Just The Tip-Sters: True Crime Podcast

In the second episode of this month's focus on unsolved missing person cases, Melissa is joined on the phone from Washington DC by special guest TAD DIBIASE, a former federal prosecutor and author of the book "No Body Homicide Cases: A Practical Guide to Investigating, Prosecuting and Winning Cases When the Victim is Missing."  Dibiase has led a fascinating career, most recently focusing on how pr...

Melissa looks at the heartbreaking, frustrating disappearance of Shannon Baldwin Hokanson, a beautiful young mother of three who disappeared in Enid Oklahoma in 2012.  One of literally tens of thousands of unsolved missing persons cases each year in the United States, Shannon's case represents one of the most haunting and nightmarish scenarios any family member or loved one can ever face - the sud...

In her third and final installment on Los Angeles' most prolific serial killer, Lonnie Franklin, Jr. - aka The Grim Sleeper, Melissa examines the details of the botched search for the killer over the decades, the Los Angeles Police Department's eventual recognition of the importance of catching him - and Franklin's arrest and conviction.  Most compelling is Melissa's retelling of the victim impact...

It's the second installment of Melissa's recounting of the awful life and times of Lonnie Franklin, Jr. - the infamous "Grim Sleeper" killer who terrorized South Central Los Angeles for three decades before finally being brought to justice.  During those years Franklin, raped, tortured and murdered at least nine young women and killed one lone male victim - for reasons that are still only speculat...

Lonnie Franklin, Jr. was everybody's friend.  Gregarious.  Friendly to a fault/.  Had good jobs, first at the City Sanitation Department and then as a mechanic for the LAPD.  Lovely house on a corner lot.  Lovely and devoted wife.  Two kids.  Kinda guy that would give you the shirt off his back - or perform sometimes complex repairs to your car for just 20 bucks.  The epitome of a great neighbor. ...

Melissa is joined via telephone by one of the most fascinating crime-fighting duos ever to bring really bad guys to justice!  Except this bad "guy" was actually a female, but just as - or even more - evil than your average serial killer. Kelly Cochran was more than just a "black widow" - she is suspected of knocking off at least 10 men, including her last husband, Jason - whom she had enlisted in...

What ties together the still-unsolved 1981 Halloween murders of photographer Ronald Sisman and Smith College coed Elizabeth Platzman in a Greenwich Village apartment...and the murder of young, beautiful Arlis Perry in the Stanford University chapel some seven years prior to, and 3,000 miles away from, the Sisman/Platzman crime?  Well - it ain't anything...or anyONE...you'd suspect.  Join Melissa o...

In certainly what appears to be a series of gross miscarriages of justice, in the late 1970s Texas millionaire Cullen Davis was (a) acquitted of one murder, (b) not charged in a second murder and the attempted murder of his ex-wife and two others, then (c) got a hung jury in a SECOND trial where he was charged with soliciting the murder of two other people (and acquitted in the re-trial).  ALL of...

Melissa unravels another cold case brought to us by a Tip-Ster - this one frustrating to the point of maddening.  In July 1999 in Fresno, California, teacher/wife/mother, 54 year-old Sandra Kerby went to Target to pick up a few things - and was never seen or heard from again.  In the intervening years, lots of evidence points to one suspect - but not enough of it to issue an arrest warrant.  And t...

On this special edition of JUST THE TIP-STERS, Melissa travels south into deep Orange County California, to the campus of the University of California Irvine School of Law, where she spends a fascinating just-under-an-hour with Super Ninja Justice Lawyer Annee Della Donna, a private practice attorney in Laguna Beach who started and leads Innocence Rights Orange County.  Together with a hearty band...

Friendly, regular family guy Altemio Sanchez - affectionately known around his neighborhood in suburban Buffalo, NY as "Uncle Al" - couldn't have been more of your basic solid citizen.  A wife, kids, a good job at a local factory for more than two decades - all the markings of the Friend Next Door.  Until he wasn't.  Until he used his mornings off to attack, rape and murder unsuspecting women thro...

Hey!  Don't be distracted by that...er...more Podcasty sounding introduction...it was just a little something we tried...for about 30 seconds...and then realized we just ain't traditional Podcasty People!   Plus this is no time to mess around, since it's time for another TIP-STERS TWO CENTS, featuring listener emails, comments and general chit-chat.  PLUS Melissa and Producer Mark mix it up on a w...

In this week's podcast, Melissa rips a story directly from the headlines in a shocking, still-developing story out of Oregon, where Chef Daniel Brophy - a professor and chef at a prestigious school for the culinary arts - was found on the floor dying from a gunshot wound in one of the institute's kitchens in June 2018.  Just three months later, Brophy's wife, Nancy - a writer of romance/mystery no...

Who could have guessed that the trail to catching the infamous Golden State Killer led straight through the brilliant mind of a retired attorney, medical doctor and Ph. D. who took on genealogy as a hobby!  But that's exactly what happened when Det. Paul Holes recruited then 69 year-old Barbara Rae-Venter after reading about her phenomenal work two years earlier in San Bernardino.  In this episode...

Kicking September off with a Big Bunch of a Bang, Melissa covers some fascinating new ground in the ongoing prosecution of Joseph D'Angelo, the accused Golden State Killer.  Including a discussion of the brilliant legal move made by the Contra Costa County District Attorney to turn what could have been a legal dead end into a possible new prosecutorial avenue to get justice for more victims...a ba...

Here's a short but savory MURDERTIZER for your mid-week snack!  This time featuring a yellow Mini Cooper, a professor of anesthesiology and a big, bouncy yoga ball...oh, and of course, MURDER.  When Professor Khaw Kim-sun's wife and daughter were found dead in their family car on a Hong Kong street, there appeared to be no signs of trauma or any other reason for their mysterious passing.  What the...

...so then...there was that time when Melissa and Producer Mark were sitting down to dinner...and then...the phone rang...and then... - And what a night it was, when Producer Mark's job called him down to the scene of a murder in a building owned by the company he works for.  And guess who tagged along?  If you guessed Melissa, you get a gold "Just The Tip-Ster" star!  From that first harrowing ni...

So what is a girl to do when she's kinda sorta, you know, DONE with her husband and baby and wants to spend more time with her daddy-figure lover?  Well - according to some (not us! don't look at us!), you do what Cynthia Knox (allegedly) did - pay to have the ball 'n' chain slaughtered and drown the kid yourself.  Oh.  And then when the in-laws take exception to your plan and come after you, you...

When Shlomo (Sol) Salomen, his wife and two children suddenly disappeared from their suburban Northridge California home in October of 1982, nothing seemed to make sense.  But as the serene picture of a happy family life was peeled away, a seamy and steamy truth started to emerge - about Sol's family life, his lifestyle and, most importantly, his business and his business associates.  When one of...

A zesty MURDERTIZER wherein Melissa discusses the recent Oxygen Network documentary "Golden State Killer: Main Suspect," which features many new insights and interviews with friends and colleagues of accused GSK Joseph James D'Angelo.  PLUS Melissa reveals breaking news regarding two new cases from 1974 and 1975 that send a strong hint that the Golden State Killer's murderous ways started long bef...

Who woulda thunk it?  Two very different guys - ten years apart - used the sub-sub story line of an episode of a TV crime procedural from 2003 and (almost) successfully make it work in real life!  Or...er..death...  On this episode of JUST THE TIP-STERS Melissa takes a look into the deaths of two men - one from just weeks ago in 2018 in Florida and another from a decade ago in New Mexico, both of...

Melissa wraps up her examination of the West Mesa Murders in Albuquerque with a closer look at the multiplicity of possible persons of interest in the case - and not just the most obvious ones.  Along the way, Melissa introduces us to the story of creepy genius murderer Todd Kohlhepp -  who, while not the most likely culprit in the New Mexico slayings, demonstrates the potential of how any number...

First things first - an update on a couple of new newzbitz on the Golden State Killer prosecution and things we're learning about people and events on the periphery of the investigation (boffo stuff!).  And then Melissa continues her look into the still-unsolved West Mesa Murders in Albuquerque with profiles of each of the known victims in the case and their stories.  With the case still unsolved,...

In this short but totally sweet MURDERTIZER, Melissa reads some comments and suggestions from listeners and hands out some big thanks to other fans of the podcast.  We love our listeners and we love hearing from them even more! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Melissa takes a first look at the West Mesa Murders in Albuquerque - murders that happened over a long stretch of time but were not discovered until a mass grave was discovered on the mesa outside of town in 2009.  An incredibly frustrating case - especially for the families of the "Lost Girls" who went missing in the years before the discovery of the bones on the mesa - the majority of whom are s...