Recent Episodes
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The Odon Fire Poltergeist
For this episode, we head up to Daviess County, Indiana, to look into a case from 1940 that the Indiana State Fire Marshal called "the most baffling mystery he had ever seen" before officially closing it as unsolved. People in the area still call it the Odon Fire Poltergeist.
Before we even get to the day the fires started, you have to talk about the history of this piece of ground because it makes you wonder if the place was cursed long before 1940. Back in the mid-1800s, a man named Marshall Ketchum built a house there. In the 1880s, five members of his family died on the property from what was called burning fever, which was likely typhus. Later on, the home was sold to a spiritualist named Andrew Wickle. Tragic bad luck struck again when Wickle’s son was killed in a hunting accident. Devastated by grief, Wickle had his son buried right in the yard in a custom casket with a glass window so he could look down at his face, and he claimed he regularly talked to his deceased son's spirit.
By 1940, a man named William Hackler lived on the farm with his wife Minnie and their five kids. Everything was uneventful until Friday, June 21, 1940.
That morning, wallpaper in an upstairs room suddenly burst into flames. The fire department rushed out, assuming it was a bad chimney. But when they tore down the plaster, there was no chimney anywhere near that wall, no electrical wiring, and no stove fire burning. From 9:00 AM until 11:00 PM that night, 28 separate spontaneous fires broke out all over the house.
The fires were completely unexplainable. Papers inside a closed desk drawer caught fire. Curtains ignited right behind visiting neighbors, but the window shades underneath them were untouched. A calendar burned up on the wall without even scorching the wallpaper behind it. Paper between a bed spring and mattress burst into flames and destroyed the bed. The family was so terrified they slept out in the front yard that night.
The State Fire Marshal investigated thoroughly, but they never found a single trace of arson, chemical reaction, or electrical fault. The story went nationwide and was even featured in a Collier’s Magazine ad for Travelers Insurance in 1941.
I actually got the chance to talk with 90-year-old Daviess County historian, Don Cosby, for this episode. He shared that the Hackler family left the county not long after the fires, and no trace of the family remained in the area. With help from Don's son-in-law, I managed to get the exact location of the old farm and took a drive up there. The old house is long gone now, and the site is just open farmland today.
Was it a genuine poltergeist, a bizarre natural phenomenon, or something else entirely? Listen to the episode and judge for yourself! -
Disappearance, Murder, True Crime, Unexplained
The Disappearance of Theresa Rideout
If you caught the first episode about the Four Seasons Motel, you might remember me briefly mentioning Theresa Rideout. She was the girlfriend of Jack Barnett, the man who ended his life at the motel. But while Jack’s tragic end was documented, Theresa’s story is a mystery.
When I first came across Theresa’s case in an old local newspaper article listing area cold cases, I was struck by how little information was actually out there. Even on official missing persons pages like the Indiana State Police site, her name is spelled wrong, details are minimal, and there isn't even a photo attached to her profile.
Part of the reason her story has been so quiet is that Theresa did not have a huge network of people in her corner. Her mother passed away when she was six, her dad died when she was seventeen, and she had no siblings. She married young, had a son named Matt, but after a divorce in the mid-80s, she mostly kept to herself and moved around. Tragically, both her ex-husband and her son passed away years later, leaving virtually no immediate family left to keep her case in the public eye. When I reached out to a relative of her ex-husband while doing genealogy research, they told me her disappearance was just considered a big family mystery. Some relatives assumed she had simply drowned in the river, but no one really knew.
Here is what we actually know about her final days. On September 2, 1994, Theresa and Jack left the American Legion in Newburgh around 10:30 AM so Jack could drive her to her 11:00 AM shift at the Main Street Burger King in Evansville. She worked her full shift, was in a great mood, and at 7:00 PM her manager trusted her to take the night cash deposit up to the bank. She made the deposit, said "see you tomorrow" to her co-workers, and drove off in Jack's red pickup truck.
That was the last time anyone ever saw her. She left her final paychecks unclaimed, and her beloved dog, River, vanished right along with her.
What really bothers me about the timeline is what happened next. If Theresa was seen leaving work in Jack's truck, Jack was almost certainly in that truck with her. Did they get into a fight on the way home?
Stranger still, four days after she disappeared, Jack walked into Don and Donna's sports bar in Newburgh by himself. The bartender said he acted completely normal, had a drink, and never mentioned anything about Theresa being missing. Then, a few days after that, Jack checked into the Four Seasons Motel and took his own life, leaving a note for his daughter that made zero reference to Theresa.
Most investigators seem to assume the obvious story: Jack killed Theresa, hid her body along with the dog, and then killed himself a week later. But a full week is a really long gap for a murder-suicide scenario where the perpetrator just goes about his normal life, grabbing drinks at local bars in the middle of it all. Were they involved with the wrong crowd? Did something go wrong with shady associates? Or did Jack snap after a week of her being missing?
Theresa Rideout deserves to have her story told just as much as anyone else, even if she did not have a massive family network fighting to keep her name in the headlines.
Give the episode a listen and let me know your take. -
Cryptid, High Strangeness, Unexplained
Garvin Lake Creature
This one is a little different because it is a personal story that happened in Evansville, Indiana, on Saturday, August 21, 2021.
My wife and I had headed over to Bosse Field around 7:00 PM to catch an Evansville Otters game. Our daughter performs with the dance team, so we always go out to support her. But full disclosure, neither of us are big baseball fans. Since the game was delayed by rain, we decided to walk around Garvin Lake to stretch our legs and pass the time before the fourth-inning dance.
It was a nice 75-degree evening, and the park was almost completely empty. As we were walking along the northwest corner of the lake path, something caught my eye about 200 feet out in the water.
At first, it looked almost like two green ducks floating parallel to the sidewalk. But the more we stared at it, the stranger it got. It didn't look like an animal, but it didn't look like a normal tree branch either. It looked like a clump of leaves or a leafy bush floating on the surface, moving deliberately through the water and leaving distinct ripples behind it.
I stopped walking to make sure my eyes weren't just playing tricks on me while we moved. Sure enough, this thing was actively moving across the lake.
Just as I turned my head to grab my phone and try to get a photo, Sherry gasped. Whatever it was had just dove straight under the surface, creating a massive splash and wake like someone dropped a huge rock into the water.
We figured if it was something air-breathing, it had to pop back up eventually. We stood there watching the water for about ten minutes, and then walked around to the other side of the lake to keep an eye on the spot. It never came back up. It just vanished under the water and stayed down.
I am definitely not claiming we saw some kind of legendary lake monster or cryptid living in Garvin Lake. My best practical guess is maybe a huge catfish got snagged on some discarded fishing line that was wrapped around a tree branch, dragging the branch along the surface until it pulled it back under. But honestly, who knows?
Have you ever seen anything bizarre out at Garvin Lake, or do you have a theory on what we saw? Give the episode a listen and let me know. -
Disappearance, Murder, Paranormal, True Crime
Four Seasons
Thanks for checking out the very first episode of River City Mystery!
If you drive down the highway just outside Mount Vernon, Indiana, you might pass right by the Four Seasons Motel without thinking much of it. It is a quiet, family-run spot owned by Rodney Cox and his mom, Jean. They run it today, and they were running it back in the fall of 1994 when things took a really dark, strange turn.
It started with a mystery that still hasn't been solved. On September 2, 1994, a local woman named Terry Rideout finished up her shift at the Main Street Burger King in Evansville, ran the night deposit, and drove off in her boyfriend Jack’s red pickup. She was never seen again. When people went to check on her home, the only thing missing was her dog, River. To this day, Terry is still listed as a missing person in Indiana.
A week after Terry vanished, Jack Barnett checked into the Four Seasons Motel alone. He brought two things into the room with him: a VHS copy of the movie Falling Down and a gun. After watching the movie, he wrote a quick note to his daughter and ended his life. The room was locked from the inside with the security chain, and police ruled it a suicide right away.
That is tragic enough on its own, but what happened next is where the story gets bizarre.
About a month later, Rodney and Jean started getting constant complaints from guests staying in that same room. Night after night, different people who had no idea what had happened in that room kept coming to the front desk with the exact same story: the TV would turn itself on every night right at 10:00 PM. Rodney even swapped out the TV for a completely different one, but it kept happening.
Eventually, when standard maintenance couldn't fix it, Rodney and Jean realized they needed a different kind of help. They called up a local preacher to come out, pray over the space, and ask whatever was there to move on.
Was it a real ghost, or just a really weird set of coincidences? Give the episode a listen and judge for yourself.