Hell and Gone Murder Line: Karen Mitchell

On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1997, 16-year-old Karen Mitchell vanished in Eureka, California. Originally from Whittier near Long Beach, she had moved north a few months earlier to live with her aunt and uncle, hoping the rural setting would suit her nature-loving personality better than Southern California. That afternoon, Karen caught a ride with her aunt to Bayshore Mall, then left around 2:45 p.m. to walk about a mile along Broadway (US 101) to her daycare job...but she never arrived. When her aunt came to pick her up hours later, Karen was gone. Despite immediate searches and her mother’s desperate trip north, Karen Mitchell was never seen again.    If you have a case you’d like us to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Or, you can send us a message on Instagram @hellandgonepodSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, Hell and Gone listeners! We're excited to share with you a sneak peek at iHeartPodcasts' latest release, Paper Ghosts! Paper Ghosts: In the heart of Texas, teens are dying. Suspicious suicides, strange accidents, and brutal murders litter 1980's Parker County. Weatherford, the same town where the series “Yellowstone” was filmed, is the hardest-hit. Locals have many theories: the KKK runs rampant... a corrupt sheriff’s department... or could the Weatherford Police Department be covering up all of these crimes to protect a sadistic killer?   Desperate to keep its deepest, darkest secrets from being exposed, could one sick individual be at the root of it all?  Or are the killers working in tandem? M. William Phelps digs in and, after being warned to stay away (or else), he begins to piece together answers in many of these decades-old cold cases. Listen to Paper Ghosts on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On June 10, 2006, 21-year-old Deidre Harm was headed to a night out with friends. She had a four-month-old daughter, Vegas, and had hired a babysitter to watch her. She and her friends went out downtown in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. And then, she never came home. She never called her babysitter. She simply disappeared.  For months, Deirdre’s friends and family looked for her, sharing her missing poster all around town. But they found no trace of her. Police eventually began to believe that they were on the trail of a serial killer. The investigation spanned 19 years and several states - and focused on a man living a double life.  A man who police believe is responsible for at least three murders, and there could be other victims out there.  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 Follow us: @hellandgonepod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Sunday June 17, 2024, Jay Slater, a 19-year-old bricklayer’s apprentice who lived in Lancashire, England was on his first ever foreign holiday. And he seemed to be having a blast.   He had gone to the island of Tenerife in Spain with a female friend named Lucy and a guy named Brad. That night he and Lucy went out to a music festival called New Rave Generation. It was held at Papagayo Beach Club, along a strip called Veronica’s Strip that has a ton of nightclubs and neon signs. It was there he met two British men and somehow they made a plan to go on to their Airbnb.  The next morning, Lucy got one last frantic call from Jay just after 8 am, saying he was lost, didn’t know where he was, and was panicked. He never showed up again.  So was Jay kidnapped and murdered, did he wander off into the wilderness or did something else happen to him?  This case is wild. It has exposed the seedy underside of this island and the criminal underworld that are operating there, including drug lords and mobsters dubbed the timeshare killers. And everyone from police detectives to psychics and TikTok stars have descended on this tiny island in the Canaries to find a young man who was partying and vanished without a trace right in the middle of an island full of tourists. 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.

On Monday September 30, 2004, 18-year-old college student Brittany Phillips was found dead in her apartment in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was a student at Tulsa Community College, went to her evening chemistry class with her friend Lydia.  She was found lying next to her bed. Clothing was found scattered all around her in a haphazard way, and the balcony doors to her second floor apartment were open. Investigators believed she had been dead for at least a couple of days.  News reports said that she had been raped, and strangled, but he medical examiner’s report stated that there was no definitive evidence of sexual assault.  What happened to Brittany Phillips? And could her killer already be behind bars, or is he still out roaming the streets?  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.

Hello, Disorganized Crime Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, Hell in Heaven: A Mysterious Death in Paradise About the show: John and Ann Bender had hundreds of millions of dollars and one dream: to build a glittering glass mansion deep in the Costa Rican jungle. But paradise soon gave way to paranoia — with abduction plots, armed guards and a bedroom blazing with hundreds of Tiffany lamps. And then one night, it all ended in blood. Hosted by award-winning journalist Becky Milligan, Hell in Heaven is an eight-part limited series from Blanchard House, Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts. Follow Hell in Heaven wherever you get your podcasts — and see rare photos from the story at @exactlyright on Instagram. Listen here and subscribe to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Monday September 27, 2004, 18-year-old Brittany Phillips, a student at Tulsa Community College, drove home from campus with her friend Lydia. They just took a chemistry test, and Brittany was looking forward to hanging out and celebrating her nineteenth birthday, which was coming up on October 4.  But then as the week rolled on, Lydia didn't hear from Brittany. And then, she noticed that Brittany didn’t show up for their next class on Wednesday. Lydia was unsure if she was overreacting, but her gut told her that something was wrong.  She called in a welfare check, and when first responders and police arrived, they found Brittany’s body in the bedroom of her apartment. News reports said that she had been raped, and strangled.  In the two decades since, ex-boyfriends and strangers have been questioned, sex offenders have been investigated, DNA swabs have been taken, but there are still no suspects. And the information that we found made me question if a lot of the “facts” that have been reported about this case are true at all.  We’re going to be going back to the beginning and ask some fundamental questions. Could the timeline of Brittany’s murder be off by up to 48 hours? Was Brittany definitely raped? Was this the work of someone who knew her and staged the crime scene, or could it have been a serial killer? And could that person still be out there?  And finally, could police have been on the wrong trail all this time? 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.

This week, we continue with the disappearance of Jennifer Wix and her daughter Adrianna. Could Jennifer have left voluntarily and started a new life? Could she have left with someone in that white car and then that person harmed her or Adrianna?  Or, could, as the Wix family suspects, the answers lie closer to where Jennifer was last seen on or around the 100 acres owned by the Bentons? 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.

On March 25, 2004, 21-year-old Jennifer Wix was in crisis.  Jennifer lived in Robertson County, Tennessee and was a single mother to her two-year-old daughter, Adrianna, who she adored.  She and Adrianna had moved in with her boyfriend, William Joseph “Joey” Benton, and his parents, Cynthia and Franklin Joseph Benton, a few months before in December.  But the situation at home was volatile - Before moving in with Joey’s family, Jennifer lived with her mother, Kathy Nale, and her younger half-sister, Casey Wix.  Casey told us that Jennifer had been calling home and complaining that she wasn’t getting along with certain members of Joey’s family. So even though they were only hearing Jennifer’s side of the story, Casey and Jennifer’s mom were forming an impression of Joey, based on what Jennifer told them, that wasn’t great.  Over the months, Casey  says that the situation at the Benton home had become increasingly strained.  Then on March 25, something happened.  At some point during the day, Joey got a call at work and left suddenly, saying that he was going to deal with a situation at home.  He told police that he picked up Jennifer and Adriana at home and that they went for a drive. During that drive, Joey claimed that he and Jennifer decided to end their relationship. After that, Joey told police that he stopped at a grocery store so that Jennifer could use the phone, and then he drove her and Adriana to a nearby gas station in Cross Plains.  Joey said at that gas station, which he said was in Cross Plains, a town a few minutes away, Jennifer and Adrianna got into a vehicle, which he described as a white four door sedan.  The two were never seen again. But from the beginning Jennifer’s family was suspicious of this story. They say that they don’t believe that a young mom with a toddler would leave without any of her things and without ever calling her family. Also, they pointed out that Jennifer could have stayed with multiple family members who lived in the area. Why drive off with someone else?  It’s been almost 20  years, and those years have been filled with rumors, several searches of a property, shifting stories about what really happened that day, a wrongful death lawsuit, and most recently, a severed body part connected to a family member were found in a creek.  And yet no one has found any trace of  Jennifer Wix or her daughter Adrianna. 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.

Hi, Hell and Gone listeners! We're excited to share with you a sneak peek at iHeartPodcasts' latest release, Incels! Incels: Hidden deep in online forums, a growing subculture thrives on anger, isolation, and blame: incels, or “involuntary celibates.” Mostly young, white, heterosexual men, incels see themselves as rejected by women and overshadowed by so-called “Chads”—the confident, attractive men they believe they can never be. Their frustration often mutates into open hostility, harassment, and, in the most extreme cases, acts of violence.  Incels takes listeners inside this unsettling world—not to sensationalize it, but to understand it. Through expert analysis, first-hand accounts, and the voices of former incels, we break down how these communities operate, why they’re growing, and the psychological traps that keep men locked in cycles of resentment. With chilling stories and deep insight, Incels reveals the human cost of a culture built on  hate—and the path forward for those ready to leave it behind.   Listen to Incels on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.