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

S6:E3 - RIP Mr. Parmesan

·58 min·4 clips

DNA testing on the Romanov remains and on Anna Anderson's hair matched the Schanzkowska line, not the Romanovs.

Stack Pack returns to the original Unsolved Mysteries run with the Dans, Derwin, and David Howell back in the room. They sound glad to be back after a long gap since they covered the first two season six episodes in 2022. The opening drifts through a game-show bit, a debate about whether the season aired in 1993, and a sudden Anastasia detour. Then the conversation finally settles on the Crown family case. In December 1948, deputies deliver an eviction notice to Frank and Hilda Crown's small farmhouse on the outskirts of Anawan, Illinois. The family is very poor, with no plumbing or heating, and Christmas is close enough to make the whole thing feel especially harsh. The cops take pity on them, mainly Hilda and her children. The hosts keep stressing the odd jailhouse angle, since the discussion circles the fact that Henry was not allowed in the jail or allowed to talk to his wife, and nobody can quite explain why. The panel's rhythm is the usual Stack Pack one: a fact, a correction, a joke, then another fact. That means the case keeps getting broken up by side bits about presents, chocolate bars, and a kind of Christmas misery that feels almost too absurd to be real. One of the running jokes turns the scene into a Charlie Bucket-style disaster. Another stretches the whole thing into a grotesque picture of bad living conditions and strange family imagery. The hosts are not shy about turning proper nouns and odd details into bits. They keep doing impressions of the era through sound effects, crude comparisons, and quick emotional reactions. At the same time, the sadness of the situation stays right there under the nonsense. The family is not treated as a puzzle box first and a tragedy second. It is both at once, which is exactly the kind of mess this show likes to sit inside. The episode closes with the familiar Unsolved Mysteries farewell and the group winding down after another digressive pass through the case. The result is less a polished recap than a loud room trying to understand why this story feels so bleak and so funny at the same time.

As heard by us

A bleak December eviction story told with grief, jokes, and enough banter to keep it moving.

Season six, episode three follows a grim December 1948 eviction in Illinois, when deputies deliver notice to Frank and Hilda Crown at their small farmhouse outside Anawan.

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Why you'd press play

You want a bleak holiday-era mystery broken up by nonstop, hangout-style banter.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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