Episode 3: “The Skull in the Creek Bed”
Explicit content warning
03/06/24 • 47 min
2 Listeners
As the 1989 holiday season looms, Dana Stidham’s body is discovered by a local hunter in a Bella Vista creek bed. Law enforcement shifts its focus from missing person to murder... and begins to zero in on a suspect after he is arrested for a bizarre theft. Phelps’s contemporary, real-time investigation branches out and he questions whether the evidence against the chief suspect supports law enforcement’s push to arrest him – and whether Dana’s case is part of a more widespread series of murders by a serial killer targeting victims throughout the Ozarks during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
As the 1989 holiday season looms, Dana Stidham’s body is discovered by a local hunter in a Bella Vista creek bed. Law enforcement shifts its focus from missing person to murder... and begins to zero in on a suspect after he is arrested for a bizarre theft. Phelps’s contemporary, real-time investigation branches out and he questions whether the evidence against the chief suspect supports law enforcement’s push to arrest him – and whether Dana’s case is part of a more widespread series of murders by a serial killer targeting victims throughout the Ozarks during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Previous Episode
Episode 2: “The Evidence of Things Not Seen”
As the search for Dana Stidham continues, her sudden disappearance baffles family, friends, and police, as everyone grows increasingly alarmed that Dana has met with foul play. Then, a break in the case comes as Paper Ghosts executive producer, host and investigative journalist M. William Phelps heads to Bella Vista to meet with a source who helps him unravel several potential new threads—including, perhaps, a secret life Dana lived that no one knew about. New suspects emerge.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Next Episode
Episode 4: “The Cave”
The investigation by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office heats up in Dana Stidham’s gruesome murder, zeroing in on one particular suspect. Phelps digs deeper, speaking to the suspect and wonders if law enforcement has been chasing the wrong man. Just over the Missouri border, not far from the Dana Stidham crime scene, a second young woman’s body is discovered. Are the cases linked? Phelps uncovers several exclusive, recorded interviews never-before-heard, speaks to several sources who claim that not only are the cases the work of one killer, but the suspect has been hiding in plain sight, taunting police, all along.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Paper Ghosts: The Ozarks - Episode 3: “The Skull in the Creek Bed”
Transcript
I've been interviewing the families of murder victims since nineteen ninety nine. It's one of the most profound and personal aspects of my job, because well, I'm one of them. In nineteen ninety six, my brother's wife, five months pregnant, was strangled to death. Her case remains unsolved. So when families tell me how difficult this is to talk about, I can empathize. Opening up old wounds, digging back into the past is not always worth the pain a
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