Sep 10, 2026 · 31 min · 10 segments
When a family is slaughtered inside their tent at a popular Iowa park during the summer of 2022, news of the tragedy spreads far and wide. The killer spared one lone member of the Schmidt family, a…
[gentle music] According to reporting by Tyler Jett for the Des Moines Register, around six fifteen in the morning on Friday, July 22nd, 35-year-old Felicia Ko woke up inside her pop-up camper at Maquoketa Caves State Park campground.
She glanced around and saw her boyfriend's teenage son had already gotten dressed and left to go running, and his other 11-year-old son was also awake, but comfortably nestled on the other side of the camper reading a book.
She looked at her boyfriend, who was still sound asleep, and decided to give him a few more minutes of rest before their family got going for the day.
She grabbed her cell phone and clicked open the weather app to check the forecast to make sure rainstorms weren't gonna be a problem for their plans, and thankfully the update was good.
All the bad weather that had previously been projected for Friday had already passed by then, and their plans to go hiking weren't gonna be interrupted.
They discussed what the disturbance could have been, but neither could come up with a convincing answer.
He settled on the idea that the noises were probably someone lighting up a firecracker, but Felicia had her doubts.
Sure, people probably had bottle rockets or Roman candles left over from the previous Fourth of July weekend, but in her mind, she thought it was way too early in the morning for someone to be setting off fireworks.
[door creaking] When she opened her camper door, she didn't see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.
It was one of her coworkers, so she walked over to talk with them, but not long after she strode up, she noticed something unusual in the middle of the campground.
There, slowly walking side by side, were two Maquoketa Caves employees dressed head to toe in protective body armor, and they were carrying long rifles.
Not the kind of attire she'd ever seen park employees wearing before When the workers approached Felicia and her friend, they barked a command for them to get out of the campground right away and not come back.
She wanted to know what was going on, and most importantly, was her family in danger? She let the employees know she couldn't leave without her boyfriend's 16-year-old son, who was out for a run.
They just walked right past her and her friend and emphasized that they all needed to get their families together and get out of the area as quickly as possible.
Instead, she checked in with her boyfriend and his younger son at their camper, and then walked a few minutes away out to the main road.
[gentle music] According to reporting by Tyler Jett for the Des Moines Register, around six fifteen in the morning on Friday, July 22nd, 35-year-old Felicia Ko woke up inside her pop-up camper at Maquoketa Caves State Park campground.
She glanced around and saw her boyfriend's teenage son had already gotten dressed and left to go running, and his other 11-year-old son was also awake, but comfortably nestled on the other side of the camper reading a book.
She looked at her boyfriend, who was still sound asleep, and decided to give him a few more minutes of rest before their family got going for the day.
She grabbed her cell phone and clicked open the weather app to check the forecast to make sure rainstorms weren't gonna be a problem for their plans, and thankfully the update was good.
All the bad weather that had previously been projected for Friday had already passed by then, and their plans to go hiking weren't gonna be interrupted.
They discussed what the disturbance could have been, but neither could come up with a convincing answer.
He settled on the idea that the noises were probably someone lighting up a firecracker, but Felicia had her doubts.
Sure, people probably had bottle rockets or Roman candles left over from the previous Fourth of July weekend, but in her mind, she thought it was way too early in the morning for someone to be setting off fireworks.
[door creaking] When she opened her camper door, she didn't see anything suspicious or out of the ordinary.
It was one of her coworkers, so she walked over to talk with them, but not long after she strode up, she noticed something unusual in the middle of the campground.
There, slowly walking side by side, were two Maquoketa Caves employees dressed head to toe in protective body armor, and they were carrying long rifles.
Not the kind of attire she'd ever seen park employees wearing before When the workers approached Felicia and her friend, they barked a command for them to get out of the campground right away and not come back.
She wanted to know what was going on, and most importantly, was her family in danger? She let the employees know she couldn't leave without her boyfriend's 16-year-old son, who was out for a run.
They just walked right past her and her friend and emphasized that they all needed to get their families together and get out of the area as quickly as possible.
Instead, she checked in with her boyfriend and his younger son at their camper, and then walked a few minutes away out to the main road.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
