Bless This Mess: A Southern True Crime Podcast

Between 1977 and 1981, Wichita secretary Ruth Finley was terrorized by an anonymous stalker known as “The Poet.” Cara covers the 4-year investigation, the escalating harassment, and the stunning police sting that finally revealed the identity behind the rhymes.

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The Wichita Eagle, “Victim and perpetrator of ‘the Poet’ crime hoax in Wichita four decades ago has died,” June 10, 2019.
UPI Archives, “Officials said Friday they would not file criminal charges…,” November 6, 1981.
Newser, “Threats Arrived for Years, Until Tormentor Was Revealed,” March 13, 2021.

When 23-year-old Zona Shue died suddenly in 1897, her husband blamed heart trouble, dressed her in a high collar, and buried her the next day. But four weeks later, Zona’s mother claimed her daughter’s ghost appeared at her bedside four nights in a row—demanding justice and revealing her neck had been snapped. Grab your mason jars and join Cara and Stew on the porch for the wild true story of the only murder case in American history cracked by a ghost.

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Sources:
West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History: The Greenbrier Ghost (Greenbrier Independent & The Monroe Watchman, 1897)
The West Virginia Encyclopedia: The Greenbrier Ghost
Greenbrier County Circuit Court Records & Historical Archives (Lewisburg, WV)
West Virginia Public Broadcasting: Appalachian Lore and Regional News

In February 1673, 73-year-old widow Rebecca Cornell was found dead on her bedroom floor in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. An initial coroner’s jury ruled it an accident, but a report of an apparition and bitter family disputes led to an exhumation, a murder trial, and an execution on the gallows.

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Sources
Providence Journal, “Did a ghost really solve this 1673 RI murder case?,” October 24, 2026.
Elaine Forman Crane, Killed Strangely: The Death of Rebecca Cornell, Cornell University Press, 2002.
Rhode Island Historical Society, “Burnt with Fire.”
Newport General Court of Trials Record Book A, 1673.

In August 1990, the return of students to the University of Florida in Gainesville turned into a nightmare. Over a terrifying four-day span, drifter and serial killer Danny Rolling murdered five college students in their off-campus apartments, leaving the community paralyzed by fear.

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When Rebekah Gay didn’t arrive at work on Halloween in 2012, a coworker went to her Michigan home to check on her. Cara follows the search, the investigation, and the confession that resolved the case.

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Sources
Wilson Miller Funeral Home, obituary for Rebekah Jane Gay.
Oxygen, “Minister Murdered Single Mom on Halloween to Live Out His Necrophiliac Fantasy,” October 17, 2022.
Associated Press via NBC News, “Police: Mich. pastor killed fiancee’s daughter to fulfill fantasy,” November 3, 2012.
Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney, “John Douglas White Pled Guilty to Second Degree Murder,” March 2013.
FOX 17, “Man Sentenced for Killing His Neighbor Last Halloween,” April 19, 2013.CBS News, “John White Update: Mich. minister convicted in sex slaying commits suicide in prison, authorities say,” August 29, 2013.

On a bitterly cold January morning in 1987, thirty-five-year-old Lita McClinton was inside her Buckhead townhouse in Atlanta, getting dressed for a critical eleven o'clock court hearing to challenge a prenuptial agreement with her estranged husband, multimillionaire beverage heir James Sullivan. When her doorbell rang, an apparent deliveryman handed her a long white floral box tied with a pink ribbon. Beneath the tissue paper and roses was a nine-millimeter pistol. What followed was an agonizing, nineteen-year fight for justice that spanned interstate payphone trails along I-85, a four-year international manhunt ending in a luxury seaside villa in Thailand, and a high-stakes Fulton County murder trial. Grab your mason jars and join Cara and Stew on the porch for the complete investigative breakdown of one of Georgia's most calculated crimes.

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Sources:
Supreme Court of Georgia En Banc Decision (Sullivan v. State, 284 Ga. 358, 667 S.E.2d 32, 2008)
Georgia Court of Appeals Judicial Records (Harwood v. State, 303 Ga. App. 434, 693 S.E.2d 589, 2010)
Fulton County Superior Court Indictment, Trial & Penalty Phase Transcripts (State of Georgia v. James Vincent Sullivan, 2006)
Bilateral Treaty on Extradition Between the United States and the Kingdom of Thailand (Treaty Doc. 98-16, Article 6, 1991)
Contemporary investigative coverage and trial reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Associated Press

When a friend went to check on Ellen Sherman in 1985, the discovery inside her Connecticut home launched a years-long murder investigation. Cara follows the disputed timeline and unexpected testimony that helped bring the case to trial. 

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Sources
State v. Sherman, Connecticut Appellate Court, 1995.
Hartford Courant, “Man Who Killed Wife Dies of Heart Attack,” 1996.
Luanne Rice, “Four Murders and a Missing Woman in the Nutmeg State,” Criminal Element, 2020.
Rebecca Reisner, “Ellen and Ed Sherman: Cold End to a Marriage,” Forensic Files Now, 2025.

In January 2001, firefighters responding to an off-campus house fire on Fawn Drive in Athens, Georgia, discovered the body of twenty-three-year-old UGA law student Tara Louise Baker . When investigators determined the fire had been deliberately set to cover up a violent homicide, it launched a twenty-three-year search for answers.

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Sources • Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) Cold Case Investigative Division Case File • Athens-Clarke County Police Department & Fire Rescue Incident Reports (160 Fawn Drive) • State of Georgia Legislative Archives: The Coleman-Baker Act (HB 88) • Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office Records: State of Georgia v. Edrick Lamont Faust (Clarke County Superior Court) • Athens Banner-Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Red & Black Court Archives

In December 1900, three lighthouse keepers vanished from a remote island off the coast of Scotland. When the relief crew arrived at Eilean Mòr, the lighthouse was empty, the fire was cold, the beds were unmade, and one raincoat still hung by the door.

This week on A Little Less Mess, Cara heads across the ocean to explore the eerie disappearance at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse—and the ghost stories that have followed those three missing men for more than a century.

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Music courtesy of Blanche

Sources

National Lighthouse Board
National Records of Scotland
BBC

Grab your mason jars and pull up a rocker as Cara and Stew head to South Florida to unpack the wild true story behind the 1997 movie Mother Knows Best. When Lauderhill retiree Lee Goldsmith secretly placed a classified ad to find her daughter a wealthy bachelor, she never imagined her daughter would fall for David Brownstein, a hardworking, blue-collar air-conditioning repairman. Consumed by spite and years of family estrangement, Lee took matters into her own hands by trying to hire a hitman straight from her living room—sparking an undercover Broward County Sheriff’s sting inside a luxury Cadillac and a sensational trial that stunned the nation.

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Music courtesy of Blanche

Sources

Tampa Bay Times Archives (1990): "Murder-for-hire case opens: Woman accused of trying to have son-in-law killed" (Jan 23, 1990).South Florida Sun Sentinel Archives (1989–1995): "The Old Lady and the Hit Man" (May 1990); "Grandma in Murder Plot to Be Freed" (June 1995); trial coverage by regional correspondents.Orlando Sentinel Archives (1990–1993): "Lee Goldsmith, In Jail for Hiring a Hit Man" (Jan 1993); "Shoot My Son-In-Law, Please!" (July 1990).Broward County Circuit Court Records (1989–1990): State of Florida v. Lee Goldsmith, Case No. 89-003661CF10A (Solicitation to Commit First-Degree Murder).