Gone South

It started with a stolen parrot named Mango, who liked to dance to Doja Cat. When reporter Aidan McCahill wrote a quick, quirky story about the theft for The Advocate, he had no idea it would lead him down a monthslong rabbit hole into Magnolia Wilds, a Louisiana animal preserve already under fire from federal regulators — and its founder, Gabe Ligon, who'd just been arrested at a Texas airport on a felony theft charge.What Aidan found was a menagerie of chaos: porcupines and capybaras escaping their enclosures, animals mauled and trampled to death, kids bitten by otters during $215 swim sessions, and employees quietly bringing kangaroos and lynxes home at night. Behind it all was Ligon himself — a libertarian showman who insisted he loved his animals even as the USDA, his business partners, and his own former staff told Aidan a very different story.Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠ Connect with Jed Lipinski:⁠https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/

Part One left off with detectives certain that groundskeeper Brandon Nodier killed pet cemetery owner Dorothy Thompson — but unable to prove it. In Part Two, we dig into an even wilder theory: that Dorothy's own mother, Grace, may have shot two of Dorothy's husbands dead on the cemetery grounds. Because decades earlier, Grace had already gotten away with killing once — fleeing an insane asylum, a Kansas City murder charge, and a fortune in missing gambling money to reinvent herself as a New Orleans flower-shop owner and hymn composer.Then, 24 years after Dorothy's murder went cold, an anonymous phone call cracks the case wide open. Detective John Doran hears from two men with chilling, firsthand accounts of what really happened to Dorothy Thompson — and sets a plan in motion to catch her killer.Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠ Connect with Jed Lipinski:⁠https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/

In 1985, two fishermen pulled a body wrapped in 200 pounds of chains from the Mississippi River. It was Dorothy Thompson, 63, who ran a strange and beloved roadside attraction outside New Orleans called the Azalea Original Pet Cemetery — final resting place for thousands of dogs, cats, and the occasional cheetah. Dorothy's disappearance opened up a murder investigation that quickly ran into a problem: almost everyone around her had a motive.There was a groundskeeper who'd allegedly swindled her out of her property days before she vanished. Rumors that Dorothy herself had killed two of her four husbands, both found dead on the cemetery grounds. And a mother, Grace, whose own past in Kansas City hinted she might know a thing or two about getting away with murder. In Part One of this two-part episode, we dig into the tangled, decades-long history of one family's blood-soaked pet cemetery.Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠ Connect with Jed Lipinski:⁠https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/

In 1982, 16-year-old Roxanne Sharp was raped and murdered in the woods outside Covington, Louisiana. Her case went cold for over 40 years, derailed early on by a serial killer's false confession. Then two Louisiana State Police officers walked into radio host Charles Dowdy's studio with a pitch: help us keep this case alive. The result was Charles's first true-crime podcast, Who Killed Roxanne?, made in real-time alongside an active police investigation.One year after the show aired, police arrested four men in connection with Roxanne's murder. Charles tells us how a small-town radio show host ended up standing at a press conference that closed a four-decade-old case — and what it's like to help solve the very story you set out to tell.Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠ Connect with Jed Lipinski:⁠https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/

Part One left off with Jema Heffernan taking in a man named Javon Donahue — and Javon nearly strangling her to death. In Part Two, that single act of violence hardens into a decade-long "hostage relationship": Javon controls her money, her car, her ability to leave, and every time she manages to get away, he finds her.In 2017, after a four-hour standoff that ends with Javon forcing the gun into her own hand, Jema shoots him, and survives being shot herself. What follows is a botched cover-up, a shallow grave, and a trial where prosecutors argue that a decade of documented abuse doesn't excuse the killing. Jema is convicted and sentenced to 10 years. Justine van der Leun tells us what happened next, including the day, seven years later, she was there to pick Jema up.Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://jedlipinski.substack.com/⁠ Connect with Jed Lipinski:⁠https://www.instagram.com/gonesouthpodcast/⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/gonesouthpodcast/⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-lipinski/⁠