Episode Details

On today’s episode of True Crime Time For, Woody opens by thanking the Lifers for listening and sharing and reminds everyone that tips can still be called into 313-RLRC-TIP on any case he has worked. He explains that when a specific tip comes in on an active investigation he cannot personally act on, he forwards it to the people currently working the case—and every credible lead has to be run down. Meanwhile, families and investigators continue waiting for answers and justice.

Larry Ralston and the Disappearance of Linda Kay Harmon

For On This Day in Crime, Woody goes back to September 3, 1975, when 17-year-old Linda Kay Harmon disappeared in Ohio while on her way to school.

Harmon failed to meet a friend and later missed a dental appointment, alarming her parents. About a month later, her skeletal remains were discovered scattered across an area along Braun Road. Her murder would eventually become part of a series connected to Larry Ralston, an Ohio serial killer and rapist.

Ralston’s known victims included Harmon as well as Nancy Grigsby, Mary Ruth Hopkins, Elaina Bear, and Diane Sue McCrobie. Historical court records confirm Ralston confessed to the strangulation murder of 15-year-old Elaina Bear, whose body was discovered in a creek bed after she disappeared in January 1977.

Woody walks through the disappearances and murders of the young women, including 22-year-old Nancy Grigsby, 15-year-old Elaina Bear and 16-year-old Diane Sue McCrobie.

The break in the investigation came after three teenage girls reported that a man had abducted and raped them in September 1977. Ralston was arrested later that year, and investigators began connecting him to the murders.

He was convicted of Elaina Bear’s murder in 1978 and initially sentenced to death. That sentence was later converted to life imprisonment following changes to Ohio’s death-penalty law. Additional murder convictions and rape sentences followed. He later pleaded guilty to the 1976 murder of Mary Ruth Hopkins.

Woody is particularly frustrated by the fact that Ralston eventually became eligible for parole despite multiple murder convictions. His bids for release have repeatedly been opposed by victims’ families and denied.

The larger question hanging over the story is whether Ralston may have been responsible for additional unsolved murders in the Cincinnati area during that period. Woody believes investigators knew of far fewer victims than Ralston actually had—but that remains speculation, not an established victim count.

F’d Up Professionals: A Nearly $24 Million Postal Check-Theft Scheme

Next, Woody heads to Houston for an F’d Up Professionals story involving people entrusted with something millions of Americans use every day: the U.S. mail.

Federal prosecutors have charged five Houston-area defendants in a conspiracy involving approximately $24 million in stolen checks.

The indictment names Tryston Tremaine Vaughn, Catherine Clauzelle Kilpatrick, Drakkor Jamar Alexander, Malcolm Tiree Joubert, and Alyssa Nadine Bryant. Kilpatrick, Alexander and Joubert worked as U.S. Postal Service mail carriers.

Prosecutors allege Vaughn recruited postal workers to remove checks from mail along their routes. Those stolen checks were then allegedly offered to buyers through Telegram and shipped to purchasers.

According to the Justice Department, the scheme involved approximately $24 million worth of checks. Individual stolen checks allegedly included amounts in the tens of thousands of dollars, while one was valued at approximately $1.5 million.

Woody talks about the unusual authority of U.S. Postal Inspectors and the federal nature of crimes involving the mail before marveling at the