The Deck

Our card this week is Tawnya Dawn Knight, the 3 of Clubs from Kansas.

When 15-year-old Tawnya first vanished into thin air on a cold winter’s night in 1996,  law enforcement considered her a runaway,  despite her family believing otherwise. Months later, answers did come… tragic ones… along with plenty of questions about some of Tawnya’s friends and the circumstances of what happened to her that ...

Our card this week is Mary Kathleen Rodriguez, the 5 of Spades from Texas.

For more than three decades, the question of who killed 26-year-old Mary Kathleen Rodriguez has hung over the town of West Odessa, Texas. Known as Kathleen to those who loved her, the live-in nanny was found brutally beaten to death inside the home of the couple she worked for.

Although the case has changed hands from one detective to another, the original f...

Our card this week is Daniel Traina, the 8 of Diamonds from Florida.

49-year-old Daniel Traina was hard to miss.  The Six-foot-four happy-go-lucky guy was always bopping around the West Palm Beach suburb of Lake Park. … well known to bartenders, store clerks, and neighbors.  

So it was mind-boggling when, in May of 2021, Daniel walked out of a 7-Eleven next to Florida’s busy Federal Highway … and ...

Our card this week is Ilene Misheloff, the Ace of Hearts from California. 

Thirteen-year-old Ilene Misheloff normally walked the same path home from school most days. And on January 30, 1989, all signs indicate she took that same route… and ALMOST made it home. But something… or someone intervened. And somehow, with all the traffic and houses that lined her route, no one saw the moment that Ilene Misheloff disapp...

Our card this week is Benjamin Rosario, a Wild Card from Connecticut. 

Most cold case investigators will tell you that murder is a dirty business. But once in a while, there’s a murder so horrific that it could be mistaken for an urban legend.  The unsolved homicide of Benjamin is one of those cases.  

It began on a summer evening much like any other for Benjamin. He left his apartment and headed off to hi...

Our card this week is Terrance "Konomi" Plummer, the Ace of Spades from North Carolina.

 It was Memorial Day weekend in 2010, and hot as hades in North Carolina, when 22-year-old Terrance “Konomi” Plummer Junior was found murdered in a crime so brutal—and so deliberate—that it stayed with everyone who touched the case—especially Lt. Jeff Locklear. What began as another homicide investigation becam...

Our card this week is Beverly Logan, the 10 of Clubs from Kansas. 

When Beverly Logan, a gentle, 56-year-old certified nurse’s aide, was found murdered in her kitchen, the Salina, Kansas Police Department found themselves on the hunt for her killer. They believe it might have been someone she knew. But over 18 years later, who that person is has remained a mystery. 

If you have any information about the murder of Be...

Our card this week is Anita Carlson, the 10 of Spades from Minnesota. 

In late June 1987, the town of Bemidji, Minnesota, was gearing up for Independence Day weekend. Celebrations quickly turned to panic when Anita Carlson, a college graduate with hopes of working in TV production, went missing from her nighttime job at Pete’s Place, a convenience store at the intersection of Highways 2 and 89. 

By the end of the we...

Our card this week is Rosa McMillan, the 9 of Hearts from North Carolina. 

On August 6, 1989, Rosa McMillian was found murdered inside that home. She had been brutally attacked—and sexually assaulted—in her own living room.

The crime scene didn't make sense, and a few mysterious items were left behind by whoever killed Rosa. Something else left behind? The killer's DNA.

In most cases, that would be enough to close ...

Our card this week is Kevin Nguyen, the 10 of Spades from Indiana.

On a cold December night in 2018, 25-year-old Kevin Nguyen went to see a band at a Fort Wayne bar and never came home. Surveillance cameras captured his final known hours in eerie fragments before he vanished. What happened next has fueled years of rumors, online theories, and bitter disagreements between investigators and Kevin’s family. With unreleased video...

Our card this week is Kelsie Schelling, the 10 of Spades from Colorado.

In February 2013, 21-year-old Kelsie Schelling had just learned she was eight weeks pregnant. Hours after her first prenatal appointment, she drove from Denver to Pueblo -  and was never seen again.

Kelsie’s body has never been found. But years later, someone was convicted of her murder. How do investigators build a case without a body? And after mor...

Our card this week is Milagros Nieves, the 3 of Clubs from Connecticut.

For more than three decades, the family of Milagros Nieves never talked about her murder.  She’d been stabbed 33 times in the presence of her beloved baby granddaughter. The violence of it, the brutality of it, was too much for her family to relive. But when our team at The Deck started looking into Milagros’ case, they uncovered information th...

In July 1984, Clarence and Marjorie Paulson, father and daughter, were reported missing from their home in Minnesota. At first glance, sheriff’s deputies didn’t see any obvious signs of a struggle. Marjorie and Clarence didn’t have driver’s licenses, and the three-wheeler Clarence used to travel was still at his house. Marjorie’s purse and knitting needles were left behind. Neighbors didn’t offer...

Our card this week is Edwin “Eddie” Heath Sr., the King of Hearts from Delaware.

For the last eleven years, the mystery of who murdered 33-year-old Eddie has haunted the New Castle County Police. It looked to them like Eddie had been targeted – shot just steps from where he lived and in front of his children. But a few BIG questions remain: Who was the man, possibly in disguise, that shot Eddie that day?...

When police arrived at the scene of Angelica Sandoval’s disappearance on February 24th, 2011, what they came across seemed eerily frozen in time: her 1995, four-door, green Oldsmobile sedan was parked on 13th Street, in front of her two-bedroom duplex. Her keys were still in the driver’s side lock, but the back driver’s side door of the car was hanging open, revealing a basket of laundry and her purse still inside...

In the fall of 1991, just as the season was starting to change, a couple fishing at sunrise at a small lake in Fayetteville, North Carolina, noticed something floating near the surface of the water. At first, they thought it was a blow-up doll. But upon closer inspection,  the couple saw hair on the legs and realized it wasn’t a doll. It was a human being—a person who would be identified as 24-year-old Jimmy Riddle.&nbs...

Our card this week is Tonya Teske, the 2 of Spades from Idaho.

This week, we’re resurfacing an important old episode for you because we just learned more information about a person of interest who’s never been ruled out. His name is Mark Douglas Burns, and he's a terrifying individual. He came up in a Crime Junkie episode we dropped in the fan club in which Burns confessed to murdering a young mom in her home back in 20...

Our card this week is Nefertiri "Neffie" Trader, the Queen of Hearts from Delaware.

In the early hours of June 30th, 2014, 33-year-old Nefertiri, who went by “Neffie”, was kidnapped from her own front yard. In the dark, she was dragged into her car, away from the townhome she shared with her mom and three children.

Even though Neffie’s kidnapping was witnessed, it would be almost nineteen hours before police learn...