Episode 639: The Unsolved Murder of Melissa Witt

Morbid

Morbid Network | Wondery

True Crime, Comedy, Exhibit C

4.5 • 93.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On December 1, 1994, nineteen-year-old Melissa Witt planned to meet her mother at a Fort Smith, Arkansas bowling alley, but by all appearances, she only made it as far as the parking lot. Two days later, investigators discovered Melissa’s car abandoned in the Bowling World parking lot, a trail of blood leading away from the vehicle. Six weeks later, animal trackers located Melissa’s nude body in an isolated part of the Ozark National Forest and the hunt was on to find her killer.

In the thirty years since Melissa Witt’s murder, a number of strong suspects have popped up on investigators’ radars, including serial killer Charles Ray Vines, yet to this date no one has been charged with her death. After three decades of unanswered questions, Witt’s family are desperate to know, what happened to Melissa on the night she went missing, and will detectives ever be able to hold her killer responsible for her tragic death?

If you have information regarding the murder of Melissa Witt, please call the Fort Smith Police Department at 479-709-5116 or email them at [email protected].

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References

Alvey, Tina. 1995. "Fort Smith teen's body found near Turner Bend." Madison County Record, Janaury 19: 4.

Associated Press. 1995. "Man questioned about girl; police say he's not a suspect." Batesville Guard, June 14: 6.

Cavallier, Andrea. 2024. "A teenager was snatched from the parking lot of a bowling." The Independent, August 10.

Kilby, Brenda. 1996. "Long-sought man awaits questioning ." Tulsa World , May 6: 29.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey weirdos, before we unleashed today's macab mystery, we were wondering, have you ever heard of Wondery Plus?
0:05.9	It's like a secret passage to an ad-free layer with early access to episodes. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or an Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
0:14.7	You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
0:21.1	With the world change, if we taxed is super rich.
0:24.4	How can I think of the planet when I can't even afford my rent?
0:27.9	Will we ever see change in our lifetime?
0:31.1	These are the type of questions we're answering on the new season of the Greenpeace podcast,
0:35.5	System Shift.
0:37.1	The thought of changing the world for the better can feel overwhelming.
0:40.9	That's why we're here. We'll get answers to some of the biggest questions facing our world.
0:46.3	And we'll show that change can happen in our lifetime.
0:50.1	Join us for Season 3 of System Shift.
0:53.8	Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
0:55.7	And I'm Elena.
0:56.7	And this is morbid.
0:58.6	This is Morid in 2025.
1:14.0	It's been that way probably for a long time.
1:17.2	But not for us.
1:18.5	I think this is only our second episode of 2020.
1:20.3	Is it?
1:20.7	Okay.
1:21.2	I was like, am I like six weeks into 2025 being like, happy New Year?
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 15 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Morbid Network | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Morbid Network | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.