Libsyn Directory

47. The Smiley Face Killers

Release Date: 12/03/2024

Badger Bizarre

It runs a 165 miles from Portage to Green Bay, and for over 300 years, it has never stopped collecting the dead. War. Fire. Disease. Explosions. Murder. And beneath all of it — the stories that won't die: A king once ordered a genocide to control it. A mill worker ran into a fire he couldn't survive to save it. A drowned chief who still wanders a cemetery in full dress. A boat that killed 9 people still missing in the mud a century and a half later. And of a corridor of water that has learned exactly how to keep its secrets, and only give up what it wants. This episode, we...

64. The Baraboo Bonebreaker

Badger Bizarre

In the summer of 1994 in Baraboo, a fourteen-year-old boy named Chris Steiner went to bed early on the night of July 3rd, anxious for the upcoming July 4th Holiday. By morning he was gone. A week later, his body was pulled from the Wisconsin River. The cause of death: accidental drowning. Case closed. But the bones told a different story — one that authorities in Columbia County apparently never wanted to hear. It would take another missing child, another house, and forty-three hours of unimaginable horror before anyone was forced to listen. Scott and Mickey discuss the case of the...

63. Shelby Perkins

Badger Bizarre

On a quiet spring morning in La Crosse, a twenty-year-old woman was suddenly gone — dead of a heroin overdose in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. What followed was a legal case that almost never happens: two men charged not with drug delivery, but with homicide. At the center of it all is a law named for a basketball star who died nearly a quarter century earlier — a law that has since sent hundreds of people to prison across Wisconsin, and that raises questions we still don't have clear answers to. Who is responsible when addiction ends in death? Where does love...

62. Wisconsin's Angel of Death: Charlotte Lamb

Badger Bizarre

During the Minnesota Sioux Uprising of 1862, which created a stream of settlers fleeing their homes to get out of the way of an advancing warpath, a young mother protecting her small children became a national hero; the poster child for a loving, devoted mother. A decade later, now living in the western Wisconsin community of Trimbelle, in Pierce County, that same young mother, Charlotte Lamb, started making headines of a different kind. Her family, as well as others in close proximity to her, began turning up dead. Investigations into her past in Vermont, as well as her actions in...

61. Otis Redding

Badger Bizarre

On December 10th, 1967, a crowd was gathering outside of The Factory in Madison, as Otis Redding was scheduled to play 2 shows there that evening. The Factory was a newer venue in Madison, and Otis Redding was one of the fastest growing musical acts in the world, just coming off his renowned performance at the Monterey Pop Festival earlier in the year. Otis never played that night, and the tragedy of why will forever hover over the city of Madison like a shadow, also launching Otis into immortality. Scott and Mickey discuss what happened in Madison over Lake Monona, Otis' personal...

60. Portage House of Horrors

Badger Bizarre

In June of 2007, police in Portage, WI were following-up on a tip regarding a missing persons case from Florida, when they found a literal "House of Horrors" in a local rental property. The sheer amount of abuse and torture, ultimately culminating in murder, created headlines nationwide, and led to numerous states reviewing and ovverhauling state laws in regards to foster care and oversite. Although bodies buried in the back yard and tortured children locked in closets sounds like fodder for horror films, this was realty for a house in Portage. The investigation which unfolded, uncovered...

59. The 3rd Annual Halloween (Thanksgiving..?) ParaShare

Badger Bizarre

A collection of our conversations with others at the Great Lakes Paranormal Conference this past September. Interviews include owners of the Humbird Hotel Bar & Grill, Ghosts & Us, and 'friends of the show', Katie Skuban and Pat Haberman. The opening banter includes initial thoughts on the current happenings in the continuing saga of Morgan Geyser. Sit back and enjoy the conversations, here, on Episode 59 of Badger Bizarre, "The 3rd Annual Halloween (Thanksgiving..?) ParaShare." Please visit our sponsor: Email us: ...

58. 'Roaring' Dan Seavey

Badger Bizarre

Pirates are not usually associated with the Great Lakes, as most folklore and real historical seafaring adventures took place on the southern high seas, such as The Bahamas or the Carribean. That does not mean, however, that pirates did not exist in the Great Lakes region, because they most certatainly did. The most famous of which was "Roaring" Dan Seavey, whose playground was Lake Michigan and the port cities around her. Although not having a peg leg, a hook for a hand, or likely burying any treasure, Dan Seavey's escapades on and around the lake repeatedly led to the...

57. Douglas Dean

Badger Bizarre

In July of 1971, an unkown, incoherent teenager was found outside of St George Catholic Church in the town of Wilson in Sheboygan County. Presenting as conscious, but non-responsive when authorities were called, an investigation quickly began into his identity, and turned into one of the darkest days in Sheboygan's storied history. 5 lifeless bodies were found throughout the city, another previous death by alleged suicide was called into question, and Sheboygan was never again the same. Scott and Mickey discuss this case, its legacy, and the attempts of some to get a...

56. Chandler Halderson

Badger Bizarre

In July of 2021, Bart and Krista Halderson, of suburban Dane County, were said to have gone up north to their cabin in Langlade County to celebrate the July 4th Holiday with friends. After days of no contact with their family back home in Windsor, WI, they were reported missing by their 23-year-old son, Chandler. When they were finally found by police, the shock and awe of what happened to Bart and Krista still has not worn off the small, tight-knit community north of Madison, as the story horrified the state and left a nation in disbelief. Scott and Mickey discuss the...

More Episodes

From 1997-2010, a rash of drownings in the Mississippi River in La Crosse were mostly blamed by police on the culture of alcohol in Wisconsin. The deaths being attributed to people becoming inebriated, wondering down by the river, and ultimately falling in, unable to find their way out of the rushing or icy waters before succumbing.

However, a pattern soon began to appear, as all of the victims were college-aged young men, athletic, popular, good-looking, good students, were drinking, and ended up in the river. All of these deaths were the result of a culture of marriage between alcohol and college, according to law enforcement.

A group of independent investigators, some retired NYPD detectives, believed otherwise. They believe the deaths to be homicides, committed by a network of serial killers, deemed "The Smiley Face Killers," as smiley face grafitti was repeatedly found in the vicinity of these deaths, according to the detectives.

Scott and Mickey discuss the "Smiley Face Killers" theory, the rationale behind it, the drownings in La Crosse and how they correlate with others throughout the country.

In the opening Banter, we discuss the case of murder victim Mary Schlais, finally solved by DNA after 50 years, and the continued rise of familial DNA in solving cold cases.

All here, on Episode 47: "The Smiley Face Killers."

Facebook

Twitter

Website

Email us: badgerbizarre@outlook.com

Opening Trailer:

Ed Gein Sound Byte : "Hard Copy" - Paramount Domestic/CBS Televsion

Frank Lloyd Wright and Jeffery Dahmer Sound Byte - WISN 12 News - Milwaukee, WI

Jeffery Dahmer Quotes: "Inside Edition" - King World/CBS Television/CBS Media

Attribution for Music:

Trailer: Composer: Adam Phillip Zwirchmayr https://www.pond5.com/

Intro: https://pixabay.com/