Crime Traveler Ozarks First Podcasts

In 2013, Sarah Staudte is rushed to the emergency room. Doctors race to save her but all their tests come back inconclusive. The family already lost two family members, a father and son, back in 2012. Is this just a case of bad luck or is there something more sinister happening to this Missouri family? Police intend to find out.

A Lincoln Missouri family is living every parent’s worst nightmare. Their child is gone. One-month-old Jesse Peaster was stolen right from his crib at 10 a.m. in 2004. With the help of law enforcement and Jesse’s four-year-old sibling, Jesse is found unharmed in Kansas City. How did he get there? And why does this case not only baffle the parents but law enforcement as well?

When Missouri Highway Patrol Trooper Russell Harper pulled over a pickup truck in February of 1987, the events that would follow changed the lives of his family, his fellow law enforcement and the armed man behind the wheel. That suspect was Glennon Paul Sweet and witnesses say he came out of his truck firing at Harper who died after taking a bullet above his eye. A description of Sweet prompts a massive multi-county manhunt. In this episode, former trooper Sam Kaunley describes the days-long hunt for the killer and the heart-stopping moment he was face-to-face with the man who killed his friend.

In 2007, 9-year-old Rowan Ford was left in the care of her stepfather while her mother went to work. Her stepfather and his friends would then have a night of drinking and smoking weed. The next day Rowan Ford was nowhere to be found. It wouldn’t be until later during the investigation that one of the stepfather’s friends would know something about her whereabouts. In this episode, you’ll hear sound from one of the lead investigators on the case and how it impacts him to this day.

A mother who started a lie becomes greedy. A daughter who wanted to be free finds a way. A boy willing to do anything for love loses himself. This is the first of three episodes about the Gypsy Blanchard case. Gypsy’s mother Dee Dee held on to her daughter so hard she ultimately loses her and more in the end. This is the story of Dee Dee Blanchard.

In 1988, a Stone County grandfather, grandmother, and their 19-year old grandson were gunned down in a gruesome killing. Investigators said it was one of the most disturbing crime scenes they had ever witnessed. Law enforcement, and loved ones of Lloyd, Frankie, and Willie Lawrence, were left with a major question: who would brutally murder this family out for a Sunday ride on their four-wheelers?