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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room
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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.
00:00:51
This is a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice. Listen to Dr. Death the Cowboy wherever you get your podcasts
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Terms and conditions apply. See pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. My favorite murder
00:01:32
Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. 2025. It's 2025. That's your daughter.
00:01:50
That's Karen Kilgariff. 2025. It's 2025. Is that a good number? Is that a lucky number?
00:01:56
How do we feel about that? Okay. Oh, the numerologists love 2025. Do they? Uh-huh.
00:02:02
Okay. Yes, because if you add all of that up, it goes to nine. And nine is the power number for girls that wear black nail polish, for girls that wear glasses, for girls that like books.
00:02:14
Crystals? Do we have a lot of crystals going on? A lot of crystals. Nine is the number of crystals.
00:02:19
Okay. And you should have nine crystals on your windowsill. Oh, shit. Okay, I'll get on that.
00:02:25
We're recording this before the new year, so I can get on that and do it. Yeah, that was all acting.
00:02:33
All that happy new year stuff. We're tricking you. We're here to trick you. Showbiz, baby.
00:02:40
Yeah. Get used to it. Drink your tiny Coke. Can't I have a tiny sip every time we're supposed to be talking?
00:02:48
Well, I've had a fucking energy drink that hasn't hit me yet. You better chug that thing.
00:02:53
Is it a Celsius? no no it's just like one of those shots celsius please put your finger up like this when it hits
00:03:00
not the like good kind of like medicinal fuck you up takes years off your life kind and i love those
00:03:06
it's like one of the like juice juices with caffeine oh your face i mean i just immediately
00:03:14
when you're like the kind that fucks you up it just reminds me of buying those big black pills
00:03:19
on the counter at 7-Eleven. Remember those like last minute impulse buys? They call them trucker speed, right?
00:03:26
Yeah. Trucker speed, but like, who knows? It looked like it was made of ashes, like old
00:03:31
charcoal briquettes. And they're like, yeah, you'll totally get a bunch of energy from this.
00:03:35
And no-dos. Remember crushing up. Don't, don't do that, everyone. Listen, we're from the nineties.
00:03:41
We're allowed to crush pills up and snort them. We we've done that. We did it for you. It burns.
00:03:46
don't do it yeah if you're a youngster that has a real problem with millennials and gen xers and
00:03:51
then heed this advice yeah stay away from that shit just stick to your yerba mate that's right
00:03:59
you're doing it right just you're it's fine you're fine oh my god i can't believe we survived the
00:04:05
90s god damn it i used to eat those fucking swallow those gigantic horse pills that were
00:04:10
black to somehow think that it was going to like speed me up and like to do what I think I was
00:04:18
trying to do some sort of dumb diet thing always where it's like if I eat these I won't eat
00:04:24
spaghetti it's just like you know what just eat spaghetti eat the spaghetti especially now more
00:04:31
than ever eat this especially that's that kind that's got that's made from lentils what you know
00:04:38
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. You refuse. I will not. It's my brand. I made it. You didn't know
00:04:48
that I started a lentil. I'm so sorry. I love the hard stark lentil noodle company. Try them today.
00:04:57
George is going to be a vegan in 2025. That's correct. It's her new thing. Yep. All things vegan. Is it working yet? Am I awake? It's hard. It's weird to go from nap to
00:05:08
energy drink to podcasting. Yeah. I think it's cool. It's kind of like a, it's the dark triad.
00:05:14
Put your finger up like this when you start to feel it. Okay. Okay. You'll know. It'll be me.
00:05:19
It'll be like the real me. There she is. There she is. There's the reason she needs social breaks
00:05:26
because she just gives it all into that microphone. So we're still on break this episode,
00:05:34
which means only one story today, but I'll make it powerful. I promise. Yeah. Georgia loves acting and she loves storytelling. She's kind of a folklorist
00:05:44
in her free time. I'm kind of like the epitome of the number nine. You're such a nine. Hi, it's me. I'm nine.
00:05:51
It me Hi I the nine It me I the nine It me So we hope everyone had a good holiday and a good New Year New Year Eve Oh my God I hope you had the worst New Year Eve
00:06:05
I hope you drank so many wine coolers around 10 and then around 11. You're like, I fucking got to throw up.
00:06:14
I have to. My little gold dress is going to be ruined. All that spaghetti I ate for dinner.
00:06:22
It's gone. The girls told me to eat the spaghetti. and it's gone. They made me the lentil spaghetti and now it's back. Heartstruck brand lentil
00:06:31
spaghetti sure is, sure comes up gross. There's a tiny picture of your face on the package,
00:06:38
making a face like, I don't like this. I would not be eating this if I was you. Seriously? I have
00:06:44
had to eat a lot of gluten-free stuff with Nora. Right. And yeah, there's some that's like
00:06:49
shockingly delicious. And then there's some that you're like, I need, I need a washcloth to get
00:06:55
this out of my mouth because it's so gross. Crazy. Some of the desserts are like fucking incredible.
00:07:02
You'd never know. Yeah. You could never tell the difference. I'd only accidentally eat it or buy it.
00:07:07
I wouldn't do it on purpose. You wouldn't seek it out. No. Okay. We have a couple exactly right
00:07:12
media highlights. This is our podcast network, exactly right media. And here's my lights.
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Okay, so don't tell your dad we said this, but we think you should join our fan cult.
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So you can get access to all of these crazy new videos that we're making. You get a $20 credit to our store and much, much more.
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So go over and visit fancult.supercast.com and get in on the action because there's a lot of action.
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There is a lot of action. And if you have a moment, please go follow us on social media.
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Our handle is at exactly right on all platforms and you can get updates on all of our podcasts,
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Yeah. Next time you're like in a waiting room and you're like, I don't know, I'm so sick of Instagram or whatever. Just go to your podcast app and give that little heart
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a tap on your favorite podcast because it really does make a difference. It makes a huge difference. And then just go through and kind of like,
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you might want to delete some pics in your phone. It just lets clean that phone up.
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I guess rate reviewing and subscribing is kind of like our like semi-annual report
00:08:27
or what's it called when you get like a performance review. That's it. Thank you. Yes. Think of it as a performance review. And like,
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it doesn't really matter, but also it does matter. They can use it to fire you in the,
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in the future if it's not good. So like we need a positive performance review in the form of rate
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review and subscribe. Yeah, that's right. You can really, you can really push the needle in the
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positive direction. Sure. Or the negative. I mean, listen, we might've pissed you off. You might be
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vegan. Listen. Free will, baby. It's your life. Do what you want. You know, we don't boss in that,
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00:10:43
Okay, this is one of those episodes where there's just one story, and this is one of
00:10:48
those episodes where it's just your story. How happy about that are you? I love it so much.
00:10:53
I know. Isn't it weird when you're like, I got to record today. I don't have to do jack shit today.
00:10:57
I don't, you know what I have to do? say a bunch of bullshit about the nineties at the top. I continually divert the conversation
00:11:06
into a weird direction and, and boom, that's podcasting. You've made a podcast. Five stars.
00:11:13
It's a great hobby if you can get it. So, okay. So I am doing a classic cold case, you know,
00:11:20
that's my obsession. And this one specifically is a cold case that many people are obsessed with.
00:11:27
And it's still being actively investigated. Up until recently, there was even a little break.
00:11:32
And this is one of Iowa's biggest unsolved mysteries. This is the story about a young
00:11:37
TV news anchor who disappeared in 1995. This is the story of Jodi, who's in truth. You know what
00:11:44
I'm talking about? No, I've never heard this. You'll know when I start to tell you, because
00:11:47
it's like one of those ones that are like, how has this not been solved? But also how is there
00:11:53
such a small amount of evidence And so everyone able to like put their own theories on it There groups of people who have certain theories There like people fighting each other about whose theory is right So I have mine I want to hear yours at the end of this I fight everybody I know you will
00:12:13
And so I'm ready for that. So the main source I used for the story is an episode of 2020 called
00:12:17
Gone at Dawn. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. And if you watched any of
00:12:22
these true crime shows, you've seen this case probably. Okay. So this is the weird part of the
00:12:29
story. It's four in the morning on June 27, 1995. We're in Mason City, Iowa. Mason City is a small
00:12:37
city of about 29,000 people. It's up by Iowa's northern border with Minnesota, about halfway
00:12:43
between Minneapolis and Des Moines. So it's like a smaller town outside of the big cities.
00:12:48
every once in a while when we talk about a state and then you say something like that
00:12:53
where it's like it's up by minnesota and then i'm like i absolutely thought those two states
00:12:59
were nowhere near each other and i wrote this this is like an alley this is fucking my researcher
00:13:04
allie elkin giving me details i didn't fucking know that i went on a map and i was like wow
00:13:09
you know what i'm gonna get you and me for christmas in christmas past christmas future
00:13:15
I'm going to get us the United States map placemats. And then we are going to know these states by heart in one year.
00:13:22
Okay, perfect. So here we are. For most people in Mason City, it's the middle of the night.
00:13:27
It's 4 a.m. Like who is up that early? But for 27-year-old Jodi, who's in truth, it's time to wake up and get ready for work.
00:13:36
Because she is an anchor for the morning show on the local TV network, KIMT TV. She's a newscaster.
00:13:43
and she's supposed to be getting into the office at this point to prepare for the show, do her hair
00:13:49
and makeup, get ready to go on at 6am. So ouch. Oh my God. Who chooses that life? I would just be
00:13:56
fired immediately. So difficult. Also because like, then you have to go to bed at 930 probably
00:14:02
and you have to make sure no one wakes you up so that you can get your full night's sleep.
00:14:07
Sure. There's no insomnia. You're not allowed to have insomnia, which causes my worst insomnia
00:14:12
when I can't, I'm not allowed to have insomnia, you know? Yeah. The pressure's on. Yeah. Like go
00:14:16
to sleep right now. Yeah. You have to be very disciplined, like reliable, obviously person.
00:14:21
The one thing I do love about that though, of getting up and being that kind of morning person,
00:14:25
first of all, it's badass. So they're, you know, you're really doing it and you're in it.
00:14:30
You have a dream and you're like doing all these. Yeah. It's this incredible dream.
00:14:33
Living your dream. Yeah. But then you're also out with like people who deliver newspapers.
00:14:38
yeah the guy that works at the donut shop totally a very select group of people are up in the morning
00:14:45
when it's still dark and it's a cool it's cool to like dip into that but then see this this story
00:14:51
reminds me that it's still nighttime and the creeps are still out like i guess that's this
00:14:58
time night is a really is like when people break into cars a lot like if there's still nefarious
00:15:04
shit going on and you think, well, it's my morning, so everything's fine, but it's like
00:15:08
still dark out and it's deceiving, you know? Yeah. Middle of the night in a lot of ways.
00:15:12
Like I don't think you're as alert because it's your morning, but it's really dark out still.
00:15:17
So Jodi's originally from Long Prairie, Minnesota. She's been working as an anchor at the TV network
00:15:22
for two years, though she's only lived in Mason City for a relatively short time. Jodi has lots
00:15:26
of friends. She's bubbly. She's social. She's outgoing as I think you kind of have to be
00:15:31
to be a female newscaster, it seems like. Yeah. I think that would be part of your makeup.
00:15:36
Yeah. It's like you and the head of the sales team. Like you guys are all like, yeah. To have this personality that I've always been like, how do you do that?
00:15:44
Yeah. The outward facing kind of like, good morning, Mason City. Yeah. I made cupcakes. When did you fucking make cupcakes?
00:15:51
I know. She's pretty much exactly what you'd imagine a young TV news anchor to be. She's got this like
00:15:56
kind of blonde Bob. She looks to me like a cross between Belinda Carlisle because she's also got
00:16:02
the like nineties, you know, Bob kind of big teased Bob cut. She looks a little bit like
00:16:07
Britney Spears as well. So cute dimples, like really beautiful, exactly what you'd think of.
00:16:15
And so the problem right now at 4am is that Jodi isn't at work yet as she should be.
00:16:20
So the show's producer, a woman named Amy Coons calls Jodi at her apartment. the two women both have to be at the studio well before fucking crack of dawn. So they have an
00:16:29
agreement to call each other by 4am if one of them isn't at work to kind of watch each other's back
00:16:34
and make sure no one's overslept. Nice. So here's where our story differs from every other story we
00:16:40
tell that begins this way. Jodi actually picks up the phone. And Amy's call has woken her up
00:16:46
when she's supposed to be at work. So Jodi asks what time it is. Amy tells her and Jodi, you know,
00:16:52
scramble. She says, I'll be right there and hangs up. And it should take Jodi about 10 minutes to
00:16:57
get to the studio. She has like a bag that she brings. She'll do her hair and makeup while she
00:17:01
prepares for the show. So she's running late, but she still has time to scramble and get there.
00:17:05
Okay. But at 430, Jodi still isn't at work. Amy calls again. And this time she gets Jodi's
00:17:10
answering machine. And at 5am, Amy calls one more time, still gets no answer. And at this point,
00:17:15
Amy is scrambling to put together a show without Jodi, but it's like not on her mind that something
00:17:21
is wrong. She just figures she fell back to sleep. She had woken her up the first time.
00:17:25
Amy winds up going on for Jodi when the morning show starts at 6am. And when the news director
00:17:30
gets into the office at 7am and the staff tells him Jodi never showed up, he immediately calls
00:17:35
the police and asks to go check on her. So when the police get to Jodi's apartment, they first
00:17:41
check inside. Nothing seems amiss. But when they go back outside to look at her car, which is a red
00:17:46
Mazda Miata, which is so cute for a young working woman to have, you know, it's still in its parking
00:17:52
spot but there are signs of a struggle and there are some photos from this and it just like chilling You know it chilling to me too When you said that the news director immediately called the police because the news director has been in the news for I sure a long career So anybody else that just kind of paying
00:18:09
attention to other things that news director is like, I know these stories we're calling the
00:18:13
police. I've seen some shit. Totally. And like, even if she had like fallen back to sleep when
00:18:19
Amy called her by 7am, she'd probably have been awake by then and free and freaking out.
00:18:24
Yeah, because you have that kind of early morning internal alarm clock. Totally.
00:18:30
So here's what's going on with the scene. The driver's side mirror on the car is bent backwards.
00:18:35
Jodi's belongings are scattered on the ground. Like there's a pair of red pumps that have essentially fallen off her feet, a pair of
00:18:43
earrings, a can of hairspray and her hair dryer. Remember, she probably had her like go bag with her to get ready at work.
00:18:49
So she was probably on her way to her car to go to work to finish getting ready.
00:18:55
And something happened outside of her car. On the ground, investigators also find the key to Jodi's car.
00:19:01
It appears to be slightly bent. And on the ground near the car, investigators find what looks like drag marks,
00:19:08
like these little indentations that look like someone's being dragged. And investigators also find one partial handprint on the outside of the car.
00:19:15
And I mean, so there's a lot of scenes that you hear about that don't give any clues as to what happened, which really delays someone getting searched for.
00:19:26
And I think that all this evidence there is almost this lucky thing because they know immediately something's wrong.
00:19:33
Like I've been reading about J.C. Dugard's abduction and it's just gone without a trace.
00:19:38
Nothing left behind. And that's just almost worse because you have nothing to go on.
00:19:43
But here you have evidence to go on. And like a little window of time where it's like, oh, I had talked to her here and then I knew she was running to her car.
00:19:53
Totally. It had to be between this time and this time. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I think everyone who's obsessed with this case is like, for me personally, it's like the answer is somewhere in here.
00:20:02
In this little area and window of time. So the apartment complex where she lives, you know where the parking lot is, is a group of two story mid-century type buildings.
00:20:12
three neighbors from the complex said that they heard a scream at about 4 30 a.m. Of course no
00:20:19
one called the police. One witness reports that they specifically heard a woman scream leave me
00:20:24
alone. Do you like do you have what I have where it's like I thought I heard one gunshot but I
00:20:31
don't know and so you don't call the police right and it's like I don't it doesn't sound I mean this
00:20:36
is LA so some people are like what are you fucking talking about? Yeah. Every once in a while you hear
00:20:40
a gunshot in LA. Yes. In your neighborhood. For sure. That's definitely happened. But you wouldn't,
00:20:46
you, what would you say to the police when you called? You would be like, I heard what I think
00:20:50
is a gunshot and they'd be like, okay, anything else? And they would hang up on you because
00:20:54
they literally don't help you a lot of the time. If I heard a woman scream in the middle of the
00:21:00
night though, I think that I would. And say, leave me alone. And you would at least, I would
00:21:05
love it if there were more dudes that were like i gotta go out there and at least go at least look
00:21:13
totally like that hometown we read recently where the dad like caught her and ran inside and fucking
00:21:19
yeah yeah yeah i think that vince and i if we were fucking woken up at four in the morning by a
00:21:25
woman screaming would fucking take care of shit take some action take some action and also call
00:21:31
police. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you don't mind your own business. That's like rule number one.
00:21:37
Mind your own business up until a point. Yeah. And then when business gets scary and dangerous,
00:21:42
go ahead and don't mind your own business. Right. A scream is a cry for you to butt in
00:21:47
to my business, you know? And as a woman, you can stay in your apartment and start calling the
00:21:52
police. Totally. You don't have to go outside. Okay. PSA. Now we have that out. I mean,
00:21:57
PSA that we're making up based on something we wish very badly didn't happen. Yeah. So curiously, another witness who lives across the hall from Jodi says she heard a
00:22:07
commotion outside Jodi's apartment the night before. She says she heard a man banging on
00:22:12
Jodi's door saying, open the door. I know you're in there. But that said, this person tells this
00:22:19
story like weeks or months later, not immediately after Jodi's disappearance. So it's hard to like
00:22:26
really pinned down exactly what happened. So while police are still at Jodi's building,
00:22:32
a friend of Jodi's comes over and says that he believes he was the last person to have seen her.
00:22:36
This man's name is John. I'm not going to say his last name, but it's, you know,
00:22:40
all over the internet. And he's older than Jodi. He's 49, so like 20 years older than her,
00:22:46
but the two really do seem to be close friends. He had recently thrown a surprise party for her
00:22:51
27th birthday. And the night before she disappeared, he says she had gone to his house to watch a home
00:22:58
video from that party. And there's actually a problem though, with this sequence of events.
00:23:02
And here's another camp that believes that this guy fucking totally did it. So the day before
00:23:07
Jodi disappeared, she had played in a charity golf tournament. That tournament was followed by dinner
00:23:12
at the country club. And Jodi had been at that dinner. Multiple people report that she had left
00:23:16
dinner at 8 p.m. But John maintains that she came over after the dinner to watch the video.
00:23:23
The video is about 15 minutes long. But investigators know that Jodi made a long
00:23:28
distance phone call from her apartment at 8 24 p.m. So this timeline doesn't add up, right? Jodi
00:23:36
wouldn't have had time to get to John's from the dinner, watch the video and then drive home
00:23:41
in time to place the call. So it's just this weird discrepancy. And sorry, it was his story that that was the timeline?
00:23:49
No, it was his story that she came over. Yeah. And that is the actual timeline. So it's like, I don't know if they confronted him or not,
00:23:56
but they're like, you know, this doesn't add up, which to me is like super suspicious.
00:24:00
suspicious. Right. But why would he offer that info if it wasn't true? That's the question.
00:24:05
Because he's trying to hide something. Right. But John makes himself available to the police. He's
00:24:10
generally very cooperative and other friends of theirs confirm that they were just friends. There
00:24:15
was nothing weird going on. But of course, the relationship raises eyebrows. And John goes on
00:24:20
multiple local news segments in the wake of Jodi's disappearance, you know, talking about her saying
00:24:25
He had nothing to do with it. He tells police and local news media that he had been asleep when Jodi was abducted,
00:24:32
which is understandable. It was four in the morning. And a friend of his says that she went on a walk with him that morning from 630 to 830
00:24:39
a.m. Is it weird that I'm like, well, I could see them being friends if they were both in AA
00:24:43
because that's the only time you meet like older people. I feel like AA. That's so specific.
00:24:51
It is. You might as well say that's the only time I've ever met. honestly like yeah you've been in the program for a long time like let's hang out yeah cool
00:25:00
yeah in another tv interview john mentions that he named his boat after jody hmm it's unclear
00:25:07
whether he did this before or after her disappearance it's not after it's not after
00:25:12
that would be insane but why before that to me that's insane too like you're naming your boat
00:25:17
after a friend of yours well i don't know is which one i'm just saying which one's weirder
00:25:22
I think after your friend disappeared and you're like, great, I'm going to go name a boat after her.
00:25:28
After to me is like a tribute. Before to me is an obsession. I hear you and I raise you after is making it about you.
00:25:36
Where it's like, I named, because all you're doing is pointing out to other people that you named your boat after her.
00:25:42
But someone who would kill someone and doesn't understand how things look would think that it's like a way to be like, see, I'm honoring her memory.
00:25:50
Like, look how normal this is. Yeah. I don't think they'd understand how I agree.
00:25:54
It's fucking creepy. I feel like either way, it's creepy. What are you doing? When's the last time you heard someone, unless it was their child or their grandchild?
00:26:03
Totally. I don't know. No, it's odd. It raises flags. You know what it is? I don't like if he did do it.
00:26:10
I don't like if he didn't do it. That's how I feel about this story right now. Yeah.
00:26:15
He's, of course, treated as a person of interest for years. he's taken two polygraphs and police will not discuss whether or not he passed. He says that
00:26:23
he did. And Jodi actually kept a journal and she mentions him in it often. And she writes about
00:26:28
having fun with him on a recent water skiing trip and has nothing negative to say about him.
00:26:33
But I don't fucking tell the truth in my journal. Do you? I don't have a fucking journal.
00:26:39
I have a once in a while journal when I feel like it. I'm going to go find it and read it.
00:26:44
Exactly. That's why I don't fucking tell the truth in anything. But you take the time to lie.
00:26:50
I'll write like thoughts that I have at the moment, but I won't write like details and secrets.
00:26:55
You know? Okay. You're just more like recording stuff that happened. Not recording stuff that happened, just getting whatever thought is in my head out, but no details.
00:27:04
Got it. So if you read it, it might not make any sense to you. I always felt like you were beholden to tell like deep feelings and secrets in a journal.
00:27:11
That's why I'd always be like, I should start doing this for my mental health. And then literally two days later, I'd be like, just throw it over my shoulder.
00:27:18
For me, and I'm betting for you too, growing up with a sibling means that you don't write
00:27:22
jack shit in a fucking diary or they're going to read it and make fun of you and hold it
00:27:26
over your head for the rest of your life. Absolutely. Do you know that my sister, one time I wrote a letter, a boy that I went to camp with wrote
00:27:33
me a letter when we got home and I had a huge crush on him. And I wrote a letter back to him and my sister went and took it out of the mailbox.
00:27:41
Oh, wow. Because she knew it was like the wrong move. Did she start reading? Oh, that was nice.
00:27:48
I know. But of course, I was like, I didn't know. And then she told me like two years later, she's like, you never.
00:27:54
Because I was like, oh, my God, I sent in the most embarrassing letter. She goes, no, you didn't.
00:28:00
But what if it had been like heartfelt and real? She was at camp. She knew how not real it was.
00:28:06
Okay. Wow. That's actually really touching. She was, Laura was. She's looking out.
00:28:10
The meanest, most loving older sister of all time, which is like, please stop acting like this.
00:28:15
And I'd be like, I'm not going to. And then she'd be like, OK, you're going to have to keep following me and picking up my trash along the way.
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00:30:07
police to look for Jodi, which we always like. They bring in dogs and search a nearby river.
00:30:11
There's also like park grounds across the street from her apartment building. It seems like maybe
00:30:16
campers hang out there. Maybe also people party there. And also like if she has a stalker,
00:30:22
it's a good vantage point to like watch from you know what I mean no sign of Jodi is found though
00:30:28
in that park area and inside Jodi's apartment police noticed two things there are two wine
00:30:32
glasses by the sink and the toilet seat is up in Jodi's bathroom which would suggest
00:30:39
a male guest would have an owner right this leads of course people to wonder if a man had been in
00:30:46
her apartment the night before she disappeared I've also read somewhere that there were beer
00:30:50
bottles by like by the dumpster outside as if someone was hanging out waiting around. But I,
00:30:56
you know, I can't find anything further on that. And no further evidence is found. And it sounds
00:31:01
like the glasses aren't tested for DNA or if they are, there's no an account for male DNA. Like,
00:31:07
you know, they haven't, it's an open case. So they haven't really said, but you'd think that
00:31:11
they would let us know if that was the case. So people point out that Jodi is a local celebrity.
00:31:16
And so that might have been a factor in her disappearance. It is a small town. And I think the newscaster is like a big deal there, right?
00:31:23
Yeah, it would be a huge deal. Yeah. There's no fucking online influencers. There's no online.
00:31:29
It's like, this is, these are the celebrities. And like, it's a person you turn on your TV, you're seeing them all the time.
00:31:35
I feel like somebody like a newscaster would be especially prone to a stalker in that way.
00:31:39
Totally. So Mason City is very small in other parts of the country. We would call it a town.
00:31:45
It's not, you know, a city. And Jodi lived life like a regular person, even though people started their mornings with her every single day.
00:31:52
So it's not unheard of for TV news personalities to have stalkers. In fact, obviously, it's very common.
00:31:57
And Jodi was a young woman who lived by herself in a small apartment complex without any kind of special security.
00:32:04
She was listed in the phone book. And so it probably wouldn't be hard for someone to figure out where she lived.
00:32:10
No security. You go to the news station. You wait till she comes out. You follow her home.
00:32:16
I mean, yeah, kind of terrifying. Yeah. So the current lead investigator on the case says that the stalker angle doesn't add up for him.
00:32:25
And remember, Jodi was late for work the day she disappeared. So on a normal day, she would have walked out the door at three in the morning.
00:32:33
So a stalker waiting for her would have had to stay outside her apartment building for a whole extra hour to grab her on the day she disappeared.
00:32:41
And the investigator doesn't think that that's likely. And I hate to contradict him, but.
00:32:45
yeah he's wrong if he knew she had to be at work he could have just waited i'm sorry you're trying
00:32:51
to say that stalkers wouldn't wait an extra hour i feel like that is what they do yeah it's like
00:32:57
today's the day i'm gonna do it they wait all the time it's stalking yeah and then the other
00:33:03
thing people think about is that if she did have someone over the night before and she was being
00:33:09
stalked, that might have upset the stalker enough to wait for her and attack her.
00:33:16
Yeah, that makes sense. So that kind of is an angle I really think is strong. So nine months before she went missing in October of 1994, Jodi made a police report
00:33:25
saying that she had been out jogging. She was being followed by someone driving a white truck.
00:33:30
And the night before Jodi disappeared, a neighbor reported seeing an unfamiliar white van in
00:33:34
her building's parking lot. Don't like that. Some people also say that she was going to change her phone number because she was getting nasty calls from someone.
00:33:44
And there's one other angle that people always wonder about. I mean, this is kind of loose for me, but Jodi had been covering the growing issue of drug use in the Midwest.
00:33:53
Some people think that she was possibly killed by people who didn't want her to keep reporting on it.
00:33:57
But I mean, she was not an investigative journalist. I can't imagine she was like breaking any crazy news that like gangs were worried about her sharing.
00:34:08
You know what I mean? It's all after the fact kind of stuff that already happened.
00:34:12
Right. So that seems unlikely to me. So two years after Jodi disappears in 1997, a serial rapist is arrested and ultimately convicted.
00:34:21
And this man lived in Mason City about a block or two away from the TV studio where Jodi worked.
00:34:26
Oh. Yeah. Police look into him in connection with Jody based on an account from a jailhouse informant, but they ultimately rule him out, which I'm like, based on what?
00:34:36
Because it must have been, it had to be like he was out of town that day or something to rule him out, you know?
00:34:42
Right. It's pretty crazy. There's another man from nearby Minnesota who has a record of sexual assaults going back to the 1970s.
00:34:50
He was known to spend time in Mason City. He owned a white van, not unlike the one that the witness had seen.
00:34:56
and Jodi's apartment building's parking lot. And this man's ex-wife actually says that he had a
00:35:02
special interest in Jodi. Yeah. And two witnesses who have had conversations with this man say that
00:35:08
he bragged to them about being involved in her disappearance. So I just want to know how close
00:35:14
they were looked at. I'm like, can we do it again, please? There are private investigators. There's,
00:35:19
you know, regular investigators on this. You'd have to think that they looked as much as they could into these people. If anyone came and said, hey, this guy bragged
00:35:28
to me that he was involved, you know that they looked into that person. Right. Right. And that
00:35:34
does happen all the time. Yeah. And it's and they had nothing to do with it. Right. In 2004,
00:35:40
police served this guy with a search warrant for his finger and palm prints. And the officer who
00:35:44
executed this warrant says that this man became irate when presented with the search warrant.
00:35:48
But he had to comply. He was never charged. Police say they've cleared him. In June of 2001 Jodi family makes the awful decision to declare her legally dead But no one has given up on finding out what happened to her In 2003 a group of journalists form a website called findjodi
00:36:09
And this group is still extremely active. So for journalists, this case hits home because it's a big community made up of some people
00:36:17
who knew Jodi personally, but also other journalists who didn't know her. And this just hit them.
00:36:24
It seems so, it's one of their own. One of their own, yeah. Yeah. So this is another crazy little like breadcrumb to throw in there.
00:36:32
In early June 2008, 84 photocopied pages of Jodi's personal journal were anonymously mailed to a local newspaper.
00:36:43
The original journal had been in the possession of the former Mason City police chief.
00:36:49
So who sent this? Well, it turns out the sender was identified as the wife of the former Mason City police chief.
00:36:58
He had taken, you know, copies of this home or the journal, I don't know which. And she sent them maybe in a bid to like try to fucking get this solved, you know.
00:37:07
It's just weird. It's just a weird violation. Maybe she was hoping that someone would glean some information off of it.
00:37:13
You know, it's been it had been 13 years. So is there anything in it that like helps people or it furthers anything?
00:37:20
It doesn't seem like a no. I mean, maybe. Yeah, who knows? It is that thing where like they keep stuff secret so that only the killer knows.
00:37:30
But eventually, if there's no leads at all, you've got to put some information out there.
00:37:34
Right. To try to get some leads. Right. So in 2017, John, the older friend guy who named his boat after Jody, is subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury for a second time.
00:37:45
Like they're on this guy. He gives finger and palm prints and a DNA sample. The results of that grand jury proceeding is sealed.
00:37:54
But I feel like it happened in 2017. If they had anything on him, he would have been indicted by now.
00:37:59
Right. It seems like it. Yeah. John recently gave a statement saying he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and he has reiterated that he had nothing to do with Jodi's disappearance.
00:38:11
Sorry. So ultimately the reason they went to him first was just because they were close.
00:38:17
I think he showed up that day when they were searching, when they like went to the crime scene.
00:38:23
He kind of inserted himself, you know, which we always in true crime, that's a red flag.
00:38:29
but he does he did think he was the last person to see her the night before and if he heard if
00:38:36
someone told him she might be missing he might run over there to see what's going on sure yeah
00:38:40
or he's driving by and it's his friend's apartment building and something's going on in there yeah
00:38:45
right so it could be totally innocent that's why i'm not saying his last name because
00:38:49
who the fuck knows right right and like if we find out what happened in this whole time this
00:38:54
guy's been hounded and had nothing to do with it which happens a lot yeah when they're like they
00:39:00
just the police decide this one person is guilty and they're gonna they're gonna bend it all around
00:39:05
to fit that it's just like the sudden violent act to me it either seems like a stalker or
00:39:12
a crime of opportunity like something got someone some nefarious person was there maybe
00:39:17
breaking into cars or peep like peeping Tom. And at 4am, she happens to come out.
00:39:24
And when you first said that she screamed, leave me alone. Yeah. To me, I interpreted that as that
00:39:29
she had dealt with this person before. Totally. Like I know you, I know I've seen you leave me
00:39:34
alone because you won't leave me alone. You won't leave me alone. Tips still come in all the time
00:39:39
on this case. Most recently, just this past October that we just had, investigators got an
00:39:45
anonymous tip about possible human remains on a farm in Winstead, Minnesota. And it was known that
00:39:51
like it was about Jodi. So people were like excited that something was finally going to happen in this
00:39:56
case. It turns out that the bones were just farm animal remains, but you know, it did once again,
00:40:01
stir up interest in the case. The Find Jodi group still maintains billboards around Mason City,
00:40:07
asking for people to come forward with tips about this case. They get tips regularly and they run
00:40:12
down all of them, hoping to finally solve this almost 30 year mystery. God. I know. Jodi's sister
00:40:20
Joanne says, quote, I don't like the word closure. You're not going to close something. We're always
00:40:26
going to think about Jodi. We're always going to miss her. End quote. And that is the story of the
00:40:32
disappearance of Jodi, who's in truth. That is so crazy. That's just one of the ones that like
00:40:38
hold space in my mind at all times, you know? Yeah. The drag marks. Yeah. The clarity that it
00:40:44
was something potentially violent, dangerous, scary. Yeah. Shoes, the shoes left behind.
00:40:52
Bent key. I know. I know. You know, whenever there is a crime in the immediate area or even
00:41:00
larger, it's like, does this match? It kind of reminds me of the Springfield three who just
00:41:04
disappeared out of nowhere as well. It's just so like, did you do them? I did that one.
00:41:09
Alondra just told me episode 95. Good to know. But that was 200 years ago. So that was in 1999
00:41:16
that I did that. It's 2025 now. Good to know. Yeah. Good update. I think it's that thing of
00:41:24
like, it's a, it doesn't surprise me that there are all kinds of theories, camps and people
00:41:29
discussing it and fighting about it. Because it's all to the good of let us figure this out.
00:41:35
Right. So, you know, again, theorizing about why people like true crime, but it's like,
00:41:40
if we all put our brains together here on Reddit or anywhere else, can you please just get this
00:41:45
going one step forward? Right. Because the investigators haven't been able to find anything.
00:41:49
So like, why not have more people put their eyes on it 30 years later? It's like,
00:41:54
and I think you right about when you like re some of those people or just like is there anything that like you know that much later could change or break or oh this alibi
00:42:05
actually isn't solid or any of those things. Yeah. Like her phone records. Was there some,
00:42:10
was there someone calling her and saying weird things? Like, it sucks that like, you know,
00:42:14
we have GPS tracking now, which is so great. But back then there's just like nothing to go on.
00:42:19
wow that's my story we'll go back to two stories very soon i mean here's the thing i think about
00:42:28
all the time in my frustration with your cold cases because because we all want a button ending
00:42:33
which is not how life works and how many many many crimes the majority of crimes do not work
00:42:39
that way but then there is that potential of like and here is the break that you know 30 years later
00:42:45
here's the headline we've been looking for totally and it does fucking happen it happens all the time
00:42:51
you know it does so i just saw one on tiktok by a huge person on there her name's true crime mama
00:42:59
and she tells the story of this couple it's the 44 year old missing persons case of charles and
00:43:07
katherine romer and yeah and they just and the guy with the sonar yeah what's his what's what's
00:43:14
their name it's a man named jason serrata who has his own sonar equipment he searched the pond
00:43:20
directly it's like behind this old hotel and then you can see where the driveway basically goes down
00:43:27
so if they drove and like for whatever reason just drove and drove into that in this big old
00:43:33
cadillac and it sank like you can just kind of see of like oh my god if it was like the mills
00:43:38
and night yeah no lights something happened they were drunk or something and then just like
00:43:42
And that's that. If no one witnessed it, they wouldn't know. Totally. Yeah. Those cases just give me the chills. And I think there's probably so many missing person cases that can be attributed to that. And there are like a lot more companies and people now who are taking that seriously. You know, the town doesn't have the money to use that equipment on the lakes, but these, these individuals are. And I think that's amazing.
00:44:08
yeah well amazing job i mean it feels very trite to say i hope i hope there's some breaking news
00:44:16
the way there there can be breaking news sometime i really hope there is totally should we go back
00:44:22
to um what do we do now fucking hoorays do we do what are you even doing right now should we do a
00:44:27
new one for 2025 yes we should start a new one what's your what does nine mean again say it again
00:44:34
Oh, I made all that up. Did you think I swear to God, I swear I've heard that the number nine means
00:44:42
I mean, that was it was an amalgamation of all this stuff that I just look at on my phone and
00:44:48
see and did it. It was great. Whatever. I believe it. It is true that 2025 adds up to nine. Sure.
00:44:55
But that doesn't mean anything, though. Turns out. No, it doesn't. All the things about nine. I just
00:45:00
want people to feel good. I want people to like, let's start interpreting numbers exactly the way
00:45:04
we want to tell ourselves that we are going to be powerful and strong and exactly what we want to be.
00:45:14
It's chronic positivity. Let's go into toxic positivity. I love it. Chronic, toxic,
00:45:22
delusional positivity for 2025. Why not? So what should we have people tell us? Like what,
00:45:28
what are you, what are you excited about this year? Maybe what's your power number?
00:45:33
Yeah. Tell us what your power number is. And then you have to get a tattoo of it.
00:45:37
Hashtag four. Hashtag 22. Let's do, what are you, what are you excited? What are you even
00:45:43
excited about this year? What are you even excited about in 2025? That's good. That can be a new
00:45:48
like question. Why don't, why don't we answer it since we obviously don't have any emails from it
00:45:53
yet. Yeah, that's true. We can't because it's not the future. We truly can't. What I'm excited about
00:45:59
for 2025. And you can manifest something to make something up that like that's going to be the year
00:46:04
that I get another dog or whatever. Can you imagine the dream coming true of getting another dog?
00:46:10
I think I would like to do some more serious actually writing, like write a script. I think
00:46:17
that's going to be my thing because I talk about it all the time. There's like seven I've actually
00:46:21
said on this podcast. So poor man's copyright. But by talk about it too much, I now need to just
00:46:27
actually do it. And I think that I'm going to make the time, find the time and actually do it.
00:46:32
Fuck yeah, you should. I love that. Thank you. What's yours going to be? What's mine going to be?
00:46:38
It has to be far enough away that it's hard, but still like what you ruminate on,
00:46:43
a thing that comes back to you a lot. Let's see. In 2025, I'm going to become proficient in gardening.
00:46:51
that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna like read gardening for dummies I'm gonna not stop watering
00:46:59
plants okay no joke I have a gift for you okay because I accidentally bought two of this book
00:47:06
it's a book called plantopedia yes and Bradford Berlowski who works in our legal department in
00:47:12
the Great Lakes office told me to get it because he is a total green thumb and he was like I
00:47:16
actually just got this book and it tells you like water this plant oh my god that's what I need
00:47:21
type of thing. And wherever I bought it, I accidentally bought two. Okay. So I will wrap
00:47:28
it up as if I meant for you to have it and you can have it. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited
00:47:32
for that. Yeah. I'm going to do that this year. I'm going to be a responsible adult who doesn't
00:47:36
kill plants. That's good. And who cultivates a beautiful garden that I'm proud of. Great.
00:47:43
What are you even going to do in 2025? Let us know. What do you plan to do? Are you trying to
00:47:47
make it sound like the other one yeah what are you even planning to do in 2025 yeah let us know
00:47:52
in the comments of all our all our places yeah we'll just like we'll power number this into
00:47:57
existence yeah and until then stay sexy and don't Get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
00:48:04
Ah! Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder. Goodbye. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club
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