Margaret “Peg” Cuttino was born and raised in Sumter County, South Carolina. She was the daughter of South Carolina state senator James Cuttino, a democrat. Peg was 13 years old and an eighth grader at Alice Drive Junior High School. She played on the school’s varsity basketball team. Peg had grown up campaigning for her father and sang in her church’s youth choir. On December 18, 1970, she left her home to walk to the nearby...
While Tennessee native Stephanie Tinsley has always been a fan of true crime, she never expected to make the career pivot into podcaster. After her family became part of a national murder trial in South Carolina, she wondered how she could make a difference in the justice system. Her podcast, "Everything They Missed," explores a case from Memphis, where an innocent man may be sitting in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Check out...
If the name Dick Harpootlian sounds familiar to you, it's probably because he was involved in one of the most high-profile murder cases in the past 20 years. He was one of Alex Murdaugh's defense attorneys in South Carolina, and represented Alex during his trial in 2023. One of the most notorious criminals Harpootlian ever crossed paths with was a man named Pee Wee Gaskins, a South Carolina man who was known to have murdered over a dozen...
I first talked about the disappearance of Jeffrey Mays and Ted Wallin Episode 120. On November 13, 1980, 21-year-old Harold Jeffrey Mays, who went by Jeffrey, boarded his boat, the Sea Ox, with a friend, 21-year-old Ted Wall, off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Jeffrey had grown up in Pennsylvania, the son of a father who ran a successful photocopy business in the 1970s. Eventually, the family sold the business, and they reinvested that money...
In 2016, a South Carolina couple went missing and their families knew something was wrong, especially when their Facebook accounts seemed to remain active. With the use of their cell phone data, investigators quickly zeroed in on the last location the man and woman had visited, and what they found there was terrifying. But not only that—the discovery on that November day in 2016 unraveled the mystery of a local quadruple-homicide that taken...
The Enchanted Oaks subdivision in Raleigh lived up to its name, with traditional-style homes, tree-lined streets with lampposts, and basketball hoops in driveways, like something you’d see out of a sit-com or family movie. But on November 3, 2006, that neighborhood’s quiet existence was shattered when residents noticed a police presence at 5108 Birchleaf Drive. They knew the two-story brick home was occupied by Michelle and Jason Young, two...
51-year-old Dr. Joe Smith was a fixture around the Lancaster, South Carolina community for many years. He had a practice as a general practitioner, worked as the jail physician for Chester County and the city, and the assistant coroner for Lancaster County. He’d grown up in Anderson, where his father was employed by Swift and Company. After graduating from high school, he joined the military. After a tour of duty, he entered medical school....
Renee discusses origin stories from Carolina folklore, whether or not places can hold onto spiritual energy, and why so many universities seem to be haunted. Episodes Mentioned: Ep. 16-Ghostly Tales from the Carolinas Ep. 22-Two True Tales from the Carolinas Ep. 31-Where Are the Children?
The North Carolina mountains are a beautiful place to visit, but we’ve had many occurrences of people getting lost on hikes or getting injured or falling off treacherous spots or overlooks. In Episode 105, I shared the story of a group of hikers who got lost outside of the Linville Gorge, a hiker who fell to his death off a trail called Rock Trail, and a woman named Frances Apperson who went missing in 2022 after hiking in the same area....
Today I want to discuss the case of a young woman who was murdered as she was trying to leave an abusive partner and the toxic environment he had created in their home. Like Mary Ann Willis’s story, it also involves a partner with ties to the U.S. Army at the time of the crime. Cati Boyter had just turned 20 when she met 26-year-old John Blauvelt, who had a recruiting office for the U.S. Army close to where Cati worked at a local sub sandwich...