Day By Day: True Crime Stories

On the final day of 1993, deputies in rural Nebraska entered a small farmhouse outside Humboldt and found a scene of horror: three people had been executed—21-year-old Brandon Teena, 24-year-old Lisa Lambert, and 22-year-old Phillip DeVine. Just days before, Brandon—a young transgender man—had reported being brutally raped by two men. He asked the sheriff’s office for help. They failed him. This e...

On December 30, 1994, just after Christmas, a 22-year-old gunman walked into two abortion clinics on Beacon Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, and opened fire. In under 15 minutes, two receptionists—Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols—were killed, and five others were wounded. The shooter, John Salvi, fled the state and attempted another attack in Virginia the next day before being arrested. This...

On December 29, 1999, two best friends in rural Oklahoma—Ashley Freeman and Lauria Bible—celebrated Ashley’s 16th birthday with a sleepover. By morning, Ashley’s family home was in flames, both her parents were dead from gunshot wounds, and the girls were missing. What followed was a decades-long search marred by early investigative missteps, chilling rumors, and a trail that led to a shocking bre...

On the morning of December 28, 1987, residents of Russellville, Arkansas, had no idea that their quiet post-holiday routine was about to be shattered. What began as a chilling workplace shooting spree turned out to be only the final chapter in one of the most horrifying crimes in American history. By the time police arrested 47-year-old Ronald Gene Simmons, two people were dead and four were serio...

On the night after Boxing Day in 1996, two best friends—11-year-old Patrick Warren and 13-year-old David Spencer—left their homes on a housing estate outside Birmingham and were never seen again. The only trace ever found was Patrick’s new red bicycle, discovered behind a petrol station. Over the next few weeks, the case would be overshadowed by other news stories, and early assumptions that the b...

On December 26, 2000, the day after Christmas, employees at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Massachusetts, returned to what was supposed to be a quiet workday. Instead, a 42-year-old programmer named  Michael McDermott opened fire on his colleagues, killing seven people in a matter of minutes in what remains the  deadliest workplace shooting in Massachusetts history . This episode focuses not o...

On Christmas morning in 1996, six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was reported missing from her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note had been left behind, warning her parents not to contact police. But hours later, JonBenét’s body was found in the basement of the house, sparking one of the most infamous and controversial murder investigations in American history. In this episode of  Day by D...

On Christmas Eve in 2002, 27-year-old Laci Peterson vanished from her Modesto, California home. She was eight months pregnant with her first child, a baby boy named Conner. Her husband, Scott Peterson, told police he’d been fishing alone in San Francisco Bay. Later that day, their dog was found wandering the neighborhood with his leash still on, and Laci was nowhere to be found. Over the next four...

On December 23, 1993, 25-year-old takeaway driver Paul Logan left a Chinese restaurant in Consett, England, expecting to deliver a holiday meal. The order had come in for a remote farmhouse outside Shotley Bridge. But when Paul arrived, the residents hadn’t ordered any food. He had been lured there by a hoax call. Hours later, Paul was found dead in a nearby field, brutally beaten with a blunt wea...

On this day in 1984, a seemingly ordinary subway ride in New York City turned into one of the most polarizing acts of violence in modern American history. When 37-year-old Bernhard Goetz was approached by four Black teenagers asking for $5, he pulled out an unlicensed revolver and opened fire inside a crowded 2 train—paralyzing one and injuring the others. Dubbed the “subway vigilante” by the pres...

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 took off from London’s Heathrow Airport, bound for New York and Detroit, carrying 259 people—many of them heading home for the holidays. Just 38 minutes later, the plane exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing everyone on board and 11 people on the ground. The bombing would become the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil and launch a deca...

On the night of December 20, 1984, 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews returned home from a Christmas choir performance in Greeley, Colorado — and vanished before her father got home. Her shoes were by the heater, the TV was on, and a message was left by the phone. But outside, someone had tried to cover their tracks — literally — by raking over footprints in the snow. For decades, Jonelle’s face was one...

On a cold night in December 1979, 18-year-old high school senior Michelle Martinko attended a choir banquet, stopped by the brand-new Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa — and never came home. The next morning, her body was found in her family’s Buick, parked in a quiet corner of the mall lot. She had been stabbed nearly 30 times in what investigators described as a “personal” and “frenzied” attac...

In the early morning hours of December 18, 2013, 20-year-old Heather Elvis vanished from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Just hours earlier, she’d gone on a first date, sent a cheerful selfie, and talked about starting fresh after ending an affair with a married man. But by dawn, her car was found abandoned at a remote riverside boat landing — her phone, keys, and purse gone. Heather herself? Missin...

On this day in 1968, 20-year-old college student Barbara Jane Mackle was kidnapped at gunpoint from a Georgia motel room and buried alive in a homemade underground box. For more than 83 hours, she lay trapped beneath the soil while her kidnappers demanded a $500,000 ransom and the FBI raced against time to find her. In today’s episode, host Kona Gallagher walks through the harrowing details of one...

On December 16, 1978, 15-year-old Kerry Graham and 14-year-old Francine “Francie” Trimble walked out of their homes in Forestville, California — and vanished. For decades, their families searched for answers, while two unidentified bodies found in Mendocino County sat in separate cold case files. It wasn’t until 2015 that DNA evidence brought the truth to light: the missing girls and the unidentif...

On this day in 1927, 12-year-old Marion Parker was abducted from her Los Angeles junior high school by a man posing as a messenger from her father. Within 48 hours, her disappearance turned into one of the most horrific ransom cases in American history — a story of deception, cruelty, and unimaginable loss. In today’s episode, host Kona Gallagher recounts the chilling case of Marion Parker and Wil...

On this day in 2020, 21-year-old Jason Landry was officially reported missing—just hours after his crashed car was discovered on a rural Texas road with no sign of the driver. The Texas State University student had been heading home to Missouri City for winter break when he vanished along Salt Flat Road near Luling. His phone, wallet, backpack, and even his clothing were left behind. But Jason was...

On this day in 2000, seven men executed one of the most shocking and well-coordinated prison escapes in American history. Known as the  Texas Seven , the group walked out of a maximum-security facility in Kenedy, Texas — not in chaos, but with chilling precision. Their escape from the John B. Connally Unit set off a nationwide manhunt and led to a violent crime spree that culminated in the murder...

On a cold afternoon in 1910, 25-year-old Dorothy Arnold — an heiress, aspiring writer, and socialite — left her family’s Upper East Side home for what should have been a simple shopping trip. She bought chocolates. She picked up a book. She ran into a friend on Fifth Avenue. And then, she vanished. More than a century later, Dorothy’s disappearance remains one of New York City’s oldest and most ha...

On December 11, 2003, Rick and Suzanna Wamsley were found brutally murdered inside their home in Mansfield, Texas. To friends and neighbors, they seemed like the picture of suburban success — loving parents, a quiet neighborhood, and a home filled with holiday cheer. But prosecutors would soon allege that the violence was no random crime. Instead, it was the result of a calculated plot involving t...

On this day in 1945, Chicago police entered a North Side apartment and found a crime scene so brutal — and so chillingly theatrical — that it made headlines across the country and birthed one of the most haunting nicknames in American true crime history:  The Lipstick Killer . Frances Brown, a former Navy WAVE and working woman in her early 30s, was found shot and stabbed in her apartment near Wri...

On this day in 1988, 34-year-old Joan Yarbrough Bernal was supposed to be hitting the road with her husband and children for a holiday trip from Joliet, Illinois, to Texas. Instead, she vanished without a trace—and was never seen again. Her husband, Gilbert “Gil” Bernal, has long claimed that Joan walked away from her life during the road trip. But Joan’s children and investigators believe the tru...

On this day in 1980, music legend John Lennon was shot outside his New York City home by a fan who had waited for hours. Just hours before, Lennon had signed an autograph for the man who would end his life. Within minutes, the world lost one of its most influential voices. In this episode, we retrace Lennon’s final day—from his creative resurgence and time in the studio to the chilling moments on...

On December 7, 1958, Kenneth and Barbara Martin and their three daughters—Barbie, Virginia, and Susan—set out from their Portland home for a Sunday drive into the Columbia River Gorge to gather Christmas greenery. They never returned. What followed was one of Oregon’s most perplexing missing-persons cases. Despite a massive search, the family’s station wagon vanished without a trace, and it wasn’t...