Ripple: A Long Strange Search for A Killer - ATC International

Summary

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Australian True Crime – Ripple: A Long Strange Search for A Killer (ATC International)

Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Michelle Laurie
Guest: Jim Cosgrove

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Episode Theme Overview

This episode delves into the haunting disappearance and murder of Frank McGonagall, as told by his childhood neighbor and journalist, Jim Cosgrove. It explores themes of community, loss, the persistence of unsolved cases, the healing—and sometimes complicating—role of memory in families, and the controversial but gripping involvement of a clairvoyant in piecing together the mystery. The story unfolds across decades, weaving together fact, speculation, sorrow, and uncanny revelations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: Brookside, Kansas City

• Background: Jim Cosgrove describes Brookside as a tightly knit, predominantly Catholic and Jewish neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri, with large, bustling families.
• Childhood Bonds:
  • "On our street alone, I think we had like 27 kids on our block." (Jim Cosgrove, 02:54)
  • The environment fostered deep community ties, likened to an extended family.
• Frank’s Place in the Community:
  • Frank McGonagall grew up as one among nine siblings in this vibrant atmosphere but had trouble fitting into its rough-and-tumble culture.
  • "He was peaceful, he was quiet. He was a dreamer, a drifter, and didn't quite fit in with this loud, rowdy bunch." (Jim Cosgrove, 05:57)

Frank’s Struggle for Identity & Disappearance

• Frank’s Search:
  • Spent six years in college without graduating.
  • “His younger siblings were already... kind of leapfrogging ahead of him... and he was still kicking around at home, working at the store...” (Jim Cosgrove, 07:33)
  • Known for taking spontaneous road and acid trips in attempts to find himself.
• Final Departure:
  • June 7, 1982, Frank leaves home after just returning from a Grateful Dead concert road trip.
  • He withdrew all his money from the bank ($3,800), unable to get traveler’s checks, and left without detailed plans but with his characteristic loyalty—his absence, and then silence, was swiftly noticed by his family.
  • "He always let his parents know where he was, even when he did take off for a few days." (Jim Cosgrove, 09:13)

The Long Wait & Breakthrough in the Case

• Family & Community Response:
  • Persistent searching, annual masses in Frank’s honor for nine years, and “praying to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases.” (Jim Cosgrove, 11:42)
• 1991 Breakthrough:
  • A newly transferred Kansas City detective revisits old cases, using the evolving national crime computer system.
  • Miraculous connection to an unidentified body found in 1982 in Murrell’s Inlet, South Carolina—locally known as "the boy in the woods." (Jim Cosgrove, 14:48)
• Small-town Dignity:
  • The local coroner, Mac Williams, is highlighted for his empathy: "He wanted so badly to solve this case... not just for his own ego, but for the family... 'It hurts my heart that this boy, you know, somewhere... there's a family missing a son.'" (Jim Cosgrove, 15:06)

The Investigation in South Carolina

• A Journalist's Journey:
  • In 1995, Cosgrove travels to Murrell's Inlet, approaching the case as an outsider both literally and culturally (journalist among fishermen, “college boy” among “surly” locals).
  • Describes a “gritty” harbor town with a long history of piracy, smuggling, and violence—its geography and divided county lines making it “a great place to commit a crime.” (Michelle Laurie & Jim Cosgrove, 23:32–23:42)
• Discovery Details:
  • Frank found shot in the head, propped against a tree, with evidence he planned to camp. His car, ID, and most belongings missing.
  • Two local teenagers find the body—one, notorious for mischief, becomes a prime suspect but is never charged; Cosgrove ultimately doubts his involvement, suspecting town coverups.

Enter the Clairvoyant: Carol Williams

• Meeting Carol:
  • At a bed-and-breakfast, Cosgrove meets Carol, an “energy reader” who assists law enforcement, “not a psychic.”
  • Carol claims, “Honey, it is no coincidence that you and I met this weekend. There are no coincidences.” (Carol, as recounted by Cosgrove, 24:40)
• Woods Experience:
  • Cosgrove takes Carol to the woods; she gives a vivid, emotionally detailed account of Frank’s murder, his feelings, and interactions with his killer.
  • "She described for me in insane detail Frank's murder... what they looked like, height, hair color, the dialogue... She also described Frank's emotions, too... the sadness... the desire to go back home." (Jim Cosgrove, 26:00)
  • She reveals personal family arguments and objects taken from Frank—details unknown to Carol, but immediately confirmed by Frank’s brother.
    • "That night I called Frank's brother Mike and told him all of this information. He was sobbing on the phone." (Jim Cosgrove, 29:04)
• Memorable Revelation:
  • Carol claims Frank’s killer kept a personal item that belonged to his brother—a fact unknown to anyone but the family.
    • "She said the killer has this thing. And Mike says, oh my God, that's mine." (Michelle Laurie, 29:45)

Confronting the Suspect

• Encounter:
  • Cosgrove identifies and interviews a man fitting Carol’s description, who responds cryptically: “Yeah, we’ve been known to raise a little hell around here... but I imagine our idea of raising hell is a little bit different than yours.” (Suspect, 31:13)
  • Cosgrove: "I quickly knew I had to get out of there... I literally backed out the door because I didn't want to turn my back on him." (33:40)
• Law Enforcement Advice:
  • After reporting his findings to the detective, Cosgrove is told: "If you can't prove this in a court of law, it's time to turn your back and walk away. I suggest you do that. It's time for you to go." (Detective, 33:42)
  • Cosgrove reflects on his return to the investigation decades later, finding most leads deceased but the family's openness undiminished.

Family Legacy & Reflections

• Healing & Guilt:
  • The McGonagall family openly reckons with guilt and their familial environment:
    • “We did not create an environment for him that was nurturing and welcoming.” (Jim Cosgrove paraphrasing Frank’s sister, 35:00)
    • "You want to know why Frank ended up with a bullet in his head under a tree in South Carolina? You've got to look at the way we were brought up. You've got to look at our family." (Frank’s sister, 36:26)
• Journalistic Closure:
  • Cosgrove’s objective had been to stay out of the story but found himself deeply intertwined, relating the case’s reverberations over the years and the enduring impact on all involved.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On Community:
  • "On our street alone, I think we had like 27 kids on our block." – Jim Cosgrove (02:54)
• Frank’s Difference:
  • "He was peaceful, he was quiet. He was a dreamer, a drifter." – Jim Cosgrove (05:57)
• Clairvoyant’s Assertion:
  • “Honey, it is no coincidence that you and I met this weekend. There are no coincidences.” – Carol (recounted by Cosgrove, 24:40)
• Chilling Encounter:
  • “Yeah, we've been known to raise little hell around here... but I imagine our idea raising hell is a little bit different than yours.” – Primary suspect (31:13)
• Family Reckoning:
  • “You want to know why Frank ended up with a bullet in his head under a tree in South Carolina? You've got to look at the way we were brought up.” – Frank’s sister (36:26)

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Important Timestamps

• Frank’s Background & Neighborhood – 02:54–05:44
• Frank’s Departure & Family’s Response – 08:17–11:42
• Breakthrough Case Link (1991 Detective) – 12:26–14:05
• Discovery of "Boy in the Woods" – 14:48
• Coroner’s Compassionate Involvement – 15:04–15:47
• Investigation in Murrell’s Inlet – 16:04–24:06
• Introduction & Session with Clairvoyant Carol – 24:40–30:40
• Confrontation with Suspect – 30:40–33:40
• Detective's Advice to Leave Town – 33:42
• Family Reflections & Healing – 34:46–36:48

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Tone & Style

The episode strikes a balance between warmth (in the recollections of childhood and the McGonagall family), somber reflection (on loss and guilt), and gripping suspense (especially in paranormal and investigative turns). Michelle Laurie maintains empathy and curiosity, while Jim Cosgrove weaves fact with feeling, offering listeners a deeply personal lens on true crime and the mysteries of human connection.

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This episode is a testament to the stubborn echoes of unsolved mysteries, the endurance of love and guilt, and the strange ways in which answers sometimes arrive—from the tenacity of law enforcement, the compassion of strangers, to perhaps the unexplainable insights of a clairvoyant.

Transcript

[Michelle Laurie]

This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Laurie. Do you believe that clairvoyance can be helpful in solving crimes? Well, whether you do or you don't, we've got two episodes for you today that I'm sure you will find fascinating. The first one is from the perspective of the childhood friend of a missing man and the second episode features the clairvoyant who helped crack the case. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung People of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence. Jim Cosgrove studied journalism very seriously as a young man and he worked as a journalist for a long time. His own childhood was haunted by the disappearance of a boy from his neighbourhood. And as you'll hear shortly, the children in Jim's neighbourhood were a very, very close knit bunch. So it was like losing a cousin and it obviously made a huge impression on him. But there's yet another event that links Jim's life to the true crime genre. I couldn't help but ask Jim Cosgrove about the rather stellar quote on the front of his book Ripple. Under the words riveting true crime storytelling. Chilling and unforgettable is the very impressive name of John Douglas, who a lot of us will know is the co author of Mindhunter and the man widely recognised as the world authority, if not the inventor of criminal profiling. I mean, it's not every first time author who gets such a luminary to read their manuscript and contribute a nice big fat quote for the COVID Jim was clearly very proud, but also a little bit embarrassed when I asked about the quote. And he told me very humbly that he knows John Douglas through a crime that happened in his wife Jenny's family. In fact, he told me that Douglas had written about it in one of his books. If you're interested, the book is 1998's Obsession, co authored with Mark Olshaker, and the crime is the rape and murder of college student Stephanie Schmidt by her coworker Donald Ray Gideon, who was a paroled repeat sex offender. Gideon had simply lied on the form when applying to wash dishes at the restaurant known to employ female college students as waitresses. The form included a question asking if applicants had ever committed a felony offence and Gideon ticked no. And that was the extent of the criminal background check in 1993. So although, as you're about to hear, Jim Cosgrove is a very upbeat guy, it Seems like he was almost destined to write a great, very original true crime book. Anyway, let's get on and listen to this amazing story from Jim Cosgrove. It's all about his childhood neighbour, Frank McGonagall. And we begin by settling into their neighborhood, which plays a very big part in the book. It sounds really lovely. It's in Kansas City and it's called Brookside.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Brookside. Brookside is a neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Yes. And Brookside is a beautiful place. Tree lined streets, big homes. At the time you were either Catholic or Jewish in the neighborhood. And when I grew up, I thought those were the only two kinds of people. You're either Catholic or Jewish. And because all the Protestants had left because the school system in Kansas City was a mess at the time and so they, they were seeking better schools. And the Catholics and the Jewish kids, we had our own schools and so we all kind of hung out together and we all, all the Catholic families belonged to the Jewish Community center where we played baseball and we took swimming lessons and we were in plays and all that kind of stuff. And it was just riddled with children too. I mean, kids everywhere. On our street alone, I think we had like 27 kids on our block.

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, that's what I was thinking. You had to have big houses because you had big families. Yes. How many kids in your family?

[Jim Cosgrove]

There are eight. I'm the baby of eight.

[Michelle Laurie]

Eight. And in the McGonagalls?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Nine. Yep, they had nine. If there was a family with less than four children, you thought, oh, something must have gone wrong or like, you know, there was a kid in my class who came from a family of 12. So they're just these big Irish Catholic families and everybody kind of knew each other and we played in each other's houses. If we were at the house when it was lunchtime, we ate lunch there

[Michelle Laurie]

and a lot of physical play that our kids don't. We lament that our kids don't play like this anymore. You talk about foosball, of course, you know, inside, I guess, for the cold months down in the basement. Broom hockey. We don't have a lot of hockey here, but I can guess what that is. Is that indoors where you crack out mum's broom?

[Jim Cosgrove]

No, no, no. It was, it was in the, out on the, out on the patio or the driveway. So. And some people really got into it. Sometimes you just played with a can and a couple brooms and you kicked it around. But then in the wintertime when it got cold enough, they would. And my brothers did this on our patio hosed it down, so it froze over, so you're actually sliding around on ice, you know.

[Michelle Laurie]

And Red Rover, you talk about sustaining a pretty serious injury during a very spirited game of Red Rover. How does that happen?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Red Rover. That's right. I broke my arm playing Red Rover. Yes.

[Michelle Laurie]

Your poor mother.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes. Oh, my mother spent a lot of time in the emergency room at the hospital with, with my, my siblings and me.

[Michelle Laurie]

So a lot of kids playing rough. Yeah, that's a lot of time.

[Jim Cosgrove]

But it was just, yeah, it was just a great, you know, it was a great environment to grow up in. And so we knew every, we knew everybody's families and, and we had the kind of relationships that, you know, they were like cousins, you know.

[Michelle Laurie]

Well, and also, you know, you talk about Frank sort of not, not quite ever fitting into that testosterone fueled environment that his brothers created over there. He was always just a bit of a dreamy kid, wasn't he?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right, yeah, he was, he was peaceful, he was quiet. He was a dreamer, a drifter, and didn't quite fit in with this, you know, loud, rowdy bunch and, you know, was made fun of for that some.

[Michelle Laurie]

And, and these days I think, you know, we go out of our way to try and make space for those people. When kids, when you have a small kid like that, you go, okay, well, that's the way it is. And let's, yes, make space for that. But in those days when you and I were kids, right, not so much

[Jim Cosgrove]

just plow forward and, you know, there was lots of roughhousing. And if you, you know, I mean, I used to joke with, you know, well, my wife is from a very small family, so she, when she gets around our family, she's like, you guys talk constant. You talk at the same time and nobody stops to listen for an answer. And I said, yeah. And, you know, and at the dinner table, you had to throw a few elbows sometimes to get the last chicken leg or whatever, you know, you gotta, you gotta go. You miss out. And Frank could dish, you know, he could roll with his brothers and dish it out. He was a fierce competitor. He played soccer and American football, so he was competitive with that, but at the same time would, you know, withdraw. So his family, his brothers, you know, didn't know how to, how to deal with that.

[Michelle Laurie]

And so by the time he was 26, 27, he had tried college. He'd rattled around there for, for six years. Right. So that's much longer than most people go to college. Right. And did he graduate?

[Jim Cosgrove]

He had no, he never ended up graduating. He spent six years there. He. So he came back to Kansas City from college. He had gone away and went to work at the family grocery store, the family meat market. It was a. Mainly a meat market, but a small grocery store, as did all the kids. All the kids worked there at some point, you know, but he was living at home. He was. And he didn't feel good about that either. You know, he certainly. His younger siblings were already. Were kind of leapfrogging ahead of him with careers or, you know, college and graduating, going on to get advanced degrees. And he was still kind of kicking around at home, working at the store, and he was not just not feeling too good about himself.

[Michelle Laurie]

Was there a sense that. Do you think that he was still trying to find himself in that parlance that we use? Was he. He was going on trips, wasn't he, every now and then, off on sort of seeking trips and acid trips. Let's. Acid trips as well, right?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Well, yes, acid trips as well as road trips. Yeah. And, yeah, I think, you know, he was. He was a dreamer, a drifter and trying to find himself. And. And actually, when he finally did leave home, almost all. Every member of the family, certainly his siblings were like, great. Finally he finally ventured off. He finally took off on his own. And maybe this is, you know, gonna

[Michelle Laurie]

be his breakthrough in the early days of his disappearance, you mean?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes. Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah. So that was 1982. He left home on June 7th. Was he. From memory, he was initially going. Was he going to see the Grateful Dead? Was that the. The thing? Because he was a big Grateful Dead fan.

[Jim Cosgrove]

He was a big Grateful Dead fan. Now he had just returned from a trip to see the Grateful Dead with his brother. And they don't know. They had. They. Many of his siblings thought he went west because he loved the West. It was the western United States. And he had just returned from California with his brother for. From a long road trip to see the Grateful Dead and Berkeley, because he

[Michelle Laurie]

wanted to push on, didn't he, in the car. And his brother said, no, I'm over it. I'm going home.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He just. He. He wanted to. Yeah, he wanted to take his time getting back and go the back roads and kind of see, you know, the plains of the Midwest. And he. His brother was like, nah, done this trip was just too much, and drove straight through and got home. And he was not happy about it. Frank was not happy about it. And then a couple days later, he takes off again. So he was gone a couple you know, a couple days, his, you know, and his parents thought the same thing. This is one of his road trips, and he's off for a couple days. But the thing about Frank, he was very loyal and very close to his family. And he always called. He always let his parents know where he was, even when he did take off for a few days. So when he didn't call after a couple days, he thought, okay, that's odd. And then when it turned into a week and then a couple weeks, they got suspicious and started asking around if anybody had seen him. And. And then went. His dad had the, you know, the. The wits about him to go to the local bank where he banked and checked to see if he had withdrawn any money. And that's when he found out that he would withdraw all of his money. And he had asked about getting travelers checks at the time, travelers checks were away from home safely traveling, but he was unable to get travelers checks that day because the officer, bank officer who was in charge of that was not in that day. So he withdrew $3,800 in cash and took it with him. So he had $3,800, part of which he wadded up and shoved into a sock, because that's where he kept some of his cash stuffed into a sock. I mean, on his leg. Not a sock in the car somewhere, but actually on his foot.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah. For safety. So I know everybody gathered around, everybody chipped in, because again, this is a very tight knit community. Everyone prayed, and there was a lot of praying to St. Jude.

[Jim Cosgrove]

As a Catholic, you go through the ranks, right. You start with your general prayers and then you kind of. Then you better up the ante a little bit, like, well, we better start saying some rosaries. And then. Whoa. We. Then you go to St. Jude because he's the patron saint of hopeless cases. Yeah. So then as it went into the first anniversary of his disappearance, then on 7 June, they had a mass at the local church and in his honor. And then they continued to do that every year for nine years. They looked for him. Yeah.

[Michelle Laurie]

There was a breakthrough in 1991. For whatever reason, this detective in Kansas City decided to go back and have a look at some old unsolved. Right. Some old missing persons cases.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right. He had recently transferred and he was new to missing persons. And he's happened literally upon some old files in a file cabinet that were stuffed in the back, and there were some unsolved cases. And he said, hey, would it be all right if I look into these? You know, and by that time in 1991, we had a national crime computer. So all the states and the jurisdictions were finally communicating. So there was a lot of information out there. So like recently in Australia, this was kind of a time when people were looking into old cases. Within 48 hours, 72 hours, he had answers to, I think seven of the 10 that he looked into. And he talked about how a couple of the cases he found these missing persons, but they did not want to be found. They were alive. He found two of them alive, but they did not want to be contacted by their family. And he said that was really difficult to have to go to those families and say, yes, I've found out, but they don't want to be, they don't want to be found. So that's heartbreaking in another, you know, another way, right. He found that there was a report of an unidentified body in a small town in South Carolina on the coast, on the Atlantic coast of the US and the sheriff and the coroner in this little town were. This is the only unidentified body they'd ever had.

[Michelle Laurie]

This is the point at which it gets really moving, I think, because got this beautiful family and we've got this detective who just takes the time, who just decides he's going to make something happen and he does. And then we find out that these people in this tiny town, the sheriff and the coroner are very kind hearted men who've had Frank with them this whole time and they've treated him with such respect and dignity and care. In fact, a lot of the community, I'm not going to say all of the community, but a lot of the community has actually taken Frank to their hearts. The name they have given these remains are unidentified to them. Just terrifying, horrible. What's the name that they gave him?

[Jim Cosgrove]

They, everybody in town knew him as the boy in the woods.

[Michelle Laurie]

The boy in the woods. I mean he's a man, but in so many ways he is a boy, you know.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right, exactly. He was a young man, of course, and. But they all. Yeah, the boy in the woods is how they knew him.

[Michelle Laurie]

It's like they knew him. It feels so beautiful to me.

[Jim Cosgrove]

You know, you mentioned the corner, the corner to be Mack Williams, one of my favorite characters. They're just a lovely guy. He was just a, just a, you know, he wanted so badly to solve this case and not just before his own ego, but he wanted to solve the case for the family. He, you know, he, Jim, he would say, jim, I just, it hurts my heart that this boy, you know, somewhere he said, you know, There's a family who's missing a son, There's a family who's missing a brother. And he said, I want to, you know, I want to reunite these people.

[Michelle Laurie]

And again, it gets more moving to me because you went there and you just foreshadowed that by saying that you met this coroner. I mean, you spent a lot of time there. You went to this tiny fishing town in South Carolina. This is where the story becomes even more personal for you.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right? And so I approached this whole thing as a journalist. I. My intention was to stay out of the story. I did not intend to be part of the story at all. And so I went to South Carolina in 1995 initially, and it was not tourist season, so it was off season. It was February, and it was, you know, kind of chilly, and there weren't many people there. So I stayed in a bed and breakfast by myself. I had the whole place to myself, and I spent a few days kicking around town. The sheriff was kind of humored me a bit. He was. He was a little. A little bit more surly than the coroner. Mac was a lovely guy, was open and willing to talk to me and give me his notes and gave me his. He kept amazing notes and diaries. And the sheriff was kind of gave me the. The file on the case and put me in a room and said, just keep to yourself. So anyway, I started asking questions and poking around town and was guided by

[Michelle Laurie]

other people because we still have a mystery. I mean, we haven't actually even alerted our listeners to the fact that although Frank's remains were discovered, he was clearly the victim of violence, of a homicide.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right? So they. They found him. He had been shot in the head. Seven days after he left home. They found him in a wooded area that he would not have found on his own. It was off the road, it was off the path. And somebody would have had to led him to this spot in the woods where it looked like he was going to camp. He had set up some bricks and rocks to make a fire ring and had collected some kindling and his. They found his sleeping bag there, and he was propped up against a tree, but that was it. His car was gone. His. No identification, his. Most of his belongings were gone. He was found in the woods by two teenage boys who often played in the woods and knew those. Knew the woods like the back of their hand. And they rode their bicycles through there. And one of the kids that found the body was a notorious troublemaker and

[Michelle Laurie]

kind of a thug known to police, we say, in Australia, known To police.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Known to police? Yes, he was known to. He was definitely known to police and was often at the root of a lot of the things that happened in this little town. And petty things, you know, like somebody. Somebody's shed was broken into or something, A fire was set in an old shed or something, and some money was stolen from somebody's house. So he was known to actually, like an arsonist who will set a fire and then call the fire department. He was known for firing shots into the air on one end of town and then calling the police and saying, I heard gunfire, as an odd psychology there. But he was known for reporting some of the crimes that he had committed. So he immediately became a suspect in this case. That, huh? Okay. You found this guy in the woods. Nobody knows who he is. And he was with his Cousin who was 14 at the time, but they never had enough evidence to pin anything on him. They never were able to get any, of course, any kind of confession or anything out of him.

[Michelle Laurie]

That's a big leap, too. It's a big leap from troublemaking around town to shooting someone in the face to murder.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes, yes, yes, I agree, absolutely. But everybody in town kind of had the same story. Oh, Tommy. Tommy's the one who did it. He's the one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And. But, but so I pursued that a little bit. Well, tell me more. Why do you think Tommy did it? And I got to the point where I felt like he didn't do it, but that there was someone else in town who did do it and they were kind of covering for him or just not, of course, telling me the whole story.

[Michelle Laurie]

Did you feel like an outsider? Was it that kind of vibe that because it's a small town.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right.

[Michelle Laurie]

You get that impression that you were being treated like a guy that people aren't necessarily going to talk to because you're an outsider.

[Jim Cosgrove]

And I was 29 at the time and, you know, I was doing this for my master's thesis, for my master's in creative nonfiction writing and while I was working in a newspaper. And so the college boy comes into town asking questions. And. Yeah, that's a bit of a juxtaposition to this. These folks who are, you know, fishermen, they're mostly. They shell fishermen, primarily clams and. But it's a hard working life and a lot of these guys are pretty surly and gritty. So I went to local bars, which is always a great place to get stories, and started asking questions and I heard insane stories about this town.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, because the other thing that Quite often happens around harbors is a bit of extra. Importing, exporting.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Oh, yes, right. And this history of importing and exporting dates went back hundreds and hundreds of years. So I started hearing stories about pirates. And so the town is Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina. So it is an inlet from the sea. So it is a safe, kind of a safe harbor. It's a place where some ships would duck into if the seas were too rough or if someone was trying to hide, they would duck in there. And then there was this system of creeks and rivers, inland rivers that were. That would, you know, dump out into the inlet. And so it was a great place to hide. So throughout history, I started to hear these stories. Piracy. During the American Revolution, they were running guns through there. Then during the American Civil War, they were running supplies to the south and they were running, you know, food as well as weapons. And then during Prohibition in the United States, when liquor was outlawed, they were running liquor through there. And then came. Then came the drugs.

[Michelle Laurie]

Because like you said about Frank, if you're a foreigner, if you're not from there, that you would not have a hope of finding anything if a local has stashed it up one of those estuaries or in one of those.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right.

[Michelle Laurie]

You're not going to find your way through that area. You're not going to find anything.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yeah. You had to know the land. Right. To get around this history of piracy and nefarious activity and just and literally, like stories of people getting cut up with chainsaws and thrown to the alligators.

[Michelle Laurie]

And I was just wondering if there were alligators.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes. And crazy. And here's another thing. The town is unincorporated and the county line runs right through the northern part of this town. So part of the town is in one county and the other part is in another. So there are two different sheriffs that patrol the area.

[Michelle Laurie]

We don't have that. We see that, though, when we watch true crime shows about America. It feels like people can get away with crimes because they weren't committed in that county. So no one's investigating it from the other county or something.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes, correct. It's always like, oh, no, that's yours. No, that's mine. You know, that kind of thing. And so it's historically been a great place to commit a crime. If you wanted to commit a crime, this is the place to do it.

[Michelle Laurie]

So you started to get the feeling that you didn't think this teenager did it. Then, of course, as a human being, not least. But as a. As an investigative journalist and A person who's wanting a career in that space, your attention turns to, well, who did? This is again where this book just takes this whole other turn. That's what I love about it. We've been through this process of your general missing person's story, and it evolves into this really moving space. The great people of the inlet and you going there. Amazing. But then we take this other turn where you meet a lady called Carol. Where did you meet Carol?

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes. Oh, yes. So I was staying in this bed and breakfast by myself. I had the whole place to myself. And one night two women moved in across the hall from me. And so I went over and introduced myself and we started chatting it up. And they said, well, hey, let's, let's go out. So we went out and had some drinks that night and had dinner. And shortly after we met, even before we went out that night, one of the women, Carol's friend, said, hey, you should know that my friend Carol has worked with law enforcement to solve crimes. And I said, oh, really? Okay, what's that all about? Well, she's an energy reader. And I said, oh, is that like a psychic? Oh, no, no, don't call her a psychic. She doesn't like to be called the psychic. She's an energy reader. I said, oh, okay, that's cool. That's interesting. Well, then she started to tell me some of the cases she'd worked on. And there were some high profile cases. One is pretty well known in this in the US about a woman who had drowned two of her sons, strapped him into the car and drove a car into a lake, and claimed that she had been carjacked. Anyway, she said, well, my friend Carol here helped the FBI solve that crime because she saw where these kids were submerged in this lake. And okay, okay, I heard the story. And you know, and I'm, of course I'm interested. But as a journalist, I'm staying skeptical. And so anyway, we went out that night, had our fun. And then the next day we were at lunch with the owner of the bed and breakfast. And she was asking me, the owner was asking me how my week had gone. She said, oh, you've been, you've been here for several days now and how's your research coming? And I said, well, everybody in town seems to think that Tommy is the one who killed Frank, but I don't. I said, I get the feeling that there's someone else involved, and I think he's still living and he's still here. And Carol, who was sitting there, she said, you're right. And I said, what do you mean I'm right? She said, you're right. There is someone else that killed Frank and he's still living here. And I said, okay, how do you know? And she said, honey, it is no coincidence that you and I met this weekend. And she said, there are no coincidences. I said, all right, fine. I'm with you on that. I said, would you be willing to help me? And she said, yes, because you asked me to help you, I have to help you. So I asked her to go to the woods with me where they found Frank's body. And that afternoon, we went into the woods. And she described for me in insane detail Frank's murder. She described who was involved, what they looked like, height, hair color. She described the dialogue of what happened. She also described Frank's emotions, too, like what Frank was thinking and feeling after he'd been shot and he realized he was dead. And the. The sadness and the guilt and the. Or the. Just the desire to go back home. And. And she told me stuff about the McGonagall family that she. She would never have known. She told me stuff about this case which she had never known. She wasn't from this town. She was from. Actually, she was from North Carolina. She had never been to this town before. The things she told me were crazy. And she did describe for me the guy who shot Frank in incredible detail.

[Michelle Laurie]

And this wasn't a guy that you had met. It's not like you had in your mind someone that you thought at that time was a suspect or you hadn't even laid eyes on this person yet.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yeah, her description was somebody. Yeah. Who I had met. Had not seen or met yet. Right.

[Michelle Laurie]

No. One of the things that she mentioned about Frank was that he had some guilt in the afterlife after he had died about the fact that his last conversation with one of his brothers had been sort of an argument that they'd had. And then you knew that his brother was also feeling this terrible guilt about the fact that they'd had a sniping conversation in the kitchen just before Frank left. And again, just really moving and incredible that she knew that. I mean, she cannot have possibly known that.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes, she. Yes, she. She talked about the argument that he had with his brother and an argument he had with his. With his mother.

[Michelle Laurie]

Because his brother certainly did not publicize that, ever. It was. He was ashamed of it. And it was a deep sense, sacred of his.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right. So I took all that information and I recorded the whole thing. I recorded it on a little Micro cassette player that I had. And that night I called Frank's brother Mike and told him all of this information. And he was sobbing on the phone. And he told me, corroborated a lot of the things that she had told me. And I said. And she had told me that the guy who killed Frank still had something of his, an item of his that he had taken from Frank from the crime scene. And Mike, his brother, told me that night, yes, that's mine.

[Michelle Laurie]

No, don't say what it was. But that was amazing because you didn't even know that. Nobody knew. And it's funny even that such brother bullshit that on his way out, Frank. Frank grabbed something of his big brothers that he'd always loved.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Right? Exactly. Exactly right.

[Michelle Laurie]

Naughty boy. Grabbed it and threw it in his car and took it with him. Oh, my heart's racing. And Carol mentions that Frank's murderer has this thing in his possession still. I mean, then it comes to you to say, oh, by the way, she said the killer has this thing. And Mike says, oh, my God, that's mine. So he can identify that as his. It is the most amazing, amazing story. And we won't give away either the way Carol describes this man, the person she sees as the person who killed Frank, but she describes him so clearly that you find yourself looking at this person who fits her description completely.

[Jim Cosgrove]

She described Frank's killer in amazing detail. So hair color, height and eye color. And then a couple days later, I was out interviewing some people and. And by the way, over the course of the next day or two, many of the things that Carol predicted I saw or came like, oh, my God, Carol mentioned that. And there it is. Oh, she mentioned a boat. She mentioned the name on the back of the boat. And then I saw this boat with this name on the back of the boat. And so, yeah, this. This guy was on my list of people to talk to. He was a friend of the suspects. And so I tracked him down. He was shucking oysters in an oyster shack. And I knocked on the door and he turned around and looked at me and I. And it was this guy. So there I was and I thought, oh, this is the guy that Carol said killed Frank. And so I, just being the journalist, was, hey, I in town just poking around, asking questions. And I'm here doing a story about the body that they found across the road in the woods. And he said, oh, the boy in the woods, I don't know anything about that. And he continued to work. And I said, well, then I kind of shifted Gears. Well, I said, well, tell me about Murrell's Inlet. Tell me about this town. And he gave to me the best line I think anybody has ever said to me anywhere. This is like out of a movie. I said, I heard it was kind of a crazy place. He said, yeah, we've been known to raise little hell around here. And then he looked me up and down and remember, I'm this college boy, you know, do to do. And he looks me from head to toe, and he said, but I imagine our idea raising hell is a little bit different than yours. And I had to agree with him. Yes, I think you're right. Cutting up people, chainsaws, and yes, that was a little bit different than the neighborhood I came from.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I broke my arm once in Red Rover.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Yes, that's right, tough guy.

[Michelle Laurie]

Were you scared? Were you scared of him?

[Jim Cosgrove]

You know, I. I don't know. People have asked me that question, and I don't know if I would just. Dumb enough, really. I. I never feared for my safety while I was there, Although I am just the two of us in this oyster shack and he's got a shucking knife in his hand. But I. I quickly knew I had to get out of there. So, I mean, I backed. Literally backed out the door because I didn't want to turn my back on him, but thanked him for his time. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I'm going to exit now rather quickly. And so I think I was. I felt cautious. I don't know. I don't know that. Yeah, if I was just foolish enough to not be scared. But I, you know, I knew I needed to get out of there.

[Michelle Laurie]

Yeah, I mean, I'd be scared for as long as I was in the town.

[Jim Cosgrove]

So right after that, then I went back to the bed and breakfast, and I called the detective, the said detective who worked the sheriff's department, who had worked on this case. And I told him, hey, a lot of weird stuff's happened over the last couple days. I'm going to tell you this story. I know it's weird, but just bear with me. And he heard me out. And that's when he said, if you can't prove this in a court of law, it's time to turn your back and walk away. And he said, I suggest you do that. It's time for you to go in a very polite way, like, it's you. I think you've worn out. You're welcome in this town, so it's time for you to move on. That was 95. Well, I went back many years later. I went back then in 2019 with Mike, Frank's brother, and my brother. We interviewed many of the people I had interviewed before. We found a few other people to talk to, and many of the people who were involved were dead by then.

[Michelle Laurie]

How has the McGonagall family recovered from this?

[Jim Cosgrove]

You know, they. One of the beautiful things about them is that they got together and talked about what are the lessons that we can learn from what happened to Frank, and what are the lessons we can learn about us and how we. How we interact as a family. And so they talked about, like, you know, there was a lot of guilt. Of course we drove Frank away. We. We did not create an environment for him that was nurturing and welcoming. And so there's a lot of soul searching and a lot of really hard conversations that happen. And I'm really impressive with about how they. How they work through that. And then. And then the fact that they were so open to me. They were very vulnerable. They were. They. I mean, I sat down with each one of the siblings and they told me their stories. I didn't have to ask a lot of questions. They just. They just went. And then to come back to the story 20 plus years later, I, you know, I was considering. Concerned that this would dredge up old stuff again. So I went in very cautiously. But again, they were. They, you know, I. I think some of them were humoring me a little bit, but. But they were all very, very open to talking about it again.

[Michelle Laurie]

That's incredible. I've never. I don't know that I've ever heard that reaction. We know the guilt is oftentimes misplaced, but certainly the ownership of the environment.

[Jim Cosgrove]

And I'll tell you, one of his sisters told me, she said, you. You want to know why Frank ended up with a bullet in his head under a tree in South Carolina? You've got to look at the way we were brought up. You've got to look at our family. You've got to look at the way we interacted. And I thought that was.

[Michelle Laurie]

What does she mean by that, do you think? That's a very intense thing to say.

[Jim Cosgrove]

Well, just. Just that. I mean, just that we, again, didn't create an environment for him, that nurtured him.

[Michelle Laurie]

Thank you for listening to this episode of Australian True Crime International. I hope you're as intrigued as I was by the time I got to the end of the first episode. And I hope you'll stick around for the second episode in which we chat with the clairvoyant Carol Williams.

[Jim Cosgrove]

The producers of this podcast recognise the traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded. They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.