Hold My Sweet Tea

Send us Fan Mail Hello Kitty on a true crime podcast sounds like a bit until it isn’t. This Spooktober story takes us to Hong Kong in 1999, where a large Hello Kitty mermaid doll becomes linked to the death of 23-year-old Fan Man Yee and turns into one of the most infamous pieces of evidence in modern true crime history. We walk through what led up to Fan’s abduction, including the alleged debt ti...

Send us Fan Mail A glowing jack o’lantern looks cheerful until you learn what it used to be: a hard-carved turnip carrying a coal from hell. This solo Sweet Tea After Dark story digs into the chilling Halloween folklore of Stingy Jack, a man so slippery and selfish that he talks his way around everyone, including the devil himself. If you’ve ever wondered about the real origin of the jack o’lanter...

Send us Fan Mail A planned update turns into something much darker when we’re forced to add breaking news midstream. Krista Pike, the lone woman on Tennessee’s death row, is set for lethal injection and says she isn’t afraid to die, only nervous about the process. Then the process reportedly fails. What follows is a botched execution story that’s messy, confusing, and horrifying, with journalists...

Send us Fan Mail One minute you think you’re looking at a disturbing collection of staged horror content, and the next you’re staring at evidence investigators believe may capture real violence. We’re back with major updates on the Philadelphia investigation tied to Eugene Horsch and the house on West Chew Avenue, and the story has changed fast since we last talked about that shocking “5% reviewed...

Send us Fan Mail The darkest woods are the ones that feel empty until they don’t. We share a listener submission from Rachel about a late October backpacking trip in the Appalachian Mountains near the West Virginia and Virginia border, where a simple choice to camp off trail by an unmarked logging road turns into a night of slow footsteps, silence that presses in, and something dragging along the...

Send us Fan Mail A resort town built on “healing springs” sounds like the safest kind of escape, until a smooth-talking promoter shows up with a miracle cure and a talent for making people believe. We head to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and follow the strange, infuriating story of the Crescent Hotel, a limestone landmark that starts as a luxury resort, shifts into a school, and then becomes the stag...

Send us Fan Mail Windows cracked open on a hot Louisiana night shouldn’t turn into a life sentence of fear, but that’s exactly what happened in Jefferson Parish in 1986. We walk through a tight cluster of home invasion sexual assaults in Metairie and River Ridge where the details kept repeating: a masked intruder, entry through a window, a screwdriver or knife, and women attacked where they should...

Send us Fan Mail !!VOTING ENDS SEPTEMBER 13th!! www.225ama.com/vote  Please vote for: Pat-e Ian Webster Katt Jarrett Gustafson Ian & Pat-e Ian & Jarrett Orphan Annie Thank you so much for all of our nominations and thank you for your continued support! He’s standing under a dead oak tree at 1:30 in the morning, thumb out in a Louisiana downpour and somehow he isn’t wet. That single detail...

Send us Fan Mail A case update like this doesn’t feel like “news” when it’s a real person’s life and a family’s decade of questions. We revisit the Morgan Bauer case with the biggest development yet: Katelyn Goble’s trial, the evidence that dismantled the original story about a late-night gas station drop-off, and the verdict that followed after days of testimony. If you remember Morgan’s disappea...

Send us Fan Mail Historical Note: This episode discusses historical newspaper accounts that contain racist, sensationalized, and derogatory descriptions of Black people and Black religious practices. These terms are reproduced only when necessary to accurately discuss the historical record. Modern research has challenged many of the claims surrounding the alleged “Church of Sacrifice,” and not all...

Send us Fan Mail We chase vampire myths back to the real fears that shaped them, from tuberculosis outbreaks to communities that truly believed the dead could come back and drain the living. We tell the Mercy Brown story, explain why decomposition fooled people, and then swing through New Orleans lore and the pop culture glow-up from Anne Rice to True Blood.  • classic vampire image vs older reven...

Send us Fan Mail A wrecked white Acura in Nashville looks like a tragic crash until the details start shouting back. We follow the trail from the moment two bodies are found to the surveillance footage that shows men creeping toward an apartment door and a woman inside doing everything she can to keep it locked. That fear on camera becomes the emotional center of the story, and it’s only the begin...

Send us Fan Mail This episode discusses an active criminal investigation. Some information presented is based on law-enforcement statements and reporting from multiple news organizations and may change as investigators review additional evidence. Eugene Horsch has not been charged with the deaths of the missing women discussed in this episode, and allegations should not be interpreted as findings...

Send us Fan Mail A handsome stranger moves into the New Orleans French Quarter, starts throwing the kind of dinner parties only the elite can access, and somehow becomes the toast of the town almost overnight. Then one woman ends up injured in the street after a desperate leap from his balcony, claiming she was bitten and barely escaped. By morning, the host is gone and the house is quiet, but the...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet stretch of River Road in Ponchatoula, Louisiana doesn’t feel so quiet when a man disappears and the search turns into something far worse. We’re talking about James “Jimmy” Wood, 43, last seen on camera June 19 and reported missing days later after his keys and belongings are found at the house where he was living and remodeling. Months pass with more questions than leads,...

Send us Fan Mail It's a Summerween Re-Mix!!  We are dropping one of my favorite past Spooky Season Cases for your listening pleasure!  A quiet college town. Freshmen hauling boxes into a new apartment. Parents doing that first-day check-in. Then, almost overnight, Gainesville becomes a place where people stop walking alone, roommates pile into the same living room to sleep, and every knock at...

Send us Fan Mail Summer is at it's PEAK and our job is all consuming.  Please come with us as we revisit a past episode that could use a little more attention.  Fret not we will return soon!   A crowded New Orleans nightclub, a sudden death, and a story that seems to evaporate almost as soon as it hits the news. We’re going back to 2015 and the suspicious death of Dan Betancourt Jr., a former...

Send us Fan Mail **Correction : In the episode, I made a statement that Paris Bennett is now in his mid twenties. I meant to say mid thirties.  Paris Bennett's first parole eligibility date is February 2027. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2007, with the possibility of parole after serving 20 years, which makes February 2027 his first opportunity to be considered for release. If he...

Send us Fan Mail A cemetery that doesn’t exist on any map should be easy to avoid. The problem is Saint Lazarus Cemetery doesn’t wait for you to find it. It finds you, right when the Mississippi fog rolls in and the church bell dares to ring thirteen times.  We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re serving a fresh piece of original horror fiction set in New Orleans, the perfect city for a supernatural urb...

Send us Fan Mail You can tell a lot about a true crime show by how it handles laughter. We start by addressing listener feedback about our humor and why we refuse to confuse coping with disrespect. We take victims seriously, we treat families carefully, and we do not extend courtesy to convicted killers just because they exist in a courtroom transcript. That boundary matters before we step into a...

Send us Fan Mail You probably know the images even if you’ve never learned the name. The Rider-Waite tarot deck is the visual backbone of modern tarot, and it didn’t become iconic because people memorized esoteric theory. It became iconic because the art tells the story at a glance. We’re diving into the life and legacy of Pamela Colman Smith, the illustrator who drew all 78 cards by hand and some...

Send us Fan Mail New Orleans loves a legend, but we’re not interested in the souvenir version. We’re talking about Marie Laveau as a real woman in 1800s Louisiana: a free woman of color navigating slavery, racism, class power, and public fear while building influence that people still whisper about today. If you’ve only heard “voodoo queen” and pictured Hollywood witchcraft, we pull that apart and...

Send us Fan Mail A house stuffed with leaves sounds like a joke until SWAT opens the door and realizes the piles aren’t just weird, they’re dangerous. We travel to Mount Vernon, Ohio to unpack the Matthew Hoffman “Leaf Killer” case, a true crime story where a missing persons call turns into one of the strangest crime scenes we’ve ever covered. Bags of leaves stacked floor to ceiling, dead squirrel...

Send us Fan Mail 🚨 WARNING: This episode contains discussion of grave desecration, human remains, and disturbing crime scene details. Listener discretion is advised. When volunteers at Pennsylvania's historic Mount Moriah Cemetery began discovering broken mausoleums and disturbed burial vaults, they had no idea they were uncovering one of the most bizarre criminal investigations in recent me...

Send us Fan Mail Something about Honey Island Swamp makes a good story feel dangerously believable. Maybe it’s the miles of protected Louisiana marshland north of Lake Pontchartrain, maybe it’s the Pearl River cutting through cypress and shadow, or maybe it’s the simple fact that the bayou can hide you fast. We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re going full cryptid today with the Honey Island Swamp Mons...