True Crime in the 50

On Friday, July 21st, 2006, 35-year-old Shawn O'Brien left his roofing job in Cranston, Rhode Island and went to meet his ex-girlfriend Amy, and their 13-year-old daughter Natalia to give Amy some child support money. The three made plans to meet up later that afternoon to attend the St. Mary's Feast festival. But by 6 pm, Natalia had a headache so the three planned to take a rain check and meet at the festival the next day. Amy and Natalia dropped Shawn off at Billy's Frosted Mug, a local bar, at around 7 pm that evening. That was the last time they would see Shawn alive.By the next day, when Shawn had no answered any calls or shown up to the festival, friends and family got worried. They went to the basement apartment that he rented from his landlord, Armand, and his girlfriend, Lynn. Armand told Shawn's friends and family that Shawn had been seizing for hours. Shawn had a seizure disorder that was attributed to his heavy drug and alcohol use. But after Shawn got to the hospital and died there two days later, everyone who knew Shawn started to become suspicious that Shawn had not died because of an accident, but that he had been murdered in cold blood.Show Notes:https://www.murdershetold.com/episodes/shawn-obrien

On January 26th, 2011, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania experienced a huge blizzard in the early afternoon hours. That is why Ellen Greenberg, an elementary school teacher at Juniata Park Academy, was sent home early to the Venice Lofts apartment that she shared with her fiance Sam Goldberg in the Manayunk area of Philadelphia. She and Sam had been engaged for about six months, but it seemed as if Ellen was not quite yet in the bridal state of mind. She had been having depression issues, and had been super stressed out with work. She had recently been to see a psychiatrist who prescribed a cocktail of medications for Ellen to help ease her anxiety and depression. But on that day, when Sam got home from work at around 4 pm, he decided to go to the gym in their building at around 4:50. By the time he got back up to their apartment, he was locked out and started to get concerned about Ellen. When he finally made it into the apartment, he saw Ellen slumped against the dishwasher with a knife through her heart. Sam was convinced she had committed suicide but her family and friends thought otherwise. What followed were court cases for years to solve the mystery: Was Ellen Greenberg murdered or did she die by her own hand?Show Notes:https://www.hulu.com/series/death-in-apartment-603-what-happened-to-ellen-greenberg-b0338377-2cf8-43c4-98b7-5f907e9d51d1

On the night of June 25th, 2001, Eric Tamiyasu, a 41-year-old third generation fruit farmer from Hood River, Oregon, had his friend Diane Anderson over to his house on a rural plot of land, for a date. Eric and Diane had been friends for years and were exploring the possibility of growing their relationship. At around 11 pm, the two heard strange tappings on the windows and also heard the doorbell ring. Seeing no one outside, Diane soon left Eric's house around 11:30 pm. Four days later, after Eric's friends and family had not heard from him, a man named Don Dixon entered Tamiyasu's house with a spare key. He found Eric dead in his bed, naked, with two gunshot wounds to the head. What followed was a mystery and a cold case that Hood River Oregon's police department could not solve. There were many suspects including Don Dixon, a former business partner, Diane Anderson's ex and even the Sherriff of Hood River himself. But no one could solve the case and no one could fathom who would have wanted mild-mannered Eric Tamiyasu dead?Show Notes:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35004933/https://lastseenalivepodcast.com/2021/09/16/unsolvedhomicide-eric-tamiyasu/

On Sunday, July 7th, 17-year-old Molly Miller wanted to go to a house party in Wilson, Oklahoma to see her new crush, 21-year-old Colt Haynes. Molly had started to fall in with the wrong crowd and had begun experimenting with drugs. Also at the house party was a man named James Con Nipp who went by the nickname Con. Somehow, Molly Miller and Colt Haynes ended up in Con's car driving around. When they got to a convenience store, Con spotted a cop and wanted to mess with him so he started a high speed chase that ended in a crash by a fence. All three of the vehicle's occupants fled the scene but only Con ended up walking home. What would transpire next was one of the most bizarre nights with Molly and Colt wandering the woods, lost, calling dozens of friends to come pick them up and even dialing 911 before both their phones went dead at exactly 10 am. No one could find them for years. What had happened to Molly Miller and Colt Haynes?Show Notes:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11224866/https://getpodcast.com/es/podcast/the-generation-why-podcast/the-disappearance-of-molly-miller-and-colt-haynes-619_ebb70e7614

On Sunday March 24th, 2013, 53-year-old Aliza Sherman told her son Jeremy that she had some errands to run and needed to stop by her divorce attorney's office, but that she would be home later with pizza. When 7:45 rolled around, Jeremy got concerned and called his sister who lived a few miles away. But when his sister got to their house, they were met by a police officer who told them the devastating news: their mother had been killed only a few hours earlier, stabbed to death in downtown Cleveland. Aliza had been there to meet with her lawyer about her impending divorce trial from her estranged husband, Sanford. Sanford had been stealing money from the family and had been threatening Aliza. But when police looked into the case of who would have wanted to kill a seemingly upstanding, innocent woman the answer was even more bizarre than anyone could have imagined.Show Notes:https://lastseenalivepodcast.com/2021/08/23/unsolved-homicide-aliza-sherman/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14255922/

The case of Nikki Entzel is discussed.Show Notes:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26421694/

Zebb Quinn was a 17-year-old senior in High School who lived in Asheville North Carolina. He was a proud member of ROTC and worked a full-time job at Wal-Mart. On the evening of January 2nd, 2000, Zebb wanted to buy a new car and Robert Jason Owens, who went by Jason, a fellow employee at the Wal-Mart, offered to show Zebb a used Mitsubishi. Zebb followed Jason in his car toward the dealership until he received a page on his pager. He soon rushed off to make a phone call. When he returned, Zebb was flustered and hit Jason's car with his own. He then told Jason that he would have to look at the car another time; he needed to leave for some sort of emergency. Zebb Quinn drove off that night and was never seen again.Cristie Shoen and JT Codd had met in Venice Beach, California, while working in the entertainment industry; Cristie as a caterer for Hollywood movie sets, JT as a key grip. The two soon fell in love and got married and moved just outside of Asheville, North Carolina to raise their growing family. By mid-March of 2015, Cristie was pregnant with their first child. But on March 15th, alarms were raised when friends and family could not get ahold of either Cristie or JT. Cristie's father asked a neighbor to check on them and she saw a disturbing sight: their wallets and personal belongings were in the house and their precious dogs had not been fed for days. As police searched for clues as to where JT and Cristie could be, their suspicions fell on one man, their friend, neighbor and handyman, Robert Jason Owens.Show Notes:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321168/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horrorwood-true-crime-in-tinseltown/id1635143133