I Was Never There

I Was Never There launches with the range of theories swirling around the disappearance of Marsha “Mudd” Ferber. We meet our hosts, Jamie and Karen Zelermyer and learn who they are in relation to Marsha's story, and why they've decided to try to find out what really happened to her now.

For archival photos, videos, and more, follow I Was Never There on Instagram. For more information on the show and to get in touch with the team, ch...

Through interviews with Marsha’s friends, Jamie and Karen detail everything that is known about the days leading up to and following the disappearance. They read through the police notes which leaves them with more questions than answers. Why didn’t the detectives do better follow up with one of the primary suspects? And, why didn’t anyone investigate the role Marsha’s drug business might have played in all of this?

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We go back to Marsha’s early days as a suburban housewife and independent bookstore owner in New Jersey. We follow her and her cohort of Back-To-The-Landers to rural West Virginia, where she built a commune called the Mudd Farm, and gained a new name: Marsha Mudd.

For archival photos, videos, and more, follow I Was Never There on Instagram. For more information on the show and to get in touch with the team, check out our website. 

Fo...

Marsha’s bar was much more than a place to grab a drink. It was ground zero for a cultural revolution, a haven of progressive politics, free expression, and creativity. In an episode brimful of music, we hear recollections from the musicians, teens, and bartenders of two extraordinary community projects that would ultimately be Marsha’s swan song and establish her as a folk hero.

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In a swirl of partial truths and murky theories, Jamie and Karen find one person who believes he knows exactly what happened to Marsha. What Jamie and Karen find out sounds like a plot line from an action movie, not what they expected to hear about someone Karen considered a close friend. Did Marsha really just get in over her head? 

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Karen helps us understand the mindset that helped Marsha and Karen both live life unafraid of consequences. To explain, we head back to Karen’s back-to-the-land world in Braxton County where Karen and her lover Patty grew pot right out in the open, protected by what they called “The Magic Veil.” 

For archival photos, videos, and more, follow I Was Never There on Instagram. For more information on the show and to get in touch with th...

When it came to living on the edge, Marsha wasn't just a big talker; she really did walk a vanishingly thin line between fearless and reckless. We consider Marsha’s complicated and ultimately unsettled legacy, speaking with those whose politics she shifted and shaped, those whose artistic trajectories she launched, and those she left in the emotional — and financial — lurch.

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Karen and Jamie sit down to sift through everything they’ve heard and all they've learned in the process of trying to get to the bottom of Marsha's disappearance. At the end of the journey, Jamie and Karen consider the most important question of all: Where do they go from here?

For archival photos, videos, and more, follow I Was Never There on Instagram. For more information on the show and to get in touch with the team, check out o...

Karen and Jamie sit down with Zayd Ayers Dohrn and his mom Bernardine Dorhn of Crooked Media’s Mother Country Radicals to look back at the process of making a show so deeply rooted in personal family history. Jamie and Zayd interview the moms to learn how they felt reliving their radical pasts and what it was like to make a podcast with their children. And in a time that feels so similar politically to the turbulent decades Karen a...