Scripted true crime from the Ottawa Valley to Gander Lake.
Story Hunter Podcasts tells murder cases as written narratives, setting a precise time and place before the violence arrives, then following investigators through evidence and arrest. Its cases run from Renfrew County, Gander Lake and North Vancouver to Keystone State Park, with writing and production credited to Catherine Fogarty.
PRESS PLAY
Story Hunter Podcasts reconstructs murder cases through scripted narration, with credits naming Catherine Fogarty as writer and producer and Daniel Borgers, of Borgers Music, on audio production. The openings are calm. Renfrew County, in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, is introduced through autumn colours and lakes on Tuesday, September 22, 2015, described as a favourite-sweater kind of day. By late morning the surrounding areas are locked down and police are searching for 57-year-old Basil Borutski, knowing he stole Carol Culleton's car after killing her. The narration stays with the search until Borutski, texting his brother Arthur that the guilty have paid, walks out of the woods with his hands up, and police find a rusted shotgun and a note that begins 'I have no gun.' Gander Lake gets the same slow approach: a grey Dodge leaving the boat launch on an overcast August morning, its driver heading home past a gas station and the local hospital. From there, the account traces Nelson's cash work for a man who apparently owned a trucking company, Jennifer's unease about it, and the June 13, 2005 RCMP announcement charging Nelson Hart with two counts of first-degree murder in the 2002 drownings of his three-year-old twins. What marks the writing is its appetite for physical detail. In the case of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook, the narration inventories what turned up with Tanya's wallet under the porch of a dive bar called Essie's, from car keys and flex ties to a Minolta lens cap and the handwritten directions Jay's father had given him. Then it explains why the surgical gloves mattered. A killer hiding his identity made little sense for Jay, whose fingerprints were everywhere in the van. Instinct is a thread worth noticing. Jennifer suspected her husband's new associates, and the narration says she should have listened to her instincts. In North Vancouver, an alarm-company employee heard something off in a 53-year-old grandmother's voice when she insisted it was a false alarm. The David Alexander Snow episode closes its story on the line 'Always trust your instincts.' The settings are not only Canadian. One case follows the Pennsylvania State Police after 28-year-old Dr. Andrew Bagby was found shot at Keystone State Park, and their search for Dr. Shirley Turner, who by then was back in Iowa. There is room for conversation, too. A bonus interview features Ann Burke, whose grade 12 classmate Ronald Glenn West joined the Metro Toronto Police and was later convicted of murdering two women in their rural homes in 1970. Her book on the case is The Seventh Shot. Warnings about graphic content come before the narration, and the material bears them out.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants a murder case told as a written narrative, with dates, ages and crime-scene evidence spelled out, and who can handle graphic detail, including the deaths of young children.
What sets it apart: The case episodes are fully scripted narration rather than conversation, and they stay with physical evidence and how investigators reasoned from it. The settings run from Renfrew County and Gander Lake to North Vancouver.
Story Hunter Podcasts is a narrative podcasting network, that aims to tell you unforgettable true stories. Our story-driven podcasts focus on true crime, unsolved mysteries, fascinating history and the paranormal. It was founded in 2020 by producer and writer Catherine Fogarty. Catherine is the president of www.bigcoatmedia.com a Canadian television production company. Our podcasting studios are located in Toronto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A father returns from Gander Lake without his twins; your first theory has to wait.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A quiet Ontario morning becomes a police search, an interrogation, and a memorial for women killed by intimate partners.
StoryHunter Productions follows the killing of three women in rural eastern Ontario and the search for Basil Borutski, whose arrest ends a morning of lockdowns, helicopters, and fear.
A lake outing, a family shattered, and a murder case built around a disputed account.
An overcast August morning at Gander Lake becomes a devastating case about the drowning deaths of three-year-old twins Karen and Krista Hart, after their father, Nelson Hart, returns home without them.
A silent alarm draws police to a dark restaurant, where a late-night assault leads into Alison's reckoning with David Snow.
David Snow's crimes are approached through a closing shift that suddenly becomes a fight for survival. After Dahlia Jelenu locks up Bridge House in North Vancouver just after 3:30 a.m., she is grabbed from behind, threatened with a gun, and forced back inside.
A murder case gathers force as digital records expose the gaps in Shirley Turner's story.
A seaside morning in Conception Bay South opens into a murder case that stretches across Newfoundland, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. The episode tracks Shirley Turner, her young son Zachary, and the killing of Dr.
A cold case double murder is reopened by the uneasy reach of genetic genealogy.
Story Hunter Productions follows the murders of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook from a missing-couple report into a cold case finally cracked 31 years later through genetic genealogy.
Measured true crime with uneasy questions.
Storyhunter Productions' "Terror in Renfrew County" centers on the September 22, 2015 killings of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzik, and Natalie Warmerdam in eastern Ontario.
Story Hunter Podcasts' "A Day At the Lake: The Mysterious Deaths of Karen and Krista Hart" traces the August 4, 2002 deaths of three-year-old twins Karen and Krista Hart at Gander Lake in Newfoundland.
Story Hunter Podcasts follows David Alexander Snow from the Caledon farmhouse murders of Ian and Nancy Blackburn to the Vancouver assaults and manhunt that followed.
Story Hunter's "Failing Zachary" follows Shirley Turner, Andrew Bagby, and infant Zachary Turner through a Newfoundland custody fight after Andrew's 2001 murder.
Story Hunter Productions opens with Chelsea Rustad, a Washington State woman whose DNA upload to a family-tree database helped connect a second cousin to an unsolved murder 31 years later.
In Story Hunter Podcasts' “Frozen Tears,” Catherine Fogarty recounts the 1988 disappearance of 11-month-old Dusty Bowers from a Kincardon parking lot.
Story Hunter Podcasts recounts the 1979 killing of 28-year-old neonatal nurse Lynn Knight in Torrance, California.
Story Hunter Podcasts' episode follows the 1963 disappearance of Toronto widow Minnie Ford after an argument with her 16-year-old son Wayne over a Cadillac.
Hundreds of women at BC Women's Hospital received a November 2021 letter saying a nurse they encountered had no license, and Paige Morris describes hemorrhaging that began weeks after her May 2021 abortion surgery.
Catherine Fogarty's Story Hunter Podcasts episode retraces the July 5, 1982 shootings of Alfred and Rosemary Podgis in Loch Arbor, New Jersey.
Police in Lock Arbor, New Jersey find a blood-soaked mattress and a .22 caliber rifle under a bed on July 6, 1982 while checking on Alfred and Rosemary Podgis.
An interview with author Ann Burke about her book on the murders committed by former police officer Ronald West.
A businessman and philanthropist is assaulted in 2005, initially thought random but police suspect otherwise.
A narrative true crime episode recounting the 1969 disappearance of Cliff Nellis in Muskoka, Canada.
A true crime episode recounting the 1990 murder of Louis and Daisy Cabiz in Thunder Bay, Ontario, by a waitress they hired.