Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

Kouri Richins told her three sons at sentencing that she'd appeal her conviction and fight "no matter how long it takes." Her defense attorneys got the deadline to file a motion for a new trial extended from fourteen days to twenty-eight and told the judge they need to retain a new expert. The question nobody in the courtroom answered is whether any of it matters. Eric Faddis breaks down every pot...

The D4vd case keeps getting framed as a celebrity scandal. In this one, Tony Brueski goes somewhere harder. The death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and the charges against David Anthony Burke, sit next to a body of work that now reads very differently than it did when teenagers were streaming it a billion times. Start with the name on the album: Withered. The shelved deluxe edition carri...

Before she opened her mouth, Kouri Richins had already told the room everything. The eye rolls during her children's statements. The disgust during Eric's sisters' grief. The immediate tears the moment her own family proclaimed her innocence. Every reaction was a data point, and psychotherapist Shavaun Scott reads them all. This three-part conversation on Hidden Killers Live covers the full arc of...

Why were zero charges filed after Operation Tidal Wave? Why does the New York Times find only 13 prosecutions in a decade? Why do settlements come with NDAs? This is the architecture of the justice gap: foreign-flag registration placing ships under jurisdictions that do not investigate. Private security teams with inherent conflicts of interest conducting the first investigation. A federal law req...

She said it multiple times. "Be like your dad." The father a jury found she poisoned with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl. She said it to three boys who had just finished describing, through their therapists, a childhood of locked doors and threatened animals and a mother they no longer call by any title other than her first name. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott joins Tony Brueski to break do...

Speed versus delay. That’s the framework for understanding every pre-trial decision in Alex Murdaugh’s retrial. The AG promised to retry aggressively and as soon as possible. The defense will engineer the opposite. And the wild card decisions made in chambers before a single witness is sworn may matter more than anything said in front of a jury. Tony Brueski breaks down why the clock is the real w...

The Word of Faith Fellowship did not just operate in Spindale, North Carolina. According to the Associated Press, it maintained affiliated churches in Brazil, Ghana, Scotland, Sweden, and other countries. Brazil was reportedly the biggest source of foreign labor. The AP’s investigation found that the church allegedly used its Brazilian congregations to recruit young people with promises of religio...

For hours, Kouri Richins sat stone-faced through her own children's pain. Then her brother Ronney stepped to the podium, started crying about missing Eric's "stupid finger dance" and Christmas mornings with the boys — and Kouri fell apart. Tears streaming. Full sobbing. The first visible emotion she'd shown all day. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott joins Tony Brueski to explain what that flip means c...

Three therapists read three letters from three boys under fourteen. The children described locked bedrooms, threatened pets, a mother "drunk almost daily," and a night one boy believes he was drugged because he woke up shaking and couldn't speak. Not one of them called her "mom." They used her first name. Every one of them asked for life without parole. Kouri Richins responded by making faces of d...

The Murdaugh defense filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Becky Hill before the retrial has even been assigned a judge. They told reporters it’s about accountability and investigation. It is both of those things. It’s also a calculated move to arm themselves for the murder retrial with tools no criminal defendant normally gets this early. The lawsuit gives the defense subpoena power and de...

Three major developments from one press conference. A federal lawsuit against Becky Hill. An accusation that the Attorney General is playing politics with the death penalty. And DNA evidence the first jury never knew existed. The Section 1983 lawsuit targets Hill for depriving Murdaugh of his constitutional right to a fair trial. The defense is using it as an investigative vehicle — civil discover...

Master keycards that open every cabin. Youth centers without standardized staffing ratios. Background checks limited to whatever foreign governments provide. No international offender registry. No mandatory device screening. This is the access structure parents are not being told about — the gap between the safety the cruise industry markets and the screening that actually exists. According to a C...

The DNA evidence alone would be enough to change the shape of this case. Unknown male DNA beneath Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails, collected at the scene, and never run through the one database designed to identify it. Jim Griffin confirmed the defense has this evidence and intends to use it at the retrial. It is the kind of detail that raises questions not just about what happened at Moselle that n...

The defense team that lost the Murdaugh murder trial in six weeks has had three years to study exactly why. And the SC Supreme Court handed them something defense attorneys almost never get — a ruling that doesn’t just grant a new trial but tells them where the prosecution overstepped and how far the next judge should limit the state’s case. Harpootlian and Griffin walk into Trial 2 with a bluepri...

Former teacher Rebeca Melo told the Associated Press that inside the Word of Faith Christian School, children would turn on each other in the middle of class. One child would accuse another of having demons. The group would surround the accused. According to Melo, children were thrown to the ground and beaten. Teachers were allegedly told not to intervene. John Cooper, who worked as a teacher’s ai...

That is the question Dick Harpootlian asked at the defense press conference — and it is the question Attorney General Alan Wilson has not answered. Five years ago, the state prosecuted Alex Murdaugh for murder and did not seek the death penalty. The evidence was what it was. The facts were what they were. Then Murdaugh won his appeal on jury tampering grounds, and suddenly Wilson announced the dea...

A federal civil rights lawsuit against a former clerk of court. That is where the Murdaugh case stands right now — and the implications go far beyond one defendant. Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a Section 1983 claim against Becky Hill, the former Colleton County Clerk whose conduct during the original trial led the South Carolina Supreme Court to order a new trial. The claim is straightforward: Hill...

Eighteen days before Anna Kepner’s federal trial was set to begin, the defense filed a motion asking for ninety more days. The prosecution didn’t fight it. The court granted it. September 8 is the new date. The Unopposed Motion to Continue Trial — Document 74 on the federal docket — landed May 13. It’s the first continuance request in the entire case. That detail matters because of everything the...

The Supreme Court overturned everything five days ago. Since then, the AG put the death penalty on the table while running for governor. Buster Murdaugh reportedly called his father selfish and won’t visit him. And the defense went on national television hinting at unnamed third parties. Three bombshells. One week. And the retrial hasn’t even been scheduled. Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke pull toge...

According to federal court filings, three crew members on a single Disney ship were charged in early 2024 — all allegedly carrying exploitation material on personal devices. A Royal Caribbean attendant pled guilty to secretly recording passengers including children as young as two inside their cabins. Sentenced to 30 years. On Celebrity, according to the FBI, a youth counselor allegedly targeted m...

Jim Griffin said “third parties and potential motives” on national television. Dick Harpootlian said the reversal gives them subpoena power. Both said people have come forward with information since the 2023 trial. Neither would say another word. Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke unpack the listener question underneath the defense’s cryptic statements: Was the plan always for someone else to be at Mos...

Becky Hill wasn’t some rogue spectator who wandered into a courtroom. She was the elected Clerk of Court in Colleton County — chosen by the same community that filled the jury pool, entrusted with managing the evidence and protecting the process. And according to the SC Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling, she used that position of trust to push Alex Murdaugh’s jury toward a guilty verdict so she cou...

It started with screaming. According to the Associated Press, the Word of Faith Fellowship practiced something called blasting — groups of members surrounding a person and shrieking inches from their face for hours to allegedly drive out demons. Secret recordings captured the sound. Former members said it eventually was not enough. According to Rick Cooper, a Navy veteran who spent over two decade...

Someone close to Buster Murdaugh called Alex “a selfish, selfish old man” after the Supreme Court granted a retrial. That’s not the language of a family rallying behind a defendant. That’s the language of a family that’s done. Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke work through listener questions about the distance between the 2023 family and the 2026 family. Buster testified for his father three years ago...

Alan Wilson controls the prosecution of Alex Murdaugh. He also wants to be the next governor of South Carolina. He’s leading in the polls. And he just told reporters the death penalty is an option for the retrial—something that was never on the table in 2023. Tony Brueski and former FBI behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke tackle listener questions about where the line falls between prosecution strateg...