Dark Downeast

For nearly 40 years, Kathleen Flynn’s murder has haunted Norwalk, Connecticut. She was 11 years old, newly in middle school, walking home on a familiar path when she was attacked and killed. Her case became one of the state’s most well-known cold cases, the kind people never stopped talking about, and the kind investigators kept returning to as forensic science moved forward. In 2019, after decades of waiting, police finally made an arrest. And in 2026, it looked like Kathy’s family might finally see the case reach a verdict. But then, just days into trial, a single email threatened to undo that long-awaited progress. Now, the question is no longer just what happened to Kathy, but what happens next.

In December of 2024, I shared an episode about a 24-year-old musician whose life was cut short in New Haven, Connecticut in 1990. More than three decades later, the murder of John Evers Robinson remains unsolved and the questions surrounding what happened to him have only grown more complicated with time. I’m bringing this story back because it needs your attention and action in a new way. Here’s John’s sister, Jocelyn Jackson. “It’s been 35 years since a family member picked me up from high school and told me as we drove to the airport that my brother John was dead. I immediately went silent and started crying. When we got to the airport, it was to hug my mom through tears before she got on a plane to fly to New Haven. All I could think was that my big brother wasn’t in the world anymore. That moment left an indelible mark on my perception of the world. That moment was the beginning of my instinct to never stop seeking for justice, to never let the people who did this think they got away with murder. Those feelings I felt on that day with my family are the eternal repository of energy that I pull from each year as I continue to invite accountability for my brother's brutal unsolved murder. Unfortunately, a lot of families know this feeling. The feeling of decades passing, sometimes even knowing who’s responsible, but never enough evidence to get resolution. Every year I actively continue the momentum of his case by sharing his story in a new way. This year it’s by starting a petition on change.org to increase the reward money for new leads from witnesses. We know a lot of time has passed, but over the last few years as we’ve talked to John’s friends and visited New Haven, we have experienced how fresh people’s memories are still of John, and of the time that he went missing, and then was found dead. We believe that there are people out there who know more and can share more than they ever have before. Please come forward and share what you know. The smallest detail combined with other new leads can be what either links all the other information together or alternatively, finally destabilizes the code of silence amongst the co-conspirators that’s been kept for all these years. Thank you for taking the time to sign this petition. Thank you for helping us keep the momentum strong. It’s heartbreaking to think how much more harm has been caused in these last 35 years by the same people who killed my brother. We believe my brother knew his killers. We finally want to know them, too.”

Cam Lyman vanished in the summer of 1987, leaving behind a forty-acre estate, dozens of prizewinning dogs, and a silence that would stretch on for more than a decade. Friends and family disagreed on whether Cam had walked away or been taken or worse. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in trusts and assets seemed to evaporate. When Cam was finally found, hidden beneath the very ground no one had searched, the mystery didn’t end. It compounded. While police spoke in hints about suspects, the only charge ever filed had nothing to do with murder. In this case, every lead seems to circle back to the same question: if you follow the money, will it reveal what happened to Cam, or just uncover another carefully buried secret?

Every now and then I uncover a case buried deep in the archives with circumstances that prove truth is stranger than fiction. This story is one of them. When a prominent Bridgeport, Connecticut woman failed to show up for lunch with a friend, it led to a devastating discovery in her overflowing home that had become a sort of treasure trove of local history. The investigation stalled until months later when some of the woman’s treasures started showing up around town. With a suspect identified, the case was nearly closed until the accused killer quite literally slipped through investigators’ hands in one of the most bizarre escapes I’ve ever encountered.