Hold My Sweet Tea

Send us Fan Mail A ballroom fantasy meets a concrete cell. We open with our love of escapism—the lush string covers, the dance cards, the guilty-pleasure joy—and then pull a hard turn into the stark reality of ADX Florence, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” where isolation isn’t a punishment inside a prison. It is the prison. We walk you into a seven-by-twelve-foot cell, a narrow sky-slit for light,...

Send us Fan Mail Four bored teenage boys in Gramercy, Louisiana make a decision that seemed harmless at the time — steal a bottle of cheap whiskey and head out to a sugarcane field to drink where nobody could see them. What starts as a dumb teenage plan quickly turns into something none of them can explain. Something running beside them in the rows. Something that moved through the cane without sl...

Send us Fan Mail Don’t open the fridge. That’s the warning that frames our deep dive into Houston’s most haunting mid-century mystery: the Icebox Murders of 1965. We follow the police welfare check that turned into a nightmare discovery, then map the strange, precise details that still unsettle anyone who studies the case—meticulous cleanup, a hammer and saws, and a chillingly organized aftermath....

Send us Fan Mail A crowded college district. A buzzing post-concert high. A young artist who asks a bouncer about her friends, leaves her purse—along with her asthma inhaler—and steps into the night. We pull the camera back on the 1992 disappearance of Dail Dinwiddie in Columbia’s Five Points, starting not with the mystery but with the person: a thoughtful, observant 23-year-old studying art histo...

Send us Fan Mail Lanterns, beads, and a sugar-free resolve set the stage before we step into a shadowed Southern church that refuses to be silent. We start light—Mardi Gras memories, Lunar New Year at Disney, and the tug-of-war between king cake cravings and a health plan—then open an anonymous listener submission that pulls the floor out from under our feet. The story unfolds with cinematic detai...

Send us Fan Mail We’re looking for listener submissions — true crime encounters, paranormal experiences, urban legends, or moments you just can't explain. 📜 When you submit, please include: •Your name or an alias •The type of story you’re sharing •Your story in your own words •Where and roughly when it happened (if you’re comfortable sharing) •Whether you’d like identifying details changed •...

Send us Fan Mail We’re looking for listener submissions — true crime encounters, paranormal experiences, urban legends, or moments you just can't explain. 📜 When you submit, please include: •Your name or an alias •The type of story you’re sharing •Your story in your own words •Where and roughly when it happened (if you’re comfortable sharing) •Whether you’d like identifying details changed •...

Send us Fan Mail Sweet Tea After Dark:  When Holly was six, that summers minor inconvenience turned into a full-blown paranormal standoff. One long hallway, one forbidden parents bathroom, and one horned silhouette whispering her name in the dark. This episode walks through a 70s mobile home time capsule — mustard-yellow appliances, shag carpet, brown paneling, and the kind of layout that plays tr...

Send us Fan Mail A mile-long shortcut at dusk. A familiar routine. And then silence. We unpack the disappearance of 32-year-old Rebecca Reid from Lumberton, Mississippi—a case that begins with a simple walk to meet her father and expands into a thousand-acre search with no trace. We walk through the timeline, the last confirmed sighting on Lee Town Road, and the reported stop of a white SUV that s...

Send us Fan Mail Sweet Tea After Dark:  Have a story you’ve never told out loud? For Sweet Tea After Dark, we’re looking for listener submissions — true crime encounters, paranormal experiences, urban legends, or moments you just can't explain.  When you submit, please include: •Your name or an alias •The type of story you’re sharing •Your story in your own words •Where and roughly when it ha...

Send us Fan Mail Big changes are brewing, and we’re pouring carefully. We’re launching Sweet Tea After Dark, a companion series built for the stories that land after midnight—paranormal encounters, urban legends, and heavier true accounts that deserve a softer light and a slower pace. To make room, we’re moving to one regular Hold My Sweet Tea episode every Monday, with After Dark arriving every o...

Send us Fan Mail A lonely hearts ad, a quiet farm, and a stack of trunks no one could explain—Belle Gunness turned hope into bait and profit into a habit. We follow her path from Norwegian winters to LaPorte, where insurance money, vanished suitors, and a farmhouse fire fused into one of true crime’s most unsettling legends. The nickname “Lady Bluebeard” wasn’t just headline flair; it captured a m...

Send us Fan Mail A foggy bridge, a missing suitcase, and a town that points every road toward the water—our trip to Jefferson, Texas dives into the places where history refuses to stay quiet. We start with Jefferson’s unusual street plan and river-first identity, then trace how the rise of the railroads drained a booming port and left behind preserved buildings, empty rooms, and a perfect stage fo...

Send us Fan Mail Link of Samuel Littles FBI Confessions: https://youtu.be/LxDWPik6IZ0?si=C9r6Jo7H6YyrB_vy A low roll of thunder, a quiet cup of tea, and a chilling truth: the most prolific serial killer recognized by the FBI isn’t a household name. We dig into the life and crimes of Samuel Little, tracing how four decades of disappearances went unconnected while a predator learned to move, adapt,...

Send us Fan Mail A knock at the door, a name that isn’t yours, and a past that refuses to stay buried. We follow a true-crime story that starts with a packed move in 1983 Louisville and ends—at least for now—with a 2025 tip in Florida, a DNA match, and a father-daughter embrace four decades in the making. Along the way, we sift through flyers and missing-person databases, a dismissed case that wou...

Send us Fan Mail A glittering reservoir with 700 miles of shoreline, a summer magnet for millions, and a drowned town beneath the surface—Lake Lanier refuses to be simple. We wade past the “cursed” label to explore the hard truths shaping its reputation: a long record of drownings and collisions, the submerged history of Oscarville, and the way policy choices still echo through today’s recreation...

Send us Fan Mail A sunny Gulf Coast day can hide the darkest secrets. We kick off with light banter about warm holidays and beach-town charm, then turn to a haunting case from New Year’s Day, 1985: 23-year-old mother Tonya McKinley leaves a Pensacola bar and is found hours later, assaulted and strangled. Investigators collected semen and blood at the scene, interviewed witnesses, and chased every...

Send us Fan Mail A white pickup sits deep in the Oklahoma woods. Inside: a weak but living dog, IDs and a cell phone, and more than thirty-two thousand dollars in cash no one touched. The Jameson family—Bobby, Sherry Lynn, and their six-year-old daughter Madison—has vanished into the trees, and the scene feels both too obvious and not nearly enough. We follow the trail from that haunting discovery...

Send us Fan Mail Holiday lights, a familiar tree, and gifts meant for family set the scene for one of the most haunting true crime images we’ve covered: a beloved aunt found under the presents she wrapped with love. We open with a spirited holiday riff, then pivot to a meaningful shift in the law as several states reclassify pets from property to family, recognizing emotional bonds and wellbeing....

Send us Fan Mail A quiet Christmas evening. A silver anniversary. Then a shudder under the floorboards and a blast that echoed across the country. We revisit the lives and legacy of Harry and Harriet Moore, two Florida educators and civil rights organizers whose home was bombed just after midnight on December 25, 1951, turning a season of peace into a searing indictment of racial terror and system...

Send us Fan Mail Holiday lights can hide dark plans. We walk through the Covina massacre with clear eyes, tracing how Bruce Pardo went from “civil” in court filings and friendly at the bakery to building a fuel-spraying device and hiding guns in a custom Santa suit. Job loss, a painful divorce, and the performance of normalcy collide with an obsession to punish, turning a family party into a crime...

Send us Fan Mail What if your holiday lights are more than decor, and closer to a spell whispered against the dark? We dive into the oldest layers of Yule, where winter was terrifying, food was scarce, and people lit massive fires not for charm but for survival. From the longest night to the first thin promise of sunrise, we trace how ancient fear became ritual, and how those rituals glow inside t...

Send us Fan Mail A courtroom twist knocked the wind out of us: after bond was denied in the Shondra May case, the accused died in custody two days later. No trial, no cross-examination, and a community left with raw questions and a grief that doesn’t fit into headlines. We sit with the frustration, the waiting, and the way unfinished justice weighs on families who deserve answers. Then we change r...

Send us Fan Mail The winter sun barely lifts in Iceland, and that thin light is perfect for a story with real teeth. We head north to meet Gryla, the towering giantess who hunts misbehaving children, her thirteen chaotic Yule Lads who sneak into kitchens and barns one night at a time, and the legendary Yule Cat that devours anyone who didn’t earn new clothes by year’s end. It’s a festive world bui...

Send us Fan Mail The days around Christmas aren’t supposed to feel like this. We open the door on Arkansas, 1987, and walk through the controlled world of Ronald Gene Simmons—a decorated veteran, a father of seven, and the architect of a family compound where isolation and fear did the heavy lifting long before the violence began. We talk candidly about how coercive control works in plain sight, f...