BONUS: Behind The Cases | Updates & What's Ahead

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Case Uncovered. Now today's episode is a little different than what you're used to hearing normally on this podcast. I'm walking you through the details of a case, but today I wanted to do something a little different. I want to take you behind the scenes behind some of the cases I'm currently working on, behind the investigations that are unfolding, and behind some of the advocacy work that's happening outside of the podcast as well. We've had a lot of new listeners joining the show lately, so if you're new here, welcome. I'm really glad you're here and taking the time to listen to these stories. A lot of people know me as the host of Case Uncovered, but in addition to hosting this podcast and The Unseen Truth, I'm also an investigative podcast producer. Over the years, I've produced several podcasts and investigative series, both independently and through the podcast production company that I co founded with my business partner, Jules Thorpe, which is called Fireeyes Media. So today I want to take you behind a few of the cases and projects that I'm currently working on. Some of these investigations will be coming out very soon. Some are collaborations with families who are searching for answers, and some are advocacy efforts happening through my nonprofit, the Reignited Project. There's a lot happening right now, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to share a little bit about what's ahead. One of the biggest investigative projects I've been working on over the past year is a new season of my investigative podcast, The Unseen Truth. This upcoming season focuses on the case of Alisa Roberson. Alisa was thirteen years old when she disappeared from Moransa's Past, Texas in the late nineteen eighties. She vanished and has never been found. For decades, her family has been searching for answers about what really happened to her. Now. Over the past year, I've been working very closely with Elisa's sister Ruby and their family while researching and investigating the details surrounding Elsa's disappearance, and I can tell you right now there is a lot to unpack in this case. The previous seasons of The Unseen Truth were more short form investigations. Each season was about an hour long and over six episodes. I did it this way so it's something listeners could sit down and listen to in one sitting and still walk away with a very clear understanding of the case. But Alisa's story is different. There are decades of unanswered questions, pieces of information that have never been fully explored, and a lot that deserves a deeper look. So this season will be long form. It'll be ten episodes, and the episodes will be longer because there is simply too much to cover to fit into one hour. This has been a year long investigation, and I'm incredibly grateful for the trust the family's placed in me to help tell Elisa's story. That season will be releasing on April thirtieth, and all ten episodes will drop at the same time, so listeners can really dive into the investigation and they don't have to wait. Another investigative project I've been working on is a podcast called Secrets Beyond the Sacramento River. This is a project I've been working on with my business partner, Jules. The podcast focuses on the suspicious death of Jeff Anderson. Jewels and I have been investigating this case together since last year, and the more we learned, the clearer, it became that the story needed a deeper investigative approach. Secrets Beyond the Sacramento River will be a long form investigative podcast where we walk listeners through the case step by step. Each episode will uncover another piece of the story and explore the questions that still surround Jeff Anderson's death. That series will begin releasing weekly episodes starting March thirtieth, and Jewels and I will be co hosting the investigation together, So make sure you subscribe to that podcast and be ready for when it drops on March thirtieth. Another project that we recently wrapped up is season two of Missing in Hushtown, which focuses on the disappearance of Bethany Markowski. Bethany was just eleven years old when she vanished. Her mother, Johnny Carter, has spent years fighting for answers and keeping Bethany's name out there so that people don't forget her story. For this season of Missing in Hushtown, I worked behind the scenes as a producer. Producing a podcast like this means a lot of research, collaboration, and helping ensure the story is told responsibly and accurately. It was such an honor to be trusted with Bethany's story as well. If you haven't listened to Missing in Hushtown Season two, I definitely encourage you to go listen and learn more about Bethany's case. It truly is a heartbreaking story. Now here on Case Uncovered. The podcast is also evolving this year. Moving forward, the show will now have a weekly structure. Every Tuesday, I'll be releasing episodes in a new series called Missing in the Midwest. These episodes focused specifically on missing persons cases in Illinois, the Chicagoan area, and throughout the Midwest. I was really inspired to start this series after my experience with my Auntlanda's case. It is so sad how many missing persons cases don't get any news coverage at all. Now, I do want to make it clear that this is a nationwide issue, not just a Chicagoland issue or a Midwest issue. It's everywhere. I want to be able to make a difference in my community and the area that I'm close to, so I can actually be boots on the ground, and that is something that I am doing with my nonprofit, which we'll talk about here shortly. But the whole goal is for these episodes to focus specifically on missing persons cases in Illinois, the Chicagoland area and throughout the Midwest, which for me is close to home. And then every Thursday, we'll continue with our regular Case Uncovered episodes, where I take deeper investigative dives into cases and sometimes collaborate directly with families to help bring awareness to their loved ones case. In addition, once a month, I'll also be releasing episodes called Cases that Haunt Me. These are cases that I've covered before that are still unsolved, cases that stay with you, the ones you just can't stop thinking about now. The first episode in that series just went live the other day, and I cover the unsolved murder of Stacy Colbert. If you haven't listened, make sure you go check it out and listen to Stacy's story. Outside of podcasting, a lot of my advocacy work happens through the Reignited Project, my five oh one C three nonprofit, and right now, one of the cases we're actively working on is the case of Matthew meckl Matthew disappeared from Arizona and his family is still searching for answers about what happened to him through the Reignited Project. My team and I are currently working on a social media awareness campaign to help bring renewed attention to Matthew's case and support his mother in spreading the word. If you aren't already following the Regnited project on social media, we are on Instagram and Facebook and we are currently doing that campaign. So any assistance we can get with spreading the word or even sharing Matthew's posts would be so so appreciated. Now, as a side note, I really want to give a quick shout out to two incredible women who help make this work possible. Sam and Rose. Sam is my best friend. I've been best friends with Sam since I was six years old. So for those that are listening that personally know me and Sam, you know our dynamic and our friendship. We have been through so much together and I love her dearly. She has been such an incredible support throughout my journey the last six years with investigative podcasting and with my advocacy work, and so she's always been a part of that. We actually started in true crime podcasting many years ago together and she's quickly transitioned to be my number one supporter and is always helping me behind the scenes, whether it's with interviews or with helping spread the word about new cases, or with advocacy efforts. She's amazing. And she is actually the vice president of the Rignited Project. So Sam works on a lot of our community efforts, getting out there, spreading the word about the Rignited Project and community events. So shout out, Sam, I love you so much. Thank you for everything you do for me and for the families that we serve. Now the other shout out is Torose. Rose is also an incredible, incredible woman. So I met Rose at Advocacy Con last year. I had a booth there and I did speak and so she did listen to my session and came up to my booth and we quickly started talking. She told me how much she resonated with my speech and really loved the work that I was doing and wanted to get more into advocacy. After that conversation, we became fast friends. So I hired Rose on to work with me at Fireyes Media and she did an incredible job, and over the past year she has transitioned more and more into an advocacy role. So she came over to the Regnited Project side and is now not only a board member as well, but she is the director of Community Advocacy and Outreach, so she oversees our community the hive and manages all of our donation drives. The month of February, we had an incredibly successful donation drive for a local domestic violence shelter that we support, collecting one hundred and twenty bags of clothing, jewelry, toilet trees which we were then able to bring to the shelter. And that was all thanks to Rose managing that and handling that donation drive. Now every month we try to do a brand new donation drive that Rose leads. So this month we're working with the local food pantries and we are currently collecting nonperishable items. If you're interested or you're local, please make sure you reach out to roseat Roseatthreignited project dot com. I'll also make sure I leave her email in the show notes. Blore. But thank you Rose for all of the work that you do, especially for our families and our community. You are amazing. I couldn't do this without you or Sam. So had to give these ladies a shout out and share all the incredible work that they do. They also work on the Reignited media side, both Sam and Rose. They do help with interviews and family advocacy communication for the case Uncovered and the Unseen Truth, and that is a huge help for me because aside from that, I do everything solow because I'm an independent podcast and podcaster, so I don't have a big team where I have an editor and I have a researcher and I have all of these people backing me. It's just me Sam and Rose, who are already doing so much for the nonprofit. Another exciting development for the Reignited Project is the partnerships we've been building with other advocacy organizations. So these partnerships haven't beneficially announced yet, you're hearing them first here, but I will be announcing them soon on the re Ignited Project and my general VERIR investigates social accounts. But one of the amazing organizations we've recently partnered with is the Gabby Potito Foundation. I had the privilege of meeting Nikki Schmidt and Tara Potito last year at Advocacy Cohn and since then I've also gotten to know Joe and Jim, their husbands, and we became really fast friends. They're incredible people doing really really powerful work, and I'm just so honored that we were able to partner with them. In addition, we've also partnered with BRIT's National Foundation for the Missing and Forgotten, which was founded by Don Conley. She's the mother of Britney Drexel. If you're not familiar with Britney's story, I highly suggest visiting Britzfoundation dot org. You can learn all about Britney's story and Don's fight for justice and everything that she's doing under her nonprofit. As well. Don and I also have become good friends, and I'm so so incredibly blessed that I get to work with her in this capacity as well and partner with her with our organizations. But not least, we have our partnership with a Silver Lining of Hope, which was founded by Megan Tomlinson, who has also become a very good friend of mine. Megan essentially solved her mother's murder. It's an incredible story and I actually will have Megan on the podcast here soon to share that story with you. All these partnerships are helping us build a stronger alliance network so we can better support families who are searching for answers. Now, before I wrap up today's bonus episode, there's one last thing I want to share now. The start of this year, as you know, has been so incredibly challenging for me and my family. The loss of my aunt is still really fresh. I mean, it just happened in January and we're only in March. Although it was one of the hardest experiences my family has ever gone through, one thing that it did do was ignite something even deeper in me. So I've always had a passion for this work and for advocacy, but after experiencing my own loved one go missing and having to walk through that process myself, it pushed me to want to turn that pain and that experience into purpose and to help other families who are navigating a missing person's case. And that's the whole purpose of the Linda Brown Advocacy Protocol. It's a program that will be rolling out in three phases. It'll walk families through what to do and what not to do in the beginning stages of a missing person's case. This is through not only my years of advocacy, but through lived experience. So the first phase of the Linda Brown Advocacy protocol will roll out in May, and that includes a comprehensive digital toolkit that will include everything that someone would need if you were to go missing. Now, this isn't just for families navigating a missing person's case. This is a preventative toolkit, so this is for everyone. This will include templates, information, every thing you'll need, and everything that we either had or didn't have for my aunt Linda, so you have it ready and available if anything were to happen to you. Now, I do know there are people out there that are very well prepared and may have some of this information stored away somewhere, but most people don't, so this is going to be so helpful. There will be a digital version that will be free to download on the website at the Rigneted project dot com. But there will also be physical copies of the toolkit, which is all printed out in a nice booklet for you for a small fee, and I'll ship it. I make the books myself, I do all the printing, so the FEJUS covers the printing and the shipping costs. Phase two of the program will introduce a private online hub for families of the missing. Families will be able to create a secure login through our website and access a library of resources, advocacy toolkits, trainings, and guidance all in one place. The goal is to create a central life space where families can easily find the tools and support they need during one of the most overwhelming times of their lives. The final phase of the program is collaboration and working within the community, so I have a lot that I'm working on behind the scenes there. If you'd like to stay up to date on everything we're doing at the Reignited Project, or if you'd like to donate or get involved, you can visit the regnitedproject dot com and sign up for our monthly newsletter. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and supported this podcast, especially those of you who reached out during the time when my aunt went missing. Those messages meant more than you know. Case Uncovered is truly a grassroots, independent podcast. I'm not packed by big media companies, only my small LLC that I've created and work toonder for the past six years. I'm not backed by huge sponsors. This is something I built because I believe deeply in the importance of advocacy and storytelling. I left my corporate career to do this work because I'm so passionate about it and I truly would love to see Case Uncovered grow. I want to continue sharing more stories, working with more families, and bringing awareness to cases that really need the attention. That's why I moved the podcast to a weekly show, and I'm putting so much into it. But in order for this podcast to continue growing and reaching more people, I really need your support. So if you're enjoying the show, please consider leaving a five star rating and review. That really helps push the podcast out to more listeners through the apps and algorithms, and the more people who hear these stories, the more awareness we can bring to these families. If you know of a case that deserves attention, or if you are a family looking to bring awareness to a loved one's case, you can reach out to me at Jen at reignitedmedia dot com. Thank you for tuning into this very impromptu but special update episode, and until next time, stay curious, stay vigilant, and stay safe out there and wa