Interview with journalist John Wisely, creator of UP-set true crime podcast ‘Where Secrets Go To Die’

MARQUETTE, Mich. (WJMN) — A new podcast from the Detroit Free Press investigates a years-old disappearance of a man from the Newberry area in 2008.

For the eight-part series, veteran journalist John Wisely talks to dozens of people involved in the case, and searches for answers in over a thousand pages of government documents, police reports, and personnel records.

Originally released behind the paywall at FREEP.com, the podcast is now available on all major streaming platforms.

Ahead of the public release, we caught up with Wisely to talk details of FREEP’s first narrative true crime podcast.

LOCAL 3: We’re with John Wesley, reporter for the Detroit Free Press. You know, you’ve helmed the “Where Secrets Go to Die” podcast that just wrapped up behind the paywall… that’s about to go to streaming… essentially about a man who went missing from the Newberry area a little over a decade ago.

Can it can you flesh out some more of the essential details of this story?

JOHN WISELY: Sure. So, the man’s name is Derrick Henagan, and he grew up in southwest, lower Michigan, Hartford, about 30 miles southwest of Kalamazoo. He moved to the U.P., moved to the Newberry area, McMillan, in late ‘07, early ‘08.

We haven’t quite pinpointed the date, but he was selling cars up there, took up with a local woman, Dyanna Maddox, and they moved in together and they had kind of a stormy relationship. The cops have been out of the house a couple of times for domestic abuse complaints, things like that. And, you know, they both had… he had definitely at that time some troubles.

He’d been a drug user and they had some legal troubles. And then in August of ‘08, he disappeared. He and Dyanna were having a fight on a Friday, and he left for the weekend and went down the road to some friends who lived, you know, maybe 400 or 500 yards down the road and stayed there for the weekend.

And he was supposed to come back to meet her on Monday and he never made it. So that’s kind of where the mystery begins is, you know, what happened to him from the time he left the house down the road to the time he got to where he was supposed to be—or did he ever leave. So that’s kind of the mystery of it.

But then, you know, there’s a lot more to it as well. I mean… There are some questions about the way the state police have handled this investigation. You know, they didn’t search either of those houses. They didn’t interview some key witnesses until years later.

And then there was a thought that one of their own, a trooper by the name of David Moeggenborg, could be involved.

And so on the podcast, we dug into that pretty deeply. We talked to his family members. We talked to his daughter, who reported some kind of disturbing things that she’d seen from him. We talked about exactly why, as he reported, some pretty violent domestic abuse, we were able to get some records from Michigan State police related to him.

And when we got him back, there were more than 400 pages of internal affairs reports related to him. So that kind of, you know, prompted a lot of suspicion along with some other things. And that’s what that’s what we, you know, we delve into in the podcast.

LOCAL 3: I want to say two or three times through the series, you mentioned that this is a story you felt like you had to tell or it was a pet project.

Can you elaborate a little more on that, why that is?

WISELY: Sure. It’s a story that took a very long time to tell. We had… I think they grew up in upper Michigan may remember, there was a kind of a sensational crime. In April 2016, there was a triple murder in Manistique. There were two young women, Heather Aldrich and her sister, Carrie Nelson, and Carrie Nelson’s boyfriend, a man named Jody Hutchinson.

They were all killed and their bodies were thrown into an SUV. The SUV was driven out into the woods near Manistique and set on fire. And so and that was a pretty sensational crime at the time. And they were drug users. Heather had been involved in sex work a couple of months before. So it was you know, these are people from tough circumstances.

And so a couple of colleagues of mine came up to the U.P. to do a Sunday story on that. It was just a, you know, traditional newspaper story. And so we wrote that story and it was, you know, a look at the way that case was handled, there were some questions about the prosecution in that case. And it was I think a lot of you know, a lot of people out there might remember it.

But after that story published, we got a call, we got a tip actually from this trooper’s daughter that she said, you know, “I think there’s more here than just that triple murder. I think there are some other things connected to it.”

And so we started picking away at that and and, you know, we learned about Trooper Moeggenborg, we learned about some of the other things… And then we learned about a big element of this has been kind of the online presence of it.

So there was Derrick Henagan, the man who went missing, was on bond when he disappeared. And so the bond company conducted their own search trying to find him because they lost their money to the court. And a bail bondsman named Jody Newman really dug deep into it.

And she has a Facebook page that has, you know, more than 3000 followers who watch this case. She’s interviewed a lot of the suspects, people in and around the case. And there’s been a lot of chatter on her Facebook page about it.

So all of that kind of intrigued us. And among the things she did was she also tape recorded interviews with people very close to it, Dyanna Maddox, a couple of members of Dyanna’s family, some other people.

And she gave us those tapes. So we’re trying to figure out, “how do we tell this story?” And because of that audio, these tapes and some other things, we thought it would make a good podcast. It would have a little more value if people could hear the voices rather than just read the words in the paper.

And so that’s about how we started out turning it into a podcast. And we went to the U.P. actually in late ‘19 and early ‘20 to do some interviews. And then of course we were actually in Newberry in March of 2020 for a court hearing… And then two weeks later the state shut down with COVID.

So we couldn’t really do much with this story, and it kind of just got back burner for a while while myself and everybody else, the Free Press just covered COVID for a couple of years.

So it was just kind of sitting back there and it was like, “gosh, you know, we still want to tell this story,” and some of the people I don’t want to spoil all the podcast, but one of the people we interviewed in the story later died of COVID, you know? And so it was a tough story to tell.

But after after learning all the things we learned, especially early on, I didn’t want COVID to kind of kill the story either, you know, because we could have just moved on and said, “you know what, it’s old news now and and let’s keep going, you know, and onto new things.” And we didn’t. To the Free Press’s undying credit, they allowed me to continue to pursue it.

We did it in the audio format, which allowed us to use these tapes, let people hear these voices. As a result of that, we’ve got the first real true narrative, investigative podcast in Free Press history. So we’re proud of that.

Local 3: We touched on, I think, most of the characters. You know, you just mentioned The Bounty Hunter. There’s also, we start the series with Mike Neiger, the Body Hunter, as well. We touch on Dyanna Maddox, Trooper Moeggenborg.

Is there anybody else essential to this narrative?

WISELY: You know, I will flesh out Mike Neiger a little bit because he was one of the most fascinating characters we’d met, you know, and he was he is he spent 25 years with the Michigan State Police, had been a detective, worked in mostly in the crime lab, examining forensic evidence.

But he was always this guy from up north who loved to be outdoors in the woods. He’s been a wilderness guy for decades, and he’s… I think he’s 70 now, but he literally works out six days a week at Northern Michigan [University], swims laps, does all this other stuff. He’s in better shape than I am. I’m younger than he is.

But he created this group to help find people who are basically lost in the woods. Some of these people may have been out hunting, you know, and you got, you know, had some kind of health issue.

They may have been, you know, some people go out in the woods, see, to end their own lives. Other people may have been dumped there by, you know, maybe murdered or overdosed and dumped there.

And so he’s developed this really weird skill set where he’s able to track people through the woods and find them. You know, everybody leaves a little bit of a trail and he’s really good at following that. So he was just, to us, a fascinating character. And he’s interesting, too, because he’s a former trooper.

He has a real insight into the Michigan State Police. And he’s not been shy about his criticism of the way they handled this case. He really kind of pleads for the FBI or some outside agency to come in and look at it and see if there is more that could be done.

So he was a super fascinating character. Other main character is I think I think that’s about it. You’ve got Derrick and Dyanna, who were the couple. You’ve got Jody, who is the bail bondsman, Mike Neiger, that we refer to as the body hunter, which is what he does. And then you’ve got just, you know, some other people as well.

You know, we talked to a lot of people who, you know, a lot of these people involved in this story from the triple murder to Derrick to Dyanna, a lot of them were kind of involved in the drug world in the U.P.. And so we spent some time talking to a lot of people in that world, too.

And it was eye-opening in some ways. Some of it you’ll hear from some of those people on the podcast. Not a ton of them, but yeah, that’s been really eye-opening for us.

LOCAL 3: That’s really one of the core themes of the show, right, is small town drug culture and the opioid epidemic, you know, family trauma, police accountability… that last one and we’ve talked a bit about it with Mr. Neiger and Moeggenborg. How does that tie in? What’s the big takeaway for you on the police accountability aspect?

WISELY: So it’s, you know, it’s hard to tell. You know, I mean, there were these suspicions raised about Moeggenborg. And, you know, to be clear before saying anything, we’re not saying anybody did this… you know, we don’t really have definitive proof that any of these people were involved.

Nobody’s ever been charged, let alone convicted. So under our system, they’re all considered presumed innocent. But when Moeggenborg’s name was brought into this, there was some kind of really suspicious activity by the Michigan State Police.

And I don’t know if that was just they were embarrassed because of some of the things, you know, that came out about him or is there something larger at play?

But, you know, we felt it was important to inquire even when, you know, when we would request records from the state police the way they would redact it. It was interesting. They would redact things that kind of led to Moeggenborg. And, you know, again, is that a privacy issue? Is that a, you know, a public image issue? Is that, you know, a “we’re trying to solve the case” issue?

It’s, you know, the case lingered for 15 years and they’ve never charged anyone. So I don’t know that it’s the latter, but it’s, you know, and then, like I said, 400 pages of internal affairs reports on this cop, and he’s interesting because he was the first cop to the house on the day Derrick disappeared.

He didn’t actually take the missing persons report. He was there on another complaint. And then three days later, the missing person report was filed. But he was there the day Derrick disappeared.

And so that’s why he’s always been so close to it. And we thought it was important to examine that, to look in his background. We saw his internal affairs files. We saw a, you know, a lot of… a troubled guy.

And when we talked to his family, that’s when we really got this picture of a violent man, which raises the specter that, you know, could he be able to… you know, his family actually believes that there’s a high likelihood he was involved.

We’re not saying that because we haven’t been able to conclusively prove that. But we can prove pretty conclusively that he had a violent history and some very strange behavior for a state trooper.

LOCAL 3: Yeah, I think the name doesn’t lead us down any false roads. There are no easy answers at the end of your reporting. You know, it’s really “where secrets go to die.”

How have you seen the lack of answers weigh on the different people involved?

WISELY: That’s a great question because it’s so… you’ve got this bounty hunter that we talked about, Jody Newman, and she became very close friends with Derrick, the missing man’s mother.

She really wanted to find out what happened to Derrick for the sake of his mother. And his mother has since passed. So she never got that answer. And the people we talked to around her said it tormented her, too, to the end of her days. You know, I mean, it really was difficult to have your son disappear and then no answer.

You don’t know if he was killed or he killed himself or if he wandered off or is still alive. You know, I mean, no one believes he’s alive because he was the kind of guy who talked to people every day and they just don’t believe he can be silent for that long. And then a court ruled him dead in 2013.

I think it was about six years after he disappeared. So it’s weighed a lot on Jody. But then one of the interviews we got kind of late in the process was his son, a young man named Rayce. He was just a really good interview. He’s 21 now, and he was six when his dad disappeared.

So he doesn’t really remember a whole lot about his dad. And he’s never gotten answers either. And he would really love to know what happened to his dad. And he just feels like it’s this unanswered question. And so he’s a really impressive young guy. He works hard. He’s you know, he’s a mechanic, does a lot of body shop repair.

And he said he likes to work a lot because it keeps his mind off of things. And I think in his private moments, he probably does, you know, his thoughts return to, “what happened to my dad?”

And so there’s another woman. People will meet in there by the name of Missy Kerridge, Melissa Kerridge. She lives in a Germfask area and she lost a daughter to the whole drug crisis there, too.

And she’s followed this case and she knew some of the players in it, too. And she still carries that burden everyday, too. You know, I mean, it was a tough one. Her daughter got mixed up in drugs and then eventually in sex work, which, you know, often follows. And so she carries that kind of burden every day, too.

And it’s tough. Those were some of the big motivations for us to do this story, was to kind of tell those people’s story. And sadly, there’s a lot of people go missing every year, but behind every one of them is a family and friends and others who knew them, who are just left with, you know, “what happened? Where did my loved one go?”

So that was one of the things we really wanted to try to amplify, the voice of those people.

LOCAL 3: Is there any hope for resolution? I guess, what answers could still be found out?

WISELY: You know, that’s kind of where we end it.

You know, there’s Mike Neiger who believes there is still a chance because he thinks there’s some physical evidence that hasn’t been properly examined that could yield some clues.

Ultimately, the best thing that could happen would be for them to find Derrick’s remains because they would tell a story in themselves, but they’ve never been able to find them.

And they’ve searched quite a bit. They’ve searched or searched a bunch of swamps. We searched some properties up there and some wooded areas based on tips. But nobody’s ever been able to find his remains. And that would be, you know, the single best thing you could find. You could also find, you know, theoretically, you could get an eyewitness.

I mean, the thought is, “if something happened to Derrick and people had to get rid of his remains, that would be a tough job for one person to do.” So the question is, “who else was involved, what was their involvement? What was their motivation? Did they, would they at some point talk because they need to because they’re in trouble and they’re looking to get out of trouble?”

So there is still hope that it could be solved. But it’s 15 years in. The memories fade. Some of the… like I said, one of the people we spoke to died of COVID. So he’s no longer around to be a witness.

And some others, you know, are getting on in years. So it’s tough. But, you know, we’re hopeful that if the right person came forward or the right piece of evidence was uncovered that they could still get it all.

LOCAL 3: Another aspect that I thought was really interesting in your storytelling was the role of the online community. The “Where is Derrick Hannigan—” is that the name of the Facebook page?

WISELY: Yeah, it’s called Wheres Derrick Henagan, and no apostrophe in the “wheres”…

Jody Newman, the bounty hunter had started that years ago. And so it’s become this kind of community forum on the case and it’s also become, you know, a community forum to complain about things.

And, you know, anytime you get the public talking, you get all kinds of different voices heard on there. But it’s amazing how much chatter has been on there and how many people very close to the case have been willing to weigh in in that forum.

And so, you know, for us as reporters, you know, we read all that, of course, but then you’re trying to verify that, you know, somebody said this happened.

“Is there a police report to show that? Is there a secondary witness to show that? Is there some other form of evidence that, you know, to confirm this?”

And that’s one of the reasons it took a long time. It’s really hard to untangle that. And there’s been so much discussion that it’s really difficult. And, you know, like I mentioned that, you know, what started it all, that whole triple murder, there’s been a whole kind of community dialog about that case as well.

And that factors into it too. So it’s, you know, I’ve even asked the police about that. “Does that you know just having that forum out there, does that make it harder to solve the case or easier or what?” And I can’t get a conclusive answer. They say, you know, there’s you know, when they interview somebody, they want to know where this person got this information. Did they just read it online or do they have first hand witness or did they see something or talk to someone?

And so they’ve had to kind of parse all that. But they also, you know, some police I’ve talked to said, you know, it can be helpful because some people will be emboldened to give a tip in that kind of environment that they wouldn’t necessarily give in another type of environment.

And so police have definitely looked at some of the things that were on there. And and track them down, tried to track them down, tried to confirm.

LOCAL 3: By the time this conversation airs, the podcast will be available on all streaming platforms where you can find podcasts.

WISELY: Yeah. Yes, it’s currently available on FREEP.com and as of the 14th of May, it will be available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube and pretty much anywhere else you get your podcasts.

You can just search for “where secrets go to die” and it should pop up.

LOCAL 3: Anything else you want to share about the podcast and your reporting?

WISELY: You know, for me, it’s been a new experience. You know, I’m an old dog. I’ve done mostly print journalism in my life. So doing audio was different. But given the material we had, I’m really glad we did it in audio format.

And I think the listeners will appreciate the audio format in a way that just couldn’t be gathered strictly in written words alone. So. So yeah, it’s been a real, like I said, a real passion project of mine. I was glad to get it through COVID and glad to have it out there. You know, I sincerely hope that it shakes something loose and that maybe, maybe we get some answers for those people who wonder what happened to Derrick Henagan.

LOCAL 3: Yeah, it really is very well reported, very well put together. It was a pleasure to have a listen through it and hear your story, especially with how it… I think you can hear through your narration and how the story was put together, how difficult it was to make all the pieces fit, right?

Could you could you talk a little bit about that process of where you enter the story, and then how you began to orient yourself, and figure out how it made sense to you?

WISELY: Sure it was new for me because as I mentioned, we’ve done mostly, I’ve done exclusively written words for over the course of my career.

And we’ve always, I’ve always reported in sort of a traditional newspaper style. There’s more “me” in this than you would find in my print work. You know, you’ll hear me reflecting on an interview I’ve just had. You’ll hear me, you know, thinking out loud about something that, you know, “how do I connect this with that?”

And normally I do that on every story, but normally I do that kind of privately. But because of the sort of intimate way that audio works, one one of the things we decided early on in this podcast, the reporting was, let’s bring the listener along on the podcast, on the reporting journey.

And so that’s why, you know, we’ve tried to when we took a tour of Derrick’s hometown, we wanted it to sound like the listener was in the backseat of the car that’s given us the tour.

You know, when we go to court, we want them to feel like they’re sitting in the courtroom just as we are. And so we had to learn some new storytelling techniques. We had people who helped us do that, but it was definitely new for us. And it was like I said, it was a really I really enjoyed it and I struggled with it at the beginning.

But then I came to embrace it and like I said, I just think given the material we had, the story was just crying out for audio treatment. And, and you know, when people dial it up, when they hear these voices, you hear a voicemail from, you know, from David Moeggenborg and you hear, you know, stuff like that.

The one voice we didn’t have that I regret was Derrick Henagan’s.

We’d hoped, like his family had home movies or something that might have included his voice. We were not able to get that. So that’s one voice that’s sort of missing.

But, you know, finding these voices, piecing them together, you know, in trying to put it all into context, like, you know, with the triple murder in the small town drug culture and the police questions and the and the case itself, it was a real challenge.

But when it was done, it’s a little over 50,000 words, which is by far the largest project of my career. I’m proud of it. I think it tells a good story and I hope people will enjoy it.

LOCAL 3: And it’s available everywhere Tuesday, but it’s been out behind the paywall for some time now. What’s the response been? What have you been hearing as the episodes have been coming out over the past few weeks? Y

WISELY: Yeah, I should clarify on the rollout. So we started out with the first three episodes and then we waited one week to roll out each of the next five episodes. And we’ll do that again starting tomorrow. Three will be released and then it’ll be one week on the streaming platforms.

So but yeah, we’ve heard some really interesting feedback. You know, I’ve gotten emails from people up in the U.P., I’ve heard from other people who maybe didn’t know this case specifically, but they maybe knew some of the players.

They hear names they recognize, they hear places they recognize. You know, the U.P. is a collection of small towns. And so people in these places know one another and they know that person’s brother or cousin or something like that. So it’s been really interesting to hear from, you know, just ordinary folks in the community. We’ve talked to, you know, some others.

The Newberry News has their own newspaper and they’ve been interested in it. So, yeah, it’s been really interesting to hear. And I’m hoping that that feedback goes up once it comes on the public platforms, because I think it has a chance to reach more ears and hopefully more people who know some of the principles.

I did get it just the other day, I got a voicemail from a prisoner in Ohio, and I say, it’s weird. I’ve had a couple of prisoners reach out to me and I haven’t been able to figure out how they’re connected to the case. So I think they’re mostly interested in me doing something on their case… But, you know, it’s very interesting. You don’t know who’s going to hit and you don’t know who’s going to reach out. So that’s been part of the fun.

LOCAL 3: Well, I’m excited to see how the rest of the community picks it up in the next few weeks as the episodes roll out. Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

WISELY: Thank you, Schyler. I really do appreciate it. And thanks for what you do, too. It’s, you know, that’s another thing we’ve tried to point out is, you know, journalism is in kind of a precarious state right now. And it’s hard to do long term projects and deep dives like this.

And so when we’re given the luxury to do that, we feel really grateful. And we hope people up there and everywhere support not only the Free Press but other local media, because those are the people who are going to tell your stories.

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