The Tape Room Podcast

In 1985 a senior citizen was killed inside his home in New Milford, Connecticut. It was a brutal crime that shocked this suburb.Two men eventually convicted of murder have maintained their innocence for 30 years. Now the Connecticut State Supreme Court is taking a second look at the case. There are serious questions about decades old testimony from a world famous criminologist.

It happened in December way back in 1985.  A 65 year old man named Everett Carr murdered. A burglary gone wrong police said. Police zeroed in on two local teenagers Sean Henning and Ricky Birch who were eventually convicted of the murder. The testimony from Forensic Expert, Henry Lee, helping to put them away.  But did they do it?  Ricky Birch incarcerated at the Osborn Correctional Institution sent a letter to Dan Bowens at Fox 5\. Here is a portion of our interview with Ricky Birch.

Thousands of men and women have passed away without anyone being able to identify them. They are known now only as John and Jane Doe in the national cold case database of unidentified person. Dan Bowens talks with Rebekah Turner creator of [theunidentified.org](https://www.theunidentified.org/) a website dedicated to cold cases to identify those who have passed by accident or by the hand of another.

She was someone’s daughter, sister, friend. Whoever she was… … she wasn’t supposed to be here. If you have any information regarding this case:  Mount Vernon Police Dept  Detective Chris DiMase / 914-668-6841  Or Anyone with a cell phone may send an anonymous tip to us by texting MVPD and their message/tip to 847411 (tip411) 

Jamal Gaines was killed defending his dream. Jamal had a love for sneakers and he turned that passion into his own store. His shop in Rahway, NJ had some of the rarest and most popular sneakers on the market and people came from all over the world to have a look. Two years after his death, the case remains unsolved. In this episode ( Sneaker head Part Two ) Dan Bowens speaks with friends and family about the night Jamal"Mally"Gaines lost his life.

He was a young entrepreneur living his dream. Jamal Gaines had a love for sneakers and he turned that passion into his own store. His shop in Rahway, NJ had some of the rarest and most popular sneakers on the market and people came from all over the world to have a look. Then one night... it was all gone. He was killed defending his store. His dream. Two years after his death, the case remains unsolved.

In February of 1985, Steve Mason and his half brother Charles Taylor left their Bronx apartment for a short walk to school. Hours later their bodies were discovered in a dark stairwell of their apartment building. They were only six and eight years old. Three decades later the killing remains unsolved and one of the most disturbing for an NYPD detective who worked the case.

It was a brutal killing.Karina Vetrano was raped and murdered after she went out for a jog in the summer of 2016.Police didn't solve the crime, that came to be known as the case of the Howard Beach jogger, for months. During that time her father, Phil, became a leading advocate for a new crime fighting tool known as familial DNA testing. In a candid interview about his daughter's death he tells the Tape Room why he thinks the new method will help other families who know his pain.

If you walk into the police department and many stores in Sayreville, New Jersey you can still see flyers and posters hanging from the walls with the picture of a girl named Nancy Noga. January 7th 1999 seventeen-year-old Nancy Noga left her job for the night. Normally a 15minute walk to her family's apartment but on this night she never came home. Her death shattered the quiet suburb of Sayreville New Jersey. Dan Bowens enters the Tape Room and revisits this case with Middlesex County prosecutor Andrew Carey and Sgt. Scott Crocco.

He was the definition of an American success story. Abe Lebewohl was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the United States at the age of 19. He later opened the 2nd Avenue deli in the East Village where he was known to feed every homeless person who walked into the deli hungry. He was a man who lived to help others, until one day someone took everything. Abe was killed in March of 1996. The Tape Room takes a closer look at this case with an emotional conversation with Abe's brother.

The Tape Room goes back to 1986. The Rabbinical Student: Orthodox Judaism is unique. On one side it is the practice of living to strict codes that have remained unchanged for centuries. One the other, it is mingling and living in secular society. To keep up the traditions, many communities set up schools known as yeshivas. It is at one of these schools on Long Island back in 1986 where a young student was found beaten to death. His name was Chaim Weiss. Police say he died from a blow to his head so powerful, it severed his spine. We speak with the Chaim's father. Three decades later this brutal crime still haunts this family.

Fox 5 News is opening up its Tape Room and taking a look back at some of the most infamous and unsolved crimes in the New York and New Jersey area. Sarah Fox, 21, vanished after going out for a run in upper Manhattan in May of 2004. A few days later her body was found inside Inwood Hill Park. Her murder has never been solved and some investigators describe this case as one the City's most unusual crimes in recent history.