Serial Napper | True Crime for the Chronically Tired

Steven Clark vanished on December 28, 1992, after walking into a public toilet on the seafront in Saltburn, England. More than thirty years later, his disappearance remains one of Britain's most baffling unsolved mysteries. On a cold winter afternoon, 23-year-old Steven Clark spent the day walking along the beach with his mother, Doris. Before heading home, the pair stopped at public toilets along...

On the morning of November 7, 2001, ten-year-old Bianca Lebron walked to Elias Howe Elementary School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, just as she always did. While waiting outside before classes began, she excitedly told classmates that her uncle was taking her shopping for the day. She even invited some of them to come along. Minutes later, multiple witnesses watched Bianca calmly climb into a brown-...

In July 1993, 20-year-old Bobby Kent believed he was meeting his ex-girlfriend for a second chance. Instead, he was driven to a secluded rock pit in western Broward County, Florida, where seven young people were waiting. Among them was Bobby's best friend of fourteen years, Marty Puccio. The murder of Bobby Kent would inspire books, documentaries, and the 2001 film Bully, but the real story is far...

How far would someone go to escape accountability? In 2020, child advocate Nicholas Rossi was declared dead after an alleged battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Politicians mourned him. Friends grieved. An obituary celebrated his life and his supposed contributions to foster care reform. There was just one problem. Nicholas Rossi wasn't dead. Nearly two years later, a critically ill COVID patient ca...

Sixteen-year-old Mekayla Bali spent the morning of April 12, 2016, moving across Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She went to school... for six minutes. She withdrew every dollar from her bank account. She tried to pawn a ring. She spent hours sitting in restaurants, checking her phone, waiting for someone. She told friends she was heading to Regina. Then, at approximately 1:45 p.m., she walked out of a bus...

When 7-year-old Harmony Montgomery was finally reported missing in December 2021, investigators made a horrifying discovery: nobody had seen her in nearly two years. There were no school records, doctor's appointments or welfare checks. No confirmed sightings. A little girl had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth while the very systems designed to protect her failed to notice she was gon...

Rogue Transmissions--the edgy, semi-annual anthology of indie podcasts--is invading your podcast feed with DUNGEONPUNK PART 2 ... a symphony of 80s nostalgia, dystopian cyberpunk, and savage swords drawn against both super sorcery & super science. Featuring an adventuring party of your indie podcast favourites! FIRST UP, Octoberpod presents "Byzantium Slab: The Shell Remember" a wraparound tale of...

In 2017, 11-year-old Alex Batty left the UK for what was supposed to be a short holiday in Spain with his mother and grandfather. But when the trip ended, Alex never came home. His grandmother, Susan Caruana, who was his legal guardian, received a chilling video message instead. In it, Alex appeared to read from a script, asking her not to look for him. Then he vanished. For the next six years, Al...

In 1992, Rachel Nickell was murdered on Wimbledon Common while her two-year-old son watched helplessly. As Britain demanded answers, police became convinced they had found their killer. They hadn't. While investigators targeted Colin Stagg, the real murderer, Robert Napper, remained free. On a summer morning in South West London, 23-year-old Rachel Nickell set out for a walk with her son Alex and...

In October 2020, a frantic woman called 911 from an Oklahoma highway, claiming she had just given birth on the side of the road. Covered in blood and clutching a newborn baby, she begged first responders to help save her child. But there was one devastating problem. She had never been pregnant. In this episode of Serial Napper, we examine the shocking case of Taylor Parker, a woman who spent month...

Rogue Transmissions--the edgy, semi-annual anthology of indie podcasts--is invading your podcast feed with DUNGEONPUNK PART 1 ... a symphony of 80s nostalgia, dystopian cyberpunk, and savage swords drawn against both super sorcery & super science. Featuring an adventuring party of your indie podcast favourites! FIRST UP, Octoberpod presents "Byzantium Slab: Life Without A Soul" a wraparound tale o...

On the morning of December 1, 2016, a teenage girl woke up to the sound of her mother's cellphone alarm ringing endlessly from the kitchen table. Jennifer Hillier-Penney's purse was still there. Her coat was still there. Her boots, passport, vehicle, and personal belongings had all been left behind. Jennifer was nowhere to be found. What followed was one of Newfoundland and Labrador's most hauntin...

In August 2010, 20-year-old Amber Tuccaro flew from Fort McMurray to Edmonton with her young son, Jacob, hoping for a short getaway and a break from the stress of everyday life. Within hours, Amber vanished. What followed became one of the most haunting unsolved cases in Canadian history. Years later, the RCMP released a chilling audio recording captured during a 17-minute phone call Amber made wh...

In 2008, millions of Americans watched the Stockdale family on Wife Swap and saw a deeply religious, old-fashioned family trying to shield their children from the modern world. They lived on a rural Ohio farm, homeschooled their sons, banned television and dating, and spent their lives performing together as a bluegrass gospel band. To some viewers, they seemed wholesome and disciplined. To others...

The Eastburn family looked like the picture of a happy military family in 1985. Gary Eastburn was away at training. His wife Kathryn was home in North Carolina with their three little girls, preparing for the family’s upcoming move to England. Then, on Mother’s Day weekend, a neighbour noticed newspapers piling up in the driveway. Inside the house, police would find a scene so brutal it would haun...

Betty Broderick became one of America’s most infamous killers. She also became something much stranger: a woman thousands of people thought they understood. In 1989, Betty walked into the San Diego home of her ex-husband, high-powered attorney Dan Broderick, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena, and shot them while they slept. The murders shocked the country. But what shocked people even more was how d...

Melanie Uribe was just trying to get to work. On December 15th, 1980, the 31-year-old nurse and single mother vanished on her way to a night shift in California. Hours later, her burned truck was discovered abandoned on a dead-end road. Witnesses reported hearing screams and seeing men force their way into her vehicle at a stoplight before driving away. Then the case took a turn nobody could expla...

37-year-old Elnaz Hajtamiri knew she was in danger. Weeks before she vanished, she survived a violent attack in the underground parking garage of her Richmond Hill condo after two masked men allegedly tried to kidnap her. She was beaten with a frying pan so severely that she required roughly 40 stitches. Terrified, Elnaz left her home and went into hiding with her family in Wasaga Beach, Ontario....

An apartment building in Oshawa had a clogged drain. By the end of the day, police would uncover one of Canada’s most horrifying murder investigations. When plumbers pulled a strange pink, flesh-like substance from the pipes of a basement apartment in December 2017, they immediately called police. What officers found inside the apartment of Adam Strong would shock even seasoned investigators: huma...

On March 22, 2010, four-year-old Paulette Gebara Farah was reported missing from her family’s luxury apartment in Mexico City. There were no signs of forced entry. No ransom demands. No witnesses. And this wasn’t a child who could easily wander off. What followed was a massive media frenzy. Her parents, Mauricio Gebara and Lizette Farah, made emotional public appeals as search efforts intensified...

Just before midnight in March 1990, Toni Clark was driving home across the Bay Bridge when her car stalled. Minutes later, another vehicle crashed into it. Police arrived within six minutes. Toni was gone. No one saw her go over the bridge. No evidence proved she entered the water. And a week later, her mother says she received a phone call she believed came from Toni herself. In this episode of S...

In 1991, Gregory Green brutally murdered his pregnant wife, stabbing her to death inside their home while her children hid nearby. Despite the severity of the crime, he was sentenced to 15–25 years and was eventually released on parole after serving 16 years. He appeared to rebuild his life. He remarried. He became part of a church community. He had more children. But behind closed doors… the same...

Three teenagers left a house in the early morning hours of July 31, 2022. Six minutes later, two were dead and one would be convicted of murder. In Strongsville, Ohio, a car driven by 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla slammed into a brick building at nearly 100 miles per hour, killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo and their friend Davion Flanagan. At first, it looked like a tragic crash. But investigat...

On January 13, 1996, nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was riding her bike in Arlington, Texas, when she was abducted by a stranger in broad daylight. There was a witness. Police were called immediately. A search began within minutes. And still… Amber was gone. Four days later, her body was found in a creek just a few miles from where she was taken. Her killer has never been identified. In this episode...

On February 14th, 2000—Valentine’s Day—15-year-old Nicholas “Nick” Kunselman and 16-year-old Stephanie Hart-Grizzell were found shot to death behind the counter of a Subway restaurant in Littleton, Colorado. Just ten months earlier, both teens had survived the Columbine High School shooting. They were part of a community still trying to heal… still trying to move forward. That night was supposed t...