Crime House 24/7

When 27-year-old first grade teacher Abby Zwerner was shot by a six-year-old student in her classroom, the story shocked the country. But what happened before that single gunshot tells an even darker story. Tonight, Katie retraces every warning that staff gave about the child bringing a gun to school, how those concerns were allegedly dismissed, and how Abby still managed to get her students to sa...

A routine shopping trip in Louisiana turned into an unexpected chase when preschool teacher Lesli Smith spotted an officer running after two suspected shoplifters and offered him a seat in her SUV. What unfolded was a slow, careful pursuit through local streets. By that evening, she was back to her errands unaware her quick instinct would earn her a city commendation. In Texas, another call for he...

By the time 24-year-old Julia Wandelt walked into a British courtroom in October 2025, she had already spent years chasing a life that was never hers. Haunted by painful childhood memories and convinced her own parents were hiding the truth, Julia turned to missing persons databases and fixated on one of the most recognizable cases in the world: Madeleine McCann.  What started as late-night search...

In Maryland, beloved professor and accountant Sue Ann Marcum tried to untangle herself from a romantic and financial partnership with yoga instructor Jorge Rueda Landeros. She was found murdered in her basement while her killer disappeared across borders for more than eleven years before finally facing a jury.  Then, Katie investigates a case in Florida, where Taylor Cadle reported years of SA by...

This week on True Crime This Week, host Vanessa Richardson unravels two of history’s most mysterious vanishings — both stranger than fiction. First, in 1926, the “Queen of Mystery” herself, Agatha Christie, vanished after a late-night drive. Her abandoned car sparked an 11-day nationwide search that baffled police, fellow authors, and millions of readers. When she finally reappeared, Agatha claime...

Thanksgiving is meant for gratitude — but sometimes, it brings out the darkest parts of the human mind. In this chilling special, the Killer Minds team, joined by Murder: True Crime Stories host Carter Roy, examines two Thanksgiving tragedies: the 2009 Merhige family massacre, when a Florida man opened fire on his relatives after years of mental decline and resentment, and the gruesome murder of B...

Tonight, Katie breaks down a federal case that might sound like the plot to a movie, but is in fact very real. Prosecutors say New York crime families teamed up with former and current NBA players to run two overlapping schemes. In one, Damon Jones and Chauncey Billups allegedly acted as celebrity bait at underground poker games where hidden tech and rigged shufflers let Mafia backed cheating team...

A French woman spent nearly a decade believing she was losing her mind, never knowing that her husband was drugging her, filming her, and inviting men to SA her while she slept. Police counted 74 men in total who assaulted the brave Gisèle Pelicot, identifying 54 of them. Today, Katie breaks down the newest twist in Gisèle’s case, where the only man who appealed his conviction just received even m...

They say you should never call your ex, but this episode explores why you shouldn’t mix romance with business either. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t just date Michelle Ritter. He built a company with her and folded her into his world of mansions, staff, and early stage deals. When the relationship soured, their attempt to settle things quietly blew up after Michelle said Schmidt was trying...

Two very different plots, one chilling theme: killers betting their victims won’t live long enough to tell the truth. In today’s first case, unfortunately they didn’t, but that didn’t stop authorities from pursuing justice. In Los Angeles, David Pearce (called the “devil personified”) was found guilty of drugging, assaulting, and murdering friends Christy Giles and Hilda Cabrales-Arzola after a ni...

As a college freshman, Shannon Keeler did everything she was told to do after being SA'd in her dorm room. She reported it immediately, completed an SA kit, named her attacker, and brought witnesses forward. Prosecutors still walked away, then destroyed the evidence. Years later, the man she says SAd her, Ian Cleary, flooded her Facebook with rambling messages that ended in a typed confession.  Ev...

Seventy percent of women killed by an abuser are killed after they leave, which makes walking away an act of real bravery. Today, Katie follows the cases of two women who tried. In Los Angeles, model and realtor Maleesa Mooney had a whirlwind romance with Magnus Humphrey, but her friends weren’t sold on her new boyfriend. Later, Maleesa was found bound and hidden in her refrigerator, and Humphrey...

This week on True Crime This Week, host Vanessa Richardson revisits two of America’s most shocking and unforgettable crimes — cases that defined their eras and captured the nation’s imagination. First, the 1932 Lindbergh baby kidnapping, a crime so sensational it was called “the trial of the century.” When famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s infant son vanished, a desperate nationwide manhunt ensued...

This final chapter in our five-part series on Sandra Birchmore asks one question: how did a “suicide” in Canton, Massachusetts turn into a federal murder case against a former cop? Katie pieces together how Sandra’s family refused to accept the original ruling, brought in famed pathologist Dr. Michael Baden to reclassify her death as homicidal strangulation, and found an unexpected ally in Chief D...

An Alabama bonfire that teens called “The Pit” turned into a war zone when 27-year-old Steven Tyler Whitehead pulled a gun and fired 13 rounds into the crowd, killing 18-year-old cheerleader Kimber Mills as she tried to break up a fight and later walked her final “honor walk” as an organ donor. Then, Katie looks into a case across state lines in Forney, Texas, where a long-simmering feud between n...

The system around Sandra Birchmore was broken long before she was found hanged in her Canton apartment. In the fourth installment of our five-part series on the death of Sandra Birchmore, Katie pulls back the curtain on the Stoughton Police Explorers program, which first brought Sandra in at 12 years-old. Stoughton Deputy Chief Robert Devine ran it while blurring boundaries with teen girls, and tw...

A summer night of drinking in small-town Kentucky ended with 38-year-old Amber Spradlin sitting dead on a basement couch, her throat slashed, blood scrubbed from sinks and drains, and the home’s security system mysteriously destroyed, leaving a dentist, his son, and their friend now facing charges in a case built on missing footage and slow-moving DNA results. Hours and states away, Katie investig...

After Sandra Birchmore’s death was stamped “suicide” and pushed aside, a very different story had already started to surface. In Part 3 of our five-part special series, Katie digs into Chief Donna McNamara’s internal probe, where recovered phone data and more than 32,000 text messages exposed years of grooming and statutory SA by Officer Matthew Farwell, his twin brother William, and their mentor...

A phone was dead; a delivery driver was lost; a town official reached for a gun. Today’s first case follows 24-year-old DoorDash driver Alpha Barry, a recent immigrant from Guinea whose late-night delivery run to a quiet New York cul-de-sac ended with a highway superintendent striding out of his house, firing warning shots, and then shooting Alpha in the back as he tried to drive away. The encount...

In Part 2 of our five-part investigation into Sandra Birchmore’s death, Katie stays in the same Massachusetts town shaken by the Karen Read saga, revisiting the night 23-year-old, pregnant Sandra was found hanged in her Canton apartment and quickly ruled a suicide. Did police miss crucial evidence? Katie digs into tips about a Stoughton officer who “didn’t want the baby,” the hooded man caught on...

Katie unpacks two cases that expose the cracks in America’s justice system. First, a heartbreaking story from Wisconsin: 29-year-old Lauren Spors, long battling severe mental illness, is accused of murdering her mother after years of pleas for help went unanswered. Her family’s decade-long struggle to get her treatment reveals how systemic failures can turn tragedy into horror. Then, Katie dives i...

In the same Massachusetts town rocked by the Karen Read case, 23-year-old Sandra Birchmore was found hanged in her Canton apartment in 2021. Sandra was pregnant and alone, and her death was quickly ruled a suicide, despite her family’s belief that she’d been groomed for years by Stoughton officer Matthew Farwell, who first “mentored” her in a police youth program when she was just 12. In this epis...

In rural Kentucky, 10-year-old Jayden Spicer was reported missing from his bed and his mother tearfully begged for his safe return, until two YouTubers, livestreaming their search in the woods, uncovered a bag of a little boy’s clothes hidden under plastic, forcing a shattering confession that Jayden was dead and buried miles away. Then, Katie covers a case in Nebraska, where 42-year-old Jesserae...

This week on True Crime This Week, host Vanessa Richardson explores the twisted lives of two of history’s most notorious prisoners. First, the story of Charles Manson, the manipulative cult leader whose “Family” turned peace and love into terror. From failed musician to prophet of “Helter Skelter,” Manson’s descent into madness culminated in one of the most chilling murder sprees in American histo...

With Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story soaring into the global Top 10, the chilling case that inspired it is back in the headlines. But behind the streaming sensation lies the real tragedy of Bernice Worden, a small-town hardware store owner whose 1957 murder exposed one of history’s most horrifying killers. Tonight, Katie revisits the investigation that began with a missing person report and e...