This Doesn’t Happen Here

Tyrone, Missouri, is a small, no-stoplight town 90 miles east of Springfield. With a population of about 50, there are no restaurants, stores, or even a school. The remote area, consisting mainly of mobile homes and small houses, was rocked to its core in February 2015. 

At 10:15 p.m. on February 27, 2015, a 15-year-old Tyrone resident called 911 from a neighbor's house. The neighbor (who wished not to be named) said she was barefo...

2:27 am on June 18, 1982, Martha Yankee a 911 dispatcher received a call from the Imperial Gas Station on south main street in Harrisonburg, Va. 

The young lady calling was 20 year old Kelly Bergh Dove who was working the night shift alone at the gas station.

When Officer Sam Yankee arrived she was gone without a trace. Her cigarette was in the ashtray burned down to the butt, the magazine she was reading was still open on the cou...

March 1, 1983, in McCarthy, Alaska an old mining town at the base of the Wrangell Mountains.

It was a Tuesday, which in this town of about 20 people was mail day. Because this town was so remote, residents received mail and necessities such as groceries only once a week from what they called the mail plane. 

Yall This town was so remote and small that one resident said “Around here there are so few of us we know each other by boot ...

On February 5th, 1997, around 8:35 pm employees at a Stuarts Draft pizza place heard the back door close that was shared with the next-door floral shop. At first, they thought it was the co-owner Dawn Snyder leaving. It wasn’t until they noticed she had left the lights on that they felt something wasn’t right. 

Once they realized her van was still outside with her keys and purse inside they KNEW something wasn’t right.

The next co...

Over the years while listening to and watching these stories I noticed a running theme. When cases in small towns were covered people would say “things like this don’t happen around here” or “this doesn’t happen here” as if being in a small town kept the evil at bay. I knew the false sense of security we feel in small towns is just that, false. 

I know this because my grandfather was that evil……. 

I have only met my grandfather...