Forensic Tales

#331 - On the early morning of June 3, 2011, 20-year-old Indiana University student Lauren Spierer disappeared after a night out with friends in downtown Bloomington, Indiana.

Investigators were able to reconstruct much of Lauren’s final hours using surveillance footage, witness statements, and digital timelines. But despite knowing many of the places she went and the people she was with that night, Lauren seemingly vanished just blocks from her own apartment.

More than a decade later, her disappearance remains unsolved.

In this episode of Forensic Tales, we examine the timeline of Lauren Spierer’s final night, the key investigative clues, and the unanswered questions that still haunt this case.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio Production. The show is written & produced by Courtney Fretwell.

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

For months, Dorothy Jane Scott received anonymous phone calls from a man who said he was watching her.

He knew where she worked. He knew where she went at night. Sometimes he even described the clothes she had worn that day… or the car she was driving.

At first, Dorothy tried to ignore the calls. But they kept coming. Sometimes the caller sounded angry. Other times, almost obsessed. On one occasion, he told her he was going to cut her up into pieces.

Dorothy was terrified. She started taking self-defense classes and even considered buying a gun. But whoever was calling always remained anonymous.

Then, on the night of May 28, 1980, Dorothy drove a coworker to the hospital after he had been bitten by a spider.

After parking her white Toyota station wagon, she went inside with him. A short time later, Dorothy stepped outside to bring the car around to the front entrance.

But instead of pulling up to the hospital doors, her car suddenly sped through the parking lot… and disappeared into the night.

Dorothy Jane Scott was never seen alive again.

And in the years that followed, the phone calls didn’t stop.

But now, they were coming to her family.

Each time, the caller asked the same chilling question:

“Is Dorothy home?”

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes, exclusive bonus content, and monthly extra episodes.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

#329 - In July of 2015, thousands of people gathered along the river for a weekend of music, camping, and wakeboarding. The annual event known as WakeFest was supposed to be a carefree summer getaway, a place where friends could relax, drink, and enjoy the water.

But by the end of that weekend, one of the campers would be dead.

Twenty-one-year-old Lauren Agee had been camping on a steep cliff overlooking the river with friends she trusted. Sometime during the night, she disappeared from the campsite.

Hours later, her body was discovered hundreds of feet below in the water.

At first, investigators believed it was a tragic accident, that Lauren had fallen from the cliff in the dark.

But when her family began asking questions, they uncovered troubling details that didn’t seem to add up. Injuries that appeared inconsistent with a simple fall. A chaotic campsite. Conflicting witness statements. And a crime scene that many believe was never properly investigated.

More than a decade later, the circumstances surrounding Lauren’s death remain fiercely debated.

Was it truly an accident?

Or did something far more sinister happen on that cliff that night?

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

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

#328 - When police in Oklahoma got a call from a woman saying a man wearing only gloves and a pair of underwear broke into her house, killed her boyfriend, and tortured her for hours, it seemed almost too far-fetched to be true. But as detectives combed through the forensic evidence at the scene, it seemed to line up perfectly with her story. What they didn’t realize at the time was that this brutal attack was connected to a predator who had been quietly slipping in and out of homes for years — watching, stalking, and committing crimes no one ever saw coming.

For nearly two decades, he managed to evade capture. And when investigators finally uncovered who he was, the truth revealed a disturbing pattern: a man who had been hiding in plain sight while secretly living a double life as a voyeur, a prowler… and eventually, a killer.

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

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

The verdict is in.

In this special episode of Forensic Tales, we take a closer look at the trial of Gerhardt Konig, the Hawaii doctor accused of violently attacking his wife during a hike earlier this year.

Prosecutors argued that the assault was deliberate and brutal, pointing to physical evidence and testimony presented during the trial. The defense, however, painted a very different picture, suggesting the events unfolded in a far more complicated way.

Over the course of the trial, jurors heard testimony about the timeline of the attack, the injuries involved, and the forensic evidence that investigators used to reconstruct what happened that day.

Now, after days of testimony and deliberation, the jury has reached its decision.

In this episode, we’ll break down the key moments from the trial, the arguments from both sides, the forensic evidence presented in court, and the verdict that ultimately decided Gerhardt Konig’s fate.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio. The show is written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content for as low as $3/month.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

#327 - For years, prosecutors across the United States relied on a diagnosis known as Shaken Baby Syndrome to explain the sudden deaths of infants and toddlers. In many cases, that diagnosis became the foundation for criminal convictions.

But over time, some doctors and forensic experts began questioning the science behind it.

In 2002, a two-year-old girl in Texas died after being rushed to the hospital. Her father was later accused of shaking her to death and was ultimately sentenced to death.

More than twenty years later, his case has become part of a growing debate over whether some convictions may have relied on flawed or misunderstood evidence.

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

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

#326 - When a 17-year-old beauty school student went missing in February 2010, the residents of a small Washington town were left stunned. Then just days later, the teen's body was discovered by a passerby on the banks of the Columbia River. What began as a desperate search quickly turned into something far more disturbing—an investigation filled with false leads, unsettling rumors, and a suspect hiding in plain sight.

Because in this case… the answers weren’t just buried in secrets.

They were written in the forensic evidence.

This is the murder of Mackenzie Cowell.

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

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

Five years ago, I covered the murders of Cheryl Henry and Andy Atkinson, the case often referred to as the Lovers Lane Murders.

At the time, the case remained unsolved and was widely considered one of Houston's most notorious cold murder cases.

But this week, more than thirty years later, investigators announced something that many people thought might never happen: an arrest.

This is a Forensic Tales Bonus Episode on the Lovers Lane Murders.

a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced by Courtney Fretwell.

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

#325 - When the body of a 19-year-old mother was discovered murdered inside her apartment in 1988, the residents of Three Rivers, Michigan, were shocked. But the brutal details of her murder weren’t the one thing that left people in the community on the edge. It was the fact that when the young mother’s body was discovered by her fiancé, the victim’s eight-month-old daughter was found still sleeping in her crib in the bedroom next door. But without any solid leads, the investigation quickly turned cold. And the victim’s family would have to wait over three decades and new advancements in forensic science technology to finally get justice.

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

For a full list of sources used in this episode, visit ForensicTales.com.

Thank you for listening. And I’ll see you next week.

Until then… remember: not all stories have happy endings.

In March 2022, 39-year-old Eric Richins was found unresponsive in his Utah home. His death was initially believed to be the result of a fentanyl overdose, a tragic loss for his family.

But what followed would shock investigators.

Eric’s wife, Kouri Richins, later published a children’s book about grief, written to help her young sons cope with the sudden loss of their father. At first glance, it seemed like a story of heartbreak and healing.

Until questions began to surface.

As investigators dug deeper, the case took a dramatic turn, one that would ultimately lead to charges and a high-profile trial.

In this special episode of Forensic Tales, we break down the trial from a forensic perspective, examining the toxicology findings, digital evidence, and key testimony presented in court. From the prosecution’s theory to the defense’s strategy, we walk through the most critical moments that shaped this case.

What did the forensic evidence really reveal? And how did it influence the outcome of the trial?

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

If you’d like to support the show and help fund research, production, and editing, you can do so with a small monthly contribution on Patreon.

Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content.

You can learn more at Patreon.com/ForensicTales.

You can also watch Forensic Tales on YouTube. Just search Forensic Tales Podcast and be sure to subscribe.

And if you enjoy the show, leaving a positive rating or review really helps others discover it.

Remember...not all stories have happy endings.