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  • His walker, Scott Wilson, assumed the usual: a dead animal under the brush

    His walker, Scott Wilson, assumed the usual: a dead animal under the brush
    2026/08/06
    His walker, Scott Wilson, assumed the usual: a dead animal under the brush

    A dog named Cosmo stopped dead on a frozen trail on February 9 and refused to move until his walker found a cardboard portfolio case lying flat near a gap in a chain-link fence. The case was addressed in Linda Perry’s own handwriting to an address no public record connected to her and contained work she had quietly been moving out - but why send her own pieces to herself through a fence and what did that impossible address prove about the place she trusted?

    In this episode, we follow Linda Perry, the Ironworks Residency, and the journalist who pulled a thread on Marvin Fleming’s fabricated résumé, tracing how an artist community became a pattern of deception without obvious violence.

    Person: Linda Perry
    Location: Ironworks Residency, Harwick, Pennsylvania
    Date: February 9 (discovery of portfolio)
    Person: Marvin Fleming (aka Martin Fleck)
    Event: Dean Jenkins contacted Allegheny County Sheriff's Office February 6

    - Cosmo the dog stopped at the fence gap on February 9 and Scott Wilson found a cardboard portfolio case addressed to Linda Perry care of Bette Crane at 44 Orchard Spur Road.
    - Linda Perry had called her daughter Cassie every Wednesday at 6:45 AM for nine years and the calls stopped for eleven months before resuming the week she left.
    - Marvin Fleming incorporated the Ironworks Residency in 2014 and presented himself as a former gallery director despite records showing part-time art handling under the name Martin Fleck in 1994-95.
    - Investigators documented $400,000 routed over seven years to a credit union account in the name Martin Fleck that received studio fees and residency payments.
    - Fleming pled guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and theft by deception and was sentenced to six years in state prison while Linda Perry’s work was recovered in full.

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    © 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
  • No water damage, no mud, no warping from the cold

    No water damage, no mud, no warping from the cold
    2026/08/05
    No water damage, no mud, no warping from the cold

    A pristine laminated badge caught in the reeds six miles from Stillpoint Campus set an investigation in motion on January 14, 2014 - a small, impossible object that contradicted the landscape and the story residents had been told. How did a badge survive damp riverbank conditions untouched and why did its single name unravel years of secrecy and a system of control?

    In this episode, we trace Nicole Hensley’s path from Thursday-night bowling leagues to the late-night broadcasts of Wade Draper and the growth of Clarity Signal Ministries into Stillpoint Campus, following the financial paper trail, the storage-unit ledgers, and the recordings that finally linked Draper to multiple identities without revealing every missing thread.

    Person: Nicole Hensley
    Organization: Clarity Signal Ministries / Stillpoint Campus
    Date: January 14, 2014 (badge found); February 5, 2014 (raid)
    Location: Harmon County, Louisiana
    Outcome: Craig Allen Hollis (aka Wade Draper) sentenced to 19 years

    - Melissa Davis found a laminated badge on a Harmon County riverbank on January 14, 2014 that showed no water damage or warping.
    - The badge bore the name Sandra Pruitt, matching a former resident who had left Stillpoint after an argument in 2012.
    - Seventeen boxes of financial records labeled "CLARITY SIGNAL MINISTRIES - INTERNAL" remained sealed in a Ferris Bluff storage unit until discovered in November 2013.
    - A 2001 bankruptcy filing for Waveform Audio Productions included a photograph that matched Wade Draper's face and linked him to Waveform Properties LLC in Nevada.
    - When detectives played forty seconds of internal audio from a recovered hard drive Craig Allen Hollis confessed to his own words and later received a nineteen-year sentence.

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    © 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
  • The date was December third, two thousand seventeen

    The date was December third, two thousand seventeen
    2026/08/04
    The date was December third, two thousand seventeen

    A three-ring binder was tucked into a cedar tree thirty yards inside a locked fence on a rural Teller County property - one hundred fourteen handwritten pages that recorded children who, on paper, did not exist there. Who carried that document out past guards, schedules, and silence, and what did a red-ink margin note about a false credential ultimately expose?

    In this episode, we trace the rise and collapse of the Millbrook Learning Circle under Keith Davis, the fabricated Baylor credential that held it together, and the fifteen-year-old who carried the binder to the fence without a phone or outside help.

    Person: Keith Davis
    Location: Whelan property, Teller County Texas
    Date: December 3-14, 2017
    Event: three-ring binder with 114 handwritten pages found in cedar tree
    Status: Convicted (sentence 14 years; appeals denied)

    - Keith Davis, age 46 when Millbrook began, fabricated a Baylor credential in 2012 before founding Millbrook Learning Circle.
    - By September 2013 Laura Casey had enrolled her son Marcus and became one of five families living on the Whelan property by 2014.
    - Sandra Pruett at the Texas Department of Education flagged the false Baylor credential in 2015 and forwarded the discrepancy to the county sheriff who took no action for eleven months.
    - Patrice Holden wrote in red ink in the primary binder in summer 2017: "He never went to Baylor. Check the registrar." and left the binder in the shared materials.
    - Marcus Casey, fifteen, carried the binder to a cedar tree inside the locked fence in early December 2017 where surveyor Michael Petersen found it eleven days later and triggered the arrest.

    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 van was parked exactly where it had no business being

    The van was parked exactly where it had no business being
    2026/08/03
    The van was parked exactly where it had no business being

    A white Ford cargo van sat on the shoulder of Route 101 on November 7, 2019 with its hood raised, a socket wrench balanced on the engine block, and the cargo bay lined with hundreds of dried flower garlands around a pair of size-eleven rubber chest waders - an image that opened an abandoned cannery and a ledger that didn’t add up. How did a man alleging sacrifice and shared purpose turn a working-coast cooperative into a financial machine, and who paid for it?

    In this episode, we trace Pelican Reach Cooperative from Gloria Zeller’s November 14, 2019 discovery back through its founding by Melvin Clark, the ritualized Offering Walk, and the ledger entries that revealed three years of regular transfers to a Grants Pass account - without revealing the full scope of what was in the second lockbox.

    Person: Melvin Clark (born Melvin Dwayne Corey)
    Location: Anchor Cove Peninsula, northern Oregon coast
    Date: November 7-14, 2019
    Organization: Pelican Reach Cooperative LLC
    Event: discovery of abandoned cannery and financial records

    - Gloria Zeller found the abandoned cooperative and the van with garlands and upright chest waders on November 14, 2019 and reported it to the Tillamook County Sheriff's Office.
    - Pelican Reach had been incorporated the previous summer and housed fourteen full-time residents who pooled wages into a Collective Account.
    - Jeffrey Morris, a signatory on the account, discovered consistent monthly outflows of $2,000 to $3,000 routed to a Grants Pass account held by Patricia Voss.
    - Clark was actually Melvin Dwayne Corey with a 1996 Nevada name change and a 2004 fraud conviction for a timeshare scheme in Bakersfield involving eleven victims.
    - Clark confessed to twelve counts of wire fraud and three counts of labor exploitation and investigators recovered a ledger and a second lockbox documenting the transfers.

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    © 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
  • Surveyor Finds a Safe Bolted to a Tree: The Sovereign Pines Fellowship

    Surveyor Finds a Safe Bolted to a Tree: The Sovereign Pines Fellowship
    2026/08/02
    Surveyor Finds a Safe Bolted to a Tree: The Sovereign Pines Fellowship

    A Harmon County surveyor found a microwave-sized safe bolted to a living white oak, its lower bolts grown into the bark, containing forty-one composition notebooks that mapped nine years of one man’s private accounting of the people in his care-grief, secrets, estrangements and the methods of control. Who was Charles Hunt, and how did a nonprofit educational retreat hide a decade-long system of manipulation inside tax-exempt paperwork and workshop charisma?

    In this episode, we follow the discovery from the GPS coordinate recorded by surveyor Brian Duncan to the notebooks locked inside the safe, and we trace how people like Marcia Riley were drawn in by weekend workshops and a carefully constructed biography. What did the Stewardship Circle mean in practice, and how did nine years of records reveal the Fellowship’s true structure?

    Person: Brian Duncan
    Person: Charles Hunt
    Person: Marcia Riley
    Event: Safe discovered on third Tuesday of August 2019 at 10:15 AM
    Count: 41 composition notebooks

    - The safe was bolted to a living white oak roughly two hundred yards past the tree line.
    - The lower two bolts had been grown around by the tree, indicating the safe had been there for at least two or three years.
    - The notebooks covered nine years and each was labeled with a letter, a number, and a surname.
    - By spring 2014 Charles Hunt was fifty-three years old and had been refining his approach for more than a decade.
    - By March 2015 Marcia Riley had donated approximately $18,000 and moved onto the Harmon County property.

    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
  • She Never Went There: The Warden Circle Case

    She Never Went There: The Warden Circle Case
    2026/08/01
    She Never Went There: The Warden Circle Case

    Grief was reframed into responsibility: a laminated card belonging to Patricia Wren - who had been dead for over a year and had never been to the property where the card was found - was wedged under a septic hatch on July 14, 2019, and that single impossible detail pulled on a five-year thread. How did a dead woman's card end up on a rural Harmon Township property, and what did it reveal about fabricated credentials and a scheme that drained $460,000 from grieving people?

    In this episode, we follow the events that led from a Renner Street grief group to a communal property in Harmon Township, tracing key people, false credentials, and financial arrangements that connected them. What happened between January 2017 and July 2019 that turned caregiving and loss into a pattern of deception?

    Person: Patricia Wren
    Date: July 14, 2019
    Location: Harmon Township
    Event: laminated card found under septic hatch
    Amount: $460,000

    - The laminated card with Patricia Wren’s name was found wedged between a septic hatch cover and its concrete collar on a rural Harmon Township property on July 14, 2019.
    - Patricia Wren died in May 2018 from a cardiac event and had not attended the Harmon Township property, signed a lease, surrendered an account, or transferred a title there.
    - Melvin Porter, age 54, ran grief sessions beginning January 2017, claiming credentials from a nonexistent Renner Institute and an alleged chaplaincy background with no records at the state board or regional hospitals.
    - Dean Cox, age 31, began attending meetings after his mother’s death in October 2016 and moved to the Harmon Township property in July 2017; he maintained two strict insulin alarms for his border collie Hector at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
    - By March 2017, Porter had created a second meeting called the Warden Circle and kept physical folders titled “Prospects,” which included a file for Patricia Wren who had attended for three months in 2017 before leaving.

    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 road grader blade caught it on a Tuesday morning in February

    The road grader blade caught it on a Tuesday morning in February
    2026/07/31
    The road grader blade caught it on a Tuesday morning in February

    A waterlogged three-ring binder, half-dissolved and dragged from a drainage ditch by a county road grader, held 112 names, dollar amounts, and a single four-letter status next to Megan Sheridan’s entry. How did a converted summer camp become a million-dollar operation run by a man with no verifiable credentials, and what did that one word beside a young woman’s name mean for the life she left behind?

    In this episode, we follow Megan Sheridan’s path from Wednesday night board games in Weston to Alderton Pines, trace Frances Tate’s yearlong document hunt, and reconstruct how a ledger, a misdirection in a fund’s filing, and a road grader turned a cold pattern into a prosecution without revealing every last loss.

    Person: Megan Sheridan
    Organization: Alderton Pines / Steward Fund
    Person: Thomas Stewart
    Location: Garner County (converted summer camp)
    Event: binder recovered from drainage ditch

    - Alan Wright found the surviving three-ring binder in a drainage ditch near the culvert on County Road 7 on a Tuesday morning in February.
    - The binder contained 112 names covering thirty-one months with dollar amounts averaging roughly $9,000 per person and status descriptors.
    - Megan Sheridan arrived at Alderton Pines in August after transferring $11,000 drawn from her grandmother’s inheritance and surrendered her phone during the Integration Period.
    - Frances Tate uncovered that the Oregon licensing board and university registrar had no records matching the credentials Thomas Stewart claimed and linked him to a prior eight-month program in Walcott County.
    - Megan’s ledger entry listed $11,000 and the word "flagged" in blue ballpoint ink smeared at the page edge.

    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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    20 分
  • No snow had fallen in Orviston, Ohio, for six months

    No snow had fallen in Orviston, Ohio, for six months
    2026/07/30
    No snow had fallen in Orviston, Ohio, for six months

    A child's red plastic sled sat in a scorched July field behind a farmhouse, holding forty-seven sealed envelopes addressed in the same careful hand and without return addresses - placed there within hours and left unread. Who would write affectionate, preemptive letters to a closed community and then abandon them on a sled instead of delivering them, and what does that sled reveal about how a room full of grief became a controlled world?

    In this episode, we trace how a Wednesday grief meeting in February 2017 led to an invitation-only "grief architecture" group, the creation of Clearwater Home LLC, and the slow narrowing of members' lives under a man who called himself Chad Johnson but was legally Charles J. Hamond, avoiding the past that would later end his pattern.

    Person: Cynthia Coleman
    Organization: Clearwater Home LLC
    Location: Mossback Creek Road, Orviston, Ohio
    Date: February 2017-July 2019
    Status: Criminal conviction (guilty plea November 2019)

    - Cynthia Coleman joined a public grief support meeting in February 2017 and met a man who identified himself as Chad Johnson.
    - Charles J. Hamond had been censured and decertified by the Washington State licensing board in 2004 for financial exploitation and psychological manipulation.
    - By fall 2017 four members had moved into a farmhouse and Clearwater Home LLC was incorporated with sleep protocols and collected journals.
    - Janet Keller's June 2019 article prompted a welfare check that found seven adults in the farmhouse compliant and several visibly disoriented while Chad Johnson was absent.
    - Leon Larsen found forty-seven sealed, wax-sealed envelopes on a child's red sled in a scorched July field that had been placed there the night before and never mailed.

    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