•37 min•Season 5Ep. 27
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...
Mar 14, 2024•42 min•Season 5Ep. 26
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 be...
Mar 07, 2024•37 min•Season 5Ep. 25
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 Aud...
Feb 29, 2024•32 min•Season 5Ep. 24
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 La...
Feb 22, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 23
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, he...
Feb 15, 2024•37 min•Season 5Ep. 22
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 bee...
Feb 08, 2024•43 min•Season 5Ep. 21
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 Catherin...
Feb 01, 2024•41 min•Season 5Ep. 20
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....
Jan 25, 2024•32 min•Season 5Ep. 19
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...
Jan 18, 2024•36 min•Season 5Ep. 18
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...
Jan 16, 2024•1 min
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 ...
Jan 11, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 17
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 ...
Jan 04, 2024•40 min•Season 5Ep. 16
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. T...
Dec 21, 2023•36 min•Season 5Ep. 15
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. See omnystudio.com...
Dec 14, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 14
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....
Dec 07, 2023•41 min•Season 5Ep. 13
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 Cathe...
Nov 30, 2023•51 min•Season 5Ep. 12
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.
Nov 23, 2023•2 min•Season 5Ep. 11
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 o...
Nov 16, 2023•45 min•Season 5Ep. 10
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. Hi...
Nov 09, 2023•47 min•Season 5Ep. 9
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. Initial...
Nov 02, 2023•40 min•Season 5Ep. 8
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 ans...
Oct 26, 2023•39 min•Season 5Ep. 7
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...
Oct 19, 2023•31 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Just weeks after Jarrod Green was missing, police find out that the people he allegedly owed money to, Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb, had left town and that their rental house had caught on fire. The woman who cleaned that house presents some revealing information. And a lawsuit is filed against Brandon Wheeler with disastrous consequences. Wheeler v. City of Searcy lawsuit: https://casetext.com/case/wheeler-v-city-of-searcy If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you ca...
Oct 12, 2023•29 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Shannon Green remembers her baby brother Jarrod as the kid who was always laughing and smiling with a mischievous sense of humor. She said Jarrod was a little bit naive, someone who always trusted others and would do anything for a friend. In 1993, Jarrod graduated from Searcy High School in Arkansas. Eventually, he moved out of his parents house, started junior college and got a job at the Walmart distribution center. But then, in 1994, the problems started. Jarrod started getting involved in d...
Oct 05, 2023•38 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Clea Hall disappeared in 1994 when she was just 18 years old. The night she disappeared, she was only a few blocks away from home at her after-school job. What happened to Clea in those few short blocks between work and home? Did she get into a car with a stranger? Did someone unknown to her family pick her up? Or could something have happened at her job - something that meant that she never left that house alive? If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out t...
Sep 28, 2023•43 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Thursday December 1, 1994 started out as just a normal day for Melissa Witt. She was a 19-year-old college student, who lived at home with her mom, Mary Ann, on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood in Fort Smith, Arkansas. That night, Melissa went to meet her mom at a bowling alley...but she never made it inside. Instead, Melissa disappeared. And Mary Ann never saw her daughter alive again. If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can call the Hell and Gone Murder Lin...
Sep 21, 2023•42 min•Season 5Ep. 1
