They Seemed Like the Perfect Neighbours

Gerald and Alice Uden looked like a typical older couple living a quiet life in rural Missouri. Friendly neighbors. Churchgoing. The kind of people who blend into small-town life without a second thought. But behind that ordinary exterior was a decades-long trail of cold cases, missing persons, and two separate murder investigations that would eventually collide into one disturbing truth. The first case dates back to the mid-1970s, when Alice Uden claimed she shot her abusive husband, Ronald Holtz, in self-defense before disposing of his body in an abandoned mine shaft. Years later, Gerald Uden’s ex-wife Virginia and her two young sons disappeared in 1980 after leaving to meet him for a hunting trip and were never seen again. The vehicle they were last in was later found burned with evidence of violence inside, but with no bodies recovered, the case went cold for decades. It wasn’t until the 2000s that investigators began reopening both cases, eventually recovering Ronald Holtz’s remains from a Wyoming mine shaft. That discovery led to Alice’s arrest and conviction for his murder. Soon after, Gerald confessed to killing Virginia and the boys, claiming he disposed of their bodies in remote locations, but they were never recovered. In the end, both were convicted, both gave conflicting accounts, and both spent their final years in prison as the truth remained partially buried somewhere in the American West. #TrueCrimeRecaps #GeraldUden #AliceUden #RonaldHoltz #VirginiaUden #RichardUden #ReganUden #UdenMurders #OzarksCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices