Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

Blair's sketch showing Bridge Guy looks nothing like Allen — excluded. The expert who would have challenged the bullet science — excluded. The audio showing Allen's psychotic state when he confessed — excluded. The expert who would have called those confessions false — excluded. The ritual killing expert who could explain the crime scene — excluded. Every piece of evidence about alternative suspec...

The Seagram’s heiress who poured $100 million into NXIVM walked out of federal prison in June 2025. The campus she financed sold for $700,000. Keith Raniere’s projected release date is June 26, 2120. This episode runs the numbers on everyone. Clare Bronfman: 81 months, handcuffed in the courtroom on the spot, the only co-defendant who never cooperated. Allison Mack: cooperated, served two years of...

For more than a decade, the Dan Markel case has produced conviction after conviction. What it has not produced is a charge against the two people prosecutors have repeatedly named as part of the conspiracy: Wendi Adelson and her father, Harvey. We dig into why. Markel, an FSU law professor, was shot in his Tallahassee garage in 2014 amid a bitter post-divorce battle with Wendi over their two sons...

The defendant in Anna Kepner's death has now been indicted as an adult — and that single procedural shift was supposed to change everything about whether he stays free before trial. Instead, a federal judge heard the prosecution's case for detention and walked away without a ruling. Here's what the record shows. Anna, eighteen, was traveling with her blended family aboard the Carnival Horizon when...

Mackenzie Shirilla's texts were controlling. Her threats were documented. Her TikTok persona screamed narcissism. Everything about her personality made people want to believe she was capable of murder. But since when does being a difficult person prove premeditated intent beyond a reasonable doubt? In the early morning of July 31st, 2022, Shirilla drove her car into a brick building in Strongsvill...

On the surface, these three cases share nothing. Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance from her Tucson home is an unsolved kidnapping with DNA at the FBI lab and more than fifty thousand tips under review. The Anna Kepner case is a federal murder prosecution stemming from a death on a Carnival cruise ship, with the accused — her sixteen-year-old stepbrother Timothy Hudson — pleading not guilty and a famil...

Todd Gabler never met Eric Richins. But he might know him better than almost anyone outside the family. Over the course of a year-long investigation, Gabler went through Eric's phone records, walked through his home, interviewed dozens of people who knew him, and pieced together the reality of a marriage and a life that ended in a way nobody should have to die. That kind of immersion changes an in...

Prosecutors allege David Anthony Burke — the musician known as D4VD — killed fourteen-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez and attempted to conceal the evidence for months. They’ve filed special circumstance allegations including murder for financial gain. Burke has pleaded not guilty. But the evidentiary question of what allegedly happened leads to a deeper one — what allegedly created the conditions...

IDOC's own policy caps solitary confinement at thirty days for inmates with serious mental illness. Richard Allen had a diagnosed major depressive disorder and a history of suicidal ideation. According to the defense filings, he was held in the most restrictive solitary cell at Westville for thirteen months — the first pretrial safekeeper anyone could remember being placed there. Within two weeks,...

He called himself Vanguard. He claimed to be a once-in-a-generation intellect. When authorities came for him, Keith Raniere was crouched in a closet in Mexico while his follower confronted armed agents on his behalf. The investigation began after a 2017 exposé brought the secret inner circle into public view. The FBI raided NXIVM co-founder Nancy Salzman’s home. Raniere had already fled to Mexico....

The federal murder charge against Timothy Hudson in the death of his stepsister Anna Kepner has dominated coverage. But the filings in a separate custody battle between Timothy’s biological parents tell a story the criminal case never will. Shauntel Hudson is Timothy’s biological mother. She married Anna’s father, Christopher Kepner. After Anna was found dead on a Carnival cruise ship, court filin...

More than fifty thousand tips have been submitted in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance. A retired Pima County detective believes the suspect’s name is probably already in that pile — investigators just haven’t reached it yet. DNA recovered from Nancy’s Tucson home has been shipped to the FBI crime lab at Quantico, where genetic genealogy analysis is reportedly ongoing. No arrest. No named suspect. A...

David Anthony Burke spent his entire childhood learning to perform emotions from behind a screen — and according to prosecutors, he allegedly spent his early adulthood applying that skill to maintaining a reality nobody around him could detect. This episode goes somewhere different. We’re not walking through charges or court dates. We’re going inside the person. Burke grew up homeschooled, isolate...

Criminal defense attorney Bob Motta examines three active cases through the lens of evidentiary reality and legal strategy. The Nancy Guthrie disappearance has produced no arrest, no identified suspect, and an investigation led by a department facing a no-confidence vote, a perjury referral, and a recall effort. A retired detective stated publicly that the suspect's identity may already exist with...

After law enforcement released the Richins home, Todd Gabler walked in and spent four or five straight days searching it. GoPro cameras running. Documents scanned. Eric's brother-in-law Clint Benson present or aware the entire time. No officers. No oversight from the Sheriff's Office. Just a PI operating under rules that gave him access a detective would need a warrant to get. He found things. Ite...

The evidentiary picture in Aaron Spencer's case has shifted dramatically since Judge Ralph Wilson replaced Judge Barbara Elmore. The defense filed a motion to dismiss based on the destruction of evidence — an SD card from Michael Fosler's dashcam containing front-facing and rear-facing video and audio from the night of the shooting. Four officers and a defense tech expert testified about the card'...

Every piece of evidence used to convict Richard Allen traces back to one document: Detective Liggett's probable cause affidavit. According to the defense's appellate filings, that document told the judge a version of events the witnesses themselves would not recognize. Betsy Blair saw Bridge Guy up close and described a man in his twenties with poofy brown hair. The affidavit allegedly included he...

Licensed therapists were reportedly not welcome inside NXIVM. The people with professional training to spot coercive influence were the exact people Keith Raniere kept out. That detail tells you everything. This episode goes inside the recruitment — how Raniere got smart, ambitious, successful people through the door and made leaving feel impossible. His first venture, Consumers’ Buyline, was shut...

The evidence in Timothy Hudson's federal case presents a narrow path for the defense. He is reportedly on camera as the sole individual entering and exiting the Carnival Horizon stateroom where Anna Kepner's body was found concealed. Anna died from asphyxiation. The cause of death and the forensic timeline are established. Hudson has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and additional federal...

The investigation into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance from her Catalina Foothills home has produced no arrest and no publicly identified suspect. The DNA evidence recovered from inside the home was initially sent to a private lab in Florida, then transferred to the FBI for more advanced analysis. The crime scene was reportedly released too early. A homicide unit supervisor was allegedly installed w...

A family that endorsed presidential candidates, worked inside conservative political organizations, and helped build the movement that just passed death penalty legislation for crimes against children — has now produced two brothers facing charges involving minors. One is convicted. One is awaiting trial. And the political allies who stood beside them for twenty years have gone silent. Tony Bruesk...

Sheriff Chris Nanos keeps saying the Nancy Guthrie investigation is "getting closer." That's the language he's chosen. Whether anyone believes him, and whether the actual evidence supports that read, is exactly the conversation Tony Brueski takes to retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer in this extended segment. Jennifer pulls together three live threads in the case. The change in family...

For 34 years, Todd Gabler sat on the defense side of the courtroom. Over a hundred homicide cases, always working to challenge the prosecution's theory. That was the job. Then an estate planning attorney connected him with Eric Richins' sister Katie — the same attorney Eric had quietly hired before his death to build a trust that cut Kouri out. The assignment was civil. Property disputes. Trust li...

The theory has a name. Wrench Attack. It's the term used in FBI and digital forensic circles for organized crypto-extortion operations — networks that target wealthy individuals or their family members, recruit disposable operatives to do the violent work, and demand cryptocurrency ransoms protected by layers of cutouts that make the architects nearly impossible to trace. The question is whether a...

According to the defense's appellate filings, a man connected to Abby Williams admitted in a police interview to practicing pagan rituals that included animal sacrifice and human bloodletting. He told them he owned a .40 caliber firearm. Officers never collected the weapon. The Delphi Police erased the only recording of his interview. His work alibi was based on a badge swipe that officers refused...