Dawn of Mantis Podcast
415 episodes listed below
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Join longtime friends Joe and Ivan on a comedic journey through the mysteries of true crime. Since 2002, Joe and Ivan have been crafting comedy bits and skits together, honing their unique style. With their producer and co-host, Sam, at the sound processing helm, the trio dives into the depths of true crime mysteries, as well as music, history, and various other topics, with a twist. Joe and Ivan's comedic banter adds levity to even the darkest of subjects but always with a respectful approach. Their motto: Victims are never the subject of the joke; instead, the focus is on the p...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Joe's narration and the trio's questioning make disputed evidence, investigative choices, and unresolved explanations easier to follow.
Dawn of Mantis: True Crime, Mysteries and More builds its episodes around Joe's researched narration, with Ivan and Sam interrupting to question details, test theories, and react to the people involved.
Bowling-league banter gives way to interrogation-room questions; you get room to argue back.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A frontier massacre becomes a sharp study of suspicion outrunning proof.
The Cain Hill Massacre is framed as a story about grief turning too quickly into certainty. Dawn of Mantis follows the June 1839 attack on the Wright family cabin in Cain Hill, Arkansas, from the bandits' raid through the murders, theft, fire, and escape, then shifts toward the…
A loose true-crime conversation about how two women went undiscovered in their own homes for years.
This episode sits on two strange missing-person cases, and the plain failures around them are what linger: rent, ownership, landlord logic, and the way those homes were left unchecked for years. That is where the unease lands.
A scrappy documentary review that stays close to the case and its strangest turns.
Dawn of Mantis reads like a loose true-crime documentary review, with Ivan, Joe, Sam, Brian, and Clint trading reactions as they move through the case. It works best when the panel stays in that conversational lane.
A conversational closing chapter that follows the investigation from false leads to the DNA resolution.
The final stretch of Morgan Nick's case keeps its focus on the work of investigation: ruling out several people of interest, following false leads and sightings across the U.S., and reaching the DNA evidence that closed the decades-old mystery of who abducted Morgan Nick.
A familiar Arkansas case gains weight through careful attention to the ballpark's layout, timing, and local memory.
Part one of Dawn of Mantis's Morgan Nick series grounds the disappearance in the ordinary movements of the night: the drive to Alma, the delayed baseball game, the elevated parking area, and Morgan sitting beside her mother with a coloring book and crayons.
A loose, funny detour through French pronunciation, burial depth, and other historical oddities.
The episode leans into a grab bag of historical oddities, and the best part is watching the panel get tangled up in one strange detail after another.
A lonely truck, a frozen prairie, and a case that never stops getting stranger.
Don Kemp's disappearance has the clean, ugly shape of a mystery that never really lets go: an ex-ad executive heads for Jackson Hole, and his Chevy Blazer is found 350 miles short, still running, with the door open and footprints leading into the frozen prairie.
A four-murder cold case moves from a 1976 disappearance to a Missouri killing, with grim facts met by uneasy panel humor.
James B. Grinder's link to four murders comes into focus through a cold-case trail that starts with the 1976 disappearance of Teresa Williams, Cynthia Mabry, and Crystal Parton in Russellville, Arkansas, then extends to Julianne Helton's 1984 murder in northern Missouri.
Australian crime, remembered close up.
Sharp true crime around a very dark fire.
True crime with side-eye and velocity.
Dawn of Mantis: True Crime, Mysteries and More examines Linda Good McGillis, the Portland-born founder of Profundity Yours, who was born in February 1969 and later charged $500 an hour for trauma therapy.
Cain Hill opens with fire.
Two women go missing without really leaving.
A documentary review turns into a crowded table fast.
Part two has the answer.
Dawn of Mantis lines up a mixed bag of odd history and lets the room drift where it wants.
Dawn of Mantis tracks the disappearance of Don Kemp.
Ten years later on Thanksgiving, hunters found bones in a remote cemetery - two of the three girls identified by dental records.
The hosts explore the 1958 disappearance of the Martin family, who vanished on a day trip to the Columbia River Gorge.
The hosts explore the unsolved disappearance of Terrence Woods Jr., a TV producer who vanished in the Idaho wilderness in 2018 after witnesses saw him run into the woods.
The hosts explore three tragic Christmas events: Cyclone Tracy in Australia, the 1914 tornado outbreak in the US, and the Babs Switch school fire in Oklahoma, blending dark humor with true crime.
The bullet tore through the trailer and into the dynamite, creating a fireball that vaporized everything in seconds.
Karen Silkwood is the center of the case.
This episode explores the FBI's Highway Serial Killings Initiative, focusing on cases like Bruce Mendenhall and victim Sarah Nicole Holbert, while discussing the role of AI in solving crimes and humanizing victims through comedic banter and personal anecdotes.
Brenda Heist drops her kids at school in February 2002, goes home, and disappears.
Dawn of Mantis spends this episode on Art Bell and the origin story of Coast to Coast AM.
Dawn of Mantis closes out its two-part Clutter family murders series.
The panel opens on Buford Pusser, the Tennessee sheriff who turned into a legend and the face of *Walking Tall*.
Another Smashing Grab opens with the crew treating the night like a sprint through random weird shit from history.
Charlie Lawson kills his wife, six of his seven children, and himself on Christmas Day 1929.
Dawn of Mantis digs into the mysterious death of Jordan Grider, a New Mexico native who spent much of his life living alone and off the grid.
Joe Clark, known as the Baraboo Bonebreaker, sits at the center of this case.
Joe and Ivan explore the legendary tale of Sawney Bean, a 15th-century Scottish cannibal who, with his wife Black Agnes, led a 48-member clan that preyed on travelers.
The hosts introduce a case about the murder of Barbara Daly Bakeland by her schizophrenic son, blending true crime with comedic banter.
Joe and Ivan comically discuss the life and murder of country star David 'Stringbean' Aikman.
The hosts interview the author of a book about an unsolved murder they previously covered, discussing her connection to the case and her own true crime podcast.
The hosts interview Christy, a cousin and friend of missing person Dana Stidham, to discuss Dana's life and disappearance.
The hosts conclude a two-part series on the murder of Warren Barnes, discussing the victim's life and the killer's botched cover-up.