Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast

In the fall of 2023, Steven Edward Riley Jr. was living in Minot, North Dakota with his longtime partner, Ina Kenoyer, when he received a letter claiming he was the sole heir to a $30 million estate left behind by a relative he had never met. For months, Steven communicated with a man named Richard Eglin, who identified himself as the estate's attorney, as the two worked toward a meeting that would finalize the inheritance. On September 3rd, 2023, Steven collapsed after attending a series of airport meetings where Eglin never appeared. Two days later, he was dead. His official cause of death was ethylene glycol poisoning. Antifreeze.

As investigators began piecing together what happened, witnesses came forward with disturbing information. Several people told police that Ina had previously talked about poisoning Steven with antifreeze specifically, and she had already begun trying to sell his belongings before she even knew he had died. What followed was one of the most contradictory police interviews investigators had ever conducted, full of shifting timelines, bizarre theories, and a woman who could not stop talking even after she asked for a lawyer.

But the detail that makes this case truly unsettling is what investigators discovered about the inheritance itself. The $30 million fortune that Steven believed was about to change his life almost certainly never existed at all. He was not murdered over a fortune. He was murdered over the illusion of one.

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This episode has been one of your most requested since we first released it, so we are bringing it back.

Lake Lanier, Georgia's largest lake, is one of the deadliest bodies of water in America, with over 700 deaths since its creation in 1956. But the lake's dark history goes deeper than tragic accidents. Built by flooding entire communities, including a predominantly Black town that was never properly evacuated, Lake Lanier sits atop homes, churches, and even cemeteries. Locals believe the lake is cursed, haunted by the spirits of those whose graves were disturbed. We explore the eerie history of Lake Lanier, the mysterious deaths and disappearances that continue to this day, and the folklore that has made it one of America's most haunted places.

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Shirley and Virgil Best were beloved, hardworking members of their Riverview, Florida, community. For forty-five years, they built a life centered around their faith, their family, and their successful tropical fish farm, Quality Fins. They were finally looking forward to a well-earned retirement traveling the world together in their RV.

But beneath the surface, the couple spent decades dealing with the constant crises of their oldest son, Robert Best. A convicted con artist who had once defrauded a blind woman out of nearly a million dollars, Robert was facing a new, deeply disturbing criminal trial set to begin on the morning of November 12, 2015. Hours before he was expected in court, Robert and his wife, Marisol Best, drove to his parents' home, supposedly to pray with them. Instead, they found Shirley and Virgil brutally shot to death.

While investigators initially confronted a staged burglary scene, the physical evidence quickly pointed to an insider. When a pair of missing handguns belonging to a family friend were uncovered, Marisol confessed to a crime that shocked the community. She admitted to shooting her mother and father-in-law after a tense argument about Robert's lack of family support, pulling the trigger just as they stood up to hold her hands and pray with her.

This week we cover the tragic murders of Shirley and Virgil Best, the bizarre web of manipulation surrounding their son, and the ultimate act of misguided loyalty that resulted in a double life sentence.

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For nearly two decades, one man told story after story about what happened to Natalee Holloway. He blamed other people, invented elaborate coverups, took money from her family in exchange for false information, and even confessed more than once, only to take it all back.

Many of us followed this case in real time as it dominated the news headlines for years. From Natalee's disappearance in Aruba in 2005, to Joran's arrest and conviction for the brutal murder of Stephany Flores Ramirez in Peru in 2010, to his eventual federal confession in 2023, the developments kept coming. But because the news came out in pieces over eighteen years, it was easy to lose track of how all the threads connected.

This week we are laying out the entire timeline from beginning to end to piece the whole story together in one place. We look at Joran's early warning signs, the devastating mistakes in the initial Aruban investigation, the sting operations, the second tragic murder that could have been prevented, and the confession that finally brought a form of resolution to a grieving mother.

If you lived through the news coverage of this case the way we did, this episode is the perfect way to see how the entire puzzle finally fits together.

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On the night of September 16, 2009, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson was arrested at an upscale Malibu restaurant after behaving in ways that concerned both the staff and the responding deputies. She passed a field sobriety test. She was cooperative and calm throughout booking. And just after midnight, the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station opened its doors and let her walk out alone, without her car, into an area she had never been before.Her mother had already called the station to say something was wrong. The restaurant employees had said something was wrong. And still, Mitrice walked out into the dark.

Nearly a year later, her remains were found in a remote stretch of the Santa Monica Mountains known as Dark Canyon. The cause of death was listed as undetermined. And the controversy surrounding how she was treated that night, and how the scene was handled when her remains were finally discovered, has never been fully resolved.

This week we cover the full story of Mitrice Richardson, from her life in Southern California to the night everything went wrong, the year-long search, and the questions her family is still asking today.

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