Crime Bistro

Most horror movies begin with a black screen reading "Based on a True Story," and while many of them are, it isn't often that the story behind the plot is even more horrifying than the film itself. This, however, is one of those cases. The movie, "The Strangers," is a nightmare-inducing project that follows a young couple as they fight for their lives in a remote home that is being stalked by mask...

High school relationships can be a complete whirlwind - they are new, exciting, and often uncomplicated by the stresses of adult life. In a devastating number of cases, however, these relationships can turn out to be toxic, dangerous, violent, and even deadly. Such was the case for Emma Walker, a beautiful 16 year old from Knoxville, Tennessee with big dreams and a bright future. Emma was found sh...

This episode covers the gripping details of the case of Kendrick Johnson, which has been a fight to discover the truth since 2013. On January 10th of that year, high school student Kendrick Johnson didn't return from school, immediately scaring his family into a search that would end the next morning when his body was discovered, horrifyingly, rolled up in a wrestling mat in the gym at Lowndes Hig...

So far on this podcast, we have covered a variety of missing persons cases, however, for any true crime enthusiast, it can be nearly impossible to even scratch the surface. The Namus.gov website estimates that about 600,000 people disappear each year, and while obviously not all of these cases involve a crime or any sort of foul play, the number is entirely overwhelming. In this vastly long list o...

Referred to as Australia's greatest mystery, the unknown, nameless Somerton man washed up on the shore of Adelaide in December of 1948, and has to this day never been identified. This death baffles law enforcement to this day, and the case is so opaque that not only do we not know the identity of the Somerton man, we don't know what killed him, and it can't even be said for sure if foul play was i...

On the morning of January 15th, 1947, just before 11 am, Betty Bersinger was taking her child for a walk in a Las Angeles neighborhood when her eyes fell on something that she first assumed to be a mannequin. Another look revealed that the sight was much more sinister, and she was instead looking at the posed body of 22 year old Elizabeth Short, later dubbed the "Black Dahlia." Panicked, she grabb...

Twenty-four year old Jennifer Kesse was a happy, successful, well-loved young woman at the time that she went missing on Tuesday, January 24th of 2006. She had recently received a well-deserved promotion, had just returned from a wonderful long weekend with friends and her long-distance boyfriend, and she sounded thrilled on the phone with her mother only the day before she disappeared without so...

On August 12th of 2019 begins the story of Jessica Easterly as she is known to the media, the day that she called her best friend Maria in desperate need of a ride to get away from her husband, Justin Durning. Maria arranged to go and pick up her friend the next morning, August 13th, but after having a brief correspondence with Jessica that day, neither Maria nor anyone else heard from the beautif...

The legend of Bigfoot has captivated people for numerous decades following the release of the extremely famous and controversial Patterson-Gimlin film in 1967. Bigfoot was initially popularized in the mainstream media in 1958, however, after a man named Ray Wallace became famous nearly overnight for making casts of unusually large footprints that he found near a worksite in northern California. De...

Reports of skeletal remains being found throughout the Grand Canyon are relatively commonplace, especially over the last 100 years. This is understandable, however, considering the high number of cold cases that the Coconino County Sheriff's office has in their database. The sheer amount of disappearances, unattended deaths, and homicides, as well as the need to identify remains, has led the count...

Brandon Lawson was only 26 years old when he went missing on August 9th, 2013. That night, he had gotten into a fight with his common-law wife Ladessa and left their home. When his truck ran out of gas, he called his brother and asked him to bring him a gas can. When Kyle got there, however, Brandon was nowhere to be seen. They were speaking on the phone when a police officer pulled up behind Bran...

In the summer of 2018, Chris Watts and his then wife Shan'aan had just discovered they were expecting a son to join their 4 year old Bella and 3 year old Celeste. They lived in a suburb of Denver, a town called Frederick, Colorado. The lives of the couple centered around their daughters, as they were balancing Chris' job as an operator at Anadarko Petroleum and Shan'aan's frequent business trips f...

On August 24th of 2021, Jelani Day failed to show up for class and skipped a meeting that he had planned with the director of clinical education at his graduate school program. He was reported missing the next day, and investigators were confused when his car was found abandoned in a wooded area over an hour away from where he lived. Jelani's body was discovered on the bank of the Illinois River o...

On February 24 of 1986, the life of a young Sherri Rasmussen was cruelly taken from her in her own Los Angeles home by an unknown assailant. She was newly married, highly successful in her nursing career, and had a bright and exciting future ahead of her, however, her murder remained unsolved for over two decades, until the case finally broke in 2009. The original detectives on Sherri's case wrote...

In the late night hours of February 19, 2005, Danielle Imbo and Richard Petrone left Abeline's Bar on South Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and vanished, seeminly into thin air. To this day, neither Danielle or Richard have been seen or heard from, and Richard's massive Dodge Dakota pickup truck is just as elusive. Investigators have monitored all of their accounts, checked security camera f...

In Ontario, Canada, in 2010, a home invasion became national news when it was reported that the residence of Vietnamese immigrants Bich-Ha and Hann Pan and their children Jennifer and Felix Pan was broken into. The horrific scene resulted in the death of Bich-Ha and serious injury to Hann Pan, but what followed this news was far more disturbing as police began to suspect that the daughter, Jennife...

The case of "The Watcher" follows the infamous horrors faced by the Broaddus family as they moved into their Westfield, New Jersey dream home in 2014, only to receive letters from an anonymous individual who claimed their family had been watching the home for generations. The family found themselves in an impossible situation, unable to sell the home once the rumors of the Watcher spread, and unab...

Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic names in American film history, rising to fame in the 1950's as a model and commercially successful actress with many significant awards and roles. From humble beginnings, Marilyn became one of the most recognized faces in Hollywood, and she was one of the first women to be celebrated as a celebrity in the manner they are treated today. Fame came at a cost...

This episode covers the tragically creepy story of Mary Bell, one of the youngest killers in the history of the UK. Mary Bell committed her first murder on May 25, 1968, the day before her eleventh birthday, killing 4 year old Martin Brown in a disturbing manner. Mary's behavior following her first murder was even more alarming, and she only escalated in violence from there, killing three year old...

This mysterious episode covers the vanishing of nineteen year old Brandon Swanson on a freezing Minnesota night in 2008, and the ensuing investigation that left authorities with absolutely nothing. During the early morning hours of May 14th, Brian and Annette Swanson received a call from their son Brandon, who was asking them for a ride after driving his Chevrolet Lumina sedan into a ditch in Lynd...

The case known as 'The Staircase' follows the death of Kathleen Peterson on December 9 of 2001, and the subsequent legal battle that occupied the next decades of her husband Michael Peterson's life, who immediately fell under suspicion. Kathleen was found dead in her home at the bottom of their back staircase, coated by and surrounded with blood spatters, that led investigators to believe the scen...

This creepy Halloween bonus episode explores the horrors and mystery surrounding the infamous Amityville Murder House. The legend began in the early hours of November 13, 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr. picked up a Marlin rifle and shot all six of his family members execution style as they were lying in their beds. His subsequent defense plea detailed that he had heard voices telling him to commit the...

This episode covers the odd circumstances behind the deaths of the Yuba County Five, diving into some of the most bizarre unanswered questions in California true crime history. On Febuary 24, 1978, a group of five men from Yuba County attended a basketball game at California State University, piling into a Mercury Montenegro and driving off into the night, never to be seen alive again. The car was...

This episode covers the murder of Texas A&M senior Charles Sessums in the 1926 college football riot during the halftime of an infamous rivalry game. The budding rivalry between Texas A&M and Baylor University was one of the original rivalries in the sport, which was still relatively new at the time, and in October 1926, tensions boiled over, leading to a violent outbursts between fans on the fiel...

This exciting first bonus episode of Crime Bistro dives into the psychology of serial killers, some of the most feared criminals, and explores the field of research that many investigators and criminal psychologists have been fascinated by for decades. The episode covers questions including: What is a serial killer? What role does childhood play in the development of a serial killer? What are the...