Hidden Killers Live! Daily True Crime News & Breakdowns

The Aaron Spencer murder case is over. A judge killed it. And the language in his order reads like the opening chapter of a federal investigation that hasn't started yet. Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. found that law enforcement's handling of evidence showed "a pattern of policy and procedure violations" and gave "the appearance of a coverup." Conduct so egregious that dismissal — the most extreme remedy...

Building a double murder case without a confession, without testimony, and without a single statement from the defendant requires investigators to let the evidence speak for itself. In Mackenzie Shirilla's case, the evidence was devastating. A car's data recorder showed the accelerator pushed to full capacity with zero braking, approaching a hundred miles per hour aimed at a building. Surveillance...

When a sitting judge writes that law enforcement conduct gave "the appearance of a coverup" and was "so egregious" that a murder prosecution must be dismissed — how does that language register at the federal level? Aaron Spencer's second-degree murder charge was thrown out after the court found investigators mishandled the one piece of evidence that mattered most: a dashcam SD card from Michael Fo...

The doorbell camera captured a masked, armed figure at the front door. The FBI recovered the footage. Blood confirmed as Nancy's was on the porch. A pacemaker signal went silent at 2:28 a.m. Her phone, wallet, and daily medication were left inside the house. Discarded gloves were found two miles away. Drones went up. Dogs went out. More than a hundred investigators eventually worked the case. The...

The behavioral pattern is the case. Every time Kouri Richins faced a new threat, she generated a new story. Not a calculated lie — an automatic response. A narrative reflex that fires before conscious thought arrives, the way your body flinches before your brain decides to flinch. A six-page letter scripting her brother's testimony. Hidden in an LSAT prep book in her jail cell. Found by deputies d...

Mackenzie Shirilla says she blacked out and has no memory of the crash that killed two people. The families say she's lying. A fellow inmate says the Mackenzie in the Netflix documentary is an act. The public picked a side before the first episode ended. But Shavaun Scott has spent more than thirty years in trauma work, forensic mental health, and domestic violence — and the clinical answer is mor...

The prosecution presented Mackenzie Shirilla's texts and threats as proof of a cold, calculating killer. A judge called her "hell on wheels." The public sees a narcissist. But Shavaun Scott has spent three decades in forensic mental health treating people who do terrible things, and the clinical picture she identifies doesn't match any of those labels cleanly. Scott — licensed psychotherapist, aut...

Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson spent twenty years watching Alex Murdaugh operate. She saw how he moved money through other people's hands. How he used relationships as infrastructure. How Curtis Eddie Smith cashed four hundred thirty-seven checks totaling roughly $2.4 million. How a network of enablers kept the machine running for years. Alex Murdaugh never did anything alone. Blanca's question is simp...

Mackenzie Shirilla appears in Netflix's The Crash speaking from prison for the first time — soft-spoken, remorseful, insisting she has no memory of the crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. An inmate who spent six months with her describes a completely different person — someone doing her makeup, working the prison social hierarchy, nothing like the woman on camera. The families hav...

Jennifer Coffindaffer built and broke cases like this for a career at the FBI. She's doing something she rarely does with the Murdaugh case: a clean-slate thought experiment. Strip the name off the file. Forget the financial crimes. Forget the public persona. Look at the scene. Two people shot at the dog kennels on a remote hunting property. Two different firearms — a shotgun and a rifle. Neither...

She wrote a children's book about grief. Went on television to promote it. Talked about helping her boys cope with their dad's "unexpected" death. Fourteen months of a constructed identity that fooled every friend who testified at trial. The whole time, she was the reason those children were grieving. The behavioral question isn't whether Kouri Richins was faking. It's whether she was faking at al...

Jennifer Coffindaffer spent a career handing cases to prosecutors. She knows what the evidence file looks like when a case is strong. Security footage tracking the defendant's movements. A smashed phone in a trash bin. DNA pointing in one direction. A body concealed beneath a bed on a cruise ship. When the file looks like that and the suspect walks out of the courthouse — she has a reaction. Anna...

The behavioral question at the center of the Dan Markel case isn't how a murder-for-hire gets organized. It's how a grandmother, a former schoolteacher, a woman who spent decades projecting devotion to her family allegedly convinced herself that orchestrating the killing of her grandchildren's father was the right thing to do. The psychological framework is narcissistic at its core. Donna Adelson...

Natalie Shirilla called the Russo family "evil people" on a monitored prison call. Steve Shirilla lost his teaching job after appearing on a Netflix documentary defending his convicted daughter. Mackenzie has thirty-six conduct violations, refuses rehabilitation, and told her mother she wants to be a life coach. Defense attorney Eric Faddis asks the question the audience is already asking: is this...

A federal judge said he would not call the prosecution's case in the Anna Kepner cruise ship death strong — used the words "a much closer call" with "various defenses." The DNA match odds are 120 sextillion to one. An FBI agent testified he cannot connect that DNA to cause of death. Defense attorney Eric Faddis evaluates what the prosecution actually has heading into a September trial. Anna Kepner...

Natalie Shirilla used a private coded language on recorded prison calls to communicate with her convicted daughter. Prosecutors decoded those calls and presented them as evidence at trial. In one exchange, Mackenzie allegedly asked if they could tell police she had a seizure. On a separate call, Natalie called the Russo family — the family of the man Mackenzie was convicted of killing — "evil peop...

Mackenzie Shirilla's conduct file at the Ohio Reformatory for Women has thirty-six entries in less than three years — guilty on thirty-two. On recorded prison calls, she refuses rehabilitation, calls herself the third victim, and talks about becoming a life coach. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down what the parole board does with a record like this. Shirilla was convict...

The courtroom saw a cold-blooded killer. Netflix saw a documentary. The public saw a debate. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott sees a clinical case that was never properly examined — and a system that convicted a teenager of premeditated murder without ever asking the questions a clinician would have started with. Scott has spent more than thirty years in forensic mental health, domestic violence work...

A fellow inmate says the Mackenzie Shirilla in the Netflix documentary — soft-spoken, remorseful, insisting she can't remember — isn't the person she spent six months with in prison. She described someone doing her makeup, playing social games, navigating the hierarchy. The prosecution says she's been performing from day one. The families say she knows exactly what happened and chooses not to say...

Everyone's focused on the surveillance footage — the car turning, accelerating, hitting the wall. But psychotherapist Shavaun Scott says the real evidence in the Mackenzie Shirilla case isn't on that video. It's in the relationship. And the prosecution used the relationship as a weapon without ever understanding what it was actually showing them. Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder for...

A judge called Mackenzie Shirilla's actions "controlled, methodical, deliberate, intentional, and purposeful." Five adjectives that describe a cold, calculating mind. But what if every one of those words is a misread — what if the behavior that looked like calculation was actually the opposite? Shavaun Scott is a psychotherapist who has spent more than thirty years working with people on both side...

The Mackenzie Shirilla case is a catalog of failures. A defense that raised a medical condition and never proved it. A prosecution that charged murder without a confession and won in front of a single judge. A post-conviction system that rejected new evidence over a calendar technicality. And a defendant who agreed to a Netflix documentary that gave her critics more ammunition than her supporters....

Mackenzie Shirilla's legal options are essentially gone. The conviction stands. The appeals are exhausted. The post-conviction petition was denied. She's serving fifteen years to life and won't see a parole board until 2037. So the question shifts from "can she win legally" to "what does she do now" — and criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the answer to that question matters more than most p...

Murder requires intent. Not recklessness. Not negligence. Not bad judgment. Intent — formed beforehand and carried out deliberately. That's the bar the prosecution set for itself when it charged Mackenzie Shirilla with four counts of murder for the crash in Strongsville, Ohio that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. And criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the evidence doesn't clear it....

If Mackenzie Shirilla had walked into Bob Motta's office instead of her actual attorney's, the case might look very different right now. That's not speculation — it's a function of what was missed, what was never pursued, and what was fumbled at every critical turn. The POTS defense should have been the centerpiece of the trial. A medical condition that can cause sudden loss of consciousness in a...