WMOK – Massac County, IL – EWU, short for Explore With Us, is an incredibly popular digital true crime network and YouTube channel. Rather than just retelling standard true crime stories, EWU specializes in highly detailed, long-form documentary-style case breakdowns. They are widely recognized for using raw interrogation footage, police bodycams, audio recordings, and step-by-step investigative timelines while incorporating expert criminal psychology and procedural analysis.
What sets EWU apart from many standard true crime channels is their active, real-world involvement in solving cold cases. The network uses a portion of its revenue to fund actual forensic testing for resource-strapped law enforcement agencies across the country.
How EWU Funded the Lisa Carnes Investigation
The 1984 cold case murder of Lisa Carnes in Massac County saw a massive break recently, resulting in the arrest and “not guilty” plea of 76-year-old George E. Bradfield. That breakthrough was driven heavily by advanced DNA testing, which was made possible through a direct collaboration between private media and forensic science:
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The Funding Gap: Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) is incredibly precise, but it is also highly specialized and expensive. Small local agencies and state police divisions often face budgetary constraints that make it difficult to send decades-old, degraded evidence out for advanced testing.
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EWU Media’s Sponsorship: EWU Media LLC stepped up to entirely fund the advanced DNA testing phase of the Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Zone 7 homicide probe.
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Parabon NanoLabs’ Execution: With EWU covering the financial costs, the preserved DNA evidence from the 1984 Massac County crime scene was sent to Parabon NanoLabs Inc. Parabon specializes in “Snapshot” DNA analysis, which performs DNA phenotyping (predicting physical traits) and kinship inference/genetic genealogy (building extensive family trees out of shared DNA databases to locate unknown suspects).
Because EWU funded Parabon’s specialized extraction and genealogy work, investigators successfully linked Bradfield (who was working in Joppa, IL at the time of the crime) to the scene, bridging a 42-year gap to finally bring the case to a Massac County courtroom.
