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What happened to Holly Piirainen? This cold case has taken investigators down many dark and twisted paths, including multiple suspects, ties to an unsolved murder—to exhuming a letter buried in a coffin.

On a humid August morning in 1993, ten-year-old Holly Piirainen vanished from a quiet neighborhood in Sturbridge, Massachusetts after walking with her little brother to see a litter of collie puppies.

Moments later, the only sign of Holly was her lost sneaker discovered along the edge of a dirt road—an image that would haunt an entire state.

In this episode, former prosecutor Margaret McLean revisits the day Holly disappeared: a summer morning boat ride on South Pond, laughter with her family at her grandparents’ cottage, and a five-minute walk that ended in tragedy.

Through interviews, police reports, and eyewitness accounts—including the chilling sighting of a man in a brown pickup truck—Margaret unpacks how a peaceful community became ground zero for one of New England’s most disturbing unsolved crimes.

👉 What you’ll hear in this episode:

• The timeline of Holly’s last morning—breakfast, boat ride, and the walk to see the puppies
  
  
• How her brother’s discovery of a single sneaker caused police to suspect a kidnapping and mobilize a massive search effort
  
  
• Exclusive analysis of police theories about the abduction scene
  
  
• Investigators' analysis and conclusions drawn from the girls who saw the “man in the truck”
  
  
• The race against time in the first critical hours of a child abduction with an FBI agent’s input
• The mysterious suspect pulled over nearby—and later caught surfing porn in a library
  
  This is a story of innocence lost, a predator lurking in the woods, and a family’s thirty-year fight for justice.
• 🎧 Subscribe to It’s A Crime with Margaret McLean for Episode 2 —
  “Skeleton in the Woods” — where new suspects emerge, a disturbing letter is unearthed, and long-hidden secrets finally rise to the surface.
• https://itsacrimemedia.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@Itsacrimemedia

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The defense insists that their client Karen Read was framed for a murder she did not commit. They argue that she did not strike her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV and leave him there to die all alone in a blizzard. Instead, they claim something sinister happened to John inside 34 Fairview in Canton, Massachusetts, the home of a fellow Boston Police Officer. They suggest he was beaten inside the house, attacked by a dog, and left outside to die. But how do they explain the debris field of broken taillight and glass near his body? The pieces of taillight match Karen's Lexus. Was there enough time and opportunity for a corrupt state trooper to smash out the taillight and secretly plant the evidence at the scene to frame her? Join former prosecutor Margaret McLean and author Kevin Lenihan for an enlightening discussion and timeline.

#KarenReadTrian #KarenRead #crime #trials

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Jurors must decide whether the defendant, Karen Read, struck her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe with her Lexus SUV, leaving him to die in a blizzard. Special prosecutor Hank Brennan called a new witness to explain the timeline of events down to the second. The data from Karen's Lexus and John O'Keefe's phone have been analyzed and correlated. What are the results? Is this the nail in the coffin for the prosecution? Or will the defense destroy their new theory in cross-examination? The prosecution has also produced stunning new evidence on how John died with the testimony of a renowned brain surgeon. How will the defense cast doubt on this witness? Has their conspiracy theory been foiled?

#KarenReadTrial #Karen Read #trial #HankBrennan