On the tenth anniversary of Joseph Smedley’s disappearance, we return to Bloomington, Indiana, to re-examine the night it all began. Under the eerie glow of a rare Blood Moon, Joseph left his off-campus house and vanished. Five days later, his body was discovered in Griffy Lake, weighed down by rocks.
In this first episode, we hear a never-before-released 911 call, revisit Joseph’s last known hours, and introduce the questions that have haunted his family for a decade: Did Joseph walk to Griffy Lake that night? Could he have carried the weight that pulled him under? And if not — then who brought him there?
With new evidence and reflections ten years later, this series asks not just what happened to Joseph, but what it means when stories like his are left unsolved.
On June 12, 1994, twenty-year-old Delmar Wilson was found shot in his car on Radcliff Road in Washington County, Indiana. The engine was still running. The headlights still on. His foot still pressed on the brake.
Police believe Delmar knew his killer. But in the three decades since, the case has passed from detective to detective, with no arrests and no answers.
On December 27, 2004, 37-year-old Michelle Asher was last seen walking along Route 33 out of Russellville, Illinois, heading toward Vincennes, Indiana. Two weeks passed before she was reported missing. By then, police and volunteers searched the countryside, but no clues turned up.
Five months later, fishermen on the Wabash River made a discovery: Michelle’s body tangled along the riverbank.
The official story said no foul play was found. But Michelle’s sister never believed it.
July 2007. A Nashville truck stop. Police approach a mustard-yellow cab and arrest a long-haul trucker suspected in murders across multiple states.
But this isn’t a story about him. It’s about the women.
We investigate the unsolved 1997 murder of Andrea Michelle Hendrix-Steinert in Gibson County, Indiana, and ask: when predators use the highway, who is left behind?
On a cold morning in October 1997, the body of 28-year-old Andrea Michelle Hendrix-Steinert was found in a ditch along County Road 350 in Gibson County, Indiana.
Andrea was a mother, a daughter, and a pharmacy clerk who was just turning her life around. Years later, a prison inmate confessed to her killing, but no charges were ever filed.
This episode of A Heavy Weight tells Andrea’s story in full: her life, her death, and the silence that followed. We confront the systemic bias that leaves women like Andrea overlooked, forgotten, and buried twice.
Because every victim deserves justice. And every life deserves to be remembered.
In May 1976, the body of 18-year-old Bennett Brown was found in rural Lawrence County, Indiana. He had no identification — only a set of keys, $1.05 in coins, and a name stitched into his clothes.
Who was Bennett Brown? How did a college freshman from Evanston, Illinois, end up murdered and left in a wooded ravine nearly 300 miles from home?
This episode of A Heavy Weight dives into Bennett’s story — his life at Northern Illinois University, the discovery of his body, the search for answers, and the enduring silence around his death. Nearly five decades later, his case remains unsolved.
In February 1981, 31-year-old Juanita Boyd vanished after a night at Snyder’s Corner Tavern in LaPorte, Indiana. A week later, she was found strangled and stabbed in the trunk of her green Pontiac Catalina, abandoned off a muddy rural road. Her killing remains unsolved more than forty years later. In this episode, we retrace the timeline from her last sighting to the 2013 cold-case re-examination, exploring the details, forensic possibilities, and what might still bring answers. Juanita’s story is a reminder that this could happen to any one of us — and that justice can still come, even decades later.Contact information for the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Office:Phone (Toll Free): 800.548.5374
Phone (La Porte): 219.326.7700
Phone (Michigan City): 219.879.3530
In the summer of 1979, a rusted barrel bobbing in a shallow Indiana creek revealed a secret the town had almost forgotten: the skeletal remains of 21-year-old Mary Ann Higginbotham. She had vanished without a trace a year earlier. No missing persons report. No search parties. No headlines.
As police began unraveling the threads of her disappearance, they uncovered a web of stolen cars, criminal informants, and a second victim—her boyfriend, Timothy Willoughby—who also vanished without a trace.
This is a story of betrayal, silence, and justice that slipped away. And it still hasn’t been solved.
In 1993, 16-year-old Rayna Rison walked out of her after-school job and vanished.
Thirty-three days later, her body was found in a pond. No signs of trauma. No suspect in custody.
For decades, the case haunted LaPorte, Indiana—tainted by rumors of sexual abuse, cover-ups, and silence.
Then in 2014, prosecutors convicted Jason Tibbs, Rayna’s former middle school boyfriend. Case closed. Or so it seemed.
But now, a new investigation raises disturbing questions: Was Tibbs the wrong man? Did the real killer slip through the cracks?
In 1987, 10-year-old Linda Weldy got off her school bus in rural Indiana and vanished. Her body was found just a few miles from her home. Her murder remains unsolved nearly four decades later.
But Linda’s story is more than a cold case—it’s a reflection of the cracks in small-town systems, where children fall through and justice stalls. In this episode, we revisit Linda’s case and examine how communities respond to the disappearance and death of a child.
Content note: This episode discusses the murder of a child and may not be suitable for all listeners.
Jessica. Holly. Linda. Rayna.
These girls never met.
But they may all be connected by the same man.
In this episode, we examine Larry Dewayne Hall: a man suspected in over 40 abductions, but convicted in just one. His words led to search warrants, graveyard digs, and hope for families desperate for answers. But when it came time to testify… he claimed it was all a dream.
A grave digger. A Civil War re-enactor. A man with a van full of rope, duct tape, and maps marked with X’s.
In this episode of A Heavy Weight, we reveal the man who may have haunted the Midwest for over a decade—Larry Dewayne Hall. Though convicted of kidnapping Jessica Roach, he’s suspected in the disappearances of more than 40 young women, including Holly Ann Anderson, who was found murdered just three miles from Jessica.
Hall confessed to many of the crimes—then recanted them all.
We go inside the cell where he spilled secrets to a confidential informant, explore the van that may have served as his mobile crime scene, and read from the notebooks where he documented what might be the deadliest lies in recent U.S. history.
Why couldn’t investigators convict him of even a single murder?
Why do so many families still wait for answers?
And what do we owe the girls whose names he tried to bury?
On a cold January morning in 1992, 18-year-old Holly Ann Anderson was found stabbed to death on the side of an empty rural road in Vermillion County, Indiana. Her case went cold almost immediately. No suspect. No motive. Just silence.
Nearly two years later and just three miles away, 15-year-old Jessica Roach disappeared while riding her bike home from school. Her body, discovered weeks later in a cornfield, reawakened a horrifying question: Was this the work of a serial killer?
In this episode of A Heavy Weight, we investigate the chilling parallels between two unsolved murders, and the emerging shadow of a man who would come to haunt law enforcement for decades—Larry Dewayne Hall.
What links a On a cold January morning in 1992, 18-year-old Holly Ann Anderson was found stabbed to death on the side of an empty rural road in Vermillion County, Indiana. Her case went cold almost immediately. No suspect. No motive. Just silence.
Nearly two years later and just three miles away, 15-year-old Jessica Roach disappeared while riding her bike home from school. Her body, discovered weeks later in a cornfield, reawakened a horrifying question: Was this the work of a serial killer?
In this premiere episode of A Heavy Weight, we investigate the chilling parallels between two unsolved murders, the hidden history of overlooked victims, and the emerging shadow of a man who would come to haunt law enforcement for decades—Larry Dewayne Hall.
Hall, a Civil War re-enactor would be linked to the disappearance of dozens of young girls across the Midwest
This is where the story begins.
In 1978, Mary Beth “Pixie” Grismore — a 26-year-old mother and former pageant star — vanished from her Indiana farmhouse, just hours before she was set to start a new life. Seventy-one days later, her body was found 180 miles away, strangled and abandoned in the trunk of her car at a motel in Ohio.
This is more than a cold case. It's a haunting portrait of how women’s voices were ignored, how justice stalled, and how silence still protects the guilty.
In this immersive episode, we trace Pixie’s final days, examine the systemic failures that followed, and explore why her story still matters in the era of the Violence Against Women Act.
For nearly 30 years, Wilma June Nissen’s name was lost —buried in a ditch in rural Iowa, remembered only as Jane Doe.
In this episode of The Girl in the Ditch, we revisit the decades-long mystery through the voice of her daughter, Krissi—who has fought for justice every step of the way. We explore the latest breakthroughs in DNA technology that could finally unlock the truth behind Wilma’s murder, and we examine how stigma, silence, and systemic neglect have long prevented women like her from being seen as victims.
In 2006, a fingerprint match gave Jane Doe a name: Wilma June Nissen. For nearly three decades, her identity was lost—but not anymore.
In this episode, we uncover how Wilma was finally identified, follow her daughter Krissi’s journey advocating for her mother's case, and dig into the shadows cast by two mysterious women known only as “Sugar” and “Peaches.”
We also confront the reality of what Wilma faced: how foster care, systemic neglect, and sex work created vulnerabilities—and how the language used to describe women like her has shaped the silence that followed.
In October 1978, a utility worker in Rock Rapids, Iowa, made a grim discovery—a young woman’s body in a roadside ditch. No identification. No name. And for 27 years, no answers.
She was buried under a headstone that read Jane Doe.
What no one knew then was that the woman had a name: Wilma June Nissen. She had a daughter—an infant at the time of her death —who’d been looking for her mother the whole time.
This is episode one of the Wilma June Nissen story.
In 1998, Stacey Colbert disappeared without a trace.
Six years later, her remains were found beneath brush in a wooded area of Delaware County, Ohio. But no one has ever been arrested — and the questions still remain.
Who killed Stacey? And why, decades later, is her case still cold?
Our latest podcast episode Echoes of a Smile unpacks Stacey’s story — from the night she vanished to the grassroots movement Finishing Stacey’s Fight that’s keeping her memory alive.
As a follow up to previous episodes, we go beyond the headlines and into the aftermath — where incarcerated women, brutalized inside the Clark County Jail, are still waiting for justice.
This episode explores:
• Why the media’s language shields institutions, not survivors
• How criminal charges were quietly dismissed — and why it matters
• What Sheriff Jamey Noel was punished for (and what he wasn’t)
• How we failed the women who did speak up
Listen alongside episodes:
🔹 When Protection Fails – Deputy Freeman’s arrest
🔹 Covering Tracks: Police Misconduct in Indiana
This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, assault, and trauma. Please listen with care.
Nathanael Sexton terrorized women in Southern Indiana for nearly two decades. Eight survivors came forward. Multiple charges, multiple releases . This episode explores how the justice system fails domestic violence survivors, the language that minimizes trauma, and why abusers so often walk free.
