Lurkers

It starts with a message from Ester’s phone. Her mother, Pepa, sees her daughter’s name on the screen. The messages say Ester is alive, out on the street, and leaving Spain for Buenos Aires. But something feels wrong. Ester doesn’t call. She doesn’t send a voice note. She doesn’t turn on the camera. She only keeps typing. Then Ester’s sister notices the spelling mistakes, the strange phrases, the...

Released one day before World Suicide Prevention Day, this LURKERS bonus episode revisits one of the most important stories we’ve covered: The BM Boys. This is not just a re-release. It’s a reminder. The BM Boys episode follows the sextortion cases of Jordan DeMay, James Timothy Woods, and Murray Dowey... three teenagers caught in the same kind of trap: a fake profile, a private image, a sudden th...

A false emergency call sends police to a stranger’s door. A plane is diverted. Gaming networks go dark on Christmas morning. And years later, in Finland, the same pattern of online power turns much quieter... and far more personal. This episode follows the case of the Vastaamo psychotherapy breach, one of Europe’s most disturbing cybercrime cases. Thousands of patients trusted a private therapy pr...

In Beal City, Michigan, a teenage couple starts receiving messages from an unknown number. At first, it looks like drama around a Halloween party. Then the texts come back. Crueler. More personal. More relentless. They know nicknames. They mention school conversations. They target Lauryn Licari, Owen McKenny, their relationship, their friends, and the fragile trust inside a small-town high school....

In São Paulo, Brazil, a man arrives for a date and sends three ordinary words: “Já estou aqui.” — I’m already here. But in this city’s wave of dating-app ambushes, those words can mean the trap has already closed. This episode follows the rise of São Paulo app ambushes, known locally as golpe do amor, and sometimes called golpe do Tinder, where a fake profile becomes a meeting point, and the meeti...

A fifteen-year-old boy leaves in a car on a cold night in Cheshire, England, heading to a “special place.” By the time his friends realize something is wrong, the first thing they encounter isn’t the truth. It’s noise, rumors, fake accounts, and a trail built to misdirect. This episode follows the case of Alex Rodda and the digital evidence that helped expose what happened, and the role friendship...

A mother rushes through a Dublin hospital to pick up the woman she trusts: Lucy Fitzwilliams. But at reception, there’s no Lucy on the list. Just one name… and one location: “Samantha. Cubicle three.” What follows is a true story of long-form identity fraud: a woman who doesn’t just lie, she becomes whoever the room is most ready to trust. Over more than a decade, Samantha Cookes slips into real l...

Each year on June 17, we remember Mackenzie Lueck. This is a remembrance re-release of our Season 1 episode on Mackenzie, 23 years old, last seen after a late-night arrival in Salt Lake City, taking a Lyft to Hatch Park to meet someone she’d been speaking to online… and then her phone went silent. We reconstruct the timeline, the digital trail, and the investigation that followed, told with care f...

A red Kia Soul runs out of road in the California desert. Patrol units close in. A helicopter circles overhead. Police believe a 15-year-old girl is inside the car... along with an armed driver. Then the name comes over the radio: Austin Lee Edwards. Deputy sheriff. Former Virginia State Police. And suddenly this isn’t just an abduction alert, it’s an authority nightmare. Because the “boy” she tho...

Morata de Tajuña sits just outside Madrid, Spain, a small town where routines are a heartbeat. And when that heartbeat stops… everyone feels it. Three elderly siblings, known around town and always moving together, suddenly vanish from daily life. Days turn into weeks. The shutters stay closed. The lights don’t come on. And when authorities finally enter the home, Morata realizes this isn’t just a...

Two teenagers. Two different states: California and Kentucky. One crime that spreads faster than shame can be spoken out loud: sextortion. It starts with a message that feels private, a quick exchange. Then the screen flips. Suddenly, it’s online blackmail, and the threat comes with a timer: 45 minutes. Pay, or your life gets detonated in front of everyone you know. In this episode, we tell two st...

Sydney Loofe goes missing in Lincoln, Nebraska after a night connected to Tinder... and within hours, the search isn’t just happening in the streets. It’s happening online. A video appears. A calm voice. A plea that sounds like concern. But in a missing-person case, a public narrative can become a weapon… especially when it’s posted before anyone can verify the timeline. Investigators and friends...

Kelly Gowe gets a voicemail from a federal agent: “I’m calling in regards to your mother, Laura Kowal, who may have been involved in a fraud scam.” She calls her mom. Laura answers. She is alive. But her voice doesn’t sound right. Scattered. Distant. Like she’s already inside something she doesn’t want to explain. Then Laura disappears. What started as online dating becomes something darker: a rom...

She was 19. He was charming from a distance. Ashley Wadsworth meets Jack Sepple online, and what starts as attention quickly becomes a relationship built on messages, calls, and promises that feel bigger when you’re young and hopeful. Before long, Ashley leaves Vernon, British Columbia, and moves to Chelmsford, England. Into his orbit, into his control. But the real story isn’t just “a bad boyfrie...

The call comes out of nowhere. Your teenage daughter is sobbing, gasping for air, and begging for you. It sounds surgically real. The same breaks in the voice. The same breath between words. The same panic. And then a man gets on the line. He says she’s been taken. He says you have minutes. He tells you not to hang up and tells you exactly where to go, what to do, and how fast to move. In the car,...

It’s late 2002. Dial-up internet. A shared family computer in the living room. And a 13-year-old girl in rural Arkansas who just wants more people to talk to after school. Kacie Woody meets “Scott” and “Dave” online, two names that feel harmless at first. The messages turn constant. The attention turns intimate. And slowly, the boundary between “friend” and “stranger” disappears… without anyone no...

PART 2 OF 2 A dot on a map doesn’t cry. It doesn’t panic. It just… stops. In Part 2, investigators pull location history from a family safety app, Life360 , and the case pivots. A route becomes a record. A stop becomes a timestamp. And a timeline becomes something you can’t argue with. We follow the coordinates into a field, track the evidence from the road to the courtroom, and unpack how the sam...

PART 1 OF 2 A quiet farm road. A familiar running route. Then she disappears. In northeast Arkansas, 24-year-old nurse Sydney Sutherland leaves for an afternoon run and vanishes within minutes. Her family, her boyfriend, and an entire community flood the backroads with flashlights and four-wheelers, calling her name into fields that don’t answer. But the usual tools, phone pings, tower data, don’t...

Four people on three continents are coached from chat apps into fake exchanges and “profits” in USDT they can never withdraw. A grandfather in North Carolina, a professional in Los Angeles, a single mother in Sydney, and a victim in Hong Kong follow the same script. Behind those messages is Sara, trafficked to a Myanmar compound and forced to run the chats. We map the playbook from wrong-number op...

Her followers trusted her name. Then her page started selling tickets she never posted. Overnight the grid fills with urgent drops and countdowns; DMs flood with “is this you?” and “where are my seats.” Locked out and stuck in support loops, she watches her brand used against her audience. We trace how the takeover worked, where the money went, and the steps to get her account and followers' trust...

Patricia Alatorre was a Bakersfield teenager who wanted to be seen. It began with compliments in DMs and shifted to secrecy, urgency, and late-night plans. When Patricia went missing, her family and a city searched while detectives traced messages, locations, and cameras. This episode follows the timeline step by step, from first contact to the hours that triggered the search, and shows how groomi...

A video call feels right. A voice sounds right. A profile pulls pieces from real people to make something that never existed. We follow how a deepfake relationship forms, how pressure normalizes, and the emotional and financial fallout when the seams show. Hosted by Frank Battiston. Produced by Daniel Urdanivia. A PowerTale Podcasts production. Stay Aware · Stay Present · Stay Safe. — Follow LURKE...

The messages would not stop. In Part 2, investigators test accounts and devices and read the data behind years of activity. Logins, IPs, Wi-Fi associations, EXIF timestamps, and deleted files begin to align. Step by step, digital forensics reveal how an online presence was fabricated and how the harassment was orchestrated. The trail points to someone very close to home and brings resolution to a...

A relationship ends and an avalanche of messages begins. This first part follows the disappearance of Cari Farver, the early theories, and the widening trail across accounts, devices, and locations in and around Omaha and Council Bluffs. The story examines how identity can be forged online and how harassment persists when a digital presence will not stop. Hosted by Frank Battiston. Produced by Dan...

A friendly DM becomes pressure, then demands, then threats. This episode shows how a sextortion ring builds leverage from a single message, multiplies fear with screenshots and deadlines, and uses payment apps to keep victims silent. We center victim recovery and the choices that help people take control back. Hosted by Frank Battiston. Produced by Daniel Urdanivia. A PowerTale Podcasts production...