Dana Bradley

February 13, 2026·50 min·4 clips

In 1981, a 14-year-old girl's disappearance sparked Canada's most expensive manhunt, but who was behind the wheel?

Dana Bradley begins at a bus stop. The host brings the listener into 1981 St. John's, where one roadside encounter became the center of an expensive Canadian investigation. The details come in piece by piece. A man from Mount Pearl, the Smeaton brothers, and a couple whose identities were kept private all become part of the witness chain investigators keep pressing on. The car matters. According to PNI Atlantic News, the couple saw a vehicle like the one Dana was last seen getting into near Maddox Cove Road. Then the scene tightens. The passenger side door was open, the internal light was on, and a man stood near the woods without a jacket in freezing temperatures. That detail sticks. Investigators compare it with what the Smeaton brothers reported, including the man's appearance and the type of vehicle. The match matters. It also fits the area where Dana's body was later found and the estimate that she was killed and placed there not long after entering the car. So the search spreads. Police commission another composite sketch before Christmas, combine witness descriptions, and put the image back in front of the public. The work gets huge. Investigators check hundreds of similar cars, especially Dodge Darts and Plymouth Valiants, while interviewing hundreds of men and administering countless polygraph tests. Tips keep pulling them outward. Searches continue near the place Dana was found and in other areas as the public response grows. Even hypnosis is tried. The episode becomes a grave, careful account of a case built from fragments, repeated checks, preserved evidence, and the hope that one detail might still point to Dana's killer.

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