We Would Be Dead

Not a Runaway (The Disappearance of Katelin Akens)

In this, the first installment in our “Not a Runaway” series we discuss the mysterious disappearance of 19 year old Katelin Akens. 
“Katelin Michelle Akens was last seen on December 5, 2015, in the vicinity of Oak Crest Drive in Partlow, Virginia.  She was visiting family in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, and was scheduled to fly home to Arizona on December 5, 2015.  However, she did not board her flight and has not been seen since.  On December 7, 2015, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) recovered a piece of blue luggage from a roadside ditch, unzipped, empty, and with a missing wheel.  A wallet was located inside the luggage with Arizona identification belonging to Akens.“ 
Right now, In the United States there are 194,673 reported missing girls and women under 21, and that only accounts for the time that has elapsed since January first, according to national statistics by the end of the year there will be twice as many.
 91% of these women and girls are classified as Runaways. It's comforting to assume these women and girls just decided to go somewhere else, but ask their families how many of them actually did that, and I think you'll get a vastly lower percentage.
We need to believe these families, we need to give these girls the importance they deserve, we need to find them. All of them.
Anyone with information about Katelin or her disappearance should call the Spotsylvania county sheriff's office at (540) 582-7115 or Spotsylvania's Crime Solvers at (540) 582-5822 or 1 (800) 928-5822
 
 
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FBI official listing for Katelin
Help Find Katelin Akens Facebook Group
 
 
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Blaze of Glory (The Murder of Blaze Bernstein)

Blaze Bernstein was good. He was a good kid who grew into a good teen and was making a pretty smooth transformation into a good adult. Blaze was kind and talented. Blaze was adventurous and intelligent. Blaze was gay and Jewish. 
Sam Woodward was angry. Sam was an angry kid who grew into an angry teen and transformed into an angry adult. Sam was aggressive and isolated. Sam was confused and hungry for attention. Sam was a homophobic white supremacist.
This is the story of 2 boys who grew up just an hour away from one another. Both boys were raised in affluent families, both attended the same prestigious art school, and had many advantages in life.  So how did one end up violently stabbing the other to death in an empty park in the middle of the night? Well, it seems that one can take two very different paths and still end up at the same destination. One chose hope, and the other chose hate.
 
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Blaze Bernstein Memorial Fund
Blaze it Forward Facebook group
 
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Missing Pieces (The Murder of Kitty Genovese)

On March 27th 1964, the headline: "37 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police; Apathy at Stabbing of Queens Woman Shocks Inspector" was splashed across the cover of the New York times. The story behind it was the horrific rape and murder of a young woman named Kitty Genovese. But the story doesn't focus on Kitty, or even her murderer, it focuses on her neighbors, who allegedly saw the murder in real time and did nothing. This story stirred an enormous reaction to a phenomenon that was dubbed Urban Apathy. This case also inspired all the research that lead to a psychosocial theory called "the Bystander Effect". There's just one problem, the New York Times lied. 
Most of you will know this case, but there is so much about it that has been hidden from the public for so long that we felt it deserves re-examining. Kitty, her devoted family and long time girlfriend Mary Ann lived their lives for a great many years believing that Kitty was the girl no one cared about, but she wasn't. She isn't. We decided to take a fresh look at this classic morality tale and find the truth behind the lessons.  
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Original New York Times Article
LA Times article on Sophia Ferrar
Winston Moseley's NYT Editorial
*The Witness - Documentary on Amazon Prime
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The Worst Love Story (The Richardson Family Murders)

At 1:00 p.m. on April 23, 2006, 6 year old Garret ran over his neighbors house anticipating an afternoon of playing Star Wars. After knocking on the door several times Garret decided to peek into the window to see where his friend might be, but what he saw sent him running back home as fast as his little legs would carry him. 
Police were summoned and discovered the bodies of the houses occupants, with the exception of their 12 year old daughter Jasmine. Authorities were terrified that Jasmine may have also been a victim but in time they discovered something far worse.
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JUSTICE STORY: The sick, sordid tale of Souleater and the Runaway Devil
*Runaway Devil: How Forbidden Love Drove a 12-Year-Old to Murder Her Family
A Rare Report of Clinical Lycanthropy in Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders
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Beautiful Cigar Girl (Mary Rogers)

The death of Mary Rogers is known to many as America's first murder mystery. Published by Edgar Allen Poe as "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt in 1842, Mary's story became America's introduction to true crime, but for all it's retelling, and the country's brief and feverish fascination with the "beautiful cigar girl" Mary's case still remains technically unsolved. 
 
Mary, known as a legendary beauty, unknowingly set a standard the the rest of the country would run with for centuries to come, but her untimely, brutal death, which should have served as a warning, seems to have fallen on deaf ears. No amount of adoration kept her from turning up in the Hudson River, dead. 
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Article from the Smithsonian
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt Full Text
 
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Nightmare Fuel 2.0 (Cursed Objects Part 2)

Our second round of Cursed Objects is international! This time Holly and Leslie both head over the pond to take a look at two objects so spooky, we guarantee you'll be repeating their stories around your next campfire. First Leslie tells us about Old Nick, The Swansea devil.... you're going to want to check out our Instagram for the photos of this one. Holly follows up with the tale of the Thomas Busby Stoop Chair, a chair so cursed with violence that it is currently displayed high on a wall, so that no one can sit in it. Make a blanket fort and get out your flashlights because this one is SPOOKY!
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New moon, Who Dis? (30 Minute Twilight: New Moon)

Ok fiends, so many of you enjoyed the first "thirty minute movie" installment of Twilight that we decided to share the next film in the saga with the whole class. 
In this wild (normally patrons only) series Holly and Leslie summarize a movie in thirty minutes in a frenzied game of hot potato. Here's how it works: the girls set the timer for five minutes and trade back and forth telling the story until 30 minutes has elapsed and hopefully the whole story has been told. During the narration you'll also get their thought, weird observations and frequent frustrations. It's a good time. If you like this episode, join our Patreon to get access to a whole catalogue of 30 minute horror movies! 
Things have been so heavy and scary the past few weeks we decided to have a little laugh. Enjoy!
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Girls Don’t Hitchhike (The Highway Of Tears)

From 1970 until present day 73 women and girls have gone missing or turned up dead on Canada’s highway 16, otherwise known as the highway of tears. A disproportionate number of these women and girls are indigenous. Most of their cases remain unsolved. Most of their faces remain unseen. 
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police assembled a task force in 2005 in the hopes of solving 18 of these cases.
The name of the task force is E-Pana.
18 is not enough. But it’s a start. We could never endeavor to tell all of their stories today, we've told as many as we could and in time we will tell more. We also start to unravel the cultural genocide of indigenous people that has been going on in Canada and the United Stated for hundreds of years, and trace the generational trauma that is deeply rooted in the horror of residential schools.
 
May 5th is Red Dress Day, so wear your red in honor of the missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2 spirit people. For more on the red dress project, click the link below. 
 
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Finding Cleo Podcast
Who killed Alberta Williams Podcast
Red dress project
Ways to help
https://www.amnesty.ca/what-we-do/no-more-stolen-sisters/
https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw
https://www.csvanw.org/mmiw/
 
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Legends of the Iroquois (Myths and Legends)  (Leslie read the Song of the Hermit Thrush tale from this book)
 
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Halfoween 3 (Revenge of the Hosts)

Happy Halfoween fiends! Normally Holly and Leslie take this opportunity to tell stories about their worst fears, but this year they decided to use YOURS! We compiled quite the list from our listeners, and from that list your hosts surfaced 4 tales so terrifying, they're sure to have you sleeping with the lights on. Leslie shares the stories of Cleveland's 1986 Balloonfest disaster, The strange death of of Jose Rey Escobedo, and a creepy crawly story that is too disturbing to summarize, you'll have to listen for yourself. Holly tells us the story Edward Paisnel, the masked rapist and home invader known during his 14 year reign of terror as "The Beast of Jersey." Good Luck fiends, we hope you make it through this one without screaming...
 
 
 
 
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Fly on the Wall (The murder of Annie Le)

Annie Le was a brilliant scientist studying for here PHD at Yale University.  She had infinite potential and her whole life ahead of her until she disappeared inexplicably, just 5 days before her wedding. A few days later she was found dead in the most terrifying and unbelievable of places. 
 
 
 
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