Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps

FATAL FANTASY on The Binge Renowned DNA scientist Dr. Robert Schwartz is found brutally murdered inside his secluded Virginia home in the weeks before Christmas 2001. As investigators dig in, a dark, paganistic theme hovers over the crime. As suspects emerge, a Live Action Role- Playing game, scripted by the least likely person imaginable, reveals a frightening subculture of young adults dabbling...

A young mother is last seen in the parking lot of a local Colorado retail store. Several days pass before she is reported missing. A clue 700 miles away, in another state, breaks the case wide open and a gruesome discovery is made as two people are arrested.  For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon account here. Leave a five-star review of this show, please. ;-) Visit www.crossingthel...

In December 1974, three kids take off for a trip to a local Texas mall and fail to return. Known as the "Fort Worth 3," this missing person case is one of the oldest and most mysterious on record in Texas. In the final episode of this 3-part special, we discuss theories and water searches and where the case is today. For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon account here. Leave a five-s...

In December 1974, three kids take off for a trip to a local Texas mall and fail to return. Known as the "Fort Worth 3," this missing person case is one of the oldest and most mysterious on record in Texas. In Part 2, I go over the timeline with the families and discuss a mysterious, strange letter that arrives the day after they go missing. For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon acco...

In December 1974, three kids take off for a local Fort Worth, Texas, Army-Navy store and mall and fail to return. Known as the "Fort Worth 3," this missing person case is one of the oldest and most mysterious on record. I speak to several victim family members and try to sort out fact from fiction in this Crossing the Line special trilogy of episodes. For exclusive content, sign up for your free P...

It's January 14 th , 1973. And the parents of 16-year-old Norman Prater call into the Dallas Police to report their son missing. Fifty-two years later, the answer comes with some remarkable police work, a little luck, and it is not what anyone could have ever expected.    Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories while researching books, TV s...

A woman heads to a Florida beach to scatter her late husband's ashes. She meets a woman and strikes up a friendship. But then … no one can find her. Meanwhile, investigators 1200 miles north are looking into the murder of a local man—having no idea the two cases are connected. For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon account here. Leave a five-star review of this show, please. ;-) Visi...

A lovely woman, enjoying the latter stages of her life, is found dead at the bottom of her basement stairs. There is far too much blood for her to have fallen, along with a slice from ear to ear along her throat. But who could have committed such a heinous crime in what seems to be a pleasant, charming, quiet Montana town.  For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon account here. Leave a...

A prominent Santa Barbara, California, family is found dead inside their home one March morning. A manhunt then gets underway for a killer, while a man proclaims he has developed an alternative energy source Big Oil is killing his friends over and looking to make him the next target.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here .  Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist an...

A woman befriends a few coworkers and decides to move in with them. They begin fighting. Animosity builds. So, she moves out. Days later, she decides to reconcile with both of them … but the conversation doesn't go as planned and two of them wind up dead, dismembered, and placed inside several suitcases aboard a train heading out of town. For exclusive content, sign up for your free Patreon accoun...

A woman cannot reach her family—so she heads over to their house to check things out. What she witnesses inside is a scene straight out of a contemporary horror film. As the case moves into the investigative phase, decades pass before the evil behind it all is finally brought to justice.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here.   Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalis...

You are sitting at home one night, just doing your normal thing, when someone busts through the door with a weapon and begins firing. Catching a double murderer takes all of about 15 hours to resolve, the result shocking the community and police … but not the victim's family. Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories while researching books,...

A Colorado man's mother goes missing. He spends years building up resentment and frustration with police not getting anywhere. He feels he has nowhere else to turn. So he takes matters into his own hands … and the results of what he creates could help solve thousands of cold cases all over the world. To contact Ash, learn more about CrimeOwl, or try it out for yourself, visit CrimeOwl . Sign up fo...

A hardworking Pennsylvania man arrives home from his second shift job one night, gets out of his vehicle, and winds up on the ground in front of his home … fighting for his life. Neighbors report hearing and seeing a dark colored SUV tearing away from the scene. As investigators begin asking questions, two candidates for the stupidest murderers of the year step forward. Sign up for your free Patre...

On St. Patrick's Day, 1987, the body of 20-year-old active-duty Army Specialist Darlene Krashoc is discovered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, behind a strip mall. With over 100 suspects, the case goes cold for over three decades. But when forensic genetic genealogy enters the picture, the perpetrator cannot hide for much longer.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming...

Tanya Marie Frazier, a 14-year-old Seattle girl, disappeared on July 18, 1994, after leaving summer school at Meany Middle School. Her body was found days later in a wooded ravine in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The medical examiner determined her death was a result of sharp force injuries to her neck and head, and the attack was sexually motivated. For 30 years, Tanya's family receives no answe...

On the morning of October 9, 2020, in their Dallas neighborhood, Jamie Faith is shot seven times while on a routine dog walk with his wife, Jennifer. Jennifer appeared distraught and publicly appealed for the killer to come forward in the media, portraying herself as a grieving widow. The initial appearance of a random robbery gone wrong quickly unravels as investigators uncovered a complex web of...

After neighbors and the postman stop seeing Tom Devlin around town, they ask his wife of 40 years, Laura Belle, about him. Laura is more than happy to describe exactly what happened to Tom–and the outcome is one of the more gruesome crimes the people of Newark, Ohio, will ever hear about in 1947.  Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories whi...

A woman living with a violent man is found in her bedroom, stabbed more than 60 times. Several suspects emerge over the course of a few months, the man she is living with not among them. It takes almost 30 years, but investigators confiscate a napkin in a trash can and believe they have the case solved.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsl...

A storybook romance. A life of giving back to the world in ways that change thousands of lives. You and your wife settle into life in New Hampshire, away from the chaos and evil of the world–or so you think.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsletters, dropping an exclusive limited series podcast later in 2025, and posting other content you...

A young woman is murdered. Years go by without answers. Her sister begins searching for the murderer—and the experience sends her into a career in law enforcement and cold case work, as investigators close in on a savage killer. Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsletters, dropping an exclusive limited series podcast later in 2025, and posti...

HALLLOWEEN SPECIAL - The Harvard Body-Broker Butcher Body parts for sale! Not quite the advertisement you'd expect to see somewhere. But in the United States, under a strict set of guidelines, selling body parts is legal. Only in this case, a group of people take that business to an extreme beyond the macabre.  Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts...

Season 5 of Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders   takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Then a third teen is murdered and other questionable deaths of teens begin to surface. Now, veteran investigative journalist  M. William...

You all know him as the Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, one of the most prolific serial criminal killers we have ever encountered. This week, my very special guest, Thien Ho, the man who prosecuted Deangelo, gives us the inside story of what went on behind the scenes with this monster--sharing never-before-heard details about the East Area Rapist, Vasilia Ransacker, Original Nightstalker, an...

A father of four, Jared Bridegan, drops off two of his children at his ex-wife's house. Drives away. An hour later, a passerby finds the man dead in the middle of the road. As the investigation begins amid what seems to be a baffling homicide, an unlikely suspect is developed and the dominoes in a wild murder scheme begin to fall.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streami...