Opened in Los Angeles nearly a century ago, the once-grand hotel would eventually become associated with a disturbing string of deaths, bizarre tragedies, and even two notorious serial killers who called it home.

In this excerpt from Bob Cyphers’ California: Surf, Sand & Murder, we step inside one of the most infamous hotels in America.

If we are delving into bizarre Los Angeles murders, there is no better place to start than the Cecil Hotel, home to unexplained deaths and serial killers.

The hotel in 1924 in what is now the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles, is surrounded by palm trees. Inside, visitors walked into a 700 room building, looked out stained glass windows, and walked on marble floors.

And then, well, things began happening.

In 1931, W. K. Norton checked in from New York. He was found dead in his room, a victim of poison capsules.

Unaware that she was pregnant, 19 year old Dorothy Purcell was a guest in 1944. When she gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom, she thought he was dead. He soon would be, after she threw him out the hotel window. She was found guilty, but insane.

Then in 1962, Pauline Otten decided, after arguing with her husband, she could not take life anymore, and threw herself out the hotel window. A 65 year old man named George Gianinni just happened to be walking down the street at the time Pauline came flying through the air, landing on top of George.

Wrong place, wrong time for George.

In total, there were 16 unexplained deaths at the Cecil. But there was more. It was also the home to serial killers.

Richard Ramirez, the ”Night Stalker,” stayed at The Cecil Hotel during his killing spree. Hotel records show he paid $14 a night for a room on the top floor. He was a notorious guest, known for parading through the lobby in his underwear and later tossing his bloody murder clothes into the hotel dumpster.

And then another serial killer checked in, this one who left his mark worldwide. Jack Unterweger killed up to 15 people, leaving bodies behind in Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States.

The Cecil was finally shut down and the building was eventually sold in 2024.

More Dark Stories from the Golden State

The Cecil Hotel is only one stop on Bob Cyphers’ journey through California’s darker history.

In California: Surf, Sand & Murder, Cyphers travels from Los Angeles and the infamous Black Dahlia murder to small towns, highways, beaches, neighborhoods, and forgotten crime scenes across the state—revisiting serial killers, disappearances, unsolved murders, cold cases, and victims whose stories deserve to be remembered.

California may be famous for sunshine, beaches, and Hollywood dreams. But beneath the postcard-perfect surface lies another California entirely.

Get your copy of California: Surf, Sand & Murder from Genius Books.

On October 9, Diane will join author Marshall Terrill at Bullion Plaza Museum to share her extraordinary story—and talk about the marriage, the murders, and the truth she was forced to confront when the man she loved was revealed as the “Pied Piper of Tucson.”

Read the full story and event details from Copper Area News: Bullion Plaza’s October program is a truly scary story

Read Diane’s Story in Smitty

In Smitty: My Marriage to Serial Killer Charles Schmid, the Pied Piper of Tucson, Diane Schmid tells the story from inside the nightmare—how a teenage romance became a marriage to a killer, and what happened when the truth finally came crashing through.

Written with Marshall Terrill, Smitty offers a deeply personal perspective on a notorious true crime case, told by the woman who lived beside the man at its center.

Get your copy from Genius Books → Smitty

For more than twenty years, everyone believed 14-year-old Jimmy Gilmore had simply run away.

Then, during renovations to his former family home in Baldwin Park, California, a worker spotted a shoe sticking out of the ground.

Jimmy had never run away at all.

His remains had been beneath the house—directly under his parents’ bedroom—for decades.

What followed was a mystery almost as disturbing as the discovery itself: How did Jimmy get there, and who buried him?

BALDWIN PARK

“.... Well, if you want to be a movie star, I can take you to Hollywood. But if you want to stay just like you are, You know, I think you really should….”

Just About a half hour east of Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley, is the community of Baldwin Park. It is famous for being the first location of the In-N-Out Burger, California’s first drive thru, where a combo of a burger, fries, and a cold drink would cost a whopping 50 cents when it opened in 1948. 50 cents then is $6.55 today. And years later Baldwin Park would be known for something much more sinister: having one of the most notorious homes in town in the 12700 block of Bess Avenue.

On January 7, 1962, 14 year old Jimmy Gilmore was at home watching television with his sister Linda and brother Wayne. His parents were not at home. When there was a knock on the door, Jimmy got up to answer it. He then returned, got dressed and told Linda and Wayne he had to go out.

He never came back, and nobody really was worried about him.

His mother Donna thought very little of it; the two had not gotten along, and Jimmy had always been getting in trouble. When he didn’t show up for three days, his mother finally called the police, but she was convinced that he had probably just run off. Police were all too familiar with the Gilmore residence, having been called there numerous times over the years to break up violent family arguments. It seems the parents took to firing gunshots at each other. They always missed.

The police investigation as to where Jimmy was did not get far after his mother told them he was vicious, his brother described him as crazy, and neighbors called him “a pain in the butt.” Everyone in the family agreed on one thing: Jimmy did not get along with anybody. They said it was a relief when he was not around.

Police soon discovered that other neighborhood boys had run away around the same time. It was obvious to all involved that Jimmy had most likely joined them.

Then In 1973, more than ten years after Jimmy vanished, the Gilmores decided to sell their home and move away. New owners moved in, lived there for more than 10 years, and then they sold the home. In 1985, while doing renovations to the home, a worker found a shoe sticking out of the ground. When he went to get a closer look, he discovered Jimmy’s skeleton in a shallow grave under the home, buried face down in a foot of sand, directly under his parents bedroom.

Police tracked the Gilmore family down with the news. Had they never smelled in anything, in all those years? No, they said. Police then located the man who lived there from 1973 to 1984 with the shocking news. Did he ever smell anything? No, he said.

Incredibly, Jimmy’s body lay there for more than 20 years, under the noses of both the Gilmores and the next owner. Nobody ever complained of a smell. The home had sat vacant for years, and was surrounded by livestock. Police could not determine a cause of death, but they knew one thing: Dead people cannot bury themselves. They kept asking themselves another question: “Who buries a person under their own house?” If the killer or killers murdered Jimmy elsewhere, why would they risk bringing him back to his and trying to bury him where his family was living?

Without calling them suspects, the police investigation would take them back to Jimmy’s dysfunctional family. They discovered his older sister had been stabbed to death by her boyfriend in 1979. Other family members gave conflicting stories about their memories. His father James pointed the finger at other family members. Detectives said James Gilmore believes his son never left the house that night.

They were all given polygraphs, and all passed. No substantial leads have ever emerged.

California Has a Darker Side

Behind California’s sunshine, beaches, and Hollywood mythology are stories that rarely make the postcards.

In California: Surf, Sand & Murder, veteran journalist Bob Cyphers explores crimes and mysteries from across the Golden State—including the baffling case of Jimmy Gilmore.

Explore California: Surf, Sand & Murder

Few films are as closely tied to Steve McQueen’s “King of Cool” legacy as 1968’s Bullitt—from the streets of San Francisco to one of the most famous car chases in movie history.

McQueen biographer and Genius Books author Marshall Terrill recently joined Kristen Lopez on the Ticklish Business podcast to talk about the film, its impact on McQueen’s career, and the story behind a movie that remains a cultural touchstone nearly six decades later.

And for readers following Marshall’s work, there’s another reason to tune in: the conversation includes a teaser for his upcoming book, Nothing in Common.

Watch the full conversation below.

More from Marshall Terrill

Marshall Terrill has spent decades chronicling the lives of cultural icons, including Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jay Sebring, and others whose stories extend far beyond the headlines.

While we wait to share more about Nothing in Common, explore Marshall’s books currently available from Genius Books.

Explore Marshall Terrill’s books at Genius Books

Alexandra Kitty joined True Murder to discuss Murder in a Sundown Town and the haunting 1968 murder of Carol Jenkins—a case that remained unsolved for decades and still raises difficult questions about racism, injustice, and the walls of silence that surrounded her death.

Listen to the episode below.

Want to go deeper into Carol Jenkins’s story?

In Murder in a Sundown Town, Alexandra Kitty examines the crime, investigation, cultural context, and decades-long search for answers in a case whose significance reaches far beyond 1968.

Get your copy of Murder in a Sundown Town from Genius Books

Who was the man behind the murders and cryptic messages? What do we actually know about him? And after decades of investigation, speculation, and competing theories, are we any closer to understanding one of America’s most infamous unidentified killers?

Dr. Mark Hewitt has spent years digging deeply into the Zodiac case, examining the crimes, the evidence, the letters, and the many questions that still surround them.

In this live Q&A, Dr. Hewitt takes questions and talks about the case, his research, and the enduring mystery of the Zodiac Killer.

Whether you’ve followed the case for years or have only recently fallen down the Zodiac rabbit hole, this is a fascinating opportunity to hear directly from an author who has devoted extensive research to the subject.

Watch the full Live Q&A below:

Want to go deeper into the Zodiac case?

Dr. Mark Hewitt’s Obsessed: The Search for the Zodiac Killer takes readers into one of the most enduring true-crime mysteries in American history.

Drawing on years of research, Hewitt examines the crimes, the investigation, and the evidence surrounding the killer who terrorized Northern California—and then seemingly disappeared.

If the Q&A leaves you wanting to know more, start with Obsessed.

Explore Obsessed: The Search for the Zodiac Killer

True crime is often built around a mystery. Who did it? What clues were missed? How was the case finally solved? But for author Alexandra Kitty, the heart of true crime has always been somewhere else.

“To me, it was always about empathy… it was always about the people who got hurt.”

In a recent conversation with David McClam on True Crime, Authors & Extraordinary People, Alexandra discusses the story at the center of her book, Murder in a Sundown Town: the 1968 murder of 21-year-old Carol Jenkins in Martinsville, Indiana.

Carol had arrived in Martinsville to sell encyclopedias door-to-door. It was her first day on the job. Before the night was over, she had been stabbed in the heart.

Her murder would remain unsolved for more than four decades.

But Alexandra’s conversation with McClam goes beyond the question of who killed Carol. It explores another, equally troubling question:

Why was Carol’s story so easy for people to overlook?

The Stories True Crime Chooses to Tell

Alexandra came to true crime first as someone fascinated by mysteries, and later as a journalist and researcher working behind the scenes in true crime television.

That experience gave her a perspective most viewers never see: how decisions are made about which cases become television episodes—and which don’t.

In the interview, Alexandra talks candidly about race, media portrayals, the structure of true crime programming, and the circumstances that can cause some victims and cases to receive attention while others disappear from public consciousness.

Carol Jenkins was a young Black woman murdered in a town where racism was not simply an abstract social issue. It was part of the danger surrounding her that night.

Her case became entangled in racism, sexism, gossip, silence, and ultimately decades of unanswered questions.

Murder in a Sundown Town brings Carol back to the center of her own story.

More Than a Cold Case

One of the most compelling parts of Alexandra’s conversation with McClam is her insistence that Carol should be remembered for more than the terrible thing that happened to her.

That distinction matters.

When true crime is at its best, the victim isn’t simply the opening scene of someone else’s mystery.

They were a person.

They had relationships, hopes, plans, personalities and futures that should have continued.

Alexandra’s work asks readers to look at Carol Jenkins that way—and to examine the social forces that allowed her murder to remain unresolved for so long.

The result is more than the reconstruction of a decades-old crime. It is an examination of whose stories receive attention, whose are forgotten, and why those choices still matter today.

Listen to the Conversation

In this episode of True Crime, Authors & Extraordinary People, Alexandra and David McClam discuss Carol’s case, racism, and media portrayals, why the murder received so little attention, the dangers surrounding Martinsville at the time, and the importance of keeping Carol’s legacy alive.

Listen to “Author Alexandra Kitty: Murder in a Sundown Town” on True Crime, Authors & Extraordinary People.

Read Murder in a Sundown Town

In Murder in a Sundown Town, Alexandra Kitty takes an in-depth look at Carol Jenkins’s final hours, the investigation that followed, and the racial and gender politics surrounding a case that remained cold for four decades.

It is the story of a murder.

But more importantly, it is the story of a young woman whose life deserves to be remembered.

Discover Murder in a Sundown Town by Alexandra Kitty from Genius Books.

by James Peinkofer

More than a thousand shoppers were questioned. Witnesses remembered a mysterious woman dressed in blue. Composite sketches were drawn and distributed.

And still, no one could explain what happened to six-week-old Cynthia Ruotolo.

It was Labor Day weekend, 1956, when Cynthia disappeared from an unattended baby carriage at a Sears-Roebuck store in Hamden, Connecticut. What followed was the kind of case that consumes a community: an enormous search, relentless newspaper coverage, countless interviews, and one tantalizing lead after another that ultimately went nowhere.

At the center of it all was the mysterious “woman in blue.”

Several shoppers remembered seeing her near the carriage. Investigators wondered whether she held the key to the disappearance. Her description was circulated, her image appeared in composite drawings, and even a year later authorities were still talking about her.

But Cynthia was eventually found dead in Lake Whitney. And the woman in blue was never identified. Nearly seventy years later, true-crime author James Peinkofer returned to the case with a different question:

What if everyone had been looking in the wrong direction?

A Cold Case Hidden Inside Another Investigation

Peinkofer didn’t initially set out to write about Cynthia Ruotolo.

He discovered her case while researching another Connecticut crime—the story of Virginia Jaspers, which became his book Lilacs in the Rain: The Shocking Story of Connecticut’s Shaken-Baby Serial Killer.

Then he noticed something extraordinary. The Jaspers arrest took place in New Haven. Cynthia disappeared in Hamden, only six miles away. And both events happened during the same Labor Day weekend in 1956.

That coincidence drew Peinkofer into Cynthia’s story. What he found there was even more troubling. Cynthia was not the first Ruotolo child to die.

Years earlier, the family had lost an infant daughter, Ruth. Another child, Gary, had suffered a devastating head injury as a baby and later died. By the time Cynthia was buried in September 1956, Stephen and Eleanor Ruotolo had buried three of their children.

Suddenly, Cynthia’s disappearance was no longer an isolated tragedy. It was part of a much larger—and much darker—story.

Looking Again at the Story Everyone Thought They Knew

In The Woman in Blue, Peinkofer retraces the original investigation, drawing from contemporary accounts and the memories of people connected to the Ruotolo family and the case.

He follows the investigators who questioned shoppers and chased leads. He examines the mysterious woman witnesses believed they saw. He looks closely at Cynthia’s parents, the deaths of her siblings, and details that take on a very different significance when viewed with the understanding of criminal behavior available today.

And ultimately, Peinkofer reaches a provocative conclusion of his own: Cynthia Ruotolo may never have been the victim of a stranger kidnapping at all.

If he is right, the mysterious woman in blue, the figure who captured the attention of investigators and the public for years, may have helped send everyone searching in precisely the wrong direction.

The official mystery has endured for decades. Peinkofer believes he knows why.

More Than an Unsolved Case

For all of its investigation and disturbing questions, The Woman in Blue is also an attempt to return attention to the children whose lives became pieces of a mystery.

Ruth. Gary. Cynthia.

In his acknowledgments, Peinkofer explains that the book was written not simply to uncover crimes from long ago, but to honor their brief lives.

They are, he writes, not forgotten.

For readers fascinated by historical true crime, cold cases, flawed investigations, and the possibility that an accepted story can change when someone is willing to examine it again, The Woman in Blue offers a haunting new look at a nearly seventy-year-old mystery.

The Woman in Blue: A True Crime Investigation into the Unsolved Murder of Baby Cynthia Ruotolo by James Peinkofer is this week’s release from Genius Book Publishing.

And if you’d like to follow the investigation that first led Peinkofer to Cynthia Ruotolo’s story, read Lilacs in the Rain: The Shocking Story of Connecticut’s Shaken-Baby Serial Killer.

For Dr. Mark G. Hewitt, that fascination became something much more.

Hewitt spent 11 years immersed in the Zodiac case, studying the crimes, the evidence, the letters, the suspects, and the questions that have remained unanswered for decades. In this video, he explores one of the most intriguing theories surrounding the case:

Could Ted Kaczynski—the Unabomber—have been the Zodiac Killer?

Watch the video below as Hewitt lays out his case and examines the connections that led him to take the possibility seriously.

Go Deeper Into the Zodiac Case

If the video leaves you wanting to know more about Hewitt’s investigation—and the obsession that kept him searching for answers for more than a decade—his book, Obsessed: My Relentless Pursuit of the Zodiac Killer, takes readers behind that journey.

Part true-crime investigation and part personal story, Obsessed follows Hewitt’s transformation from someone intrigued by an infamous unsolved case into a researcher determined to understand who the Zodiac was and whether the mystery could finally be solved.

Ready to go down the rabbit hole?

Get Obsessed: My Relentless Pursuit of the Zodiac Killer

In this piece, author and longtime law enforcement professional Steve Scarborough examines the extraordinary Anthony Porter case—a story involving not one, but potentially two devastating failures of the justice system—and the case that ultimately made him question the innocence movement.

The Case That Made Me Question the Innocence Movement

By Steve Scarborough

The Anthony Porter case is a prime example of the innocence movement spinning out of control. The case uncovers what happens when overzealous activists within the innocence industry, seeking validation, manipulate the justice system.

A university professor of a journalism school and his students began investigating a death penalty case and decided that a convict who was professing his innocence was wrongfully convicted. The students investigated that case, interviewed a witness, and surmised that Porter was innocent of murdering two teenagers in a Chicago park in 1982. Porter directed the students to other witnesses who said another man, Alstory Simon, was the murderer.

A private detective friend of the professor then obtained a confession from Simon, and Porter was released and exonerated. Simon was convicted and would serve 15 years in prison before an investigation would determine, ironically, that he was innocent and wrongfully convicted.

Porter sued the state for compensation for his incarceration. After the case was reviewed much later, the materials presented by the professor and the journalism students to exonerate Porter were largely discredited. And reinterviews of the original witnesses seemed to confirm that Porter was guilty.

A wrongful conviction and a wrongful exoneration in one case.

In 1982, two people, 18-year-old Jerry Hillard and 19-year-old Marilyn Green, were in a park on the South Side of Chicago, at about 1 a.m., sitting in the bleachers that overlooked the community pool. A man seated near them stood up and shot them. Four other people were in the pool area, and they all saw some portion of the shooting. One man actually saw the shooting, and the other saw the person who shot running toward them. They all said they knew the shooter from the neighborhood.

A responding Chicago officer saw a man running from the bleachers, stopped him, and released him. All of the witnesses, including the police officer, identified Anthony Porter as the shooter. Porter was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to death.

Porter was eventually released after student journalists and their professor, David Protess, at Northwestern University, investigated the case around 1998 and decided that he was innocent. This impression was mainly due to the sightlines around the pool and doubt of the witness testimony. The University and Protess promoted the case, and the media latched onto a new narrative of a wrongful conviction.

The students interviewed Porter and believed him when he said he was innocent. They also interviewed the main witness in the case and saw doubt in his statement and then wrote a statement for him that implied he recanted his testimony. This statement was prepared by a PI working for Protess and completely reversed his court testimony. This information was brought to the media as “the only witness recanted his testimony.”

The witness was later interviewed by investigators, and he denied ever recanting; he believed Porter was guilty and merely wanted to put the whole case behind him.

The Professor and his students eventually brought forward another suspect in the case, based upon a suggestion by Porter. Porter directed them to Walter Jackson, who said Alstory Simon had told him he did the killings. Jackson’s Aunt said that she was there, in the afternoon, not morning, and described two couples in the stands. (Despite all the witnesses saying they saw only one couple, the victims, and Porter. Simon was interviewed by the PI, and the PI showed him a fake video of someone saying Simon had committed the crime. The PI had another intimidating male with him during the interview. The PI also told him about the Jacksons’ statements. Simon confessed in a video recording (Simon later said it was based upon a script the PI had prepared and that the PI had told him he would make money on movie and book deals), and that video was released to the media by Protess.

Protess told the media that Porter was “railroaded,” and that they were objective and unbiased in their investigation. (A student was later interviewed and confessed that they felt the assignment was to “find evidence that would lead to freeing this man.”) The main statement from the professor was that there was an assumption that there was only one witness and that he had recanted, and the media ran with it.

An investigation panel was formed and reviewed information about Simon’s confession, the statements from the Jacksons, the recanting of the “lone witness,” and other statements from the students. The panel decided that Porter was innocent.

Simon was arrested and obtained an attorney, and the attorney convinced him to plead guilty. It was later learned that the attorney shared offices with Protess and the PI.

In 1999, even though Simon’s mother said he was home with her that morning, Alstory Simon was convicted of the murders and given 37 years. He would eventually serve 15 years in prison.

Anthony Porter was exonerated in 1999. Upon his release from prison he told stories about being tortured by police and, in 2005, Porter filed a lawsuit against the state for compensation. The assumption seemed to be that since he was deemed innocent he should be compensated. In defending the lawsuit, the state reinterviewed the witnesses and presented their statements. The jury refused to award Porter any compensation.

A federal inquiry was eventually conducted, and all available witnesses were interviewed, including Inez Jackson. The discrepancies in her account about the genders of the people at the pool and the time of day were exposed, along with the number of shots she heard, and the fact that Inez was Simon’s ex-wife.

They also learned that Walter Jackson had been incarcerated with Porter and that Porter had convinced Jackson to get Inez to help him. Jackson said that Porter had said he was working with Professor Protess, and this would get him out of prison. Jackson later admitted that he had lied, and Inez also later admitted she had made up her story.

When the other witnesses were interviewed, none of them said they saw Simon there, but all said they saw Anthony Porter at the pool that morning, and just one other couple of young people.

In 2014, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez noted the investigation of the case was corrupted, and her office could no longer maintain the legitimacy of Simon’s conviction. Simon was released from prison in October, 2014.

The spotlight then reverted to the journalism school and Professor Protess. The professor and students also came under fire for journalistic improprieties in the Anthony McKinnery case. Prosecutors noticed some inconsistencies in the journalists’ interviews of supposed witnesses. In 2011, Professor Protess was suspended by the university for doctoring internal records.

As a matter of interest, Porter had a criminal record prior to the murders, including robbery, theft, and assault. A number of other people also came forward saying they had been robbed by Porter; one even had been robbed by him at the location of the killings.

Additionally, Porter was arrested in 2011 for stealing deodorant from a Chicago pharmacy. He pleaded guilty to retail theft and was sentenced in 2012 to one year in prison.

Steve is the author of The Innocence Machine: The Innocence System Gone Haywire, an investigative examination of the evolving innocence movement and the distinction between the evidence and the media narrative. The book explores the importance of maintaining objective evidentiary standards while pursuing justice.

Want to Dig Deeper?

If Steve Scarborough’s examination of the Anthony Porter case has you questioning how evidence, assumptions, and competing narratives can shape our understanding of a crime, continue exploring his work.

In True Crime in Real Time, Steve puts you in the detective’s seat. You’ll examine crime scenes, review evidence, question witnesses, and work through real cases as they unfold—deciding for yourself where the evidence leads.

And in The Skeptical Juror’s Handbook, Steve takes a closer look at how we evaluate evidence, recognize bias, and think critically about the stories presented to us in the courtroom and beyond.

Explore True Crime in Real Time

Explore The Skeptical Juror’s Handbook

That may be the wrong question.

Because recognizing danger isn’t necessarily about recognizing a certain kind of person. It’s about recognizing behavior. The tactics someone uses, the boundaries they test, and the moments when your instincts begin telling you something isn’t right.

That idea sits at the heart of this week’s release from Genius Book Publishing, Red Flag Ready: How to Recognize Predator Tactics, Trust Your Instincts, and Live with Confidence, Not Fear by Tye Holand.

Perhaps the most important words in that title are the last two:

Not fear.

Awareness Without Fear

There’s a difficult balance when we talk about personal safety.

Ignore potential warning signs, and we can leave ourselves vulnerable.

Focus too heavily on everything that could go wrong, and suddenly the world becomes something to fear.

Red Flag Ready offers another approach: learn to recognize predator tactics, listen to your instincts, and develop the confidence to respond when something feels wrong.

Because awareness and fear are not the same thing.

Fear can make the world feel smaller.

Awareness can help you move through it with greater confidence.

Trusting the Voice That Says Something Isn’t Right

We’ve probably all experienced it in some form. A conversation shifts. Someone pushes a little too hard. A boundary doesn’t seem to matter to them.

You can’t necessarily explain what’s bothering you, but somewhere inside, a quiet voice says:

Something isn’t right here.

It can be tempting to dismiss that feeling. We don’t want to overreact. We don’t want to seem rude. We tell ourselves we’re probably imagining things.

But Red Flag Ready asks us to take those instincts seriously.

Not as a reason to live suspiciously or fearfully, but as information worth paying attention to.

Experience Behind the Message

Author Tye Holand comes to this subject with a background that gives the message particular weight.

A retired detective and human trafficking rescue operator, Holand has spent his career in a world where recognizing dangerous behavior matters.

Now, with Red Flag Ready, he turns that experience toward a simple but powerful goal: helping others recognize predator tactics, trust their instincts, and live with greater confidence.

The message is summed up on the book’s cover:

“The best time to recognize a predator is before they recognize your vulnerability.”

That isn’t a call to be afraid of everyone you meet.

It’s a call to become more aware of what you see, what you feel, and what you’re willing to accept.

Be Aware. Trust Yourself. Keep Living.

There will always be things in life we cannot control.

But learning to recognize warning signs doesn’t have to make us more fearful of the world.

It can make us better prepared to live in it.

That distinction is what makes the premise of Red Flag Ready so compelling. The goal isn’t simply to recognize danger.

It’s to develop enough confidence in yourself that awareness becomes empowering rather than limiting.

Recognize the tactics. Trust your instincts. Live with confidence, not fear.

Red Flag Ready by Tye Holand is this week’s release from Genius Book Publishing.

From an unsolved 1874 family murder to the sole survivor of a supermarket massacre, veteran journalist Bob Cyphers revisits the cases that stayed with him.

Some crime stories end with an arrest, a conviction, and an answer.

Others stay with you.

Veteran CBS reporter and true-crime author Bob Cyphers spent decades covering stories most of us only encounter in headlines. In a recent conversation on the Fireside Podcast, Bob takes listeners behind several of the haunting cases featured in his book 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest.

Among them is the 1874 Saxton family murder, a case that has remained unsolved for more than 150 years.

There’s also the bizarre mystery surrounding Ricky McCormick, whose body was discovered in a Missouri field in 1999. Investigators found two pages of coded writing in his pockets—notes so puzzling that even the FBI has been unable to decipher them.

Bob also discusses the disappearance of Gina Dawn Brooks and other cases that remain frozen in time, leaving behind unanswered questions and families still waiting for answers.

But one story had a very different ending.

The Survivor Who Helped Solve a Massacre

In 1987, two gunmen entered a National Supermarket in St. Louis and forced employees into a back room.

What followed was horrific.

Seven people were shot.

Only one survived.

Harold Meyer had been shot twice in the head, yet somehow he lived—and ultimately helped investigators identify the men responsible for the massacre.

It is one of the extraordinary stories Bob recounts in 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed, and in this interview, he shares what happened that night and the clue that helped bring the killers to justice.

Watch the Conversation

Bob joins hosts Seth Rosczewski and Rich Little on the Fireside Podcast to talk about these cases, his decades in journalism, and what it means to revisit crimes that have never truly been put to rest.

Watch the full interview below:

Read 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed

For decades, Bob Cyphers reported on murder, mystery, and crime from the front lines of television journalism.

In 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest, he returns to some of the most unforgettable cases he encountered—twenty-five mysteries that remain unsolved and one remarkable case in which a survivor helped bring the killers to justice.

If the stories in this conversation leave you wanting to know more, step inside the cases with the reporter who covered them.

Get your copy of 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest.

Four Decades of Journalism, Unsolved Crimes, and Stories That Refuse to Be Forgotten

For more than forty years, journalist and author Bob Cyphers has pursued some of America’s most significant—and unforgettable—news stories.

His career has taken him from the rescue of Baby Jessica to the unrest following Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, as well as presidential visits, championship celebrations, and countless stories unfolding in communities across the country. Bob has worked in newspapers, radio, and television, spending thirty-five years as a senior editor at KMOV-TV in St. Louis.

But some stories do not end when the cameras stop rolling.

Bob’s investigation into the still-unsolved I-70 serial killings became the award-winning television series “Chasing the I-70 Serial Killer.” The series earned an Edward R. Murrow Award—one of journalism’s most prestigious honors—and helped bring national attention back to crimes that had faded from the headlines but never from the lives of the victims’ families.

That same commitment now drives Bob’s true-crime books.

With a journalist’s attention to evidence and a storyteller’s compassion for the people behind the cases, Bob revisits murders, disappearances, and unanswered mysteries that continue to haunt families and communities. His work is not about turning tragedy into entertainment. It is about preserving the victims’ stories, examining what is known, and keeping alive the possibility that someone, somewhere, may still hold the missing piece.

Today, Bob and his wife, Alison, live in Normal, Illinois, where they spend their days chasing a very different—and much happier—group: their grandchildren.

Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer

In 1992, a series of seemingly motiveless murders occurred in stores located near Interstate 70. The victims were shot in broad daylight, yet little or nothing was stolen. As investigators connected cases across Missouri, Indiana, and Kansas, the media gave the unknown gunman a name: the I-70 Serial Killer.

He has never been caught.

Decades later, advances in DNA technology inspired law-enforcement agencies from several jurisdictions to unite for another attempt at solving the crimes. Bob Cyphers and his KMOV-TV team were invited to follow the task force as investigators traveled from city to city, reexamining evidence and searching for the breakthrough that had eluded them for years.

Dead End takes readers inside that investigation, revealing evidence and details that had not previously been made public. More importantly, it ensures that the victims—and the search for justice—are not forgotten.

The task force may have closed, but the case is not over. Follow the investigation, examine the evidence, and help keep the victims’ stories in the public eye.

Order Dead End: Inside the Hunt for the I-70 Serial Killer here:
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25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest

Across the Midwest, families are still waiting.

They are waiting to learn what happened to a missing daughter, who murdered a mother near her own home, and why promising young lives ended without justice. Some cases have remained unsolved for decades, frozen in time while investigators and loved ones continue searching for answers.

In 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed, Bob Cyphers revisits twenty-six unforgettable crimes from Missouri, Illinois, and surrounding communities. Twenty-five remain cold. One demonstrates what can happen when persistence, evidence, and the right detail finally come together.

Drawing upon decades of journalistic experience, Bob examines the facts while never losing sight of the human beings at the center of them. These are not merely case files. They are stories of lives interrupted, families forever changed, and communities that have never stopped wondering.

Enter the heart of twenty-six haunting Midwestern cases—and discover why even a mystery frozen for decades may still have a chance to thaw.

Order 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest here:
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California: Surf, Sand & Murder

California is known for golden beaches, Hollywood dreams, palm-lined streets, and endless sunshine.

But beneath that familiar beauty lies a darker history.

In California: Surf, Sand & Murder, Bob Cyphers travels town by town through the Golden State, revisiting real murders, disappearances, serial predators, and cold cases that continue to leave families searching for answers.

The journey includes infamous crimes such as the murder of Elizabeth Short—the Black Dahlia—as well as lesser-known victims whose names and stories deserve to be remembered. From Los Angeles and Anaheim to Santa Cruz, San Diego, Bakersfield, San Francisco, and beyond, each chapter reveals another place where ordinary life was shattered by violence.

Some of these mysteries are legendary. Others have nearly disappeared from public memory. Bob brings them together not to sensationalize tragedy, but to restore attention to the lives behind the headlines—and to the possibility that time, evidence, or one person’s memory may still lead to justice.

Look beyond California’s postcard-perfect image and discover the haunting true stories still waiting beneath the surf and sand.

Order California: Surf, Sand & Murder here:
https://genius-books.myshopify.com/cart/52557059916055:1?channel=buy_button

Stories Remembered. Questions Reopened. Hope Kept Alive.

Throughout his career, Bob Cyphers has understood that journalism is not simply about reporting what happened. It is about asking what remains unanswered, remembering who was lost, and refusing to allow important stories to quietly disappear.

His books invite readers to look beyond the crime-scene tape and newspaper headlines to see the victims, families, investigators, and communities left behind.

Because every cold case was once someone’s whole world.

Explore Bob Cyphers’ true-crime collection and help keep these stories—and the search for justice—alive.

Her brutal death captured the nation’s attention, inspired countless theories, and produced more than 150 suspects. Yet nearly eight decades later, the identity of her killer remains unknown.

Read this haunting chapter from California: Surf, Sand & Murder and step beyond the palm trees and movie premieres into one of Hollywood’s most infamous unsolved mysteries.

LOS ANGELES

“.... All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I’ve been for a walk, on a winter’s day. I’d be safe and warm If I was in L.A….”

Even the FBI has given up on solving the case of “The Black Dahlia.”

“The murderer has never been found, and given how much time has passed, probably never will be,” says their website.

There was no shortage of suspects in Elizabeth’s murder, as more than 150 of them emerged for one of the most popular ladies in Tinseltown. She was a 22 year old aspiring actress. She had spent the day with Robert “Red” Manley, married man, in San Diego on January 9, 1947. Back in Los Angeles, she had dinner with a sister who was visiting from Boston, and then she disappeared, her beaten nude body discovered a week later, in a vacant lot near Leimert Park, home of famed singers Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald, on the city’s southside.

Her body had been cut in half, drained of blood, and scrubbed clean. And then there was her face: Her mouth was cut from its corners to her ears, in surgical precision, leaving a “Glasgow smile,” a signature wound that had become legendary in Scotland. And her body was placed, perfectly, in plain sight, for everyone to see. Autopsy reports say she had only been dead for about 10 hours. From where her body lay you could look up and see the giant Hollywood sign hanging over the city.

Ten days after the murder, the case took a bizarre twist, as the banner headline in the Los Angeles Examiner screamed “Dahlia Killer Mails Contents of Missing Purse to Examiner!”

The newspaper had received a manilla envelope that contained Short’s birth certificate, photographs, business cards, various names written on pieces of paper, and an address book. To make matters more bizarre, everything in the envelope had been cleaned with gasoline, just as Short’s body had been cleaned. Police contacted every name in the address book, including some 75 men, all of whom claimed they never had any type of relationship with Short.

Police then began looking at suspects with medical knowledge, perhaps butchers. The FBI interviewed students at the University of Southern California Medical School, which was close to the homicide scene. Eventually, some 150 suspects came and went and the case went cold.

Police early on focused on a man named Leslie Dillon. He was a bellhop and a former mortician’s assistant, knew details about the case, and had ties to someone who knew Short. Famed gangster Bugsy Siegel was a suspect for a time. A homicide detective would later write a book and claim his father was the killer. And now, some 70 years later, a retired detective who worked on the case has come forward and named a suspect: a surgeon whose estranged wife lived just a block away from the crime scene. Over the years, hundreds of people have confessed to the killing. Police do not believe any of them.

Time magazine listed the case as one of the most infamous unsolved cases in history. It remains one of the oldest and most famous in Hollywood, and in 2006, it hit the big screen, The Black Dahlia directed by Brian DePalma and starring Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank.

Continue exploring California’s darkest true-crime stories in California: Surf, Sand & Murder. Get your copy today.

Some bonds are difficult to explain.

Twins often speak of sensing when something is wrong with the other—even from miles away, even before there is any reason to worry.

For Terry Lewis, that uneasy feeling began when her sister failed to show up for an evening they had planned together. Sherry was dependable, successful, and in the middle of building a life she loved. There was no obvious reason for her silence.

But Terry knew her sister.

And before the night was over, she would learn that her fear had been justified.

A TWIN ALWAYS KNOWS

Life was going wonderfully for Sherry Lewis. She had just purchased and was remodeling a beautiful home on the lake. She dressed like a queen and drove a Corvette. She was at the top of her game as a real estate agent for the Massey and Bagley Realty companies in Decatur, Illinois. Sherry had an afternoon house showing, then would head down to the 1994 Decatur Fall Festival to meet her twin sister Terry for a night of fun.

The request to see the house on Finch Drive came in the night before, after office hours. Sherry was the agent on call, and made plans to meet with the prospective buyer at 1 p.m. As the night wore on, Terry kept trying to call Sherry at home and at the office. She was nowhere to be found. For Terry, this was unlike her sister. At 11 p.m., the Festival closed, and Terry drove to Sherry’s house, where she found police cars stationed in front. Back on Fitch Drive, there were more police cars, where Sherry Lewis’ body lay on the kitchen floor. She had been beaten and strangled. The county coroner estimated she was killed in the afternoon.

Panic soon swept area realtors. They would now go to showings in pairs; they would ask for identification from everyone coming into the home; they would ask all visitors to sign a log-in sheet. Meanwhile, Sherry’s keys were missing. Keys that opened every house for sale in the Decatur area.

Police found an appointment book. At 11 p.m. it said “Finch Drive,” and next to it was a man’s name. They traced him to a local hardware store, and found the call made the previous night had also come from the store. But police could never tie him to Sherry or the scene.

And then they were onto another suspect...

Read the Full Story in 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed

Sherry Lewis’s murder is one of the haunting Midwestern cases revisited in Bob Cyphers’s 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest.

Through careful research and decades of reporting experience, Cyphers follows the evidence, the suspects, and the unanswered questions that kept this case alive long after Sherry missed that final meeting with her twin.

Who arranged the showing—and who was waiting for Sherry inside the house on Finch Drive?

Read 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed from Genius Books

The Manson family murders are among the most notorious crimes in United States history and are known around the world. Media coverage of the slaughters has spawned an industrial complex morphing into its own separate genre for nearly sixty years.

On July 22, 2026, yet another Manson film was produced and distributed globally by Hulu, Disney+ and Smuggler Entertainment. It’s created quite a buzz on the internet, legacy news, and was showcased on a six-story electronic billboard on Sunset Boulevard. It reads: MY GRANDFATHER CHARLES MANSON...Discover a New Side to His Dark Side.

For some this might be interesting, even titillating. But for our family, this is yet another reminder that our personal family tragedy is treated as cotton candy entertainment for the masses. Jay Sebring, a revolutionary Hollywood figure until his untimely demise at the hands of the Manson family, is our flesh and blood. My uncle to be precise.

Our family has attended dozens of parole hearings for over two decades to speak for Jay and all the victims who remain silent in their graves… and in unified support of all the victims’ families in an ongoing fight for justice.

Sometime in the early months of 2024 I was contacted by filmmaker Alexandra “Allie” Orton requesting an interview for a documentary she was producing related to Charles Manson. Alexandra was respectful and I politely declined the interview expressing the realities that Manson-centric narratives perpetually exploit the victims, are painful to victims’ families, and create pernicious cultural repercussions.

Ms. Orton informed me her project was different in that the documentary involves an entirely unique story and that the victims would be treated with unprecedented regard. I reminded Alexandra that any story involving the Manson murders, with its focus on the killers and their crimes, is sensational and exploitative in its very nature.

“Until the victims are revealed in their true human dimension, all Manson narratives are parasitical cash grabs,” I said. I went on to inform her that the victims, our flesh and blood, are treated as insignificant props in the mass peddling of their own slaughters.

We discussed a few other things and eventually Ms. Orton shared that her project involved a young woman who recently learned Manson was her grandfather through a DNA test. She added it would follow her journey discovering and processing this new information.

Again, I reiterated the project seemed Manson-centric and that the victims will ultimately be disregarded (“… whether you believe so or not”). We politely signed off and I agreed that she could contact me in the future if she liked.

On August 8, 2024, I delivered a victim impact statement (on behalf of Gary Hinman’s family as a family representative) at Manson killer Bruce Davis’s parole hearing. Less than two days before the hearing the Hinman family was informed “media attendance” was approved. I assumed this would be a reporter.

I recall at the beginning of the hearing there was some confusion as to who the media representative was and precisely what her capacity was since the media person originally granted approval was a man named Eric Cook with Smuggler Entertainment. With prodding from the commissioners, it appeared that Sophia Arguelles was swapped in for Eric Cook. No further information was provided. The commissioners paused the hearing to determine if the switch from Mr. Cook to Ms. Arguelles was appropriate.

This was an unusual occurrence that I had never experienced in any other hearing before. I jotted down their names and production company on my prepared impact statement, along with additional notes throughout the hearing as I always do.

When the parole hearing was reconvened, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation determined Sophia Arguelles of Smuggler Entertainment may observe. The hearing resumed and continued as planned.

The next morning I began to wonder if Sophia and Smuggler were involved with Alexandra Orton’s documentary.

I emailed her and she responded with the following:

Hi Anthony,

Yes, Sophia is the filmmaker I mentioned to you, who recently discovered that Manson is her grandfather. Eric is a producer who helped her request access to yesterday’s parole hearing, and Smuggler is the production company involved. (I’d have to refresh myself on what info I sent to you and what I sent to Kay, but they’re a production company with a documentary wing, and their producers have made the Lionel Messi docs for Apple Plus, the Oscar doc Free Solo, etc.) Sophia wanted to attend yesterday’s hearing so that she could listen to the victims’ impact statements that you and others gave. It’s my understanding she just listened to the hearing as an observer. She was the only person granted access, so I did not hear any of the content myself. I haven’t had a chance to speak with her in depth since the hearing, but she spoke to me briefly yesterday and she shared how moved she was by all of your statements. She actually asked me to drop you a note to thank you for your words. She said she was very impressed by your statement, and she hopes you are well. Sophia mentioned that she came away from yesterday with a much deeper appreciation for the toll the parole hearings must take on all of you.

Allie

I spoke with members of Gary Hinman’s family and, naturally, we were disturbed and upset. We then expressed these concerns to the CDCR. I then requested a transcript of the entire Davis hearing. Upon its arrival I noticed the transcript was labeled “Corrected” and that there was no transcription regarding the interaction involving the Cook/Arguelles confusion. This struck me odd as our families go through a rigorous vetting process and strict fifteen-day deadline to request attendance.

I didn’t give it much additional thought until last week when I viewed the trailer for MY GRANDFATHER CHARLES MANSON. The concerns I originally expressed to the film’s co-director Alexandra Orton regarding exploitation, sensationalism, and victim disregard appear to be prophetic. I say “appear” since I have not seen the documentary, nor do I plan to. But the predictable cash grab, self-promotion, and insatiable bottom-feeding frenzy remain entrenched in the Manson murder industrial complex although the narratives bud and fuse upon demand- “Hollywood Babylon... DA Hero Complex... Helter Skelter... Manson’s Not Such A Bad Guy, He’s Just Misunderstood... CIA Deep state... Conspiracy........”

Now with MY GRANDFATHER CHARLES MANSON, the twist is “nature vs. nurture” and “transgenerational trauma.” Thus the adage, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

Well, here are a few facts to name a few:

• Being stabbed with a butcher knife and carving fork over two dozen times while your wife is stabbed to death in the next room over forty-five times

• Butchering a full-term pregnant woman while her unborn child slowly suffocates for 20 minutes in her womb

• Slicing an innocent man’s face in half with a machete

• Shooting a man in the abdomen in hopes of killing him

• Cowardly tying up a loving couple on peaceful Sunday night and knowing they will butchered like lambs to the slaughter

• Killing an innocent man with four other cowards using blunt objects and knives like a pack of jackals.

TALK ABOUT TRANS-GENERATIONAL TRAUMA.

But there’s money to be had! And spotlights to bask in!

Before the release of the documentary, Sophia Arguelles changed her last name to MADDOX, which is Charles Manson’s last name on his birth certificate. The name change is quite baffling, especially since Sophia describes being “devastated” and “sobbing” after learning Charles Manson was her grandfather. She reiterated the devastation and sobbing fits during her promotional tour. Suspension of disbelief is in order here. Again, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

So, Sophia Arguelles Maddox, Alexandra Orton, Smuggler (apt) Entertainment (apt again), Hulu, and Disney+ all want their piece of the Manson pie. Laughing all the way to the bank. And not just figuratively, but literally.

The other night a friend sent me a clip from a Manson podcast (The Spahn Ranch Channel 2011 on YouTube) in which the host revealed that Sophia Arguelles and her father Daniel attended an event called “Family Jams Day 6” on August 12, 2023. It’s an annual event in which Manson groupies, supporters, and apologists get together for the sole purpose to party on the “anniversary” of the killings. There’s food, beer, even live music. Now, I guess it’s “Don’t let the facts – or even killing sprees – get in the way of a good time.”

There’s pictures and videos memorializing the celebration. Daniel Arguelles is up on stage singing with the band while Sophia is smiling and laughing with the fans. Evidently there were even autographs dispensed.

Hey Sophia, Allie, Smuggler, Hulu, Disney+… is it too late to put that footage in your film?

And while the profiteers plunder their spoils, I ask, “At what cost? And to whom?”

Shame.

For those of us who loved... who love... who are haunted... who fight for our flesh and blood... who fight for justice – this is what matters most: Gary Hinman, Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Sharon Tate, her unborn child, Rosemary LaBianca, Leno Labianca, and Donald Shea.

They for us, remain always, the facts…

Anthony DiMaria is a director and the co-author of Jay Sebring: Cutting to the Truth

Some crimes become part of a place.

They settle into local memory, passed down through families, whispered about in old barns, and tied forever to a stretch of land where something terrible once happened. Over time, fact and legend begin to blur—but the questions remain.

The Saxtown murders are one of those cases.

More than a century later, the story still carries the same unsettling weight: a family lost, a community changed, and a mystery that never found its answer.

THE AX IN THE SAX

The Stelzriede family immigrated to Southern Illinois, like many others, from Germany. They settled in a small rural track of land known as Saxtown, about five miles south of what is now Millstadt, Illinois, which remains steeped in German heritage today.

On March 20, 1874, Benjamin Schneider needed to pick up some potato seeds that he had purchased from the Stelzriede family. At 5 p.m., he ventured to his neighbor’s small log cabin home, a one story home facing east, set back from the road. The family farm was a large one, indicating the Stelzreides were better off than most. Schneider noticed the Stelzriede land was quiet. Nobody was bustling around doing the family chores. The horses and cattle had not been watered or fed. Schneider knocked on the front door. There was no answer. He looked in the windows. Nothing. Schneider went back to the front door and walked inside. What he found was the aftermath of a crime so gruesome, it would eventually captivate the entire nation.

70 year old Carl Stelzriede was lying in a large pool of blood, throat cut from ear to ear, his body nearly decapitated. In the next room was his 35 year-old son Frederich, who the family called “Fritz.” His skull was crushed and his throat slashed. His fingers had been cut off, and were next to his body. Next to him was his 28-year-old wife Anna and their children, three-year-old Karl, and eight-month-old Anna. All had been bludgeoned to death, believed to be by an ax.

Word of the Saxtown murders blared on the front page of the New York Times. The nearby Belleville Advocate joined the chorus. “An investigation revealed a scene that would make the stoutest heart quail,” the paper screamed.

There was one survivor to the carnage of Saxtown, the family dog, Monk. He was found lying on the floor, quietly keeping watch over the bodies. Monk was said to be vicious toward strangers, so police believed the murderer was someone who was friends with the family.

Two men would be charged with the murders. Both were found not guilty. Eight more suspects would eventually be arrested. All ended up being released. The entire tiny town was under suspicion.

The barn that hosted the horses and cattle on that gruesome night still stands tall, with hatchet marks still visible in the wood. In 1986, Randy Eckert, who lives nearby, bought the land and built a small house on the cabin site. Eckert, who was raised in Millstadt, was always intrigued by the legend of Saxtown.

“I always wanted to buy that farm,” Eckert said. “In fact, I decided to live in the house for a couple of years.”

That did not last long. Every year around the anniversary of the killings, Eckert said he and his wife noticed strange things happening. That was enough for Eckert, who moved out and has since decided to rent the home out. For some reason, the renters don’t stay long. Eckert said he’s probably had a dozen people move out. Many of them reported strange occurrences, always around the anniversary of the killings.

The Saxtown murders are one of the haunting Midwestern cases explored in Bob Cyphers’s 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed: Murder and Mayhem in the Midwest.

Drawing on decades of journalistic experience, Cyphers revisits murders, disappearances, and mysteries that continue to trouble families and communities long after the headlines have faded. With meticulous research and compassion for the victims, he looks beyond the evidence to the human lives forever altered by each crime.

Discover the forgotten cases, unanswered questions, and chilling stories that refuse to remain buried.

Order 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed from Genius Books

They are not drawn to the safest road or the most comfortable future. They move toward the places where they believe they are needed, even when others struggle to understand the choice.

Michele Dinwiddie was one of those people.

Her compassion led her into a life very different from the one others had imagined for her—and into a story that would leave her family grieving, investigators searching, and a city confronting questions that extended far beyond a single crime.

“SHE WAS THE BEST OF US”

Michele Dinwiddie decided to volunteer with an agency called Volunteers in Service for America, or VISTA. It was a newly launched government organization, a domestic version of the Peace Corps. VISTA focused on volunteers fighting poverty in some of the nation’s poorest communities.

Michele was assigned to St. Louis, where urban decay and violent crime was growing by the day. Her parents did their best to talk her out of it. Grad school was waiting, they lobbied, a very good job would surely follow, VISTA did not pay anything besides bare expenses, and she was heading into an unknown and possibly very dangerous environment. Surely, she was capable of much more.

Michele would have none of it. VISTA provided her with $200 a month for living expenses. It was not much, but Michele did not care. She found used furniture. She refused financial help from her parents and friends. Her sister Pam remembered hearing Michele’s voice when she called home.

“She was so very proud of what she was doing,” Pam recalled. “She was making a real difference in people’s lives. People who really needed her help. She was thrilled.”

It was a brutally cold March, 1975 day. The temperature dipped to 17 degrees, with the wind whipping off the Mississippi River. When Michele did not report to work that morning, a worried co-worker went looking for her, and headed to her apartment at 3933 North 21st street, Apartment A, second floor. Inside was her body, dressed only with socks. Her throat was slashed and she had been stabbed twice in the chest and once in the abdomen. There was no forced entry, and nothing of significance was missing.

Soon, police had a suspect. An eighth grade boy named Danny Williams, who eventually admitted that he was there the night Michele was killed, but denied that he was the killer. Charges never came. But this story does not end here. Sadly, it only begins. As the years unfolded, Williams would come to be the prime suspect in numerous other St. Louis area murders.

Read Michele’s full story and discover the other unforgettable cases in 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed, available now from Genius Books.

Content note: This post and the book it discusses address childhood sexual abuse, trauma, addiction, and suicide.

For decades, Paul Levey carried a truth that was never his burden—or his shame—to hold.

At twelve years old, Paul was introduced to Gerald Ridsdale, a Catholic priest whom his family had been taught to trust. That trust was deliberately exploited. Paul was groomed, abused, and eventually sent to live with Ridsdale in the presbytery, where the abuse continued.

But The Boy in the Presbytery is not the story of the man who harmed him.

It is Paul’s story.

Written by journalist Monique Patterson, the book follows Paul’s life through the years of silence that followed, the devastating effects of trauma, and his long fight to speak openly about what was done to him. It also examines the institutional decisions that allowed Ridsdale to remain in positions of trust even after church leaders had received complaints and warnings about his behavior.

When Paul finally spoke, telling the truth brought consequences of its own. At one point, a change in Victorian law meant that survivors could not be publicly identified—even when they wanted their names and stories known—without first seeking permission from the court. With support from the #LetUsSpeak campaign, Paul fought for and won the right to tell his own story in his own name.

Ridsdale died in prison on February 18, 2025. But his death did not erase the trauma endured by Paul and the many other children he abused. Nor did it end the questions surrounding the institutions that failed to protect them. Paul continues to speak because silence protected the wrong people for far too long.

This is a painful and confronting book. It contains graphic descriptions of childhood sexual abuse and may not be suitable for every reader. But it is also an account of courage: the courage required to survive, to reclaim one’s name, and to insist that the truth be heard.

Paul Levey was once known publicly only as “the boy in the presbytery.”

Today, he speaks for himself.

The Boy in the Presbytery: Paul Levey’s Brave Battle to End the Silence, by Monique Patterson, is now available from Genius Book Publishing.

Read Paul’s story and learn more about the book through the link below.

Explore The Boy in the Presbytery and other carefully told true crime stories from Genius Book Publishing.

On June 30, 1999, a woman driving past a cornfield near West Alton, Missouri, noticed something in the remote field.

It was the body of a man.

He had been dead for days.

His name was Ricky McCormick, a 41-year-old Black man from Missouri whose life, at first glance, seemed unlikely to draw national attention. He had little money. He could not read or write well. He had never married, though he had children. He had served time in prison. He was often unemployed, living partly on disability, and sometimes stayed with his elderly mother.

No one had reported him missing.

The medical examiner ruled his death “undetermined,” and for a while, it looked as if Ricky McCormick might become exactly what so many forgotten people become after death: a name in a file, a body in a field, a question no one pressed too hard to answer.

But tucked inside the pocket of his blue jeans were two pages of strange, coded notes.

And those notes changed everything.

The FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit studied them. Computers searched for patterns. Experts tried to crack them. The same unit known for breaking wartime codes and solving nearly all the encrypted cases that crossed its desk could not solve this one.

Some dismissed the notes as nonsense.

The FBI did not.

“This is not that case,” one FBI analyst said of the theory that the pages were merely gibberish.

Which leaves the question that still haunts the case:

How did a man who could barely read or write end up carrying a code that stumped the FBI?

THE DEAD MAN’S RIDDLE

On June 30, 1999, a woman driving past a cornfield near West Alton, Missouri discovered the body of a poor black man lying dead in the remote field, dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. A man no one seemed to care about as his body lay decomposed for three days. A high school dropout who never married but had four children. A convicted felon served a year in prison for statutory rape. A father of four children who was never married. A man who was rarely employed and on disability. A man who could not read or write and didn’t own a car. A man still living occasionally at home with his elderly mother. A man who nobody reported missing. The Medical Examiner ruled the death “undetermined.” And there the story appeared to end, just another statistic of a forgotten man of little means.

Yet this obscure man, long forgotten after his death, was about to become an internet sensation. Meet 41 year old Ricky McCormick. Some 30 lines of cryptic notes were found in McCormick’s blue jeans. Cryptic notes that the FBI’s Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) could not solve, quite a statement since they cracked the codes of Nazi spies during World War II, and successfully solve more than 99 percent of such coded cases.

But not this one.

“Nobody can figure out what any of these codes mean,” said a member of the St. Charles County Sheriff’s Department. “It reads like somebody writing a private diary.”

Or something like that.

(MND MKNE M RSE-N-S-M-KNARE) (ACSM) TFRNE NPINSE NPBSE RCB RNSE NPRSE INC PRSE N MRSE OPRE HLD WLD NCBE (TFXLF TCXLF NCBE) AL-PR PPI T XLY PPIY NCBE MGKSE WLD RCB RNSE PRSE WLD RCB RNSE NT SSNE NTKSE-CRSLE-CITRSE WLD NCBE AL WLD NCBE TSME LRSE RLSE U R GLSNE AS N WLD NCBE (NOPFSE NLSRE NCBE) NTE G D DMN SENCURE RCBRNE (TENE TFRNE NCBRTSE NCBE INC) (FLRSE PRSE ON DE 71 NCBE) (CDNSE PRSE ON SFE 74 NCBE) (PR+SE PRSE ON REDE 75 NCBE) (TF NRCMSP SOLE MRDE LUSE TOTE WLD N WLD NCBE) (194 WLD’S NCBE) (TRFXL). ALPNTE GLSE – SE ER+E VLSE MTSE-CTSE-WSE-FRTSE PNRTRSE ONDRSE WLD NCBE N WLD XLRCMSP NE WLD S TS MEXL DULMT 6 TUNSE NCBEXC (MUNSARSTEN MU NARSE) KLSE-LRSTE-TRSE-TRSE-MKSEN-MRSE (SAEG NSE SE N MRSE) NMNRCBRNSEP+E 2PTEWSRCBKNSE 26 MLSE 74 SPRKSE 29KCNOS OLE 175 RTRSE 35 SLE CLGSE UUNUTKEDKRSE PSESHLE 651 MTCSE HTLSE NCUTC TRS NMRE 99.84.52 UNEPLSENCRSEAOLTSENSKSENRSE NSREONSE PUTSEWLD NCBE (3 XORL) DNMSE NRSE 1N2 NTRLERC BRNSE NTSRCRSNE LSPNSE N GSPSE MKSE RBSE NEBE AU XL ‘R HM CRE N MRE NCBE 1/2 MUNDDLSE D-W-M-4 HPL XDRLX

For the McCormick notes, the FBI used computers and state of the art software to look for patterns. Some 15 to 20 experts were brought in to try tocrack the code. No luck.

“Standard routes of cryptanalysis seem to have hit brick walls,” the FBI said.

And nobody in his family knew what the mystery notes meant. And to believe that McCormick was the author is to believe that a semi-literate man who could barely spell his name has stumped the FBI with 30 lines of coded text. Many people look at the notes and laugh, thinking they mean nothing.

“We look at a lot of things that are gibberish, arbitrary strikes on a keyboard,” Dan Olson of the FBI said. “This is not that case.”

“You are talking about a mentally ill man having complex ciphers in his possession,” a detective close to the case told me. “How does that happen?”

Ricky McCormick’s strange and unsettling case is one of the mysteries explored in Bob Cyphers’ 25 Frozen, 1 Thawed, a true crime collection that digs into murders, disappearances, and unsolved cases from the Midwest with a journalist’s eye and a deep respect for the people left behind.

For readers who are drawn to cold cases, unanswered questions, and the human stories behind the headlines, this is one to add to your shelf.