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  • The Photo That Traveled 40 Miles and Reunited Two Lost Girls

    The Photo That Traveled 40 Miles and Reunited Two Lost Girls
    2026/07/25
    The Photo That Traveled 40 Miles and Reunited Two Lost Girls

    A single faded photograph traveled forty miles and sat under a porch grate for years before a 15-year-old carrier found it, carrying two names - Kelly and Marisol - and a 22-year silence between them; how did that small, late decision finally reopen a life-long search? Search the photograph, the names, and the vanished forwarding address to discover the moment that forced two women back toward each other.

    In this episode, we tell how a newspaper route, a disposable camera, and a lost forwarding address connect two women separated for decades, and why a photo found on May 7, 2024 changed everything for Kelly Evans and Marisol Vega.

    Person: Kelly Evans
    Person: Marisol Vega
    Date: May 7, 2024
    Location: Calloway, Ohio; Rennick, Ohio; Morganfield, Indiana
    Event: Photograph found under a heating grate

    - The photograph was taken in June 1993 and shows two girls on a summer sidewalk.
    - Terry Collins, a 15-year-old newspaper carrier, found the photo while twelve minutes behind on his route.
    - The photo was forty miles from where it was taken when found under Frank Oubre's porch grate.
    - Marisol Vega left Rennick with her family in spring 2002 at age ten; Kelly Evans was also ten at that time.
    - An email Marisol sent to a Kelly Evans in October 2019 sat unread in Kelly’s spam folder for four years and seven months.

    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
  • The Photograph in a Storm Drain That Reunited a Man with His Mother

    The Photograph in a Storm Drain That Reunited a Man with His Mother
    2026/07/24
    The Photograph in a Storm Drain That Reunited a Man with His Mother

    A snowplow operator found a laminated photograph in a storm drain at 4:30 a.m. after eleven inches of late spring snow, and the faded name on the back - Steven - had been traveling toward one person for fifty-two years. The photograph sat inside a cedar drawer for over five decades until a daughter found it while packing her mother’s apartment; how did a picture in a drain end up closing a silence that lasted half a century?

    In this episode, you hear how a single laminated photo, a cardboard box in the wrong garage, and a deputy who could not stop thinking about an unclaimed image converged to answer a question nobody expected to be solvable: who was Steven’s mother?

    Person: Steven Lewis
    Date: April 3, 2009
    Location: Aldrich Mill Road at Route Nine, Calloway County, Ohio
    Event: Laminated photograph found in storm drain
    Period: Birth August 1957

    - Snowplow operator Marvin Bauer found the laminated photograph at 4:30 a.m. on April 3, 2009 after eleven inches of snow fell in under six hours.
    - The photograph’s back had one faded name written in ink: “Steven.”
    - Steven Lewis turned fifty-two in 2009 and had worked nineteen years as facilities supervisor in the Municipal Services Building in Grover Falls.
    - Beverly Ostrander (born Beverly Ostrander) kept the laminated photo in a cedar drawer for fifty-two years after relinquishing a child in August 1957.
    - Tammy Sharp (née Ostrander) found the cedar drawer while packing her mother’s apartment in 2008 and read the name “Steven, August 1957.”

    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
  • A Hand Rises From the Water: The Rescue of Edward Simmons

    A Hand Rises From the Water: The Rescue of Edward Simmons
    2026/07/23
    A Hand Rises From the Water: The Rescue of Edward Simmons

    A hand resting palm-up above a life raft, two hundred yards offshore and seen from sixty feet up a tower - that image collapsed twenty-two minutes of uncertainty into a single question: was the person alive? The raft held a man who had been at sea for eleven days, with a search that had covered the wrong coordinates and stopped after seventy-two hours; how did he survive when systems failed?

    In this episode, we tell the sequence of events that led to Edward Simmons being found alive after eleven days at sea, and the key decisions and equipment failures that preceded his loss and rescue. What combination of human choices, expired equipment, and chance left his name to be found by a researcher before his body could speak for him?

    Person: Edward Simmons
    Age: 46
    Date of loss: March 4, 2017
    Duration adrift: 11 days
    Search duration before shutdown: 72 hours

    - The sighting was made by Philip Carlson from a utility tower sixty feet above ground, two hundred yards from shore.
    - The raft was wedged between two rock pilings at the waterline above Anchor Cove near Wellport.
    - Edward’s EPIRB had expired in November 2016 and was not renewed for four months.
    - The life raft purchased in Crescent City originated from a 2014 lot and passed through at least two intermediate sales before arriving at the surplus store.
    - Edward’s workboat capsized in a turbonada on the morning of March 4, 2017, and overturned in less than ninety seconds.

    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
  • The Girl With the Port‑Wine Mark Who Forgot Her Mother - Found?

    The Girl With the Port‑Wine Mark Who Forgot Her Mother - Found?
    2026/07/22
    The Girl With the Port‑Wine Mark Who Forgot Her Mother - Found?

    A red backpack resurfaced from a drainage canal on February 11, 2019, after 13.5 years submerged, and inside was a laminated index card with a child’s name and a phone number-and a year wrong by exactly one digit. That single clerical error quietly erased a six‑year‑old girl named Camille Wilson from the records for over a decade; how did a birthmark, a flooded city, and a mistaken date create fourteen years of missed chances?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of events that connects a laminator at a kitchen table, a lost child in the chaos of a storm, and a volunteer who once noticed a distinctive mark-asking whether a chain of small mistakes and near‑misses can be undone after so many years.

    Person: Camille Wilson
    Date: February 11, 2019
    Location: Harwick levee trail
    Event: Hurricane Katrina landfall on August 29, 2005
    Status: Found in backpack after 13.5 years

    - The backpack had been submerged in vegetation along the Harwick levee trail for 13.5 years.
    - The laminated index card inside bore Camille’s name, a disconnected phone number, and the year written as 2004 instead of 2005.
    - Camille was six years old and weighed 42 pounds the last time her mother held her.
    - Denise Wilson ran a laminator over the index card on September 3, 2005, and never discovered the wrong year.
    - Camille arrived at a foster placement in Plaquemine approximately 17 days after the storm and was recorded as non‑communicative with a large pigmented lesion on the posterior left shoulder.

    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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    25 分
  • A Recipe Card Leads a Woman to Her Lost Brother: The Elena Card

    A Recipe Card Leads a Woman to Her Lost Brother: The Elena Card
    2026/07/22
    A Recipe Card Leads a Woman to Her Lost Brother: The Elena Card

    Cold and precise: a laminated recipe card in Spanish tucked behind a gas meter in 28-degree weather would undo two decades of searching. The card carried two different handwritings, one name, and a local phone number - and it connected a woman who had looked for her brother for 23 years to the very street he had worked on weeks earlier. How did a sopa de lima recipe become the hinge that could reunite them?

    In this episode, we follow the moment a meter reader in Piedmont, North Carolina photographed and posted the found card to a local Facebook group and the chain of discoveries that followed, asking whether a casual act of filing could close a twenty-three-year gap between siblings.

    Person: Gina Turner
    Person: Paul Estrada
    Location: Piedmont, North Carolina
    Date: January 11, 2011
    Event: Recipe card found behind a gas meter

    - The recipe card was found on the second Tuesday of January 2011 by a meter reader on Brennan Road in 28-degree weather.
    - The card was handwritten in Spanish titled "sopa de lima" and laminated with a trapped bubble in the lower-left corner.
    - The margin of the card contained the name Gina Turner and a local phone number written in a different ink and hand.
    - Gina Turner had been searching for her brother Paul for 23 years and kept a thick folder of leads and correspondence.
    - Paul worked a carpentry job on Brennan Road in November 2010 and during those two weeks had pressed a laminated recipe card behind the gas meter.

    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
  • Mother Writes 47 Letters to a Prison That No Longer Exists

    Mother Writes 47 Letters to a Prison That No Longer Exists
    2026/07/22
    Mother Writes 47 Letters to a Prison That No Longer Exists

    A mother wrote 47 letters and every single one was opened, refolded, and left in a metal mail bin from a prison that closed six years earlier - none reached the son she was trying to find. How did mail marked with the same laundromat return address fail to follow a twelve-year-old's path through a system that eventually released him four miles from where those letters sat?

    In this episode, we follow the chain of people and missed steps that connected a shoebox of opened envelopes to a young man living in transitional housing only months after his release. What single detail finally bridged the gap between a volunteer in a diocesan storage unit and the social worker who would reach him?

    Person: Troy Walsh
    Person: Carol McCarthy
    Person: Phil Decker
    Location: Harwick Correctional, Merna
    Event: Harwick phased closure with deferred address-change notifications

    - 47 envelopes were found opened and refolded in a metal mail bin from a prison closed for six years.
    - Carol McCarthy wrote to Troy starting after his conviction and continued through the prison’s phased closure, using the same Cord Street laundromat return address.
    - Troy was convicted in approximately 2013 at age 12 and was described in an appellate opinion as having proceedings built on "materially unreliable" testimony.
    - Harwick marked the notification of Troy’s transfer as "deferred" and the deferred notification was never sent; three deferred forms produced zero forwarded letters.
    - Troy was released in late September 2023 and moved into Second Door transitional housing four miles from where the letters were stored, unaware his mother had been writing.

    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 Bracelet Buried 37 Years That Rewrote One Woman's Past

    The Bracelet Buried 37 Years That Rewrote One Woman's Past
    2026/07/22
    The Bracelet Buried 37 Years That Rewrote One Woman's Past

    A brittle white hospital bracelet sat underground for thirty-seven years before a basset hound unearthed it after heavy rains, its thermal printing still legible and showing AB-negative and a patient number that matched a dead doctor's notebook. That single plastic band ultimately bridged a gap between a woman who'd spent thirty-eight years with no origin and a grieving sister who had been waiting since 1982-so how did a drainage ditch, a retired physician's cedar chest, and a midnight software update conspire to make a family reappear?

    In this episode, you will hear how the bracelet moved through local hands-from a parks department to a county historical office to the Piedmont Records Project-and how parallel records kept by Dr. Harold Peck intersect with a genetic registry entry to answer a question that had lingered for decades. Which sequence of small, unlikely events created the only possible path to the truth?

    Person: Peggy Cook
    Person: Dorothy Haas
    Person: Dr. Harold Peck
    Date: October 1982 (bracelet printed)
    Date: November 14, 2019 (bracelet found)
    Location: Denton Bluff, North Carolina
    Event: Bracelet recovered after heavy rains

    - A white plastic hospital bracelet printed in October 1982 remained buried for 37 years before surfacing in November 2019.
    - The bracelet displayed a patient number and blood type AB-negative, both still legible after decades underground.
    - Eugene Lawson's basset hound stopped at a drainage ditch on November 14, 2019, leading Lawson to retrieve the bracelet.
    - Dr. Harold Peck worked at Denton Bluff Regional Hospital from 1978 until his retirement in 2007 and died in February 2018; his handwritten notebooks were opened six months prior to the bracelet's discovery.
    - Dorothy Haas uploaded her genetic profile to a voluntary registry in the summer of 2016 after her sister left an infant at a fire station in October 1982.

    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
  • A Child's Shoe Surfaces in a River: The Reunion of Gloria Allen

    A Child's Shoe Surfaces in a River: The Reunion of Gloria Allen
    2026/07/22
    A Child's Shoe Surfaces in a River: The Reunion of Gloria Allen

    Fear and hope collide in a single object: a white canvas child's shoe, size four, double-knotted and smelling faintly of cedar, pulled from the Hadder River before sunrise - clean as if kept, not washed. What could one shoe, logged and then forgotten for eleven days, do to undo sixteen years of separation and silence?

    In this episode, we trace the path from a riverbank discovery to a woman who had been calling a resettlement database every Wednesday morning for more than five hundred weeks. We follow the parallel lives of a mother and a girl who were separated in an ambush, lived in different continents and neighborhoods, and ask how a misheard name and a missed log entry shaped a reunion that neither system recorded.

    Person: Gloria Ndiaye (later Gloria Allen)
    Person: Adaeze Ndiaye (registered as Ada Morrow, later Ada Morrow)
    Date: October 8, 2009 (shoe found); summer 1993 (separation); 1997-1998 (Gloria arrives in U.S., settles in Portsmith)
    Location: Hadder River south bank; Portsmith, Tennessee (Barrow Avenue, Coles Avenue, Briar neighborhood)
    Event: Shoe logged as "Found property, child's shoe, left foot" and left unphotographed for 11 days

    - The shoe was found at 5:45 a.m. on October 8, 2009, by Melissa West on the Hadder River south bank.
    - The shoe is described as white canvas with a faded pink stripe, American size four, with laces double-knotted.
    - Vic Harmon, a Portsmith PD property clerk, logged the shoe and left it untouched on his desk for 11 days.
    - Gloria began calling the Atlanta refugee resettlement database every Wednesday at 5:45 a.m. since 1998, making more than 500 calls by October 2009.
    - Ada was registered at a camp in 1993 as approximately age four under the name Adaeze Ndiaye, later recorded in 1994 as "Ada Morrow," and by 1996 was living with the Morrow family in Knoxville.

    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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    25 分