The day after Thanksgiving in 1989, eighteen-year-old Mandy Stavik went for a run along a quiet road in rural Washington.

Her dog came home.

She didn’t.

For nearly thirty years, the small community of Acme lived with an unanswered question: who killed Mandy Stavik? In this episode of Same Crime, Different Time, we explore the heartbreaking case that haunted investigators for decades, and the unlikely break that finally solved it. Sometimes the truth waits.

Amusement parks are meant to deliver joy, laughter, thrills, and escape from the ordinary. But where there’s wonder, sometimes there’s tragedy.Today, we’re exploring accidents that turned places built for magic into scenes of heartbreak, with a focus on the West Coast, where early parks like Disneyland and seaside attractions helped define the American amusement experience. Stay with me for a twist on nostalgia you won’t forget.

A small memorial marks the spot in the tiny unincorporated town of Bly, Oregon where the only fatalities from enemy action in WWII occurred in the continental United States.

May 5 was a sunny day in 1945 when Archie Mitchell, a pastor from Bly, his wife, Elsie Mitchell, 26, and five kids who went to Elsie’s Sunday School class decided to go for a picnic on nearby Leonard Creek. They saw a curious thing in the bushes nearby.

What happened next was the tragic result of one of the most ingenious and curious war inventions known up to that point: a paper balloon bomb.