Forensic Tales

#355 - In 2015, healthy 60-year-old chiropractor Mary Yoder suddenly became violently ill and died less than 48 hours later. Toxicology revealed that she had been poisoned with colchicine, but identifying who gave it to her would divide her family and community for years.

A suspicious letter, a bottle hidden inside her son’s Jeep, conflicting digital evidence, and touch DNA eventually led investigators to his ex-girlfriend, Katie Conley.

But after two trials, a conviction, and its eventual reversal, one question remains: Who really poisoned Mary Yoder?

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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#354 - When 74-year-old Bill and Peggy Stephenson failed to attend church on Memorial Day weekend in 2011, their family immediately knew something was wrong. Inside their secluded Kentucky condo, investigators discovered a brutal double murder and one of the strangest staged crime scenes they had ever encountered.

More than 15 years later, unknown DNA, a partial fingerprint, and disturbing evidence withheld from the public have yet to reveal who killed the beloved couple or why.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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https://www.forensictales.com/the-unsolved-murders-of-bill-and-peggy-stephenson

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#353 - Five long weeks after a 16-year-old girl is brutally murdered, a chilling letter arrives on a police desk. The arrogant killer boasts about wearing a plastic Halloween mask and details exactly how he strangled her. He ends with a chilling promise to the investigators: “You will never get me.” 

For more than 25 years, he was right… He disappeared into the crowd, completely undetected. 

But he didn’t realize he left behind a microscopic witness that would eventually hunt him down.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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https://www.forensictales.com/the-murder-of-colette-aram

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#352 - Four children from the same family died suddenly before reaching their second birthdays.

To investigators, the pattern seemed too extraordinary to be natural. And when their mother’s private diaries appeared to contain admissions of guilt, she was branded Australia’s worst female serial killer.

But there were no witnesses. No physical evidence of smothering. And no one could explain exactly how the children had died.

Then, decades later, advances in genetic testing uncovered something that no one involved in the original investigation could have known.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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#351 - A mother of three suddenly disappears after discovering that her husband has been cheating on her.

He insists she simply left—but investigators soon uncover evidence suggesting something far more sinister happened to her involving a commercial woodchipper.

Although her body would never be recovered, forensic scientists pieced together the horrifying truth from tiny fragments of bone, human tissue, strands of hair, and a single tooth. The evidence would ultimately lead to the first murder conviction in Connecticut history without the victim’s body.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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#350 - Imagine being accused of a crime you didn’t commit.

Now imagine that crime was the brutal murder of your wife and two young children.

That became David Camm’s reality. 

Within days of discovering his family’s bodies, the former Indiana State Police trooper went from grieving husband and father to primary suspect.

At the center of the case was a tiny pattern of blood on his T-shirt—evidence prosecutors claimed could only have been created when he pulled the trigger.

But the forensics didn’t tell just one story. And as new evidence emerged, the case against David Camm—and the man investigators had ignored—would begin to unravel.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production, written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

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Two husbands. Two suspicious deaths. And one chilling common denominator.

In this episode of Forensic Tales, we examine the case of Stacey Castor, a woman whose life became the center of a disturbing investigation involving antifreeze poisoning, questionable deaths, and a daughter who barely survived.

As detectives began looking closer, forensic toxicology, fingerprint evidence, DNA, and digital forensics would all play a role in uncovering what really happened—and in building the case against Stacey Castor.

Listen now as we break down the investigation, the forensic evidence, and the trial that earned Stacey the nickname “The Black Widow.”

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For nearly four decades, she was known only as the “Lime Lady.”

She had been shot three times, stripped of her clothing, and covered in quicklime by someone who seemingly wanted to destroy her identity. Instead, the lime helped preserve the forensic evidence that would eventually give her name back.

This special preview explores the mysterious crime scene, the unusual evidence found during her autopsy, and the DNA breakthrough that finally identified her.

The complete, full-length episode is available exclusively to Forensic Tales subscribers.

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On April 1, 1988, eight-year-old April Tinsley disappeared while walking through her Fort Wayne neighborhood. Three days later, her body was discovered in a rural ditch, leaving investigators with a witness description, reports of a blue vehicle, and biological evidence from an unknown man—but no way to identify him.

Two years later, a disturbing message appeared on a barn near where April had been found. Then, in 2004, threatening letters and DNA samples were left outside the homes of young girls around Fort Wayne. Testing confirmed the letter writer was April’s killer, but searches of law-enforcement databases still produced no match.

In this episode, we examine the investigation into April’s murder, the early suspect who was eventually cleared, the killer’s terrifying messages, and the evolution of the DNA evidence over three decades. We also break down DNA profiling, CODIS, behavioral analysis, DNA phenotyping, and the forensic genetic genealogy that finally led investigators to John D. Miller in 2018.

Topics discussed include:

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For a complete list of sources used in this episode: https://www.forensictales.com/the-murder-of-april-tinsley