Murder In America

Every day, millions of people walk the busy streets of New York City, from natives heading to work to tourists visiting famous attractions. Everywhere you go, you see thousands of faces from all walks of life. But how well do we really know these people? What are they capable of? In February of 2011 a man named Maksim Gelman spent 28 hours terrorizing Brooklyn and New York City, stabbing and killi...

In the early days of the internet, chat rooms were often the only forms of interaction for people as they navigated their way through the unregulated and mysterious world wide web. And it was in those chat rooms where you could get to know people and divulge your deepest, darkest hidden secrets. But there are dangers that lie within. And this, unfortunately, was the trap that thirty-five-year-old...

On April 15th, 2013, during the annual Boston Marathon, two brothers approached the crowd and planted bombs right at the feet of innocent bystanders watching the race. Three people lost their lives, 17 people lost limbs, and hundreds of people were injured. The bombing was one of the deadliest attacks on US soil since 9/11, and in this episode, we discuss the Tsarnaev brothers - where they came fr...

Every year, the citizens of Boston, Massachusetts all get together to celebrate Patriot’s day. It was on the 15th of April when 26,839 runners all made their way to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, for the start of the 117th annual Boston Marathon. It truly is the happiest day of the year in the city. But on this day, in 2013, while everyone’s eyes are towards the finish line, no one notices the two unas...

On a cold night in December of 1996, a night of hanging out and getting high turned into the darkest nightmare for Rita Kemper. A man named Joe Metheny, whom she had known for a few months, invited her over to his desolate trailer in South Baltimore. Rita trusted Joe but little did she know she would barely get out of his trailer alive, and that many other women had suffered a much worse fate than...

It all started on August 23rd 1980, in the small town of Bellville, Texas. Sixteen year old Cheryl Dee Fergeson woke up that morning and was in a rush for the first tournament of the season. The volleyball team in which she was a part of had to ride the 60 mile bus ride to Conroe, Texas. The girls were excited – until Cheryl disappeared and the game was canceled. She was eventually found in the au...

In the late hours of May 23rd, 2013, paramedics in Palmdale, California, responded to a call about an 8-year-old boy who wasn't breathing. Most parents would be in hysteria if their child were put in this situation – but Gabriel’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend Isauro Aguirre were both agitated, repeatedly telling the first responders that it happened when the brothers were playing ins...

On March 26th, 1997, the largest suicide mass on US soil was unearthed in a prestigious neighborhood of San Diego, called Rancho Santa Fe, California. To the outside, it appeared to be a mass suicide, a horrible and unfortunate event. But to the 39 people inside, it was a commencement – a graduation that their leader, Marshall Herff Applewhite, had been preaching to them for years. This is the sto...

Colorado is a beautiful state with incredible mountain ranges, the best sunsets, and a ton of wildlife, where many people dream of starting their own families. But Colorado also has a dark history, with the first mass school shooting in America at Columbine High School, frequent drug-related deaths, vandalism, robberies, and even murder. It seems like a coin toss on how your life could turn out af...

The bond between a mother and child is unlike anything in this world and protecting your child from danger is a biological characteristic that humans have experienced since the beginning of time. As a parent, you not only want to protect your children from the dangers in the world, but you also want to keep them from becoming one of those dangers. And you just have to hope that you raised them wel...

In last week’s episode, we talked about the life of Charles Whitman, the 25-year-old ex marine and architect student at the University of Texas at Austin. After murdering his wife and mother in the early hours of August 1st, 1966, Charlie loaded his vehicle full of his weapons and supplies that he needed that day, and then he made his way over to the University of Texas at Austin. From there, he w...

At approximately 11:35 am on August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman arrived at the University of Texas at Austin campus where he posed as a research assistant and told a security guard he was there to deliver equipment. He climbed twenty-eight floors of the UT tower and emerged on the observation deck where for ninety-six minutes he opened fire on innocent people below. In those ninety-six minutes, Whitm...

The biggest interstate in America is called the I-5, which is 1,381 miles and stretches down the west coast from Canada to Mexico. Millions of people take this road every single day, and it’s also the main road used to haul drugs into the United States. But in the 1980s, Interstate-5 was known for something else: a series of burglaries on the west coast and a man who quickly became known as the I-...

On December 19th, 2001, the body of a small child, wearing nothing but underwear, was found in the Alesa River in the Oregon town of Waldport. Little did anyone know at the time that the little boy’s death was not the result of an accident, nor that the rest of little Zachary’s family would be found in the dark Oregon waters as well - and a family’s secrets would be revealed. This is the story of...

Throughout his life, Drew Peterson was known as a womanizer, a fact that would eventually lead to the divorce from his third wife, Kathleen Savio, after his affair with 17-year-old Stacy Cales came to light. During Drew and Kathleen’s tumultuous divorce, and coincidentally right before an important court date, Kathleen was found dead in her bathtub. Initially ruled as an accidental drowning, it wo...

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘once a cheater, always a cheater’ and wondered whether that phrase might apply to other things…..like murder? Drew Peterson had been married four different times and had cheated on nearly every woman he had ever dated. His third wife had died under suspicious circumstances, and when his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, mysteriously disappeared in October 2007 it opened...

In our last episode, we ended with John Wayne Gacy’s execution - but the story does not end there. There has long been speculation that Gacy did not act alone, and after spending weeks researching this case we’ve learned a lot of things that are just too crazy to ignore, like one of Gacy’s PDM employees becoming a cannibalistic serial killer and another being connected to one of America’s largest...

With a victim count totalling 32 in the summer of 1978, there was one more life that John Wayne Gacy would take before his rein of terror would come to an end. When Robert Piest, a beloved honors student, went missing in December 1978 the police would soon zero in on the man responsible for the missing boys around Chicago - and what they would find in the unassuming suburban Chicago home would sho...

It was the height of the 1970s and dozens of young men from the Chicago area started going missing. 33 young men, to be exact. By 1978, 29 of the 33 missing young men would be found, dead, in the small home on Summerdale Avenue in the Chicago suburbs. Some were buried in the backyard, others in a concrete slab in the garage, but most would be found in the cold, wet, and crowded crawlspace beneath...

It was the 1970s, and young men who had their whole lives in front of them started going missing around the greater Chicago area. While some disappeared while looking for a job in the city, or hanging out near the Greyhound bus station, or walking along the roads outside of Chicago, the one thing all 33 missing young men had in common was that they were manipulated and murdered by a man named John...

It’s the year 1892, and everyone in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts is going about their morning as usual - except for one family. Inside the home at 92 Second Street, Abby and Andrew Borden had been brutally murdered. It wouldn’t be long before their daughter, Lizzie Borden, was accused of their murders, sparking one of the most infamous trials in American history. Follow us as we take you...

It was the summer of 1692, and a woman named Bridget Bishop was the first woman to face the hangman’s rope while neighbors and old friends looked on and cheered - but this execution would certainly not be the last in the town of Salem, Masschussets, and over the next few months, hysteria and paranoia would spread like wildfire through the small village. Neighbors turned against each other, familie...

In 2018, a brutal crime rocked the campus of the University of Utah, when a 21-year old track star was murdered on campus. But the story of how this violence unfolded, the perpetrator and his multiple identities and the failures of the campus police continue to haunt the school to this very day. This is the story of Lauren McCluskey, and you're listening to Murder in America. Learn more about your...

WARNING: This episode is especially gruesome. In the 1970's, a robbery gone wrong escalated into a torturous hostage situation that ended in a series of disturbing murders. The victims were random, and the location of the event? An audio store. This is the story of the Hi-Fi Murders, and you're listening to MURDER IN AMERICA. - Get your dose of MICRODOSE GUMMIES (available nationwide!) at https://...

On February 10th, 2012, a tragedy struck a college campus in Alabama. But the shooter, the murderer, was someone who worked for the school, a professor, in fact. And it turns out that she had some serious skeletons in her closet that she had managed to hide for decades. This is the story of Amy Bishop. You're listening to MURDER IN AMERICA. - Download JUNE'S JOURNEY on the App Store today! - Try A...