Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps

Gavin MacFarlane, a 19-year-old man, plans to run off with Ellen 'Ellie' Friar, a 15-year-old minor. Ellie's father has an issue with an adult man dating his minor child. When Ellie and her father turn up missing one morning, Medford, Oregon, police send 70 officers out onto the streets to search … and yet the answer is hiding right there ... in plain sight.  Sign up for your free Patreon account ...

Julie Sulpizio, her husband and two children are certain God has given them a sign that the end of the world is near … and so they hatch a racist, murderous plan to take out as many 'lost souls' as they can before the Rapture begins.  Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories while researching books, TV series, and my iHeartMedia podcast, Pap...

*A Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps listener hears an episode of the show describing how submitting your DNA to the online forensic genealogy databases can help solve cold cases. So, she decides to do it. And lo and behold, a near 40-year-old cold case murder victim, known all this time as "Julie Doe," now has her real name back.  *Suggested by Laura Sign up for your free Patreon account ...

A fire inside a Waterbury, Connecticut, home leads to one of the most shocking, alleged domestic abuse and confinement cases of the past 20 years. The victim's own firsthand account is so horrible and unbelievable, defying the limits of humanity, questions arise over the possible complicity of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF).  Sign up for your free Patreon account  here ,...

*Emily Pike is 14 years old, and living in a Mesa, Arizona group home. In early 2025, it is believed Emily kicked out the screen inside her bedroom and took off. But did she have help? Was she going to meet someone? Was she heading back to the San Carlos Reservation where her family lives? Weeks go by … before police make a startling, gruesome discovery. If you have any information about Emily Pik...

A local schoolteacher is found murdered by her bed, inside the Burlington, Vermont, apartment she shares with three others. Investigators are stumped—for over five decades. Then a cigarette butts leads to a break and an infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy—as a resolution seems possible.  Sign up for your free Patreon account  here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsletters, dropping a...

A child runs away from home and into the arms of a sociopath--a real scumbag. Her ordeal is shaped by a culture of judging and blaming victims. A case that defines a journey of loss, abuse, and hope, but also how victim-shaming in true crime has not changed in 20 years. Sign up for your free Patreon account  here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsletters, dropping an exclusive limi...

A Baltimore woman fails to show up for work. Her family is concerned and reports her missing. Meanwhile, a slew of other women in the same county are found dead, one after the other.  A police officer's son living in Reno, Nevada, is brought in and asked questions about a stolen credit card. Fifty years later, the answers everyone has been waiting for finally come. Sign up for your free Patreon ac...

Sandra Pagniano has decided enough is enough. She is divorcing her husband, David. But when Sandra turns up missing, leaving two notes behind, indicating she won't be returning, Prescott, Arizona, investigators wonder if they are looking at a cliched "the-husband-did-it" episode of "Dateline," or something far more evil? Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live,"...

Concluding my interview with Dr. Peter Vronsky, noted expert on the life of the Times Square Ripper/Torso Killer, serial murderer Richard Cottingham, we discuss how many women Cottingham murdered, and if he is responsible for the unsolved Nanuet (New York) Mall murder of Lisa Thomas.   Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live," dropping an exclusive limited series...

An elevator opens and out walks one of the most notorious serial killers of our time, Richard "Torso Killer" Cottingham. You cross paths with him and get up to your floor, only to realize there's a fire. In the first of a two-part special, I speak to Dr. Peter Vronsky, who tries to convince me that Cottingham murdered a young girl, Lisa Thomas, I profiled on a previous episode of the show, and cla...

Robert Haggart meets Garnetta Post in 1981—and her life is never the same again. Soon after marrying Haggart, Garnetta realizes the guy is lazy, vulgar, and abusive. And within six months of the marriage, the true nature of just how violent this guy is presents itself—and the outcome is one of Michigan's most violent and deadly crimes ever.  Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll...

Two cases out of Gary, Indiana—young women missing from the same general neighborhood a few months apart, one of whom we know for certain was 9 months pregnant. With help, these cases can be solved.   Anyone with information on Ja'Niyah's or Emma's disappearances, please contact the Gary Police Department at (219) 881-1209.  Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come acr...

A high schooler in Honolulu, Dawn Momohara, gets a phone call, leaves her house en route for the shopping mall and never returns. After nearly five decades, the family gets answers. 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 won't get anywhere else. ...

A local real estate broker is found dead in 1961 Houston. Two local "women" seem to be the last to have seen him. As a nationwide manhunt begins, law enforcement is not so sure they are searching for two females, but perhaps a woman and a man dressed as a woman. In what is one of the more remarkable true crime cases of the century, you won't believe how two people go from death row to freedom … al...

*Two young girls, best friends Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, go missing two months apart from each other. Law enforcement is stumped. Had the girls planned some sort of elaborate disappearing act and run away? Or is something more sinister going on?  *Listener, Synthia, suggested case! Sign up for your free Patreon account here , where I'll be streaming "live," sending out newsletters, dropping...

Emily and Joe Ferlazzo take off on a trip into the Green Mountains of Vermont to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. But only one of them, Joe, returns home … with Emily now missing, and the Vermont State Police searching for answers. With eerie similarities to the Gaby Petito case, law enforcement takes note and tailors its investigation in a direction nobody wants to believe could be t...

It's the middle of the night. Crystal Lake, Illinois. A house is on fire. A neighbor breaks in and saves a baby from the flames … but as firefighters head in to put out the inferno,  they discover the body of a popular teenager inside the bathroom–and a murder inquiry begins. Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of s tories while researching books,...

A van with eight people shows up one day at an autistic man's house. An argument ensues. By the end of the day, Hayden Garreffa's family reports him missing … desperate to find him before something horrible happens. Pennsylvania State Police get involved and soon have a lead, as one of the most shocking crimes in the county's history is exposed.   Sign up for my free Patreon account here , where I...

It's 1981. A young woman, Debra Miller, living alone in a Mansfield, Ohio, apartment is found brutally murdered. With two other murders reported in the months before, it's possible a serial killer is at large. Yet, several Mansfield cops are so deeply immersed in committing crimes themselves, 40 years goes by before the answers one family has been waiting for all their lives finally comes.    Sign...

A young, up-and-coming television star is being stalked. In a case which will ultimately change stalking laws, a man first obsessed with a young peace activist who dies tragically before he can begin bothering her, Robert John Bardo transfers his fantasies over to the rising star of the hit sitcom "My Sister Sam," and soon shows up at her house ... with a particular plan in mind.   Visit www.cross...

A university senior in Austin, Texas, meets a man on a dating app. She's not feeling it and brushes him off after their first date. But he is not having it and shows up at her apartment the following day. After a brief conversation, her roommate calls police, she calms him down, and he leaves. The next day, however, he shows up again ... but this time Natalia Cox is unable to stop Henry Watson fro...

It's the middle of the night. A woman is awoken by the slam of a door. She gets up to look around. At some point, she heads down into the basement, where her son sleeps–and what she finds inside a bucket is a horror straight out of the most graphic horror films imaginable … changing her life forever.   Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to contact investigative journalist and host M. William Phelps, ge...

When a lawyer mysteriously leaves a meeting to use the restroom and fails to return, his colleagues are terrified that something has happened. Yet, there is no sign whatsoever that 41-year-old Steven Cozzi has even left the Largo, Florida, office building where he was last seen–until, that is, CCTV footage leads police to a diabolical plot and a faceless suspect.   Visit www.crossingtheline.biz to...

A serial killer is preying on women within the streets of Riverside County, California, during the height of serial murder in the 80's, just before DNA is used to catch rapists and killers. Then, in 2019, thirty-three years after 19-year-old Cathy Small is found dead on a Pasadena residential road, a random natural causes death lights up the investigation into Cathy's murder—and all points lead ba...