True Crime Campfire

Tristan Redman is a journalist who doesn’t believe in ghosts. But weird things happened in his teenage bedroom – weirder than normal. When, years later, he discovers subsequent occupants of his family home say they have been visited by the ghost of a faceless woman, he’s curious. It just so happens that the house Tristan grew up in is right next door to the house where his wife’s great grandmother...

In the 1820s, the city of Edinburgh was shaken to its core by a series of callous murders. Behind the killings was a story of death, greed, and willful blindness that provided the coldest possible answer to the question, “What is a human life worth?” Join us for the story of Scotland's most infamous serial killers. Sources:Alanna Knight, Burke & Hare: Scotland’s Serial KillersR. Michael Gordon, Th...

Follow MrBallen’s Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge the first 8 episodes, early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. The human body is a miracle. But when it’s not working, it can be the stuff of nightmares. On this new series from master storyteller MrBallen, we’re sharing medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgicall...

In July of 1990, the headless, handless body of a young woman named Beverly McGowan was found in a canal near St. Lucie, Florida. As they began their investigation, detectives had no way of knowing that they were embarking on one of the strangest cases of their careers—the twisting, turning story of a consummate con woman, killer, and master of disguise…a criminal so skilled at deception that she...

It’s October, folks. The season of mystery. So this week, to kick off our favorite month of the year, we’ve picked two of the most iconic unsolved cases in American history: both cases where the basic fabric of everyday life was threatened. Where the things we take for granted as safe—over the counter medicine and air travel—suddenly couldn’t be trusted. Both of these cases rocked the country to i...

We’ve had a pretty heavy summer on TCC, haven’t we? Nazis and Norwegian black metal murders, and those last two cases were gnarly. So we thought maybe this week, you’d appreciate something a little lighter—something just for fun. So we decided to talk about hoaxes. Sometimes hoaxes are hilarious, like the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pranked five of his friends by sending them all an anonymous lett...

When we left you at the end of Part 1, former Mormon golden boy Taylor Helzer had decided on two disciples who would aid him in his weird scheme to bring about a planet-wide spiritual awakening through a network of self-help groups fueled by sex and drugs, a plan he called Transform America. These disciples were his quiet younger brother Justin, and Dawn Godman, a vulnerable young woman convinced...

For fifteen years you could call a private number in Manhattan and anonymously apologize for anything. It was called The Apology Line. This is the story of the phone line and the man at the other end who became consumed by his own creation. He was known as “Mr. Apology.” As thousands of callers flooded the line, confessing to everything from shoplifting to adultery, drug dealing, to murder, Mr. Ap...

Being part of a society means that for the most part you follow its rules, often without thinking about it at all. And those rules, those strictures of what is right and wrong, good or bad, are frequently dumb and sometimes awful—human societies are not utopias, after all, they’re messy and loud and full of argument. But some shared consensus on the boundaries of behavior is necessary if people ar...

When we left you at the end of part 1, married couple BJ and Erika Sifrit had decided to take a break from their demanding schedule of selling scrapbook supplies and burgling local businesses and drive down to Ocean City, Maryland for a little vacation…join us now for part 2 of this chilling true story. Sources:Cruel Death by M. William PhelpsA&E's "American Justice," episode "Thrill Kill Couple"I...

In May of 2002, a couple on vacation went missing from the beach town of Ocean City Maryland…and what began as a missing persons investigation soon morphed into one of the most bizarre, most disturbing double murder cases in the area’s history. The killers’ names weren’t a mystery for long. They were a young married couple with their whole lives ahead of them. The puzzle was their motivation to br...

In Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge’s nephew says of his uncle, “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it.” Those of us who aren’t staggeringly wealthy might have happy daydreams about how much fun we’d have if we won the lottery, but a lot of the people who devote their lives to making as much cash as possible seem incapa...

When Mike Williams vanishes on a hunting trip, the authorities suspect he was eaten by alligators but the true predators who took Mike may lurk much closer to home. The mystery of Mike’s disappearance might have faded from memory, if it wasn’t for one woman’s tireless crusade. From Wondery, comes a new season of Over My Dead Body; a story about an obsessive love affair, a scandalous secret and a m...

On the song “Freezing Moon,” lead singer of Mayhem howls,“Diabolic shapes float by/Out from the dark/I remember it was here I died”. It’s an oddly prophetic line, considering two members of the band would be dead by 1994, the year the album was finally released. Mayhem was central to the Norwegian black metal scene and most of the members were a part of the Black Circle. The Black Circle was a loo...

Robert Johnson was a Blues singer in the 1930s who was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his talent. He died, inexplicably, at the age of 27, right at the peak of his fame. No one has been able to confirm the cause of his death, so the rumor of his Luciferian trade lives on. Musicians are often accused of worshiping the devil by conspiracy theorists and moral purists alike. W...

Punk rock legend Patti Smith once sang, “You gotta lose control before you take control.” It’s a romantic idea—especially because so many of us spend our lives chasing an illusion of control, when really, life’s kind of a crapshoot. But you gotta find a happy medium somewhere. If you’re too loosey goosey, your life is gonna be a mess. And if you’re wound too tight, well—then the first thing that t...

In The Godfather, Mario Puzo wrote “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.” Family loyalty can be like armor in our most troubled times—when we’re at our weakest, our loved ones can lend us their strength. But loyalty can be a double-edged sword sometimes, making us choose family over reason—over sanity—over right. Join us for a Shakespearean tra...

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." It speaks to an important struggle--how to hold onto your humanity when you're caught up in terrible violence. And it's a struggle that only gets more complicated when both friend and foe are not behind or in front of you, but all around, and it gets hard to tell...

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 sente...

You know that old saying—I think it was Ben Franklin again—that guests, like fish, begin to stank after three days? I feel like that’s being pretty generous, actually, I’ve thought about buying one of those party banners that says PLEASE LEAVE BY 9 PM. And that’s if the guests are INVITED. What happens when they’re not? Imagine having your home taken over by people who just decide they live there...

David Bowie once described aging as “an extraordinary process by which you become the person you have always been.” We want to think of this as a nice sentiment, right? Like, aww, I’m gonna come into my full flower as the best possible version of myself. But what if the “person you’ve always been” is a nightmare? What if the monster’s just been biding its time? Join us for two stories of killer ol...

Benjamin Franklin once warned us that whatever is begun in anger will end in shame. Probably true for most of us, but the thing is, Benji—some people have no shame. You cross them, it’s gonna be their mission to make you regret it, whatever the consequences. Join us for two bizarre stories of ladies who decided they were NOT gonna let it go. They were gonna set the world on fire. Case 1: Frenemies...

The Bible says, “Be sure: Your sin will find you out.” It’s certainly not a universal truth, as the long, long list of unsolved crimes out there proves. But even for those criminals who get away with it, surely there’s a little voice in their head wondering, is today the day they catch me? Is it tomorrow? And sometimes, that little voice is right. Join us for a story of lust, betrayal, and toxic f...

There’s a proverb that says, “Love thy neighbor, but don’t pull down your hedge.” Basically, be kind to the people around you, but don’t get too involved in their lives because you never know who they really are. I think we all have crazy neighbor stories and we’re probably someone else’s crazy neighbor. I think maybe that proverb wasn’t talking about torrid love affairs and murder plots conducted...

In 1992, the area around Toronto, Canada was terrorized by a strange series of crimes. A burglar nicknamed the House Hermit was breaking into empty summer cottages whose owners were away, stealing what he could and leaving bizarre, creepy calling cards behind. Then, a woman went missing from Toronto—her car was found soon after, run into a ditch and covered in blood. Next, two bodies, bound, beate...