Photo: Catherine Townsend.
September will mark the 30th anniversary of the unsolved death of 16-year-old Olivia “Janie” Ward, who supposedly died after falling off a 9-inch-tall porch during a party with teens at a rural cabin near Marshall.
Today, the unsolved mystery of Ward’s death has been added to season two of a podcast series that began in 2018 focusing on a 15-year-old unsolved murder case in Izard County, the death of 22-year-old Rebekah Gould.
In part one of our two-part series, we reported investigative journalist Catherine Townsend works from an office in New York, 1,200 miles from the Ozark Mountains. But Townsend hopes to accomplish what local law enforcement has not been able to do, solve the mystery surrounding the deaths of the young women from the Ozarks.
Townsend was a recent guest at the Mountain Home Rotary Club’s weekly meeting, where she spoke about her work to solve the unsolved murders through the podcast Hell and Gone.
In a follow-up interview with KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot news, Townsend, a native of southern Arkansas, says she was looking for a second unsolved case to include in the upcoming season two of the podcast when she saw a bumper sticker with the message Justice for Janie.
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Townsend says the downside of both cases is the lengthy amount of time that has passed since the murders.
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Townsend says from the time she has spent in the Ozarks investigating and reporting these cases, she understands why people may have been reluctant to come forward with information.
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With the length of time that has passed without these cases being solved, Townsend says it may have reached a point where a different approach should be considered.
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Townsend says for the families of the victims, there is no closure until the casket is closed. The unanswered questions never go away.
Click here to listen to the Hell and Gone podcast.
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