Forensic Tales

#322 - In 2007, two-year-old Mariah Alvarez was rushed to a hospital in Brownsville, Texas. She wasn’t breathing. Doctors were unable to revive her. Within hours, suspicion turned toward her mother, Melissa Lucio. After a lengthy interrogation, Melissa said four words that prosecutors would later present as a confession. She was charged with capital murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. But o...

#321 - In December 2004, 21-year-old Johnia Berry was attacked inside her Knoxville, Tennessee apartment. The crime scene raised more questions than answers. There were no clear signs of forced entry. The weapon came from inside the home. And despite the brutality of the attack, there was no obvious motive. Investigators initially focused on someone close to her, but forensic evidence would soon c...

#320 - In 2008, a South Carolina man disappeared while checking his mail outside his home. His body was soon found in nearby woods, and an autopsy revealed he had been strangled to death. At first, the police had few suspects. But right before the case turned cold, investigators did something outside the box. They turned to cell phone forensics. Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. Th...

BONUS UPDATE Yesterday, Juliana Peres Magalhães, the former au pair and key witness in the so-called “Au Pair Affair” murder trial, was sentenced. In this short follow-up episode of Forensic Tales , we recap the sentencing hearing, including the defense’s motion to exclude victim impact statements from Christine Banfield’s family, the judge’s ruling, and the final sentence handed down in connectio...

#319 - In May of 1993, three eight-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Within weeks, police arrested three teenagers, despite a complete lack of physical evidence tying them to the crime. What followed was an investigation shaped by fear, rumor, and the cultural panic of the early 1990s. A confession filled with factual errors. Forensic interpretations that would later...

Special Episode In February 2023, police were called to a quiet home in northern Virginia. Inside the master bedroom, they found Christine Banfield , a wife and mother, suffering from multiple stab wounds. A second man, Joseph Ryan , was also found dead. He had been shot inside the same room. Christine’s husband, Brendan Banfield , would later be charged with their murders. What followed was a cas...

#318 - In February 2005, an Ohio woman suddenly collapsed and died while driving to a local movie theater. At first, her death was thought to be the result of a minor car accident. But as the forensic evidence started to reveal itself, the thought that this woman died in a car accident seemed impossible. And the deeper investigators looked, the more suspicious one of the victim’s loved ones looked...

#317 - When a pattern emerges in criminal investigations, it often becomes the strongest lead. In Southern California, that pattern pointed to a serial sexual offender who used a knife to control his victims and left DNA behind at multiple scenes. For years, the DNA sat unmatched. Today’s episode examines the San Diego Knifepoint Rapist case, the forensic evidence that connected the assaults, and...

From the Archives: The Mysterious Death of Tiffany Valiante In 2015, 18-year-old Tiffany Valiante was struck and killed by a train in New Jersey. Authorities quickly ruled her death a suicide but from the very beginning, her family has insisted that explanation doesn’t make sense. Tiffany had made plans for the future. She had no known history of depression. And crucial pieces of evidence, includi...

#315 - In 1975, a three-year-old boy disappeared in Richmond, Virginia. Days later, his body was found in the James River, and a young neighbor, Marvin Grimm Jr. , became the focus of the investigation. After hours of interrogation, Marvin confessed and later pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison. But decades later, advances in forensic science told a very different story. DNA testing...

#314 - For decades, Robert Eugene Brashers lived in near-total obscurity. While investigators across multiple states worked unsolved cases involving sexual assault and murder, his name never surfaced. Not because evidence was missing, but because the science needed to connect it all didn’t yet exist. In this episode of Forensic Tales , we trace the full scope of Brashers’ crimes: from a brutal att...

#313 - This week, we’re revisiting one of the most downloaded episodes of 2025. The death of UK spy Gareth Williams in 2010 has become one of the most high-profile unsolved mysteries in years after his naked body was discovered padlocked inside a duffel bag. Described as a genius mathematician who the intelligence service had recruited, Gareth’s exact cause of death remains unknown, and people can...

#312 - In 1991, John Kunco was convicted in Pennsylvania of raping and torturing a 55-year-old woman inside her apartment. There was no DNA evidence tying him to the crime. Instead, the case against him relied heavily on an alleged bite mark and a delayed voice identification. Kunco spent nearly 28 years in prison before advances in forensic science began to unravel the evidence used to convict hi...

#311 - In November 2008, 24-year-old Arpana Jinaga was found murdered in her Redmond, Washington apartment—just hours after attending a Halloween party with neighbors in her building. Arpana was a bright, accomplished software engineer with no known enemies, yet the crime scene was chaotic and filled with conflicting forensic clues. Despite multiple suspects, extensive DNA testing, and even a crim...

In March 2008, 21-year-old Juliana Redding was found murdered inside her Santa Monica apartment. Juliana had moved to Los Angeles to study communications and pursue modeling, building a life close to the beach and staying closely connected to her family in Arizona. When she stopped responding to calls and messages, police conducted a welfare check and discovered signs of a violent struggle — along...

A respected veterinarian is found dead under mysterious circumstances in an upscale Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood. What first looked like a car accident quickly turned into a homicide investigation filled with unanswered questions — a wrecked vehicle, blunt-force trauma, and no clear explanation of how Dr. Robert Stonebreaker ended up in a nearby driveway. Nearly 15 years later, the case remains un...

In this episode, we revisit the shocking murder of 23-year-old law student Jane Mixer , long believed to be a victim of Michigan’s “Co-Ed Killer.” When modern DNA testing finally pointed to an unexpected suspect, Gary Leiterman, the case was reopened, re-examined, and fiercely debated. Was the forensic evidence clear-cut? Or did lab contamination muddy the truth? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz c...

When 41-year-old Peggy Carr suddenly fell gravely ill, doctors were stumped. Her symptoms made no sense—burning limbs, hair loss, and paralysis with no clear cause. But when her teenage son and stepson became sick too, investigators uncovered a chilling truth: the Carr family had been poisoned. The substance was thallium—a deadly, nearly undetectable metal once used in rat poison. The discovery la...

In 1983, 19-year-old Barbara Grams was found murdered behind a dental office in Tampa, Florida. Detectives said a small mark on her cheek was a bite — and that 18-year-old Robert DuBoise’s teeth matched it. That single piece of forensic “evidence” sent him to death row. But nearly four decades later, new DNA testing proved what Robert had said all along — he was innocent. The mark wasn’t even a bi...

It was Valentine’s Day, 2007, when 39-year-old Jodine Serrin’s parents stopped by her Carlsbad, California condo to check on her. Moments after walking into her bedroom, they realized something was terribly wrong. Jodine had been brutally attacked—and the man they’d seen inside her home had vanished. For over a decade, her murder went unsolved. No witnesses. No leads. Just a single piece of DNA le...

#304 - In 1981, 31-year-old single mother Linda Slaten was found murdered in her Lakeland, Florida apartment. Her sons were asleep just down the hall. For decades, detectives chased every lead — a violent ex-husband, a mysterious boyfriend, even a convicted predator who once lived next door. But the trail always went cold. Nearly forty years later, a revolutionary forensic tool — genetic genealogy...

In January 1984, 29-year-old Teresa Solecki walked to a payphone in Vista, California, to make a quick call to her sister. She never came back. Hours later, her body was discovered along a remote stretch of Gopher Canyon Road—brutally beaten and strangled. For decades, investigators held onto the evidence: a bite mark, a drag trail, and an unknown male’s DNA. But without modern technology, Teresa’...

In June 1991, 70-year-old grandmother Dorothy Donovan was found brutally murdered inside her farmhouse in Harrington, Delaware. The crime stunned the small town—and suspicion immediately turned to the person who discovered her body: her own son. Charles Holden told investigators a strange and terrifying story about a violent hitchhiker he’d picked up earlier that night, a man who threatened him wi...

On New Year’s Eve 1989, Mansfield, Ohio was rocked by the disappearance of Noreen Boyle. Her husband, prominent neurosurgeon Dr. John Boyle, insisted she had walked out after an argument. But Noreen’s son, 11-year-old Collier, told a very different story—a scream in the night, suspicious behavior from his father, and threats to stay silent. When investigators dug deeper—literally—they uncovered th...

For our 300th episode of Forensic Tales , we’re tackling one of the most infamous and puzzling unsolved cases in American history—the Zodiac Killer. Between 1968 and 1969, a mysterious figure terrorized Northern California with a string of murders, chilling phone calls, and cryptic letters sent to local newspapers. Despite decades of investigation, the Zodiac’s identity remains one of the greatest...