True Crime Central

The Locked Door That Has No Answer - Episode 89

The Fishing Pole That Was Sold for Two Dollars: The Murder of Matthew Margolis A thirteen-year-old boy went fishing on a summer Friday and never came home. His body was found five days later in a shallow pit off Pemberwick Road, covered with leaves and a heavy rock — and the fishing pole his grandfather had given him was gone. One of the Valley Boys later turned up with it, claiming Matthew sold it to him for two dollars. His mother said that was impossible. In this episode, we explore a thirty-second window of screaming heard from a nearby apartment that went unreported for two weeks, a boning knife found hidden beneath the body whose fingerprint results were never made public, and a former police officer convicted of sexual assault in Texas whose DNA was collected in 2004 — yet a grand jury rejected his indictment three years later. Who got into that red pickup truck with Matthew between five-thirty and six o'clock, and why has no one been charged in over forty years? Case Details Victim: Matthew Margolis, 13, student and avid fisherman. Date: August 31, 1984 (disappearance); body discovered September 5, 1984. Location: Pemberwick section of Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. Case Status: The case is officially open and active. No arrests have ever been made. The Connecticut Cold Case Squad continues to list it as an active investigation more than forty years after Matthew's death. Episode Key Points - A boning knife with a six-inch carbon steel blade was found hidden beneath Matthew's body, sent for fingerprint analysis — and the results have never been made public. - A witness told investigators that former Port Chester police officer Roger Kenneth Bates had taken him and Matthew fishing the summer of the murder, and that Bates told him and his father to refuse cooperation if questioned — in 1984, before any investigation began. - The assistant medical examiner noted a scar on suspect Douglas's right shoulder consistent with a fingernail scratch, estimated to be between two months and one year old — placing it within the window of Matthew's death and his documented defensive wounds. - A woman in an apartment on River West heard screaming coming from the direction of Pemberwick Road for approximately thirty seconds on the evening of August 31st — and did not report it until two full weeks later. Matthew Margolis, Greenwich Connecticut homicide, Pemberwick unsolved murder 1984, cold case Connecticut, true crime, homicide, investigation, criminal minds, forensic science, murder, unsolved mysteries, true detective, true crime English.

The Fishing Pole That Was Sold for Two Dollars - Episode 88

She Left Without Her Shoes: The Disappearance of Lucely "Lily" Aramburro A 23-year-old mother walked out of her Miami condo at 2 AM with no wallet, no keys, no phone — and no shoes. The only person home that night filed a missing persons report nearly 24 hours later. When investigators finally ran a polygraph, they told her family he passed. He didn't. In this episode, we explore a fabricated eyewitness sighting that sent Lily's mother searching downtown Miami for days, a polygraph result that showed deception detected on the single most important question in the case, and a case file that sat untouched on a detective's desk for two full weeks while he was on vacation. Was Lily's disappearance the tragic consequence of a vulnerable woman alone in the middle of the night, or did something happen before she ever reached that front door? The forensic timeline and the witness accounts cannot both be true. Case Details Victim: Lucely "Lily" Aramburro, 23, mother of a nine-month-old son. Date: June 1–2, 2007. Location: Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. Case Status: Officially unsolved and open. No arrests have ever been made in connection with Lily's disappearance, and no remains have been recovered despite multiple searches including dive teams, cadaver dogs, and aerial helicopter sweeps. Episode Key Points - The man who filed the missing persons report originally told Lily's mother her prior suicide attempt involved one of his ties — then told detectives it was a bungee cord, the exact item he said went missing the night Lily vanished. - Two witnesses who claimed to have seen Lily alive in downtown Miami later confirmed under separate questioning that they never saw her — and that Christian told them to say it so her mother would "feel better and not worry as much." - The polygraph Christian Pacheco took showed deception detected when asked whether he knew what happened to Lily — yet the family and investigators were told for years that he had passed. - Lily's entry on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement missing persons website contained factual errors including an incorrect height, meaning anyone searching for her was looking for the wrong description. Lucely Aramburro, Miami-Dade missing persons, Florida disappearance 2007, unsolved homicide Miami, true crime Florida, investigation, homicide, morbid, forensic science, missing persons, murder, true crime English.

She Left Without Her Shoes - Episode 87

The Wallet Nobody Was Supposed to Find: The Murder of Evelyn Hernandez A nine-months-pregnant woman steps out to collect her mail on a Wednesday evening — and then simply ceases to exist. The new wallet she bought that same afternoon turns up weeks later in a parking lot one block from her ex-boyfriend's workplace, still carrying an uncashed check. How does a woman due to give birth in six days vanish alongside her five-year-old son without a single person calling police for nearly a week? In this episode, we explore the six-day gap before anyone reported Evelyn and Alex missing, a brand-new wallet found in a fenced lot blocks from a limo company with deep ties to the man last known to see her alive, and partial remains pulled from San Francisco Bay that took over a month to identify through DNA. Was this a crime of desperation by someone facing exposure, or did investigators miss a connection that a murder defense team later tried to force into the open? The forensic science and the geography tell two stories that refuse to align. Case Details Victim: Evelyn Hernandez, approximately 24 years old, pregnant single mother and immigrant working two jobs; Alex Hernandez, age 5, her son. Date: May 1–2, 2002 (disappearance); remains identified September 2002. Location: San Francisco, California, USA. Case Status: Both cases remain officially open with no arrests and no convictions. The San Francisco Police Department has not publicly named a suspect in over two decades. Episode Key Points - Evelyn's packed hospital go-bag was still sitting in her apartment when police searched it — she was nine days from her due date and left without it. - The wallet Evelyn purchased on the day she vanished was recovered May 31 in a fenced parking lot approximately one block from a gas station her ex-boyfriend visited regularly during his limo driving shifts. - Herman Aguilara, the father of her unborn child, waited six full days before reporting Evelyn and Alex missing — filing the report on May 7, the exact date of Evelyn's due date. - Defense attorneys for Scott Peterson formally requested Evelyn's case files in 2003, arguing a single perpetrator killed both women — the judge denied full access and the San Francisco Police stated publicly the cases were unrelated without releasing specifics. Evelyn Hernandez, San Francisco homicide 2002, missing persons California, Latina immigrant murder, San Francisco Bay remains, true crime, homicide, investigation, forensic science, unsolved mysteries, murder, criminal minds, true crime English.

The Wallet Nobody Was Supposed to Find - Episode 86

The Couples Who Vanished on the Parkway: The Colonial Parkway Murders of Four Young Couples in Virginia A car hung off a riverbank embankment at a 45-degree angle, stopped only by a bush. Inside, two women were dead — throats slit, diesel fuel poured over them, unlit matches scattered nearby. The killer had tried to burn the evidence and failed. That was 1986. Three more attacks followed. The bodies kept disappearing. The evidence kept going cold. And for 36 years, no one knew his name. In this episode, we explore a one-inch piece of nautical rope found in a victim's hair that pointed investigators toward a very specific type of suspect, a phantom ranger in an unmarked white car pulling couples over on a darkened parkway, and two victims from 1988 who have never been found — not even their remains. Was this a single killer refining his method across four attacks, or something investigators still cannot fully explain? The forensic science and the timeline raise questions that decades of investigation have not fully answered. Case Details Victim: Kathleen Thomas, 27, stockbroker and Naval Academy graduate; Rebecca Dowski, 21, college student; Robin Edwards, 14; David Knobling, 20; Cassandra Haley, 18; Richard Keith Call, 20; Anna Maria Phelps, 18; Daniel Lauer, 21. Date: October 1986 through September 1989. Location: Colonial Parkway and surrounding areas, Virginia, USA. Case Status: Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. was named as the suspect in the Knobling and Edwards murders in January 2024 following a DNA match. Wilmer died in 2017 and cannot be prosecuted. The remaining cases are officially unsolved and active. Episode Key Points - The killer poured diesel fuel on the first victims and struck matches — diesel requires a much higher ignition temperature than gasoline, meaning the fire never started and evidence was preserved by accident. - A one-inch piece of nautical rope found in Kathleen Thomas's hair led the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit to profile the suspect as a waterman — someone who worked boats and handled fillet knives professionally. - Keith Call and Sandy Haley vanished in April 1988 with no bodies ever recovered — three separate tracking dogs independently indicated the same two spots in the water, but divers found nothing. - Alan Wilmer Sr., the man DNA evidence links to the 1987 murders, had no felony record and no DNA in any law enforcement database — he was only identified because his remains required DNA testing when his body was found decomposing alone in his home in 2017. Colonial Parkway murders, Virginia serial killings, Alan Wilmer suspect, unsolved homicide Virginia, couples murdered 1986 1989, true crime, homicide, forensic science, criminal minds, investigation, murder, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.

The Couples Who Vanished on the Parkway - Episode 85

The Boy Who Watched and Stayed Silent: The Murder of Christy Mullins A fourteen-year-old girl walked into the woods behind a shopping center on a Saturday afternoon and never walked back out. The man who reported finding her body described the killer in precise detail — tall, thin, scraggly black hair, shirtless, wearing cut-off jeans. That description matched the clothes he was wearing when he walked into the shopping center minutes later. How does the first witness on scene describe himself as the suspect? In this episode, we explore a six-hour interrogation of a man with an IQ of 56 who had no legal representation, a ten-year-old boy told by his mother never to speak about what he saw that afternoon, and a degraded male DNA sample recovered from Christy's clothing forty years after her murder. Was the wrong man sentenced to life in prison within eleven days of the crime — while the real killer gave police his own description? The forensic science and the witness testimony tell two stories that cannot both be true. Case Details Victim: Christy Mullins, 14 years old, student and athlete, five days from her fifteenth birthday. Date: August 23, 1975. Location: Clintonville, Ohio, USA. Case Status: Cold case officially resolved without prosecution. In November 2015, Columbus police publicly confirmed Henry Newell as the killer. Newell died in September 2008, making criminal charges legally impossible. No one has ever been convicted of Christy's murder. Episode Key Points - Henry Newell's own witness statement described the suspect as shirtless and wearing cut-off jeans — the exact outfit a shopping center clerk confirmed Henry was wearing when he entered her store moments after allegedly finding the body. - Bobby Newell, Henry's ten-year-old stepson, was told by his mother to never speak about what he saw; when he testified at age twelve, he stated Henry was gone thirty to forty-five minutes — not the few minutes Pam had claimed under oath. - Jack Carnes, a man with an IQ of 56, was charged, entered a guilty plea, and sentenced to life in prison within eleven days of the murder, with no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. - A Newell family member stated that Henry confessed to the killing while driving together — but his version contained two specific factual errors about how Christy's hands were bound and which side of her skull sustained the fatal damage. Christy Mullins, Clintonville Ohio homicide, Columbus cold case 1975, false confession wrongful conviction, Henry Newell murder, homicide, investigation, forensic science, true detective, criminal minds, murder, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.