The Week in Philly from KYW Newsradio

Dr. Erin Kimmerle digs up bodies. She's carefully picked through mass graves in Kosovo and Croatia to identify victims of war crimes. She did the same thing in Peru, where men, women, and children were executed by the military forty years ago. She dug up the bones of young boys murdered at a Florida reform school. And this summer, she came to Philadelphia, to dig up bodies.

Kristen Johanson (@KristenJohanson) joins the podcast today to talk about how forensic anthropology hopes to solve decades old cold cases, even when the victims are unidentified.

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

Kristen and Tom make a true crime podcast about unsolved murders in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter (@GoneColdPhilly) and to listen to the episodes CLICK HERE or wherever you get your podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

We're celebrating Veterans Day in America, when we honor the men and women who have put on a uniform for the United States. Many of us have someone close who has served -- a family member, a friend, a coworker. This week's show is about our veterans, and it's about our heroes.

This episode was originally released on November 13th, 2017. It was remixed and rescored for 2018, with an update on some of the people we talked to at the end of the show.

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Studies in Philadelphia. You can follow the show on Twitter: @ScrollDownKYW. And you can follow Tom: @teerick. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe!

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

This week, we're following up on our last episode -- a story about a Philadelphia family who found out their grandmother had died months after it happened. We followed Cherri Gregg and David Wilson as they tried to find out what happened to David's grandmother Ruth Pasley, where she was buried, and why they weren't notified by her guardian after she passed away. Today on the podcast, Cherri Gregg is back to break down what's being done to try to fill the cracks in the Pennsylvania guardianship system, so what happened to the family of Ruth Pasley doesn't happen again.

You can follow Cherri on Twitter at @CherriGregg, and listen to her community affairs podcast "Flashpoint" at kywnewsradio.com 

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

 

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Ruth Pasley was 85 years old when she died, on New Years Eve, 2017. She lived in a nursing home, and a court appointed guardian controlled her affairs. Her grandchildren found out she died six months later. It took weeks to discover where she was buried. Cherri Gregg (@CherriGregg) joins the podcast with the story of what happened to Ruth Pasley, the cracks in the guardianship system, and how Ruth Pasley and her family slipped through those cracks.

Read Cherri's reporting on this story at KYWNewsradio.com

Cherri hosts the KYW Original Podcast "Flashpoint." You can listen to new episodes HERE or find it wherever you get your podcasts.

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Peter Biar Ajak left Sudan during a horrible civil war, one of the 40,000 Lost Boys. He found a new home in Philadelphia, went to Central High School and graduated from La Salle University in 2007. He continued his education at Harvard, then Cambridge. And then, he went back -- hoping to use his education to help bring peace to South Sudan. Peter was arrested in July for speaking out against the South Sudanese government and has been kept in prison since then. His friends from Philadelphia and around the world are calling for his release. Two of his friends from La Salle are on the podcast today to tell us why.

Follow the effort to free Peter on Twitter: @FreePeterBiar, on Facebook: @FreePeterBiar, and on the website, FreePeterBiar.org  For more information, email [email protected].

Tim Jimenez (@timjradio) helped bring Peter's story to the podcast today. You can read his article about Peter on kywnewsradio.com 

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

 

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Earlier this year, we put out an episode about homeless encampments, occupied by drug users, that were springing up under railroad tracks in Philly. We called it "The People in the Tunnels." Part two came out a couple months later, about a pilot program the city developed in two of the tunnels. Basically, anyone living there could get a bed and treatment to get sober, if they wanted it, before the encampments were shut down. Today on the podcast: part three of our series on the people in the tunnels. What does life look like now, for someone who decided to say yes and get clean? And is there really such a thing as a fresh start?

Thanks to KYW Newsradio city hall bureau chief Pat Loeb for coming back on the podcast, you can follow what she's covering on Twitter at @patloeb. 

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

In a North Philadelphia classroom, a group of fifth graders decided to work together on a project about gun violence. What they found out was shocking. And Mike DeNardo (@_MikeDeNardo) joins the podcast to talk about what happened two days before they were supposed to present their findings. 

Read the article Mike wrote about the project and incident at Duckrey Elementary: CLICK HERE  

This episode of Scroll Down was produced and edited by Charlotte Reese (@creese28).

Tom Rickert (@teerick) is Scroll Down's executive producer. 

You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @scrolldownpod. 

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Carol Orzel had a very rare bone disease. It's called fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP. It's a condition she shared with only about 800 or 900 people around the world. And before Carol died, she had one request: she wanted her skeleton to be displayed in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. KYW Newsradio's Mark Abrams (@MAbramsKYW1060) joins the podcast to talk about the life, death, and legacy of Carol Orzel.

Check out the article Mark wrote about Carol CLICK HERE

For more about the Mütter Museum CLICK HERE

Scroll Down is hosted and produced by Tom Rickert in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia. You can follow the podcast on Twitter: @ScrollDownPod, and you can follow Tom on Twitter at @teerick.

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

Scroll Down is proud to present an episode from another of our KYW Newsradio Original Podcasts: Gone Cold.

Tomiene Jones worked the night shift at the post office. She would take her young daughter to the babysitter, and then drive to work. She'd done this many times before, and each time, she came back to pick up her daughter after her shift. Then they'd go home. But on April 17th, 2002, Tomiene didn't go to work. She didn't pick up her daughter. And she didn't come home. Nobody ever saw Tomiene Jones again.

Gone Cold is a true crime podcast about unsolved murders in the Philadelphia area. This case takes place in South Jersey. Our goal is to document what happens after the taking of a life, the collateral damage that takes place after a senseless act of violence. To tell the stories of the people left behind, and the people who are still on the job. To remember the lives of the ones who aren't with us. And, hopefully, to help police get tips that help them solve the case.

If you have a tip about this case, please call the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office at (856) 384-5500.

You can also leave a tip online: CLICK HERE

Thanks to Wendy Ruderman (@wendyruderman) for her help with this episode.

Gone Cold: Philadelphia Unsolved Murders is a KYW Newsradio original podcast, made by Tom Rickert (@teerick) and Kristen Johanson (@kristenjohanson) in the KYW Newsradio studios in Philadelphia.

Follow the podcast on Twitter: @GoneColdPhilly

Join our Facebook group and talk about the cases with us! Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GoneColdKYW

It's something that's always been around -- grandparents raising their grandchildren when something happens to the parents. But as the opioid epidemic ravages more and more families across the country, the number of Grandfamilies is on the rise. This is a story about three of those families, and what is being done to give them the help they need. KYW Newsradio's Molly Daly (@ThisMollyDaly)  joins the podcast to talk about Grandfamilies. KYW Newsradio's Charlotte Reese (@creese28)hosted and produced this episode of Scroll Down. KYW Newsradio's Tom Rickert (@teerick) is Scroll Down's executive producer. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @ScrollDownPod. Thanks for listening!

See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.