Fact and Suspicion

On April 30th, 2011 Gail Polmgren dropped off her kids with her husband Matthew and drove off in her red Jeep Rubicon, never to be seen alive again. Her marriage was failing and she had asked friends to hide documents and money because she was afraid of her husband.

And as the facts of the case began to surface, the shock and outrage of the community grew to a fever pitch.

Marshal Iwaasa was a 26-year-old college student from Calgary Alberta. A shy, hard-working man according to those who knew him best, his family was shocked when his truck was found burned deep in the wilderness of British Columbia with his belongings scattered around it.

Marshal Iwaasa has not been seen since.

November 16th, 1999. Cherica Adams called 911 to report that she had been shot.  Cherica was eight months pregnant and losing blood rapidly, but she managed to survive long enough for her son to be born by emergency caesarian section. She also implicated her boyfriend in her murder: it was NFL start Rae Carruth.

May 6, 2014: Peggy Winn enters the home of 88-year-old Russell Dermond and his 87-year-old wife Shirley. She had been trying to reach the couple for the last three days. After searching through the home, Peggy and her husband found Russell's body in a pool of blood in the garage.

To this day, Russell's head has never been found.

Bobbie Jo Stinnett was 23-years-old and 8 months pregnant on December 16, 2004: the day she lost her life. She was found by her mother, Becky Harper, who described the scene as looking like her daughter's stomach had exploded.

The truth of Bobbie Jo's death was tragic and beyond disturbing.

The American Stonehenge, that was the name given by many to the Georgia Guidestones, a 19ft tall granite monument weighing over 230,000 lbs with advanced astronomical features and cryptic engravings. In 2022, the Guidestones were damaged by a bomber and were suspiciously dismantled by local authorities later that same day. Today, we will discuss the mysteries of who built the Guidestones and why they were destroyed.

Most cold cases will never be solved. Occasionally, though, new information or advancements in technology will give investigators the edge they need for a major breakthrough.

This happened to be the case in the disappearance of 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel, who vanished during her spring break while walking down Ocean Blvd., the busy main thoroughfare in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

On August 29, 1995 Mark Winger of Springfield Illinois made a frantic 911 call. He reported that his wife Donnah had been attacked by an intruder, who Mark had then shot in the head. Donnah would die at the hospital, and investigators would find that her attacker had a disturbing history.

In February of 2013, guests of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angelas began to complain that the water in their rooms had a strange sickly taste. This led to a maintenance man making a gruesome discovery in the water reservoir on top of the hotel.

The body of 21-year-old Elisa Lam was found floating in the tank. The question still remains: how did she get there?

Ben and Dan take a look at HBO's new mini-series The Staircase and discuss what it gets right and what it gets wrong.

In the autumn of 1888, a killer terrorized the East End of London. Over a three-month period, Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of White Chapel, brutally murdering at least 5 women before vanishing as abruptly as he appeared. More than a century later, Jack the Ripper remains unidentified, but his horrific legacy lives on.

Ben and Dan discuss 12 Tribes, the cult that runs a chain of sandwich shops.

In this episode of Fact and Suspicion, Ben and Dan discuss three prolific conmen: Billy McFarland, Kyle Sandler, and Barry Minkow.

In 2012, 16 Japanese students were trapped on an Island and forced to murder each other by an evil robotic bear named Monokuma. Join Ben and Dan as we discuss perhaps the most horrific case we've ever examined. #April Fools