The Silver Linings Handbook

Brett Talley and I continue our exploration of the monsters that societies breathe into existence—creatures shaped by cautionary tales, cultural trauma, and collective imagination. From Korean folklore and Greek myths of divine punishment through transformation into what the English called werewolves, to modern specters like Slenderman, we trace how these beings reflect universal truths across tim...

There are a lot of monsters in the world — and a lot of them we breathe into existence. Brett Talley, a horror writer and co-host of The Prosecutors podcast, joins me to discuss the monsters we create. We discuss how, in many ways, we create these monsters and the folklore around them because we need them. From the Wendigo and Slenderman to zombies and werewolves, we explore how monsters — some re...

Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and the host of The Consult podcast, and I set out to discuss the University of Idaho murders and the killer of four college students, Bryan Kohberger. But something strange happened when we began discussing the survivors who were in the house. It was during a week when a beloved podcaster, friend, and researcher for this podcast died. In this emotionally...

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, someone entered a house just off the University of Idaho campus in a brazen home invasion that left four University of Idaho students — Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves — dead. Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of The Consult podcast, joins me to continue on conversation about what we can learn from the beh...

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, some entered a house just off the University of Idaho campus and stabbed four students to death. Months later, a suspect was identified. This year, he pled guilty to the charges without giving any hint why he committed the crimes or what made the victims desirable targets. Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of The Consult podcast, joins m...

Criminal defense attorney Matthew Tympanick joins me to examine the boundaries of legal strategy in three high-profile cases — Karen Read, Bryan Kohberger and Richard Allen — and low-profile ones as well. Tympanick discusses how jury selection shaped the outcome of the Read trial, the pressures defense attorneys face in the public eye, and the ethical challenges of balancing media presence with le...

In this episode, I sit down with veteran journalist and author Mark Pinsky, whose career has taken him from high-profile crime reporting to covering racial justice and religion. Mark shares how his political awakening at Duke University in the 1960s and the civil rights movement shaped his worldview, how his interest in social justice led him to cover crime and religion, and how he’s navigated the...

In this bonus from the Santana True Crime podcast, I discuss the disappearance of Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, a 20-year-old Indigenous woman who went missing from the Blackfeet Reservation. We talk about my recent trip to Montana, meeting one of the key suspects in the case, theories and what being on the ground told me about the case and the cross-jurisdictional barriers that appear to be getting...

In the second half of our conversation, we move from systemic critique to case-specific urgency. Ed Dentzel and I examine the disappearances of Olivia Lone Bear, Jermaine Charlo, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, Leo Wagner, Jeremy Jourdain, and Nevaeh Kingbird —not as isolated tragedies, but as part of a devastating pattern of institutional neglect. We unpack jurisdictional breakdowns, media silence, an...

What does it mean to disappear when so few notice? What does it mean to disappear from the very place meant to protect your presence? In the first half of a two-part conversation, I speak with Ed Dentzel — an expert on missing persons cases and the host of The Unfound podcast — about the unsettling realities surrounding disappearances of Native people in the United States. We explore the unique th...

In February 2017, two friends—13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German—set out across a bridge in Delphi, Indiana. They never came home. What followed was one of the most haunting and widely followed true crime cases in America. In this episode, I speak with Brett Talley, co-host of The Prosecutors Podcast, about the long journey from tragedy to trial in the Delphi murders. We explor...

When 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German disappeared from an abandoned railroad bridge on February 13, 2017, the community rushed to search for them. Once they were found murdered, law enforcement began the arduous process of searching for their killer. But, at the end of the day, it was clear from the investigation by Kevin Greenlee and Áine Cain, the co-authors of the forthcom...

On an unseasonably warm February day in 2017 in Delphi, Indiana, two friends, 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German, decided on a whim to head out to the trails near their homes. An abandoned railroad bridge that once carried trains gave way over time to the feet of residents. Many would venture out onto the bridge only to find themselves crawling back on their hands and feet, but...

Amanda Erickson grew up in the Boston suburbs, always knowing there was something a little different about her - the dark pigmentation in her skin. Years later, she would reconnect with her father, who lived on the San Carlos Apache reservation in Arizona. This would begin a journey that would lead her to connect with her Indigenous heritage and transform her long career in film. After 16 years wo...

Amy Carlson claimed to be the reincarnation of Robin Williams, Joan of Arc, Marilyn Monroe, Jesus Christ and the Hawaiian goddess Pele—along with being Elvis Presley’s mother and Donald Trump’s daughter in other lifetimes. In 2023, the HBO documentary Love Has Won: The Mother God Cult traced Carlson’s journey from a McDonald’s manager in Dallas to cult leader, promoting beliefs that the COVID pand...

When Morgan Dana Harrington went missing and was then found dead in a Virginia field, her parents' world was shattered. When her parents found out about the long string of crimes that went unpunished by her killer, Jesse Matthew Jr., they turned their outrage into a fight to "save the next girl." Morgan was a vibrant 20-year-old college student attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Vir...

Morgan Dana Harrington was a vibrant 20-year-old college student attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Virginia, when she vanished in 2009—an event that captured national attention and ignited public grief. Her killer wasn’t identified until the 2014 abduction and murder of another University of Virginia student, 18-year-old Hannah Graham, just miles away. The two cases forced society...

Robert Peters spent most of his life as a prosecutor and a Christian. Those two things came together when he took his position as the director of institutional response for GRACE, an organization that investigates sexual abuse in Protestant churches. Founded in 2003 after a reporter called the founder about a case of sexual abuse mishandled by a pastor, GRACE, which stands for Godly Response to Ab...

Paul Volkman was a University of Chicago-trained doctor who seemed destined for greatness. Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison for the prescriptions he wrote that devastated southern Ohio and the surrounding areas. In the tradition of true crime, Philip Eil tells Volkman's story and the sordid history that led to the American opioid epidemic. In the 1980s and 1990s, following decades of cr...

When Haley Omeasoo was at the University of Montana, she remembers hearing the news that her friend, classmate and relative, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner went missing. Years later, Haley, a doctoral student in forensic anthropology, has founded a growing nonprofit organization focused on bringing crime scene investigation services to reservations. After meeting while searching for Ashley, Haley and I...

From Juárez to the Indigenous reservations of Montana, Irish artist Brian Macguire has used his paintings to build his awareness and as his form of protest against the marginalization of certain people. Macguire, who grew up during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, knows the suffering of the disappeared all too well. To see Brian's work: https://www.kerlingallery.com/artists/brian-maguire To...

As the Emilee Weaver case faded from the headlines, Clara S. Lewis uncovered truths every woman—and every partner—should know. Muskingum University student Emile Weaver gave birth in the bathroom at her sorority house at the Ohio school. She was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to life without parole after her baby was found dead. Did we get it wrong? Clara S. Lewis, a Dartmouth Colleg...

Lane Igoodin, a writer, activist and professor, joins me to discuss the challenges of adopting his children from foster care, the challenges of navigating intersectionality in this world, the balancing act between the rights of parents and what's best for children and love under pressure as you fight to keep your family together. Contact me at silverliningshandbookpod@gmail.com Check out the Silve...

Kristin Louise Duncombe grew up traveling the world as the daughter of a U.S. State Department foreign service officer. But Kristin’s childhood and those of at least six other girls were shattered when they crossed paths with an American diplomat in Africa who sexually abused them. After one of the girls came forward with her story, the State Department swiftly sent him back to Washington, but off...

After Dawn Michelle Holt went missing in Waldorf, Maryland in 1996, it took two decades before clues began to emerge about what might have happened to her on the night where she disappeared on the way to seeing her son and daughter. In Part 2, Dawn's daughter, Samm, and her sister, Sherri Shelton, join me again, along with Raul Montero, an advocate who has helped the family collaborate with law en...