Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

The recorded jail calls between Joseph and Kendra Duggar allegedly tell a story the family probably never intended the public to hear. Kendra's alleged repeated question about whether Joseph still loves her. The warnings about recorded lines. The instruction to save case details for attorney meetings. And then Jim Bob's email arrived in the public record — "terrible decisions" followed by an alleg...

When a community spends eight years with an open wound, it stops looking for the right answer and starts looking for any answer. That’s what happened in Austin after the yogurt shop murders. Four teenagers were pulled into the investigation in 1991, released for lack of evidence, and then pulled back in eight years later by new detectives who found their names in an old file and decided they were...

Former members of the Twelve Tribes describe a childhood defined by a single object: a thin, reed-like rod kept above the door in every room of every home in every community. It was reportedly always within reach because, according to the people who grew up inside, it was always in use. In this episode, Tony Brueski builds the case from the ground up. The group’s own published teachings defend cor...

A masked figure allegedly stood on Nancy Guthrie's porch at 1:47 a.m., carrying a backpack, wearing ill-fitting gloves, and reportedly grabbing foliage to block the doorbell camera. The FBI released two images from the Nest camera. Three months later, nobody has been identified — and the alleged institutional breakdown between Pima County and federal investigators may be the reason. Tony Brueski a...

The alleged methodical cover-up in the D4VD case is what separates it from panic — prosecutors say the disposal unfolded over weeks with calculated precision. A shovel allegedly ordered the day after the killing. Two chainsaws a week later. A body bag and inflatable pool twelve days after, all under the fake name "Victoria Mendez." A burn cage two months later. Meanwhile, D4VD allegedly texted Cel...

Before the murders at Moselle, before the 911 call, before any of it — there was a pattern. And James Lasdun's new book The Family Man traces it through original interviews and evidence that never made it into the trial. The night of the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach, Alex Murdaugh was already running the playbook. He showed up at the hospital and started working the hallways — trying to ge...

Three separate failures converge in the Nancy Guthrie case, and retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer addresses each one across a three-part series. The offender’s behavior doesn’t fit a clean profile. Prepared enough to arrive concealed and interfere with surveillance. Not competent enough to avoid massive forensic exposure. Coffindaffer examines the contradiction: the calm approach tha...

Anna Duggar sat through her husband's trial. She heard a federal agent describe the material on Josh Duggar's computer as among the worst he had ever examined. She knows what Josh admitted to doing to four of his sisters when they were children. And according to emails obtained by People magazine, she was sending Josh private photos and personal messages from a monitored jail system the same month...

From the moment ransom communications surfaced in the Nancy Guthrie case, the public narrative locked into “kidnapping for profit.” It’s the frame that got repeated most and questioned least. But the ransom notes were sent to media outlets — not to the family, not through private channels — and the behavioral evidence has consistently pointed to opportunists entirely unconnected to the actual crim...

December 6, 1991. Four teenage girls walk into a yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. By midnight, all four are dead, and the building is on fire. What investigators find in the wreckage is almost nothing — a crime scene deliberately torched to erase every trace of the killer. Almost every trace. Amy Ayers was 13. Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas were 17. Sarah Harbison was 15. They were employees and...

There are at least thirty-three Yellow Deli locations worldwide. The reviews are glowing. The atmosphere is warm. And according to former members, cult researchers, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, every single one of them is allegedly a recruitment center for the Twelve Tribes — a group classified as a Christian fundamentalist cult. In this episode, Tony Brueski pulls back the curtain on the...

The Nancy Guthrie investigation didn’t just face an unknown offender. It faced internal conflict between the agencies responsible for solving it. The FBI director went on record with public criticism of how the case was handled — an extraordinary step that signals the kind of frustration that doesn’t develop over minor procedural disagreements. Jennifer Coffindaffer, retired FBI Special Agent, bre...

There’s a behavioral gap in the Nancy Guthrie case that doesn’t get talked about enough. The suspect allegedly arrived at her Tucson home with concealment, a weapon, and enough awareness to interfere with the doorbell camera. That’s not a crime of pure opportunity. But the same person apparently left behind massive forensic and digital exposure — the kind of trail that suggests someone who thought...

The criminologist behind the biggest new book on the Idaho murders has been publicly disavowed by the defense team that hired him. Ann Taylor, Elisa Massoth, and Bicka Barlow said they are "appalled" by Brent Turvey's media appearances and that he is violating his confidentiality agreement. They said he was hired solely for crime scene analysis and is now speaking on topics outside his expertise....

Eric Richins survived the first attempt. He knew what was happening to him. He told people close to him that he believed his wife was trying to end his life. And then Kouri Richins handed him a Moscow Mule with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl in it. This Hidden Killers Week in Review brings together two deep-dive episodes covering every dimension of the Richins case — the financial motive,...

Eleven when they allegedly met. Thirteen when the relationship allegedly became sexual. Fourteen when she was reportedly dead. The People's Brief in the D4VD case lays out a progression that prosecutors call a years-long pattern of sexual exploitation — and according to the filing, law enforcement directly told David Anthony Burke that Celeste Rivas Hernandez was a minor before the worst of it all...

Jordan Chandler told a private investigator that Michael Jackson never did anything to him. Then his father was caught on tape threatening to destroy Jackson. Then a twenty-three-million-dollar check was written. Then the boy vanished — from the case, from both parents, from public life entirely. This Hidden Killers Week in Review pulls together two full episodes on the Jackson allegations — the c...

The man behind the biggest claims in the new Idaho murders book has been publicly disavowed by the people who hired him. Criminologist Brent Turvey — the primary source for Christopher Whitcomb's book — was called out by Ann Taylor, Elisa Massoth, and Bicka Barlow in a statement saying they are "appalled" by his media appearances. They said he was retained solely for crime scene analysis and is no...

According to prosecutors, the morning after Celeste Rivas Hernandez was allegedly stabbed to death, David Anthony Burke ordered a shovel from Home Depot. Then chainsaws. Then a body bag. Then an inflatable pool — all allegedly under the fake name "Victoria Mendez." Then he allegedly gave a radio interview. That evening, he allegedly attended a party for his debut album. The album dropped two days...

They memorized every booklet. They followed every rule. They submitted to every authority figure above them in the chain. And when the adults who went through the Duggar family's IBLP curriculum finally stepped outside the system, they discovered that the education they spent their entire childhood receiving was worth almost nothing. This week's Hidden Killers review brings together the most criti...

Nick Reiner stood in front of a judge, was asked if he understood his rights, and said "Yeah." That was the hearing. Minutes. One word. Meanwhile his brother Jake had just published an essay so raw it reached tens of thousands of readers — about their father's bad jokes, Dodger games, and the fear both parents must have felt before they were allegedly killed. This week's Hidden Killers review brin...

Bryan Kohberger admitted to killing four people. He took the deal. He waived his appeals. And now the people who were supposed to defend him are publicly fighting each other over evidence claims that didn't matter enough to pursue when the case was still active. This week's Hidden Killers review pulls together the most pointed conversations from the Idaho murders — focused on why the post-plea noi...

The guilty plea made headlines. What happened in the room before it didn't. Rex Heuermann didn't just confess — he negotiated. He brought up Karen Vergata, a woman prosecutors never charged him with killing, and got her case folded into a deal that blocks any future prosecution. The cooperation agreement with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit reportedly has no enforcement mechanism if he refuses...

Prosecutor Brad Bloodworth stood in front of eight jurors and said: “Kouri Richins wanted to murder Eric Richins, thus took out an insurance policy on his life to get money for murdering Eric Richins. Then she murdered Eric Richins, and then she submitted a claim to get the money.” The jury needed less than three hours. In the final episode of our definitive five-part series, we break down the tri...

Every case covered here has an investigation that's failing somebody. The question is who — and what the law says can be done about it. In the Nancy Guthrie case, the FBI and local law enforcement are publicly fighting over how the investigation was handled. Content creators have allegedly built platforms off defaming the cleared family. Media outlets ran hoax ransom demands. An 84-year-old woman...