Kat Has Questions: True Crime and Unsolved Mysteries

The discovery of a human arm floating in Lake Mattoon shocked Central Illinois—but that was only the beginning. When boaters first spotted what they believed was a dead fish drifting across the water, they had no idea they had stumbled upon one of Illinois' most disturbing criminal investigations in recent memory. In this episode, we break down the entire Lake Mattoon murder case using court d...

In 2013, 21-year-old Canadian student Elisa Lam disappeared while staying at Los Angeles' infamous Cecil Hotel. Weeks later, her body was discovered inside a rooftop water tank, shocking the world and fueling one of the internet's most enduring mysteries. The release of Elisa's unsettling elevator video sparked countless theories involving murder, paranormal activity, conspiracies, and...

The Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles has become one of the most infamous hotels in the world. Over nearly a century, the hotel became associated with dozens of deaths, violence, suicides, serial killers, urban legends, and paranormal claims. It was home to long-term residents, linked to notorious figures like Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger, and eventually became the center of global intern...

A night out near Ohio State University turned into one of the strangest missing persons cases in modern true crime. In 2006, 27-year-old medical student Brian Shaffer was seen on surveillance footage entering the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus, Ohio. Friends saw him inside the bar. Witnesses spoke with him throughout the night. But when investigators later reviewed the surveillance footage… they co...

In the early morning hours of September 22, 2001, firefighters responded to a house fire on Paul Avenue in Champaign, Illinois. Inside the home, they found 59-year-old Linda Smith. At first, it appeared to be a tragic residential fire. But investigators quickly discovered something far more disturbing. Linda Smith had been sexually assaulted before the fire was set, transforming what looked like a...

In 2016, Sherri Papini vanished while out jogging near her home in Redding, California. Her phone and earbuds were found abandoned on the side of the road, and for 22 days, her family and the nation searched for answers. Then, on Thanksgiving morning, Sherri reappeared — bruised, restrained, and claiming she had been kidnapped by two armed women. For years, the public viewed the case as a horrifyi...

A mansion in California. Thirty-nine bodies. Matching outfits, packed luggage, and a belief that a spacecraft was waiting behind the Hale-Bopp comet. In this episode of Kat Has Questions, we explore the disturbing rise of Heaven’s Gate — the UFO religious group led by Marshall Applewhite that became one of the most infamous cults in American history. From spiritual searching and isolation to apoca...

In the quiet desert town of Taos, New Mexico, a small percentage of residents have reported hearing something strange for decades—a low, persistent hum with no clear source. Some describe it as a distant engine. Others say it feels more like a vibration than a sound. But the most unsettling part? Most people can’t hear it at all. In the early 1990s, complaints grew loud enough to trigger a governm...

Jennifer Pan was the only witness to a brutal home invasion that left her mother dead and her father fighting for his life. She was tied up. She survived. And at first, her story made sense. But as investigators started to look closer, small inconsistencies began to surface — timelines that didn’t quite match, details that shifted, and a version of events that slowly started to fall apart. Because...

This is a crossover episode with The Wanted Files. Listen to the podcast here: thewantedpodcast.com ⸻ Three young girls. Three disappearances. And a pattern that seemed too precise to ignore. Between 1971 and 1973, three children in the Rochester, New York area—Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz, and Michelle Maenza—were taken in separate incidents that would later become known as the Alphabet Murders...

In January 2006, 24-year-old Jennifer Kesse vanished from her Orlando condo sometime between leaving for work and starting her day. There were no signs of forced entry. No clear struggle. And no confirmed timeline of where she went. Days later, her car was found abandoned just a mile away — along with surveillance footage of a person of interest. But in one of the most frustrating twists in modern...

Three women vanish from the same home overnight — without a struggle, without forced entry, and without taking any of their belongings. In this episode, we’re looking at the disappearance of the Springfield Three — a case where everything seemed normal… until it wasn’t. Because sometimes the most unsettling cases aren’t the ones with obvious violence — they’re the ones where nothing makes sense at...

On Christmas Eve in 2002, Laci Peterson disappeared from her home in Modesto, California. Within days—before there was a body, before there was a confirmed crime scene—suspicion turned toward her husband, Scott Peterson. What followed was one of the most widely covered cases in modern true crime history. A case built not on a single piece of definitive evidence, but on a timeline, a pattern of beh...

On May 14, 2008, nineteen-year-old Brandon Swanson called his parents after his car went into a ditch on a rural Minnesota road. He believed he was just outside the town of Lynd and asked them to come pick him up. For the next 47 minutes , Brandon stayed on the phone with them while he walked through the dark toward what he thought were the lights of town. Then suddenly, in the middle of the conve...

Wait… it’s not Berenstein? In this episode of Kat Has Questions, we dive into the Mandela Effect — the phenomenon where large groups of people remember events, quotes, logos, and even movies that never existed. From the Berenstain Bears to the nonexistent Sinbad genie movie, we unpack what’s really happening in our brains… and why it feels so unsettling. Is it faulty memory? Social reinforcement?...

Dead Wrong is a five-part deep dive into one of the most shocking wrongful conviction cases in recent memory — and the woman at the center of it all. When Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in 2011, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Russ Faria, was quickly arrested and convicted. But almost immediately, the story began to unravel. In this five-episode arc, we f...

Dead Wrong is a five-part deep dive into one of the most shocking wrongful conviction cases in recent memory — and the woman at the center of it all. When Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in 2011, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Russ Faria, was quickly arrested and convicted. But almost immediately, the story began to unravel. In this five-episode arc, we f...

Dead Wrong is a five-part deep dive into one of the most shocking wrongful conviction cases in recent memory — and the woman at the center of it all. When Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in 2011, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Russ Faria, was quickly arrested and convicted. But almost immediately, the story began to unravel. In this five-episode arc, we f...

Dead Wrong is a five-part deep dive into one of the most shocking wrongful conviction cases in recent memory — and the woman at the center of it all. When Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in 2011, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Russ Faria, was quickly arrested and convicted. But almost immediately, the story began to unravel. In this five-episode arc, we f...

Dead Wrong is a five-part deep dive into one of the most shocking wrongful conviction cases in recent memory — and the woman at the center of it all. When Betsy Faria was found stabbed to death in her Missouri home in 2011, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Russ Faria, was quickly arrested and convicted. But almost immediately, the story began to unravel. In this five-episode arc, we f...

In August 1977, a radio telescope in Ohio detected something extraordinary. A powerful, narrowband radio signal appeared suddenly, lasted 72 seconds , and then vanished — never to be detected again. The signal was so unexpected that astronomer Jerry Ehman circled it in red ink and wrote one word in the margin: “WOW!” Nearly fifty years later, the WOW! Signal remains one of the most intriguing unso...

Nancy Guthrie, an 84-year-old woman from the Catalina Foothills area of Tucson, Arizona, was reported missing on February 1, 2026. In this “What We Know” episode, we lay out the confirmed timeline of events, law enforcement involvement, and official public statements — without speculation or commentary. This episode focuses solely on verified information from law enforcement and major news reporti...

In June of 1912, eight people went to bed in a quiet Iowa town. None of them woke up. The Moore family—and two visiting children—were brutally murdered with an axe taken from inside their own home. There were no signs of forced entry. No clear motive. And no one was ever convicted. More than a century later, the Villisca Axe Murders remain one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in American histo...

For years, someone in a small Ohio town sent anonymous letters accusing residents of secrets they were never meant to share. The letters were cruel, specific, and relentless — targeting a school bus driver, school officials, families, and anyone the writer believed had done something “wrong.” When a man was arrested and sent to prison, the town expected closure. Instead, the letters kept coming. I...

In January 1947, the body of a young woman was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. Before investigators could piece together what happened, the press had already given her a name: The Black Dahlia. Her real name was Elizabeth Short . In this episode of Kat Has Questions , we take a slower, more careful look at one of the most infamous unsolved murders in American history. Who was Elizabeth befor...