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The Minds of Madness - True Crime Stories

Episode 122 - Last Family Vacation

The Minds of Madness - True Crime Stories

themindsofmadness

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.46.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jo Rogers and her two daughters disappeared after taking their first vacation together.. Tragically it would be their last.

Their bodies were later discovered floating in Tampa Bay with all signs horrifically pointing to the probability they’d been thrown overboard alive - bound and weighed down with cinder blocks.

It would be a crime that would go unsolved for three years. That's until a group of determined cold case investigators decided to take another look at the case - a case that would make it to the famous TV show "Unsolved Mysteries", and onto billboards, all in a desperate attempt to track down a man they suspected was a serial killer.


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Special Thanks:

Christina Crane


Research & Writing:

Ryan Deininger


Editing:

Justin Hellstrom


Featured Podcast:

History Daily - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-daily/id1591095413


Sources:

Death Cruise (1996) by Don Davis

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-1-sunset/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-2-haunted/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-3-neighbors/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-4-the-tin-man/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-5-silver-bullet/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-6-night-stories/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/chapter-7-the-magic-kingdom/

https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/classics/angels-and-demons/postscript/

http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/chandler1275.htm 

https://www.newspapers.com/image/238443943/?terms=%22Ivelisse%20Berrios%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/635786335/?terms=%22Ivelisse%20Berrios%22&match=1

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-2014-02-25-fl-coral-springs-cold-case-20140224-story.html

https://www.tampabay.com/incoming/killer-linked-to-another-murder/2167401/

https://coralspringstalk.com/coral-springs-police-crack-23-year-old-cold-case-6986

https://www.tampabay.com/narratives/2019/06/05/from-2011-i-dont-need-any-closure-hal-rogers-rebuilds-his-life-oba-chandler-is-about-to-lose-his/

https://www.newspapers.com/image/238443943/?terms=Ivelisse%20Berrios&match=1

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the minds of madness podcast.

0:07.0

The listener discretion is advised.

0:37.0

36-year-old Joan Rogers and her two daughters, Michelle and Kristi, were heading back to their home state of Ohio after having the time of their lives on their first family vacation in Florida together, but they never made it home.

1:03.0

Join me now as we take a look at the mysterious disappearance and murder of the Rogers family.

1:10.0

You'll learn how investigators used billboards, TV shows and newspapers to track down a man they suspected was a serial killer.

1:19.0

And when the dust finally saddled, they discovered to their horror they'd been right all along.

1:43.0

In the life of a dairy farmer, there was one constant. It doesn't matter what else is going on anywhere in the world. One thing never changes. The cows need to be milked.

1:54.0

Every day, 365 days a year, Christmas morning, birth of a child, the cows still need to be milked.

2:03.0

It's a blessing and a curse, a ball and chain that ties farmers to their land, their cattle and their livelihoods, and for how Rogers and Wilshire, Ohio, it was life.

2:15.0

Morning milking started at 5.30am and after milking an endless list of chores, feeding, planting, harvesting, fixing this, repairing that.

2:27.0

What other profession requires a person to wear so many different hats on any given day, a dairy farmer needs to be a carpenter, mechanic, veterinarian, welder, nutritionist or an accountant.

2:41.0

But no matter what hat they're wearing on any given day, they're almost always in their barn clothes.

2:48.0

On June 4, 1989, how slipped on his gum boots at 3 in the afternoon and headed out to the milking parlor.

2:57.0

This week had been especially hard for howl because he was short-handed without his best help. His wife, Joan, or Joe, was everyone called her and his two daughters, 17-year-old Michelle and 14-year-old Christy.

3:11.0

Usually, Michelle and Christy would be up in the crack of dawn to help their dad. Joe would return from her midnight shift at a distribution warehouse just in time to help finish milking.

3:22.0

It was a family farm in every sense of the term. Everybody pitched in, but this week had been different.

3:29.0

For the first time in their entire lives, the Rogers family had taken a vacation. On May 26, Joan the girls had hopped into their 1986 Sky Blue Oldsemobile and drove a thousand miles down I-75 to beautiful sunny Florida.

3:46.0

Although it was meant to be a family vacation, the cows still needed to be milked and so howl stayed behind. He knew better than anyone that no one needed or deserved a vacation more than their family.

4:00.0

As howl milked the cows on the afternoon of June 4th, he kept checking the driveway to see if Joan the girls had arrived home yet. They were supposed to be back that day.

4:11.0

Michelle's boyfriend had called several times already asking if Michelle was home yet, but each time howl told Jeff the same thing he was telling himself, not yet, but they'll be back soon.

4:24.0

But as day turned to night, Joan the girls still hadn't arrived back home. As evening fell and the flat expanses of Western Ohio, lightning bugs danced through the fields and trees, marking the end of spring and the promise of a new summer.

4:40.0

But the only lights howl wanted to see were a pair of headlights coming up the driveway. As he continued to wait for them, he felt something stirring in the pit of a stomach. But it wasn't just worry, it was longing. He simply missed his wife and children.

...

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