Police searched the building where 18-year-old Ruth Cruger had last been seen. They found nothing—yet Ruth was hidden beneath the cellar floor.

In 1917, Ruth left her New York City home to have her ice skates sharpened and never returned. As the investigation stalled, attorney and investigator Grace Humiston—later nicknamed “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes”—refused to let Ruth’s disappearance be forgotten.

This episode of Her Strange Hour examines the disappearance of Ruth Cruger, the mistakes that hindered the search, and how Grace uncovered what police had missed.

Content note: This episode discusses the murder of a teenager but contains no graphic details.

For 46 years, the young woman found murdered near Mulholland Drive in 1969 was known only as Jane Doe #59. Her case became surrounded by theories about Charles Manson and the violence gripping Los Angeles at the time—but her real story began thousands of miles away.

Reet Silvia Jurvetson was 19 years old when she left Canada for California, apparently following a mysterious young man known as John or Jean. Just weeks later, she was dead.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, Ivy Monroe traces Reet's life before Los Angeles, her final postcard home, the mystery surrounding the man she traveled to meet, the decades her family spent without answers, and the DNA match that finally gave Jane Doe #59 her name back.

Reet's identity was solved after 46 years.

Her murder still hasn't been.

Linda Hazzard had no medical degree, yet Washington legally licensed her to practice medicine. Her treatment was extreme fasting — tiny amounts of broth and juice, harsh massages, hot baths, and daily enemas that could involve gallons of water.

Patients became dangerously thin. Some died. And while several were growing weaker, Hazzard gained access to money, jewelry, property, and estates.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, we’re looking at the real story of the woman known as the Starvation Doctor — including Earl Erdman’s diary, Claire and Dora Williamson, the trial that finally sent Hazzard to prison, and the unbelievable fact that she later found a way to start practicing her methods again.

This is one of those historical stories that somehow gets more disturbing the deeper you go.

Everyone remembers Marshall Applewhite. But Heaven’s Gate began with two leaders. Meet Bonnie Nettles — the nurse, mother, and spiritual teacher Applewhite believed outranked him. We’re uncovering how she helped build the group, why followers trusted her, and how her death in 1985 changed everything that came after.

I really like this package because Heaven’s Gate is doing the heavy lifting for recognition, while Bonnie provides the “wait, WHO?” factor. And the thumbnail now delivers the provocative word mastermind without us having to state in the actual title that historians definitively consider her one.

Police searched the building where 18-year-old Ruth Cruger had last been seen.

They found nothing.

Four months later, another search uncovered what they had missed — Ruth was buried beneath the basement floor.

But that second search might never have happened without Grace Humiston, a lawyer and investigator who refused to accept the direction Ruth’s case had taken. Her work would earn her one unforgettable nickname: “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.”

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, we follow Ruth’s disappearance, the suspicious shop owner who fled the country, the investigation that went badly off course, and the woman who brought everyone back to the place they should have been looking all along.

This is the story of Ruth Cruger — and the female investigator who made them look again.

Linda Hazzard had no medical degree, yet she was legally allowed to practice medicine — and somehow convinced people that extreme fasting could cure almost anything.

Her patients survived on tiny amounts of broth and juice while enduring harsh massages, hot baths, and hours-long enemas. Some became too weak to walk. Some died. And while they were getting weaker, Linda began gaining access to their money, jewelry, property, and even their estates.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, we’re going inside Linda Hazzard’s so-called sanitarium, looking at the diary one patient kept during his final weeks, the sisters whose case finally exposed what was happening, and the unbelievable things Linda was allowed to do even after she went to prison.

This is the strange and disturbing story of the woman who became known as The Starvation Doctor.

Several of Tillie Klimek’s husbands became sick and died.

Then one survived.

When doctors found arsenic in Joseph Klimek’s body, investigators began looking into Tillie’s past. They reopened old graves, questioned her neighbors and uncovered stories about mourning clothes, a discounted coffin and a woman who seemed to know exactly when death was coming.

But Tillie was convicted of only one murder. So how many of the deaths connected to her were real poisonings—and how much of her reputation was shaped by sensational newspaper coverage?

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, Ivy Monroe examines the case of Tillie Klimek, the Chicago Poisoner, and separates the evidence from the legend.

Follow Her Strange Hour Podcast for more strange history, unsolved stories and forgotten women.

Tomorrow’s release schedule

One woman was confined after publicly accusing a clergyman of refusing to pay her. Another spent fourteen years trying to prove her real identity. A third secretly wrote appeals for freedom with a pencil barely an inch long.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, Ivy Monroe explores three bizarre asylum cases from the 1800s involving Mary Frances Heaton, Hersilie Rouy, and Clarissa Caldwell Lathrop.

Mary stitched names and accusations into cloth. Hersilie fought to reclaim the identity recorded incorrectly by the institutions holding her. Clarissa hid written notes inside her clothing until someone outside the asylum finally listened.

Three women. Three unsettling cases. And three very different records of what happened behind asylum walls.

Follow Her Strange Hour for more strange history, forgotten women, and unusual true stories.

On New Year’s Eve in 1812, Theodosia Burr Alston boarded a ship bound for New York. She never arrived. In this episode of Her Strange Hour, we explore the storm, the rumors, the pirate stories, and the haunting mystery of the woman who vanished at sea.

Dorothy Forstein vanished from her Philadelphia home in 1949, and the strangest detail came from her 9-year-old daughter.

According to Marcy, she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a stranger inside the house. Dorothy appeared unconscious, and the man reportedly told Marcy not to worry before carrying her mother away.

Dorothy was never seen again.

But four years earlier, Dorothy had already survived a terrifying attack inside that same home — and the person responsible was never caught.

In this episode of Her Strange Hour, formerly Echoes & Oddities, we look at the unsettling disappearance of Dorothy Forstein, the earlier attack, and the questions that still remain unanswered.