Thumbing Through the Archives

Jerry Lee Cassaday was at an odd time of his life when he struck up a conversation with Sharee Miller in the spring of 1999, and he had no idea his life was going to take a turn for the dangerous as the Flint woman told...

The story of Sharee Miller and her crime has been told many times before, most notably through a TV movie based on the book written about the case, but the reason why it’s so oft-told is because it has a few...

It's late November 1925, and the bank in St. Clair County's village of Jeddo just shut it doors for good as its only bank clerk, Squire Langs, disappears with the bank's cash in hand. Where did the respectable man go...

This week, we're diving back into the story of Sarah Haviland, getting into her trial, punishment, and other finer details of the case. While we left off our last episode with a coroner’s jury heading to Sarah’s door on...

When this case took place, the American Civil War had only ended some seven months earlier, and many were trying to make sense of their lives and losses. However, this tragedy happened in a Michigan home seemingly...

A little more than two months before Timothy McVeigh and former Decker resident Terry Nichols committed the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, there was another bombing that rocked the thumb area. It wasn’t of any...

At 9:30 p.m. on January 22, 1984, Jerry Western was found with a single gunshot wound to the back in Colfax Township. As the first murder to have occurred in over six years in Huron County, it sent ripples through the...

The death of Douglas Hendricks in 1973 remains unthinkable. He was 19 at the time and a resident of Lexington, having been found dead just outside of the Cadillac House. It was a little over 24 years later that his...

On February 4, 1976, the body of Carol Wudarcki was found in Worth Township. She had been struck by a snow plow mere minutes before being discovered by Mark Ernst, making it near impossible for investigators to...

With Esther McPhee deceased, the trial for her husband began on the afternoon of October 17, with Prosecutor RJ West calling her older brother, George, to the stand. He was joined by at least 25 other residents of...

A small village in Sanilac County's Speaker Township, Melvin boasts a hearty population of 148 residents, with it not being much bigger over 100 years ago. What began as a lone saloon built in 1862 quickly sparked the...

Prohibition officially hit the United States in 1919 when the 18th Amendment was ratified. While it may have intended to veer people away from excessive drinking, within weeks, an underground market had sprung up across...

The dog, the myth, the legend--it's about time Dogman got his own episode! That's right, we're diving head first into cryptozoology and exploring one of Michigan's most mysterious cryptids. While perhaps not as...

Daniel Lewis Hazard made his way to Croswell on July 21, 1998, unaware that it would be his last day alive. Over 26 years later and there remains a question as to who murdered him. Was it a friendship gone awry or...

On this special edition of Thumbing Through the Archives, we’re returning to our roots by taking some time to revisit the Sparlings and their confusing history. The topic might be the same, but the conversation sure...