Dark Downeast

Stefanie Damron’s parents say that their 13-year-old daughter walked out the door and into the woods one September afternoon in 2024, and she hasn’t been seen or heard from since. They have their own suspicions about what happened to her, but so far, a multi-agency effort hasn’t been able to prove what happened to Stefanie more than a year later.

Active missing persons cases are some of the most challenging cases to cover. At the sa...

Lena Bruce had a bright future ahead of her. She’d just graduated from a top university and landed a great job, and she was settling into a new apartment in the heart of Boston’s South End neighborhood, already living the life she’d worked for since she was a child. But one night in the summer of 1992, an assailant altered the course of Lena’s dreams and stole that bright future from her.

That assailant thought he’d gotten away with...

When we first covered the case of Charline Rosemond on Dark Downeast back in January of 2025, her murder was still unsolved. But a few months after the release of the episode, that finally changed. A suspect has since been indicted. So, we’re rereleasing the original episode covering Charline’s case with a new ending and an interview with Charline’s sister Rose, who has been Charline’s fiercest advocate since day one. 

Rose has hear...

From the moment investigators stepped foot into the home of Leslie and Charlie Buck in the spring of 2002 following a 9-1-1 call, there was something off about the circumstances of Leslie’s untimely death. Leslie had just survived a violent kidnapping two days earlier, and autopsy findings left the manner of her death anything but clear-cut. 

This episode is a continuation of Leslie’s story. Be sure to listen to The Kidnapping of Le...

In the spring of 2002, several urgent 9-1-1 calls came into the Stonington, Connecticut, police department from the same caller just two days apart. First, there was a report of a violent kidnapping, and then, the untimely death of the very same victim. 

When investigators arrived at the scene of Leslie Buck’s suspicious death fresh off the arrest of the person who kidnapped her, the circumstances didn’t quite add up. In the days ah...

When Michael Madore vanished almost 30 years ago, the first theories of his disappearance were pulled from letters found at his house: he was supposedly leaving behind his home and belongings and dogs to start a new life in Alaska. That’s the story police in Milo, Maine, first heard when Mike was reported missing.

But now, without any sign of life for nearly three decades and no indication that Mike made it to the Last Frontier for ...

She was out on her usual Sunday night walk when an unknown killer pulled up and shot her, leaving her mortally wounded in the street of what locals considered a safe neighborhood. Why someone would target Denise Robert and take her life still doesn’t make any sense to her family and those who knew her best, even 10 years later. 

This case is not short on theories. Police have fielded questions about everything from a possible gang i...

When Christine Grega and her husband, John Grega, set off for a family vacation to Vermont with their young son, it was a trip meant to mend their relationship. Instead, the weekend ended in devastation when Christine was found in their borrowed ski condo, the victim of a violent attack.

After two decades filled with investigations, prosecutions, an exoneration, and lawsuits, it still isn’t clear what really happened on the night of...

Almost 38 years later, the truth about what happened to Kara Laczynski and who is responsible for her death still has yet to be revealed. Two suspects were arrested and charged in the case, but after three trials with three separate juries and weeks upon weeks of testimony, no one has ever been convicted. 

Here’s what investigators thought—and tried to convince the jury—really happened, based on highly disputed evidence that stirred...

Starlette Vining disappeared in 1998 and has never been found, yet 15 years after she was last seen in the small town of Presque Isle, Maine, a suspect was convicted of her murder. 

This is a wide-open look at how a cold missing persons case was successfully investigated and solved despite the fact that the victim’s remains were never recovered prior to trial, or ever. It’s a story about what it takes—and that it is fully possible—t...

For almost three years, the case of Katharina Reitz Brow languished without information or evidence that could bring a true ending to the search for answers. And then when someone was finally arrested, charged, and convicted of her murder, a hard-fought battle by the suspect’s own sister unearthed evidence in a dusty courthouse basement that changed everything about the case nearly two decades later.

Now, just this year, 2025, inves...

For years, the murders of Rhonda Travers and Kathy Perry sat stagnant without any promise of justice, but when an informant surfaced with a story about a suspect who had never before been investigated, it changed everything.

“There's always names that come up in every case,” Sgt. Pierce explained. “You know, look at this one, look at that one, whatever. There's always something, though, that just doesn't fit, you know? And these peo...

In a nine-month span between 1986 and 1987, two women were found brutally slain in the same Rhode Island city. Investigators believed that the first was abducted from the side of the road on her way home from work in the middle of the night, while the second appeared to get into an unknown vehicle voluntarily. Both were found a few miles away from the locations they were last seen alive, cruelly discarded in industrial areas.

Decade...

Walter Page was a longtime member of the Freemasons in Manchester, New Hampshire. As treasurer of his local lodge, Walter had overseen the philanthropic efforts of their chapter for years, and he had also helped sort out the mess following more than one major financial theft. In the days before his death, Walter was on the verge of exposing yet another.

Investigators have been exceptionally vocal about their views of what happened o...

On this date two years ago, I released an episode about the disappearance of Kristopher Bryan Lewis. Kris was just 13 years old when he seemingly vanished after school one day. In February of 2025, marking the 11-year anniversary of his disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created a new age progression photo and missing poster depicting what he might look like now at 24 years old. 

• If you have an...

Kenneth Jerome got up that summer morning in 2005 and said goodbye to his girlfriend and children, just like he did every day. He set about his usual chores on the farm, just like he always did, and he expected to feed the cows, like he had for years. But July 7th was not like every other day. Kenny’s routine was pierced by a single gunshot wound that stole him from the family, friends, and community who loved him fiercely.

Now 20 y...

It was a Saturday night, and she’d just clocked out of work to join a group of friends down the street for drinks at a favorite local watering hole. Later, when Holly Jean Cote left that bar in the early hours of March 4, 1984, she was expected to meet at a friend’s house for a nightcap, but Holly never made it. 

Since the earliest days of her disappearance, investigators have had a leading theory about what happened when she left t...

When Pamela Webb left her home in Winthrop, Maine, on the first Saturday of July in 1989, her dog and Bible beside her, she could not have anticipated that her road trip would be interrupted by a still unknown predator. There was no shortage of potential connections to explore following her presumed abduction and murder, but so far, the perceived similarities have not developed into any publicly named suspects or arrests.

What happe...

From the very beginning of the investigation into the disappearance of Iris Brown, everyone suspected the same person had something to do with it. She left home with the suspect on the night she was last seen alive, the suspect’s behavior in the days following her disappearance raised countless red flags, and forensic evidence pointed to something bad happening inside the suspect’s car, but proving beyond a reasonable doubt exactly...