Campus Crime Chronicles

This episode is rated a 4 (on my Serious Crime Scale). The COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of college students at very rapid rates. Not only were they navigating the physical health effects of COVID and how it impacted themselves and their loved ones, but they were also having to abruptly adjust to a completely digital world. Just imagine being forced to take courses like statistics a...

This episode is rated a 5. In the spring of 2008, Brittany Zimmermann, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, arrived home to her off-campus apartment after class. On her way back home, she tried calling her mother at work, since the two talked every single day, sometimes even multiple times a day. But her mother was away from her desk at that specific time, and the phone wasn’t equipped...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). In September of 2021, Valencia College student Miya Marcano was scheduled to take a flight from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale to meet up with family. They were actually planning to go on to Jamaica for a family vacation. But when she failed to board the plane and missed her flight, Miya’s family became incredibly worried and reported her missing....

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). Y'all… Fair warning: Some of this may be particularly hard to hear because it involves the murder of an entire family – a husband and a wife and their teenaged daughter. In 2014, three members of a prominent newspaper publishing family in Duncan, Oklahoma, were shot to death inside their home. The one and only suspect – the family’s 19-yea...

This episode is rated a 4.5 because it is a story of survival. In the summer of 1974, Texas Christian University student Janelle Kirby was attacked in her own apartment by a man she did not know. He shot her five times, but Janelle lived to tell her story. However, it took 12 years before her attacker was found, and for 12 years, two separate lives were ruined in a way that most of us couldn’t eve...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). When a sophomore from the University of Nebraska, Jessica O’Grady, failed to show up for work and stopped responding to all texts and phone calls, her family reported her missing. When investigators dug into her case and focused on one prime suspect – Jessica’s so-called boyfriend – they quickly shifted the case to a homicide, despite never re...

This episode is rated a 1.5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). Let’s all put ourselves back in college for a minute. Think back to those early years of going away from home for the first time, living on campus, making new friends... You know, truly embracing “college life.” Well, what would you do if one of the friends you made inn the dorm and hung out with every day turned out to be a complete imposte...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). I’m sure many of you are at least familiar with the name Chandra Levy. In 2001, before Sept. 11, 24-year-old Chandra was a graduate student from the University of Southern California, finishing up an internship in Washington, D.C., when she went missing in early May of that year. Her case uncovered a secret affair with a well-known California...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale of 1-5). In the summer of 2004, 23-year-old college student Jesse Valencia was found dead in a neighborhood in Columbia, Missouri, a city that’s home to the University of Missouri (better known as Mizzou). Jesse’s throat had been slashed by a jagged-edged, serrated knife. So, from the moment investigators arrived, they knew without a doubt that...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). During Thanksgiving break in the fall of 1969, 22-year-old Betsy Aardsma returned early to the campus of Penn State University to finish an important English project. Shortly after Betsy and her roommate walked to the library on campus, the sound of falling books and bookshelves startled those in the building. As people rushed to the middle of...

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This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale ). On a freezing cold winter day in December of 1996, the body of a 21-year-old University of Oklahoma dance student was found at a nearby lake in the Oklahoma City metro. The student, Juli Busken, had been kidnapped and bound before she was raped and then ultimately shot in the head execution style. For nearly 8 years, her killer remained at la...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). In March of 2003, 20-year-old community college student Megan McDonald was severely beaten and murdered, and then her lifeless body was dumped in a remote area. Like a real-life “Criminal Minds” story, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, or the BAU (a branch of the FBI), put together a profile of her killer, whom police have never publicly identifie...

I'm taking a break this week, but I want to introduce my listeners to a podcast that I personally listen to on a weekly basis! It's one of my all-time favorite podcasts, Military Murder, hosted by Mama Margot. This particular episode covers the murder of a nursing student at Minot State University, Angila Wilder, who was discovered dead in her Minot, North Dakota, home while her son was sl...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). In 2016, a man by the name of Charles Dean Bryant stalked and harassed one college student, before his actions escalated and he ended up taking the life of a different student. This is the story of how Bryant’s infatuation with his ex-girlfriend, Caitlin Mathis, turned into the brutal attack and murder of an innocent stranger, Jackie Vandagrif...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). In September of 2015, UCLA senior Andrea DelVesco lay in her bed, peacefully sleeping, when an unexpected visitor broke into her off-campus apartment in the wee hours of the morning, for no apparent reason or motive other than to assault and murder her. Even though an upstairs neighbor heard the commotion, saw a suspicious man near the apartme...

This episode is rated a 4 (on my Serious Crime Scale). On Oct. 22, 2017, Darian failed to show up for her shift as a server at Chili’s restaurant, and her friends could not get in touch with her. For several days, her friends tried contacting Darian, but to no avail. So, they called Darian’s mom on Oct. 25 to fill her in. The next day, Darian’s parents immediately jumped in the car and drove from...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). On December 4, 1998, 21-year-old Yale student Suzanne Jovin was stabbed 17 times and left for dead in an upscale neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. Police zeroed in on one and only one suspect: Suzanne’s thesis adviser and a lecturer at Yale University, Dr. James Van de Velde. But Dr. Van de Velde was never arrested. At least two prominen...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). On December 4, 1998, 21-year-old Yale student Suzanne Jovin was stabbed 17 times and left for dead in an upscale neighborhood in New Haven, Connecticut. Police zeroed in on one and only one suspect: Suzanne’s thesis adviser and a lecturer at Yale University, Dr. James Van de Velde. But Dr. Van de Velde was never arrested. At least two prominen...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). As a disclaimer, I must warn listeners that this is an extremely tough case to hear because it involves the brutal murder of a minor. In April of 1998, the body of a 13-year-old girl, Tiffany Sabourin, was found on the campus of Lindenwood University, a private institution in St. Charles, Missouri. After an extensive search involving bloodhoun...

On Nov. 13, 2022, four students from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home shared by five female students. The victims were 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. It's been over a month, and police have yet to publicly identify a suspect(s), and they have not located the probable mur...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). In 1993, Sophie Sergie, a young woman visiting the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, was found raped and murdered in an on-campus dorm. After 29 years of investigators working the case but never really having any particular suspect to zone in on, justice has ultimately prevailed. This year, in 2022, investigators were finally able to hold Sophie...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). I'm dropping into your feed today to give you a special bonus episode of Campus Crime Chronicles. On Nov. 13, four students from the University of Idaho were found stabbed to death in an off-campus residence shared by five female students. Police and investigators have yet to identify a suspect(s), and the murder weapon, described as a lar...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). After years of considering her college roommate as one of her best friends, 21-year-old Alexis Crawford had no idea that, deep down, her so-called friend was not really ever her friend at all, but rather, her ultimate foe. This is the heartbreaking story of Alexis Crawford, a young woman with a promising future attending Clark Atlanta Universi...

This episode is rated a 5 (on my Serious Crime Scale). When Ally Kostial, a 21-year-old junior attending Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi, texted her on-again-off-again romantic interest Brandon Theesfeld and told him she might be pregnant, he did not take the news well, to say the least. Ultimately, Theesfeld would prove to be the coward that he is and take Ally’s life, but not before months of ic...