A Memoir 

Episode 7: 'Til The Moss Turns Pink Some episodes don’t feel like episodes at all. They feel like reckoning. This one began with a flight simulator, moved through Alaska’s fireweed-lined roads, wandered into messy kitchens filled with pets and teenagers, and ultimately landed in a quiet hotel room in Arizona, where fear finally met humanity face to face. This is the story behind the episode. And maybe, in some ways, it’s the story beneath all of them. When Fear Lives Longer T

Episode 6: A Thousand Little Things A Conversational Commentary on Letting Go, Living With Fear, and Telling Shirley’s Story Some podcast episodes feel like an investigation. Others feel like a confession. This one feels like sitting at a kitchen table long after dinner, when the coffee’s gone cold and someone finally says the thing everyone’s been holding in. This episode of Shirley, You Can’t Be Serious  isn’t just about Shirley’s past, it’s about what happens after the wor

Episode 5: Chasing Ghosts When Cold Cases Refuse to Stay Quiet Content note: This article discusses topics that may be disturbing. This episode of Shirley, You Can’t Be Serious  doesn’t begin with a scream or a  siren. It  begins the way so many real tragedies do, on a normal morning. A bike ride. A familiar route. A woman who didn’t come home. What follows is not just the story of Joan Marie Archer, a 25-year-old dog trainer who disappeared in Tucson in 1986. It’s also a sto

Episode 4: A Den Mother & A Scout Shirley's Dating Life Content note: This article discusses topics that may be disturbing. A Conversation About Love, Secrets, and the Wilderness That Keeps Them. Most people remember Alaska as wild, cold, and  untouchable. In  this episode of Shirley, You Can’t Be Serious , Alaska is remembered as safe, free, and almost idyllic, until hindsight changes everything. This isn’t a neatly wrapped true crime story. It’s a lived-in one. A story told

Episode 3: This Time it's For Real The Roadtrip Begins Content note: This article discusses family dynamics that contain abuse of a minor. Family reunions are supposed to feel like homecomings. In this episode of Shirley, You Can’t Be Serious , the story turns that expectation upside down, revealing how the return of a long-absent father became the beginning of a far more complicated and painful chapter. What was believed to be closure quickly unraveled into a journey marked

Episode 2: I'd Give My Right Arm Before the Chaos Content note: This article discusses a real violent crime and sexual assault in a non-graphic, factual manner. Some stories don’t begin where you think they do. This one didn’t start on Mount Lemmon. It didn’t start with disappearance, fake deaths, or police reports. It started decades earlier with a Catholic girl who wanted eight children, a neat home, and a life that made sense. This episode of Shirley, You Can’t Be Serious

Episode 1: Don't Call Me Late For Dinner A Conversation About Survival, Silence, and the Stories That Stay With Us Content note: This article discusses a real violent crime and sexual assault in a non-graphic, factual manner. Some stories don’t fade with time. They linger quietly, persistently, in the memories of the people who lived them, witnessed them, or loved someone connected to them. The events that unfolded on Mount Lemmon in July of 1986 are one of those stories. Thi