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.
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