Crime After Hours

A left hand pushes up through frozen soil in a culvert four hundred feet from her house - how did Holly Peterson end up here, and why that property? A left hand pushed up through frozen soil four hundred feet from her house In this episode we follow the discovery that refocused a missing-person case into a homicide inquiry. We lay out where the body was found, who found it, and the neighborhood details that became central to the investigation; what forced questions about access, a missing boot, and a neighbor’s presence remain unanswered. How did a woman vanish from her routine and surface on someone else’s land? Person: Holly Peterson Date: January 2-9 (missing Jan 2; hand found Jan 9) Location: culvert on adjacent property, Sycamore Hollow Road, Garner County, Indiana Cause: blunt-force trauma to the skull (time window: evening Jan 1-morning Jan 2) Person: Chad Foster (nearest neighbor, property owner where culvert sits) - Karen Novak, a county surveyor, noticed a woman’s left hand protruding from a drainage culvert at 8:14 AM after a freeze-thaw cycle lifted the soil. - Holly Peterson, 44, lived alone on eleven acres, taught adult literacy, and missed her bowling night for the first time in four years. - Holly’s car, house locked, and her Thursday bowling bag were found undisturbed on the day a wellness check was requested. - The culvert where the hand surfaced sits on Chad Foster’s land but along a shared easement both he and Holly had legal access to. - Investigators confirmed Holly’s death from blunt-force trauma and found only her left boot at the culvert, indicating the body had been moved after death.

A yellow sticky note reading “back door” turns a routine laundromat into a puzzle about access, a suspended phone, and a disappearing alibi. The yellow sticky note that warned "back door" upended the tidy alibi In this episode, we lay out the sequence of small, concrete details that complicated a missing-person case in a Nevada desert town. Listen to the moments that shifted the investigation from a simple absence to questions about access, timing, and who knew the back door. Person: Christine Foster Location: Foster's Desert Wash, Harlan Flats, Nevada Date: December 10-14 Person: William Campbell Evidence: Yellow adhesive note dated December 10 reading “tell Dennis - back door” - Christine ran the laundromat for eleven years and had an unbroken Thursday lunch routine with Patty Odom. - Her phone account was suspended at 11:58 PM on December 11 but pinged from a dry wash three days later. - The front deadbolt showed no signs of forced entry while the rear supply door had outward hinges and a rubbed latch plate. - A maintenance contractor, William Campbell, worked in the utility corridor behind the back door six weeks before December 11 and had repeated access. - Investigators recovered a yellow sticky note in Christine’s office, dated December 10, in her handwriting: “tell Dennis - back door.”

A woman in a red wool peacoat is found buttoned to a locked sub-station fence post forty feet from her body-how do you fall from that high? The red peacoat buttoned to the post that made her fall In this episode, we follow the morning a co-op worker found a woman in work clothes near a locked Calloway River Mile Four yard and a red peacoat fastened to a fence post. We trace the last hours of Amanda Gallagher’s routine Tuesday evening, the gaps in a contractor’s records, and the surveillance timestamps that form the only timeline-what do they point toward? Person: Amanda Gallagher Date: October 9 Location: Calloway River Mile Four sub-station yard Person: Raymond Powell Location: Four Sutter Lane - Gail Wells unlocked the locked sub-station yard at 7:20 a.m. and saw Amanda’s body forty feet inside and a red peacoat buttoned to a fence post twenty feet from the gate. - Amanda, 52, had an unbroken eleven-year volunteer routine-she texted “heading out, see you there” at 5:44 p.m. and never arrived at the pantry. - Raymond Powell signed out a Mile Four key on October 7, listed a non-existent work order, and never returned the key to the ledger. - Badge and camera records show Powell badged out at 4:55 p.m., his van near Sutter Lane at 5:10 p.m., and the van on Route Nine South toward Mile Four at 5:38 p.m. - There is no camera footage of Mile Four’s entrance and no work order or heating unit to justify Powell’s reported site survey for the yard.

A boot-sole print on a ceiling and an unbreached deadbolt force investigators to reconcile a locked cannery and a body - how did that expose them? The boot-sole that landed on the ceiling exposed her killer In this episode, we follow the timeline and physical clues investigators used to make sense of a baffling scene: a locked inner door, an untouched badge, a body found on the breakwater, and a fresh scuff on a ceiling tile. What sequence of choices and access points bridged the sealed office and the riverbank? Person: Marcia Foster Date: March 7, 2024 Location: Hadley Cannery, Pelham Cove waterfront Person: Gina Bauer Person: Robert Wagner - Marcia, a methodical 26-year-old bookkeeper, left the cannery each evening by 5:45 and locked her bike to the Pier Four marker by 7:30. - On March 7 at 6:14 a.m., runner Gina Bauer spotted a shape on the breakwater and called 911 without approaching. - The cannery's outer lock was opened with a master key; the inner deadbolt was thrown from the inside and showed no sign of forced entry. - A crawl-space hatch above the office drop ceiling had fresh pry gouge marks and matched prior HVAC access Wagner had used during a 2023 service contract. - A clean, recent boot-sole scuff centered on an office ceiling tile suggested someone lowered through the hatch and used the desk as a landing point.

A spare survey key is missing and a man is found face-down on the rocks-who had access to Dock Four that morning? The spare survey key that opened a locked shed without forcing it In this episode, we follow the tangled facts around Harvey Roberts’s death and the unexplained presence of his bike lock inside a padlocked shed on Dock Four. The episode traces routines, records, and a missing survey key to ask one pressing question: who walked through that door without forcing it? Person: Harvey Roberts, 44 Date: Found November 8 at 5:52 AM; shed check-out logged November 7 at 6:28 PM Location: Dock Four, Pratt's Landing; Heron Rock breakwater Person: Amy Cole, 38, marine surveyor Event: Survey in 2021 with a spare shed key not logged as returned - Kenneth Johnson found Harvey face-down on the rocks at 5:52 AM on November 8, two hundred yards from Dock Four. - A brass combination bike lock (combination 1104) hung inside a padlocked shed on Dock Four while Harvey’s bike was missing and the padlock showed no forced entry. - Amy Cole, a licensed marine surveyor who inspected the shed in 2021, received a spare key during the survey that was never recorded as returned. - Amy’s invoice places her on Cutter Point Road at 6:15 AM on November 7-on the same road and time Harvey rode his morning route. - Detective Wendy Griffin links the unreturned survey key, the shed’s untouched padlock, and contemporaneous records to the unresolved question of who could enter that shed without leaving a mark.

A granddaughter's phone logged unanswered calls from her grandmother while the device sat beneath the woman's body-how did the calls keep coming? The phone that logged 14 calls kept ringing under her body In this episode, we follow the timeline and people tied to a night when routine collapsed into suspicion. We map the calls, the rhythms of a small Nevada town, and the paths that led investigators to a single-wide trailer; what questions do those details raise about who knew her schedule and why no one answered? Person: Lori Becker Person: Edna Pruitt Person: Wade Roberts Location: Painted Mesa Estates, Calla County, Nevada Date: Thursday night into Friday morning, December 10-11, 2002 - Fourteen phone calls from Edna to Lori were logged between 11:15 PM and 6:03 AM while Lori's phone remained plugged into its charger under her body. - Lori had a three-year, every-Thursday routine: a 67-mile drive to Fallon for tamales, arriving home around 11:30 PM and starting the midnight shift at Rimrock. - Forensic timing places the attack within ninety seconds of Lori entering her trailer: one boot off, coat buttoned, bag still on her shoulder. - Wade Roberts, a county road-crew foreman, frequented Rimrock early mornings, knew Lori's Thursday schedule, and traveled routes that passed Painted Mesa Estates. - Lead investigator Duane Harris found Edna's untouched foil-wrapped tamales in Fallon and pulled the call records showing calls at widening intervals through the night.

A woman vanishes from her Tuesday diner routine - a pair of reading glasses found in a cold storage vent. How do you fall from that high? The two‑inch ventilation gap that let her fall from the dock In this episode, we follow the early facts of Jean West’s disappearance and the baffling evidence found at the Lakeshore Cold Storage in Carver Lake. The episode lays out the routine she broke, the scene on the outer dock, and the impossible presence of her glasses inside a padlocked building - what questions does that contradiction raise? Person: Jean West Date: September 6, 2023 Location: Lakeshore Cold Storage outer dock, Carver Lake, Minnesota Status: Found deceased; time of death estimated ~2:00 AM Investigator: Detective Howard Sawyer - Tuesday mornings: Jean’s three‑year routine at Akey’s Diner, same booth, same order, noted by owner Tom Akey. - Discovery: Bruce Wallace, running at 6:17 AM, found Jean’s body on the outer dock; Dr. Susan Robb estimated a single blunt force to the rear of the skull. - Vehicle and phone: Jean’s car found unlocked at the boat landing 0.3 miles away with keys in the cupholder; cell ping at 1:47 AM near that landing. - Building detail: Cold Storage had been padlocked and officially sealed since 2019 with no active contract; north ventilation panel observed ajar two inches, secured by a corroded wing bolt. - The paradox: folded reading glasses placed on an interior shelf six feet from the door inside a locked, sealed building - an object that should not have been there.

A woman in a small Ohio city is found in a utility corridor wearing a dark wool coat - an identical coat hangs in her closet. How did that betray them? The woman's coat with the broken cuff button betrayed a second, identical coat In this episode, we follow the facts of a case that starts with a single, impossible detail and expands into a wider investigation. We trace who was present that night, the material evidence collected, and the decisions that turned one coat into the central mystery that investigators could not ignore. Person: Rachel Bishop Date: February 7 (found at 6:12 a.m.), last seen February 6 at 9:40 p.m. Location: 14 Aldine Court utility corridor, Dellbrook, Ohio Person: Curtis Fitzgerald Investigator: Carol Hunter - Rachel Bishop left the Dellbrook Food Pantry at 9:40 p.m. after volunteering and was never seen alive again. - Melissa Hoffman found Rachel at 6:12 a.m. on February 7, wearing a dark wool coat with a broken left-cuff button. - Tom Bishop identified an identical coat-same brand, size, and the same broken cuff button-hanging in the closet at home. - Curtis Fitzgerald bought women's outerwear at Tanner's Workwear on February 1 and had serviced the building owner in January; his white Ford Transit was seen parked near Aldine Street the night Rachel left. - A luminol sweep of Fitzgerald's van on February 24 revealed human blood; the van had been bleached, preventing DNA profiling.

A man’s Seiko sits in a padlocked shed at Breakwater Pier while his body lies 200 meters away - how did the watch get inside a locked building? A padlocked shed held a man's watch while his body lay two hundred meters away In this episode, we lay out the sequence of odd, concrete events that turned a seaside death into a locked-door mystery. From a dawn photograph of an engraved watch to a furnace visit with no paperwork, what happened before and around November eighth frames the central question. Person: George Lane Date: November 8 (body discovered); November 7 (seen at pier) Location: Breakwater Pier, Portsmith, Maine Item: Seiko watch engraved "G.L." Person: Alan Wright (handyman) - recorded four hours in Lane’s building on November 6 - A shorebird photographer, Warren Hensley, spotted a scratched Seiko on a windowsill through a telephoto lens at dawn and photographed it. - The shed where the watch sat had been padlocked since October 31; the padlock showed no sign of forced entry. - George Lane was seen wearing the same watch at the pier on the evening of November 7; the medical examiner placed his time of death between 9 p.m. and midnight. - Maintenance records show Alan Wright logged four hours in Lane’s Cutter Street building on November 6 labeled "furnace inspection" with no service order or contractor contact. - A Harbor Authority key log entry on October 31 recorded a utility contractor signing into Building Four using a dissolved company’s name, a fabricated credential with an illegible signature.

A missing woman's packed suitcase is found in a locked, abandoned building she couldn't access, baffling investigators. This homicide case hinges on how it got there. The keycard swipe at 11:14 that sent him over the rail This episode covers the disappearance of Angela Watson, a logistics coordinator whose packed suitcase was found in a disused building. The discovery raises more questions than answers about her planned trip and what truly happened. Person: Angela Watson Age: 28 Location: Ridgecross, New Mexico Date: August 9th Occupation: Logistics coordinator - Angela Watson, a logistics coordinator, was last seen on August 9th at trivia night before receiving a text from her supervisor, David Barrett, offering a ride to the Amtrak station. - She had a train ticket booked for August 11th, and her packed suitcase was later found in a deactivated switching house at four Arroyo Spur Road. - The building had been shuttered since 2019, and Angela's keycard did not authorize access to it. - Lloyd Cox, a meter reader, discovered the suitcase on August 14th during a routine stop, prompting a homicide investigation by Detective Todd Underwood. - Access logs for the building showed a keycard belonging to David Barrett was used at 11:14 PM on August 9th, 33 minutes after Angela's last recorded entry at the yard's main entrance.