The State of Perfect Balance: A True Crime Podcast

In a calm and sparsely populated corner of southeastern Ohio, newlyweds Stacey and Todd Holston are starting out their lives together in a tiny mobile home. On an October day much like any other, a trusted relative brings husband, wife, son, stepson, and mother and father in law together in that small trailer, and shatters a young family’s promising future forever.

Domestic abuse takes many forms, and sometimes it’s not easy to know which spouse is the abuser, especially when a couple is known to fight it out in regular quarrels. When one or the other is pushed to murder, and the killer decides to hide the evidence, the solution to that age old problem can take a gruesome turn, as is clear in episode 14: The Murder in Barberton.

Any murder in a small town is especially unsettling. But what if a murder in your town was soon followed by the news that your name may be on a list of the next victims of a ritual sacrifice? Just such a scenario played on in Bellaire, Ohio in 1995, causing widespread alarm and decades of caution.
 
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When a young couple, planning a life together turn up missing after a quiet walk in the autumn woods, who is to blame? And what did freaky crosses and nude photos have to do with it? Was it a case of Satanic Panic? Or was it a simple crime of opportunity? In Episode 12 of A State of Perfect balance, we visit a farm in Logan, a small town in southeastern Ohio, to follow suspicious behavior, rapid justice, and the mystery of a missing couple in love.

In the case of James Allen Ponder, of Hamilton, Ohio, the only thing we’re really left with is questions, with no answers to be found. “Closure,” something families desperately seek when someone they love is taken violently from them, is an elusive thing in the best of circumstances. When the killer and the victim are both close family members, and there are no answers to the big fat “why,” everyone is left feeling tormented and adrift. 
James Ponder was 71 years old. He enjoyed many of the things in life that other men his age did. The only thing that seems to stand out, is the way his life ended. This is his story.

Amish Country is a land of simplicity and quiet. Horses, buggies, and bonnets. Reverence and respect. Hand crafted furniture, and a life far removed from everything modern. It was the life Barbara Weaver desired and expected. No one, least of all Barbara, could have foretold the life she found herself in, with a sex-obsessed, porn surfing, discontented husband bent on getting rid of her. Amish Country may not be what it seems. It’s trysts with random hookups in the barn, mystified neighbors, plotting lovers and murder, in Episode Ten, of the State of Perfect Balance.

Some murder cases capture the attention of the public in a way that seems disproportionate. All murders are terrible, of course. All of them cut short a valuable life and bring sudden tragedy and emotional agony to the families of the victims, and all of them deserve our respectful attention as the killers are brought to justice. 
Before the time of television, or even radio, murder cases would sometimes become the focus of breathless national attention. This episode of The State of Perfect Balance is centered around what was once such a case.

The relationships we form, especially romantic relationships, occupy a special place in our emotional lives. We choose our friends and we choose our romantic partners, and hopefully they are people who will care about us in return, look out for us, and be there when we need them. But what happens when the dark side that lives within us all comes to the surface?

A poorly written horror story, a disturbed teenaged boy, a self-diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder, and that's only the beginning! Join us for a doozie of a story in episode 7 of The State of Perfect Balance.