The Silver Linings Handbook

My listeners are an amazing bunch. As we head into the new year, this is part of a discussion I had recently with several listeners about the year, the future, the meaning of the holidays, family, friendship, and community. I am joined today by Marie Holdridge, Allison Dickson, Brian Santana, Lauren Ater and Cameron Santana. Contact me at silverliningshandbookpod@gmail.com Check out the Silver Lin...

Krissi Haas discovered the truth about her mother's murder in an unexpected way. Nearly three decades after 23-year-old Wilma June Nissen's body was found in rural Iowa, a cold case review led investigators to run her fingerprints through a national database. They matched an old arrest record from Long Beach, California and a friend sent Krissi an article in a local newspaper about the identificat...

In the second part of my conversation with retired FBI profiler Julia Cowley, we continue examining the 1996 murder of 20‑year‑old Swedish au pair Karina Holmer, whose body was discovered in a Boston dumpster. We explore what the killer’s choices reveal about motive, how geography points to where the crime likely occurred, and why media speculation unfairly cast suspicion on several people. Buildi...

Retired FBI profiler Julia Cowley joins me to revisit the haunting unsolved murder of Karina Holmer, a 20‑year‑old Swedish au pair whose upper body was found in a Boston dumpster in 1996. Julia and I talk about Karina’s life, the night she disappeared after leaving Zanzibar nightclub and why the comparisons to infamous Black Dahlia case don’t hold up. We explore what offender behavior can reveal a...

I sit down with advocate and researcher Raul Montero, best known for his work on the Long Island Serial Killer and for creating a groundbreaking map that tracks thousands of missing and unidentified persons. Raul talks with me about how his journey began with curiosity about a local case and evolved into a mission of compassion, focusing less on the perpetrators and more on honoring the victims an...

What happens when justice hits a jurisdictional wall? In this episode, I sit down with Jerome Lucero, former police chief and three-time governor of the Pueblo of Zia tribe to unpack the tangled web of tribal law enforcement, federal oversight and the devastating consequences of legal fragmentation on Indigenous lands. From the landmark Supreme Court decisions in United States v. Cooley and McGirt...

At just 27 years old, fighter pilot Kim Campbell was flying a combat mission over Baghdad when a barrage of anti-aircraft fire struck her A-10 Warthog. Her hydraulics failed instantly. Ground troops shifted from receiving air support to preparing a rescue. But instead of ejecting, Kim did the unthinkable—manually flying the crippled aircraft for 45 harrowing minutes before landing safely in southe...

Morgan Scafe joins me to recount her seven-year journey—beginning in high school—that started with abuse by her best friend's father and ended in his conviction for kidnapping and sexual abuse. Morgan was just eight years old when he assaulted her in the house on Carpenter Road in rural Michigan. After years of struggling with the trauma and its effects, a television program inspired her to speak...

Brett Talley and I continue our exploration of the monsters that societies breathe into existence—creatures shaped by cautionary tales, cultural trauma, and collective imagination. From Korean folklore and Greek myths of divine punishment through transformation into what the English called werewolves, to modern specters like Slenderman, we trace how these beings reflect universal truths across tim...

There are a lot of monsters in the world — and a lot of them we breathe into existence. Brett Talley, a horror writer and co-host of The Prosecutors podcast, joins me to discuss the monsters we create. We discuss how, in many ways, we create these monsters and the folklore around them because we need them. From the Wendigo and Slenderman to zombies and werewolves, we explore how monsters — some re...

Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and the host of The Consult podcast, and I set out to discuss the University of Idaho murders and the killer of four college students, Bryan Kohberger. But something strange happened when we began discussing the survivors who were in the house. It was during a week when a beloved podcaster, friend, and researcher for this podcast died. In this emotionally...

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, someone entered a house just off the University of Idaho campus in a brazen home invasion that left four University of Idaho students — Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves — dead. Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of The Consult podcast, joins me to continue on conversation about what we can learn from the beh...

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, some entered a house just off the University of Idaho campus and stabbed four students to death. Months later, a suspect was identified. This year, he pled guilty to the charges without giving any hint why he committed the crimes or what made the victims desirable targets. Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of The Consult podcast, joins m...

Criminal defense attorney Matthew Tympanick joins me to examine the boundaries of legal strategy in three high-profile cases — Karen Read, Bryan Kohberger and Richard Allen — and low-profile ones as well. Tympanick discusses how jury selection shaped the outcome of the Read trial, the pressures defense attorneys face in the public eye, and the ethical challenges of balancing media presence with le...

In this episode, I sit down with veteran journalist and author Mark Pinsky, whose career has taken him from high-profile crime reporting to covering racial justice and religion. Mark shares how his political awakening at Duke University in the 1960s and the civil rights movement shaped his worldview, how his interest in social justice led him to cover crime and religion, and how he’s navigated the...

In this bonus from the Santana True Crime podcast, I discuss the disappearance of Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, a 20-year-old Indigenous woman who went missing from the Blackfeet Reservation. We talk about my recent trip to Montana, meeting one of the key suspects in the case, theories and what being on the ground told me about the case and the cross-jurisdictional barriers that appear to be getting...

In the second half of our conversation, we move from systemic critique to case-specific urgency. Ed Dentzel and I examine the disappearances of Olivia Lone Bear, Jermaine Charlo, Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, Leo Wagner, Jeremy Jourdain, and Nevaeh Kingbird —not as isolated tragedies, but as part of a devastating pattern of institutional neglect. We unpack jurisdictional breakdowns, media silence, an...

What does it mean to disappear when so few notice? What does it mean to disappear from the very place meant to protect your presence? In the first half of a two-part conversation, I speak with Ed Dentzel — an expert on missing persons cases and the host of The Unfound podcast — about the unsettling realities surrounding disappearances of Native people in the United States. We explore the unique th...

In February 2017, two friends—13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German—set out across a bridge in Delphi, Indiana. They never came home. What followed was one of the most haunting and widely followed true crime cases in America. In this episode, I speak with Brett Talley, co-host of The Prosecutors Podcast, about the long journey from tragedy to trial in the Delphi murders. We explor...

When 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German disappeared from an abandoned railroad bridge on February 13, 2017, the community rushed to search for them. Once they were found murdered, law enforcement began the arduous process of searching for their killer. But, at the end of the day, it was clear from the investigation by Kevin Greenlee and Áine Cain, the co-authors of the forthcom...

On an unseasonably warm February day in 2017 in Delphi, Indiana, two friends, 13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German, decided on a whim to head out to the trails near their homes. An abandoned railroad bridge that once carried trains gave way over time to the feet of residents. Many would venture out onto the bridge only to find themselves crawling back on their hands and feet, but...

Amanda Erickson grew up in the Boston suburbs, always knowing there was something a little different about her - the dark pigmentation in her skin. Years later, she would reconnect with her father, who lived on the San Carlos Apache reservation in Arizona. This would begin a journey that would lead her to connect with her Indigenous heritage and transform her long career in film. After 16 years wo...

Amy Carlson claimed to be the reincarnation of Robin Williams, Joan of Arc, Marilyn Monroe, Jesus Christ and the Hawaiian goddess Pele—along with being Elvis Presley’s mother and Donald Trump’s daughter in other lifetimes. In 2023, the HBO documentary Love Has Won: The Mother God Cult traced Carlson’s journey from a McDonald’s manager in Dallas to cult leader, promoting beliefs that the COVID pand...

When Morgan Dana Harrington went missing and was then found dead in a Virginia field, her parents' world was shattered. When her parents found out about the long string of crimes that went unpunished by her killer, Jesse Matthew Jr., they turned their outrage into a fight to "save the next girl." Morgan was a vibrant 20-year-old college student attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Vir...

Morgan Dana Harrington was a vibrant 20-year-old college student attending a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Virginia, when she vanished in 2009—an event that captured national attention and ignited public grief. Her killer wasn’t identified until the 2014 abduction and murder of another University of Virginia student, 18-year-old Hannah Graham, just miles away. The two cases forced society...