When an entire family is lost, it’s easy for the headlines to focus on the person responsible. In this episode, I wanted to do something different. I’m taking you to Grand Haven Township, Michigan, where Mandy Karolkiewicz and her six children lost their lives in one of the most heartbreaking family annihilation cases of the year. Before we talk about the investigation, I want to remember the people whose lives mattered most, the victims. Using my experience as a forensic death investigator, I’ll walk you through how investigators process a scene involving multiple homicide victims, how forensic evidence helps determine the sequence of events, and why details like wound analysis, fire patterns, and scene reconstruction are so important. We’ll also discuss the research surrounding family annihilation, the psychological and behavioral patterns often seen in these cases, and why recognizing risk factors may help save lives in the future. While we may never fully understand why these tragedies occur, we can learn from them, support those in crisis, and continue advocating for families before violence reaches a devastating conclusion. This episode is shared with deep respect for Mandy, her six children, and everyone whose lives were forever changed by this tragedy. * Listener Discretion Advised EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: 00:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I’m your host, Julie Matson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine-tingling, unusual, and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner. Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Pushing Up Lilies. I have several guest host appearances this month and next month, and I haven’t really mentioned what shows they were gonna be on because I don’t know the air dates yet. But when I know a little bit more about when they’re gonna air, I’ll be sure and let y’all know. I will say that Pushing Up Lilies will be at the Denton Day of the Dead Festival this year. Again, we are not participating in the coffin races this year, but I went ahead and applied for a booth, so we will have merch there, and that’s October 24th, which is a Saturday. So, we’ll be there all day with special merchandise, and we will probably do some live interviews with some of the fans and do some videos for our YouTube channel. Also, we are in the process of planning our second annual Pushing Up Lilies murder mystery event, and we’re not 100% sure where it’s gonna be yet. It will be a weekend in October, obviously not the 24th ’cause we’ll be at the Day of the Dead Festival, but we’ve got a lot of exciting things coming up. We’ve got some specials we’re gonna run on the subscription box. I need to make sure that everything is up to date on the website for purchase because we do have some exciting new merch that I brought back from CrimeCon with me. I have already applied for Creators Row for CrimeCon 2027, which is in Orlando, Florida. It’s gonna be in September of next year, and I’ve already got my hotel, and it’s sold out. So, I’m really glad that I was able to get in on that because it’s so difficult when you’re traveling with merch and you have to be at an event, to have to Uber back and forth and stay at a different hotel. I’m sure that many of y’all have done that before, and it’s just difficult. It complicates things tremendously, and it’s not always easy to get a ride when you’re traveling, especially in places like Vegas and Orlando, and there’s just a lot of traffic, and it is heavily populated during the summer months. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly, and hopefully, y’all can all go ahead and secure your rooms at a nearby hotel so that you can gear up for CrimeCon 2027. This week, I wanna talk about a case in Michigan, and we kinda talked about the huge influx of murder-suicides last week. We see them all the time, even in a small town where I was, but it just seems like we’ve had a lot of cases lately, and there’s a lot of people going through a lot of things. I just want everybody to be nice to each other. I know it’s hard sometimes. Sometimes that’s the hardest part of life is smiling and just pretending everything’s okay but just be nice to other people. It can make a big difference in how their day goes. Sometimes when we’re traveling, I’ll go to Starbucks and buy even a $5 gift card, and I’ll give them to my flight attendants, just something to make someone’s day. 03:50 And so, I try to do one thing a day for somebody, even if it’s as simple as letting someone in front of me when they’re trying to get onto the road and there’s a lot of traffic or holding the door open for somebody. It doesn’t have to be a family of 12’s dinner. Just put it in your mind that you should do one nice thing for one person a day. And that’s my challenge for you. But I wanna talk about this Friday morning in late July when a call came in. There was a fire, a house on Riverside Trail in Grand Haven Township, Michigan, a quiet stretch of West Michigan near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. And this was the kind of place where people raise big families. They’re comfortable leaving their garage doors open. Ottawa County sheriff’s deputies and fires crews rolled out, and when they got there, there were eight people dead. A mother, a father, and six children ages five to 15. Every single one of them had been shot in the head. And then someone had set the house on fire. Now, I’ve worked death scenes for a long time, and
Till Death Do Us Part – The Brandon and Rachel Dumovich Story
Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and in this episode of Pushing Up Lilies, we’re diving into a heartbreaking case of love, betrayal, and murder. This is the story of Brandon and Rachel Dumovich, a couple who seemed to have it all, until their picture-perfect life took a deadly turn. What happens when the vows “till death do us part” become a grim reality? I’m walking you through the investigation, the shocking motive, and how one tragic decision shattered multiple lives. This case left an entire community stunned, and serves as a reminder that sometimes the greatest danger can lie within our own homes. Join me as we uncover the truth behind the Dumovich story, piece by chilling piece. * Listener discretion is advised. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:00:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I’m your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner. 00:24 Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hi, y’all. We’re back for another week of Pushing Up Lilies and I can’t tell you again how well our first annual murder mystery dinner party went. We had around 35 people, I believe, actually show up. 00:48 The food was amazing. The waitstaff was amazing. I was greeted with the staff there and the management. They helped me set up and it was really, really fun. The murder mystery code that I hired to do the actual play was amazing. 01:07 It was a little more interactive than I thought it would be, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun everyone had. There was not one complaint. Everyone said they wanted to come back next year. 01:19 I’ve already secured a venue for next year and it actually holds 100 people. So, start thinking it’ll be in October again, probably around Halloween. It’s going to have a different theme every year. So, I’m already excited. 01:35 I’m already kind of in my head planning next year’s event. We had a lot of giveaways and thank you again to those who came and showed me support. We had a great raffle, and a lot of people won some wonderful prizes. 01:52 It was just so much fun. I wanted to follow up a little bit on a case that I covered several weeks ago. ago, the one about the schoolteacher, Ellen Greenberg. Ellen’s story, and I know that a lot of y’all have been following it, she was the young lady found in her locked apartment in January of 2011. 02:14 She had 20 stab wounds to her back, neck, and head. The knife was actually still lodged in her chest when her fiance, Samuel Goldberg, forced the door open and discovered her body. Now, initially, if y’all remember, Ellen’s death was ruled a homicide. 02:34 Seemed pretty obvious, that many stab wounds. But not long after, the ruling was changed to suicide. This is because investigators claim there were no signs of forced entry. There were no defensive wounds and no DNA from her fiancé on the knife. 02:56 But for years, Ellen’s parents, Josh and Sandy Greenberg, have fought to challenge the conclusion. They’ve raised questions about the evidence. Number one, the number and location of the wounds, the bruises, remember, and different stages on her body, the fact that the surveillance footage was missing, and even the 3D reconstruction that experts did say that self-infliction was impossible. 03:27 Their persistence paid off earlier this year when a settlement with the city of Philadelphia required that the police review the case again. And many hoped that that would bring clarity or even justice to Ellen. 03:41 But this week, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office announced that once again Ellen’s death is being rolled a suicide. The new report actually acknowledges that the injuries are unusual, but it does insist that Ellen could have inflicted them herself. 03:59 They actually cited her history of anxiety and the lack of DNA evidence linking anybody else to the crime. So, her family’s attorney called the review deeply flawed, and Ellen’s parents say that they’re heartbroken, but they’re not surprised, but guess what? 04:18 They’re not done fighting, and that’s what you do for your kids. For those who followed her story since the beginning, this latest ruling kind of feels like Deja vu. The case is closed, but it’s not really resolved. 04:33 It’s funny because I actually got a lot of messages, private messages, mostly on Facebook about this case, people who saw that it was changed back to suicide and who were just like floored. But floored by the fact that they think that this could be a suicide when you stab yourself 20 times. 04:52 And again, I’ve had someone shoot themself twice, but they… grazed themself the first time. These injuries were significant. I mean, there’s a lot of things that go into play when the pathologists are trying to determine the cause and manner of death. 05:08 And I would actually like to try to get one of our pathologists in Tarrant County on the podcast to discuss this case, to see what their thoughts are, just to hear it from their viewpoint. Because 20 times, I don’t see with the extent of these injuries and the depth of these injuries, how that’s possible. 05:29 I mean, I’m surprised by things every day, but it kind of blows me away. I will say that this story of Brandon and Rachel Dumovich has really got me a little perplexed. I’m not quite sure why they are not actually releasing the manner of death. 05:56 But let’s talk a little bit about this story. So, love stories begin with a spark and a laugh and a moment or a memory that stays with us forever. But sometimes those same stories end in ways that nobody could ever imagine.
MLB Star Martin Bergen, Killed His Wife and Children With an Axe
Today on our series ‘Men Who Kill Their Wives’, we are going to go way back to the year 1900, when a horrific murder-suicide took place by a professional baseball player.
On January 19th, Marty Bergen, characterized as the best catcher in baseball history, killed his wife Harriet and his two children, three year old Joseph and six year old Florence, with an axe. After killing his family, Marty then used a straight razor to forcefully cut his own throat.
