259: The Kidnapping of Ginny Piper

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We’ve got big news to share… and boy are we nervous to share it.

In this episode, we announce a change to the show’s format that will hopefully give us better work/life balance. From this point forward, we’ll present one case per week instead of two. This week, Kristin will share a case. Next week, it’ll be Brandi’s turn, and so on and so forth.

This isn’t a change we’re taking lightly. As you probably know, we are anxiety-ridden people pleasers. We’re pretty damn apprehensive about messing with something that we’ve worked so hard to build. Unfortunately, the truth is that we’ve hit a breaking point. The time that it takes both of us to research, write, record and review an episode means that we have a lot less time for the other things that matter to us. For Kristin, that means that the novel she’s working on is on track to be finished in a quarter to never. For Brandi, it means not spending much time with the little family she wanted for so long.

We’re hoping that by making this change, we’ll keep the show fresh, prevent burnout, and give us some much needed time to harass our families.

We’re grateful to all of you for supporting us. We hope you’ll continue to support us as we move to this new format.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming…

This week, Kristin covers a case that is often referred to as the “perfect” kidnapping. When Ginny Piper was kidnapped from her upscale home in Orono, Minnesota, investigators were a little puzzled. The Pipers were wealthy and well connected, but they didn’t have the money or name recognition of other nearby families. Why hadn’t they gone after the Pillsburys? The kidnappers also seemed to have wanted to kidnap Ginny’s husband, Bobby. But why had they thought a businessman would be home on a Thursday afternoon? As the investigation continued, the questions kept coming.

And now for a note about our process. For this episode, Kristin read a bunch of articles, then spat them back out in her very limited vocabulary. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
The book, “Stolen from the Garden, The kidnapping of Virginia Piper,” by William Swanson
“The ‘Perfect’ Kidnapping of Virginia Piper: Three-Part Series,” by Tracy Briggs for The Globe
“50 years later, the Virginia Piper kidnapping remains a Minnesota mystery,” by Curt Brown for the Star Tribune
An episode of the Crimes of the Centuries podcast, “The $1 Million Kidnapping of Ginny Piper”

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