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  • The Photo, Four Words, and the Boy Who Waited Forty-Three Years

    The Photo, Four Words, and the Boy Who Waited Forty-Three Years
    2026/10/29
    The Photo, Four Words, and the Boy Who Waited Forty-Three Years

    A photograph eight inches by ten with a matte finish sat in a stranger's attic for nine years, its back marked with four mysterious words: "FOR WHEN YOU FIND." Those four words led a librarian and a neighbor to a community post that would reconnect a photograph, a promise, and a boy who spent forty-three years searching - but who left unanswered the question of how the photo traveled so far and who wrote that promise?

    In this episode, we follow the people and places tied to that photograph and the four-word note, tracing its path from a dying woman's request to a neighbor's attic and a community history page. How did a promise written by Abena Osei-Bonsu end up in Pete Volkov's house, and could it finally reunite the two boys captured in front of a mustard yellow wall?

    Person: Abena Osei-Bonsu
    Person: Danny Osei-Bonsu
    Person: Michael Norris
    Location: Harlan Street complex (demolished in 2007)
    Event: Photograph posted to a local community history page in May 2023

    - The photograph measured eight inches by ten with a matte finish and had been in Pete Volkov's attic for nine years.
    - Four words written on the back read exactly: "FOR WHEN YOU FIND."
    - Crystal Sheridan found the photo in the second week of May 2023 and posted it to a community page with around 4,000 members.
    - Sixty-three people commented on Crystal's post without recognizing the children.
    - Danny Osei-Bonsu was 64 years old in 2023 and had been nine years old in the photo taken at Harlan Street.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • The Library Card That Found Its Boy-Three Floors Apart

    The Library Card That Found Its Boy-Three Floors Apart
    2026/10/28
    The Library Card That Found Its Boy-Three Floors Apart

    A gray laminated library card, issued to Raymond Dalton from a library demolished fifteen years earlier, turned up tucked inside a sub-meter access box in the Delford building at 8:17 a.m. on a Tuesday in March-yet the man named on it had been working three floors above for two and a half years without knowing. How did a card travel from a demolished library to a pipe housing directly beneath the feet of its namesake, and why did a clerical digit stop a match that should have reunited him years earlier?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of ordinary failures and quiet persistence that led two people toward each other: a woman who filed a consent form in 2020 and kept a newborn photograph, and a man who began DNA searches after his father died in 2022. What chain of small choices, misplaced numbers, and everyday routines finally produced an answer three floors apart?

    Person: Raymond Dalton
    Person: Marcia Callahan
    Date: 8:17 a.m. on a Tuesday in March
    Event: Consent form filed in 2020
    Date: Dennis Dalton died in 2022

    - The library that printed Raymond Dalton's card was demolished 15 years before the card was found.
    - The card was discovered inside a gray plastic access box in the Delford building sub-meter housing at 8:17 a.m.
    - Raymond Dalton was 22 years old and had worked inside the Delford building for 2.5 years before the card was found.
    - Marcia Callahan was 19 when she gave birth in spring 2002 and was 41 in April 2024, working on the third floor of the Delford building for nine years.
    - A single transposed digit in records prevented a match between Raymond's search and Marcia's 2020 consent form.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分
  • Dry Child Vest, Photo Inside: "He Is Alive" - Nine Miles Offshore

    Dry Child Vest, Photo Inside: "He Is Alive" - Nine Miles Offshore
    2026/10/27
    Dry Child Vest, Photo Inside: "He Is Alive" - Nine Miles Offshore

    An impossible orange child life vest, dry and wedged on a Gulf pier, held a sandwich-bagged photograph with eleven soaked words: "He is alive. Raft. Nine miles. March. Find George Underwood." How did a message survive open water and end up on a dock - and who was being told to find whom?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of discoveries and records that connect a missing commercial mariner, a relentless brother, and a radio transmission logged far offshore; the episode covers the vest, the photograph message, the official search that closed, and the private search that never stopped. What new evidence ties Dennis Underwood's disappearance to a raft, a weak radio call, and a dry life vest on Mercer Point?

    Person: Dennis Underwood
    Person: George Underwood
    Date: March 14 (vest discovered)
    Location: Pelican Flats Marina, Mercer Point, Louisiana
    Event: Marisol Lynn lost radio contact ~40 miles southeast of the Timbalier Islands

    - Vest found dry on a pier open to the Gulf, sized for a small child with a cartoon pelican on the front.
    - Photograph in front pocket was sealed in a sandwich bag knotted twice with eleven words written on the back.
    - Coast Guard launched a search after Marisol Lynn lost contact and closed it six days later having recovered one life ring and a crew fuel log.
    - Dennis had been missing for nearly 39 months and was declared legally dead after the estate filed eleven months post-search.
    - George walked a route every morning at 6:15, had kept a weekly-updated binder, and began his own search within two weeks of the legal declaration.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • Mother Finds a Shoe That Should Not Exist: The Mara Fonseca Reunion

    Mother Finds a Shoe That Should Not Exist: The Mara Fonseca Reunion
    2026/10/26
    Mother Finds a Shoe That Should Not Exist: The Mara Fonseca Reunion

    A single size-four white canvas sneaker with double-knotted laces and a laminated bilingual card led to a twenty-five-year gap collapsing into a single morning discovery; what started as a walk with a beagle on a February day revealed a deliberate act by a mother who had been waiting since 1993 and a cross-continental tip from Brazil. How did a shoe left above the Carrow River floodplain reconnect a missing-child case with a woman in Pernambuco, Brazil?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the shoe’s discovery to the archived inquiry from Recife and the small details that connected them, asking whether one carefully placed shoe can change the official story that had been closed as a fatality. What specific clues tied Janet Hoffman’s private gesture to the woman named Mara Fonseca three thousand miles away?

    Person: Janet Hoffman
    Event: Shoe found in willow roots on Carrow River floodplain
    Date: February 2019
    Location: Dellard, Ohio (eastern bank of the Carrow River floodplain)
    Case: Missing child Mara; original disappearance September 1993

    - The sneaker was a size four white canvas shoe with clean sole and double-knotted laces.
    - Rhonda Coleman found the shoe while walking her beagle Pepper on a Tuesday morning in February 2019.
    - A laminated card inside the shoe was printed in English and Portuguese and listed a Columbus area code for Janet Hoffman.
    - Janet Hoffman was sixty-one years old in February 2019 and had worked eleven years as a volunteer intake worker on Thursday evenings.
    - In October 2018 Janet had placed an identical size-four sneaker in the willow roots after buying a matching pair at an estate sale; the original sneaker from the 1993 Pell Creek search had been lost in case transfers.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The River Returned Her Recipe - Ten Years to Find Chad

    The River Returned Her Recipe - Ten Years to Find Chad
    2026/10/25
    The River Returned Her Recipe - Ten Years to Find Chad

    A laminated index card washed up four miles south of Harwick, Minnesota, containing a handwritten Romanian recipe addressed "FOR CHAD, SO HE NEVER FORGETS," and that tiny object set in motion a decade-long chain of lost names, caseworker notes, and two people unknowingly keeping the same card. How did a recipe card travel from a Romanian kitchen to a Midwestern river and become the hinge for a reunion no one expected?

    In this episode, we trace the path of that card through the hands that found it and the people who kept identical copies, following events from a village outside Iași, Romania, to multiple towns in Minnesota and beyond, and ask whether a single object can reconnect siblings separated by immigration and the foster system.

    Person: Alina Durac
    Person: Chadrin Sandru (Chad Sanders)
    Event: Found laminated recipe card in Portell River on January 9, 2019
    Location: Harwick, Minnesota
    Caseworker: Tom Begay

    - The card read "MAMALIGA CU BRANZA - FOR CHAD, SO HE NEVER FORGETS" and contained six numbered steps in blue ink.
    - The card had a hole punched in the upper left and copper wire threaded through, matching another card kept by a sibling.
    - Alina was 14 in spring 2009 when her grandmother made two copies; Chadrin was 9 the same spring.
    - Alina was resettled in Rochester, Minnesota, in 2010 through a legal assistance program and by 2019 was 29 years old.
    - Kelly Quinn found the yellowed laminated card snagged in the roots of a submerged willow four miles south of Harwick on the morning of January 9, 2019.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • A Surveyor Finds 47 Unread Letters: The Marcus Smith Exoneration

    A Surveyor Finds 47 Unread Letters: The Marcus Smith Exoneration
    2026/10/24
    A Surveyor Finds 47 Unread Letters: The Marcus Smith Exoneration

    A rusted mailbox and forty-seven sealed envelopes turned up on a gravel Ohio road after a county surveyor pulled over for a boundary dispute - letters written every month for ten years to a man who had been in prison the whole time. How did those letters survive unseen at a vacant farmhouse while Marcus Smith sat incarcerated 140 miles away, and what did they finally reveal about a conviction that lasted a decade?

    In this episode, we follow the chain of small, ordinary decisions that left forty-seven letters unread: a surveyor who counted the envelopes, a mailbox dented in a truck collision, a neighbor who checked the property, a mail carrier who sometimes stopped when the flag was raised, and a woman who wrote once a month for ten years. What does this accumulation of chance and persistence tell us about Marcus Smith's case and the systems around him?

    Person: Emily Smith
    Person: Marcus Smith
    Date: December 14, 2019
    Location: Mabry Township, Ohio
    Facility: Pendleton Correctional Facility

    - Forty-seven sealed envelopes were found inside a rusted mailbox on December 14, 2019.
    - Emily Smith wrote one letter per month for ten years following Marcus's conviction in December 2009.
    - Marcus Smith was thirty-two when he was arrested and thirty-two at the time of conviction in 2009.
    - The farmhouse on County Road Seven had no active mail route and had been marked vacant for years.
    - A truck collision in January 2015 bent the mailbox door shut, creating an eighteen-month gap in delivery.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 分
  • She Finds a Stranger's Blood Card: The Reunion of Marilyn Hensley

    She Finds a Stranger's Blood Card: The Reunion of Marilyn Hensley
    2026/10/23
    She Finds a Stranger's Blood Card: The Reunion of Marilyn Hensley

    A laminated blood donor card marked Marilyn Hensley and AB-negative was taped to a septic riser on a recently sold property - a deliberate placement tied to a wall list of eleven dated words retraced in permanent marker over eleven years. How did a private record and a single sealed card bridge a sixteen-year search and bring two lives unexpectedly close?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery made on November 14, 2019 by a septic-service contractor and trace the overlapping details of location, handwriting, and blood donation that connected a woman who had been searching for her birth mother for eleven years to an object left behind in a rural Indiana property - what happened next?

    Person: Marilyn Hensley
    Date: November 14, 2019
    Location: Morrow Falls, Indiana
    Blood type: AB-negative
    Search duration: eleven years

    - The donor card was found sealed inside a small zip bag and fixed to a concrete riser lip with a strip of orange tape.
    - Marilyn turned thirty-two in August 2019 and had lived in Morrow Falls for six years.
    - Marilyn registered with the Indiana Blood Service in 2016 and donated blood four times over three years.
    - The wall inside the previously owned house contained eleven dated entries in permanent marker spanning roughly eleven years, beginning with "surgery" and ending with "close."
    - A private researcher hired in 2015 located a Social Security record and rental history that ended in Indianapolis, after which the search was declared cold.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    21 分
  • The Wrong Window, The Right Mother: Reunion After Eleven Years

    The Wrong Window, The Right Mother: Reunion After Eleven Years
    2026/10/22
    The Wrong Window, The Right Mother: Reunion After Eleven Years

    Fear and longing collide when a faded handwritten sign taped inside a rear window of a white house goes unnoticed for two years - until a birder with binoculars reads a phone number and a photograph from forty meters away. How did a single dropped syllable and a dead phone number turn eleven years of searching into a near-impossible reunion, and who finally closed the gap?

    In this episode, you will hear the sequence of events that began with an evacuation, a transcription error, and a sign placed in the wrong house on Kellner Street; we trace how lives diverged and the small, accidental choices that kept a mother and daughter apart until one Tuesday morning made everything change. Can a misread surname and an unchanged phone number explain an eleven-year silence - and what happened after William Dixon read the card?

    Person: Sherry Simpson
    Person: Anya (born Petrovac, recorded as Petrova)
    Person: William Dixon
    Location: Kellner Street, Portsmith
    Event: Sign posted in rear window for two years

    - Sherry Simpson was fifty-one years old in autumn 2009 and had been a primary school teacher for nine years before the evacuation.
    - Anya was seven years old at the time of the 1998 evacuation and was processed under the surname recorded as Petrova instead of Petrovac, dropping one syllable.
    - The transcription error placed Anya in records two hundred and thirty miles from where Sherry was processed at Brackton.
    - The sign remained taped inside the rear window of a white house on Kellner Street for two years with Sherry’s original phone number, which she changed in 2008 after a harassment incident.
    - William Dixon was roughly forty meters away when he spotted the card through his binoculars on the morning of October 14, 2009, after six years of walking the same transect twice a week.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    22 分