Episodes
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The main True Believer project is finished, at least until there are any updates on the Elizabeth Mackintosh murder investigation. But we do want to return with a postscript that addresses a different question: What happened to other people who were students at Covenant Seminary in 1990?
Many students and professors went on to respected careers in the ministry. One of them was a man named Ian, who in 2023 was deemed unfit to lead his church after a sexual misconduct allegation was made public by The Tennessean newspaper, as reported by friend of the podcast Liam Adams. Ian has denied allegations against him.
But there’s a lot more to the story. The case against him helped us understand how a denomination with so many good, kind people can apparently fumble complaints against their peers.
Many cases are, essentially, secret. And there’s a cascading effect to that secrecy: If complaints are never heard, and witnesses are never asked, and questions are never answered, abuse remains covered up.
Until someone decides to go public.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
The family of David Winecoff recently reached out to “True Believer” with concerns about recent episodes. After reviewing their concerns, we have made several updates to Episodes 13 and 14. Ultimately, however, we stand by our work and our decision to include an examination of David Winecoff’s death in “True Believer.”
Click here to read the statement released by the family of David Winecoff. -
Missing episodes?
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In this final episode of the series, Ruth and TJ sit down with PCA pastors Doug Serven and Kyle Hackmann to discuss what they all learned from working on this series, and to answer some of the comments and critiques that listeners (and those that haven't listened) have made.
We do have some bonus content in the works, so stay tuned for that. And if there are any updates in the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh, we'll publish additional content when appropriate.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
In the last episode we heard about David Winecoff's connection to Elizabeth Mackintosh, and his apparent belief that Michael, the prime suspect, had nothing to do with her murder.
When we left Norm Reed, he and David were planning a climbing trip to the Sangre de Christo mountains of Colorado. Today we’ll hear what happened on that trip, the fallout that followed, and how, just like with Elizabeth’s murder, administrators at Covenant Seminary wanted everything to go away as quickly as possible.
David Winecoff’s death raises questions not only about what he may have known about, but also how the Covenant community at large dealt with the tragedy of Elizabeth’s unsolved murder.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.
Click here to read the statement released by the family of David Winecoff. -
A couple quick announcements.
First, Ruth and TJ will be in Richmond, Virginia the week of June 9th, for the PCA General Assembly. If you’re going to be there and you’d like to meet up with us, or if you have any information that you’d like to share, if you know someone who’ll be there that you think we should meet, visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to get in touch with us.
And second, we'll be publishing our next episode this coming Tuesday, June 4th. So you won’t have to wait another week. -
In this episode we begin to talk about David Winecoff, the pastor of Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, which Elizabeth Mackintosh attended.
David was something of a lightning rod in St. Louis Presbyterian circles, and his death in 1993 enshrined him as a sort of a mythic figure, especially for those who attended his church.
But despite his elevated status and the high regard that so many have continued to have for him, many questions remain about his knowledge of and possible connection to Elizabeth's murder.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.
Click here to read the statement released by the family of David Winecoff. -
We’ve talked about some of the interesting characters around Covenant Seminary in 1990. But as we enter the final phase of this series, we’ll explore the most interesting, and potentially most important, characters yet.
In this episode, Detective Worth will start to lay out his own theory of the case, which differs pretty dramatically from everything the Creve Coeur police had believed before him and, as far as we know, what they still believe today.
In December 1989 a married man approached Elizabeth about having an affair. Although she never revealed the man's identity, several people knew the story. Their accounts of who it might've been raise further questions about an alternative motive for Elizabeth's murder.
As the saying goes… the plot thickens.
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We’ve spent this series mostly focusing on Michael, Elizabeth Mackintosh’s supervisor on the Covenant Seminary house cleaning staff. In the eyes of the police, Michael was the prime suspect in Elizabeth’s death, literally from Day One. But he wasn’t the only person they looked at.
In any large group of people, even at a seminary, there are going to be some people with checkered backgrounds. But as the police started looking into possible suspects, and Covenant began its own internal investigation, some startling things came to light. Not only about people’s pasts, but things that were happening on campus around the time of the murder.
We also hear from another retired Creve Coeur detective who begins to talk about his own theories of the case.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
Sandra was one of the few unmarried, female students at Covenant in 1990. And she had a class *with* Elizabeth, which turned out to be incredibly influential on the rest of her life.
She also went to Grace and Peace Church with Egon Middleman, whom we’ve briefly mentioned before in this series. Sandra’s story provides a fascinating look into what it was like to be a female student at Covenant Seminary in 1990, and the effect that Elizabeth’s murder had on the people that were there.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
Michael and his family left Covenant's campus in May of 1990, but the stigma of Elizabeth Mackintosh's murder followed them the rest of their lives. In this episode we hear from Michael's two oldest children, Karl and Kirsten, as they talk about the effect the murder had on them.
Here are some resources if you or someone you know needs help with a domestic violence or child abuse situation.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE or text “START” to 88788
Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline : 1-800-4-A-CHILD
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
For this week’s bonus content we have the rest of our two interviews with lawyer Ryan Davidson, whom you’ve heard in the last couple episodes. Ryan reached out to us in February because he had some critiques of how he thought we were characterizing Covenant Seminary, in terms of how they have or haven’t responded over the years, and the legal advice they might be following around that issue. We asked Ryan if he’d be interested in doing an interview about that and other topics, and he agreed.
Ryan’s voice turned out to be incredibly valuable for providing some legal context around the fallout from Elizabeth’s murder, and he really added a lot to those last couple episodes.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
A couple months after the murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh, Michael left Covenant Seminary (under "duress" as he described it) and moved his family to California. But his contentious relationship with Covenant has continued to this day. Using letters sent back and forth between Michael and Covenant, we examine what went wrong and how there's not much anyone could do about it.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
Today's bonus content release happened to coincide with the 34th anniversary of the murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh, so we wanted to take a moment to honor and remember her.
Read the full text (and a brief history) of "The Sands of Time Are Sinking" here.
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After Elizabeth's death, police ask a suspect, Michael, to sit for a polygraph exam. Reluctantly, he agrees, hoping that it will help clear his name. Ruth and TJ examine why that didn't happen.
Click here to read a transcript of the polygraph clips heard in this episode.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
In this week's bonus content you'll hear the rest of our interview with Liam Adams, religion reporter for The Tennesseean.
Liam talks about some specific cases of abuse and misconduct the PCA has dealt with, his reporting on the Nashville Presbytery, the PCA’s 2022 Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault report, also known as the DASA report, the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (which is the PCA’s internal court), his approach on which stories are worth covering, how the PCA compares to other Evangelical denominations in the larger cultural conversations about abuse, and other topics.
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In this episode we zoom out to examine the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the denomination of Covenant Theological Seminary. What does the reaction to Elizabeth's murder tell us about how Christian institutions handle tragedy? And how should they talk about Elizabeth going forward?
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us.
More info from this episode...
• Read the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Assault (DASA) Report here.
• Luke Davis: Check out his Cameron Ballack detective series, one of which is loosely based on the murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh.
• Julie Roys: The Roys Report does reporting on the American Evangelical church
• Liam Adams: Religion reporter for the The Tennessean
• Katherine Spearing: founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivors of spiritual abuse. She also hosts the Uncertain Podcast, which did an episode in July of 2023 about Elizabeth. -
So far we've spent this series examining the details of Elizabeth Mackintosh's murder and the subsequent investigations. We'll come back to more of that later, but in this episode we focus on the way that the murder was handled by Covenant Seminary. Some people at Covenant felt free to talk about Elizabeth. Others felt that Covenant administrators wanted her murder hushed up. But everyone seems to agree that more should be done to remember and honor her.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
To appease everyone dissatisfied with our every-other-week release schedule, we're going to start putting out some bonus content on the weeks in between.
Today we start with the leftovers from our interview with theologian and former Covenant Seminary professor, Jerram Barrs. He talks about his backstory, his time a L'Abri in Switzerland, some additional thoughts about Elizabeth and the environment of Covenant Seminary around 1990, and the history of Grace and Peace Fellowship (the church he helped found around 1970).
Enjoy it while it lasts. There's only so much usable content available to release as bonus material, so no promises you'll get one of these every in-between week going forward. But we'll do our best.
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. -
We’ve spent this series so far examining what happened to Elizabeth Mackintosh, but in this episode we focus on Elizabeth herself. Who was she? What was she like? What was she doing at Covenant? And what were her plans for the future?
Visit www.truebelieverpodcast.com to see additional materials related to each episode or to get in touch with us. - Show more
