Proof: A True Crime Podcast · Red Marble Media

Murder at the Bike Shop | Ep. 1 – Toes First

·53 min·3 clips

Scott dies before his innocence claim is resolved, and the season pivots to the broader Kalamazoo cold-case record.

1. Proof: A True Crime Podcast Season 3, "Murder at the Bike Shop," centers on Scott Baldwin, his release from Lakeland Prison in Coldwater, Michigan, and the murder case tied to Earl O'Byrne's bike shop. 2. Susan Simpson is an attorney and investigator, and Jacinda Davis is a true crime TV producer; both say they were there to pick up Scott Baldwin and then continue investigating his conviction. 3. The episode asks what happens when a man who says he is innocent is released from prison with terminal cancer and no clear resolution in sight. 4. Scott Baldwin had been convicted of murdering Earl O'Byrne in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1988 after a case that had been unsolved for 13 years. 5. The Kalamazoo Cold Case Team reopened that homicide, focused on Scott, and later used a statement from his ex-girlfriend Stacy, who had gone to police in 1989. 6. Detective Rich Madison says he called Stacy in Alabama after reading her statement and thought, "She's the key to this right now." 7. Scott's trial ended quickly, with a 48-minute verdict and a life sentence that his son Cody describes as beginning when he was nine years old. 8. The hosts say DNA testing later found genetic material under Earl O'Byrne's fingernails that was not Scott Baldwin's. 9. Even with that DNA result, prosecutors did not overturn the conviction, and the episode says the testing changed nothing by itself. 10. Scott's cancer returned, spread into his bones, and the hosts say treatment might have given him only years, not a cure. 11. The episode opens with the prison release scene, where Scott says, "I'm tired," and the group struggles to move a six-foot-two man weighing nearly 300 pounds into a chair. 12. Susan Simpson says, "there was no joy," when they brought Scott home, because he was "basically coming home to die." 13. Scott dies on October 9th, 2025, and the hosts say he died "in the eyes of the state" as a guilty man. 14. Scott's dying wish was for the team to keep investigating and to prove his innocence with or without him. 15. The episode then broadens to the Kalamazoo Cold Case Team, which detectives Mike Brown and Rich Madison describe as the first cold case unit in Michigan. 16. Brown says the unit cleared 15 unsolved homicides and earned 21 convictions, many of them built on confessions or confession-like statements. 17. Rich Madison later says he believes Jeff Titus was innocent and also says the same about Corky Lard. 18. The tone mixes present-tense scene work, archival interviews, and reflective narration, with repeated references to prison release, illness, and case files. 19. Listeners interested in wrongful convictions, cold-case investigations, and Michigan true crime should follow this episode. 20. Listeners who want a simple single-case mystery with no broader legal critique may skip it.

As heard by us

A prison pickup opens into a hard look at how confession-heavy convictions take shape.

Scott Baldwin's release from Lakeland Prison in Coldwater, Michigan sets the hour in motion, and the pickup outside the prison entrance quickly turns uneasy when a long delay ends with a text saying he is not in good shape.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Start at the prison entrance, then watch a cold-case team unpack the case history behind its conviction streak.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Proof: A True Crime Podcast