In the minutes before 3 a.m. on June 30, 1992, as the Northland slept, a freight train carrying hazardous materials just south of Superior derailed, sending train cars carrying aromatic chemicals sailing 71 feet into the waters of the Nemadji River. 

The result was catastrophic —  the chemical cocktail created an orange colored vapor cloud measuring 20 miles long and 5 miles wide — and it parked itself over the populated area of Superior and neighboring Duluth. As a result, more than 50,000 residents were evacuated. 

Reporter Trisha Taurinskas recalls the scary situation and speaks with then-Police Chief Scott Lyons about the events of that day. 

Radar tracks put Michael Bratlie, an experienced military and commercial pilot, just past Two Harbors, Minnesota, in his two-engine plane. There the flight path ended, drawing exhaustive searches of Lake Superior and the thick woods and rugged terrain on shore.

Where did an infamous mobster go when he needed a little rest and relaxation? Residents of the North Shore and Iron Range have long boasted their backyard as the bootlegger’s land of leisure.

On July 13, 1890, the steamer Sea Wing was returning from a carnival-like day at a military encampment when it capsized from a sudden and violent storm.

Many of the excursionists made the understandable but fateful decision to retreat to the ship’s passenger cabin for protection. When the ship flipped over, they were trapped inside the upside-down boat and drowned.

Author: Matthew Stolle

Narrator: Trisha Taurinskas

In the midst of the Northern pines and quaint Scandinavian communities of the early 1930s, a sinister underbelly of organized crime was brewing in Minnesota.

While St. Paul was considered a crook’s haven for mobsters to lay low, the infamous Al Capone was known to wander up North for rest and respite.

Some point to St. Paul law enforcement as the key instigators in making Minnesota mob-friendly.

Some people claim the devil himself visited the tiny town of Villisca, Iowa, that summer night in 1912, when 8 people were killed by an ax murderer. Others say he already lived among them.

After more than a century of idle gossip and speculation, some amateur sleuths might have just figured it out.

Under the bold headline “Murdered for Money,” a Bemidji Daily Pioneer story from June 8, 1904, broke the news that a father and daughter had gone missing from the tiny town of Quiring, Minnesota.

Written by: Madelyn Haasken

Narrated by: Trisha Taurinskas

In this final episode, reporter Trisha Taurinskas explores who Sandra and John Jacobson were, through the eyes of their family members. 

Sandra and John Jacobson went missing in November 1996 from Bismarck, North Dakota. John was just 5 years old at the time. Neither of them have been seen or heard from since. 

On an otherwise pleasant Sunday evening in 1893, a seven-year-old boy from Sioux Falls wandered into the home of a neighbor. Apparently shell-shocked, he managed to get out a few words about the horrific incident he had just witnessed.

“They’re all dead, sir.”

The young man was Sumner Lacey, the son of Harry and Clara Lacey. He had been at his grandmother’s home earlier in the evening when his father, whose controlling nature and financial instability had finally caught up with him, pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and shot his wife and his mother-in-law, Lydia Bunker, in the head.

Written by: Erik Kaufman

Narrated by: Trisha Taurinskas 

In 1972, kidnappers took his mother away and demanded his father deliver the $1 million dollar ransom. Virginia Piper's son remembers the traumatic day 50 years ago that changed his family forever.