Conceiving Crime: What he found in his brother-in-law’s garage nearly made him collapse

A new true-crime podcast is delving into crimes of the past and present in relation to sex, procreation, pregnancy, birth, and all things human reproduction. The latest episode of Conceiving Crime centers on a shocking story out of Illinois in 2019.

In September of that year, Mark was at his home in Michigan when he received a phone call from his wife, who asked him to drive out to see her sister, whose husband had died just a few days earlier. She needed help cleaning out their home, including the garage. He and his wife had been married for 35 years, but Mark had not once been invited to his in-laws’ home — until now. He agreed to go help.

After arriving, it appeared to Mark that his brother-in-law was a hoarder. He had also been a doctor.

“We began to clear the clutter from the home, and opened up the garage door to find a wall of everything he had saved … car parts, empty dog food containers .. he never discarded a container,” said Mark. “So, as we were digging through the second day, it was the evening, I opened up a cardboard box, and found some bags in there with liquid in it. And as I lifted the third bag out, I realized what I was looking at. I almost collapsed. It was beyond anything I ever thought. My son was with me and came and saw it and he immediately wanted to leave and never come back.”

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Mark didn’t know what to do. He considered pushing these particular boxes aside or burying them in the backyard. He knew what would happen if the public learned about what he had just found, but he had walked into that house as a law-abiding citizen, and he wanted to walk out of the house the same way. He called his wife, who stopped what she was doing to pray.

Then they called the police.

Listen to the latest episode of Conceiving Crime here or wherever you listen to your podcasts.