Serial Napper | True Crime for the Chronically Tired

On Christmas morning in 2011, in Anaheim, California, children opened their presents just feet away from their mother’s body. Za’Zell Preston was 26 years old, a mother of three, a dancer, and a full-time college student studying to become a domestic violence counselor. Seven weeks postpartum, she was trying to build a future for herself and her children while trapped in a violent and controlling...

On May 27, 2020, Nick Cordova, a 40-year-old husband and father of two, was murdered inside his Gilbert, Arizona HVAC business while he was on FaceTime with his children. Nick was shot in broad daylight. Surveillance footage exists. A vehicle of interest was identified. And more than five years later, no one has been arrested. In this episode, we walk through who Nick Cordova was before his life w...

In November 2025, Rebecca Kay Park vanished from Boon Township, Michigan, just days to weeks before she was due to give birth to her third son. Within 24 hours, her phone turned up near a rural two-track road. Three weeks later, Rebecca’s body was discovered deep in the Manistee National Forest...her unborn son missing. What followed was a horrifying investigation that uncovered a maze of family s...

Tonight, we’re diving into the heartbreaking life and death of Daisy Coleman, the teenager at the center of the Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy, whose fight for justice and advocacy for other survivors changed the national conversation around sexual assault. This isn’t a murder case, but it is a tragedy that exposes something deeply broken in the systems meant to protect children. Daisy survive...

In October 2008, 21-year-old Dylan Koshman walked out the back door of a south Edmonton home after a late-night fight with his cousins… and was never seen again. No jacket. No wallet. No phone. No trace. What looked at first like a young man storming off in anger quickly became something much darker. Dylan’s phone and wallet were later found in a neighbour’s yard. Multiple 911 calls reported fight...

9-year-old Melodee Buzzard vanished in October after a cross-country trip with her mother, and the story behind her disappearance keeps getting stranger. Her last confirmed sighting was near the Colorado–Utah state line. Days later, her mother returned to Lompoc alone, with swapped license plates, changing statements, and no explanation for where Melodee went. In this episode, I break down the com...

25-year-old Chance Englebert vanished without a trace after a tense holiday weekend argument in July 2019. He walked away from his in-laws’ home in Gering, Nebraska, during a storm and was never seen alive again. For years, his case sat in that agonizing space between hope and heartbreak...until now. In October 2025, remains were discovered at Scott’s Bluff National Monument. They have now been po...

On December 30th, 2000, the Miyazawa family murders shocked Japan and became one of the most chilling unsolved murder cases in Japanese history. In the quiet Tokyo suburb of Setagaya, 44-year-old Mikio Miyazawa, his wife Yasuko, and their children Niina and Rei were brutally killed inside their home — a crime now known globally as The Setagaya Family Murders or simply The Miyazawa Family Murder Ca...

On New Year’s Night, 2008, fifteen-year-old Amy Fitzpatrick left her best friend’s home in Calahonda, Spain, for what should have been a short walk back to her house. She never arrived. No CCTV, no belongings left behind, no confirmed sightings. Just a child who stepped into the dark and vanished. This episode dives deep into the chaotic months leading up to Amy’s disappearance, the instability at...

In 1995, 15-year-old Elyse Pahler disappeared from her home in Arroyo Grande, California. For months, police brushed her off as a runaway. Her family begged for answers. Rumours spread. Tips went nowhere. And meanwhile, the truth was sitting in the eucalyptus grove just a quarter mile from her house. This episode dives into the disturbing case of Elyse Pahler, a story twisted by Satanic Panic head...

In the early hours of September 29th, 2021, seventeen-year-old Benjamin Elliott called 911 sobbing, saying, “I just killed my sister… I thought it was a dream.” When police arrived, they found Benjamin covered in blood, clutching a knife, and his twin sister, Meghan dead in her bed. What followed was one of the most haunting and divisive murder cases Texas has ever seen. Benjamin claimed he was sl...

On the night of March 17th, 1995, six teenage boys from Pickering, Ontario: Jay Boyle, Michael Cummins, Danny Higgins, Chad Smith, Robbie Rumboldt, and Jamie Lefebvre — walked into the cold darkness near Lake Ontario and were never seen again. It was supposed to be just another night of partying over March Break. But by morning, the boys were gone...no calls, no sightings, no trace. Their footprin...

In October 1975, Ottawa was a picture of calm - polite, predictable, and almost boring in its safety. But that illusion shattered when 17-year-old Robert Poulin, a Catholic school student, carried out one of Canada’s first modern school shootings. Before walking into Saint Pius X High School with a sawed-off shotgun, he set fire to his own home, where firefighters would later discover the body of...

In August of 1993, ten-year-old Holly Kristen Piirainen vanished while visiting her grandparents’ cottage in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. She’d walked just a few hundred yards down a dirt road to see a neighbour’s puppies...and never came back. Seventy-nine days later, hunters discovered her remains in the woods of nearby Brimfield. More than thirty years later, Holly’s killer has never been caught....

It’s the urban legend every parent has whispered at least once: “Check your candy, you never know what could be inside.” But in 1974, that warning wasn’t just a myth. In Pasadena, Texas, eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan was poisoned by a Pixy Stix laced with cyanide, handed to him by his own father. This is the horrifying true story of Ronald O’Bryan, the man the media dubbed The Candyman Killer. He...

To ring in 150 EPISODES, Kaydra invites some friends to the show to read some of their favorite spooky stories from the internet. Happy Halloween! This episode was produced and edited by Kaydra Brannan, the host of Perplexity: A Mystery Podcast. https://www.perplexitymysterypodcast.com/ Show Notes: Perplexity: A Mystery Podcast https://www.perplexitymysterypodcast.com/ Story: https://www.reddit.co...

In the summer of 1990, Gainesville, Florida, was a humid little college town buzzing with new school year jitters...until one week changed everything. Within days, five University of Florida students were brutally murdered in their homes. Doors were barricaded, classes cancelled, and the city descended into full-blown terror. The killer was methodical, staging his victims like something out of a h...

Tonight on Serial Napper, we’re stepping into the strange, tragic world of Grady Stiles Jr., better known as Lobster Boy, the carnival performer born with fused “claw-like” hands who turned his sideshow fame into a nightmare for everyone around him. From his childhood under the tent lights of the travelling freak show to his reign of terror at home, Grady’s story blurs the line between fascination...

Napa Valley, famous for its wine, rolling hills, and peaceful small-town charm, wasn’t the kind of place where doors stayed locked or nightmares felt real. But on Halloween night, 2004, that illusion shattered when two young women were brutally murdered in their own home. In this episode of Serial Napper, we’re diving into the chilling case of Adriane Insogna and Leslie Ann Mazzara, two roommates...

This week on Serial Napper, we’re revisiting one of the most disturbing cases I’ve ever covered, the story of Christa Pike, the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in the United States. When I first released this episode a few years back, Christa was still sitting on death row with no date in sight. But now… that’s changed. In September 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court officially scheduled her...

In April 1987, 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy called 911 from her Chicago apartment, panicked and out of breath. She told the dispatcher that someone was trying to break in...through her bathroom mirror. Police didn’t believe her. Two days later, she was found dead. This episode unpacks the real-life horror that inspired the Candyman legend, a murder born not of superstition, but of neglect, poverty...

If you think your grandma’s weird, wait until you meet Nannie Doss. Known by a handful of delightfully horrifying nicknames...The Giggling Granny, The Lonely Hearts Killer, The Jolly Black Widow, Lady Blue Beard...Nannie Doss looked like the kind of grandmother who’d bake you cookies and tell you to eat seconds. Instead, she was slipping arsenic into sweet potato pie and serving it with a smile. B...

In 1930s Buffalo, New York, a grieving widow sat hunched over a Ouija board, desperate to hear from her dead husband. The planchette moved, spelling out a chilling message: “They killed me.” The spirit named a culprit, Clotilde Marchand, a petite Frenchwoman, mother of four, and the wife of a well-known sculptor. Days later, Clotilde opened her front door to an accusation of witchcraft…and never l...

In tonight’s episode of Serial Napper, we’re diving into the twisted case of Chelsea Perkins—better known online as OnlyFans model Sabrina Savage. Chelsea claimed she was tired of being a victim, and in 2021, she tracked down the man she said raped her, 31-year-old musician and father of two, Matthew Dunmire. She lured him out under the guise of reconnecting, drove him into Cuyahoga Valley Nationa...

On the surface, Charlie Brandt looked like a quiet, ordinary man who loved fishing, drinking, and his wife, Teri. But in 2004, when he murdered Teri and brutally killed his niece Michelle Jones before hanging himself, investigators uncovered a nightmare decades in the making. This episode dives into Charlie’s violent past, beginning at age 13 when he killed his mother—the secrets his family buried...