Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast

Jonathan Toebbe was a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer who conspired with his wife, Diana, to sell highly restricted military secrets regarding Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign government.

Isabelle Valdez is a student from Altamonte Springs, Florida, who was arrested in January 2026 for plotting to murder a classmate at Lake Brantley along with her accomplis Lois Lippert.

In 2004, Britney Spears impulsively married her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, in Las Vegas while heavily intoxicated. Though they were not in love, the pair tied the knot at 3:30 a.m. at A Little White Chapel. The spontaneous union was annulled just 55 hours later. Years later, Alexander re-entered the spotlight by attempting to crash her 2022 wedding to Sam Asghari.

Dana Ewell masterminded the 1992 ambush murders of his parents, Dale and Glee, and his sister, Tiffany, inside their Fresno, California home to inherit an estimated $8 million family fortune. Driven by greed, the 21-year-old college student hired his roommate, Joel Radovcich, to carry out the executions on Easter Sunday.

Dolly Oesterreich orchestrated one of the most bizarre secrets in true-crime history by hiding her secret lover Otto Sanhuber in her attic for over a decade and helping cover up her husband Fred's murder.

1976, three kidnappers hijacked a school bus in Chowchilla, California. They buried the hostages in a ventilated moving van inside a Livermore rock quarry for a 5 million dollar ransom. After 16 hours, the group successfully dug their way out, leading to the captors' swift capture and conviction.

David Carl Kinney fatally shot his best friend and secret romantic partner, Brad McGarry, twice inside McGarry’s West Bellaire, Ohio home. To conceal their long-term homosexual affair.

1996, during a midnight dinner break on the Halifax, Nova Scotia set, an unknown culprit spiked the cast and crew's clam chowder with some substance. Director James Cameron was among the roughly 80 people hospitalized.

19-year-old Texas Tech University student Hollis Daniels III was taken into custody by campus police following a routine student welfare check. While being processed and left temporarily un-handcuffed at the campus police headquarters, Daniels drew a stolen handgun he had hidden in his pants and fatally shot Texas Tech Police Officer Floyd East Jr.

In 2007, prominent Utah doctor and former LDS bishop Dr. Martin MacNeill pressured his wife of nearly 30 years, Michele MacNeill, into getting a facelift. Just days after the procedure, he intentionally overmedicated her with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs and left her to drown in their bathtub so that he could freely pursue a relationship with his mistress, Gypsy Willis.

Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress with minor roles in television shows like The Walking Dead, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in 2014 for mailing letters laced with poison to Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg.

Swept overboard in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967, U.S. Navy sailor Doug Hegdahl was captured and sent to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison. Feigning illiteracy and ignorance, he earned the nickname "The Incredibly Stupid One", granting him the freedom to sabotage enemy trucks and memorize the names and details of 256 POWs using the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm".

Matthew Hughes repeatedly stalked and broke into the Michigan home of rapper Eminem. In a terrifying 2020 encounter, Hughes smashed a kitchen window and woke a sleeping Eminem.

Skylar Preciosa Deleon is an American convicted murderer and former child actor who was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder-for-profit killings of Thomas and Jackie Hawks.

Barry Keenan is a former businessman best known for masterminding the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. facing severe financial ruin and drug dependency, Keenan formulated a bizarre plan to solve his money problems by abducting the 19-year-old singer from a Lake Tahoe hotel room.

Frank Tassone a public school superintendent in Long Island, New York. Over the course of 12 years, Tassone meticulously elevated his school district to one of the top-ranked in the United States while leading a secret double life funded by the community's taxpayers. Alongside assistant superintendent Pamela Gluckin, Tassone stole over $11 million in school funds to finance luxurious vacations...

Aubrey Lee Price is a former Georgia banker and pastor who orchestrated a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 100 investors and led to the 2012 collapse of the Montgomery Bank & Trust. To escape prosecution after losing or embezzling the bank's capital, Price faked his own death.

Jennifer Pan orchestrated a 2010 murder-for-hire plot against her strict parents in Markham, Ontario, staging a home invasion that resulted in her mother's death and her father's severe injury. Motivated by a desire for freedom and her forbidden boyfriend.

Randy Roth was a Washington state mechanic who married and murdered women to collect lucrative life insurance payouts. He famously caused the death of his fourth wife in a staged 1991 Lake Sammamish drowning. An investigation into this incident and the 1981 fatal cliff fall of his second wife ultimately exposed his deadly scam

Keanu Reeves was forced to star in the 2000 thriller The Watcher when a trusted friend and director Joe Charbanic forged his signature on a contract. Unwilling to endure a lengthy, expensive legal battle, Reeves fulfilled the role but negotiated an agreement to minimize his marketing involvement and keep the forgery quiet for a year

Roy Sullivan, a United States park ranger in Virginia, earned a unique spot in history by surviving seven verified lightning strikes between 1942 and 1977. Recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most lightning-struck person to survive, Sullivan endured multiple injuries from these encounters

Kumiko Yasufuku was arrested and indicted in Japan for the 1999 cold-case murder of Namiko Takaba. Driven by a long-held, unrequited obsession with the victim's husband, Satoru, Yasufuku.

Stephen Allwine was a Minnesota IT specialist and church elder convicted of first-degree premeditated murder for the November 2016 slaying of his wife, Amy Allwine. Motivated by a desire to exit his marriage without ruining his religious standing, Allwine initially used the dark web to hire a hitman.

Alexander Pichushkin is a notorious Russian serial killer known as "The Chessboard Killer" and the "Bittsa Park Maniac," who is serving life imprisonment for murdering at least 48 people.

Tommy Thompson is an American marine engineer who made history in 1988 by locating the SS Central America, a California Gold Rush-era steamship that sank in 1857 with tons of federal gold. While initially celebrated for recovering millions in treasure from the "Ship of Gold" using deep-sea robotic technology, his triumph quickly soured when the 161 private investors who funded his expedi...