Episode 8: Sanctuary

In the years following the suicide cluster, Brandon Grossheim decided he’d had enough of the small college town of Kirksville, where he was increasingly notorious. He moved home to Alton, Illinois, where, because of all the bad press, he struggled to find work. In this episode, we chronicle his lif…

Episode 7: Sex, Drugs, and Trauma

What if Brandon wasn’t responsible for these deaths? What if the real reason was right under our noses the entire time? Though many victims’ advocates maintain that Brandon is guilty, many others don’t think so. In fact, his defenders point out, each of the suicide victims had previously attempted …

Episode 6: The Journal Building

The Journal Building was where young Kirksville residents went to rage. The apartment building was known for drugs, booze, and wild parties. When two of its residents died within months of each other — in the very same room — police began searching for answers. In this episode, we visit the room wh…

Episode 5: Glenna

Following Alex Vogt’s suicide in the Journal Building, things didn’t quiet down. In fact, in the very same room, only five months later, another person died, a young bartender named Glenna Haught. She appears to have drank herself to death, and authorities were shocked to learn that the last person…

Episode 4: Off Campus

After Brandon Grossheim was kicked out of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity, he moved into an off-campus apartment. Soon afterwards, a friend from across the hall named Alex Vogt killed himself. It was as if everywhere Brandon went, suicide followed. During this time, both Brandon and Alex Vogt — a…

Episode 3: Depressed Girls

The suicide victims all had one thing in common: they trusted Brandon, and told him intimate details from their lives. The fourth suicide victim, Josh Thomas, told Brandon that he was “the person he trusted more than anybody else.” To understand why, we speak with women who were in Brandon’s life a…

Episode 2: Grimm’s Fairy Tales

The Truman State suicides hit the town of Kirksville, Missouri hard. In this episode we investigate the deaths of the first two victims, Alex Mullins and Jake Hughes, close friends from the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity who killed themselves only three weeks apart. Their fraternity brother Brandon …

Episode 1: The Fraternity Suicides

This introductory episode is set at the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity at Truman State University, in the small college town of Kirksville, Missouri. In 2016 and 2017 the fraternity was rocked by a series of suicides, which all happened in disturbingly similar fashion. All of the victims had one thi…

Introducing: The Peacemaker

Starting in 2016, a series of student suicides shook Truman State University. At first, they were seen only as tragedies. But when the same young man appeared at the center of each death, mourning turned to questions--then accusations. Was Brandon Grossheim a compassionate confidant? Or something e…