What started as a way for a pair of two Illinois detectives to crowdsource tips to solve decades-old cold cases ended in a shocking discovery. 

Detectives Andrew Houghton and Matt Vartanian were looking to breathe new life into unsolved cases by launching the true-crime podcast, “Somebody Knows Something,” in October 2024 at the request of Elgin Police Department Chief Ana Lalley. Their goal centered around using modern investigative technology to potentially bring closure to local families.

“We both kind of looked at each other and said, ‘No, I’m not really sure that’s for us’,” Vartanian told Fox News Digital. “Then we took a step back, were open-minded in our thinking and objective, and thought that this could be a really good vehicle to utilize investigative processes within law enforcement.”

With this case, it was a bit of a unicorn in the fact that we had no idea what happened to her,” Houghton said. “Don’t be afraid to fail, don’t be afraid of looking foolish. Because at the end of the day, the goal is to find this person and we did that in this case. If we do this five more times and this is the only time it works out, so be it. But if you do this five or 10 times, and you find one case or solve one case, it’s totally worth doing that for that family.”