True Believer: The Unsolved Murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh

In the last episode we heard about David Winecoff's connection to Elizabeth Mackintosh, and his apparent belief that Michael, the prime suspect, had nothing to do with her murder.
When we left Norm Reed, he and David were planning a climbing trip to the Sangre de Christo mountains of Colorado. Today we’ll hear what happened on that trip, the fallout that followed, and how, just like with Elizabeth’s murder, administrators at Covenant Seminary wanted everything to go away as quickly as possible.
David Winecoff’s death raises questions not only about what he may have known about, but also how the Covenant community at large dealt with the tragedy of Elizabeth’s unsolved murder.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.
Click here to read the statement released by the family of David Winecoff.

The family of David Winecoff recently reached out to “True Believer” with concerns about recent episodes. After reviewing their concerns, we have made several updates to Episodes 13 and 14. Ultimately, however, we stand by our work and our decision to include an examination of David Winecoff’s death in “True Believer.”
Click here to read the statement released by the family of David Winecoff.

A couple quick announcements.
First, Ruth and TJ will be in Richmond, Virginia the week of June 9th, for the PCA General Assembly. If you’re going to be there and you’d like to meet up with us, or if you have any information that you’d like to share, if you know someone who’ll be there that you think we should meet, visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to get in touch with us.
And second, we'll be publishing our next episode this coming Tuesday, June 4th. So you won’t have to wait another week.

We’ve talked about some of the interesting characters around Covenant Seminary in 1990. But as we enter the final phase of this series, we’ll explore the most interesting, and potentially most important, characters yet.
In this episode, Detective Worth will start to lay out his own theory of the case, which differs pretty dramatically from everything the Creve Coeur police had believed before him and, as far as we know, what they still believe today.
In December 1989 a married man approached Elizabeth about having an affair. Although she never revealed the man's identity, several people knew the story. Their accounts of who it might've been raise further questions about an alternative motive for Elizabeth's murder.
As the saying goes... the plot thickens.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.

The main True Believer project is finished, at least until there are any updates on the Elizabeth Mackintosh murder investigation. But we do want to return with a postscript that addresses a different question: What happened to other people who were students at Covenant Seminary in 1990?
Many students and professors went on to respected careers in the ministry. One of them was a man named Ian, who in 2023 was deemed unfit to lead his church after a sexual misconduct allegation was made public by The Tennessean newspaper, as reported by friend of the podcast Liam Adams. Ian has denied allegations against him.
But there’s a lot more to the story. The case against him helped us understand how a denomination with so many good, kind people can apparently fumble complaints against their peers.
Many cases are, essentially, secret. And there’s a cascading effect to that secrecy: If complaints are never heard, and witnesses are never asked, and questions are never answered, abuse remains covered up.
Until someone decides to go public.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.