Episode 7 - "A Business of Favors"

01/20/20 • 34 min

As the 1978 Joliet Herald News series reignited the Molly Zelko story, a newspaper landed on top of a rural Coal City, Illinois bar run by Dennis Enrietta. Enrietta’s immediate fascination with the case led to chance encounter with another alleged eyewitness to Molly’s burial, which established an alternate theory on her whereabouts. Enrietta would go on to spend four decades independently researching the Zelko case, untangling complex webs – “threads” as he calls them – of organized crime, labor, and politics at the local and national levels. These forces appeared to have collided at Molly Zelko’s doorstep, taking our story into its climatic final act.

Previous Episode

Episode 6 - "Come Pleasing to the Eye."

The year is 1978, over two decades since Molly's disappearance. A fateful move brings Lynne Lichtenauer and John Whiteside together, and Molly's story back into the headlines. Joliet Herald-News Reporters Whiteside & Cain venture into unorthodox - even paranormal - means to flush out leads. Their chase for answers climaxes in an intense hypnosis session of a witness to a midnight burial on Joliet's Stryker Avenue the night Molly vanished.