Listen Now

What do America's original aviatrix, the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, a seductive government spy, and an unorthodox civil rights icon have in common? They were all trailblazing women from Michigan whose lives ended tragically. Their stories deserve to be remembered.

It was 35 below, the wind was howling, and the snow was waist-deep when three young men burst through the door of Hotel St. James in the remote town of Ironwood, Michigan during the early morning hours of Feb 1, 1959. They were inadequately dressed for the dangerous weather, disheveled, and visibly shaken from a near-death experience. Even still…there was something about them. They were handsome. Charming. Special, even. That much, the townsfolk knew. What they didn’t know, couldn’t have known, was that the events that unfolded on the desolate highway that separates Northern Wisconsin from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula started a chain reaction, leading to an unspeakable tragedy that rocked the world less than 48 hours later. (And yes, I said toin coss.) Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

An episode I never fathomed I'd have to record, but I suppose was inevitable. Because when it comes to mass shootings, it's no longer a question of "if," but "when." This is what it's like when it happens at home. Donate to the Spartan Strong Fund HERE. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

With a blood lust so strong no prison could hold him, a Michigan man preyed on a coastal California town still reeling from the Bundy murders. And even with the world's most infamous serial killer behind bars, pretty young girls with long, brown hair parted down the middle still weren't safe. Turn your food waste into dirt with the press of a button with Lomi. Use the code VIOLENT to save $50 at lomi.com/VIOLENT. Read more about what foods can be used with Lomi HERE.

Season five begins February 7th! Listen in for a big announcement.

The Vanished is a true crime podcast that explores the stories of those who have gone missing. The Vanished goes beyond conventional news reports to take a deep dive into the story of a different missing person each week.  Host Marissa Jones brings you exclusive interviews with family members, friends, law enforcement and experts on mainstream cases, as well as little known ones. Listen in to hear what The Vanished will uncover next: http://wondery.fm/thevanished.

The news was shocking. Occult obsessed cult leader Benny Evangelist, his wife, and their four young children had been murdered in their lavish Detroit home by an ax-wielding maniac. Beheaded. Dismembered. As police ran down the long list of suspects, an unfathomable possibility emerged. Was Benny himself behind the murders? The 1929 St. Aubin Street Massacre is one of Detroit’s oldest and most notorious cold cases, but it is not alone in its tragedy. In 1990, it happened again. And while the circumstances were very, very different, the end result was the same- six lives lost, and many more destroyed in a massacre on St. Aubin Street.

Listener ghost stories, including the haunting of a town with a tragic past. 

As the Great Depression sunk its teeth into America, a Lansing man's fortune was on the rise- literally. Auto magnate R.E. Olds built a decadent sky scraper, the tallest building in Michigan's capital city, to house his bank. But less than a year after the Olds Tower opened its doors, blood and bullets tarnished its immaculate reputation. What drove a pillar of the community to a shooting rampage? Deak Mead wasn't motivated by money. He was after revenge. To pledge Creepy Kawaii's Mothman Kickstarter, visit here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creepykawaii/mothman-plush?ref=1swpf2 

When a young woman was found lying gravely injured on the side of the road, a mystery that would take nearly two decades to solve began to unfold. Who was she, really? And who was the strange older man claiming to be her husband? This episode's sponsor is Magic Mind. Visit magicmind.co/sodead and use code SoDead20 to save 20% off a single purchase, or 40% off a subscription!

In Depression-era Cleveland, a madman stalked the streets of the Kingsbury Run neighborhood, leaving body parts in his wake.

In the late 1970s, an FBI task force targeted a massive interstate auto theft ring headquartered in Mid-Michigan. Building their case proved difficult, though, because their key witnesses kept meeting grim fates.

The summer of 1967 was an especially violent one in the United States. Known as "the long, hot summer," there were 159 race riots in America over the course of just a few months, the deadliest of which occurred in Detroit in late July. What led to the deaths of nearly fifty citizens, mostly at the hands of law enforcement officials called in to quell the violence? And what really happened inside The Algiers Motel?

When a beloved wife, mother, and grandmother suddenly fell ill and died, her family was shocked to learn she'd been intentionally poisoned. Even more shocking was the identity of her murderer.

A charismatic waitress in a Yugo headed north to visit the man she hoped to marry. A young father in a Bronco driving south, back toward home. Though their paths did not cross in life, their fates are forever linked by the tragedy that befell them both on the Mackinac Bridge, one of the world's longest (and most treacherous) suspension bridges.

A sideshow performer, an unknown serial killer, and an ice skating chimpanzee. Luke Karamazov seems like outlandish fiction at times, but is the true story of the Ranes brothers from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the only serial killer siblings in American history, And soon, it will be a movie starring Zachary Quinto and Jacob Elordi.

A disgraced Lansing doctor out to make a quick buck by performing "illegal oprations" left countless bodies in his wake. A socialite unable to live with the shame of being an unwed mother took her own life in a Charlotte hotel room. A Benton Harbor farmboy felt murder was the only way out when his flapper girlfriend wound up pregnant. This was the harsh (but not uncommon) reality of the early 1900s, when abortion was illegal in Michigan. Are we headed there again?

When a leisurely Sunday drive near the Michigan/Indiana border turned into a scene out of a horror movie for Ray and Marie Thornton, their lives were changed forever. Their experience, quite literally, inspired a horror movie. But the true story was so much more terrifying than anything Hollywood could conjure up.

In 1998, the body of a young boy was found beneath a billboard along a North Carolina highway. With very little to go on, authorities were not able to determine who the boy was, or who killed him. But one investigator was determined to solve the case no matter how long it took. So he kept the case file in a box beneath his desk, right in his way, so that he bumped his leg on it every time he turned in his chair. The box never let him forget, and he watched and waited for the scientific advancement that would crack the case wide open. When it finally happened, a heartbreaking story emerged, leading authorities to a small Michigan town and another unsolved murder.

Promising wellness and everlasting youth, Dr. Linda Hazzard lured wealthy patients to her "health retreat" in Washington state. Once she'd captured her prey, she held patients hostage and bled them dry- literally and figuratively.