The Seaside Mystery

Welcome back to the podcast, where we explore the darkest stories and most puzzling mysteries in true crime.

Today, we travel to the seaside town of Folkestone, England, where the 2017 death of popular pub landlord Joe Daniels would leave behind a mystery that remains surrounded by troubling questions.

After spending what appeared to be an ordinary evening with his longtime girlfriend, Joe began the following morning discussing plans for the future, including renewing the lease on his pub.

But just hours later, he failed to show up for a planned meeting and stopped answering his phone.

When his girlfriend went looking for him, she found Joe lying face down inside the Red Cow, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest, with his own firearm beside him.

As investigators examined the unusual circumstances surrounding his death, his debts, and the unexplained presence of a gun that Joe seemingly had little reason to possess, one question would come to define the case.

Did Joe Daniels take his own life, or did someone inside this quiet seaside town want his death to look like a suicide? Folkestone is a harbor town in the southeast of England that, at the start of the 20th century, had many a famous guest, including King Edward VII, who, if rumors are to be believed, conducted his affair there, and Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in the Harbor Hotel.

However, like most seaside towns, the latter part of the 20th century saw significant and debilitating declines in business, mainly from the now cheap and affordable international travel.

With this came increased poverty and crime.

However, in 2017, Folkestone was having a revival.

Investment flooded in, and the harbor was reinvigorated with a statement restaurant, pop-up bars, and entertainment.

Folkestone might not have the wide sandy beaches of its neighbors, but it had a bohemian chicness of its own.

One pub not enjoying this new renaissance was the Red Cow, run by the life-of-the-party landlord Joe Daniels.

He had moved from Liverpool some decades before and lived in the pub he ran.

Joe has been described affectionately by those he interacted with and built up a rapport with many of his locals, so much so that it is believed that he had borrowed 37,000 pounds from them at his death.

Welcome back to the podcast, where we explore the darkest stories and most puzzling mysteries in true crime.

Today, we travel to the seaside town of Folkestone, England, where the 2017 death of popular pub landlord Joe Daniels would leave behind a mystery that remains surrounded by troubling questions.

After spending what appeared to be an ordinary evening with his longtime girlfriend, Joe began the following morning discussing plans for the future, including renewing the lease on his pub.

But just hours later, he failed to show up for a planned meeting and stopped answering his phone.

When his girlfriend went looking for him, she found Joe lying face down inside the Red Cow, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest, with his own firearm beside him.

As investigators examined the unusual circumstances surrounding his death, his debts, and the unexplained presence of a gun that Joe seemingly had little reason to possess, one question would come to define the case.

Did Joe Daniels take his own life, or did someone inside this quiet seaside town want his death to look like a suicide? Folkestone is a harbor town in the southeast of England that, at the start of the 20th century, had many a famous guest, including King Edward VII, who, if rumors are to be believed, conducted his affair there, and Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in the Harbor Hotel.

However, like most seaside towns, the latter part of the 20th century saw significant and debilitating declines in business, mainly from the now cheap and affordable international travel.

With this came increased poverty and crime.

However, in 2017, Folkestone was having a revival.

Investment flooded in, and the harbor was reinvigorated with a statement restaurant, pop-up bars, and entertainment.

Folkestone might not have the wide sandy beaches of its neighbors, but it had a bohemian chicness of its own.

One pub not enjoying this new renaissance was the Red Cow, run by the life-of-the-party landlord Joe Daniels.

He had moved from Liverpool some decades before and lived in the pub he ran.

Joe has been described affectionately by those he interacted with and built up a rapport with many of his locals, so much so that it is believed that he had borrowed 37,000 pounds from them at his death.