Before You Go

Before You Go

Author: Audio 99 May 3, 2024 Duration: 43:34

McNeil Island off the coast of Washington state is inaccessible by any road and not welcome to most visitors. Once the site of a state prison, the island is now home to a most unwelcome and dangerous inhabitant: Violent sexual predators who have served their prison sentences but are deemed too dangerous to return to society. These men have been banished from society and largely forgotten about. And that last part, Detective Lindsey Wade finds out, is a problem. Lindsey specializes in DNA cold cases and she knows that some of the men of McNeil Island might be responsible for other crimes. She wants to test and record their DNA. As she works to make this happen, she stumbles upon a decades-old murder. Will she find the answers on the island of the banished?


The detective: Lindsey Wade

Lindsey served as a Tacoma Police Officer for twenty-one years. During her fourteen years as a detective, she investigated sexual assaults, child abuse, missing persons, and homicides. In 2010, Lindsey discovered that serial killer Ted Bundy’s DNA was not in CODIS. She worked with authorities in Florida to track down a sample of Bundy’s DNA and finally entered it into the national database in 2011. In 2012, Lindsey’s work on collecting DNA from convicted sexual predators in Washington state who’d slipped through the cracks led to an arrest in the 1980 homicide of a teenage girl. Lindsey retired in 2018 as the Tacoma Police Department’s cold case detective and joined the Washington State Attorney General’s Office as a senior investigator assigned for the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. She is a former member of the FBI ViCAP National Advisory Board and teaches child abduction response and cold case investigations for the National Criminal Justice Training Center at Fox Valley Technical College. Lindsey has been a speaker at numerous law enforcement conferences around the country, lecturing on cold cases, sex crimes, DNA, and child abduction response. She recently published a true crime memoir titled, “In My DNA: My Career Investigating Your Worst Nightmares”.



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There’s a certain texture to crime stories that unfold in close-knit communities, where everyone knows each other and the shock of a crime reverberates through every street and diner. Small Town Dicks, produced by Audio 99, explores exactly that terrain. This isn't a sensationalized look at crime; instead, it delves into the intricate, often overlooked investigations that happen in smaller municipalities. Each episode feels like sitting down with the detectives and officers who were there, hearing them walk through the details of a case from the first call to the final resolution. You’ll get a raw, ground-level view of police work, far from the glossy procedural dramas. The conversations naturally weave in elements of society and local history, showing how a community's culture and relationships can both complicate and aid an investigation. By focusing on true crime from a small-town perspective, the podcast reveals universal truths about human nature and justice. It’s a compelling listen for anyone curious about the real stories behind the headlines and the dedicated people who work to solve them. The depth of these firsthand accounts makes for a uniquely authentic and gripping experience every time you tune in.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Small Town Dicks
Podcast Episodes
Epilogue [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:18
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Duration: 1:01:16
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Duration: 46:04
Retired Detective Constable Ron is called to a crime scene as a hostage negotiator. A repeat offender facing drug charges has barricaded himself in an attic, refusing to surrender. As a crowd gathers outside, the standof…
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Duration: 53:07
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Duration: 58:33
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Duration: 53:21
After years of adventure on their dream yacht, a retired couple decides to sell it and move closer to their grandchildren. The buyers—a charming young couple with a toddler—seem perfect. They don’t haggle on price; their…
Justice for Carla, Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:48
In the conclusion of this two-part case, Paul Holes turns to DNA evidence in the search for Carla Walker’s real killer. But decades-old lab errors and missing samples threaten to derail the investigation. Despite the obs…
Justice for Carla, Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:53
In part one of this two-part case, our very own Paul Holes explains how a cold case from 1974 landed on his desk. Seventeen-year-old Carla Walker was brutally murdered on her way to a dance, and suspicion quickly fell on…