Cardinal Crimes

On September 13, 1980, a housekeeper at the Holiday Inn in Williamsburg, Iowa, discovered a horrifying scene: Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison had been brutally murdered in their hotel room bed. More than four decades later, their case remains unsolved. But could the answers be closer than ever?

In part one, we dive deep into the crime scene itself, piecing together details from decades of media coverage and released crime scene photo...

This week, we’re revisiting a past episode with freshly cleaned-up audio before diving into a brand-new cold case next week. This particular interview is one I’m especially proud of. It was such an honor to speak with someone with such knowledge and dedication to ending domestic violence and pursuing real solutions. I hope you enjoy listening, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Jacquelyn...

Laura Van Wyhe spent the evening of Friday, October 25, 1996 celebrating her recent 21st birthday with family and friends. Hours later, around 2 a.m. on Saturday, October 26, 1996, she was found critically injured along Highway 136 near Kahoka, Missouri. She later died from her injuries at an Illinois hospital.

While her injuries led investigators to believe she had been struck by a vehicle, the scene as a whole suggested she had be...

On July 30, 2011, a massive fire destroyed the home of Bill and Kay Wood. One victim was found in the rubble, and testing would later confirm the remains were those of Bill. An autopsy revealed he had been shot several times before the fire. Kay's remains were not found in the home. The couple's vehicle was found during the fire, 170 miles south in Kansas City, MO, and an unidentified male was seen walking nearby. 

To this...

On July 30, 2011, firefighters rushed to a massive late-night blaze in Norwalk, Iowa. When the flames were finally extinguished, the charred remains of 79-year-old Bill Wood were discovered inside. His wife, Kay, was missing, and the couple’s truck turned up abandoned over 170 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri, with witnesses reporting a lone man walking from the vehicle.

Weeks of investigation revealed a chilling detail: Bill Woo...

In the early morning hours of July 4, 2001, Crystal Arensdorf vanished after being out at a bar in Dubuque, Iowa with friends. After countless searches, interviews, and months of investigating, there was no sign of the 20-year-old. In fact, no one ever saw Crystal leave the bar at all. 

In this episode, we go over what we know of her movements before she disappeared, some of the known individuals investigated and ruled out, and talk...

In 2004, an analyst from the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation discovered a pattern of murdered women dumped along the Interstate 40 corridor in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Her work eventually led to the creation of the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings Initiative. 

In today’s episode, I sit down with Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI Assistant Director and author of Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. In his book, F...

Tammy Zywicki was last seen on Sunday, August 23, 1992, on her way back to college in Grinnell, Iowa. When her parents didn’t receive word that she’d arrived safely, and later learned her vehicle had been abandoned along I-80, they reported her missing, sparking a multi-state search effort. Nine days later, her body was discovered in rural Missouri, hundreds of miles from where she was last seen; she had been murdered.

In this episo...

Almost a year after the abduction of Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins from Evansdale, Iowa, two more young girls would be abducted from a town just under two hours away. On May 20, 2013, 15-year-old Kathlynn Shephard and 12-year-old Dezi Hughes were kidnapped by a man named Michael Klunder while walking home from school in Dayton, Iowa. No one could deny the similarities between the two cases. 

In this episode, we will exa...

On July 13, 2012, ten-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey and eight-year-old Elizabeth Collins went for a bike ride in the quiet town of Evansdale, Iowa and never came home. Their bicycles and a purse were found abandoned, sparking a massive search effort that gripped the community and the nation. Months later, their remains were discovered in a remote area over 20 miles away.

In this episode we will cover the timeline of their disappeara...

In this bonus episode (possibly a recurring segment, we'll see), we’re digging into some of the biggest headlines in the crime space. First, we break down Brian Kohberger’s early July plea in the University of Idaho murders and explore how reported patterns of misogyny may have played a role in his actions. Then, we discuss the new Hulu docuseries Her Last Broadcast, which revisits the 1995 abduction of Jodi Huisentruit. While...

In the final part of our series on the “milk carton kids,” we turn our focus to Marc Allen, a 13-year-old who disappeared in 1986 under circumstances somewhat similar to that of Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin. Though Marc’s face never appeared on a milk carton, his case is often linked to Johnny and Eugene. Was there a connection, or are these unsolved disappearances just tragic coincidences?

We will examine the details of Marc Alle...

Almost exactly two years after the abduction of 12-year-old paper boy Johnny Gosch, another young paperboy was abducted. In this episode, we examine the 1984 abduction of 13-year-old Eugene Martin, a Des Moines paperboy whose disappearance prompted national attention and contributed to the launch of the milk carton campaign. We begin with a look at how effective that campaign really was before walking through the known timeline of ...

Have you heard of the original milk carton kids?

In the first episode of this three-part series, we explore the 1982 disappearance of 12-year-old Johnny Gosch, one of the first missing children to appear on a milk carton. Johnny’s case marked a turning point in how the U.S. approached missing child investigations and sparked ongoing discussions about child safety, media attention, and law enforcement response. We’ll walk through the...

We are revisiting this episode as I was able to clean up the audio that was a little off in the original recording! I hope you enjoy it. 

In this episode, I sit down with Janine Latus, an award-winning journalist, domestic violence survivor, and author of the New York Times and internationally bestselling book If I am Missing or Dead: a Sister’s Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation.

Janine’s book is phenomenal, tragic, eye-opening, ...

Corinne Perry was last seen at the Highlander Laundromat on April 17, 1983. Her car was left abandoned in the laundromat parking lot, with her clothes folded neatly inside of it. Days later, her purse was found miles away on a bridge. Despite multiple witnesses saying a man -- about 6 feet tall, with a medium build and medium-length brown hair, clean shaven, and wearing glasses -- followed Corinne out of the laundromat, there was n...

This June is the 30-year anniversary of Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance and abduction. She was abducted from her apartment complex parking lot on June 27th, 1995. I covered this case in a different episode when we sat down with Scott Fuller from FindJodi, but I wanted to present the information in her case in a new format with the upcoming anniversary. In this episode, we will go over the details of her abduction, how she spent he...

On November 2nd, 2021, two 16-year-old boys beat their 66-year-old Spanish teacher, Nohema Graber, to death. The reasoning? They were getting bad grades in her class. The murder of Nohema Graber stunned the community of Fairfield, Iowa, and the nation. In this episode we discuss the timeline of events, how the two teens stalked and meticulously planned their crimes, and discuss what transpired at their sentencing hearings. How coul...

In this episode, we discuss the tragic murder of 13-year-old Tristyn Bailey by 14-year-old Aiden Fucci. I wanted to cover this case after watching the Netflix series Adolescence, a four-part series that dives into the epidemic of violence against women and girls, the radicalization of young men, and tries to answer the question “Why?”. 

In this episode, we attempt to answer that same question. We talk about the investigation in...