The Vanishing of Janis Rose | 2. Risk Taker

Summary

The Binge Crimes: The Vanishing of Janis Rose

Episode 2: Risk Taker

Released: September 9, 2025
Host: Larison Campbell

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Larison Campbell explores the tangled, elusive trail left by Janis Rose—a young Mississippi mother of four who vanished in the late 1970s. With retired investigator Mark Ogden on the case decades later, the episode probes the dual nature of Janis: devoted mother and restless risk taker. As Campbell traces Janis’s steps through relationships, small-town rumors, and even the orbit of America's most prolific serial killer, the episode blurs the line between victim and orchestrator in Janis’s story, raising new questions about how and why she kept slipping away.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reopening Janis's File

[00:00–01:36]

• In 2019, Investigator Mark Ogden is seen pouring over Janis’s old case file at the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department.
• He’s drawn to a name rumored to be connected with her and decides to visit an old address outside of Picayune, Mississippi.

Quote:
"I kind of took a chance one morning and I just drove down to the address."
 —Mark Ogden (01:36)

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2. Uncovering a Secret Relationship

[01:55–04:22]

• Ogden visits two sisters who reveal Janis was dating their younger brother at the time of her disappearance—he was 19 or 20, and Janis was six years older.
• The brother, now a long-haul truck driver, recalls breaking up with Janis after catching her in bed with another man, and the sisters note that she never spoke of having a family or children.
• They also mention Janis worked at a diner in nearby Poplarville.

Quote:
"Had no idea she had kids or was married or anything other than whatever story she give them."
 —Mark Ogden (03:50)

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3. The Poplarville Diner & a Dangerous Relationship

[04:51–05:46]

• The sisters point Ogden to Dick’s Diner, where Janis both worked and dated the owner, Dick Dido, who years later murdered his girlfriend and her son before killing himself.
• Janis’s association with Dido gives the case a dark turn.

Quote:
"The owner of that property, Dick Dido, he actually murdered his girlfriend. And it wouldn't be far off that he may have done something to her."
 —Mark Ogden (05:17)

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4. Questioning Janis’s Motivations as a Mother

[05:46–08:46]

• Campbell ponders the paradox of Janis as both a doting mother and someone who left her children behind.
• Interviews with Janis’s best friend, Kathy, reveal how Janis was perceived as nurturing and school-involved, but also as a risk taker.

Quote:
"We were both always class officers... We were risk takers."
 —Kathy, Janis's best friend (07:50, 07:58)

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5. Teenage Pregnancy and Early Marriage

[08:46–11:29]

• Flashback: Kathy recalls Janis confessing at age 15 that she believed she was pregnant, highlighting the social stigma and lack of options for young women in 1970s Mississippi.
• Janis and her boyfriend Glenn ran away and married, leading to Janis becoming a mother of four by her late teens.

Quote:
"You might as well have an A on your forehead."
 —Kathy (09:13)

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6. Early Attempt at Escaping

[11:29–14:15]

• Kathy recounts Janis’s earlier attempt to leave her husband, moving with her kids to Jackson, MS, where she found new freedoms and social connections.
• Ultimately, Janis returned home, but Kathy felt Janis tasted escape and yearned for more.

Quote:
"She had made the great escape. That's the feeling I got from her when she was in Jackson."
 —Kathy (14:07)

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7. Janis’s Life at Dick’s Diner

[16:23–19:24]

• Testimonies from Peggy Perkins, a teen who frequented the diner, describe Janis as vibrant, flirtatious, and quickly involved with the owner, Dick.
• Janis lived with Dick, seemingly making a home but keeping her past and children secret.

Quote:
"Blue jeans. And she had big breasts so she would really get that cleavage going on... She just popped up one day. There she is."
 —Peggy Perkins (16:23)

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8. Hidden Fears and Another Escape

[19:40–21:00]

• Diner coworker Jane recalls Janis confiding she was afraid of Dick and planning an escape, with Jane suggesting Janis head to Lockport, Louisiana, for a new start.
• Soon after, Janis vanishes—Poof, she's gone.

Quotes:
"She said she had to get away from him because she was scared of him."
 —Kathy/Jane (20:27)

"It was like a thief in the night. She was gone."
 —Peggy Perkins (21:05)

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9. Dick Dido’s True Nature Revealed

[21:00–22:30]

• Dick’s later murder-suicide brings further fear Janis may have met a similar fate, especially after a friend reports Janis once stole from Dick.
• Ogden hits dead ends seeking old diner business records or direct evidence.

Quote:
"He thinks it was the third time that Dick found she was stealing from him is when she disappeared for good. He never saw her after that."
 —Mark Ogden (22:30)

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10. The Serial Killer Theory: Samuel Little

[25:27–37:57]

• Ogden explores whether Janis could have fallen victim to Samuel Little, a prolific serial killer active in the region, especially given rumors she frequently left with truckers.
• Lt. Darren Versaidgia discusses Little’s modus operandi: traveling the region, targeting vulnerable women, often strangling and leaving little evidence.

Quotes:
"If the opportunity was there, he would take advantage of the situation... If the situation was perfect and he could get away with it, he would do that."
 —Lt. Darren Versaidgia (30:41)

"Nobody gives a shit about them. We're not working those anyway, so just label it as an overdose."
 —Lt. Darren Versaidgia (31:16)

• FBI circulates portraits of victims drawn by Little; Ogden pores over them, hoping to spot Janis, but finds nothing definitive.

Quote:
"In prison, he would draw pictures of the females that he killed... I studied those pictures more than once, you know, trying to see if Jan was in there."
 —Mark Ogden (37:01)

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11. Janis Reappears – Yet Again

[39:24–39:50]

• Years after her disappearance from Poplarville, Janis unexpectedly returns to visit Peggy’s mother, revealing she has been living in Louisiana and is pregnant with a fifth child.

Quote:
"Wow. Jan's here. Mom's like, what? Yeah, Jan's here. She invited us to come down to Raceland. That's when she came to tell my mama she was pregnant."
 —Peggy Perkins (39:40)

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12. Reframing Janis: Not a Victim, but a Master of Escape

• Larison Campbell closes by reflecting on how Janis's ability to vanish continually undermines investigators' expectations. The narrative suggests Janis wasn’t always running from danger—sometimes, she was simply running toward what she wanted, always a few steps ahead.

Quote:
"Vanishing wasn't just something that Janice did to get out of a bad situation. It was just something she did. Janice isn't a typical victim. In fact, she might not be a victim at all... because every time he's gotten close to her and just about figured her out, she's already two steps ahead."
 —Larison Campbell (closing remarks)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• "We were risk takers." — Kathy (07:58)
• "You might as well have an A on your forehead." — Kathy (09:13)
• "She had made the great escape. That's the feeling I got from her when she was in Jackson." — Kathy (14:07)
• "She said she had to get away from him because she was scared of him." — Jane/Kathy (20:27)
• "He thinks it was the third time that Dick found she was stealing from him is when she disappeared for good. He never saw her after that." — Mark Ogden (22:30)
• "If the opportunity was there, he would take advantage... If the situation was perfect and he could get away with it, he would do that." — Lt. Darren Versaidgia (30:41)
• "Vanishing wasn't just something that Janice did to get out of a bad situation. It was just something she did... every time he's gotten close to her... she's already two steps ahead." — Larison Campbell (39:50–end)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• 01:36–04:22: Ogden's cold call to the sisters and discovery of Janis’s secret relationship
• 05:17–05:46: Introduction of Dick Dido as a possible suspect
• 07:50–09:13: Kathy describes Janis's nature and school years
• 11:08–13:19: Janis's first independent life in Jackson
• 16:23–19:24: Peggy describes Janis's life at the diner and relationship with Dick
• 20:27: Janis’s confession of fear to her coworker, Jane
• 25:27–34:14: Consideration of serial killer Samuel Little's involvement
• 39:24–39:50: Janis's dramatic reappearance in Louisiana

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Conclusion

Episode 2, "Risk Taker," probes beneath the surface of Janis Rose’s disappearance, dismantling both the myth of the perfect mother and the narrative of the pure victim. Instead, it paints Janis as paradoxical—loving yet restless, vulnerable yet resourceful. Through interviews, recollections, and investigative dead-ends, the episode raises as many new questions as it answers about how and why Janis really vanished, leaving listeners anxious to understand just how far she’ll go next.

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Transcript

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

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[Investigator Mark Ogden]

I had learned about a couple ladies that supposedly knew her, and the address that I was able to find, it was old, old, old. I kind of took a chance one morning and I just drove down to the address.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

It's outside of Picayune, a town in the southern tip of Mississippi, about an hour or so from Columbia, where Janice grew up. Ogden turns off the highway onto a blacktop road.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Typical country road. You know, it's older, houses, house, trailer here and there. These are old country folks. That's where their grandma lived. That's where, you know, you get the picture.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

He pulls up to a one story home at the end of a gravel driveway.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

This lady answers the door and I ask, you know, so and so, and she's like, that's me. And I said, I'm looking into Janet's Bullock. She said, who? And I had pictures of her in my file and I showed her a picture. She said, oh, that's Jan. I hadn't thought about her in years. And I'm like, do you have a minute?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

She motions the investigator in and offers him a seat. She's older but beautiful in an ethereal way, with blue Eyes and long silver hair. She pours him a mug, and her sister comes over.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

We sat there and had a conversation drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And this is where Ogden learns. They knew Jan all right.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

I found out that they didn't too much care for her because she was actually seeing their younger brother.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

This Jan character swooped in on their baby brother when he was around 19 or 20, and Janice was a full six years older. The two met in 1977. It's around the time she disappeared. So did she leave her family for this man? Was he keeping her from her children? If so, she never mentioned her old life.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Had no idea she had kids or was married or anything other than whatever story she give them. That's what they knew. I asked to speak with him, of course, and they got him on the phone. And I found out he's an over the road truck driver and he's gone for a month or two at a.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Time out with a truck driver. That was one of the rumors about Janice.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

I said, please call me when you get back.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

A couple weeks later, he calls. He's in his 60s now, but he remembers Janice. Especially remembers how they broke up. He tells the investigator he found her in bed with another guy. So he ended it and tried to put her out of his mind. He doesn't have much more for Ogden to go on, but the family does leave him with one other important clue.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

She worked at a diner in Poperville.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

A diner attached to a truck stop. It was in a small town near where the sisters lived. As Ogden looks into this place, he gets a bad feeling because Janice didn't just work there. She dated the owner. And that relationship might explain why Janice never made her way back home.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

The owner of that property, Dick Dido, he actually murdered his girlfriend. And it wouldn't be far off that he may have done something to her.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

From Sony Music Entertainment and Wild Night Media, you're listening to the vanishing of Janice Rose. This is episode two, Risk Taker. I'm Larison Campbell. Would Janice really have just started a whole new life right down the road from her old one? Investigator Ogden is at a loss. It sure seems like Janice moved without her kids to a town not far from where she grew up. And also that she may have had a relationship with a dangerous man. So the big question is, what would make her leave? I'm a mom, but you don't have to be one to know that parenting isn't a switch most people can flip on or off. The longer I'm away from My kids. The more I talk about them, I kind of can't help myself. Was I wrong to assume Janice was the same? A couple of people close to Janice had described her as a doting mom obsessed with her kids. Of course, memory does have a way of putting a rosy tint on things, especially after someone is gone. Young kids are stressful, but more than one person told me. Janice never seemed stressed by her girls back in school. She hadn't talked about college. All she'd wanted was to be a mom. It just doesn't add up. Something must have happened to her. Maybe this boyfriend in Poplarville. She would never leave her kids by choice. And no one was more convinced of that than. Than her best friend, Kathy. I mean, Janice was the girl who made good grades. She participated in high school life.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

We were both always class officers.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

But Janice also embraced her impulses.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

We were risk takers.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Risk takers. And sometimes risk takers get in over their heads. Kathy has been replaying the years leading up to Janice's disappearance for practically her whole life. How did Janice find herself, this young mother of four, in an unhappy marriage? And what would compel her to leave it all behind without much of a trace? I asked Kathy about how Janice's life with her husband came to be in the first place. And she tells me this story. It's sophomore year. Janice had just finished up lunch at school. And there's some time before the bell rings. Kathy finally gets a chance to pull Janice away from the crowd. For a moment.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

It was just she and I. And she had just, all week, acted like something was wrong. And I'm like, what is the matter with you? And she said, you can't tell anybody. I said, you know, I don't tell anybody your business.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Janice hesitates and then finally spits it out.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

She said, I think I'm pregnant. I said, no.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

It's the single worst thing that could happen to an unmarried girl in Columbia, Mississippi.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

You might as well have an A on your forehead.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

The sexual revolution had not yet come for Columbia. And if Kathy and Janice needed an illustration of just how bad it could get, there were two cautionary tales living right in the community.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

We had talked a lot about the two girls we knew.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Each had gotten pregnant, and the men who got them pregnant wouldn't marry them.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

Everyone knew their names, and I felt so bad. One of them, she was 19, and her baby was like a toddler. Her father and mother, they would only let she and the baby go to church. She couldn't go anywhere else just to church. And I'm just like, oh my God, her life is over.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And birth control, anyone that went to.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

The doctor that I saw so and so went to the doctor. So, yeah, you could not have gotten the pill.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

So in Columbia, abstinence was a girl's safest option. And after lunch that Friday, Janice is telling Kathy she hasn't been abstinent. And now she's pretty sure she's pregnant.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

It was like panic washed over me for her. It's like I couldn't breathe. And I was just like, this is my best friend. And it's just terrible. Oh, my God, what are you gonna do? She said, glenn and I, we're gonna decide this weekend what we're gonna. People did not, where we lived, have abortions. None of us would have known how you would even go about that. And it was never considered. The only option was to marry. A lot of people I know as teenagers went to Alabama and got married.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Kathy doesn't talk to Janice that night, but she's supposed to see her early the next morning for some fishing thing at the lake.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

The next morning, my brother John drove me out to the lake. And when we got there, the teacher, he said that Janice's mother said she was missing.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

A wave of panic ripples through the group. Everyone's worried for Janice. Everyone except Kathy.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

I knew immediately that they had ran away to get married.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

When Janice and Glen return home, she's a 15 year old wife. And you know what happens next? Adult responsibilities come at them avalanche style. By the following summer, Janice is a 16 year old mom. And not long after, a mom of three. According to the local paper, just days before her old classmates are graduating from high school, Janice is giving birth to twins. Her fourth daughter comes a couple years later. Could that avalanche of responsibilities have felt impossible to dig herself out of? Maybe she had started to wonder if this life that had been scripted for her, where she was a mother of four in a small southern town, wasn't the one she wanted. I asked Kathy about that first time Janice had briefly left her husband, when she'd taken her daughters and moved up to Jackson, the biggest city in the state. It was another layer of complexity in this tangled web of Janice, because the first time she'd vanished, she did it with her kids. When Janice left that first time, she found a job painting houses like her husband Glenn had back in Columbia. And in the evening she'd come home to her girls in her apartment. The complex was new and full of other single people and young families.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

You could go sit out by the pool and people would gather together and talk and her twins could play with other kids.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

But Kathy wants her to go home to try and repair her marriage. Janice is like, you don't understand. There's so much more out there.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

She said, I just love that I have jam sessions with people. We talk about things. Is there God? Is there no. God is about to have the apocalypse. You know, things to talk about with same age peers. Glenn's house. She couldn't do that. There was no one there. From where I sit now, I can see why she left, but I don't know why she couldn't say. He's gone all the time to work. His mother's on my butt all the time, you know. She didn't say any of those things. She couldn't put in words.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

But Kathy can.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

She had made the great escape. That's the feeling I got from her when she was in Jackson.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Eventually, Janice would return to Glenn, but not for long. Still, this brief interlude in Janice's married life had Kathy connected, convinced she wouldn't leave her girls behind, that even if she did pop out for a break, date a few guys, she'd surely come back. She'd show up to the courthouse, fight for custody of her kids. Unless she couldn't. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only. Speed speeds slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile.com introducing the perfect companion to your morning listening routine. AG1's clinically backed formula is now flavor packed with three new delicious flavors. Tropical berry and citrus. Start the day on a high note with probiotics that taste like the tropics. Mix it up with micronutrients that taste like berry or citrus, and take it all the way back with the classic AG1 original with notes of pineapple and vanilla. Do your health a flavor or four with AG1 NextGen, the daily health drink. Learn [e-mail] what could have happened to Janice this last time she left her husband. Well, that brings me back to where Janice went after she left Columbia. It's the late 1970s. Dick's Diner in Poplarville, Mississippi. Think fried chicken, strong coffee, and a rotating cast of truckers. And when Janice walks up to the counter to ask for a job one afternoon, she makes an impression.

[Peggy Perkins]

Blue jeans. And she had big breasts so she would really get that cleavage going on, you know, I remember the cleavage shirt. She had the V's with the cleavages. And she would wear her hair down because it was very, very pretty. Naturally curly. Beautiful teeth, beautiful smile. Just popped up one day. There she is.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Peggy Perkins is a teenager at the time, and she's drawn to Janice because Janice is vibrant and, well, not a whole lot else is in poplarville.

[Peggy Perkins]

One horse town, baby. Boring streets rolled up at 5:00'. Clock. Yeah, it was. Everything closed at 5.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Janice finds herself less than an hour from Columbia, where she grew up in a town about half its size. The downtown has just a handful of storefronts and no bars. In fact, alcohol was prohibited in Poplarville until a decade ago, 80 years after the national repeal of Prohibition. And while Poplarville might be boring to a teen like Peggy, the diner, it is alive.

[Peggy Perkins]

Oh, it was moving. It was shaking.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Janice gets the job. Peggy's mom works the diner's lunchtime shift to bring in a little extra money. So Peggy hangs around the place with her friends. It has big windows and a stone fireplace in the center. The food's good, too.

[Peggy Perkins]

Little circle booth on the end down there. I mean, we loved it. That was our hang.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Peggy's mom and Janice become fast friends working at the diner. They just click.

[Peggy Perkins]

She, you know, it's a frilly, though. First friend friend I ever knew my mama to have.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And if Janice is haunted by something in her past, Peggy doesn't pick up on it. Her mom doesn't seem to either.

[Peggy Perkins]

Never really said too much about her life. Nobody never asked. No background, where you came from, whatever, whatever, whatever.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

For all Peggy knows, Janice has never been married. In fact, she seems to be on the market. A flirtation with one customer turns into a fling. He was serious with an edge. Heartthrob material.

[Peggy Perkins]

Tall, slender, very handsome.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

But that fizzles out. She does get serious with a different guy from work.

[Peggy Perkins]

The guy that owned the place. Dig Dito.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Dick. The guy the diner's nicknamed after. Dick's also handsome, kind of quiet. Hey, the girl has a type.

[Peggy Perkins]

He was a nice guy and he really thought a lot of my mom. I knew that he had a trailer right up the road and she lived with him.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

They were steady Janice moves right in and makes the place her own. She even sews curtains for the windows. Teenage Peggy thinks Janice seems happy with him.

[Peggy Perkins]

We used to go over there with.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Momma all the time.

[Peggy Perkins]

They used to go there, like, drink coffee, whatever. She had something she had to show Mama. We'd go by there, you know.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Other diner staff saw a happy couple, too. Janice seemed safe and secure, but that's just the way things seemed.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

She was living with him, and I figured she had it good. But she didn't.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Jane hadn't been working with Janice long. To her, Dick was fine. He was a good enough boss.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

He was okay when he was there at the restaurant. I didn't think he would be mean to her, you know, and mistreat her.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

But one evening, she and Janice are walking outside when Janice stops her.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

A friend in the building. We were just about to leave to go home, and she started talking.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Jane hasn't spent much time with Janice at this point, so she's surprised when her CO worker turns to her and makes a confession about her relationship.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

She said she had to get away from him because she was scared of him.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Jane racks her brain. Where could Janice go?

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

I said, well, I have a sister in Lockport. She works in a bar. If you want to go down there, I'm sure she can get you a job.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Lockport's a couple hours south, L.A. janice takes the information down and leaves. Jane never sees her again.

[Kathy (Janice's best friend)]

I assume that she went. I never did hear anything else about her.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

It's like Janice is turning disappearing into an art.

[Peggy Perkins]

It was like a thief in the night. She was gone.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Poof. Peggy was bummed she was gone. Janice was like her mom's only friend. But Dick, Janice's boyfriend, moves on to someone else. And it's this later relationship that reveals a different side of Dick. One that makes it clear that Janice was right to be afraid and others worried that she didn't get away in time. In October 1981, Dick Dito, the quiet but friendly diner owner who had seemed like such a safe choice for Janice, goes over to his girlfriend's house with a loaded gun. He shoots her teenage son. And then he kills her. And then he goes home and he turns the gun on himself.

[Peggy Perkins]

Same trailer that him and Jan lived in, too, back in that time.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Decades later, when Major Mark Ogden is investigating, he starts wondering if Dick could have had a motive to hurt Janice. A friend of Dick's said he remembered her. And that's when Ogden gets a different perspective on the relationship. Because this guy tells him Janice had been stealing from. From her boyfriend.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

He thinks it was the third time that Dick found she was stealing from him Is when she disappeared for good. He never saw her after that.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Stealing would have been a hell of a trigger. But once again, it feels like all he's going on is gossip. Investigator Ogden needs hard evidence. He tries to get any old business records from the diner.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Of course, they're destroyed. Years ago, they had none. They're just dead end after dead end.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

I've wondered why Ogden was putting so much effort into this case, Especially when one of the possibilities here is that she left on her own, at least to begin with. But he tells me he's always hated unanswered questions, Especially this one. A mystery that affected no one more than Janice's four little girls. It's become the kind of case he zones out on while mowing his grass. So maybe that's why, even as he's hitting all these dead ends, he refuses to see it as a case he can't solve. So Ogden goes back to his conversation with Dick's friend again, plumbing the gossip. Is there anything else here?

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Just begin wherever you want to. You know, I have nothing. You know, can you help me get anywhere with this?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And this old friend of Dick's tells the investigator something else about Janice. Something that sends his search down another road.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

He painted a picture that wasn't real flattering. He said she would leave with different truck drivers that would come in. She would get in a truck with them and be gone a day, sometimes a whole weekend, and then show back up for work.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

For the record, this is not the Janice that either Peggy or Jane recall. They also said they'd never heard of her stealing money from Dick. Or maybe Janice was just really good at only showing the side of herself she wanted people to see. And we do know she's dated at least one trucker. So if all Ogden has to go on is rumors, he's gonna follow them. For the time being, he puts a pen in the theory that Dick had anything to do with Janice's disappearance. He has no hard evidence that she's dead, no proof that she was stealing from Dick. For all he knows, she could still be out there. But the fact that she's been hanging around truckers makes him think.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

There'S another alley. You gotta kinda keep in mind, you know, that's somebody in a truck did something to her. You know, she get in with the wrong truck driver.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And this is when he starts to suspect something about this diner and this dry county. The kind of Place where anyone who drove the highways of south Mississippi after a long night of drinking could stop to get something to eat, to pull themselves together.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

It's not a good idea to do this, but it's as an investigator, but you kind of have to let yourself think kind of outside the box. Box. At the time, Samuel Little was creeping through south Mississippi. He's a serial killer. I knew he had a confirmed victim on the coast. You know, could he have come through way back then?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Samuel Little, not just some random murderer, but the most prolific serial killer of all time. One who spent years of his life just miles from this sleepy Mississippi town. And suddenly it begins to seem so obvious that this trail would lead to the most prolific serial killer of all time. Because Janice wasn't just living in south Mississippi. She was working in a diner.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

Sam Little's thing was his foreplay, was watching you eat.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

This restaurant with some of the best food in the area, well, that would be just the place for him to show up. UnitedHealthcare nurse Crystal checked in on a patient. We do a routine call after surgery, and I could tell in her voice that she was struggling. Crystal knew she needed help. I knew that this is very serious. This is like septic. This is life threatening. And she knew just what to do. And I called the hospital and said, she's coming in. Here are her labs. And got her the help she needed. I see my role at UnitedHealthcare as a life saving role. Hear more stories like [e-mail] benefits, features and or devices vary by plan. Area limitation and exclusions apply.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Another switchback.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Wait, this isn't the top. Where's the summit?

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Why am I doing this?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

At REI Co Op, we believe there are places within ourselves. Almost there.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

You got this.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

That we find only outside. Wow.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

This is worth it.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

We have the gear, inspiration and advice to help you get there. Rei co op visit rei.com We've all had moments when the boogeyman seems real. When you're a kid and you leap into bed before whatever's lurking under it can grab your feet as an adult. When your heart speeds up. When you realize it's dark out now and someone's walking up the same sidewalk a few paces back. The way you catch a chill when you're taking out the garbage. Light and the breeze whistles through the trees. And if you were picked out by Samuel Little, that trigger would probably be the soft purr of an old car idling. Lt. Darren Versaidgia with the Pascagoula, Mississippi Police Department has come to know all the awful details of Samuel Little's reign.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

He started killing in 1970s. He normally would travel around to the east, go down through Georgia, he would go into Florida, then he would come through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and then he would go up to Texas, and then he would go up all the way to Los Angeles, stopping in between. He did that constantly. And that's how he was so evasive in us catching him is he didn't stay long anywhere. He would kill, then he'd move on to the next next place.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Pascagoula is just off Interstate 10. This was Little's Highway. He murdered up and down I10 for decades. He developed a system allowing him to be flexible with where he lived.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

He was a professional shoplifter. That's how he made his living. A thief by day and a murderer by night.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Scraping up just enough cash for a dingy motel room where he could freshen up before it was time to hunt his next victim. He liked to pick up a woman and buy her dinner first. But this wasn't chivalry.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

He would take them to eat and as they're swallowing, that's his foreplay. And so he's getting excited. And so when he gets ready to leave, he has already gotten himself up to the excitement that he needs to.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Be at the woman's throat is important. When Little's ready, he almost always ends the date by strangling them.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

He was an opportunist. If the opportunity was there, he would take advantage of the situation. If the situation was perfect and he could get away with it, he would do that.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Little tended to target poorer black women, sex workers, anyone who seemed vulnerable. Cases the police aren't going to put a lot of energy into closing. Causes of death were labeled as accidental or undetermined. And Versailles just says lots of times with a sex worker, police would just write a death off as an overdose.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

Nobody gives a shit about them. We're not working those anyway, so just label it as an overdose.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Lucky for Samuel Little, bad for someone like Janice, a person no one was really keeping tabs on. Back in 2010, Versaille took over cold cases in Pascagoula. He started off by working the 1975 case of 16 year old Janie Sanders. She was a girl who had been found stabbed to death in the woods. Nothing about Janie's case matched other local homicides from that time. So Versaijah starts to look into out of towners arrested in the area. What he finds makes the hairs on the back of his neck stick straight up. Two Pascagoula women accused Little of attacking them back in the early 1980s. Soon after Pascagoula police had him in custody, they suspected he'd murdered at least one other sex worker and probably other women. But ultimately, they didn't have enough evidence to hold him.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

I began looking at Sam Little as a potential suspect in the Janie Sanders case.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

As investigator Versijah Diggs, he determines that Little's MO probably doesn't match the killer of the teenager. Buddy thinks Little has got to be involved in something unsolved.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

Couldn't find a file on him at all, just notes. So I redid a file, and two weeks after that, I get the call from Los Angeles saying, hey, look, do y' all have a Sam Little file?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

The DA In Los Angeles was preparing to try Little for three murders there.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

And I went, yeah, yeah, I do. I just. Just redid it. And I said, I've got two witnesses that survived his attack. I became the Southern Eastern liaison for Sam Little. I start calling all these departments, and it was no lie. I would call up, hey, look, we got a serial killer.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

And he'd go, okay, well, we don't have any case like that. Have a nice day. Click.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Then in 2018, little does something that raises his own profile, so to speak. He sits down with a Texas Ranger and meticulously begins confessing to each murder he says he committed. By the time he's done, there are more than 90 of them.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

The day that it came out in the press that he was the worst serial killer ever, all these people start calling me again. They start emailing me, hey, do you have any information on it?

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Oh, yeah. He does these killings of vulnerable women no one seemed to give a damn about. 90 something murders later, it's like everyone gives a damn.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

All of a sudden, he starts talking about case after case after case from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, all these other places.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

That's around the time Major Mark Ogden, who's handling Janice's case, learns about Little and realizes, Wait.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

He was active in South Mississippi during.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

That time when Janice disappeared from Dick's Diner. And Janice, she was open and definitely vulnerable. She had to get away from the diner and her boyfriend. Could she have fled from one violent man and into the car of a different one? Ogden studies the file, knowing what he knows. It's easy to see Little as the boogeyman. His mugshots span decades, from the butterfly collars and soul patch of the 1970s to his graying goatee. But his eyes are the same Hard shark. Like, did this killer take her for her last meal? Did he strangle Janice? Ogden decides to ask him. He reaches out to Texas law enforcement.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Spoke with the ranger that was handling him and, you know, bringing people in from other law enforcement agencies.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And when he says he really wants to speak to Little, the ranger is like, man, get in line.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

I wasn't able to get an appointment at that time.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Little was nearing 80 and his health was declining.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

Said, look, he's really sick, and we're trying to clear up what we got in front of him. You know, if we can get you in, we'll get you in. But don't get your heart set on it.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

The U.S. justice Department, the FBI, were not gonna take any cases that he didn't actually confess to.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And so far, Little hadn't confessed to Janice's killing. But he does confess to a Pascagoula murder under Versailles jurisdiction. Melinda Lapree, the woman he was arrested for murdering in the 1980s, the one Pascagoula police didn't have enough to hold him on. There aren't enough hours in the day for every officer with a possible Little case to sit down with him and go through every single cold case they think might be his. So the FBI starts releasing portraits of the victims drawn by Little himself.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

In prison, he would draw pictures of the females that he killed, and he wouldn't remember a name or, you know, anything. He'd draw, you know, a picture of him.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Investigators brought him paper, chalk, pastels. And the drawings have a childish quality, like the artist was a talented preteen. But they were accurate enough that they helped investigators close more cases. Back in Pearl River County, Major Ogden sits at his desk for hours, sifting through each each of these bizarre portraits, seeing if any of them could be Janice.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

I studied those pictures more than once, you know, trying to see if Jan was in there.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

Sam had already confessed to everything he was going to confess to. There was no more confessions coming out.

[Investigator Mark Ogden]

And so Covid hit. Everything stopped.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

That same year, Sam Little dies. By then, he'd confessed to 93 murders, but not Janice's.

[Lt. Darren Versaidgia]

And I think he did a lot more than that.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

And, of course, there's always the chance that Janice was killed by someone else. Those DNA swabs collected from Janice's family, they weren't just sitting in a lab. Agents were comparing them to Jane does in Mississippi and across the country. Still no matches and no answers. The only thing Ogden the investigator knows at this point is that she was terrified of her diner owner boyfriend. And no one's seen her since. After Janice fled, Peggy, the teenager from the diner, moved on with her life. And Janice kind of slipped out of her mind. After all, she was in high school. She's not even sure how long Janice was gone. At least a year, maybe two.

[Peggy Perkins]

And then one day, she pulls her back at the house.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

A very nice car parks in Peggy's mom's driveway. Janice steps out of that car. So she's been in Raisla, South Louisiana, two hours away.

[Peggy Perkins]

Wow. Jan's here. Mom's like, what? Yeah, Jan's here. She invited us to come down to Raceland. That's when she came to tell my mama she was pregnant.

[Narrator (Larison Campbell)]

Pregnant. This woman who left behind four children has now shown up pregnant with a fifth. You see, everything Ogden had learned has him preparing Janice's family for a worst case scenario. Another woman killed because she was at the mercy of a violent man. But what he doesn't know yet is he's been underestimating her. See, vanishing wasn't just something that Janice did to get out of a bad situation. It was just something she did. Janice isn't a typical victim. In fact, she might not be a victim at all. The men she encounters might actually be at her mercy. And that includes Ogden himself. Because every time he's gotten close to her and just about figured her out, she's already two steps ahead. And he has no idea how far she'll go. Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of the Vanishing of Janice Rose ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge Channel page on apple podcast or getthebinge.com to learn more. The Vanishing of Janice Rose is produced by Wild Night Media for Sony Music Entertainment's the Binge. The show was written, hosted, and executive produced by ME Larison Campbell. The executive producers for the Binge are Jonathan Hirsch and Katharine St. Louis. The show's senior producer and story editor is Lindsey Kilbride. Sheba Joseph provided additional production assistance and Aaliyah Papes is the story's fact checker. Mixing and sound design for this series by Scott Somerville with music from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. The show's theme song is Shake Me by Lydia Ramsey Legal review by Davis Wright Tremaine. That's the sound of the fully electric Audi Q6E Tron and the quiet confidence of ultra smooth handling. The elevated interior reminds you this is more than an ev. This is electric performance redefined.