There’s no shortage of true crime podcasts. But have you heard the one about a Normal missing-persons case co-hosted by two 13-year-olds?
Andrea Munday is co-creator of A Normal Disappearance along with her nieces, Finley and Piper. Together, they’re investigating the disappearance of James F. Sarsfield, a plumber at the former Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's School in Normal. He vanished in 1939 while on a trip to the New York World’s Fair.
Munday said foul play was suspected.
The trio’s connection to the story is personal. Munday’s grandmother lost her parents by age 9, so she lived at the Normal orphanage until she was a teenager.
“It really feels like our whole family’s story starts at that orphanage. That’s as far back as our family’s stories [go],” said Munday, who lives in Third Lake, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. Her nieces live in Wisconsin. “It’s always felt very important to our family.”
They stumbled across a mention of Sarsfield’s disappearance in a history book about the orphanage written by Ruth Cobb.
“We read the description and immediately Finley grabbed a laptop and was like Googling him. Did they ever found out what happened to him? Who is this guy?” said Munday.
That’s where Episode 1 begins. There are 8 episodes planned in all.
While the style of Episode 1 is similar to Serial and other true crime series, this podcast stands out in part because of the younger voices you throughout — Finley and Piper.
“I genuinely feel bad for him,” Piper said. “He went missing. And they did some research for a month or two and then completely forgot about him. It’s a big city [New York], and there’s a lot of things happening that probably needed to be figured out, more than some man from a small village going missing. But then I still feel bad for him, because nobody knows what happened to him.”
Together with Munday, the girls are involved throughout the process — making phone calls to sources, doing research and reviewing documents. The age of the case — 86 years and counting — adds to the challenge; Munday said Normal Police didn’t have any records to share with them. They said the McLean County Museum of History has been helpful.
The teens also are spending more time than most kids do combing through their own family tree — starting with their great-grandmother, who lived at the orphanage.
“I like learning about my family’s history,” Finley said.
You can listen to A Normal Disappearance on Apple, Spotify and other podcast stores.
