In August 1925, fourteen-year-old Mary Vickery vanished from the coal camp of Coxton in Harlan County, Kentucky. Her father, miner E.C. Vickery, stopped going underground and began searching above it, combing hollows and writing desperate letters for help. Months later, a decomposed body was discovered in an abandoned mine shaft between Harlan and Baxter.

A suspect was arrested. A courtroom filled to the rafters. A jury convicted 23-year-old taxi driver Conley Dabney of rape and murder, sentencing him to life in prison.

And then, nearly a year later, the “murdered” girl walked into a hotel in Williamsburg, Kentucky, very much alive.

• Mary Vickery – The missing girl who returned from the dead.

• E.C. Vickery – Her father, who identified a body that was not his daughter.

• Conley Dabney – Taxi driver convicted of Mary’s “murder,” later pardoned.

• Marie Jackson – The key witness whose testimony sent a man to prison.

• Leila Cole – A woman who may have been the true victim found in the mine.

• Roxie Baker – Another young woman killed in Harlan in 1925, whose death still cast a shadow over the county.

• The fragility of eyewitness testimony

• Moral panic in small towns

• How quickly public opinion can flip

• The role of newspapers in shaping guilt and innocence

• The complexity of teenage runaways in the 1920s

• Justice in coal country

This is a story where nearly every thread tangles into another: jealous lovers, missing women, contradictory confessions, misidentified clothing, and suspects who vanish just as grand juries convene.

And at the center of it all, a girl who heard that a man was in prison for killing her… and chose not to come home.

I uncovered photographs of Mary Vickery, Conley Dabney, Governor Fields signing the pardon, Marie Jackson, and even Mary’s courthouse wedding just days after her return. You will absolutely want to see these.

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Jessie Bartholomew

9115 Leesgate Rd, A

Louisville, KY 40222

**Transcripts are autogenerated and may contain errors

First we’re paging through the Courier Journal for stories of romance gone sideways, dramatic gestures, and a few fiery plot twists.

Starting with a Louisville divorce case where Mrs. Bessie Offutt tried to end her 17 year marriage, claiming her much older husband preferred sitting by the fire all day while she earned the living. The judge ruled that the law does not dissolve every unhappy marriage. Still, when her husband died years later, her name was nowhere in his obituary. Draw your own conclusions.

Then we head to Mercer County, where Cecil Connor left a suicide note and his coat on a bridge over Dix Dam Lake, prompting a full scale search. Days later, he reappeared alive, admitting he staged the whole thing to frighten his estranged wife into reconciling. Spoiler alert: it did not work.

Next, a jailhouse romance that feels stranger than fiction. Kentucky native Ray H. Foor, convicted of killing a Kansas policeman in 1923, was released just three years later and married Avereil Gay, a woman who fell in love with him while he was behind bars. She once declared he did not love her yet, but he was the man she intended to marry. They later settled in Brandenburg and lived quietly.

In Accidents & Close Calls, we revisit the dramatic burning of a twenty seven room mansion in Cherokee Park, once owned by Judge Robert Worth Bingham. Thousands of rounds of ammunition exploded in the blaze. The owner, Giles VanCleave, narrowly escaped. The house was never rebuilt. Years later, VanCleave was found dead by suicide in the garage on the same property.

We also remember Letitia Vance DePauw, a decorated Red Cross worker who served near the Argonne Forest in World War I and later became a state parole officer in Kentucky.

And finally, a palate cleanser: a wanted fraud suspect in St. Louis was tracked down partly because of his legendary appetite. Seven pork chops for breakfast tends to leave a paper trail.

Love, pride, scandal, heroism, and a few questionable life choices. Just another week in Kentucky history.

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*Transcripts are auto-generated and may contain errors

Kentucky in March of 1926 stands at a threshold. Winter is loosening its grip, modern life is creeping in, and beneath the surface of everyday routines, tensions simmer. Automobiles share muddy roads with horses, radios crackle with distant voices, and Prohibition is officially enforced while quietly ignored.

In this episode of Kentucky History & Haunts, we explore a month where gossip turns deadly, crime crosses state lines, and justice proves slippery at best.

The “Bob-Haired Bandit” of Bell County Eighteen-year-old Helen Simpson disguises herself in men’s clothing and robs a rural post office near Pineville. A torn dollar bill leads to her capture, and newspapers obsess over her appearance as much as the crime itself. Her sentence sends her far from home, to a women’s institution in North Carolina.

$100,000 in Diamonds Vanish on Louisville Streets A New York jewelry salesman is attacked in broad daylight near Fourth and Market Streets. The diamonds are never recovered. Nearly a year later, a nearly identical robbery happens again. What follows is a tangled web of suspects, deadlocked juries, alleged inside jobs, kidnappings, and one criminal who just won’t stay out of the headlines.

A Duel on Greasy Creek A respected schoolteacher, Virginia Skeens Coleman, kills her brother-in-law in a pistol duel after years of escalating accusations, courtroom battles, and family feuds. The case forces a community to confront gossip, reputation, and what self-defense looks like in rural Kentucky. The aftermath reshapes her life in unexpected ways.

Moonshine by Moonlight

A sheriff’s child wakes with a cold in the middle of the night, setting off a chain of events that leads to the capture of a moonshiner, the destruction of sixteen half-gallons of liquor, and the confiscation of a mule. A small, almost humorous story that unfolds against the backdrop of serious political turmoil in Harlan County.

Kentucky in March of 1926 is caught between seasons, between old rules and new ambitions, and between what is spoken openly and what unfolds in the shadows. And as always, when history pauses at a crossroads, the stories waiting there are anything but quiet.

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Part two available the day after this one is released.

*Please note the transcripts for this show are auto-generated and may contain errors.

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