Unsolved

Introducing: My Cousin Augie Jul 10, 2024

In 1978, Milwaukee tavern owner Augie Palmisano was killed in a car bombing. Although many suspected crime boss Frank Balistreri, the murder was never solved. 45 years later, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Mary Spicuzza goes on a journey to find out the truth.

S4 Ep8: Be careful what you wish for Jun 21, 2023

After more than 20 years of turning us down, the Milwaukee Police finally release more than 10,000 pages of records on their investigation of Alexis’ case. Some of the contents are completely unexpected.

S4 Ep7: A DNA discovery Jun 14, 2023

After a three-year delay in reporting due to the pandemic, we ask the experts to evaluate the DNA profiles of Alexis' mother and the woman in Ohio to figure out, once and for all, whether the two are related.

S4 Ep6: The road trip Jun 07, 2023

Two reporters travel to Ohio to see if they can get to the bottom of the claims that a young woman there is Alexis Patterson.

S4 Ep5: A package from Ohio May 31, 2023

Fourteen years after Alexis disappeared, a man from Ohio comes forward to say he believes his estranged wife might be the missing girl.

S4 Ep4: A double life May 24, 2023

Some witnesses say they saw a red truck outside Alexis' school around the time she vanished. Could it have belonged to a serial killer?

S4 Ep3: Where would she have gone? May 17, 2023

Police come up with the theory that Alexis ran away after her mom tells them about an argument over cupcakes.

S4 Ep2: A guilty man walked free May 10, 2023

Alexis’ stepfather, LaRon Bourgeois, has a troubled history with police. That is enough to raise their suspicions after she disappears.

S4 Ep1: She never made it to school May 03, 2023

Despite Milwaukee’s history of segregation and distrust between Black residents and police, the whole city comes together to search for 7-year-old Alexis Patterson, who disappeared somewhere in the 242 steps between her home and school.

S4: Coming May 3: Season 4 Apr 19, 2023

Alexis Patterson’s walk home from school was just 242 steps. But on May 3, 2002, the 7-year-old never made it. The story of Alexis’ disappearance started with a massive search and sympathy for her family, but that quickly changed as her parents became suspects. Over the years, there have been conspiracy theories and false leads and cases of mistaken identity. Still, her mom has never given up hope that Alexis will come home again someday.

S4: We're working on season 4 May 17, 2022

I’m working on a new investigation about missing children of color, and one of them is going to be the focus of Season 4.

S3 Ep11: Bonus episode: Unsolved Live Apr 24, 2019

Still have questions about the murder of Father Alfred Kunz? Want to hear more about what was going on behind the scenes of the podcast and of the investigation? Kunz's good friend Peter Kelly and retired detective Dawn Johnson joined host Gina Barton at a live event, where they provided some answers.

S3 Ep10: 'Forgive offenses' Mar 27, 2019

Twenty years after Kunz’s murder, members of his former parish gathered at Mass to pray for his soul. Police, who had launched a social media campaign in connection with the anniversary, scanned the crowd for their suspects.

S3 Ep9: 'Bear Wrongs Patiently' Mar 20, 2019

Detective Wayne Honer was among those who did not believe teacher Brian Jackson killed Father Kunz. While Detective Kevin Hughes was chasing Jackson, Honer focused on a different suspect.

S3 Ep8: 'Comfort the Sorrowful' Mar 13, 2019

Immediately after Father Alfred Kunz’s death, St. Michael teacher Brian Jackson moved in with Kunz’s best friend, Father Charles Fiore. Detective Kevin Hughes was convinced Jackson was the killer.

Support for this episode comes from Audible. Go to audible.com/un to listen to your favorite books.

Introducing: Case Closed Mar 08, 2019

Here is another true crime podcast you might like. Season one of Case Closed tells the story of Erin Corwin, a young military wife who was murdered in 2014. She was living with her husband, Jon, a Marine corporal, when she left to scout hiking trails in Joshua Tree National Park. She never came back.

S3 Ep7: 'Shelter the Homeless' Mar 06, 2019

A Dane County sheriff’s deputy came to believe his nephew, Joe Cavanaugh, was Father Kunz’s killer. The attack on Kunz was similar to one Cavanaugh was believed to have committed against his grandfather.

S3 Ep6: 'Counsel the Doubtful' Feb 27, 2019

St. Michael had been robbed in the months before Father Alfred Kunz’s death, and police believed the robbery and Kunz’s murder may have been connected.

S3 Ep5: 'Pray for the Living and the Dead ' Feb 20, 2019

Police have evidence that Father Alfred Kunz had performed exorcisms without the support of the church hierarchy, which official Catholic exorcists characterize as risky and foolish.

Support for this episode comes from Care/Of. For 50% off your first month of personalized Care/Of vitamins, visit takecareof.com and use promo code MJS50.

S3 Ep4: 'Admonish the Sinner' Feb 13, 2019

Father Alfred Kunz and Father Charles Fiore had reportedly been investigating sexual misconduct by priests without authorization from church leadership. Their efforts crossed the state line into Illinois.

S3 Ep3: 'Feed the Hungry' Feb 06, 2019

Father Alfred Kunz met Mora Smith at Brian’s Diner, where she often served him breakfast. The two became close, with him helping her spiritually and financially. After Kunz’s death, police interrogated her and her two young sons.

Support for this episode comes from Audible. Go to audible.com/un to listen to your favorite books.

S3 Ep2: Instruct the Ignorant Jan 30, 2019

On the last night of his life, Father Alfred Kunz taped a radio show with co-host Peter Kelly and best friend Father Charles Fiore. Sometime after 10 p.m., Kunz was involved a struggle, which ended with an unknown assailant cutting his throat.

S3 Ep1: Bury the Dead Jan 23, 2019

Father Alfred Kunz was murdered on the night of March 3, 1998. His throat was slit and his body was found in a hallway at St. Michael School in Dane the next morning. Kunz clung to the Latin Mass and the old ways of the Catholic church. His murder remains unsolved.

S3: Season Three: The Devil You Know Dec 13, 2018

The body of Fr. Alfred Kunz was found on the floor of St. Michael School in Dane on March 4, 1998. Twenty years later, his murder remains unsolved.

S2 Ep7: 'I'll see her in heaven' Oct 18, 2017

Police investigate Edward Wayne Edwards in connection with Jefferson County’s unsolved deaths. Edwards once worked at the Concord House, where Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew disappeared from while attending a wedding reception. Edwards, a con man who wrote a book in the 1970s about his transformation from criminal to upstanding citizen, ultimately confesses to killing Hack, Drew and three other people. He denies killing Michelle. Jan comes to accept that she will never know what really happened to Michelle.

S2 Ep7: A troubled history Oct 11, 2017

Police investigate Teri Mueller’s husband, Joe, who has a long criminal record and whom police suspect may have been involved in the death of his son from his first marriage. His account of the events surrounding Michelle’s death don’t match Jan’s and the results of his polygraph are inconclusive, but police can never find the evidence to tie him to the crime.

S2 Ep6: Cults and witchcraft Oct 04, 2017

Tipster Sharon Blasing gives police some of her ex-husband James Dunn’s books, which discuss black magic and the practice of baptizing Satanists with water in which un-baptized children have drowned. Police eliminate Dunn as a suspect in Michelle’s death when they realize he was in jail at the time of her disappearance, but wonder if he was involved in the deaths of 19-year-old high school sweethearts Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, who disappeared the year before Michelle. Flashback to a point earlier in the investigation into Michelle’s disappearance, when police suspected her mother could be involved.

S2 Ep5: The girl in the café Sep 27, 2017

Private investigator Norbert Kurczewski hires a police artist to come up with a sketch of the couple who was with the little girl in the Black Earth Café. One of the waitresses is hypnotized, but she can’t come up with any additional information about them. Teri Mueller tells Kurczewski that shortly after she opened the door for Michelle, she saw the little girl in the back seat of a white car. A woman named Sharon Blasing tells police the man in the sketch resembles her ex-husband.

S2 Ep4: Missing mom Sep 20, 2017

Jan Manders can’t accept the finding that her daughter’s death was an accident. She walks away on her daughter Jennifer’s fifth birthday and declines into substance abuse and mental illness. Jennifer and her older brother, Christopher, are pretty much left to raise themselves. Jan hires a private detective, Norbert Kurczewski, to investigate Michelle’s disappearance. Kurczewski tracks down a waitress and several patrons at a restaurant in Black Earth, about 70 miles away, who say they saw Michelle there during the time she was missing.

S2 Ep3: Where's Michelle? Sep 13, 2017

A couple of months before Michelle Manders disappeared, her mother Jan befriended a woman named Teri Mueller. Teri stayed at the Manders’ house one night when her husband failed to pick her up at 10 p.m. The next morning, both she and Michelle were gone. Two and a half weeks after Michelle disappeared, Teri tells police she opened the door for Michelle that night. They base their classification of accidental death largely on her statement, even though she has an intellectual disability and suffers from schizophrenia that sometimes causes delusions.

S2 Ep2: The shadow man Sep 06, 2017

Watertown police investigate Michelle’s death on their own for 24 hours and find her mother’s purse about a block away. Police and her family search for the free-spirited little girl. Meanwhile, Michelle’s 4-year-old sister Jennifer tells them that on the night Michelle disappeared, a man came into their bedroom.

S2 Ep1: 'Not my baby' Aug 30, 2017

Two-and-a-half-year-old Michelle Manders disappears from her Watertown home in the middle of the night in October 1981. About three weeks later, her body is found in the Rock River, which winds through town.

Hers was the fifth in a series of strange disappearances and deaths in Jefferson County over a seven-year period. At first, police suspect she was abducted. But after her body is found, officials deem it an accidental drowning.

The district attorney at the time doubts that conclusion, and a review by the Journal Sentinel reveals shortcomings in the investigation.

Season Two: A toddler’s death, a tangled trail Aug 16, 2017

Coming Aug. 30: Authorities quickly ruled the death of 2 ½-year-old Michelle Manders an accident. But there were shortcomings in the investigation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigates: Did Michelle wander off in the middle of the night? Or was she kidnapped?

S1 Ep7: A new beginning Dec 16, 2015

A new detective takes over the John Zera homicide investigation and discovers a serial killer with Wisconsin ties.

S1 Ep6: Blinded by science Dec 09, 2015

By 2009, Detective Kent Schoonover fears the chance to solve John Zera's murder has slipped away, in part because the eccentric medical examiner who did the autopsy made a mess of it.

S1 Ep5: What did we miss? Dec 02, 2015

Two years after John Zera was murdered, an anonymous tip about a Franklin High substitute teacher with an unusual interest in boys' feet would generate a new prime suspect.

S1 Ep4: Citizen detective Nov 25, 2015

The day after John Zera's body was found, Daniel Acker was found standing over the crime scene in Whitnall Park. His alibi for the day of John's death was shaky, but police dismissed him. Acker would strike up a correspondence with the Zera family and start his own investigation into the case, pointing the finger at a mental patient at the facility where he worked.

S1 Ep3: A chilling discovery Nov 17, 2015

In 2009, police investigating the 1976 homicide of John Zera catch a break when a swim coach is arrested for child molesting. A search of the man's condo reveals clues about John's case.

S1 Ep2: Where do we start? Nov 11, 2015

Before John Zera, Hales Corners Detective Howard Hingiss had only handled one murder case. While he narrowed down the suspect list, with the help of the F.B.I. and other departments, he would never discover the identity of the murderer. Twenty-five years after his retirement, and almost 40 years after the crime, the question of who killed John remains unsolved.

S1 Ep1: Have you seen Johnny? Nov 04, 2015

On Feb. 20, 1976, freshman John Zera disappeared from a high school in suburban Milwaukee. In the early days, John's family hoped for his safe return. Later, they prayed whoever was responsible for his disappearance would be brought to justice. Finally, they clung to hope that advances in technology or someone with a guilty conscience would someday offer an explanation of what happened to their Johnny. And why.

In this episode, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Gina Barton looks at how the case began and what drew her to it.

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