On a morning when the country’s attention was fixed on unimaginable tragedy, a Rhode Island family was learning that someone they loved was gone.

In the hours before Nicole Parsons-Bucki died, there had been violence, a police response, and a relationship already under strain, but 25 years later, no one has been charged. That could be because the deeper you look at Nicole’s case, the less simple it becomes: We’re dealing with an uncertain timeline, evidence that disappeared, unanswered questions about who was actually with her, and the possibility that what has seemed obvious for years may not tell the whole story. 

If you have any information about the murder of Nicole Parsons-Bucki, please contact investigators with the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office at 401-468-2233 or email [email protected]

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/nicoleparsonsbucki

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/michaelcochran

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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In a small New England city, a teenager disappeared after a night in the woods, and almost immediately, the story of what happened fractured.The last people known to be with her gave conflicting accounts. Her family believed the investigation lost precious time. As the years passed, searches kept returning to the same narrow stretch of land, the same handful of names, and the same possibility that someone had been carrying the truth all along.

After decades of searches, whispers and shifting loyalties, someone still knows where to find her. And it’s time to speak up.

If you have information relating to the disappearance of Melanie Melanson, please contact Detective Mark Roffi at the Woburn Police Department at 781-933-1212, extension 4547. You can also email [email protected]. The Middlesex District Attorney’s Cold Case Unit can be reached at 781-897-6600.

Melanie’s family has created a fully anonymous online tip portal at melaniemelanson.com. 

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/melaniemelanson

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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There are cases that frustrate you because the evidence is thin. And then there are cases where the warning signs seem to be everywhere, but the system still can’t quite turn suspicion into action.

A woman leaves home for a few quiet days away. Weeks later, police find her car in the woods and the man last seen with her is carrying her gun and giving away her personal belongings. Investigators see the pattern. Her family sees the danger. But seeing it and proving it are not the same thing.

As the years pass, the same questions begin following the same man across state lines as he leaves more violence in his wake.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/judithwhitney

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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Some people disappear from a place you can picture right away: a house, a road, a parking lot, a stretch of woods. But in the case of Edward Sprenkle Dubbs Jr., he seems to vanish somewhere between the parts of his life that made sense on paper. 

He had an office in New York, a home in Connecticut, a train he took like clockwork, and people waiting for him on both ends of the day. When he did not arrive where he was expected, the questions began almost immediately. Did he ever leave the city? Did he make it onto the train? Did he get off before anyone realized something had gone wrong? And if he did, who was waiting on the other side?

If you have any information about the disappearance of Edward Sprenkle Dubbs Jr., or if you knew Edward, Michael Doran, or anyone connected to them, please contact the Newtown Police Department at 203-426-5841. You can also call Newtown PD’s anonymous hotline for wanted and missing persons at 203-270-8888. Edward’s case number with Newtown Police is N-928-81.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/edwardsprenkledubbsjr

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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Sometimes, on an island, the only witness is the water.

In January of 1980, a brilliant Columbia doctor went to her home on Nantucket’s remote east end carrying the weight of a life’s work, a possible medical breakthrough, and a kind of urgency the people around her struggled to understand. By the next morning, she was gone. No ferry record. No plane tickets. No clear path away from the house. Just a trail of clues that seemed to point in every direction except the answer.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/margaretkilcoyne

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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When someone has been missing for more than thirteen years, it can start to feel from the outside like the story has stopped moving. Like whatever answers existed back then are either gone now or buried too deep to reach. But for Ryan Blagojevic’s family, time has not softened the urgency. His sister Eve is still living inside the search for her brother, still turning over every possibility, still hoping that one piece of information could finally bring Ryan home.

Ryan was last seen in Portland, Maine on March 31, 2013, after he was asked to leave a shelter. At the time, he was vulnerable. He was experiencing homelessness, struggling with substance use disorder, and moving through a world where people in crisis are too often overlooked. But Ryan was never invisible to the people who loved him. He was a son, a brother, a father, a craftsman, a musician, and a person whose life mattered long before he became the subject of a missing persons case.

Ryan’s case is not as stagnant as it might appear on the surface. Saying Ryan’s name again, right now, matters more than ever.

If you have information about the disappearance of Ryan Blagojevic, please call the Portland, Maine Police Department at (207) 874-8575. To provide information anonymously, you can call (207) 874-8584 and leave a message on the department’s crime tip line. You may also text the keyword “PPDME” and your message to 847411 (TIP411).

If you would like to learn more about Milestone Recovery and support the organization through a donation, visit milestone-recovery.org. To find resources to support those experiencing homelessness in your community, visit endhomelessness.org.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/ryanblagojevic/

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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Victoria Cushman was just 29 years old when she was found murdered inside her Warwick, Rhode Island apartment, just steps from the sporting goods store where she worked. For years, her family waited for answers and eventually, the case seemed to have them: a suspect known to the case from day one, who investigators said had motive to end Vickie’s life.

The evidence was circumstantial, but it was compelling. A secret relationship. Conflicting statements. A timeline that seemed to close in around one man. To a jury, the pieces fit. But fitting isn’t the same as true.

Years later, the story everyone thought they trusted cracked wide open.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/victoriacushman

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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In the summer of 2018, Trish Haynes disappeared from New Hampshire. Or at least, that’s what the public knew. Investigators searched a rural property, then quietly recovered something from a nearby pond, but for months, they said almost nothing about what they had found or how it related to the missing persons case.

Behind the scenes, Trish’s family was living with a very different reality. They had spent months trying to reach her, hearing shifting explanations about where she was and why she couldn’t come to the phone. Then they learned a truth they were told not to share. 

Years later, the questions around Trish’s case still keep circling the same small group of people and places, and the same frustration from a family that believes this case is not without answers… It is without accountability.

If you know anything about what happened to Trish Haynes, or if you have information about the people or places connected to her final months, please contact New Hampshire State Police at (603) 223-4381. 

Follow the family’s advocacy and updates by joining the Justice for Trish Haynes Private Official Facebook Group.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/trishhaynes

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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In 2016, the disappearance of Valerie Tieman became one of the most talked-about cases in Maine in the last decade. At first, there was room for hope, and maybe even a version of the story where Valerie had simply walked away from a life that had become too painful. 

Her husband, Luc Tieman, was a wounded military veteran, a man whose service and struggles shaped how people first understood him. But as investigators followed the trail from a parking lot to a wooded property in central Maine, the story Luc told evolved. Each new version raised a darker question: what happened to Valerie, and why were the people who loved her the last to know she was gone?

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, support is available. Visit the hotline.org or contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline 24/7 at 1-800-799-SAFE. You can also text START to 88788, to speak with someone who can help you make a safe plan.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/valerietieman

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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On a Friday afternoon in July of 1991, Martha Brailsford told friends she was going sailing.

In coastal Massachusetts at what is often the peak of summer heat and humidity, that wasn’t unusual. Martha knew the water, and in Salem Willows, boats were part of the everyday landscape. There was no reason to think a simple afternoon sail would become anything else.

But when Martha didn’t come home that night, the search for her would expose a man whose stories kept changing, a familiar coastline that suddenly felt unknowable, and a truth hidden somewhere beyond the shoreline.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/marthabrailsford

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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