Hold My Sweet Tea

Send us Fan Mail Cold air sharpens the senses, and the bells you hear in the dark aren’t always for carols. We head into the Alpine mountains to meet Krampus, the horned shadow who stalks the edge of winter, and trace how a feared spirit became a living tradition that still rattles streets, nerves, and moral compasses. From pagan solstice rituals to roaring parades where cowbells, chains, and carv...

Send us Fan Mail What starts with mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole takes a sharp turn into one of Orange County’s most disturbing true crime cases. We open the holiday table, then unpack the whirlwind marriage of Omaima Nelson and William Nelson, the shocking events of Thanksgiving weekend 1991, and the courtroom narratives that battled for the jury’s attention. Between claims of long-te...

Send us Fan Mail Our latest deep dive unpacks one of the most chilling Thanksgiving crimes on record: the calculated murders of Joel and Lisa Guy by their son, Joel Guy Jr. We trace the path from a simple welfare check to a home transformed into a chemical crime scene, where overheated air, acid-filled bins, and a pot simmering on the stove told investigators everything they needed to know. We tak...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet Tuesday in Louisiana. A father’s unanswered calls. By Thursday morning, a young mother is found stabbed more than fifty times and her two daughters are missing. From that moment, every detail becomes a lifeline: the black Chrysler 200, the Amber Alert, and a suspect who doesn’t just flee to Jackson, Mississippi—he loops back and forth across state lines, then points police...

Send us Fan Mail The story starts like a neighborhood postcard and ends with a number you can’t forget: 193. We head to Houston to unpack the Blue-Eyed Butcher case, where a young mother, a charismatic husband, and a tidy suburban home collide with bindings, a shallow grave, and a trial that turned into legal theater. What looked perfect from the curb was tearing apart inside—friends described cha...

Send us Fan Mail A beloved former bartender walks back into a Bourbon Street institution during Southern Decadence and never comes home. We follow the final hours of Dan Bettencourt Jr.—from a late-night laundry run to Oz Nightclub, to a crowded room, a reported disturbance, and the moment friends say a headlock left him lifeless on the floor. The police narrative and eyewitness claims don’t line...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet Austin street. A beloved choir director asleep in her one-story home. And a neighbor testing a thermal camera that happened to catch a figure slipping into the night. From that eerie image, a web of clues began to surface: cell phone pings at 1 a.m., a dark vehicle identified by headlight silhouette, shoe impressions across a ransacked floor, and a drop of blood in the wro...

Send us Fan Mail A warm, funny cold-weather check-in pivots into a gripping true-crime journey that spans courtrooms, forensics labs, and one family’s two-decade fight for answers. We start with October case turns, where evidentiary battles in the Morgan Bauer case show how motive, media, and fairness collide. Then a sharp DNA update in the Chandra May investigation illustrates how modern testing...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet weekday morning at a family fun center shouldn’t end in gunfire. Yet in 2006, 39-year-old mother and co-owner Doris Worrell was found shot inside John’s Sports Park in Douglas, Georgia—no forced entry, no theft, no witnesses. The scene looked staged, the timeline felt too neat, and the community was left with grief and rumors but few answers. Nearly two decades later, ever...

Send us Fan Mail Flames once defined October 30 in Detroit, but the city refused to be a cautionary tale. We trace Devil’s Night from its Mischief Night roots to the 1980s arson crisis, then into the grassroots movement that rebranded chaos as Angel’s Night and, eventually, “Halloween in the D.” It’s a story of how neighbors, volunteers, and a determined fire department pulled together to turn fea...

Send us Fan Mail A feud between village healers. A peddler who collapses after a muttered curse. A courtroom that believes a child above all. We travel to 1612 Lancashire to unravel how the Pendle witch trials turned folk remedies into felonies and neighbors into enemies. With King James I stoking fear through demonology and law, simple acts like asking for pins or sharing a Good Friday meal at Ma...

Send us Fan Mail A lonely Mississippi road. A vanished church. A mother’s grief that won’t stay buried. We dive into the legend of the Three-Legged Lady of Nash Road in Columbus, where folklore, fear, and late-night dares collide. You’ll hear how one core story splinters into wild variations—hit-and-run near a church, a serial killer’s calling card, a post–Civil War vendetta—and why every version...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet college town, boxes on the curb, roommates laughing over dishes—then the woods rustle. We dive into the true story of Danny Rolling, the drifter who turned Gainesville’s 1990 move-in week into a real-life slasher, and we unpack how an abusive childhood, a craving for control, and a meticulous ritual escalated into five murders that froze an entire city. This isn’t horror t...

Send us Fan Mail A quiet Florida cemetery holds a red brick chair and a thousand borrowed stories. We follow the path from a mourning seat to a midnight dare, tracing how Casadaga’s spiritualist roots, teen pranks, and a very specific beer myth fused into a legend strong enough to draw fences, guards, and a steady stream of curious visitors. Along the way, we zoom out to an unsettling thread from...

Send us Fan Mail Smoke, steel, and a voice that won’t let go—this one starts in the heat of Birmingham’s iron age and refuses to cool. We walk the catwalks of Sloss Furnaces, where the Magic City was forged out of ore and ambition, and where long shifts, toxic air, and thin pay wrote a ledger of human cost. Then comes the legend: James “Slag” Wormwood, a foreman as feared in life as he is in the s...

Send us Fan Mail A woman on Tennessee’s death row just received an execution date—and we can’t ignore the hard questions it raises. We walk through the murder of Colleen Slemmer with clear eyes: the planning, the prolonged violence, the chilling boasts afterward, and the evidence that convinced a jury to call it heinous, atrocious, and cruel. Then we challenge ourselves to grapple with context: an...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when authority tells a child their voice is broken? We dive into the chilling story of the “Monster Study,” a 1939 experiment in Davenport, Iowa, where researchers labeled and shamed orphans to test a theory about learned stuttering. No jump scares—just real harm: scripted corrections, public interruptions, and the slow erosion of confidence that led some kids to stop...

Send us Fan Mail A horn that appears mid-dance, bullets that bounce, phones ringing off the hook, and a mayor who ends a panic with a suit and three bucks—this is the wild, very human story of the Devil Man of Algiers. We kick off spooky season by following a trail of clippings, chatter, and cautionary whispers from 1938 New Orleans, where rumor sprinted faster than reason and a loitering charge s...

Send us Fan Mail The celestial dance of stars and planets has captivated humanity for millennia, but nowhere is this cosmic connection more deeply woven into cultural fabric than in the American South. Here, astrology transcends mere entertainment to become a framework for understanding life's most profound mysteries—including its darkest crimes. From the moment you hear that unmistakable Sou...

Send us Fan Mail A pink revolver in a left hand, two gunshot wounds, and a mysteriously clean crime scene – the elements that would unravel Jason Crawford's carefully constructed story about his wife's "suicide." When 38-year-old Jason called 911 on May 3, 2017, claiming his wife had been shot, Cullman County deputies found 32-year-old Tiffiney Crawford slumped over in her mini...

Send us Fan Mail A split-second collision on a dark Texas highway. A man's body crashed through the windshield. And a decision that transformed tragedy into horror. The case of Shantae Mallard forces us to confront one of the most disturbing questions in criminal justice: when does an accident become murder? After a night of partying in Fort Worth in 2001, Mallard struck homeless man Gregory...

Send us Fan Mail The brutal murder of Liese Dodd—a vibrant 22-year-old who was eight months pregnant—serves as a haunting reminder of how quickly domestic violence can escalate to unimaginable tragedy. Pearl and Holly navigate this heartbreaking case with compassion and purpose, revealing the warning signs that were visible yet ultimately unheeded. Through their thoughtful discussion, we learn abo...

Send us Fan Mail In March 1979, the quiet neighborhood of Highland Park in Richmond, Virginia became ground zero for one of the most disturbing crime sprees in American history. Three brothers—Linwood, James, and Anthony Briley—transformed from helpful neighbors who mowed lawns and fixed cars into ruthless predators who hunted human beings for sport. What makes the Briley brothers' story part...

Send us Fan Mail The disappearance of 21-year-old Leila Cavett grips us from the moment her 2-year-old son Kamdyn is found wandering alone in a Florida apartment complex, wearing only a shirt and diaper. What begins as a missing person case quickly spirals into something far more sinister when investigators focus on Shannon Ryan, a self-proclaimed witch with a suspicious story. As we unpack this b...

Send us Fan Mail The quiet town of Plainfield, Wisconsin seemed like any other sleepy American hamlet until November 1957, when authorities made a discovery so horrific it would permanently alter our cultural perception of evil. Behind the doors of an unassuming farmhouse lived Ed Gein, a man whose twisted obsession with his deceased mother led to grave robbery, murder, and the creation of househo...