The summer of 1967 was an especially violent one in the United States. Known as "the long, hot summer," there were 159 race riots in America over the course of just a few months, the deadliest of which occurred in Detroit in late July. What led to the deaths of nearly fifty citizens, mostly at the hands of law enforcement officials called in to quell the violence? And what really happened inside The Algiers Motel?
A charismatic waitress in a Yugo headed north to visit the man she hoped to marry. A young father in a Bronco driving south, back toward home. Though their paths did not cross in life, their fates are forever linked by the tragedy that befell them both on the Mackinac Bridge, one of the world's longest (and most treacherous.)
A disgraced Lansing doctor out to make a quick buck by performing "illegal oprations" left countless bodies in his wake. A socialite unable to live with the shame of being an unwed mother took her own life in a Charlotte hotel room. A Benton Harbor farmboy felt murder was the only way out when his flapper girlfriend wound up pregnant. This was the harsh (but not uncommon) reality of the early 1900s, when abortion was illegal in Michigan. Are we headed there again?
When a leisurely Sunday drive near the Michigan/Indiana border turned into a scene out of a horror movie for Ray and Marie Thornton, their lives were changed forever. Their experience, quite literally, inspired a horror movie. But the true story was so much more terrifying than anything Hollywood could conjure up.
In 1998, the body of a young boy was found beneath a billboard along a North Carolina highway. With very little to go on, authorities were not able to determine who the boy was, or who killed him. But one investigator was determined to solve the case no matter how long it took, so he kept the case file in a box beneath his desk, right in his way, so that he bumped his leg on it every time he turned in his chair. The box never let him forget, and he watched and waited for the scientific advancement that would crack the case wide open. When it finally happened, a heartbreaking story emerged, leading authorities to a small Michigan town and another unsolved murder.
In the early 1900s, the auto industry reigned supreme in Lansing. But another, more deadly industry was making moves in the shadows. Fruit. When two rival fruit companies owned by Italian immigrants with strong ties to La Cosa Nostra went to war, no one was safe. Using fruit stands as a front throughout the city, a secret battle raged for years- contract killings, bombings, murder, extortion. Lansing's Fruit War was among the Capital City's best kept secrects...until now.
The name Tom Toaz was well-known in Mid-Michigan at the turn of the 20th century. He was a celebrated lawman, infamous for throwing more citizens behind bars than all of the other constables combined. He had a hand in all of the scandalous, headline-making cases in Eaton County in the late 18 and early 1900s, but no case he was involved in was quite as scandalous as his own.
Born just outside Detroit to a single teenage mother and a violent criminal, Aileen Wuornos had the cards stacked against her from birth. She was raised in a house of horrors, amidst rumors of incest and unspeakable abuse. A child sex worker who gave birth at the age of 15, Aileen lived in the woods behind her family home after she was kicked out by her sadistic grandfather. And that was just the beginning of the cruelty and abuse Aileen would face in her 46 years on Earth. Listen in for more on how one woman's horrific childhood in Michigan led to her becoming the world's most notorious female serial killer.
On February 20, 2016, the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan found itself under siege. From a father/son duo out car shopping to a group of friends meeting for dinner, a madman was methodically gunning down unsuspecting citizens with no rhyme or reason. When the family man responsible for the rampage was apprehended, authorities were not prepare for the story he told them. Did Jason Dalton simply snap on that winter afternoon? Or was he possessed by evil, as he claimed?
When the Detroit Police Department returned Helen Kaminski's three-year-old son to her just days after he was kidnapped by a disturbed young woman, Helen thought her troubles were over. But they were only just beginning. Because three days later, the same woman kidnapped the little boy again, leading to a decade-long nightmare involving corruption, con men, and murder.
As the 1920s came to a close, 22-year-old Bugs Morehouse and 21-year-old Hawthorn Sutton were poised to conquer the world. They were dashing, charming, and whip smart. They both came from well-to-do families and had beautiful young brides. The two friends truly had it all. But they wanted more. What started as a small-town crime spree quickly turned into a nationwide manhunt and a sensational trial, the likes of which one small Mid-Michigan town had never seen.
When Detroit native Robert Wagner moved out to California as a child, he had dreams of making it big. But his obsession with a Hollywood starlet turned those dreams into a nightmare. Named an official person of interest in his wife's tragic death decades after she drowned in the Pacific Ocean, will the 91-year-old face charges (or be exonerated) before time runs out? Or will the ghost of Natalie Wood haunt him to the grave?
When the final bell rang on February 22, 1978, over a thousand teenagers filled the halls of Everett High School, ready to head home for the day. Among them was a 15-year-old Nazi enthusiast with a kill list and a loaded revolver. Listen in for more on the shocking tale of one of modern America's first school shooters.
A creature with the face of a dog and the body of a man that only appears once every ten years, and scares its victims to death. Feral, cannibalistic humanoids that lurk in the woods surrounding the asylum they were forced to leave when it shuttered its doors. A sharp-toothed harbinger of doom that reigns over the Motor City. These are just some of the monsters said to hide in Michigan's dark corners.
