"We don't know where all the crime scenes were in this case and that's been a big problem."

On the afternoon of 3 May 2014, 88-year-old Russell Dermond and his 87-year-old wife Shirley were expected over at a neighbor's home for a Kentucky Derby party. However, the elderly couple never showed up or called to apologize, something that was very unlike them.

Hours passed. Then days. Nobody spoke with or saw the Dermonds, who were absent from their usual routines. Both were conspicuously absent not only through the weekend, but early into the next week. Finally, on Tuesday, a pair of neighbors decided to make a house call and check in on the missing pair, who hadn't been seen or heard from in nearly four days...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"Normally on just a robbery, if people cooperate, they get the money and go, and leave the victims unharmed. This was more of an execution-style killing."

On the evening of 6 June 1993, things were calm in the small town of Windsor, North Carolina. Located in the state's Inner Banks region, Windsor was the type of town where everybody seemed to know everybody. Where residents felt safe leaving their front doors unlocked. At around 6:00 PM that Sunday, things were beginning to close up for the night, but inside one of the town's most popular grocery stores, a heinous act of violence took place.

Nearly an hour later, dispatchers received a 9-1-1 call from a man inside the store, who claimed he'd been shot. Officers started to arrive minutes later, and began doing an aisle-by-aisle sweep of the store before locating a trail of blood leading to the back...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"Somebody tragically killed him. We don't know who, we don't know why."

At approximately 5:30 PM on 17 January 2020, authorities were called out to an apartment in Ballston, a Virginia neighborhood on the outskirts of Washington D.C. There, a young man had been discovered bloodied in his bedroom, and was believed to have gone into cardiac arrest. By the time medics arrived at the scene, however, the victim was already dead of an apparent homicide.

Later, it would come to light that 24-year-old Scott Ratigan's potential killer had prepared extensively beforehand, donning dark clothing and a facial covering before arriving at the scene. Surveillance footage would capture some of this individual's movements in the time surrounding this crime, including their unusual manner of walking...



To see the footage of the unknown subject on the Arlington County Police Department's YouTube channel, please do so at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njY2yh_9Hzg



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"I don't think she was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I feel like someone was after her." 

On the morning of 18 April 2016, early-rising gymgoers began to arrive at the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas, a suburb on the southern outskirts of Dallas. There, inside the church, they expected to find their instructor, 45-year-old Missy Bevers.

Bevers, a married mother of three, had woken up early and gotten to the church a little after 4:00 AM, well ahead of her fitness students. However, she couldn't have known that someone else had been inside that church for at least half an hour. Having donned dark police equipment from head-to-toe, this unknown subject seemingly waited for Missy to arrive...



To see the footage of the unknown subject on the Midlothian Police Department's YouTube channel, please do so at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUISKYJsJqw



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"None of this has a reasonable explanation. It's just mystery after mystery after mystery."

Beginning in 2016, U.S. diplomats in Cuba began to report a wide range of symptoms, everything from nausea and headaches to permanent hearing loss and brain damage. These symptoms came upon suddenly, seemingly preceded by a strange high-frequency noise. Many believed they'd been attacked, and theories would surface ranging from a sonic device to weaponized energy beams.

In the years since, some have disputed the very nature of these allegations, and others have theorized that the entire story is a widely-reported case of mass hysteria. Yet the telling of these "anomalous health incidents" has transformed from a strange medical mystery into a thrilling political whodunnit...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"That's when we found out our suicide victim was alive. It looks like he placed the body in the trailer to cover his disappearance."

Early on the morning of 3 February 1994, authorities responded to a fire at a campground roughly thirty miles east of Las Vegas, Nevada. There, they discovered that a trailer had been set on fire, and the trailer's occupant - a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps named Arthur Bennett - had seemingly perished in the flames.

Years later, however, an arrest in southwestern Utah would cast doubt on the original assumption, when a man named "Joseph Benson" was arrested...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"I think this man's record and conviction do not fully apprise the court of this man's threat to society."

Following his 1983 arrest, Mike DeBardeleben would stand trial for various offenses. First came a series of counterfeiting trials in Tennessee and North Carolina, which were then followed by a number of trials related to the violent crimes, abductions and assaults that DeBardeleben had carried out in Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia. After receiving an almost-comical amount of time - 375 years plus two additional life sentences - DeBardeleben would slowly rot behind bars, before dying of pneumonia in January of 2011.

Yet, despite so many of his secrets becoming known to the world, the mystery of Mike DeBardeleben's crime spree endures to this day...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"... Mike DeBardeleben is the best-documented sexual sadist since the Marquis de Sade. He's the one I used as the standard for all others."

Awaiting trial for the litany of crimes he'd committed over several years, Mike DeBardeleben couldn't do anything as authorities continued to dig around in his background. They'd learned about all of his failures - his familial relationships, his schooling, his marriages, his business - but now began trying to figure out how that resulted in this career criminal, who stood accused of not just counterfeiting, but assault, rape, kidnapping, and murder.

As investigators around the country began linking DeBardeleben to more than a dozen unsolved crimes, members of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit began analyzing the strange counterfeiter. What they learned was that this was not just a run-of-the-mill criminal. Rather, he was one of the most sadistic individuals they'd ever observed...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"I'll tell you what's going down. I had an ex-old lady who really pissed me off and f***ed me over. I just want to get back at women."

After his arrest in May 1983, the Secret Service began looking into the background of 43-year-old Mike DeBardeleben to determine what he had been up to. Agents knew that the "Mall Passer" had been counterfeiting and distributing his own bogus $20 bills, but evidence indicated he had been up to much more than that over many years, stretching back to over a decade beforehand.

As investigators nationwide began charting DeBardeleben's path through the country, they discovered that it happened to correlate with a number of other crimes. And coincidentally, Mike DeBardeleben managed to match suspect descriptions in not only unsolved rape cases, but even homicides...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.

"I feel that I have been unjustly tormented, degraded and shit upon by society... In order to regain an adequate self-image, I feel compelled to somehow restore my self-respect..."

Shortly after his stint at Western State Hospital in Virginia, Mike DeBardeleben would begin a series of relationships with young women. All followed a series of repeated steps, centered around breaking down the women in question and making them dependent entirely upon Mike. This was usually accomplished through typical emotional abuser techniques, but also contained a significant element of physical and sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, Mike's criminal behavior began to take shape in other troubling ways. First came simple schemes meant to take money from elderly women. After that came complex bank robberies. Then more violent crime followed. The women ensnared in Mike's life would become not only his wives, but also his captives. And in another sense, his accomplices...



Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Music composed and created by Micheal Whelan

Additional music includes "Unresolved Mysteries" by Ailsa Traves (podcast theme song, end credits)

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.