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What if your entire town was built on something that wasn’t real?

Claremore, Oklahoma once rebranded itself as “Radium Town.” Hotels. Parades. Bathhouses. Souvenir jugs. Steam rooms packed with believers.

One problem.

The water didn’t contain radium.

It smelled like sulfur. It burned your nose. And it sold like a miracle.

This episode dives into the radium craze that swept America after the Curies made the element famous. We talk about the Radium Girls, radioactive tonics, glowing promises, and how one Oklahoma town rode that wave hard enough to turn prairie into profit.

There were publicity stunts. Legal fights. City officials declaring the wells a nuisance. And yes — a promoter who was reportedly dead… until he wasn’t.

Then medicine catches up. The glow fades. The wells get capped.

But the town survives.

We break down how Claremore pivoted when the miracle stopped working — and why the story still matters today, because radium wasn’t the last cure people bought without asking questions.

It just glowed louder than most.

If you like odd Americana, marketing gone wild, and history that smells like rotten eggs, this one’s for you.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

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Secrets don’t always hide in the dark. Sometimes they sit in a box on a shelf for decades, waiting on the day science finally catches up. After a quick start, we take a hard turn into Benton County, Arkansas, where skeletal remains were found in 1990 and the victim lived for 32 years in the system as a Jane Doe.

We walk through why this case stalled for so long. A skull too damaged for reconstruction, early forensic limitations, and the brutal reality that without a name, even solid investigative work has nowhere to land. Then the tools evolve. NamUs enters the picture. Mitochondrial DNA work helps narrow the field. Finally, forensic genetic genealogy does what everything else could not. In 2022, investigators confirm her identity: Donna Sue Nelton, 28 years old.

From there, we map what is known about the human terrain around her life, including George Alvin Bruton and the items tied to him that investigators discussed once her identity was restored. We also ask the uncomfortable questions this case forces. Why can an adult disappear without a clear missing report trail. How control dynamics can shrink a person’s choices until they do not feel like choices at all. And why victimology matters, because “Jane Doe” is not a person, but Donna Sue Nelton was.

This is not a courtroom ending. It is a different kind of justice. A name returned. A case history restored. A woman pulled back out of the void. If you like true crime that stays grounded in facts and follows the science where it leads, follow the show so you do not miss what we dig into next.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

Send us a text

A nine-pound socket slipped during routine maintenance inside a Titan II missile silo near Damascus, Arkansas. That’s not a metaphor. That’s the start of a real chain of events that turned a live Cold War ICBM into a disaster under rural farmland.

In this episode, I walk Andrea through it the way I learned it. No assuming you’re a history nerd. No pretending everybody remembers the Cold War. We break down the basics in human language: why these weapons existed, why they were placed where they were placed, and how people can live near something terrifying and still worry more about dinner and the weather.

Then we get into the night itself. The leak. The vapor. The pressure. The decisions made while everybody is trying to figure out what kind of nightmare they are standing next to. The silo ultimately explodes in a massive conventional blast. The nuclear warhead does not detonate, and the reentry vehicle is thrown clear and recovered afterward. That is the “good news.” The other part is realizing how thin the margin was, and how many outcomes still count as catastrophic even when the big one does not happen.

And here’s the line that should bother everybody: luck is not a safety protocol.

If you learned something, or if this one made you stare into the distance for a second, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the moment that hit you the hardest.

“Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.