Episodes

  • Greed, arrogance and lust led Robert Anderson to kill his wife of nearly twenty years. He was a pillar of the community. He owned four Service Master franchises, he was a Kiwanis member and former President, and a former teacher and Athletic Director at Salem High School. The combination of his love for money and infatuation with a younger girl led him to the brutal beating of his wife and subsequent attempt to frame an employee and former student. The death of his wife in Lawrence Mass, was considered an extreme act of rage and was initially attributed to the violence that was pervasive in the city at the time. The homicide was subsequently compared to the murder of Carol Stuart by her husband Charles Stuart, five years earlier in Boston. That Stuart murder was also initially attributed to the violence of the city.
    Follow investigators from three agencies as they follow the evidence and track their quarry. In the end, justice reigned. MURDER OUTSIDE THE BACK DOOR: The True Story of the Murder of a popular Salem, NH teacher by her husband, the murder labeled as a Charles Stuart copycat-John Tommasi
    MagicMind.com/Truemurder

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  • In 1970, Mary Petry and Bill Sproat, two university students in love, were murdered in a Columbus, Ohio apartment. The crime was so brutal it drew comparisons to the Manson murders of the previous year. The case has never been solved. Host/Producer Justin Glanville and the sisters of the two victims track down friends, witnesses to the original investigation and the Columbus police to understand why the case remains unsolved, despite the existence of solid DNA evidence and the fact that police say they have a person of interest. Along the way, the three explore who really owns DNA collected at crime scenes – families or police? – and what it takes to bring new attention to a 53-year-old cold case in an era when police departments are struggling to attract new recruits. MARY & BILL: An Ohio Cold Case-Justin Glanville

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  • My name is Abigail Alvarado. When I was nine, Child Protective Services removed me and my siblings from my mother’s home—a known crack house—due to neglect. After an extended stay at a children’s shelter in San Antonio, Texas, we were adopted by our Uncle Chevo, a Sergeant in the Army, and his wife, Laura. We moved to Hawaii, where they were stationed, thinking it would be paradise. For me, it became a living hell. What followed was 16 years of harrowing abuse, brainwashing, manipulation, stalking, physical abuse, sexual assault, and the stripping away of me, as a little girl, bit by bit, until there was nothing left. I became a sex slave to my sadistic aunt and uncle. Ultimately, I gave birth to three beautiful babies—each of whom was his. My children were raised to believe that I was their sister. And I was raised to believe that I was nothing. My abusers were masterful manipulators who wrapped pretty lies around the ugly truth to hide their abuse. No longer bound by their lies and my shame, I am here to take my power back, page by page. I am no one’s victim. I am a survivor, unbound. I AM ABIGAIL: A Texas Woman's Childhood Nightmare-And Her Escape From Hell As A Sex Slave/Survivor- Abigail Alvarado and Jamie Collins

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  • What goes through the mind of a killer when they commit murder? Based on the massively successful Netflix documentary series of the same name, this book features ten of the most compelling cases from the first two series and is full of exclusive never-seen-before material.
    The authors, Ned Parker and Danny Tipping secured exceptional access to high-security prisons across America. The majority of the killers will die in prison – either by serving their sentence of life without parole or they are on Death Row, waiting to be executed. In each of the cases the inmate speaks openly about themselves and reflects on their life and their crimes. To gain a complete picture of the impact of the murders the authors spoke to both the families of both the perpetrators and the victims, and those in law enforcement who were involved in the case, leaving it up to the reader to make up their own mind about the killers and their crimes.
    The book draws on handwritten letters from the inmates and full transcripts of the interviews to tell each story, and features exclusive material including personal pictures, crime scene images, and original police and court documents, this is a fascinating and detailed look at some of America's most gripping murder cases. I AM A KILLER: What makes a murderer, their shocking stories in their own words-Danny Tipping and Ned Parker
    Ritual.com/Murder

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  • When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery?
    On July 24, 1960, the quaint charm and serenity of Mackinac, nestled between Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas, was shattered by Lacey’s brutal death. Despite a massive manhunt and thousands of pages of police reports, her killer was never caught.
    Now, in GRIM PARADISE, true crime author Rod Sadler (Killing Women) delves into the secrets of one of Michigan's most perplexing murder cases. Offering an in-depth and suspenseful account of the long-standing mystery, he poses the question:
    Could advanced DNA technology lead to the identity of the Mackinac Island murderer as it did recently in the case of the Golden State Killer? Find out in GRIM PARADISE: The Cold Case Search for the Mackinac Island Killer-Rod Sadler

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  • At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston's Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city's adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city's North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the city's red-light district.
    Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family's struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston’s segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past. THE COMBAT ZONE: Murder, Race and Boston's Struggle for Justice-Jan Brogan

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  • The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home.
    In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free.
    In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi. DEER CREEK DRIVE: A Reckoning of Memory and Murder in the Mississippi Delta-Beverly Lowry
    Ritual.com/Murder

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  • When two General Motors executives drove into Crater Lake National Park in July 1952, no one could predict they would be dead within an hour—not even their killers. It was a crime of opportunity, a botched robbery during the middle of summer in a crowded national park. When Albert Jones and Charles Culhane were found shot to death two days later, the story became a national obsession. The FBI used every resource and available agent but, as time wore on, the investigation ran out of steam. A lack of evidence worked to the killer’s advantage. He had committed a perfect crime.
    The FBI tried hard to solve the case. Their 2,000+ page report details a staggeringly complex, multi-agency effort: 200 ballistic tests, 1000 interviews, 466 license plate identifications. The man hours were beyond calculation, and yielded valuable information— buried within the individual reports of the FBI, Oregon State Police and local agencies are many clues to the nature and identity of the perpetrator.
    The FBI file has rarely been seen by anyone outside the Bureau until December 2015 when the author received it on two discs, satisfying a Freedom of Information Act request submitted three years before. This book summarizes all the information: the FBI file, Oregon State Police reports, fresh research and interviews, county records, rare first hand accounts, reaction from one victim’s family and an obscure college thesis that first named the killer. Add to this, the personal account of a man to whom the killer confessed. Before the confessor died, he swore his wife to secrecy, reminding her about “the things that nobody talks about.”
    The Crater Lake Murders tells the true narrative: four men with nothing in common until the day they met and, after that, the Fate all Men share. THE CRATER LAKE MURDERS: The story of the 1952 murders of two General Motors executives and the search for a killer in plain sight-Monty Orrick
    AugustaPreciousMetals.com

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  • They watched the 1996 movie Scream over and over again. One of the boys was truly infatuated with the movie and wanted to be part of it. He along with two friends, lured two teenage girls to a local park in Salem, New Hampshire late one night where the girls were brutally murdered by being stabbed over and over again.
    Read how they were tracked to Michigan from New Hampshire and how they were brought to justice. MURDER BY THE BATHHOUSE DOOR: The true story of the murder of 2 teenage girls by 3 boys who wanted to "play" Scream-John Tomassi
    AugustaPreciousMetals.com

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  • The disappearance of a twenty-one-year-old woman from a Massachusetts suburb became one of the most discussed crimes of the twentieth century. The discussion intensified when the public learned that she worked as a prostitute in Boston's notorious red-light district, the “Combat Zone,” and was linked by a trail of blood to a famous professor from Tufts University.
    When Robin Benedict vanished the investigation and media circus that gripped the city of Boston hadn't been seen since the days of the Boston Strangler case. On a Sunday morning in March 1983, a small-time pimp walked into a police station and claimed his girlfriend was missing. He said she had been on her way to visit a client named William Douglas. In the year that followed, the case drew in detectives, state troopers, scores of journalists, and even psychics. But Robin was never found.
    Boston Tabloid reconstructs a grisly murder, and explores one man's bizarre obsession. In revisiting this legendary crime, Don Stradley consulted journalists involved in the media frenzy, prison authorities, arresting officers, and psychiatrists, all in an effort to unravel a most tangled story. Why was the city, and the nation, swept up in this sordid tale? It remains a grim and fascinating moment in Boston's history. BOSTON TABLOID: The Killing of Robin Benedict-Don Stradley

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  • Stephen B. Small died in one of the most horrific ways a person can die -- being buried alive. He was one of the richest men in Kankakee, Illinois, in 1987, which made him the target of a desperate cocaine dealer who wanted to collect a million dollar ransom. Everything went tragically wrong. Danny Edwards was caught, convicted and was sentenced to death. His life was spared after all death sentences were commuted to life in prison by Governor George Ryan. A conviction of Danny Edwards was a sure thing. However, political pressure -- the Small family was at the top of Kankakee's powerful elite -- brought in the top prosecutors in the state, so they could use Edwards' case against his girlfriend, Nancy Rish. Their case against her was flimsy, at best. Every piece of forensic evidence at the trial cleared Nancy Rish. Not one piece of evidence and not one witness testimony proved her guilt. But she was convicted on the conjecture and false assertions of the prosecutors. There was no more evidence against her than the supposition that 'she had to know' what Edwards was planning. Every public defender and lawyer refused to defend her because of alleged conflicts or fear of the local powers. Everything was set up to railroad this woman into prison. She did not get a fair trial. She did not stand a chance. If Danny Edwards had picked any other victim, his girlfriend never would have been prosecuted. Nancy Rish got Small justice. Nancy Rish is innocent. Danny Edwards did not cooperate with the police and he never talked about the details of his crime. Until now. Danny Edwards and Nancy Rish have given their first in-depth interviews from prison to author Jim Ridings for this book. The incredible story and previously unknown background details are told here for the first time. This is not just the story of a sensational kidnapping and murder. It also is the story of how a corrupt system was able to convict an innocent woman and send her to prison for life. SMALL JUSTICE-Jim Ridings
    Ritual.com/Murder


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  • Henry Louis Wallace terrorized Charlotte, North Carolina, from May 1992 to March 1994.Wallace preyed on lower economic class Black women between 17 and 35 years old. He knew most of his victims, some through his job at Taco Bell, and gained their trust with his friendly demeanor and gentle nature—concealing a monster fueled by drug abuse and rage against women.A rarity in that he was an African American serial killer, his murderous rampage spurred controversy throughout the city. Community members accused local police of ignoring the murders because of the victims' race. Wallace attended the funerals of many of his victims and offered condolences to families. The ensuing investigation became the largest in North Carolina’s history.Wallace was eventually found guilty and convicted of nine counts of murder, but he admitted to more killings while incarcerated; he is potentially responsible for anywhere from 20 to 90 deaths of Black women. Wallace continues to appeal and awaits his execution at Central Prison in Raleigh. BAD HENRY: The Murderous Rampage of ‘The Taco Bell Strangler’ by Ron Chepesiuk offers valuable insight into the psychology of serial killers and sheds light on issues surrounding race and policing. BAD HENRY: The Murderous Rampage of 'The Taco Bell Strangler'-Ron Chepsiuk
    Ritual.com/Murder

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3269715/advertisement

  • Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she wrote her first letter to prolific serial killer Samuel Little. All she knew was her research had led her to believe he was good for far more murders than the three for which he had been convicted. While the two exchanged dozens of letters and embarked on hundreds of hours of interviews, Lauren gained the trust of a monster. After maintaining his innocence for decades, Little confessed to the murders of ninety-three women, often drawing his victims in haunting detail as he spoke. How could one man evade justice, manipulating the system for over four decades?As the FBI, the DOJ, the LAPD, and countless law enforcement officials across the country worked to connect their cold cases with the confessions, Lauren's coverage of the investigations and obsession with Little's victims only escalated.New York Times bestselling author and lead of the Starz docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer Jillian Lauren delivers the harrowing report of her unusual relationship with a psychopath. But this is more than a deep dive into the actions of Samuel Little. Lauren's riveting and emotional accounts reveal the women who were lost to cold files, giving Little's victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time. BEHOLD THE MONSTER: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer-Jillian Lauren
    AugustaPreciousMetals.com

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  • Leon Benson spent 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the 1998 murder of a young man named Kasey Schoen. His conviction hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses – but what if their memories turned out to be wrong? And what if the people who knew what really happened had never been allowed to speak? Suspect Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark is the story of two victims: one murdered, one sentenced to life. Follow host Matt Shaer and attorney Lara Bazelon as they investigate how the justice system failed both Leon and Kasey, and who the real killer might be. Join this unprecedented look inside the attempt to overturn a wrongful conviction and find out if justice will finally be served. Listen to Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge Suspect ad-free on Wondery Plus. Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts: Wondery.fm/SuspectS3_TM

    This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3269715/advertisement

  • A 19-year-old accused of killing his parents is diagnosed with an unusual psychiatric disorder and spends a torturous six years in the Colorado judicial and mental health systems before his case experiences an unexpected end. “Just in the Nick of Time is one of the most profound cases of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), all told from the perspective of the person who interacted most with the personalities, his criminal defense lawyer David Savitz. It is a book about what happens when a mental disease far outpaces the understanding of the courts, the psychiatric community, and the public. JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME-David B. Savitz
    Ritual.com/Murder

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  • On an unseasonably warm winter evening in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Patty Desmond sneaked out through the basement of her house. She had a history of running away, and that, combined with an argument with her mother, gave police reason to suspect she'd come home in a week or two. The year was 1965. That night was the last time her family ever saw her.Conrad Eugene Miller was well-known to local law enforcement. An older married man with a child, Miller's association with Patty was questionable at best. Yet he was the last person known to have seen her alive-and the suspect police continued to circle back toward.After nothing but false sightings and rumors, the case was moved to the backburner-where it stayed. As decades crept by, reality sunk in: Patty Desmond was never coming back. Then, a tiny crack unleashed a flood of information, and a mystery that had never quite been forgotten was solved. LAST CHILD SEEN: The Search For Patty Desmond-Maureen Boyle
    Ritual.com/Murder

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  • In September of 1990, in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, sixteen-year-old Lisa Pruett, a poetry lover and member of a church youth group, was on her way to a midnight tryst with her boyfriend, when she was viciously stabbed to death only thirty feet from the boy’s home.
    The murder cast a palpable gloom over the upscale community and sparked accusations, theories, and rumors among Lisa’s friends and peers. Together they wove a damning narrative that circled back to a likely suspect: “weird” high school outcast Kevin Young. Without a shred of evidence the teen was arrested, charged, and tried for the crime. His eventual acquittal didn’t squelch the anger and outrage among those who believed that Kevin got away with murder.
    With a fresh perspective and painstaking research culled from police files, court records, transcripts, uncollected evidence, and new interviews, James Renner reconstructs the events leading up to and following that heartbreaking night. What emerges is a portrait of a community seething with dark undercurrents—its single-minded authorities, protective status-conscious parents, and the deeply peer-pressured teens within Lisa’s circle.
    Who had the capacity for such unchecked violence? What monsters still lurk in the dark? After more than thirty years, questions like these continue to fester among the community of Shaker Heights, Ohio, still deeply scarred by wounds that remain hidden, unspoken, and unhealed. LITTLE, CRAZY CHILDREN: A True Crime Tragedy of Lost Innocence-James Renner
    Ritual.com/Murder

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  • Coal Country Killing: A Culture, A Union, And The Murders That Changed It All, revolves around the cold-blooded 1969 assassination of United Mineworkers of America “reform candidate” Jock Yablonski, and murder of his wife and daughter in their Pennsylvania farmhouse. But driving the story are the extraordinary efforts of a tenacious special prosecutor and his “army” of investigators to bring the gunmen, the union boss who ordered the murders, and his henchmen who saw them carried out, to justice.
    Initially, three bumbling small-time criminals, dubbed “The Hillbilly Hitmen,” were arrested and charged. But they were the tip of the iceberg as the murders were directed by then-UMWA President “Tough Tony” Boyle as revenge for Yablonski running against him in the bitterly contested 1968 union election and to prevent his corruption from being exposed.
    Up against the tight-lipped culture of Appalachia coal country, legendary Philadelphia homicide prosecutor Richard A. Sprague, and his investigators, spent nearly nine years doggedly working their way up the ladder of those responsible to the final showdown with Boyle.
    Written by New York Times bestselling authors—former New York County Assistant District Attorney Robert K. Tanenbaum, a lifelong friend of Sprague’s, and Steve Jackson—Coal Country Killing is a tour de force for those who love justice. COAL COUNTRY KILLING: A Culture, A Union, and the Murders that Changed It All-Steve Jackson
    Ritual.com/Murder






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  • On a cold, windy December night in 1926, hell was unleashed on a tenant farm near Farwell, the last Texas town before the New Mexico border. Prone to the bottle and fits of rage, the burly man with the smiling blue eyes was in no mood to quarrel with his third wife over his bootleg whisky and sexual abuse of his stepdaughter. He went from room to room in the house, killing his wife and each child with primitive cutting tools and his bare hands. By the time he concluded his bloody work, he had taken the lives of nine family members ranging in age from 2 to 41, committing what one local reporter called “the blackest crime” in the history of the West Texas Panhandle. Husband, father, uncle, embezzler, serial mass murderer, philanderer, child molester, convict, and military deserter, George Jefferson Hassell was many things to many people, most of them bad. His pattern of familicide crime had begun in 1917, when he slaughtered his common-law wife and her three kids in Whittier, California. Later, in Texas, he married his brother’s wife and became stepfather to her eight children. Using Hassell’s confessions and his many interviews with reporters as well as the trial transcripts and reminiscences of those who crossed paths with him in Texas, Oklahoma, and California, Mitchel P. Roth presents the first comprehensive account of the life and crimes of one of the least known multiple murderers in Texas, let alone American, history. Roth situates Hassell’s saga within the 1920s Texas criminal justice system, including the death penalty, which Hassell ultimately received from Old Sparky, the electric chair at Huntsville. THE MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer-Mitchel P. Roth

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  • Discover the dark side of human nature with Blood on the Tracks.
    This true crime book takes you on a journey through the most heinous murder cases in history, including unsolved mysteries that will leave you wondering.
    Each story is expertly researched and crafted to provide a captivating account of the events leading up to the crime and the investigation that followed.
    From the infamous Thanksgiving Massacre to the shocking case of the Vanishing Bride & Groom, to the unbelievable story of a Dominatrix and her Doppelgänger, Blood on the Tracks leaves no stone unturned.
    As you turn each page, you'll feel the tension and suspense build as you try to piece together the clues and solve the case alongside the investigators.
    Don't miss out on this captivating journey through the world of murder and mystery. BLOOD ON THE TRACKS: Real-Life Tales of Murder and Mystery-Rod Kackle
    Ritual.com/murder

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