On a Friday afternoon in July of 1991, Martha Brailsford told friends she was going sailing.

In coastal Massachusetts at what is often the peak of summer heat and humidity, that wasn’t unusual. Martha knew the water, and in Salem Willows, boats were part of the everyday landscape. There was no reason to think a simple afternoon sail would become anything else.

But when Martha didn’t come home that night, the search for her would expose a man whose stories kept changing, a familiar coastline that suddenly felt unknowable, and a truth hidden somewhere beyond the shoreline.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/marthabrailsford

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

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Estella Brantley’s murder should have been urgent from the beginning.

She was found in one of Bridgeport’s most visible public places, around witnesses who may have heard her final moments, with evidence that would one day matter more than anyone could have known when it was first collected. But for years, Estella’s case stayed unresolved, folded into a larger city-wide pattern of deadly attacks on women and families left wondering whether anyone was really fighting for them.

Then, decades later, science brought the case back to life. But Estella’s family was still left asking whether DNA told the whole story.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/estellabrantley

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

• Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
• To suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

Did you know you can listen to Dark Downeast ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies.

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Sometimes, a case can have evidence, a suspect, and a theory investigators believe explains what happened yet a family is still left without the ending they waited decades to hear.

Grief and justice don’t always move at the same pace. Grief looks for truth, meaning, and someone to answer for what was taken. The justice system looks for proof, and proof has to survive questions, strategy, doubt, and twelve separate minds in a jury room.

This is a case about a woman killed inside the place where she should have been safest, a family fractured by loss and suspicion, and what happens when an answer feels clear to the people who loved her, but the verdict says something else.

View source material and photos for this episode at: https://darkdowneast.com/rosemariemoniz

Dark Downeast is an Audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

• Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok
• To suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

Did you know you can listen to Dark Downeast ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.