There and Gone: South Street - Podcast Rankings and reviews

This show dives deep into the families affected by this horrible event. I have been obsessed with this case for years. What happened to these two. The show looks for answers while also very poignantly examining how this tragedy impacted two very close middle class families. Some very moving character studies. Unexpectedly compelling for reasons outside the usual whodunnit; this is sadly a most unusual case.

I’m from the Philly area and have been interested in this case for a while. I was disappointed when I made it to the end and realized that no deeper dive or real investigation took place as part of this podcast. Nothing new was uncovered that you couldn’t already find out from a past article regarding this case. Too much time is spent on the emotions of family members or a rehash by the FBI agent, but no additional work was done to garner new leads. If the FBI thinks this is a murder for hire case then why not throw out all the info they have so far? It’s been 20 years and really the public has nothing to go on to jog their memory or tear this case wide open. Also, why are so many people speaking off the record and the information can’t be revealed? After 20 years, how cowardly are you that you can’t step up and say something that could help? Maybe it’s just poor investigatory work as well as sometimes people need convincing. I’m glad that this podcast is keeping their story alive but so much more could have been done with this to try to figure out what happened.

I enjoyed this podcast overall. The narrator has a good voice, is pretty well spoken and is not annoying at all. It is apparent that she genuinely cares and wants to help with this mystery.

This podcast probably could have been less than half the length that it was without losing any vital information; it’s pretty drawn out. But that seems to be the case with all true crime podcasts, so not a big deal.

The one frustrating thing about this story is that unless I am missing something, most of the suspects and suspected scenarios in this case are 100% the result of rumor mills and emotions, not facts and there seems to be no motive for anyone to harm these people. None of it seems to ever go anywhere. The fact that not one person has come forward or accidentally leaked knowledge about what happened after decades and after all “scary” suspects being dead just screams that this was probably a freak accident and not a “hit.” Many times people have accidentally driven into a body of water to not be found for decades despite searches and so on. I suspect that might be the case here.

The final thing that took me out was the fact that this podcast team actually met with a “medium” or psychic to consult the two missing/presumed dead victims from beyond the grave. For me their credibility was all but completely lost once they start with that. I can’t take anyone seriously who invests in something like this. I almost couldn’t finish the show after that but I pushed through.

Overall, I did like the show and would listen to another one by this team.

Overall, the editing & storytelling were good with compelling and emotional interviews with the family; the victims’ backstories laid out well. Where you lost me was the lengthy recording with the medium. The reason given was bc he’d mentioned the word “corruption” during your session, but there are other more valid ways to legitimize looking into potential corruption of a 20 year cold case. This gimmick was cringey and lessened the journalistic integrity of the series so much so that I skipped most of the last 2 episodes.

I support getting unsolved stories out to the world in the hopes of finding new answers. This podcast, however, had so much filler and repetition that it got boring very quickly. The whole story could be wrapped up in 1-2 episodes, not 10. An entire episode spent on debating if the two victims were or were not a couple felt exploitative, not informative or interesting.

We are just going to gloss over the most likely scenario, that they accidentally drove into the water and drowned? I don’t remember hearing any real motive for a murder, let alone one involving a hitman or massive corruption and conspiracy involving many many people and a chop shop, yet that is the main focus. I found this podcast to be extremely repetitive and really just sensationalism and exploitation of the families’ pain.