Dark Downeast

One ordinary day during August of 1983, in a quiet patch of parkland just off the road in Penacook, New Hampshire, a teenager found something that didn’t belong. What followed rippled through the small community for years.

Interviews, rumors, and timelines never quite fit together. Voices clashed over what was seen, what was said, and what couldn’t be proved at all. This is a story about how quickly attention can settle on one perso...

In the spring of 2017, the phone calls came almost every day. Tina Stadig always stayed in touch with her twin sister, no matter where life had taken her. The last time they spoke, Tina talked about what was next in her life. She mentioned finding a new place to land, possibly with her sister, like old times.

They never made a plan. And then, one day, the calls stopped. Days passed. Then weeks. And the silence that followed was loud...

In late July 2004, 20-year-old Christina Lunceford walked into her parents’ home beaming with excitement. She had just signed the lease on a new apartment with her boyfriend and was ready to begin a new chapter of her life. But only days later, Chrissy disappeared from that apartment, and the stories her family heard still don’t make sense to them more than 20 years later.

Chrissy’s name and face may have faded from public view over...

The murder of Eugenio DeLeon Vega marked the beginning of a three-decade legal odyssey that exposed flaws in Connecticut’s criminal justice system and raised enduring questions about who really killed the popular grocer. 

Police initially suspected robbery as the motive and two suspects were arrested, charged, and convicted based on the state’s highly circumstantial case against them despite the glaring inconsistencies at the scene ...

On a winter night in 1981, a teenager stepped out of his Essex Junction home and never returned. His disappearance unsettled the quiet Vermont town, leaving his family searching for answers that never came.

Years later, a hunter in the woods made a discovery that would finally explain what happened to the missing teen, but not why. Whispers of a stolen check, shifting stories, and a courtroom battle followed, yet the truth is still ...

It should have been a routine school night in Somerville, Massachusetts for 17-year-old Deanna Cremin. Homework, TV, and a walk home with her boyfriend before curfew. But by morning, Deanna was gone. Her body was discovered just a few hundred feet from where she was last seen. The community was stunned: who could do this, and why?

For three decades, Deanna’s friends and family have waited for answers, holding onto hope as forensic s...

After spending an early Friday evening hunting in the woods behind his home in Vermont, Wilfred “Butch” King III left his home on two crutches, driving off into the fall night never to be seen alive again. 

Despite years of investigation, what happened on the night of October 24, 1980 remains a mystery. There are many people, from investigators to family, who say they have strong theories about who is behind Butch’s disappearance, y...

When two women known to spend time in Manchester, New Hampshire’s inner city both dropped out of contact with their families in the late 1990s, it wasn’t entirely out of character from the lives they once led. But for Mindy West’s father, who had watched her working to get her life back on track, he just knew that something was wrong. Rosalie Miller’s brother, too, worried as weeks passed without contact from his sister, despite he...

In early 2023, pleas for help reached the small Aroostook County town of Washburn, Maine from across the world in Indonesia. Family members and friends of Attiin Rachmawati Shaw hadn’t heard from her in over a year and the stories they were told about her suspicious disappearance didn’t make any sense.

If you look at your feed right now, you’ll see two episodes released on the same day. Both of the Maine missing persons cases I’m co...

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...