In the early morning of April 22, 2016, relatives of the Rhoden family in Pike County, Ohio, began to discover family members brutally killed in their own homes.  In all, eight members of the Rhoden family were murdered, including one minor, 16-year-old Christopher Rhoden, Jr.

The victims had been shot to death.  Three young children, including a newborn infant, were left alive.  Investigators determined early on that the killings were planned and carried out by at least two perpetrators who knew the family well, but it took over two years to make arrests.

This crime investigation is the most extensive in the history of the state of Ohio.  Evidence of cock-fighting and marijuana growth operations were found at some of the crime scenes, but the motive may have been something as simple as a child-custody dispute.

Join us at the quiet end for The Piketon Massacre.  Due to the methodical nature of these killings and the lack of forensic evidence at the scenes, these murders have been described as a premeditated and sophisticated operation. Four people have been arrested and the death penalty is on the table.

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This episode was suggested to us by Jeane, a long-time listener. In fact, Jeane was so enthusiastic about this case that she volunteered to write the script, and we took her up on that. Jeane was a federal prosecutor in the San Francisco Bay area for 27 years, focusing primarily on white-collar crimes, before she retired in 2018. She looks forward to the U.S. Department of Justice becoming a nonpartisan institution once again and cherishes the career attorneys who stuck it out. 

So, thank you for all your research and hard work, Jeane.  This is a fascinating case you brought to our attention and we’re excited to share it with our listeners at the quiet end. 

That said, please join us at the quiet end for The Cards He Was Dealt, the story of the life and death of Barry Crane. 

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Something different today!  We’re talking about untrue crimes which occurred in a high rise LA office building in 1988. At the center of these events was a detective from New York named John McClane. He and his wife Holly were separated at the time over issues including her blossoming career with the Nakatomi Corporation in Los Angeles, but John visited her for the holidays and soon found himself at the center of a complex and violent robbery plot. The events that follow are quite shocking and show failures by the LAPD to rescue hostages or arrest the perpetrators. In fact, if not for a beat cop named Al, John McClane would have been completely on his own.

Join us at the quiet end for Diehard, the story of two good cops who prevailed over evil on Christmas Eve 1988.

Happy Holidays to all!

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Most of us have some compulsions or obsessions.  But what if your compulsion was to poison people?  Then you would be well on your way to becoming a killer.  As a child, Graham Young began experimenting with poisons.  By the age of 14, he was using his family as subjects. His father, step-mother, and sister suffered from episodes of excruciating stomach pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Then, while Graham was still a teenager, his stepmother died from one of his poisoning experiments.

Graham would ultimately confess to the murder of his stepmother and the attempted murder of other family members. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for several years until he was determined to be rehabilitated. What his doctors didn’t know was that Graham had spent much of his time in the hospital reading medical texts to improve his knowledge of various poisons. He had honed his skills to include extracting poisons from plants on the hospital grounds.  His step-mother’s murder was just the beginning of his career as a deviant killer.

Join us at the quiet end for The Teacup Poisoner. Graham Young’s crimes were reprehensible, causing prolonged and miserable deaths for his victims.  But Graham was nothing if not detail-oriented.  A diary would be discovered in his home, noting dosages and the effects of each poison.

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In 1999, Leann and Michael Fletcher were just beginning to grow their family as Michael was busy building his career as an attorney. That August, the couple left their daughter, Hannah, with Leann’s parents.  Michael took Leann to the shooting range to teach her how to shoot a gun. Afterwards, taking advantage of the free baby-sitting, they returned home and had afternoon sex. What happened next would destroy both of their families.

In the aftermath of an unexpected and shocking death, problems in the Fletcher marriage were exposed. Leann had recently learned that she was pregnant, reuniting with Michael after a lengthy separation.  She had high hopes for the future. Michael had been a doting husband for the past several months, but his loving gestures raised some eyebrows, especially those of Leann’s mother.

Join us at the quiet end for Bedroom Betrayal. Was Michael Fletcher a loving father looking forward to the birth of a second child, or was he an unfaithful, lying, cold-blooded man with a long-planned scheme to get away with murder?

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18-year old Angie Dodge had just moved into her first apartment in 1996 when her life was suddenly and violently snuffed out. In 1998, a young man named Christopher Tapp was convicted of Angie’s murder.  The prosecution’s case relied on Christopher’s confession.  The defense argued that the confession was coerced and that the state was ignoring DNA evidence from an unknown suspect.  Angie’s heartbroken mother, Carol Dodge, was left to wonder about the suspect still at large.

After years of seeking the truth, Carol Dodge watched Christopher’s confession tapes.  Appalled by the interrogations, she reached out to an expert in false confessions, who in turn contacted the Innocence Project.  But it would take several more years and the work of experts in DNA genealogy to find Angie’s real killer and exonerate Christopher Tapp.

The use of genealogical familial searching and its success in this and other cases has exciting implications for future criminal investigations. The public has shown approval for the technique overall; however, there are privacy concerns over the use of private genetic data to implicate a person or his/her relatives in a crime.

Join us at the quiet end for The Murder of Angie Dodge. By putting together a DNA profile and identifying relatives in the suspect’s family tree, genealogist CeCe Moore and a DNA consulting firm called Parabon were able to find Angie’s killer. Carol Dodge has been crucial in the exoneration of her daughter’s convicted killer, casting a bright light on the failings of our criminal justice system.  If not for her determination, Christopher Tapp would still be an innocent man in prison as Angie’s real killer walked free.

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Jennifer Farber Dulos was a woman to be envied.  Educated and attractive, she came from a wealthy New York City family, lived in beautiful Connecticut mansions, married a handsome, educated man, and had five healthy children.

After 13 years of marriage to her Greek-American husband, Fotis Dulos, he became aggressive and unfaithful. He told Jennifer that he had fallen out of love with her, but he didn’t want to move out of the family home.  Instead, he wanted to move his new lover and her daughter in with them.  Not surprisingly, Jennifer was not on board with this plan.  She moved out under the cover of the night, taking the children with her.

Join us at the quiet end as we discuss the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.  When Jennifer vanished, she and Fotis were still deeply entrenched in a lengthy and intense divorce battle.  As Jennifer tried to move forward and focus on her children, Fotis was realizing that he could lose custody of his children and go bankrupt.  Although he denied having any involvement in his estranged wife’s disappearance, a trail of evidence revealed dark and sinister secrets.

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New Jersey mom Michelle Nyce spent the last night of her life working the makeup counter at Macy’s, followed by a romantic tryst with her lover.  When she finally arrived home, her husband was waiting for her in a jealous rage.

Michelle had come all the way from the Philippines when she was just 20-years old to be the wife of 41-year old Dr. Jonathan Nyce.  After 15 years of marriage, they were raising three children together in their luxurious $1.6 million home.  But Jonathan, the former chief executive of a pharmaceutical company, was failing in his career and in his marriage. He was about to lose everything, including Michelle.

Join us at the quiet end for Mail-Order Murder: The Story of Michelle & Jonathan Nyce.  Michelle and Jonathan were an unlikely couple, but they seemed to make things work for a time.  By 2004, their relationship was strained and Michelle had fallen in love with their former gardener.  Was Jonathan capable of killing his pretty, young wife, or was her lover responsible for her death?

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