Just The Tip-Sters: True Crime Podcast

Latest Episodes:

216. LAKE WACO PART TWO Apr 07, 2022

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215 Murdertizer-Terry Brisk Case Update Apr 02, 2022

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EP 214 Season 5 Feels Like Lake Waco is Cold Mar 23, 2022

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213. Feels Like Like a Peter Chadwick Update-Murdertizer Mar 18, 2022

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Feels Like Rebekah Barsotti Should Have Come Back From the River Mar 01, 2022

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WILL CEIRZAN UPDATE MURDERTIZER Feb 08, 2022

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Update on the Will Cierzan case from 2017 and the indictment of his nephew Daniel Cierzan for his murder. Will's case has been previously covered in Episodes #4, 120, 164 and other murdertizer updates.

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Melissa's Apology Jan 18, 2022

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209 Kim Simon Still Needs Justice Dec 08, 2021

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208. Looks Like It's Good To Volunteer - The Missing Persons Cases Of Dane Elkins, John Stivers And Ron Brown Sep 07, 2021

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Over the course of these first three-and-a-half seasons of this podcast, Melissa has been presented with a wide array of missing persons cases from Tip-Sters from around the world. Melissa has followed up, done her research, and presented many of them as episodes. The inspiration for “Just The Tip-Sters” itself was inspired by Melissa’s deep devotion to solving the 2017 disappearance of Will Cierzan – an ongoing mission that could be culminating soon with the trial of Will’s nephew Daniel. But hovering over every such case are questions – about the nature of the case itself – and how to actually help when help is needed. What makes one missing persons case more compelling or worthy of attention than another? How can one tell if a reported vanishing is evidence of wrongdoing or someone walking away from their life or a hoax? And if one is motivated to help the family and friends of a missing person, how does one do so without getting in the way or actually hindering the investigation? And what, in fact, are one’s motivations to help in the first place? In this episode Melissa touches on all of the above by focusing on three recent missing persons cases – two of which are now closed (with the missing persons in question now known to be alive and well) and one of which is still open (with the missing person still missing and actively being sought)… Dane Elkins, a 23-time world champion professional racquetball player, disappeared in mid-December 2020 after visiting friends in Northern California. His brand-new car – with four flat tires and his wallet and cell phone inside – was found abandoned near a rural exit off Interstate 5 between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. All indications are that the then-21 year-old had become delusional and paranoid for reasons that are still unclear. His family believes he has gone “off the grid” and is slowly working his way up to Oregon – and is seeking help from anyone who thinks they’ve spotted him. John Stivers is the owner of an RV campground and marina in Jamestown, California in tiny Tuolumne County. On August 2, 2021 Stivers left his wife and daughter to run some errands and did not return. His van was found abandoned on a nearby road. Local residents, friends and family rushed to social media to find him – and started a GoFundMe account that raised nearly $20,000 to help the family conduct the search. On September 4, 2021, just over one month since his disappearance, the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement that Stivers was located; that he has been removed from the missing person database; that foul play was not indicated; and that all other information will remain confidential. As word has spread, outrage by some of the volunteers who helped search for him has grown – many believing that the entire case was a fraud, and that they are owed payback for the time they devoted in the search. Others – Melissa being one – believe that sometimes people just walk away from their lives – for whatever reason – and that if one volunteers to help find someone before anything else is known, that should be the end of the discussion – that volunteering means letting go of pride or any sense of being “owed.” Ron Brown, a 62 year-old resident of the small mountain community of Sierra Madre in Southern California, is a part-time golf instructor and longtime server at a well-known high end restaurant in next-door Pasadena. He went missing on August 9, 2021 after his car was found – engine running – in the parking lot of a Pasadena fast-food restaurant. Melissa relates her personal investment in getting involved in the search for Brown – the frustration of a day in the field – and the joy she felt when she learned, just after arriving home from the field trip, that Brown had been found alive and well. All three of these cases demonstrate the varying but equally important considerations that must be taken when getting involved in missing persons cases. Melissa doesn’t hold back on her opinions – and she also offers kudos to those who are helping find the missing – and some helpful hints from her own experience on how to be prepared when going into the field to help search. During her search for Ron Brown, Melissa discovered the AWARE Foundation – a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit made up completely of volunteers dedicated to locating those who have gone missing, wherever their help is needed. AWARE can be contacted by phone at (540) 357-5135.

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207. Looks Like A Murderous Conundrum - Paul Kordenbrock, Sirhan Sirhan And The Puzzle Of Sentencing Reform Aug 31, 2021

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In this episode Melissa tackles the complex moral, ethical and practical aspects of sentencing reform – in particular the parole of those who have committed heinous murders – and the answers aren’t easy to come by. The focus begins with the murder of three innocent workers in Northern Kentucky in January 1980, when then 24 year-old Paul Kordenbrock and his accomplice Michael Kruse entered a Western Auto store in the town of Florence, stole a cache of firearms, then Kordenbrock shot Stanley Allen and store owner William Thompson in their heads while they laid on the floor. Allen died and Allen survived. Just 15 hours prior, in neighboring Kenton County, Kordenbrock (who was also accompanied by Kruse) shot and killed two service station workers, Rick Allen Jones and Timothy Mains. While the fate of Kruse is foggy, Kordenbrock - the trigger man in both crimes – was sentenced to death in the Western Auto murder – then later had that sentence reduced to life in prison after he admitted to the service station killings. Today at age 66, Kordenbrock claims to be a changed man, having found religion and new meaning in his life – and is working as a “prison advocate” for death row inmates and the elimination of capital punishment. Whether this “new persona” is really just a ploy to get released or not, no one can ever know…which brings Melissa to discuss the August 27, 2021 ruling of a California parole board to recommend parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of New York Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. At age 77, after 53 years in a correctional facility, Sirhan convinced the board that he is fully repentant and that he will never again be the man he was in his youth. What makes the Sirhan parole recommendation so interesting is that two of the late senator’s nine surviving children, Robert, Jr. and Douglas, actively petitioned for the release of their father’s killer, expressing not only forgiveness – but love – toward the assassin. The murders committed by Kordenbrock and Sirhan, and the subsequent handling of their sentences, sparks some fascinating reflections from Melissa (and Producer Mark) in this week’s compelling episode.

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