The Dardeen Family Murders

#356 - When 71-year-old Alan Abrahamson was found shot dead near his gated Florida community, the missing weapon pointed investigators toward murder. But unusual purchases, a puzzling timeline, and a digital trail revealed a different story. This week on Forensic Tales, explore how physical evidence and digital forensics helped unravel Alan’s death—and why his life deserves to be remembered beyond the headlines. Content warning: Discussion of suicide and self-harm. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or text HOME to 741741.

#355 - In 2015, healthy 60-year-old chiropractor Mary Yoder suddenly became violently ill and died less than 48 hours later. Toxicology revealed that she had been poisoned with colchicine, but identifying who gave it to her would divide her family and community for years. A suspicious letter, a bottle hidden inside her son’s Jeep, conflicting digital evidence, and touch DNA eventually led investigators to his ex-girlfriend, Katie Conley. But after two trials, a conviction, and its eventual reversal, one question remains: Who really poisoned Mary Yoder?

#354 - When 74-year-old Bill and Peggy Stephenson failed to attend church on Memorial Day weekend in 2011, their family immediately knew something was wrong. Inside their secluded Kentucky condo, investigators discovered a brutal double murder and one of the strangest staged crime scenes they had ever encountered. More than 15 years later, unknown DNA, a partial fingerprint, and disturbing evidence withheld from the public have yet to reveal who killed the beloved couple or why.

#353 - Five long weeks after a 16-year-old girl is brutally murdered, a chilling letter arrives on a police desk. The arrogant killer boasts about wearing a plastic Halloween mask and details exactly how he strangled her. He ends with a chilling promise to the investigators: “You will never get me.” For more than 25 years, he was right… He disappeared into the crowd, completely undetected. But he didn’t realize he left behind a microscopic witness that would eventually hunt him down.

#352 - Four children from the same family died suddenly before reaching their second birthdays. To investigators, the pattern seemed too extraordinary to be natural. And when their mother’s private diaries appeared to contain admissions of guilt, she was branded Australia’s worst female serial killer. But there were no witnesses. No physical evidence of smothering. And no one could explain exactly how the children had died. Then, decades later, advances in genetic testing uncovered something that no one involved in the original investigation could have known.