On a cold night in December 1979, 18-year-old high school senior Michelle Martinko attended a choir banquet, stopped by the brand-new Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — and never came home. The next morning, her body was found in her family’s Buick, parked in a quiet corner of the mall lot. She had been stabbed nearly 30 times in what investigators described as a “personal” and “frenzied” attack. There were no signs of robbery or sexual assault.

For nearly 40 years, her murder remained unsolved. But thanks to breakthroughs in forensic genealogy, a discarded straw, and tireless cold-case work, justice finally caught up with her killer — on the very same date the crime took place.

In this episode, we explore Michelle’s life, the night she was killed, the investigation that spanned decades, and how a small trace of blood ultimately helped close one of Iowa’s most haunting cold cases.

#TrueCrime #MichelleMartinko #GeneticGenealogy

In the early morning hours of December 18, 2013, 20-year-old Heather Elvis vanished from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Just hours earlier, she’d gone on a first date, sent a cheerful selfie, and talked about starting fresh after ending an affair with a married man.

But by dawn, her car was found abandoned at a remote riverside boat landing — her phone, keys, and purse gone. Heather herself? Missing without a trace.

This episode unpacks the tangled web of secrets, surveillance footage, payphone calls, and jealousy that followed. It also explores the convictions of Sidney and Tammy Moorer for her kidnapping — and the lingering mystery that still haunts Heather’s family and community to this day.

More than a decade later, her loved ones are still asking the same question: Where is Heather?

#HeatherElvis #MissingPerson #sidneymoorer #tammymoorer

On this day in 1968, 20-year-old college student Barbara Jane Mackle was kidnapped at gunpoint from a Georgia motel room and buried alive in a homemade underground box. For more than 83 hours, she lay trapped beneath the soil while her kidnappers demanded a $500,000 ransom and the FBI raced against time to find her.

In today’s episode, host Kona Gallagher walks through the harrowing details of one of the most infamous kidnappings in American history — a case that led to the first woman ever placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and that still captivates the public over half a century later.

#BarbaraMackle #BuriedAlive #CrimeHistory