Townsend, Massachusetts is a small town of less than 10,000 residents bordering New Hampshire.  Townsend is part of Middlesex County, but it borders the Worcester County line and the cases we explore in this episode may be closely connected to each other, and other unsolved murders from the same area and during the same time period. We again return to 1973 and the unsolved murder of 31-year-old school teacher Judith Viewig in Townsend. Then we move forward four years to the same small town and the disappearance of 13-year-old Deborah Quimby in May 1977.  ..read more

It’s just before 9 p.m. on September 30, 1973. Jo-Anne Muldoon's parents arrive at her apartment on Intervale Road in Fitchburg after a call from a neighbor saying they could hear Jo-Anne's three month old son crying.   When they get to the second floor apartment, the door is unlocked. When the enter, the lights won't come on. The power in the apartment is out.   Using light from the flame of a cigarette lighter, the Muldoons find baby Christopher safe in his crib.   It would be their first and only sigh of relief.  They found their daughter’s roommate Debora ..read more

It’s 2:15 in the afternoon on Wednesday, June 5, 2019. Temperatures have peaked, reaching nearly 80 degrees on an overcast day in Worcester.  Police are called to Early's towing on Park Avenue. A van had been towed to their lot minutes before. The smell coming from the van, and the hundreds of flies coming out of the van, convinced Early's staff to call the WPD. When police arrived, an officer climbed inside the van and found a plastic storage container under boxes of clothes, bags of trash and other junk.  The detective lifted the container’s lid to find the body of 56-year-old John ..read more

It’s the middle of the summer. Worcester, 1987. 30-year-old Patricia Evans has just returned to the city after spending a month in a detox center in Springfield.  For over five years now, Patricia has been back and forth, in and out of treatment centers across the state. The constant battle with her addiction to drugs had taken its toll on the young mother of four. But leaving detox this time, there may have been some room for optimism.  But any optimism they may have existed, evaporated quickly. Just a month later, on August 8, 1987, Patricia was found dead in the empty apartment on ..read more

It’s around 1 a.m. on January 13, 1993. Worcester Police officers arrive at the Public Inebriate Program, or PIP, shelter in Worcester’s Main South neighborhood. Police are at the shelter to arrest James Earl Johnson…he’s wanted for the murder of 42-year-old Vicki Lehtinen, whose body was found in the basement of a Pleasant Street apartment building just three days before. Vicki had been beaten and strangled to death. The last time Vicki was seen alive, she was leaving a Main Street bar with James Earl Johnson ..read more

Unsolved: Worcester returns for Season 3 on Tuesday, Feb. 21. The new season will shine a light on 10 missing person cases currently under investigation by the Worcester Police Department’s Detective Unit.  ..read more

It’s just after 12:30 PM on June 5, 1973. 32-year-old Maureen Moynihan and her 4-year-old daughter Jennifer have just dropped off Maureen’s 6-year-old son Timothy for afternoon kindergarten in West Boylston. Maureen and Jennifer have a day full of errands planned. Roughly 24 hours later, Maureen and Jennifer’s bodies were discovered along a dirt road in Rutland State Park. The mother and daughter had been stabbed to death. And their throats had been slashed. Maureen was found lying on the ground outside of her Ford sedan. Jennifer’s body was on the floor of the front passenger seat. More than ..read more

It’s around 9 a.m. on November 8, 1989. A heavy fog across Central Massachusetts is finally lifting and a tragedy begins to reveal itself. A retired construction worker is traveling along Chocolog Road in Uxbridge when he spots a large object along the road opposite of the Route 146 south bound exit ramp. He discovers it’s an open sleeping bag, and it appears something is packed inside of it. Police roll back the front of the sleeping bag to find the body of 17-year-old Jessica Jones inside. Jessica had been beaten to death and stabbed multiple times.  Her body was stuffed inside the slee ..read more

It’s Saturday night in Worcester. May 26, 2018. Memorial Day Weekend. Five teenagers are walking together along Holland Road, heading toward Main Street in the city’s Webster Square neighborhood. At around 11:15 p.m., a vehicle pulls over on Holland Road. A man gets out of the car and fires 10 gun shots in the direction of the five teens. 16-year-old Sidney Krow Junior tries to run from the scene, but soon collapses in the road on Main Street. He has been shot. Thirty minutes later, Sydney is pronounced dead at a local hospital.   ..read more

It’s been more than 30 years since 10-year-old Holly Piiranen was abducted and killed. Holly disappeared on August 5, 1993. Holly was vacationing with her father and brothers at her grandparents cottage in Sturbridge. She had last been seen by her father around 11:45 a.m., heading toward a neighbor's house to play with puppies. It wasn’t until October 23, 1993, 11 weeks later, when Holly’s remains were found by pheasant hunters in an Army Corps of Engineers flood control forest off of a dirt access road along Five Bridge Road in Brimfield.   ..read more