The niece that seems to be the main source of information is out of her mind. At some point my husband and I started assuming anything she said wasn’t worth believing. She decided facts and then worked backwards to “prove” her point. We were both angry and yelling at the radio by the end. Probably not worth a listen, unless you want to be extremely sympathetic to the accused.

Just tell us the story without the high school drama class acting.

Where to even start.. this isn’t true crime

Disjointed. Awful narration. So many “facts” that seem unfounded. The main writer is simply terrible. The “ screen writer” and “investigator” are truly feeling themselves and sound like they’re making things up. Throwing so many things at the wall that are obviously nonsense. Someone please explain the pride in the music. Weird covers of songs and original music that is often too loud and has no business being placed where it is. I have never given an podcast less than 5 stars because I feel as though getting from beginning to end and being entertained at all warrants a good rating. If I have ever disliked a podcast I’ve simply stopped listening to this. I cleaned my house out the last week and I couldn’t locate my phone several times and, because I had downloaded these episodes, when something wanted to listen to would end this would pick up where I had left off. It was truly excruciating at times. Don’t listen. I beg you. Save yourself.

Very interesting story, but not the best execution. Sounds more like an audio drama rather than a typical true crime podcast.

If I could give 2.5 stars I would but I can’t so I rounded up to 3 because the story was well told and was made to seem more compelling at times than it actually was. However, the podcast is super thin on evidence and incredibly lopsided with speculation. Dorothy has an extreme dislike for Susanne and that bias clouds the actual information that is presented in this podcast. I don’t feel that there was enough third party validation of information in this podcast. It leans so heavily on Dorothy’s feelings that it taints the whole thing. When Dorothy accuses Susanne of being a psychopath I had to roll my eyes. If that portion had come earlier in the podcast I would have stopped listening but this is very late in the story and I was invested because of the amount of time I had already put into following this story. Dorothy presents her credentials to be able to answer the psychopathy checklist about Susanne but none of that actually matters because of her bias. She cannot possibly answer those questions and rate Susanne accurately because if that bias. In addition to being light on actual information and relying way too much on speculation this podcast makes a lot of assumptions about a man who is dead and can no longer speak for himself (David) and I am apt to agree with his sister, Donna, when she says she thinks Dorothy lead him on when he was lonely. I think Dorothy is so singularly focused that she was willing to do anything to get what she wanted. Dorothy is convinced that her uncle Vern is this incredibly benevolent figure but I think like all human’s he was complicated. He seems to have been a figure of good & stability in her life when it was often not good or stable at home with her parents; but then he sort of turns away from his daughter in her teens. So he was clearly a complex person. Dorothy finds it easy to place all of the blame for Vern’s abandonment of his daughter on Susanne and her manipulation; and that could well be part of it but also Vern was very much an adult. He made the decision to leave his 15 year old daughter alone in a hotel room in Madison, a place she was unfamiliar with, when he was supposed to be spending the time with her. Dorothy says that Susanne said once she was withholding sex from Vern until he did what she wanted; Dorothy has no idea what that means or what Susanne wanted but she somehow makes it line up with when he made changes to his life insurance and his will. It seems very convenient for this to be the case; but even if it is the case… Vern clearly chose sex with his wife over keeping his daughter in the will. Is that manipulative on Susanne’s part if she did do that… sure but ultimately it’s sex and Vern chose that. He did that as an adult. I think this podcast had real potential to be super compelling and tell a complex story; but they didn’t do enough investigating on their own. They rely on Dorothy’s stories and get book to tell the story and I don’t think it quite hits the mark because if that.

Couldn’t get past the first 15 min of boot licking 🙄🤮

Having read all the negative reviews, a bit surprised this was the #9 downloaded podcast of the year per podtrac. I guess there is a difference between lovers and haters.

Quite repetitive & boring & could all be told in one episode.

Loved all of them but wish there were more. Molly (my first review I misquoted her as Robin) and Marty make a great team.

Not a particularly compelling or interesting tale. Excessive amounts of speculation without evidence to support it. No clear ending, no resolution of the story line

I found the story hard to follow. Seems like Dorothy and kids did not get put in the new will bc Vern was not invited to the-daughter’s wedding even after the new wife Susanne offered to not attend if Vern was invited. Why would Dorothy expect to get any money from his will? The kids are adults and she snubbed him while he was alive. It’s just pay back. Susanne should not benefit if she killed Vern. But where is the proof? The story just has too many characters to keep track of. And too slow.

I found this podcast story hard to follow and pretty boring. Would not recommend.

It was good though! Sad!! I think Susanne purposely killed Vern!

If you have issues with hearing gunfire, please listen at your own risk. I have said issues and did not realize it. Caught me off guard whilst driving and almost wrecked. The stories are decent (got through 2) but had to hang it up because of the sound effects.

I found this to be extremely fascinating, having previously been employed many, many years as a probate paralegal, and being a child of the 50’s and 60’s. I am amazed at the depth of investigation Dorothy did, and all beginning with a grave stone, death certificates, and real property transactions—some of which I had to do (prior to the internet and other online tools available to us today). Thank you for this great, mysterious and thought-provoking podcast.

I am shocked about how bad this podcast is. At first I thought it was a joke…but sadly not. Don’t waste your time

The story sounds interesting but the tone and rhythm of the storytellers are flat and it’s hard for me to follow.

Some people have noted that some reviews of this podcast are harsh. Indeed they are. The better question to answer is: are they fair? I tend to give leeway to podcast hosts and hostesses regarding their narration skills. Yes, the narrator is sometimes repetitive. Does it ruin the podcast? No. The story is compelling. It also is difficult to tell since it happened 50 years ago, records and memories are missing, and the main characters are dead. The protagonist is Dorothy, the niece of the primary subject of the podcast who also wrote a book on the case. Suzanne is the antagonist and likely murderer or mastermind of the murder, and a fascinating subject. She is described convincingly as a feminist and psychopath who had a series of husbands whose deaths were suspicious and by whose deaths she profited handsomely. I’m fine with the podcast. It does not bother me when stories that have no neat, tidy ending are told. Such is life in most cases, after all. My criticism is, of all things, the product endorsement by Dorothy. I won’t mention it here, but it is rather unseemly to my way of thinking. An additional criticism concerns the time Dorothy received a call from the son of Suzanne, the one who possibly was involved in the murder of Dorothy’s uncle. After hearing him freak out about what he knew about the murder, Dorothy begs off speaking with him until after she returned to a trip to Berlin. He committed suicide three days later. The woman who wanted to get to the bottom of her uncle’s murder hung up the phone with the one man who could set the story straight?!? Of course, she “regrets” that. Anyway, I believe it’s a podcast worth listening to. I love Wondery and if they take some risks on podcasts now and again, that’s okay with me.

All conspiracy theories and no actual evidence to back up the case. Everyone is old & passed. Therefore the story is pointless.

Dorothy is an unreliable narrator. She reads her perspective in a manner that feels inauthentic and would have been better left to actors, or left out entirely. The use of actors throughout is also over the top and does not add to the story. Too often the information presented is repeated almost verbatim and too many characters are introduced which makes the story muddy and uninteresting. This could have been a decent three episode podcast.

Terrible narration, whiny family members.Someone else should have told Dorothy’s story. Her voice and inflection befits a children’s story hour not this kind of project. .

I’m frustrated with myself for sticking with this podcast til the end. It wasn’t even remotely worth it. Do I think the circumstances of Vernon’s death were worth revisiting? Sure. Do I think Dorothy is a competent investigator and a reliable narrator? Absolutely not. I feel sad for Dorothy and for Vernon’s children, of course. But this podcast does a disservice to the case. It’s driven by Dorothy’s suspicions and opinions and armchair psychological analyses. The co-host occasionally chimes in to remind us that these are just Dorothy’s thoughts, but the podcast would be much improved if it didn’t rely so heavily on her perspective.

The story needs some serious editing. It’s repetitive, disjointed, and just not good storytelling. When I say “repetitive”, I mean some voice actor says something and then the hostess repeats it immediately after, almost verbatim. But what really wrecks it are the voice “actors”. Most egregious is Dorothy, only because she features so prominently in the podcast. She has this sing-song, weirdly inflected, patronizing voice usually found in bad PBS shows geared towards 5 year olds. Just about every break or end of sentence ends on a higher pitch. And forget about exhibiting any emotion, even something as simple as feigned surprise is beyond her. The commercials are the worst for this; they are downright painful to experience. Almost all the other voice actors sound like they are from some Southern state. Generic “southern country bumpkin” sums it up. Only, this is supposed to have taken place in Wisconsin. Maybe I missed the Dixie county when I worked there. But my favorite, and the one that makes listening to 3 of these, a-hem, curds worth it, is the very talented lady voice-acting a letter from Suzanne, sent to Dorothy after her birth announcement. To every other human being reading it, it was a very nice and cordial letter, typical of correspondence when much time has passed. But for our voice actress, she spun the Intonation Wheel and choose “Dripping Sarcasm”. Nothing escaped the sarcasm treatment and it actually made me laugh a lot. I sincerely hope she reads a suicide note in upcoming episodes. It would be equally appropriate. If you enjoy laughing at bad productions, this one is for you!

I kept waiting to figure out who the killer was ... you never find out.

I’m pretty disappointed with Wondery for putting this out. Normally, their podcasts are interesting, profound, and well-researched. This was a powerful story that could potentially have been told very well. The people in this story experienced a terrible tragedy, and it’s understandable that they want to make sense of everything, but this could’ve been far better told if Verne’s family members weren’t supported in some of their more unlikely theories by this podcast. The episode Psychopath was potentially really damaging, Dorothy should not have been consulted to diagnose someone she knew and the dealing with the idea of psychopathy was very poorly done.

I kept waiting for a storyline.. I still don’t really get it

Terrible podcast full of speculation and lacking facts. I would give it a 0 rating if it was possible. What was Wondery thinking to produce something so idiotic?

The other reviews are a bit harsh. I do not feel the story is told too slowly. It is a story that tells different sides of the perception of the people involved. I would say give it it s try.

What seemed like it was going to be an interesting story ruined by poor narration and gimmicky repetition.

Was an interesting story, but very biased. I got to the point where I couldn’t listen to it any longer. Sort of cheesy interactions between hosts and advertisements. And couldn’t stand Dorothy referring to Verne as “Verny.” Felt like it was a waste of time.

Moves very slow and a ton of info and interviews & stories about people that had nothing to do with the crime.

The main story is good, but all of Dorothy’s over-the-top speculation and clearly biased approach really takes you out of it. The host is good and should have just interviewed Dorothy rather than having her be a co-host. Dorothy’s execution actually makes you root for Suzanne, which I’m guessing wasn’t her goal. The voiceover acting was fake and over dramatized.

The story is pretty interesting if a bit slow, and although some of the narration is good, lots of it is apparently Dorothy just reading passages directly from her own book…? The result ends up being a strange, disappointing hybrid of a podcast and an audiobook, which aren’t the same thing for a reason. I’m a little surprised the producers at Wondery were ok with this… it’s very weird and unfortunately sort of boring at the same time :(

Ditto to everyone else’s comments. This is awfully biased storytelling. Its super cheesy and over dramatic. Save yourself 5 hours

I listen to A LOT of true from podcasts. Wondery produced content is a little all over the map. But THIS WAS HOT GARBAGE. On every level, in every way it fails. It’s irresponsible, it’s poorly executed, it’s meandering, it’s boring. Avoid

But the fact that each episode never picks up where the last one left off, is so aggravating. I am also ready to hear from some of Suzanne’s side.

But I had to quit listening to this. I wanted so badly to finish, and made it to the beginning of the last episode, but i just can’t push through to to end. I think it did get a little better once they stopped letting Dorothy read from a script as frequently, but that couldn’t save it. I think it’s a relative relationship that lent itself to an opportunity for Dorothy to exploit it. She clearly has limited insight into the relationship she claims to have so much knowledge about. I get the feeling she’s manufactured a lot of this for her own gain.

The negative comments about Dorothy are totally unfair. Thank you for sharing this deeply personal story with us 😘

Title says it all

I thought writing a review about someone’s voice is really petty.... but when it comes to a podcast, it really is a turn off when someone’s voice is hard to listen to. Dorothy’s voice was hard to listen to. Probably also didn’t help that the story was drawn out and seemed to have no final point to it.

What you get when you take a 20 min story and drag it out 5 hours. I could barley make it through the last episode to only have it be just as disappointing as the entire story. I hoping something exciting would happen. Don’t waste your time.

Dorothy’s heavy involvement was unnecessary. She’s an unreliable narrator. It feel like she was involved because she demanded it. The host basically hints at it several times that Dorothy was unreliable. Bottom line is the story is decent. Dorothy killed it being better.

Would have been way more interesting if they had stopped to even consider a side of the story that wasnt "Suzanne is a raging psycopath"-- there were moments so ridiculously dramatized and biased I couldn't help but laugh... not exactly a thorough storytelling

I found this podcast very one sided. Dorothy was a teenager who worshipped her uncle and is not a reliable view point on what happened between her uncle and his wife. She decided that Susan is a psychopath based on her teenage memories of her which are clearly Biased and no one else in the podcast says anything about it. There is also no evidence that Susan had anything to do with the deaths of her other husbands none of who died while she was married to them. It seems more likely that Susan was a smart woman who was not submissive as was wanted at the time and that her relationship with Vern was very dysfunctional and abusive.

Sounded like an interesting concept - but this really feels like a family member who cannot accept how things turned out, and some podcasters willing to pursue weak leads that they know are nothing substantial in the name of dramatic effect and listens.

I can’t finish this podcast. I tried. The story is just not interesting

I don’t expect everything to be This American Life or Serial but this was a horrible waste of time. Unlike some people, I didn’t find the voice acting or narration to be so annoying that I couldn’t appreciate the story. But there is no story, nothing to learn, no interesting anything so the whole thing is just a waste. Don’t bother.

I almost stop listening because it was so bad! Was this on Purpose or does she really talk with such a monotone weird voice. I was disappointed in The end there was no real conclusion. But I pushed through and listened, it was entertaining once you got Past the voice.

These women *hate* men. It’s embarrassing to listen to - as in, I’m embarrassed on their behalf for the things coming out of their mouths. Too many opinions. Not enough research.