Crime&Stuff

At first no one in central-eastern Ohio connected the killings — they were hunters, outdoorsmen, a jogger — all shot by someone who left no trace between 1989 and 1992. When they finally a...

When we featured Alice Hawkes’ 1987 homicide in Episode 191 as one of our Maine Cold Cases of the 1980s, Maureen declared that it would never be “solved,” though there was s definite...

Mary Ellen Tanner had planned to go to Massachusetts for the weekend to attend the funeral of her boyfriend’s brother the weekend of July 7, 1978. It wasn’t until two days later that anyon...

Dominique Dunne was 22 and a rising star in in Hollywood in 1982 — she had everything going for her, except when it came to her ex-boyfriend, Ma Maison head chef John Sweeney. She’d broken...

Mary Theresa Simpson was 12 when she disappeared while walking home in Elmira, New York, on March 15, 1964. When her body was found four days later, buried under heavy rocks, no one could predict that...

It’s March. It’s cold [where we live], it’s ugly. We’re tired of it. So, to lighten the mood a little before we get back to our usual content, we have a cabin fever reliever! U...

Maine had 21 homicides in 2025, and we take a look at them. Guns and domestic violence continue to be the dominant themes, with mental health issues also a troubling contributing factor. From people w...

We wrap up our three-episode look at the Maine State Police Unsolved Homicide list, diving into the 1990s and beyond, looking at the cases of Lorna Brackett and Vincent White, Susan Hannah, Joseph Sav...

We continue our look at Maine’s cold cases with a dive into the 1980s: Beverly Polchies, Theresa Duran, Vincent LaVopa, Brian Kowalczyk and Alice Hawkes. Would they have been solved if they happ...

While we wait for the state of Maine to release the 2025 homicide list, we’re taking a look at another list: Maine’s Unsolved Homicides. In this first part of a three-part series, we dive ...

Darrel Parker starts serving a life sentence. Wesley Peery is incarcerated in Ohio, doing “30 to 75 years,” which we know means he’ll be out soon. And Wesley’s gonna be Wesley....

It’s April 1956, and Darrel Parker is going to trial on first-degree murder charges in the murder of his wife, Nancy. The evidence? A confession wrung out of him by soon-to-be famous crimimologi...

Sit back and rip the wrapping and bows off our annual holiday special. With special holiday “Am I the Asshole?” And two special holiday Negative Nellies Reviews! Enjoy! And Merry Whatever ...

In case you missed it, from January 2023: Brian Walshe’s many victims. Brian Walshe was found guilty on Dec. 15, 2025, of murdering his wife, Ana Walshe, and dismemembering her body. As promised...

Lie detectors. The Reid Technique. You’ve been listening to us rant about them for nine years. One case, in 1955, was not only the perfect storm of both, but also launched John Reid’s inte...

Singer and songwriter Marvin Gaye made beautiful music, but what most people didn’t know until his tragic death at his father’s hand was that his life growing up with Marvin Gaye Sr. had b...

The cold case of an arson fire that killed one Portland, Maine, resident in 1994 and injured seven others has finally been solved. The disappearance of a New Sweden, Maine, 13-year-old a year ago hasn...

Philip Willoughby goes on trial for the Dec. 3, 1983, Maine murder of Paula Roberts, but it doesn’t go smoothly. Not at all. Prosecutors never really let go of Trial 1, and justice takes a hit. ...

When David Willoughby is arrested and charged with the abduction and murder of Paula Roberts, it seemed like the beginning of the end of the case of the 21-year-old store clerk who was taken and kille...

December 3, 1983, was just a normal night in Paula Roberts’ busy life — she was working the evening shift at Summer Haven Ice Cream shop in Augusta, Maine, one of three jobs she worked to ...

Tamla Horsford was a little nervous about going to the “girls night” birthday of a friend in Cumming, Georgia, in November 2018. She didn’t know many of the other women, she had a hu...

Michael Gaine was well-known and well-loved in his town of Kenmare, as well as around County Kerry in Ireland. So when the 56-year-old farmer disappeared in the middle of a routine morning in March, t...

We wrap up our summer vacation series with some more of our ever-popular Am I The Asshole advice discussion, as well as Negative Nellies Watching reviews of “Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage and...

We have a Maine mini on the murder of Sunshine Stewart, who was paddleboarding on a lake in Maine July 2 when she was killed. We have all the up-to-date information! Since it’s July, hot, and bu...

Fourth of July party poopers, bridesmaids who “ruin” the wedding, unruly kids at the pool and at home, vacation home SNAFUs — and more! Who really IS the asshole? As the weather heat...

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 wer...

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 h...

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 T...

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...

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, Mau...

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 mu...

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 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 Fa...

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 g...

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 ...

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 “T...

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 se...

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 t...

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 t...

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 l...

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 Am...

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 ...

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 ...

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 &...

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 SmithR...

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. Enjo...

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 Cool...

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 deca...

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 ...

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....