Generation Why: True Crime

May 4, 2007. Belton, MO. Seventeen-year-old Kara Kopetsky walked out of her high school on May 4, 2007, and disappeared without a trace. From those early days, her mother, Rhonda, suspected Kara’s ex-boyfriend, Kylr Yust, was involved in her disappearance, but there was no way to prove it without physical evidence. So Rhonda waited for a crack in the case. On September 8, 2016, 21-year-old Jessica...

May 26, 1990. Wellington, Florida. Forty-year-old mother of one, Marlene Warren, was enjoying breakfast with her son and his friends when she heard a knock at the door of her home in the Wellington Aero Club in Palm Beach County, Florida. Marlene walked from the kitchen to the front door to be greeted by a clown holding a basket of red and white flowers and two balloons. “Oh, how lovely!” she excl...

March 3, 1998. Haines City, Florida. On March 3rd, 1998. Officer Christopher Todd Horner made a routine stop at Oakland Cemetery, a known crime hotspot. He radioed dispatch that he was going to inspect a suspicious vehicle. No one heard from him again. Officer Horner was found dead at the cemetery, a single gunshot wound to the head, and the killer was nowhere to be found. What happened that morni...

July 3rd, 2015. Bardstown, Kentucky. On July 3rd, 2015 Crystal Rogers spent her day with her boyfriend and youngest child. She stayed up late that night, while her boyfriend went to bed. The next morning, Crystal was gone. Her car was found two days later, and that was it. Crystal had vanished without a trace. Generation Why has even more episodes. Find them here: www.patreon.com/generationwhy Lis...

July 7th, 1977. Scarsdale, New York. Bonnie Garland met Richard Herrin at Yale when she was 20 years old. Herrin was more than 3 years older and was head over heels for Bonnie. After Richard changed schools, Bonnie began to grow distant and finally let Richard know that she wanted to remain friends but that she intended to date other people. On July 7th, 1977, Bonnie's mother walked...

November 15, 2017. Lincoln, Nebraska. Sydney Loofe was a young woman living in Lincoln, Nebraska. She liked using Tinder to meet people. In November of 2016, Sydney matched with a woman named Audrey. They agreed to a first date. It went well and the two women agreed to a second date. What Sydney didn’t know was that she was walking into the trap of two people who were sexually aroused by torture a...

November 15, 1989. Peekskill, New York. 15 year-old Angela Correa carried a camera and telephoto lens in a plastic bag and wore a Walkman-type cassette player with a New Kids on the Block cassette inside with headphones on her way to work on a homework assignment for her photography class. The homework assignment was assigned to students in pairs; a boy with a girl. Angela’s partner bailed on the...

August 27, 2017. Corning, New York. On August 28, 2017, Sergeant John McDivitt of the Corning Police Department responded to a call concerning the welfare of 46-year-old Michele Neurauter. A family friend had stopped by to pick up Michele’s youngest daughter for swim practice and received no response. When he looked through the glass on the front door of the home, he noticed the silhouette of a wo...

December 31, 1987. Wichita, Kansas. Mary Fager walked into her house and found the body of her husband so she had a neighbor call 911. When police arrived they found the bodies of Mary's husband and two daughters. They had been brutally murdered, Phillip was shot and Sherri and Kelli had been drowned in the family’s hot tub. The contractor, Bill Butterworth, was missing as was the family's vehicle...

June 12, 2016. Orlando, Florida. A gunman walked into Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, near closing time and began shooting. Forty-nine people lost their lives and many others were wounded. Join us as we discuss Pulse, the victims and survivors, as well as our opinions on what Omar Mateen's actual motivation could have been for the shooting itself. Get bonus episodes from Justin and Aaron:...

June 30, 2003. Dalkeith in Midlothian, Scotland. A 14 year old girl named Jodi Jones is murdered after she leaves her house to visit her boyfriend, Luke Mitchell. That, combined with his discovery of her body behind a stone wall, had detectives focusing on him as the suspect for the crime. But was Luke Mitchell Jodi's killer? Join us as we discuss a case reminiscent of the West Memphis 3 case. Exc...

January 17, 2008. Berkeley County, South Carolina. Kadie Major had always wanted to be a mother. At the age of 26 she found herself married with a daughter of her own, 9-month-old River Lynn. It seemed as though she had exactly the life she had always dreamed of. She was also 4-months pregnant with her second child, a boy she planned to call Aadon. But a terrible discovery on January 17th left her...

January 26, 2009. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. When Bob Chappell, a radiation specialist goes missing, police try to piece together what went wrong. Was it an accident aboard his yacht? Did someone find Bob on his yacht and attack him? Or was it his partner of 18 years, Susan Neill-Fraser? Want episode followups and commentary? Visit: patreon.com/generationwhy Listen ad free with Wondery+. Jo...

December 18, 2013. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In December 2013, Heather Elvis was excited for the new year to come. She had just ended a toxic affair with a married man, was back into dating, and about to start a new job as a makeup artist. Five days later, she received a phone call that prompted her to head out into the night in her car. No one knows what happened to Heather that night, and de...

2000's. United Kingdom. During the 2000's, Post Office Ltd discovered that hundreds of their SubPostmasters were stealing money and punished them for it. Well over 700 people were prosecuted or took plea deals resulting in fines and even prison sentences. As the numbers grew and the postmasters suffered, a reality began to sink in; the Horizon system that was built by Fujitsu to handle transaction...

October, 30, 2012. Kansas City, Missouri. On October 30, 2012, 27-year-old Bethany Deaton was found dead in the backseat of her vehicle from an apparent suicide. Her husband of a few months, Tyler, her family and her friends were devastated by her death. A week and a half later, their grief was compounded when Micah Moore, a friend of the couple, confessed to murdering Bethany at the behest o...

July 8th, 2002. Long Beach, California. It was a normal day in summer school for Brian Banks. He left class, and saw his acquaintance Wanetta Gibson in the hallway. They decided to sneak off to the stairs to spend some time away from the prying eyes of teachers. But that was his story. Wanetta told a very different account and Brian was arrested. What happened in the stairwell that day? Join us as...

September 1, 2013. Middleburg, Florida. A woman named Lois Kay Skeen is told late one evening that her granddaughter, Kayla Skeen, has hanged herself from a tree. The messenger is Kayla's boyfriend, Allen Marsh, who asked her to call 911 before running back to Kayla. The Clay County Sheriff's Office responded and conducted an investigation. It wasn't long before Kayla's death was ruled a suicide,...

February 11, 2013. Wilmington, Delaware. Christine Belford and her ex-husband, David Matusiewicz, had a contentious relationship after their 2006 divorce that culminated in David and his mother kidnapping the couple's three daughters. Four years after she got her children back, Christine and her friend Beth Mulford stepped into the county courthouse to attend Christine’s child support hearing wher...

June 19, 1995. Virginia Beach, Virginia. 21 year old Jennifer Evans went to The Bayou, a nightclub, with two friends. Sometime after midnight, she met Dustin Turner, a Navy SEAL trainee. He was at the club with his buddy and fellow SEAL trainee, Billy Brown. Dusty and Jennifer seemed to hit it off and went to his car to talk. The next day, Jennifer was reported missing by her friends. Detectives w...

October 22, 2018. Salt Lake City, UT. University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey began seeking help from authorities after she discovered that her controlling boyfriend had been lying about his identity and had a criminal past. It's the events that happened after she sought help that will have you questioning everything. Join us as we discuss one of the most infuriating cases you'll ever hear abo...

November 22, 1990. Fairfield, Maine. A rented farmhouse was occupied by Hubert Hartley, his girlfriend, Tammy Theriault, and Hubert's good friend, Morris Martin. Tammy was pregnant and brought along a 20 month old child from a previous relationship. The farmhouse was in a great location for hunting which both men enjoyed. Just one week after renting the place, two other men had moved in with them....

July 2017. Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Over the course of three days in early July 2017, four young men, Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Mark Sturgis, and Tom Meo, went missing in the Philadelphia suburb of Bucks County. The investigation quickly led to a 90-acre farm owned by the DiNardo family. The son, Cosmo, seemed to be connected to the missing men and detectives and the county district attor...

May 17, 2001. Phoenix, Arizona. 17 year old Alissa Turney was spending her last day as a Junior at Paradise High before summer break. Her sister, Sarah, expected their father, Michael, to pick her up from school but he didn't show. She went on to a friend's house where, later, her dad finally arrived. But he was concerned. Alissa was missing. Phone calls and visits to neighboring homes on their st...

February 5, 2007. Orlando, Florida. Lisa Nowak, a NASA astronaut, drove nearly 1000 miles from Houston, Texas to Orlando, Florida so that she could confront another woman. The other woman was Colleen Shipman, A U.S. Navy Captain, who was dating astronaut Bill Oefelein and who Lisa still had strong feelings for. Colleen was attacked in her car and was lucky to get away. Lisa Nowak's intentions and...