In 1946, The American twin city of Texarkana was plunged into the depths of panic and fear. The population of the postwar suburb was subjected to a series of murders that shook the dual cities to their core, prompting curfews, rumours and unease to spread through the area like the rail tracks that crept from it’s central hub. Nights of midnight movies, drive-in cafes, the songs of Duke Ellington and big band orchestras were perforated with tales of a man with a white sheet over his head, holes cut out for eyes, performing brutal executions upon the vulnerable and unexpecting.

All aboard, we’re going back to the Victorian era to shed some light on the first ever murder on a train in Britain at a time when people were already terrified on this crazy new technology. It’s not all high speed steam trains though, we’ve even got a super slow-mo police chase across the Atlantic!

After the last couple of episodes, we’re crashing back to earth this week with the lesser known story of William Herbert Wallace and his wife Julia. This is a case named over and over again as the quintessential murder mystery, despite its relatively unknown status.

The mad butcher carved up his victims throughout the 1930’s, evading capture from an entire police department, headed up by none other than the infamous Eliot Ness. During the Great Depression times were hard and in Cleveland, they were all the more difficult as the dank, dark streets of the local shanty town were stalked by a crazed psychotic with a penchant for decapitation.

This episode I get stuck into The Crabb Affair, a strange disappearance from 1956, surrounded by Cold War suspicion and government cover-ups. Who doesn’t love a good spy tale? Especially one that is as suspicious as this.

An obscure one this week with the lesser-known case of Gary Mathias and his four friends from Yuba City, CA. Five guys who went to a basketball game and ended up disappearing on a mountain road, 70 miles away, with no explicable reason as to how they got there, nor what led to their eventual fate.

This episode we take a look at the disappearance and eventual reappearance of the Jamison family. A mother, father and daughter trio who mysteriously went missing in the remote wilderness of Red Oak, Oklahoma only for the bodies to be found four years later.

This week is a tireless effort to unravel the most tightly wound bundle of gossip, hearsay and bizarre facts that make up the Circleville Letter Mystery. A series of thousands of letters, spanning almost three decades that lead to at least one strange death, a shifty court trial and incarceration and accusations of deep conspiracy. Oh and a booby trap.