Hell and Gone Murder Line: The Double Homicide of Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Plaztman

Hello, Hell and Gone Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, it’s Curse of: Miss America!!! About the Show: Miss America used to be a national icon. At its peak, the pageant was appointment television, drawing TV audiences that rivaled the Superbowl. But now, the crown is slipping.  The organization is at the center of a tabloid courtroom drama. Two people are claiming to be the rightful owner of the Miss America pageant. And the fight is getting ugly. In one corner, a pageant girl boss. In the other, a self-proclaimed Palm Beach billionaire with a controversial past.  After decades of leadership failures and declining interest, today’s scandal is the only the latest in a long line of controversies in the pageant world. And yet, thousands of young women continue to compete every year. What keeps drawing contestants to an institution that so many former insiders believe has failed them?  Over the course of 10 episodes, we'll hear directly from former titleholders, participants, and whistleblowers. Hosted by pop culture journalist Bridget Armstrong, Curse of Miss America is an investigation into the unraveling of an American institution.  Listen here and subscribe to Curse of: Miss America on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early morning hours of Saturday October 31 - Halloween, 1981, 39-year-old Ronald Sisman and his new girlfriend, 20-year-old Elizabeth Platzman, were hanging out at his apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.  Later that day, police were called to the building by one of Ronald’s neighbors and when they went in, they found Ronald and Elizabeth’s bodies were in the middle of the chaos - they had both been fatally shot, execution style multiple times. Was this a robbery gone wrong? Or were both parties involved in something worse?  If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Elderly couple David and Mina Swan lived in a quiet neighborhood in Clearwater, Florida. But on Saturday September 29, 2018, a neighbor of theirs was concerned when their newspapers started piling up outside. The neighbor called Mina’s daughter, and the pair of them went inside the house. What they found was horrific. David and Mina were at the kitchen table slumped over in pools of blood. The police have admitted that they are stumped, and over three years later the case is still unsolved. Who would have killed David and Mina Swan?  If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In May 2014, 88-year-old Russell Dermond was found decapitated in the garage of his lakefront home in an exclusive Georgia community. His wife, Shirley, was missing. Ten days later, her body surfaced in Lake Oconee. More than twelve years later, no one knows who killed the Dermonds – or why. This week, Catherine Townsend digs into the theories, new DNA evidence, and the questions that still haunt Lake Oconee. If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.  IG: @hellandgonepodSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the early morning hours of on July 30 1977 in Wesley, Arkansas a 20-year-old University of Arkansas Student Rex Terrell, who worked the overnight shift was found lying in a pool of blood and gasping for breath. It looked like he had been shot multiple times.   The whole community wanted to know, who would want to shoot a likable, kind and hard-working young man with seemingly no enemies, and leave him there to die in a pool of his own blood?  If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was a really hot night in the middle of summer - July 4, 1988, in San Angelo, Texas.  Seventeen-year-old Shane Stewart was gearing up for the Fourth of July holiday celebrations by picking up his girlfriend, eighteen-year-old Sally McNelly, and they were going to watch the fireworks.  After that, Shane and Sally disappeared. They never made it home.  That was almost forty years ago - and since then this case has been caught up in rumors of Satanic Panic, a devil worshipping cult, a man who was arrested with blood and fingernails in his house, and whispers of a police conspiracy. But it all started with two missing teenagers.  If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023, 21-year-old Ellie Baxter went to check on her parents at their home on Mersea Island, off the Essex coast, 64-year-old Carole Baxter and 61-year-old Stephen Baxter.  She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Ellie looked through the living room window and saw her parents sitting in their usual reclining chairs. But they weren’t moving – they were both sitting upright in their chairs dead.    **This episode is in collaboration with Red Collar, a podcast by Catherine Townsend focused on financial crimes and con artists who kill. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the summer of 1980, sixteen-year-old Maria Rodriguez was living with her boyfriend Milton Colbert Jr. in Long Branch, New Jersey.  When came home from his work shift - he looked around for Maria for a few minutes, and when he opened the closet door, he saw Maria’s body. She had been strangled to death with a belt.  If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.  IG: @hellandgonepodSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At around eight o’clock on the morning of June 19, 2026, Federal Park Ranger Paul Scholtz was parking his patrol vehicle near the corner of Sixth and Market Streets in Philadelphia when he noticed a black BMW parked behind him. Little did the Ranger know this routine encounter was about to open the door to an investigation involving multiple missing women, a deteriorating house in North Philadelphia that has been described by the media as a house of horrors, tens of thousands of videos that depicted at least two dead women , hundreds of thousands of images, vats of chemicals, fake federal credentials and questions police are still nowhere close to answering. If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. // IG: @hellandgonepodSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At around 4:30 in the morning on Thursday, June 14, 2007, police found the body of 22 year old Jennifer Kathleen Nielsen behind an AmeriKing Food Mart in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jenna was covered in blood, and had been stabbed multiple times. She was also eight and a half months pregnant with her third child.  Her father later remembered answering the phone that night, thinking that he would get the news that his daughter had gone into labor. Instead, he got the news that Jenna - and her unborn child - were dead behind a gas station.  If you have a case you’d like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. IG: @hellandgonepodSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.