Episodes
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Nicknamed “the most beautiful woman in Alaska,” 31-year-old Diane Wells was bruised and bloodied when she screamed for help in the early hours of October 17, 1953. Her husband Cecil, a wealthy Fairbanks businessman, had been shot dead, and she claimed they were the victims of a brutal home invasion.
Blonde, glamorous and 20 years younger than Cecil, police were immediately suspicious of Diane's account, and the investigation soon turned toward her alleged lover, black musician Johnny Warren, who had left town the night of the murder.
The scandal hit the pages of Newsweek, Life, Jet and the pulp detective magazines, and nearly 70 years later, journalist James T. Bartlett uncovers new evidence including an unpublished memoir, unseen photographs, and re-examines the FBI files. He tracks down and interviews the people close to Cecil, Diane, Johnny, and the mysterious “Third Suspect”, dance instructor William Colombany, to reveal the story of “the most notorious and baffling murder in the history of Fairbanks.” THE ALASKAN BLONDE: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America-James T. Bartlett -
Learn the terrifying truth behind the world's deadliest serial killers…
Serial killers haunt our dreams and inspire the terrifying villains of TV shows and horror movies. But how much do you really know about the minds behind the world's deadliest killers? What drives these murderers to kill and kill again? And what fuels our fascination with the true stories of their horrific crimes?Now forensic psychologist, private investigator, and crime writer Dr. Joni E. Johnston brings you the answers to these questions and more! SERIAL KILLERS: 101 Questions True Crime Fans Ask dives into the case files of the most infamous murderers in history, and answers the questions true crime fans have been dying to ask…SERIAL KILLERS: 101 Questions True Crime Fans Ask-Dr. Joni Johnston -
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In May 1996, two skilled backcountry leaders, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, entered Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park for a week-long backcountry camping trip. The free-spirited and remarkable young couple had met and fallen in love the previous summer while working at a world-renowned outdoor program for women. During their final days in the park, they descended the narrow remnants of a trail and pitched their tent in a hidden spot. After the pair didn’t return home as planned, park rangers found a scene of horror at their campsite, their tent slashed open, their beloved dog missing, and both women dead in their sleeping bags. The unsolved murders of Winans and Williams continue to haunt all who had encountered them or knew their story.
When award-winning journalist and outdoors expert Kathryn Miles begins looking into the case, she discovers conflicting evidence, mismatched timelines, and details that just don’t add up. With unprecedented access to crucial crime-scene forensics and key witnesses—and with a growing sense of both mission and obsession—she begins to uncover the truth. An innocent man, Miles is convinced, has been under suspicion for decades, while the true culprit is a known serial killer, if only authorities would take a closer look.
Intimate, page-turning, and brilliantly reported, Trailed is a love story and a call to justice—and a searching and urgent plea to make wilderness a safe space for women. TRAILED: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders-Kathyrn Miles -
Find out what truly creates and defines a psychopath, from the leading expert who helped to create Killing Eve's Villanelle.
Dr. Mark Freestone has worked on some of the most interesting, infamous and disturbing cases of psychopathology in recent years. His expertise has led to a consultant role on several TV series, helping them accurately portray their fictional villains. Now, he shares his phenomenal insight into the minds of some of the world's most violent real-life criminals.
Angela "the Remorseless", a rare female psychopath, casually confessed to murder on national television without a hint of regret. Danny "the Borderline" switched from grandiosity to rage to despair within minutes and killed his defenseless friend without explanation. Tony "the Conman" preferred charm, intimidation and sexual abuse over physical violence and once tried to dupe someone into buying the Eiffel Tower. Jason "the Liar" had a fantasy life that led to vicious murders around Europe and preyed on those who see the good in people. Case by fascinating case, get to know seven of the most dangerous minds that Dr. Freestone has encountered over the last 15 years. These are up-close accounts of some of the most psychopathic criminals, and of what can happen if you fall victim to their supreme powers of manipulation.
Exploring the many factors that make a psychopath, the complexities and contradictions of their emotions and behavior, as well as an examination of how the lives of psychopaths develop inside and outside the institutions that are supposed to contain them, Making a Psychopath opens up a window into the world of those who operate in a void of human emotion―and what can be done to control them. MAKING A PSYCHOPATH: My Journey into Seven Dangerous MInds-Mark Freestone -
A haunting account of the sixteen years when a young Jamie Gehring and her family lived closer than anyone to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber
As a child in Lincoln, Montana, Jamie Gehring and her family shared their land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. But they had no idea that the odd recluse living in the adjacent cabin was anything more than a disheveled man who brought young Jamie painted rocks as gifts. Ted was simply Ted, and erratic behavior, surprise visits, and chilling events while she was riding horses or helping her dad at his sawmill were dismissed because he was “just the odd hermit.” In fact, he was much more—Ted eluded the FBI for seventeen years while mailing explosives to strangers, earning the infamous title of Unabomber. In Gehring’s investigative quest twenty-five years later to reclaim a piece of her childhood and to answer the questions, why, how, she recalls what were once innocent memories and odd circumstances that become less puzzling in hindsight. The innocence of her youth robbed, Gehring needed to reconcile her lived experience with the evil that hid in plain sight. In this book, through years of research probing Ted’s personal history, his writings, his secret coded crime journals, her own correspondence with him in his Supermax prison cell, plus interviews with others close to Kaczynski, Gehring unearths the complexity, mystery, and tragedy of her childhood with the madman in the woods. And she discovers a shocking revelation―she and her family were in Kaczynski’s crosshairs. A work of intricately braided research, journalism, and personal memories, this book is a chilling response to the question: Do you really know your neighbor? MADMAN IN THE WOODS: Life Next Door to the Unabomber-Jamie Gehring -
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.
As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter.
Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives. 22 MURDERS: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia-Part 2-Paul Palango -
A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its victims and survivors.
As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter.
Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives. 22 MURDERS: Investigating the Massacres, Cover-up and Obstacles to Justice in Nova Scotia-Paul Palango -
For over two decades the identity of Melissa Witt’s murderer has been hidden among the dense trees and thorny undergrowth rooted deeply in the uneven ground of a remote mountaintop in the Ozark National Forest.
Determined to find answers, LaDonna Humphrey has spent the past seven years hunting for Melissa’s killer. Her investigation, both thrilling and unpredictable, has led her on a journey like no other.
The Girl I Never Knew is an edge-of-your-seat account of LaDonna Humphrey’s passionate fight for justice in the decades-old murder case of a girl she never met in person. Her unstoppable quest for the truth has gained the attention of some incredibly dangerous people, some of whom would like to keep Melissa’s murder a mystery forever. THE GIRL I NEVER KNEW: Who Killed Melissa Witt-LaDonna Humphrey -
A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier—shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war.
In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders.
The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders—one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War—were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell’s Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape.
Hell’s Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community’s fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places. HELL'S HALF-ACRE: The Untold Story of the Benders, A Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier-Susan Jonusas -
For nine years, South Carolina officials struggled to identify “the boy in the woods,” a young man whose body had been discovered just south of Myrtle Beach in a fishing village called Murrells Inlet.
Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in Kansas City, Missouri, Frank McGonigle's family searched for him at Grateful Dead concerts and in the face of every long-haired hitchhiker they passed. Consumed by guilt for how they'd treated him, Frank's eight siblings slowly came to understand that — like Jerry Garcia sang — he's gone and nothin's gonna bring him back.
Frank McGonigle was finally found — and identified as “the boy in the woods.”
Four years later, the case still unsolved, Jim Cosgrove, a McGonigle family friend and investigative journalist, picked up the trail of Frank’s cold case and began uncovering connections to a ruthless local crime boss and blunders by the threadbare sheriff’s department.
When his research began to stall, a chance meeting with the soft-hearted, straight-talking “energy reader” Carol Williams provided a metaphysical spark that reignited Jim's resolve. Although his work as a journalist trained him to be skeptical, Cosgrove found himself starting to become a believer when Carol provided details about Frank’s murder that turned out to be freakishly accurate.
In 2019, Cosgrove returned to Murrells Inlet with one of Frank’s brothers to dredge up some old leads and settle Frank’s case once and for all…RIPPLE: A Long Strange Search for a Killer-Jim Cosgrove -
From a teen vampire cult that killed one member’s parents to naked people who tell cops, “nothing to see here,” Frank Stanfield has seen it all in thirty years as a newspaper editor and reporter, mostly in Florida.
Vampires, Gators, and Whackos: A Newspaperman’s Life recalls rustlers hiding ranchers’ bodies in a bottomless pit and a Jane Doe so mauled people believed it was a bear attack. It exposes cops who bungle murder cases and praises those who are heroes. There are tales of bears, sharks, snakes, alligators, and potbellied pigs. There is the teacher who was too pretty to go to jail despite having sex with a middle-school male student. Hurricanes lash out, tornadoes spin a blender of death, and sinkholes swallow homes, roads, and people. All of this takes place while newspapers—with their own zany characters—are fighting for their survival. VAMPIRES, GATORS AND WACKOS: A Newspaperman's Life-Frank Stanfield -
In the early 1980s, William Steel's life took a turn towards the macabre when he quite literally ran into Robert Durst in midtown Manhattan. Steel was attending a school for locksmithing and security systems at the time, and Durst -- the black sheep of a family that controls billions of dollars in New York real estate -- decided he could use a man of those specific talents. Little did Steel realize that his new acquaintance was not only the prime suspect in his first wife's mysterious disappearance but quite possibly the wealthiest serial killer in American history. For the better part of a decade, Steel and Durst maintained what has been called a friendship of mutual usury, as Durst paid Steel for use of his Brooklyn home to engage in drug- and fetish-fueled sex with a variety of prostitutes. As they got to know each other better, Durst boasted to Steel of darker deeds. Were they confessions of rape, torture and cold-blooded murder, or just the twisted fantasies of a maniacal multimillionaire? Steel didn't know for sure until years later. He's now convinced that Durst is, indeed, a murderous monster, and he remains haunted by thoughts that he should have done something to stop the fiend before he claimed more innocent lives. In his gripping memoir, Sex and the Serial Killer, My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst, Steel reveals the depths of the scion's depravity, and he demands justice for Durst's victims and their shattered families. SEX AND THE SERIAL KILLER: My Bizarre Times with Robert Durst-William Steel
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ON AN OCTOBER NIGHT IN 1905, a horrifying scene was found on a wooden vessel off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina. Onboard the Harry A. Berwind, one crewman lay dead, his blood streaming down the deck. The four officers all were gone-murdered, too, it would turn out, their bodies dumped into the sea. Only three sailors remained alive, one tied up, all telling different stories, all blaming each other. The three sailors were Black. The dead officers were white.
So began a legal spectacle that would captivate much of the nation's press and fuel a sensational trial in Wilmington. It was in Wilmington, after all, that shocking racial violence had occurred not long before, and now the city remained in the clutches of white supremacists. Most observers could have predicted a quick verdict and a triple hanging . . . if not an even quicker lynching. Yet the legal drama would defy predictions, lasting seven years, reaching the Supreme Court, pulling in presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft-then even being twisted into a fanciful, big-budget movie. In the end, so many participants-from jurors to lawyers to politicians-acted against type that justice had a fighting chance. SHIP OF BLOOD: Mutiny and Slaughter Aboard the Harry A. Berwind, and the Quest for Justice-Charles Oldham -
A brilliantly researched reinvestigation into the nearly forgotten century-old murder that inspired one of the most seductive mysteries in the history of television and film. In 1908, Hazel Drew was found floating in a pond in Sand Lake, New York, beaten to death. The unsolved murder inspired rumors, speculation, ghost stories, and, almost a century later, the phenomenon of Twin Peaks. Who killed Hazel Drew? Like Laura Palmer, she was a paradox of personalities—a young, beautiful puzzle with secrets. Perhaps the even trickier question is, Who was Hazel Drew? Seeking escape from her poor country roots, Hazel found work as a domestic servant in the notoriously corrupt metropolis of Troy, New York. Fate derailed her plans for reinvention. But the investigation that followed her brutal murder was fraught with red herrings, wild-goose chases, and unreliable witnesses. Did officials really follow the leads? Or did they bury them to protect the guilty? The likely answer is revealed in an absorbing true mystery that’s ingeniously reconstructed and every bit as haunting as the cultural obsession it inspired. MURDER AT TEAL'S POND: Hazel Drew and the Mystery that Inspired Twin Peaks-David Bushman and Mark T. Givens
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Sons of Anarchy meets The Departed in this fast-paced, high-wire act memoir from former ATF agent Ken Croke, the first federal agent in history to go undercover and successfully infiltrate the infamous—and infamously violent—Pagan Motorcycle Club, a white supremacist biker gang. Longtime ATF agent Ken Croke had earned the right to coast to the end of a storied career, having routinely gone undercover to apprehend white supremacists, gun runners, and gang members. But after a chance encounter with an associate of the Pagan Motorcycle Gang created an opening, he transformed himself into “Slam,” a monstrous, axe-handle wielding enforcer whose duty was to protect the leadership “mother club” at all costs. He befriended the club’s most violent and criminally insane members and lived among them for two years, covertly building a case that would eventually take down the top members of the gang in a massive federal prosecution, even as he risked his marriage, his sanity, and his life. With today’s law enforcement largely moving toward the comparative safety of cyber operations, it became one of the last of its kind, a masterclass in old school tactics that marked Croke as a dying breed of undercover agent and became legendary in law enforcement. Now for the first time, Croke tells the story of his terrifying undercover life in the Pagans—the unspeakable violence, extremism, drugs, and disgusting rituals. Written with bestselling crime writer Dave Wedge and utilizing the exclusive cooperation of those who lived the case with him, as well as thousands of pages of court files and hours of surveillance tapes and photos, Croke delivers a frightening, nail-biting account of the secretive and brutal biker underworld. RIDING WITH EVIL: Taking Down the Notorious Pagan Motorcycle Gang-Ken Croke
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The pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit created a psychological profile to catch a serial killer
On June 25, 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from the Montana campground where her family was vacationing. Somebody had slit open the back of their tent and snatched her from under their noses. None of them saw or heard anything. Susie Jaeger had vanished into thin air, plucked by a shadow.
The largest manhunt in Montana’s history ensued, led by the FBI. As days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, Special Agent Pete Dunbar attended a workshop at FBI Headquarters in Quantico, Virgina, led by two agents who had hatched a radical new idea: What if criminals left a psychological trail that would lead us to them? Patrick Mullany, a trained psychologist, and Howard Teten, a veteran criminologist, had created the Behavioral Science Unit to explore this new "voodoo" they called “criminal profiling.”
At Dunbar’s request, Mullany and Teten built the FBI’s first profile of an unknown subject: the UnSub who had snatched Susie Jaeger and, a few months later, a nineteen-year-old waitress. When a suspect was finally arrested, the profile fit him to a T...Shadowman: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling-Ron Franscell -
THE TRUE STORY BEHIND NBC’S MARQUEE MINI-SERIES "THE THING ABOUT PAM" STARRING RENEE ZELLWEGER AS PAM HUPP AND JOSH DUHAMEL AS JOEL SCHWARTZ, PREMIERING FEBRUARY 2022.
The explosive, first-ever insider’s account of the case that’s captivated millions – the murder of Betsy Faria and the wrongful conviction of her husband – told by Joel J. Schwartz, the defense attorney who fought for justice on behalf of Russel Faria, and New York Times bestselling author Charles Bosworth Jr.
On December 27th, 2011, Russell Faria returned to his Troy, Missouri, home after his weekly game night with friends to an unthinkable, grisly scene: His wife, Betsy, lay dead, a knife still lodged in her neck. She’d been stabbed fifty-five times.
First responders concluded that Betsy was dead for hours when Russ discovered her. No blood was found implicating Russ, and surveillance video, receipts, and friends’ testimony all supported his alibi. Yet incredibly, police and the prosecuting attorney ignored the evidence. In their minds, Russ was guilty. But prominent defense attorney Joel J. Schwartz quickly recognized the real killer.
The motive was clear. Days before her murder, the terminally ill Betsy replaced her husband with her friend, Pamela Hupp, as her life insurance beneficiary. Still, despite the prosecution’s flimsy case and Hupp’s transparent lies, Russ was convicted—leaving Hupp free to kill again.
Bone Deep takes readers through the perfect storm of miscalculations and missteps that led to an innocent man’s conviction—and recounts Schwartz’s successful battle to have that conviction overturned. Written with Russ Faria’s cooperation, and filled with chilling new revelations and previously undisclosed evidence, this is the story of what can happen when police, prosecutor, judge, and jury all fail in their duty to protect the innocent—and let a killer get away with murder. BONE DEEP: Untangling the. Betsy Faria Murder Case-Charles Henry Bosworth and Joel Schwartz -
Drawing on media reports, interviews and court records, this book recounts the stories of women bank robbers in the United States, from the time of the Revolutionary War to the present. Ranging from sensational to poignant to comical, the heists of frontier outlaws, gun molls, insurrectionists, housewives, grandmas and young mothers "literally robbing for Pampers" are narrated as part of the social history of women in America. PUT THE MONEY IN MY PURSE: A History of Female Bank Robbers-Judith A. Yates
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November 2, 1945: On her way to a high school football game with friends, a fourteen-year-old girl vanishes after driving away with a man who says he needs a babysitter. The FBI unleashes its top kidnapping expert, an agent who helped bring John Dillinger down. Will that be enough to find the girl and her abductor? Agents chase the suspected kidnapper from California to Illinois and back again. Arrested in Los Angeles, he admits abducting the child. He also tells the FBI he killed the girl and threw her body into the Pacific Ocean. A search for her corpse proves fruitless. Then, when all hope is lost, authorities discover the skeleton of another young woman who's fallen victim to this madman.Ready for another twist? The wife of the man who made that discovery is found dead at the bottom of the cliff. During the accused killer's trial, women around the country fall in love with the handsome monster and literally break down the doors of a courthouse to get close to him. After the child's killer is convicted and sentenced to the gas chamber, a scientist shows up and says he can bring the murderer back from the dead.The Murder of Thora Chamberlain: A Shocking True Crime Story-Rod Kackley
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In this Expanded 20th Anniversary Edition of Murder of a Mafia Daughter, seasoned crime writer Cathy Scott provides in-depth new details of serial killer Robert Durst's arrest, trial, and conviction for the brutal murder of Susan Berman. Besides never-before-seen photos of Susan, also included is Durst’s $40,000 mask he planned to use to elude police while on the lam.
Susan Berman grew up in Las Vegas luxury as the daughter of Davie Berman, casino mogul and notorious Mafia leader. After her father died, she learned about his mob connections. Susan then dedicated her life to learning about Vegas and its underworld chiefs. Her life took a bizarre turn in l982 when Kathie Durst, the wife of her good friend, Robert Durst, mysteriously disappeared. Kathie's husband was a prime suspect but the case was never solved. After the Kathie Durst case reopened, the media leaked that the district attorney was about to question Susan Berman about what she knew regarding a phone call that appeared to be Kathie calling her medical school dean saying she was sick and wouldn't be at school. The call was placed the morning after she disappeared. Soon after the Kathie Durst case was reopened, Susan Berman was found dead, shot in the back of head. No forced entry, no robbery, nothing missing from her home.
This expanded and updated book covers what led to Durst's 2015 capture. Police records placed Durst in California at the time of his good friend Susan Berman's murder. HBO filmmakers discovered an envelope unknown before, written by Durst to Susan. The handwriting and spelling of Beverly Hills were a dead-on match to the cadaver letter police say the killer mailed to police informing them of Susan’s death before her body was discovered. This new release covers Durst’s lengthy murder trial in the slaying of his best friend. MURDER OF A MAFIA DAUGHTER: Expanded & Updated 20th Anniversary Edition-Robert Durst & Susan Berman-The Shocking Inside Story-Cathy Scott - Show more
