It was a normal night. Bar hopping, drinks, a crowded city full of people.

At 1:55 a.m., Brian is seen on surveillance footage entering the Ugly Tuna Saloona.

He never comes back out.

There is no footage of him leaving. No confirmed sightings after that moment. No activity on his phone or bank accounts.

Inside the bar, there were no cameras tracking his movements. Witnesses say he was calm, talking with two women near closing time. At one point, he tells them he is heading back toward the stage area. Deeper into the bar, not leaving.

That is the last confirmed moment anyone sees him.

His friends leave later that night without him, believing he had already gone. But there is no clear moment where they separate. No goodbye. No explanation.

Just absence.

Investigators reviewed everything. Every camera angle. Every possible exit. Every route through the building.

Nothing.

Nearly two decades later, Brian Shaffer is still missing.

Because this is not just a disappearance.

It is a moment that should exist, but does not.

🔗 Full episode and socials

https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

If you would like to support these investigations

https://cash.app/$TheGrimesFiles

Inside, they found human remains.

The woman who lived there had never left.

Her name was Hedviga Golik, and investigators believed she had been dead for more than 30 years.

For decades, neighbors assumed Hedviga had simply moved away. Some believed she had joined a religious group. Others thought she had left the city entirely. No one reported her missing, and because of local tenancy laws, no one felt comfortable entering the apartment.

So the door stayed closed.

Behind it, time simply stopped.

In this episode of The Grimes Files, host Joey Grimes examines the real story behind one of the internet’s most widely misreported cases. Viral retellings often claim Hedviga Golik was found sitting in a chair in front of a television decades after her death. But the original Croatian reporting tells a very different story.

Through archival reports and forensic explanations, this episode explores what investigators actually know about Hedviga Golik’s life, her disappearance, and the disturbing discovery that shocked Zagreb.

Because Hedviga Golik didn’t disappear in a remote place.

She died inside an apartment.

In the middle of a city.

Surrounded by neighbors.

And for more than three decades… no one realized she was still there.

Follow & Support The Grimes Files

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

Support the show / Donate: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Sources

Index.hr

Jutarnji List

Dnevnik.hr

Metro Portal

Slobodna Dalmacija

Večernji List

Host: Joey Grimes

Podcast: The Grimes Files

These sources come directly from the contemporaneous Croatian reporting corpus from May 2008, which consistently describes Golik’s body as being discovered on a bed in the apartment’s bedroom, contradicting later viral claims about her being seated in front of a television.  

Sometime before 2 a.m., his car went into a ditch.

He called his parents for help. He told them he wasn’t hurt. He believed he knew where he was. For nearly an hour, he stayed on the phone while walking through dark farmland toward what he thought were town lights.

Then he said, “Oh, s—.”

And the line went silent.

In this episode, we reconstruct Brandon’s final known movements using documented timelines, cell tower data, search reports, and public statements from law enforcement. We examine how a miscalculated location shifted the search by nearly twenty miles, how rural geography complicated early response efforts, and how a scent trail that led toward water shaped the investigation that followed.

We also take a close look at the large-scale search operation — tracking dogs, river searches, seasonal re-examinations, and years of continued efforts that produced no physical evidence. From there, we examine the legislative aftermath: how procedural confusion in the early hours contributed to the passage of Brandon’s Law in 2009, permanently changing how missing adult cases are handled in Minnesota.

This is not an episode built on speculation.

It is a reconstruction of what is documented — and a recognition of what remains unexplained.

Brandon Swanson has never been found.

And his case remains open.

⸻

🔗 Follow & Support

Linktree (all socials, episodes, and resources):

👉 https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

Support independent investigative work:

If you’d like to help keep these cases visible, you can donate here:

❤️ https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Every contribution helps fund research, records requests, and continued coverage of underreported cases.

⸻

📚 Sources & Research

This episode draws from publicly available reporting, official case summaries, and legislative records, including:

• Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) missing person bulletin

• FBI ViCAP alert and FBI case page for Brandon Swanson

• National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) poster entry

• Lincoln County and Lyon County Sheriff’s Office statements

• Contemporary reporting from The Marshall Independent, The Star Tribune, CBS News, ABC News, and regional Minnesota outlets

• Interviews with BCA agents and Lyon County sheriffs in later retrospective coverage

• Minnesota Legislature records for H.F. 1242 (2009), known as Brandon’s Law

• Minnesota Statutes § 299C.53 (Missing Persons Procedures)

Additional geographic context sourced from Minnesota DNR, USGS watershed documentation, and Yellow Medicine River public records.

By the end of the day, he was gone.

In this episode, we reconstruct Kyron’s last confirmed movements minute by minute, separating what is known from what has been assumed over the past fifteen years. We examine how a crowded school, delayed attendance procedures, and gaps in supervision created a critical window where Kyron vanished without immediate notice.

We also take a hard look at the investigation itself — how early uncertainty turned into hardened public narratives, how “soft evidence” and rumor often replaced proof, and why suspicion filled the vacuum left by the absence of physical evidence.

This is not an episode about certainty.

It’s about systems, timelines, and the uncomfortable reality of what can — and cannot — be proven.

Kyron Horman is still missing.

And the case remains unresolved.

🔗 Follow & Support

Linktree (all socials, episodes, and resources):

👉  https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

Support independent investigative work:

If you’d like to help keep these cases visible, you can donate here:

❤️  https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Every contribution helps fund research, records requests, and continued coverage of underreported cases.

📚 Sources & Research

This episode draws from a comprehensive review of primary reporting, public records, and investigative analysis, including:

• Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office press releases and public statements (2010–2025)
• Portland Public Schools attendance policies and schedules
• FBI and Oregon State Police search operation summaries
• Contemporary reporting from The Oregonian, KGW, KATU, KPTV, ABC News, CBS News, and People
• Court filings related to the Horman family (divorce, restraining orders, civil proceedings)
• Compiled timeline reconstructions, media-vs-fact audits, and soft-evidence reviews prepared specifically for The Grimes Files

She was serving a thirteen year sentence for murder.

By the time anyone acknowledged she was gone, the window to find her had already closed.

This episode traces how that moment became possible and what led up to it. It begins in suburban Missouri in 1960 with a husband found shot to death inside his home. Police ruled it an accident. Years later, another woman was killed. That case ended in acquittal. A third death finally resulted in a conviction. And even then, accountability did not hold.

Escaped is not a story about criminal genius or a daring prison break. There was no elaborate plan and no flawless execution. What allowed Sharon Kinne to disappear was something quieter and more unsettling. Early assumptions went unchallenged. Patterns were treated as isolated events. Delays became normal. Responsibility fractured across jurisdictions. And eventually, pursuit stopped altogether.

After her escape, Sharon Kinne lived openly under another name. She married. She worked. She raised children. She aged. She was never arrested. She died without ever being held accountable for what she had done.

This episode focuses on institutional failure rather than spectacle. It examines how the system responded at each critical moment and how every missed opportunity narrowed the path to justice until there was nothing left to pursue but memory.

Sharon Kinne did not beat the system once.

She outlasted it.

🔗 All episodes and socials

https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

💛 Support independent investigations

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

For more than a decade, that man lived in plain sight — moving through hospitals, shelters, and media appearances — while remaining legally nonexistent. He was known first as “Burger King Doe,” and later by the name he chose for himself: Benjaman Kyle

This episode is not a whodunit. There is no suspect board and no clean resolution. Instead, it follows what happens when someone survives a catastrophic break from identity — and enters systems built to process data, not people.

We trace Benjaman’s story from the morning he was found, through years of institutional limbo, public doubt, and failed attempts at identification. We examine how assumptions about homelessness, trauma, and credibility shaped the way he was treated — and how the longer his case remained unsolved, the more suspicion shifted onto him rather than the circumstances that failed him.

Eventually, DNA genealogy does what fingerprints, media exposure, and public appeals could not. In 2015, Benjaman Kyle is identified as William Burgess Powell. But knowing his name does not restore his memories, nor does it explain how he ended up behind that dumpster in the first place.

Because this case is not really about amnesia.

It’s about identity.

About verification.

About how easily someone can slip out of the structures meant to protect them — and how quietly it can happen.

Follow & Support

🔗 Follow The Grimes Files on all platforms:

https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

💛 Support independent investigations and reporting:

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Inside, the television was still on. The heat was running. Christmas presents sat wrapped near a small tree.

And Joyce Carol Vincent — thirty-eight years old — had been dead for more than two years.

This is not a whodunit. There is no suspect board, no dramatic reveal, and no confirmed crime. What happened to Joyce is something quieter — and in many ways, more disturbing. This episode examines how someone can die in one of the largest cities in the world and not be noticed. Not for days. Not for weeks. But for years.

In this episode of The Grimes Files, we walk through the scene exactly as it was found, then rewind to Joyce herself — a professional, socially active woman with friends, family, and plans for the future. We trace the changes in her life, including her experience with domestic violence, her withdrawal from her support systems, and the housing placement meant to keep her safe.

From there, we lay out the systems failure piece by piece: housing benefits, utility practices, assumptions made by neighbors, and the quiet efficiency of bureaucracy that allowed a person to become invisible in plain sight. We examine what is known — and what cannot be known — about Joyce’s death, including the open verdict, the medical possibilities, and the limits of speculation.

This is not a story about a killer. It’s a story about absence. About how responsibility gets diffused. About how “someone else will notice” becomes no one noticing at all.

Joyce Carol Vincent wasn’t missing.

She was unmissed.

Follow The Grimes Files & additional case materials:

https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

Support independent investigative work:

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Content note: This episode discusses domestic violence, death, and advanced decomposition (non-graphic).

But rumors aren’t answers.

In Episode 5, Joey Grimes corrects the record—publicly and personally—then follows the evidence and testimony where it actually leads: into the silence that swallowed Patty’s name, into one of the earliest known survivor accounts connected to Doug Sager, and into the disturbing discovery along Route 259 that reignited this case.

This episode includes:

• Major factual corrections about Patty’s background and identifying details
• Why so many locals say they never even heard Patty’s name until now
• An early survivor account that predates Patty—showing Doug’s pattern years earlier
• A clear breakdown of what’s confirmed (and what is not) regarding the bones, plate, and ongoing testing
• A witness who lived beside Doug’s former land—and what he learned about the chicken houses tied to multiple accounts

Content warning

This episode includes discussion of sexual assault, coercion, grooming, violence, and traumatic experiences. Listener discretion advised.

Help keep this investigation independent

If you want to support records requests, travel, forensic consultation, and ongoing reporting, you can donate here:

Donate: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Join the case community

Facebook Group (Missing: Patricia Vaughan): https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1RyvCFadui/

Follow Joey + get all links in one place

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheGrimesFiles

TikTok / Instagram / updates and documents are posted as this case develops.

Tips, leads, and witness outreach

If you worked with Doug Sager, knew him, trucked alongside him, or you have information about Patty Vaughan—or any woman you believe may be connected—reach out. Confidentiality respected.

Contact: joeyg@mcwgp.com

This episode of The Grimes Files tells the full, chilling story of Paul Michael Merhige—how a lifetime of untreated mental decline, deep resentment, and quiet fixation turned into one of the most devastating family massacres in recent American history.

We take you from Paul’s early struggles and escalating obsession, to the days of preparation leading up to Thanksgiving 2009, where he shaved his entire body, bought ammunition, mapped out his escape, and waited for a moment when his entire family would be gathered under one roof.

Inside the Sitton home that night, we walk through the moments of calm before the violence: the conversations, the TV humming in the living room, the kids falling asleep, and six-year-old Makayla Sitton joyfully playing piano for her cousin one final time. And then, we follow the horror minute-by-minute as Paul retrieved a handgun from his car and opened fire—killing his twin sister Carla, his cousin Lisa Knight and her unborn child, and young Makayla, while wounding others who tried desperately to hide or flee.

From there, we cover Paul’s calculated escape, the multi-state manhunt, the media frenzy, and the break that came when a motel employee recognized him after seeing the case featured on America’s Most Wanted. His quiet arrest, days later in the Florida Keys, shocked even seasoned investigators.

Finally, we explore the courtroom aftermath: Paul’s guilty plea, the decision to remove the death penalty, the heartbreaking victim impact statements, and the seven consecutive life sentences that ensure he will never walk free again. We look at how the Sitton, Knight, and Merhige families have carried their grief forward, honoring the memories of Makayla, Lisa, Carla, and Baby Knight while navigating the lifelong aftershocks of trauma.

This is the full story of a Thanksgiving that became a nightmare—and a family whose strength, faith, and commitment to remembrance refuse to let their loved ones be defined only by the violence that took them.

Support the Show

Help keep The Grimes Files independent and investigative.

Donate here:

➡️ https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Follow Me on Social Media

Stay connected for case updates, behind-the-scenes research, new episodes, and more:

➡️ TikTok / Instagram / YouTube / Facebook: @TheGrimesFiles

Credits

Hosted, written, and produced by Joey Grimes.

Thank you for listening and supporting independent true crime journalism.

But these weren’t isolated series.

They were a network of predators using the interstate system as their hunting ground.

In this episode, we break down the victims, the trucking routes, the law enforcement failures, and the long-haul drivers tied to multiple states and multiple murders—including Jerry Leon Johns, Henry Wise, Sean Patrick Goble, and Warren Luther Alexander. We look at the survivors who escaped, the victims who still have no names, and the cases that overlap in terrifying ways.

And we connect this landscape directly to the disappearance of Patty Vaughan in 1982—because the world she vanished into wasn’t random. It was already full of men who knew how easy it was to make a woman disappear along America’s highways.

This is Truck Stop Killers.

Follow & Contact

Stay updated on the investigation:

@thegrimesfiles on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Submit tips (confidential):

@thegrimesfiles or joeyg@mcwgp.com

Support the Investigation

Every donation helps fund travel, records, FOIA requests, interviews, and boots-on-the-ground work.

👉 https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

This Halloween, The Grimes Files presents a chilling anthology of real stories that blur the line between truth and terror. From a 1950s Hollywood murder born out of jealousy and disguise… to a wealthy Connecticut neighborhood hiding secrets behind its gates… to the haunting mystery of a young woman known only as “Orange Socks.”

Each case in The Halloween Files 2025 unearths a different kind of darkness — the kind that lingers in quiet suburbs, behind bedroom windows, or down lonely country roads. Together, they form a portrait of what fear really looks like when it’s rooted in reality.

Step inside the evidence room. Turn off the lights. And remember — every file you’re about to hear is true.

👁️‍🗨️ Written, narrated, and produced by Joey Grimes.

🎧 A Grimes Files Special Presentation

💀 Support the investigation:

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Moments later, nine gunshots shattered the stillness.

Twenty-seven-year-old Arthur James Hill lay dying beside his car—shot by a white service-station attendant named Buner Lee Green.

Green claimed self-defense.

An all-white jury believed him.

Their deliberation took just twenty-two minutes.

Nearly sixty years later, The Grimes Files reopens the case — the shooting, the trial, and the silence that followed.

Using original court records, FBI and Department of Justice files, and firsthand accounts, host Joey Grimes uncovers how a small Georgia town buried a civil-rights killing in plain sight — and how the same men who defended the shooter later stood on courthouse steps at a Ku Klux Klan rally.

This is the story of Arthur James Hill:

Unarmed. Unmarked. But not forgotten.

🔎 

In This Episode

Rare DOJ and FBI files obtained under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act

The 1965 shooting, the biased trial, and the all-white jury’s 22-minute verdict

The segregationist attorney who helped free the shooter — and later spoke at a Klan rally

What happened when the FBI reopened the case decades later

🎙️ The Grimes Files — The Death of Arthur James Hill (1965)

🕯️ True crime. Real history.

💰 Support future investigations

Every donation helps fund new case research, archival access, and travel costs.

Donate here👉 https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/sponsor

🔗 All links, episode sources, and updates:

https://linktr.ee/thegrimesfiles

In this episode of The Grimes Files, Joey Grimes traces the violent trail of long-haul trucker Doug Sager, whose life on the road stretched from the mountains of West Virginia to the Deep South. Behind the wheel of his rig, Doug carried more than freight — he carried the kind of darkness that left fear, silence, and unanswered questions scattered across America’s highways.

Through survivor testimony and firsthand accounts, we revisit the stories of the women whose lives crossed paths with Doug — including Ellen, who endured years of abuse; Peaches, a woman who never came home from a Mississippi motel; and a survivor in New Jersey who couldn’t speak until she was shown proof that Doug was dead. Their stories connect through time, geography, and the interstates that defined the 1980s trucking world.

As Joey digs deeper, the investigation leads to a truck stop that no longer exists — the Panhandler Truck Stop and Restaurant near Martinsburg, West Virginia — where witnesses remembered a young woman found strangled in 1985. The records are gone, the site bulldozed, but the silence remains. From there, the story threads into the Redhead Murders and the unsolved killings that haunted I-81 and I-95, the same routes Doug drove every week.

This episode is about more than one man — it’s about the women who vanished, the ones who survived, and the investigators still trying to connect the dots before the last traces of evidence fade away.

Because the files may be gone, but the stories aren’t.

If you’d like to help keep these investigations going, you can support The Grimes Files directly through this link.

https://app.redcircle.com/shows/cef31eb2-a731-4b09-b2e4-f6b293fd4f4a/donations

Every donation helps fund records requests, interviews, and outreach to families still waiting for answers.

If you have information about Patty Vaughan, Doug Sager, or any of the women who disappeared along his routes, please reach out. Even the smallest detail could help bring answers.

If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, help is available. In the U.S., call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788.

If you are thinking about suicide, dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

You are not alone.

By the time police arrived, Kelly was gone. Her purse sat on the counter. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray. No robbery. No forced entry. No struggle. Just absence.

Forty years later, Kelly’s disappearance remains one of the Valley’s most haunting mysteries. And her story doesn’t exist in isolation. Just weeks earlier, in neighboring West Virginia, another young woman — Patty Vaughan — also vanished. The same highways, the same culture of night-shift gas stations, and a landscape where women working alone were left vulnerable.

This episode steps back from the Patty Vaughan series to widen the lens: to understand Kelly’s story, the danger of that era, and how the echoes of 1982 still shape the search for answers today.

This isn’t just a podcast. It’s an investigation. And if you’re listening, you’re part of it now.

If You Know Something

Harrisonburg Police Department — (540) 434-4436

Crime Solvers of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County — (540) 574-5050

Text tips: Send “HPD” plus your message to CRIMES (274637)

For information on the disappearance of Patty Vaughan in Hardy County, WV: contact the Hardy County Sheriff’s Office or the West Virginia State Police

Even the smallest detail could matter.

This episode traces the story of Galen Douglas Sager, from his childhood in the small mountain town of Mathias, West Virginia, to the tragedies and violence that followed him into adulthood. Through survivor testimony, family accounts, and records still being gathered, we examine how silence and protection allowed Doug’s violence to escalate — from broken marriages and a manslaughter conviction to the disappearance of an eighteen-year-old girl and years of abuse that scarred those closest to him.

Ellen, his second wife, offers the clearest window into what happened behind closed doors: captivity, manipulation, sexual violence, and the constant threat that disobedience meant death. Patty didn’t survive to tell her story. Ellen did. And through her words, we see how Doug perfected the silence that kept him hidden for decades.

This isn’t just Doug’s story. It’s the story of his survivors, and of the voices that can no longer speak.

Decades later, hikers stumbled across human remains in the wilderness near Judy Gap. Could they belong to Patty? Or was there another victim hidden in those same mountains?

This episode unravels the competing stories, the silence that lasted for thirteen years, and the chilling discovery that raised even more questions. Two stories. Two endings. Only one can be true.

Not long after arriving, Patty was last seen with a black eye. Her friend left. Patty stayed. And she was never seen again.

For more than 40 years, whispers have haunted the mountains of West Virginia. Family members claim Doug killed her in his home and hid her body on his property. Investigators suspect he may be tied to multiple unsolved murders along the I‑81 corridor—but no one has ever been charged.

In this episode, The Grimes Files retraces Patty’s final days, explores chilling family confessions, and exposes a pattern of predatory behavior that went unpunished for decades.

Listen to uncover the truth—and help bring Patty home.

But what followed wasn’t an arrest. It wasn’t even a search warrant.

Instead, the case began to drift—despite multiple burglary reports, named suspects, and fingerprints collected from inside Helen’s trailer. As new interviews surfaced, another name entered the picture—a teenager with a quiet presence and a history of break-ins, including Helen’s.

In this episode, we examine how two suspects ended up at the center of the same crime. We trace their stories, the contradictions in their timelines, and the details investigators had right in front of them. What emerges is a case that feels less like a mystery—and more like a missed opportunity.

Two confessions. Two sets of prints. Zero charges.

Twenty-seven years later, we’re asking why.

In the premiere episode of The Grimes Files, we dive deep into the chilling, unsolved murder of Helen Eskew—an ordinary waitress living in a small Georgia trailer park who may have known her killer all too well. With a trail of burglaries, whispered confessions, and a hammer left at the scene, the case quickly gained traction but mysteriously faded from public view.

Who killed Helen Eskew? And why has no one been held accountable in over 25 years?

Join me as I reopen the file, break down the evidence, and speak directly with those who lived it.

Tip Submission Form

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-TVM6FvZDMrZdloquCbSSIION5rzQM90x-XPDxOj8JQ/edit?usp=drivesdk