Crime Junkie

MURDERED: Joyce LePage Part 1

⏱ 44 min listen · ~3 min read

A 55-year-old unsolved murder built on genuinely strange physical clues — a stolen carpet, a misplaced car, an unbloodied crime scene — laid out with the actual case-file details.

Key takeaways

01Joyce LePage, 21, was secretly living in Stevens Hall, an empty dorm under renovation, and was last confirmed seen at 10 p.m. on July 22, 1971.
02The five-foot square of green carpet cut from the Stevens Hall lounge that same night is the carpet her remains were wrapped in nine months later.
03A teenager hunting gemstones found the skeletal remains in April 1972 in Hawaii Canyon, 25 minutes from the Washington State campus.
04Joyce LePage's locked car sat outside a fraternity house long enough to collect a July 29 ticket, and Sheriff Brett Myers doubts it was ever fingerprinted.

Chapters

0:00 · A co-ed and a carpet go missing1:38 · Summer 1971: Joyce's secret Stevens Hall hideaway4:18 · July 22: skydiving, a tavern, last seen at 10 p.m.5:34 · The cut carpet and the purse left behind9:21 · Reported missing; her car found on Opal Street11:54 · Nine months later: remains in Hawaii Canyon+5 more

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WARNING: Roger Hueber

⏱ 45 min listen · ~3 min read

A missing-witness case with an alibi that collapses on tape and a never-before-reported eyewitness account, investigated by the same department the suspect worked for.

Key takeaways

01Cheryl Rucci disappeared on August 9, 2005 — the same day deputies came to serve her a grand jury subpoena to testify against Roger Huber.
02Rucci's statement that she and Huber assaulted a 14-year-old girl in 1999 got him indicted on 21 counts, with a plea deal waiting on her testimony.
03The Niagara County Sheriff's Office, the department that employed Huber as a corrections officer, investigated her disappearance and called her a fugitive.
04Huber's alibi for the night of August 9 — a movie with his daughter — collapsed when the daughter told the show it was cancelled and she went to her grandmother's.

Chapters

0:00 · A journal entry names Roger2:37 · Roger Huber identified; investigation opens5:11 · Cheryl Rucci: victim and accomplice8:59 · Cheryl's confession about 199912:50 · August 9, 2005: Cheryl disappears15:26 · Grand jury indicts on 21 counts+6 more

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MURDERED: Joyce LePage Part 2

⏱ 47 min listen · ~3 min read

The case file's most explosive detail — a strangling history in the victim's own handwriting — was apparently never investigated, and this episode lays out exactly who benefited from that neglect.

Key takeaways

01Joyce LePage's own letter said Mark Wadley had once stayed at a mental institution for trying to strangle people, and no investigator appears to have pursued it.
02Joyce's abandoned car sat three or four houses from 400 Howard Street, the meditation-group home she was about to move into.
03In polygraphs, Mike Lindbergh spiked when asked whether Mark Wadley was involved, and Wadley's heart rate jumped when asked whether Joyce was still alive.
04Bruce Bierbaum, the roommate Joyce was avoiding, first said he saw her asleep on the couch Friday morning — after the carpet was cut — then denied saying it.

Chapters

0:00 · Recap: three theories remain2:43 · The meditation group at 400 Howard Street5:19 · Nervous polygraphs: Mike and Mark10:53 · The letter about Mark Wadley's strangling history13:26 · Kay Garrison on a frightened last week18:38 · The roommate theory: Bruce Bierbaum+7 more

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MURDERED: Carmen Van Huss

⏱ 49 min listen · ~4 min read

It is the rare cold-case episode where the obstacle isn't the killer but the department: the man who solved it was suspended for crowdfunding a $996 DNA test, and you hear exactly what that cost Carmen's family in years.

Key takeaways

01Carmen Van Huss screamed for roughly thirty minutes in a 262-unit Indianapolis complex and not one neighbour called police; one filed a noise complaint instead.
02Indianapolis detectives were right that Carmen knew her killer, but they worked her friends and exes for twenty years while Dana Shepard lived in the same complex.
03The forensic break came from 1993 evidence — blood on a paper bag in Carmen's kitchen trash — that sat untested until 2013, long after DNA testing became routine.
04A $996 test stalled the case for years: the city paid for a test on the wrong sample, declined to redo it, and made Sergeant Bill Carter refund his GoFundMe.

Chapters

0:00 · Thirty minutes of screaming in apartment 302A3:12 · James finds the noise-complaint note, then his daughter4:27 · No forced entry, 60 stab wounds, no weapon ever found7:16 · Carmen's three households and the Schott family11:14 · Retracing her last night, from the hospital visit to 11 p.m.13:56 · The laundry room nobody checked+9 more

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EXCLUSIVE: Nancy Guthrie

⏱ 53 min listen · ~3 min read 🎙 Brianna Whitney

Whitney was inside the newsroom that received the ransom notes, and she reads more of their wording than has been reported anywhere else, then stress-tests the one theory that fits it.

Key takeaways

01Nancy Guthrie, the frail 80-something mother of Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her home in Tucson's Catalina Foothills in the early hours of February 1.
02The first ransom note demanded $4 million in Bitcoin rising to $6 million, and proved itself with a white smartwatch only the abductor could know about.
03The second note said Nancy perished shortly after she was taken and is buried in nature, which would put her death in the investigation's first week.
04The Guthrie side's only reply was a small test deposit into the Bitcoin wallet; it never went active again and no proof of life ever came.

Chapters

0:00 · Brianna Whitney joins Crime Junkie5:29 · Recap: the end-of-January disappearance8:01 · The Catalina Foothills scene and blood on the porch10:32 · Ransom note one: Bitcoin and two deadlines13:05 · The note's exact wording and the smartwatch detail16:57 · February 10: the Nest video drops+9 more

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MURDERED: Alberta O. Jones

⏱ 56 min listen · ~3 min read

It's a documented case study in how a murder investigation can generate an enormous file while the evidence that mattered — fingerprints, blood samples, an unexplained police car on the bridge — disappears from inside the department.

Key takeaways

01Alberta O. Jones was Louisville's first Black female prosecutor, negotiated Muhammad Ali's first contract, and helped register roughly 6,000 Black voters.
02Jones left home near midnight on August 4th, 1965 after Gladys Wyckoff called about a wig, and she was found beaten and drowned in the Ohio River by morning.
03The rented Ford Fairlane held blood across more than half the back seat and showed 51 miles on the odometer, where her known movements account for perhaps 20.
04Evidence went missing inside Louisville PD: the fingerprint cards turned up in a lab trash bin, and the sergeant last seen with them was never questioned.

Chapters

0:00 · A 60-year-old Louisville mystery: who was Alberta O. Jones1:57 · Gladys's midnight call and the wig fitting4:36 · Found in the Ohio River — beaten, then drowned5:52 · Shoes scattered on the bridge exit ramp8:28 · The rental Ford Fairlane and the bloody back seat11:05 · A 2 a.m. convenience store stop and three teenagers+9 more

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MURDERED: Joyce LePage Part 1

WARNING: Roger Hueber

MURDERED: Joyce LePage Part 2

MURDERED: Carmen Van Huss

EXCLUSIVE: Nancy Guthrie

MURDERED: Alberta O. Jones

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