Evidence was scattered across the house. Boot prints in the freshly fallen snow. Suspicion was cast and stories were perpetuated throughout the small town of Fayette, but it would take over two decades to bring this cold case to a close.

In February of 2001, the calm in small town Chesterfield, New Hampshire was disrupted by an investigation carried out by New Hampshire State Police. Mother and daughter Tina and Bethany Sinclair were nowhere to be found.

A trial ended in a conviction for a man named Foster Bates, but he has long maintained his innocence and continues to file for appeals in hopes of a new trial. For some though, including Tammy’s family, there is no doubt that the man in prison was rightfully convicted.

Robert “Bobby” Desmond’s case is the oldest on the Maine State Police Unsolved Missing Persons case list but his story has never been told. Detective Steve Borst of the Kennebunk Police Department is reigniting the decades-old investigation for an 11-year old boy gone missing in 1964 and nearly forgotten.

In this conversation, Ashley digs into the origin story of Crime Junkie and what goes into creating ethical true crime content. She also gets personal about her experiences with pregnancy and motherhood. Plus, Ashley shares some behind the scenes details of her very first novel All Good People Here.

Would you know how to spot a scam in your life before it was too late? For years, Johnathan Walton didn’t know that the woman he called his best friend was actually a career con artist. Once he uncovered the truth, though, Johnathan made it his mission to stop her.

When Johnathan Walton hosted a wine and cheese night in his Los Angeles apartment in 2013, he couldn’t have known that the event would invite a shark into his inner circle. His story unfolds thousands of miles away from New England, but the woman he knew as Mair Smith began her long career of conning and scamming in her home state of Maine.

He committed his first murder at 15-years old, ending the life of an innocent shopkeeper as he and his buddies made their way around Lawrence, Massachusetts holding up convenience stories “for the thrill of it”. His lawyer would later plead for mercy on the accused teenage killer, but that mercy would have unintended consequences not so far in the future.

Jessica Zernicke Holmes left work on the night of September 24, 2015 to find her phone flooded with missed calls and messages. When she was finally able to call her family member back, they delivered shocking news about her father. 58-year old Kenneth Zernicke was found dead inside his burning home in Caribou, Maine. Two days later, his death was ruled a homicide.

Strung up in the corner of a roadside amusement park fun house was the figure of a man. In the several years the figure was on display, no one dared question if the display was anything more than a mannequin.

In October of 2016, about a month after he was plucked from a life raft after a week at sea, Nathan Carman walked into the private memorial service he’d organized to honor his mother, Linda Carman. Notably missing from the private service were Linda Carman’s three sisters. Soon it would be abundantly clear how and what the aunts thought about their nephew. They believed he was a murderer driven by greed for the family fortune.

Every detail of the sinking boat, the extensive week-long search, and the incredible rescue of Nathan after that search was called off made for a massive story in local and national media. But it only got more compelling when it was learned that Nathan was the grandson and Linda the daughter of wealthy real estate developer John Chakalos, whose 2013 shooting death remained unsolved when the tragedy occurred at sea.