1) The Man Who Talked to Dogs
Mark Stover was the renowned dog whisperer who trained dogs for the rich and famous like Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz. He was a creature of habit who was always on time for work on his 84 acre property. But Stover was so paranoid that he kept a highly trained guard dog around to protect him. One day, his employees noticed that he didn’t show up for work and the dogs at his house were restless. This gripping case of the man who talked to dogs is definitely one of the top Dateline episodes of all time.
2) Secrets in the Mist
Two young highschool lovers married young and had two children. He was a handsome highschool footballer with no ambition, while she, Carol Lubahn, wanted to be her own “somebody”. So she enrolled in architecture school and started having secret affairs. Then one morning, she just vanished. Could she have run away to find a happier life somewhere else? Or did she disappear involuntarily leaving no trace of evidence behind. “Secrets in the Mist” is a classic Dateline episode that untangles one of the coldest cases of a strange family and an even stranger disappearance.
3) Death of a Golden Girl
Lady Gaga’s 2010 New Year’s Eve party in Miami was the hottest ticket in town. So hot that aspiring Playboy Playmate Paula Sladewski’s boyfriend flew them to Miami to ring in the new year. But the next morning, Paula never came back from the club and disappeared without a trace...until the police found her body in a smoldering dumpster. This shocking mystery of a golden girl’s brutal fate is a classic Dateline case that’s certainly a must listen.
4) Mystery on Lockhart Road
A former Indiana state trooper finds his wife, young daughter, and son dead in the garage of his family home after arriving home. He immediately calls his previous employer, the Indiana police, for help. Then the investigation takes a surprising turn. “Mystery on Lockhart Road” is a heartbreaking and engrossing story that will have you questioning who to actually believe.
5) The Shadow
In small town Iowa, Justin Michael met the love of his life. He was a nice guy in his thirties with a big heart who volunteered to build houses for Habitat for Humanity. In the middle of one night, while staying at his son’s house, his mom spotted the shadow of a big person intruding into Justin and his girlfriend’s bedroom. Muffled gunshots were fired, leaving Justin dead next to his sleeping girlfriend, and the family was never the same again.
6) Into the Night
23-year-old Kaylee Sawyer was everyone’s best friend. She was smart, strong, and fearless, and had a knack of making people laugh. She didn’t know what to do with her life until she landed a job at a dentist’s office. But Kaylee’s life was cut short when she went missing after attending a bachelorette party where she was spotted dancing with a guy who was not her boyfriend. “Into the Night” will take you on a rollercoaster manhunt for an elusive killer.
7) Deep in the Woods
Kelli Bordeaux was a young army medic who loved helping people who needed help. She grew up in Florida, but found herself relocating to a small town in North Carolina after leaving her estranged husband and meeting the new love of her life. One Friday the 13th, she decided to go to a bar to relax in the new town. She texted her new beau that she made it home safe, but she never was seen again. This hard-to-solve case had the police perplexed for the longest time despite having a prime suspect. Can you fare better?
8) The Carrollton Plot
Carrollton, Texas, is a neighborhood for the upwardly mobile where there are more churches than Starbucks, and no violent crime. The fate of an affluent family takes a radical change when Nancy Howard gets shot in the head while her husband was on an out-of-state business trip. To everyone’s surprise, Nancy managed to call 911 and open the door for police when they arrived. Someone wanted her dead, but there were no witnesses. Who could it be?
9) Mommy Doomsday
Don’t get in the wrong books of Mommy Doomsday, because you can be next on her victim list. On the surface, Lori Vallow Daybell seems like a nice bubbly blonde who wore yoga pants, lived in Hawaii, and believed in reincarnation. That is, until you find out that she’s left her children and two ex-husband dead in her wake. This serial killer story is so wild that Dateline NBC created a mini-series of the same name, Mommy Doomsday, hosted by Keith Morrison.
10) The Phone Call
A husband laid on the floor with a gunshot wound in his chest, and his wife next to him was shot in her head. The Kansas police determined it was a murder-suicide until they heard a phone call where the wife identified her killer. But a decade and several court cases later, the police aren’t so sure who’s the actual killer anymore. This is a shocking Dateline case with twists and turns that will have you interrogating all the evidence or lack thereof.
11) Dateline@30: Ransom
On September 4, 2009, a housewife and mother of two called her husband at work and told him she had just been kidnapped out of their $4-million home in an upscale community in Florida. The police deployed a SWAT team to their home, but it was empty. What they found was a ransom note, written on yellow paper in what seemed to be the wife’s handwriting, saying that it was a professional kidnapping job, and that he needed to pay $50,000 to get his wife back. This riveting Dateline NBC episode becomes a race against the clock as law enforcement try to rescue her in time and find her kidnapper.
12) A Promise to Helene
Helene Pruszynski was a beloved young woman who was passionate about singing and journalism. In January 1980, Helene moved from Massachusetts to Denver to begin an internship at a radio station. Only two weeks into the internship, she took the bus home from work around 6 pm, but she never made it. She was soon found murdered in a snowy field. For 40 years, Helene’s murder went unsolved, but in 2019, a new detective devoted herself to solving this case. Listen to this best Dateline episode to find out what really happened to Helene on that cold January night.
