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For years, Ira Einhorn was celebrated as a visionary.

He called himself The Unicorn — a peace activist, environmental prophet, and counterculture icon with powerful friends and devoted followers. He spoke about consciousness, love, and the future of humanity. People believed him.

Then, in March of 1979, police opened a padlocked closet in his Philadelphia apartment.

Inside was a steamer trunk.
Inside that trunk was the body of Holly Maddux.

In Part One of this two-part Crimery series, we peel back the mythology surrounding Ira Einhorn to reveal the man behind the movement. Through his own journals, survivor testimony, and long-buried history, we trace a disturbing pattern of control, sadism, and violence — years before Holly was murdered.

This episode isn’t about speculation.
It’s about how charisma becomes camouflage.
How power protects predators.
And how a man who preached love lived with a corpse beside his bed for eighteen months.

Next episode: the arrest, the bail that set him free, and the international manhunt that followed.

Content warning: intimate partner violence, homicide.

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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On February 22, 1985, in rural Winfield Township, Pennsylvania, eight-year-old Cherrie Mahan stepped off her school bus at 4:10 p.m. She had only 150 feet to walk home.

She never made it.

Witnesses reported two suspicious vehicles near the stop—a bright blue van with a painted skier mural and a small blue car. In the snow, investigators found tire marks… but no footprints leading up Cherrie’s driveway.

The case became one of Pennsylvania’s most haunting child disappearances—fueling nationwide awareness when Cherrie was chosen as the first missing child featured on National Center for Missing & Exploited Children postcards.

And now—four decades later—new leads, a major reward, and active searches have reignited hope that the truth may finally come out.

In this episode of CRIMERY, we reconstruct the last known moments of Cherrie’s walk home, the vehicles that still haunt the investigation, the anonymous “Pastor Justice” letter, the decades of false claims, and the renewed 2025 push to finally bring Cherrie back to her mother, Janice.

Content advisory: child abduction, violence, and sensitive details involving a missing child case.

If you have information about Cherrie Mahan, contact:
• Pennsylvania State Police Butler Barracks: 724-284-8100
• Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers: 1-800-4PA-TIPS (8477)
You can also email us at crimerypod@gmail.com
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CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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On November 28, 1969—the quiet day after Thanksgiving—a 22-year-old Penn State graduate student walked into Pattee Library to retrieve one final source for a research paper.

She never walked out.

Betsy Ruth Aardsma was stabbed once—cleanly, precisely—between the shelves of the basement stacks. No scream. No visible blood. Students and staff believed she had collapsed from a medical emergency and unknowingly wiped away crucial evidence while trying to save her life.

By the time doctors discovered the wound, the killer had already left the building—possibly after calmly telling others, “Some girl back there needs help.”

More than fifty years later, no one has been charged.

In this episode of CRIMERY, we reconstruct the final hour of Betsy’s life, examine the man known only as “the man in the stacks,” and explore how a murder committed in broad daylight—with witnesses nearby—became one of Pennsylvania’s most baffling unsolved cases.

Content advisory: violence against a young woman.

Keywords: Betsy Aardsma, Penn State, Pattee Library, unsolved murder, 1969 cold case, library homicide, Pennsylvania State Police.

If you have information about this case, please contact Pennsylvania State Police.
You can also reach us at crimerypod@gmail.com
.

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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A 26-year-old woman vanishes from Long Pond, PA on May 11, 1983. Her husband waits 72 hours to call police. Fifteen years later, two separate accounts surface—one claiming her remains were dumped off Seaside Heights, another pointing to a shaft in Centralia, the ghost town that’s been burning underground since 1962. If investigators are right, Susan Cerritelli rests in a place no one can safely search—an impossible grave.

In this episode, we trace the timeline, the red flags, and why “no-body” cases are so hard to prosecute—then confront the grim reality of Centralia’s mine fire and what it means for a family that has waited more than forty years for answers.

Content advisory: domestic violence, homicide, missing person.

Keywords: Centralia mine fire, Long Pond, Poconos, 1983 disappearance, no-body homicide, Pennsylvania State Police, Seaside Heights NJ.

Have information about this case? PSP Wyoming Barracks: 570-697-2000 • crimerypod@gmail.com

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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Eighteen-year-old Jennifer Barziloski walks out into a warm June night in 2001 and never makes it home. Three years later, her closest friend, 22-year-old Phylicia Thomas—the one who wouldn’t stop asking what happened to Jennifer—vanishes too. One skull is found along an ATV trail years later; the other woman is still missing. The same names, the same party talk, the same rural pocket of Luzerne County keep surfacing. Coincidence—or a pattern everyone’s been too afraid to say out loud?

In this episode, we trace parallel timelines, pressure-test statements, and follow the geography that ties Lake Township, Hunlock Creek, and Ross Township together. We center the families’ voices and the records they’ve guarded for two decades, while separating rumor from what’s in the paperwork. Someone at that party knows exactly what happened. If fear kept you quiet then, it doesn’t have to now.

Content note: non-graphic discussion of suspected homicide, sexual violence, and post-mortem concealment.

Tips (anonymous welcomed):
PA State Police – Wyoming Barracks: 570-697-2000
PA Crime Stoppers: 1-800-4PA-TIPS (1-800-472-8477)
Email us: crimerypod@gmail.com

Sources include Pennsylvania State Police materials, regional reporting (Times Leader, Citizens’ Voice, WNEP), court records, and family statements.

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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An 11-year-old leaves Mercy Hospital in Scranton with a stuffed animal for her mom and starts the short walk home—broad daylight, one block to go. Witnesses see a girl matching Michelle “Jolene” Lakey get into a light yellow car near North Washington Ave. She is never seen again.

This episode of CRIMERY traces the chilling threads that still haunt Northeast PA: the three-day ransom call that named Nay Aug Park, the unexplained purse found on Jolene’s dresser, and years of scrutiny around a familiar adult she called “Uncle Frank”—later convicted in a separate child-murder case. We follow renewed leads sparked by a 2020 anonymous letter about screams and fire along I-81, and the annual August 26th walk that retraces Jolene’s final route, feather and purple ribbon in hand.

You’ll hear:

• Timeline: Mercy Hospital → Myrtle St. → North Washington Ave. → the light yellow car
• Why the “purse on the dresser” detail fractures the case narrative
• Known persons of interest and what’s confirmed vs. unresolved
• How modern re-checks (letters, searches, community memory) keep the case alive

Content warning: missing child, potential child homicide.

Know something? Tips can be anonymous.
Scranton Police: 570-348-4139 • PA State Police: 570-963-3156 • NCMEC: 1-800-THE-LOST
Reward: $5,000

Host: Jennifer Novotney • Show: CRIMERY – True Crime Uncovered

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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A well-liked Pleasant Valley freshman drives to a secluded cul-de-sac for a $120 marijuana sale—and meets three teens who never planned to pay. Within minutes, 15-year-old Aiden Paiz is shot with an AR-15, his friend is wounded, and the killers scatter into the Poconos night. It will take Pennsylvania State Police less than a day to crack the case—built on a brave survivor’s account, confessions, recovered weapons, and a pattern of “drug rips” plaguing rural Monroe County.

In this episode of CRIMERY, host Jennifer Novotney follows the case end-to-end: the Snapchat setup, the ambush at Squirrelwood Road, the rapid arrests, and the hard sentences that followed—alongside the grief of a family whose world stopped in November 2020. We examine how guns, isolation, and small-time dealing collided—with consequences that will echo for decades.

What you’ll hear

• How a wounded 15-year-old’s statement broke the case in under 24 hours
• Why prosecutors call these robberies “drug rips”—and how they escalate
• The roles of Anthony Mitchell, Michael Demuro-Correll, and Justin Lemont
• Sentences that turned a “quick score” into lost futures

Content warning: teen victim, firearm violence, armed robbery.

Tips & case suggestions: crimerypod@gmail.com
• crimery.show
Host: Jennifer Novotney • Show: CRIMERY – True Crime Uncovered

Use one of these as your background only (no text/logo); they leave clean space for your title overlay.

Master prompt (exterior — the ambush)

Misty wooded cul-de-sac at night in rural Pennsylvania (Polk Township), leaf-strewn asphalt and damp forest, two cars parked nose-to-nose with headlights flaring, no people, no gore; faint brass shell casing near a boot-scuffed patch, a light dusting of fog, distant porch light through trees, cold moonlight, deep shadows; square composition with clean negative space in the upper third for typography; photorealistic, cinematic noir, subtle grain, muted palette (slate blue, pine green, asphalt gray).

Negative prompt: text, logos, readable signs or license plates, bodies, faces, blood, police tape, neon colors, cartoon.

If parameters are supported: aspect 1:1 (3000×3000), high detail, low saturation, moonlight + headlight mix, shallow haze.

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.

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A devoted father and small-town carpenter walks out of his Polk Township home one October afternoon—and never returns. His blue work van is found wiped clean. His bank accounts go quiet. For years, rumors swirl. Then a drunk shoplifter starts talking about a crack house in the woods, a hammer, a rifle, and a basement “injection” meant to end a man’s life. What follows is a decade-long path to justice without a body—built on confessions, forensics that survived a bleach-and-paint scrub, and the unraveling of a rural drug underworld in the Pocono Mountains.

In this episode of CRIMERY, host Jennifer Novotney traces the 2005 disappearance and murder of David Walter McEntire—from addiction’s grip to a night of paranoia-fueled torture; from a staged van drop-off to burn-pit remains; from a killer’s confession to a life-without-parole verdict. Along the way, we confront the Poconos’ early-2000s crack epidemic, the witnesses whose credibility was tangled in their own addictions, and a 2024 prison suicide that cast a new, tragic shadow over the case. David’s body has never been found—but the truth still surfaced.

What you’ll hear:

• How a routine shoplifting arrest cracked open a “missing” case
• Why forensic teams still found blood in ten+ spots after a full bleach & repaint
• The roles of Edwin “Beans” Kelly, Anthony Caiby, Lisa Stavish, and James “Buddah” Gaines
• How prosecutors won a first-degree murder conviction without a body

Content warning: drug crimes, graphic violence, torture, murder.

Have a tip or case suggestion? crimerypod@gmail.com
• crimery.show
Host: Jennifer Novotney • Show: CRIMERY – True Crime Uncovered

CRIMERY is reported, written, and hosted by Jennifer Novotney. Produced by Timothy Novotney.

Tip line & inquiries: crimerypod@gmail.com

If you found this episode valuable, follow, rate, and review in your podcast app it really helps others find the show.

Legal: Everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Content may include descriptions of violence. Listener discretion advised.

©2025 CRIMERY. All rights reserved.