Ten years ago, Indiana University student Joseph Smedley vanished under the eerie glow of a blood moon. Days later, his body was found in Griffy Lake, weighed down with sixty-six pounds of rocks. His death was ruled a suicide, a conclusion his family has never believed.
In Episode 2 of A Heavy Weight, we go back to the days immediately following Joseph’s disappearance, the text that didn’t sound like him, the note that didn’t look like his handwriting, and the rumors that began to spread almost immediately inside his fraternity.
Joseph’s story isn’t just about one missing student. It’s about the culture that surrounded him, a campus system built on secrecy, power, and image management. As we revisit the fraternity’s shifting narrative, new details emerge: a suspicious note dated for the wrong day, a text message written in someone else’s voice, and group messages between brothers that continued after Joseph was already gone.
Why were investigators so quick to accept the note and the text as proof of intent? Why did the fraternity rush to distance itself from one of its own? And what do those early choices tell us about whose stories are believed, and whose are buried?
Ten years later, the silence around Joseph’s case still speaks volumes.
Listen to Episode 2 — “Someone Knows Something” wherever you get your podcasts.
Because someone knows something
