The Stack Pack: An Unsolved Mysteries Podcast · The Stack Pack

Netflix Vol 4 Ep 3 - The Severed Head

·57 min·3 clips

The coroner says the head looked like a prop from the movies, with makeup, combed hair, and no eyes.

1. The Stack Pack covers Unsolved Mysteries: Volume 4, Episode 3, “The Severed Head,” around a head found in Economy Borough, Pennsylvania. 2. David Howell and Dan Derwin host the episode and frame the case with a fall 2024 recording disclaimer and a Thursday, September 12 setting. 3. The episode asks who the embalmed severed head belonged to and how it ended up 30 feet off a road near a deer processing plant. 4. A 15-year-old hunter finds the head while walking a familiar path toward the processing plant in December 2014. 5. Officer Genetic arrives, checks whether the teen touched it, and sees the head as a possible prank before confirming it is human. 6. The hosts describe the head as an older woman’s, with makeup, combed hair, closed eyes, and no visible blood or decomposition. 7. Investigators note leaves underneath the head, not around it, which suggests placement rather than a natural discovery. 8. They put the head in a cooler with ice and send it to coroner Timothy Menziewicz for autopsy. 9. Menziewicz and his assistant react to how clean and movie-like the head looks, including the embalming caps and missing eyeballs. 10. The search turns up red balls beneath the eyes, which lead Officer Genetic to a local pizza place called Pizza Joe’s. 11. The hosts joke that reaching out to Chinese police about the toy balls would not explain a Pennsylvania crime scene. 12. A canvas search with 50 people and cadaver dogs finds little besides the head and a nosy neighbor named Jay Grabner. 13. Jay Grabner tells the reporter Blake Morrison that the teenager may be hiding something and that the placement of the head looks deliberate. 14. The hosts say the teenager’s account rang true, and they do not think he had anything to do with the head beyond finding it. 15. DNA testing fails because embalming fluid damages samples, so the team turns to Michelle Vitale, a forensic artist who calls herself a last resort. 16. Vitale creates a bust and explains that people can recognize faces more easily from different angles, which is why reconstruction can still help. 17. The episode shifts to a crypt break-in theory from Fayette County, where Teresa DeCarlo’s head was missing after a 1988 disturbance. 18. A Fayetteville County cop brings up satanic activity, cave parties, and rituals, while the hosts question how much of that was genuine versus panic. 19. The episode sounds like a conversational recap with humor, side comments, and long digressions about funerary work, movie props, and old media. 20. Anyone interested in unsolved mysteries, forensic work, or odd burial stories should listen; anyone wanting a tight, spoiler-light narrative may skip it.

As heard by us

A crypt mystery sharpened by forensic detail and loose, chatty banter.

The Stack Pack frames volume four, episode three as a grim little crypt mystery: a severed head surfaces in a wealthy family tomb, the valuables remain untouched, and the case only grows stranger from there.

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Why you'd press play

You want a crypt-side mystery with jokes that keep stumbling through the case.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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