I Was Never There

https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts122/v4/a6/05/1a/a6051acd-6d7d-6b02-4974-321f292a512d/mza_12107947076269114041.jpg/600x600bb.jpg

I Was Never There

Wonder Media Network

10 episodes

9 months ago

In this eight-episode series, take a trip into the countercultural movements swirling through West Virginia in the 1970s and 80s. Jamie Zelermyer and her mother Karen investigate the shocking disappearance of their friend Marsha “Mudd” Ferber and explore her evolution from suburban housewife to back-to-the-land hippie to drug-dealing bar owner. As mother and daughter venture deeper into the mystery of Marsha’s disappearance, the two process their own history: Jamie reflects on her nontraditional upbringing and Karen reckons with the joyful and complicated consequences of her decisions.

All content for I Was Never There is the property of Wonder Media Network and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

True Crime

Society & Culture,

Leisure

Episodes (10/10)

I Was Never There

Bonus: Radical Family Histories (A Crossover with Mother Country Radicals)

Karen and Jamie sit down with Zayd Ayers Dohrn and his mom Bernardine Dohrn of Crooked Media’s Mother Country Radicals to look back at the process of making a show so deeply rooted in personal family history. Jamie and Zayd interview the moms to learn how they felt reliving their radical pasts and what it was like to make a podcast with their children. And in a time that feels so similar politically to the turbulent decades Karen and Bernardine lived through - how do they find hope?

2 years ago

40 minutes 45 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 8: Be Here Now

Karen and Jamie sit down to sift through everything they’ve heard and all they've learned in the process of trying to get to the bottom of Marsha's disappearance. At the end of the journey, Jamie and Karen consider the most important question of all: Where do they go from here?

3 years ago

38 minutes 54 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 7: The Outlaw Handbook

When it came to living on the edge, Marsha wasn't just a big talker; she really did walk a vanishingly thin line between fearless and reckless. We consider Marsha’s complicated and ultimately unsettled legacy, speaking with those whose politics she shifted and shaped, those whose artistic trajectories she launched, and those she left in the emotional — and financial — lurch.

3 years ago

36 minutes 25 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 6: The Magic Veil

Karen helps us understand the mindset that helped Marsha and Karen both live life unafraid of consequences. To explain, we head back to Karen’s back-to-the-land world in Braxton County where Karen and her lover Patty grew pot right out in the open, protected by what they called “The Magic Veil.”

3 years ago

36 minutes 56 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 5: Yacht Babes

In a swirl of partial truths and murky theories, Jamie and Karen find one person who believes he knows exactly what happened to Marsha. What Jamie and Karen find out sounds like a plot line from an action movie, not what they expected to hear about someone Karen considered a close friend. Did Marsha really just get in over her head?

3 years ago

30 minutes 32 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 4: The Underground Railroad

Marsha’s bar was much more than a place to grab a drink. It was ground zero for a cultural revolution, a haven of progressive politics, free expression, and creativity. In an episode brimful of music, we hear recollections from the musicians, teens, and bartenders of two extraordinary community projects that would ultimately be Marsha’s swan song and establish her as a folk hero.

3 years ago

35 minutes 55 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 3: West "By God" Virginia

We go back to Marsha’s early days as a suburban housewife and independent bookstore owner in New Jersey. We follow her and her cohort of Back-To-The-Landers to rural West Virginia, where she built a commune called the Mudd Farm, and gained a new name: Marsha Mudd.

3 years ago

31 minutes 51 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 2: She'll Show Up

Through interviews with Marsha’s friends, Jamie and Karen detail everything that is known about the days leading up to and following the disappearance. They read through the police notes which leaves them with more questions than answers. Why didn’t the detectives do better follow up with one of the primary suspects? And, why didn’t anyone investigate the role Marsha’s drug business might have played in all of this?

3 years ago

38 minutes 11 seconds

I Was Never There

Episode 1: What the Hell Happened to Marsha "Mudd" Ferber?

I Was Never There launches with the range of theories swirling around the disappearance of Marsha “Mudd” Ferber. We meet our hosts, Jamie and Karen Zelermyer and learn who they are in relation to Marsha's story, and why they've decided to try to find out what really happened to her now.

3 years ago

28 minutes 21 seconds

I Was Never There

Introducing ... I Was Never There

Thirty-four years ago, Marsha “Mudd” Ferber vanished without a trace from Morgantown, WV. Mother-daughter duo Karen and Jamie Zelermyer are going back to the land to figure out what the hell happened. From Wonder Media Network, I Was Never There is as much true crime show as it is an ode to Appalachian countercultural movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Named a 2022 Tribeca Festival Official Selection for audio storytelling, the series premieres June 2022.

3 years ago

2 minutes 7 seconds