One Connecticut girl's disappearance, reopened tape by tape.
Walk Softly Children follows one Connecticut missing-persons case, the disappearance of Doreen Vincent, from the Wallingford detectives of 1989 to a 2023 message explaining why prosecutors would not bring charges. Scripted first-person chapters built on archival tape sit alongside plainer conversations in which Jess and Joe go over newly surfaced police interview clips.
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Walk Softly Children is a true crime series built around one unanswered question: what happened to Doreen Vincent, a Connecticut girl who vanished in the late 1980s. It is a single-case show. Every thread, from a police tape to a church parking lot, leads back to her. The narration is first-person and invested, and it is willing to revise its own judgments, conceding that two Wallingford detectives who took a fresh look at her file in 1989 pushed harder than it once gave them credit for. It is just as frank about where its suspicion lies. That suspicion falls on her father, Mark Vincent, whom a Connecticut State Troopers detective described as the prime suspect as early as 1989. The later timeline gets the same attention, from Mark's 2022 arrest in the Milford Christian parking lot after he took his son's gun and drove down from Vermont, to the answer that came in December 2023. Relayed through police, that message said prosecutors saw substantial circumstantial evidence but too small a chance of conviction to bring a case. The story did not stop there. Joe, the executive producer, reports that police have become more cooperative and have been handing the file to Jess for her own review. Much of the case is told through the women around Mark. By June 1989, Teresa Lyon was tired of his unruffled answers and called in a state trooper detective. Debbie, whose sister Donna was once married to him, can now laugh at the string of towns that ended in divorce. Doreen's stepmother offers an account whose voice, the show says, had been silent for years. The narration makes saints of none of them, and it is clear about whom it holds responsible. The frame widens beyond one family. 'Food For A Monster' sets the case against Connecticut's record on violence against women, including Tracy Thurman's 1984 civil rights suit against her town and its police. Places are written with close detail: a sober club at 84 Quinnipiac Street in Wallingford, an abandoned house off Old Dodgingtown road, and the old tax-dodging lore behind that name. Archival sound matters as much as the prose, as with a July 1989 police recording that logs a frantic phone call about Mark and his daughter. Not every episode is scripted. In 'A Trip to Vermont: A Conversation with Jess & Joe', the two go over clips from January 2022 police interviews with Mark and his son Paul at Teen Challenge Vermont. The talk then turns to what a slander claim has to prove and to a stated rule against airing unvetted information. Titles such as 'THE FUNHOUSE AND THE TORNADO' and 'A Rabbit’s Foot and A Drawer Full of Snakes' lean toward the eerie and the folkloric. The title phrase comes back again and again as a refrain. The show gives a listener sustained attention on one girl's loss, with the evidence, the doubts and the narrator's stake all in view.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants one unsolved disappearance followed closely, with police tapes, relatives' memories and the narrator's own stake all in view. It is less of a fit for someone who wants neutral, self-contained true crime with a new case each episode.
What sets it apart: Instead of moving from case to case, it stays with one Connecticut disappearance and widens the frame around it: the state's history on violence against women, the towns involved and the women in her father's life. The case is also still being worked, and the prosecutors' refusal to charge and newly released police material both become part of the story.
Attorney Jessica Fritz-Aguiar continues the investigation of the Doreen Vincent case featured on Season 2 of the podcast Faded Out. Fritz-Aguiar was the lead investigator on that podcast, and has filed a FOIA request against the Wallingford CT police, to get to the bottom of this 32 year old missing persons case.
A FOIA request meets a church sermon; you get the paper trail and the human cost.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A Connecticut disappearance opens into a clear-eyed look at domestic violence, missing records, and the women forced to face Mark Vincent.
Food For A Monster sets Doreen's disappearance against Connecticut's record of women trying, and often failing, to get protection from domestic violence.
Police interviews from snowy Vermont bring Mark's voice into the investigation while keeping the unanswered questions in view.
Walk Softly Children returns to police interview clips from a January 2022 visit to Teen Challenge Vermont, where officers speak with Paul and Mark as snow crunches underfoot.
A Connecticut landscape turns ominous as Mark Vincent and Roseanne Pelloni's story moves toward a startling police call.
An abandoned house and a rented metal detector give this single episode its uneasy pull. It follows the path from 84 Quinnipiac Street and its old identity as Pagano's Bar to Huntington State, where Mark Vincent and Roseanne Pelloni went treasure hunting in July 1989.
A detective's unfinished business meets a long-silent voice in the disappearance of Doreen Jane Vincent.
Free As a Bird follows Wallingford detective Tom Hanley's lingering doubts about Mark's claim that Doreen Jane Vincent had simply run away. The inquiry he began with detective Robert Fliss led nowhere, but Doreen stayed with Hanley after he moved to Middlebury, her photograph…
A consequential police update leads into a troubling account of custody strain, resentment, and silence around Doreen.
Joe Aguirre returns a year after the show last surfaced with a consequential update: police will not press charges against Mark Vincent, and they have handed the file to Jessica for her own review.
Evidence first, rumors on trial.
Walk Softly Children: Food For A Monster examines how Connecticut’s domestic-violence laws developed alongside repeated failures to protect women connected to Doreen’s disappearance.
Walk Softly Children presents newly obtained police-interview audio involving Paul and Mark at Teen Challenge Vermont in January 2022, after the disappearance of Doreen had been classified as a homicide.
At 84 Quinnipiac Street in Wallingford, Connecticut, the building that now houses the Renaissance Club once held Pagano's Bar, where Roseanne Pelloni met Mark Vincent in September 1988.
Doreen Vincent's disappearance keeps circling back to Mark Vincent in Free as a Bird, where Jessica Fritz-Aguirre rebuilds the case through police files and family tape.
["Police have not pressed charges against Mark Vincent, and Jessica Fritz-Aguirre says the file is now being turned over for her own review.", "Joe Aguirre says the billboards for Doreen Vincent raised over $10,000 in New Haven and Bridgeport, and the campaign also sent $1,800 to RAIN in her name.", "Jessica then returns to Reagan Vincent's November 2019 call, Mark Vincent's Bethel history, and family statements that describe theft, fires, and violence.", "The episode closes on Sharon Vincent's 1989 statement, where Doreen's school discipline, home restrictions, and last-week letters are tied to her leaving Whirlwind Hill Road."]
Walk Softly Children hosts Jessica Fritz-Aguirre and Joe Aguirre discuss Mark Vincent's release to community supervision, including his placement at a halfway house in Bridgeport.
Jessica Fritz-Aguirre and Joe Aguirre revisit the 1988 disappearance of 12-year-old Doreen Vincent from Wallingford, Connecticut, including conflicting accounts about whether she disappeared on June 12 or June 15.
Walk Softly Children hosts Joe McGuire and Jessica Fritzeguier review Mark Vincent's April 26 parole hearing and the board's questions about his concealed gun.
Walk Softly Children S3 EP11, “All Things to All Men,” examines Pastor Jim Loomer’s leadership at Milford Christian Church through sermons, former-student accounts, and church history.
Walk Softly Children: S3EP10 Above Rubies examines former Berean students' accounts of Milford Christian's dress code, sexuality rules, shame, and control under Pastor Jim Loomer and Susan Martin.
Walk Softly Children’s “S3 EP 9 Paideia” examines corporal punishment at Milford Christian Academy through the school handbook, former student accounts, and reporting by Jessica Fritz-Aguirre.
Walk Softly Children’s S3 EP 8, “Child Of Destiny,” examines how Susan Martin retained authority at Milford Christian despite repeated complaints about aggression and child punishment.
Sticky Beak host Jessica Fritz-Aguirre examines how Milford Christian Academy's handbook changed after Pastor Jim Loomer removed headmaster Ronald Kirk in 1999 and installed Susan Martin.
Jessica Fritzeguire connects her years at St.
Sticky Beak Season 3 Episode 5 examines former Berean Christian students' accounts of fear, corporal punishment, and religious control under Pastor Jim Loomer and Susan Martin.
Walk Softly Children’s episode “Father Figure, Faith, and the Sword of the Spirit” follows Mary Ann’s discovery that Dave Borelli, connected to Doreen Vincent’s case, was the man who killed her sister Frances Farrow Piscatelli.
Walk Softly Children is labeled “S3 Episode 3: Learning Patience,” while the supplied transcript is a Sticky Beak update about Mark Vincent’s postponed gun-charge hearing.
Jessica Fritz-Aguirre reports that Mark Vincent was arrested at Milford Christian Church on February 17 with a stolen firearm and $250,000 bail.
Walk Softly Children interviews Josh Mankiewicz, a Dateline NBC reporter, about selecting true-crime stories and the unresolved disappearance of Doreen Vincent.
Sticky Beak host Jessica Fritz-Aguirre returns after Season 2 with Mark Hunter Vincent’s February 16, 2022 firearm-theft arrest unexpectedly reopening the investigation into Doreen Vincent’s 1988 disappearance.
The Sneaky Beak Podcast reports that Mark Vincent, 65, was arrested on February 16, 2022, after officers investigated a suspicious incident at Milford Christian Church and found him with a stolen firearm.
Jessica Fritz-Aguire's Sticky Beak episode "From Hollyville to Whirlwind" follows Sharon Vincent after Mark left their farmhouse in late November 1988, telling her to collect welfare.
Attorney Jessica Fritz-Aguiar investigates the 32-year-old missing persons case of Doreen Vincent, filing a FOIA request against Wallingford CT police.
Attorney Jessica Fritz-Aguiar investigates the 32-year-old missing persons case of Doreen Vincent, detailing her personal connection and the ongoing legal battle for police records.