Kinda Murdery | True Crime & Murder Stories

The conviction landed in the courtroom with the kind of quiet that doesn’t feel quiet while you’re sitting inside it. Russ Faria had walked in still insisting he did not kill his wife. By the time the jury came back, the state’s version had beaten the room into shape. Husband. Sick wife. Knife. Blood. Rage. Motive. A marriage prosecutors said had been rotting underneath everything else. Joel Schwa...

Pam Hupp’s public role in the case continued growing during that same stretch. Reporters increasingly framed her as Betsy’s close friend and confidante—the person who had driven Betsy home from chemotherapy, spent time with her during her final months, and spoken openly about Betsy’s fears regarding the marriage. Detectives and prosecutors continued treating her as one of the most emotionally comp...

The house in Troy stayed lit long after most of the neighborhood had gone dark again. Patrol cars still lined portions of the street, though fewer than earlier in the investigation. The frantic movement from the first night had faded into something quieter and more methodical. Detectives came and went carrying folders, sealed evidence containers, and cups of coffee that had gone cold before anyone...

The first deputies through the front door found Russ standing near the edge of the living room with a phone still pressed against his ear. The dispatcher’s voice could be heard faintly through the receiver while officers stepped past him into the house. One deputy moved directly toward Betsy on the floor beside the couch while another stopped with Russ near the entry, keeping him back with a hand...

Russ turned into the driveway and let the headlights wash over the garage door before he killed the engine. For a second he stayed where he was, both hands on the wheel, looking at the house the way you do when you’re finishing an ordinary day and expect the next few minutes to be ordinary too. The porch light was on. Light showed through a couple of windows. Nothing outside looked wrong. No open...

In the 1970's The Johnstons were Pennsylvania's own modern day James-Younger Gang, until a motel rape and murderous paranoia brought them down. Find out how, only on Kinda Murdery! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support . Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral pa...

The Las Cruces Bowling Alley Massacre has a permanent investigation room inside the police station.  Tables are fixed in place, walls used for more than overflow, and everything that comes in is immediately sorted into where it fits or discarded when it doesn’t. Photographs remain grouped by location, but the emphasis has moved to timelines and connections. Statements are broken down into componen...

The call hits the fire department like any other at first—just another line lighting up, another voice on the other end trying to get words out fast enough to keep up with what they’re seeing. Smoke at the bowling alley. That’s the message that gets through clean. Everything else comes in fragments. The dispatcher pins down the address, repeats it back, fingers already moving across the board, ass...

February 10th, 1990. Saturday morning in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The place is Las Cruces Bowl—nothing special from the outside. Low building, wide parking lot, the kind of spot people go to because they’ve been going there for years. Inside, it’s exactly what you’d expect. Long rows of lanes stretching out under fluorescent lights, the steady smell of oil and cleaner baked into the wood and carpet...

Swabs were taken from areas where biological material might still exist, even if it was not visible. Fragments of fabric used for binding were collected and separated. Bullets recovered during autopsies were preserved and logged. Even debris from the burned room—pieces of flooring, charred material, residue—was stored when it could potentially contain trace evidence. For years, those items sat in...

The verdicts held—for a time. Robert Springsteen IV had been sentenced to death in 2001. Michael Scott had been sentenced to life in prison in 2002. The prosecution had secured convictions in one of Austin’s most notorious unsolved cases. For several years, the outcome appeared settled. But the foundation of those convictions was never physical evidence. It was the confessions. As the appeals proc...

Like nearly everyone who had grown up in Austin at the time, Springsteen remembered the crime clearly. The murders had dominated local news for weeks. The photographs of the four girls had appeared on television and in newspapers. The story had been discussed in schools, homes, and workplaces across the city... Sources:  https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/ https://people.com/aust...

On the night of December 6, 1991, the Northcross shopping center in Austin, Texas was closing down the way it always did. The parking lot lights hummed. The storefronts dimmed one by one. Cars pulled out in slow arcs, headlights sweeping across brick and glass before turning toward Burnet Road. Inside the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop, the lights were still on... Sources:  https://time.com/7...

The courtroom in San Bernardino was built for volume meaning physical space, not raised voices. High ceilings. Pale walls. Wood benches polished by decades of restless hands. By the time opening statements began, it held a different kind of pressure — not noise, but compression. Reporters filled the rear rows. Family members took seats in clusters that did not intermingle. The defendant sat at the...

It started with the calendar. February 4, 2010. Detectives rebuilt the day again, not from the perspective of web traffic or corporate filings, but from physical movement. Joseph’s schedule. His meetings. His calls. His last confirmed face-to-face interactions...Almost four years after the Joseph and his family were murdered, authorities finally arrest their alleged killer... Sources:  https://cor...

On November 11, 2013, a motorcyclist riding in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert came across something that did not belong to the landscape. The area lay north of Victorville, not far from Interstate 15 but far enough that engine noise fades and the wind carries most of the sound. The ground was hard and pale, broken by scrub and scattered rock. In that dirt, the rider saw what appeared to be...

It did not happen all at once. There was no siren moment, no dramatic escalation, no declaration that something terrible had occurred. The transition from concern to action came through a phone call, logged like thousands of others, handled by a department accustomed to uncertainty and delay. The intake process required structure. A deputy recorded biographical details. Ages. Vehicles. Occupations...

The 3400 block of Avocado Vista Lane, Fallbrook, California. The street ends in a cul-de-sac and the houses face the curve. The McStay house sits on that turn. Two stories. Light tan stucco. A white two-car garage door dominating the front, clean enough to catch the daylight when the sun hits it. Above the garage, a tall arched window rises into the second floor. Off to the side, another upstairs...

After half a century of mystery, The "Lady of the Dunes," was finally identified as Ruth Marie Terry. Kinda Murdery explores the tragic arc of Ruth's life and the sordid, morally bankrupt career of her probable murderer - who once lived, and may have killed in The Emerald Triangle... Sources: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lady-of-the-Dunes-identified-nearly-50-years-17546994.php https://www....

In 1922, Twenty-two year old Chicago bond trader Harvey Church had a hankering for a particular automobile. Sometimes Hell is unleashed in the most unexpected places. How could Harvey know that his desire for a dream car would lead to a surprising mystery drenched in blood and murder? Find out, only on Kinda Murdery... Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murd...

At least three murders, and four husbands, ALL of whom committed suicide. Louise Peete's single-minded self-interest gradually evolved into a 40-year reign of terror. Find out how California's famed, "Black Widow," finally made one too many mistakes... Sources: https://crimescribe.com/2021/04/11/on-this-day-in-1947-louise-peete-the-belle-of-bienville/ https://murderpedia.org/female. P/p/peete-loui...

The seemingly-happy O'Byan family lived In Deer Park, Texas, in the 1970's. However, beneath the facade of suburban normalcy lurked the strain of desperate financial woes. Mr. O'Bryan's mountain of debt was so ovewhelming that it became a recurring topic of conversation among his circle of friends and acquaintances. In the summer of 1974, he alluded to an upcoming windfall, telling some people tha...

In 1966, Blanche's Kiser's father, Parker Davis Kiser Sr., passed away. His death was attributed to heart disease at the age of 62. Tragedy struck again in 1973, seven years following her father's death, Blanche discovered her husband, James Taylor, lifeless in their bed. At just 45 years old, he was pronounced dead, with a heart attack cited as the cause. The specter of heart disease seemed to lo...

In 1990, based on circumstantial evidence alone, Jonathan Fleming was convicted of the murder of Darryl Rush and sentenced to 25 years to life despite having what Brooklyn prosecuting A.D.A. James Leeper called, "a perfect alibi." Twenty-four years later, it would be discovered that Leeper had withheld crucial evidence from the defense, and Fleming wasn't his only victim...Just what the hell was g...

Frank Lindsay was a Seattle-based wife killer. He was also a fry cook, and it was the fry cooking that got him caught for murder. But it also lead to his prison escape... Legendary artist, and frequent co-host, Anson Maddocks, joins Zevon to tell his own Seattle Kinda Murdery story featuring his very good friend, and fellow Magic the Gathering legend, Mark Tedin. After spending the day together at...