Unsolved cases, patiently reconstructed.
Trace Evidence treats unsolved cases with patience, restraint, and a strong sense of place. Its episodes move from weather, streets, timelines, and personal details into the harder questions of evidence, police decisions, public silence, and what still remains unknown.
PRESS PLAY
Trace Evidence is a measured true-crime series focused on unsolved murders, disappearances, and the occasional update when a case changes. Its center of gravity is the victim, the place, and the long shadow left behind. Episodes commonly begin with a specific landscape: a cold North Dakota riverbank, an upstate New York morning, a burned-out Catskills lodge, a campus under rain, or a dark apartment lit only by a flashlight. The crime arrives after the world has been built. That structure matters, because the show spends real time making the missing or murdered person legible before the case file takes over. Jennifer Persia is remembered as bright and caring before the brutality of her death is examined. Maggie Long is framed through community, promise, and the frustration of a case shaped by secrecy. Joseph Helt’s disappearance unfolds through weather, search logistics, teenage accounts, volunteer effort, and the limits of early response. Tammy Mahoney’s ordinary route through Oneida becomes the hinge of a disappearance. Judy Martins’ case is traced through campus police hesitation, missing-person bulletins, and the gap between uncertainty and action. The show is not hurried. It follows timelines, official statements, search decisions, autopsy disputes, DNA collection, media reports, and the stubborn absence of answers. It can be sharply critical when bureaucracy or secrecy becomes part of the story. Still, the tone remains controlled. Even grim material is handled with formal restraint rather than theatrical shock. Case-update episodes add a second rhythm, returning to earlier coverage when a solved development or new information gives the record a different shape. Q&A specials reveal a more conversational side, with Steven Pacheco answering listener questions, discussing podcasting choices, and previewing future case coverage. Those episodes sit outside the usual narrative mode, but they clarify the show’s standards: research, persistence, and a willingness to keep working cases that have not resolved neatly. Trace Evidence is best suited to listeners who want long-form true crime with names, roads, dates, investigative roadblocks, and human texture. It rewards patience. It also asks for it.
Made for: For true-crime listeners who prefer sober chronology, victim-centered storytelling, and detailed investigation over rapid speculation or personality-driven banter. It especially suits audiences drawn to missing-person cases, cold cases, and the procedural reasons answers can remain out of reach.
What sets it apart: Trace Evidence stands apart through its calm, scene-built narration and its insistence on grounding each case in place, routine, source material, and investigative friction. The show lets uncertainty remain present instead of forcing a tidy theory onto incomplete evidence.
Trace Evidence is a weekly true crime podcast that focuses on unsolved cases, from chilling murders to missing persons. Join host Steven Pacheco as he examines each case, diving deep into the evidence and exploring the theories which revolve around them. For each unsolved case, there are the victims and their families, who want answers and the abductors and murders who hide the truth.Follow Us on Social Media | Learn More Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/trace-evidence--3207798/support.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Steven Pacheco turns stalled investigations into clear timelines, tracing how searches, official decisions, and changing theories shape unresolved cases.
Trace Evidence builds unsolved cases from timelines, search efforts, official statements, and the points where an investigation changes direction.
This is the show that lets you audit an unsolved case, then hands you the bureaucratic fog.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A steady cold-case episode that keeps Jennifer Persia at the center.
Trace Evidence treats episode 153, The Murder of Jennifer Persia, with patience and restraint. It keeps Jennifer Persia at the center as it traces a 16-year-old's killing in her family's home in Magnolia, New Jersey, and the dead ends that followed.
A grave portrait of Maggie Long, with dignity held against delay and unanswered questions.
Trace Evidence treats the murder of 17-year-old Maggie Long as a loss first and a case second, and that choice gives the episode its force. It spends time on who she was - smart, driven, compassionate - and on the reach she already had in her community, which makes the grief…
A weather-battered disappearance story where the search itself does much of the dramatic work.
The Vanishing of Joseph Helt is all weather and delay: a burned-out lodge on Mount Cathalia, teenagers in its shadow, and then a search that drifts across snowbanks, scrub pines, and rough roads while Joe's family waits for word.
A candid Q&A that resets the season and keeps the focus on process, purpose, and persistence.
Trace Evidence opens the season with a listener Q&A, which fits the pattern Steven Pacheco says has worked well enough to become a yearly habit. The episode moves through listener questions, podcasting advice, and a brief look ahead to 2026.
A patient campus-disappearance story that values chronology, restraint, and the uneasy gap before anyone sounded the alarm.
The episode treats Judy Martins' disappearance with patience and atmosphere, letting the campus setting and late-night arrival settle before the case shifts into something more serious.
A steady account of a child's disappearance and the investigation that followed.
Trace Evidence treats Amber Barker's disappearance with a steady, almost clinical patience. It follows the path from a 10-year-old leaving a friend's house on a blue 10-speed bike, to the missing arrival window of 10 to 15 minutes, to the search that followed.
A cold case that shifts when an ignored suspect and a second look upend the first theory.
This episode tracks a Christmas-week murder in rural central Texas with a steady, procedural eye. Latricia White is found shot to death in bed, while investigators cannot account for her live-in boyfriend, Lee Walkerhagen, or his nine-year-old son, Chance.
True stories of scams, aliases, frauds, and lives built on lies.
Payne Lindsey and Tenderfoot TV revisit the Atlanta Child Murders and the wider Monster franchise.
Host Jake Brennan traces the crimes and scandals behind musicians from Elvis to Taylor Swift.
Karina Longworth narrates the Manson murders as a story about Hollywood's collapsing 1960s dream.
iO Tillett Wright investigates her mother's boyfriend's unsolved 1982 East Village murder.
A wilderness hoax, a trusting BC town, and the brothers who fooled it.
Trace Evidence episode 153 revisits the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Persia in Magnolia, New Jersey, then updates the case with a 2025 DNA identification.
Seventeen-year-old Maggie Long mattered deeply.
Trace Evidence Episode 254 focuses on the disappearance of 17-year-old Joseph David Helt of Ellenville, New York, who was last seen leaving a party at the former Cathalia Lodge in Cragsmoor in January 1987.
Steven Pacheco starts with listener questions.
This episode explores the mysterious disappearance of Sandra and John Jacobson on a cold November night in 1996 near the Missouri River in North Dakota.
This episode recounts the disappearance and murder of 19-year-old Tammy Mahoney in Oneida, New York, on May 8, 1981, focusing on her routine hitchhiking that day.
A rainy campus night turns ominous.
This episode narrates the chilling discovery of a crime scene involving the murder of Janet Shirar, as investigators find her abandoned car, dark apartment, and a bloody handprint.
This episode provides updates on five major true crime cases from the past year, including a double homicide, a famous unsolved disappearance, and a murder trial outcome.
This episode investigates the mysterious 1995 disappearance of John and Shelly Markley, exploring disturbing clues at their home and potential theories involving crime or extortion.
This episode explores the unsolved 1996 disappearance of Sherri Holland, a woman who vanished during a drive from Florida to Georgia, with her abandoned car found containing cash and a gun, leading to investigations into her involvement in illegal activities and potential enemies.
The episode examines the 2015 disappearance of Peggy McGuire, a single mother who vanished after dropping her son at school.
The host answers listener-submitted questions about the podcast and discusses future plans in a year-end Q&A episode.
A look back at six previously featured unsolved cases that have had major updates, including missing persons and murders.
This episode examines the unsolved disappearance of Loy Evitz, a legal secretary who vanished from her office parking garage in Kansas City.
This episode examines the 34-year-old unsolved murder of Shirley McAvoy, a mother of two whose body was found in Virginia after she disappeared from Maine.
This episode explores the unsolved 1985 murder of 23-year-old Randy Church, a Montana State University student and Pizza Hut supervisor who was killed during a robbery at his workplace.
Amber Barker never made it home.
Two days after Christmas, Latricia White was dead.
The episode examines the 1975 unsolved murder of John Harden, who was lured outside by a staged fire and shot, with the case now intertwined with local ghost stories.
This episode examines the 1993 disappearance of Lola Catherine Fry from Indianapolis, Indiana.
This episode investigates the 1971 disappearance of 16-year-old Kathy Maltin, a cold case that remains unsolved despite decades of investigation.
The episode investigates the disappearance of Bill Shipley, a painter who vanished in 2011, leaving behind his packed suitcase and missing trucks.
This episode examines the 1974 cold case murder of 17-year-old Leslie Zaret in Queens, New York, exploring evidence and a potential suspect with a similar M.O.
This episode provides updates on the Robert Barron disappearance case and the Danielle Stislicki murder trial, including new searches and evidentiary rulings.
This episode examines the 1995 disappearance of Barbara Holick from Taos, New Mexico, exploring theories and evidence.
The episode investigates the 1991 disappearance of Tom Roche, who vanished after dropping his girlfriend off at work, with a subsequent letter claiming he was murdered.
This episode investigates the Package Killer case, where a fifth unknown victim may exist.
A wrap-up Q&A episode celebrating the show's six-year anniversary, discussing community updates and listener questions.
This episode investigates the unsolved disappearance of Robert Barron, a pizzeria owner in Pennsylvania, exploring evidence and theories.
This episode examines the mysterious disappearance of 76-year-old Sybil Brumley in 1997.
This episode examines the 1985 disappearance of 21-year-old Leisha Riley after a night out in West Seneca, New York.
This episode examines the unsolved case of a Jane Doe found near Chapel Hill, exploring evidence and seeking public help.
The episode examines the 1996 disappearance of Richard Bendel in Idaho's Great Rift, exploring evidence and theories.
This episode investigates the 1990 disappearance of Kelly Sims, a mother last seen near a tavern in Kelso, Washington, possibly linked to a serial killer.