This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable for all ages.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available.

Call or text 988 or chat with someone at 988 lifeline.org. Those outside of the U.S.

reach out to someone at your local crisis center or hotline.

Please do not suffer in silence. Southern Illinois is a land of wide fields and narrow roads, where farmland stretches for miles and small

towns dot the horizon like fading footprints.

Tucked off of Interstate 57, between the cornfields and coal veins, lies the village of

Ena, a quiet place that most people pass without ever noticing.

With a population that hovers around 400, Ena is the kind of place where

everyone seems to know each other's name, where doors were once left unlocked, and the

rhythm of daily life felt untouched by the chaos of the outside world. The area has long been

home to farming families, blue-collar workers, and the occasional drifter just passing through.

In the 1980s, it felt like the sort of place people might move to for peace and calm, a quiet

corner of America where you could raise a family in stillness.

But in the fall of 1987, that illusion of safety was forever shattered.

Something horrific happened here. Something sudden and brutal that remains completely unexplained

nearly four decades later.

It is a mystery that still lingers, carved into the very soil of Jefferson County.

This is the story of the Dardine family. Ruby Elaine Cowling was born on August 10th, 1957 in Fairfield, Illinois, and was one of

just four children.

By all indications, she was a normal young woman who eventually met the man she would fall

...