The Treehouse In The Woods

In November 1971, the List family vanished from their home in Westfield, New Jersey — and no one noticed for nearly a month. What investigators eventually discovered inside the Breeze Knoll mansion would become one of the most chilling family annihilation cases in American true crime history. John List methodically murdered his wife, mother, and three children, stacked their bodies in the ballroom...

In this episode, we dive into the baffling case of David Glenn Lewis, a Texas attorney who vanished in 1993 and was later struck and killed along a highway in Moxee, Washington, over 1,600 miles from home. For 11 years, he remained a John Doe, with no clear explanation for how or why he ended up there. What makes this case even stranger is what was happening before he disappeared: an upcoming lega...

Hey friends! Quick update episode. We’re officially switching our release day from Mondays to Tuesdays, starting now. So if you were looking for a new episode today, don’t worry, it’s still coming, just dropping on Tuesdays from here on out. Same show, same chaos, just a better day for everyone. We also go off on a little side tangent (because of course we do) about alligator lore… and whether tha...

When the justice system failed her, Miriam Rodríguez Martínez became her own investigator. After her daughter, Karen Alejandra Rodríguez Martínez, was kidnapped and murdered by cartel members in Mexico, Miriam refused to accept silence, corruption, or inaction. Instead, she spent years tracking down those responsible, gathering evidence, identifying suspects, and forcing authorities to make arrest...

In this episode, we dive into the disturbing and deeply mysterious murder of Cassidy Rainwater, a missing woman from Missouri whose case spiraled into dark web rumors, gruesome allegations, and a wave of conspiracy theories. We break down the timeline of Cassidy’s disappearance, the chilling discovery that linked suspects James Phelps and Timothy Norton to her murder, and the cabin photographs tha...

In June of 1999, a man named Ricky McCormick was found in a Missouri field… and nothing about the case has made sense since. Not the location. Not the circumstances. And especially not the two handwritten notes found in his pockets, notes filled with symbols, numbers, and codes that even the FBI’s top cryptanalysts couldn’t break. Tonight, we’re diving into one of America’s strangest unsolved myst...

Grigori Rasputin wasn’t just a mystic, he was a walking fever dream of a man whose life reads like someone mixed a soap opera with a horror movie and said, “Yeah, that’ll work.”In this episode, we break down the real Rasputin: his chaotic rise from a troubled kid in Siberia, to wandering holy man, to member of a sex cult, to somehow becoming besties with the Romanovs… all while surviving more assa...

This week we’re covering the tragic and deeply unsettling case of actor Johnny Lewis — better known to most as “Half-Sack” from Sons of Anarchy. His final days were a whirlwind of arrests, erratic behavior, and escalating instability that ended in a shocking and violent crime that stunned fans and Hollywood alike. We walk through Johnny’s early acting success, the warning signs that appeared long...

This week, we cover the chilling case of Justin Mohn, who murdered his father, decapitated him, and uploaded a YouTube video detailing his motives. We walk through the timeline, his extremist beliefs, and how authorities responded to a crime that unfolded publicly online. And because our brains needed a palate cleanser after that, we also share the surprisingly adorable WWII-era mission that invol...

In this episode, we unpack the disturbing case of Robert “Awake the Rapper” Crimo III — the SoundCloud-aesthetic musician turned mass shooter behind the Highland Park 4th of July parade attack. We walk through the red flags leading up to the tragedy, the system failures that let him slip through, and the internet’s obsession with linking his story to MK-Ultra and government cover-up theories. We k...

This week’s installment of The Real Faces of Horror dives face-first into the greasepaint with one of the most infamous killers in history, John Wayne Gacy, the suburban businessman, party clown, and serial murderer who forever turned our fear of clowns into a national pastime. Join us (and my day-six migraine) as we untangle Gacy’s double life, explore his chilling connection to Stephen King’s IT...

Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate are often remembered as the murderous teenage couple who terrorized Nebraska in 1958… but what if that story isn’t quite right? In this week’s Real Faces of Horror, we take a closer look at whether Caril was a willing partner or just a terrified 14-year-old caught in a nightmare. Think Natural Born Killers, but make it “maybe she didn’t even want to be the...

In one of the weirdest true crime stories to come out of the 1980s, a Domino’s Pizza mascot became the accidental target of a real-life hostage situation. This week, we’re talking about the 1989 Chamblee, Georgia Domino’s incident, where a man named Kenneth Lamar Noid stormed a restaurant at gunpoint, all because he believed the “Avoid the Noid” campaign was a personal attack. We unpack the bizarr...

The Real Faces of Horror: The Gainesville Ripper — The Man Who Made Us ScreamDescription:In the third installment of our Real Faces of Horror series, we’re pulling off the Ghostface mask to meet the real killer who inspired Scream. Before the phone calls, the popcorn, and the rules of surviving a horror movie, there was Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper. We’re diving into the crimes that terro...

This week’s Weird Wednesday takes a detour from folklore into something far more chilling, the real-life horror story of Ilse Koch, the so-called Witch of Buchenwald. Once a Nazi war wife living in luxury on the edge of a concentration camp, Ilse’s name became synonymous with cruelty, sadism, and disturbing rumors of human-skin souvenirs. But how much of what we’ve heard is fact, and how much is d...

Step into part two of our October series, The Real Faces of Horror, where we uncover the true crimes that inspired some of horror’s most twisted tales. This week, we’re heading back to 1870s Kansas to meet The Bloody Benders, a family of innkeepers with a deadly secret beneath their floorboards. Their story of deception, violence, and disappearance would go on to inspire horror classics like The H...

This Weird Wednesday starts with a bizarre true story from the Nevada desert, illegally dumped cremains. But the real deep dive? The Japanese Kappa: water-dwelling tricksters with turtle shells, creepy heads, and a strange obsession with cucumbers. Folklore, true crime, and just enough weirdness to get you through the week.

In the first installment of our October special series The Real Faces of Horror, we dive into the chilling life and crimes of Ed Gein, the real-life murderer and grave robber who inspired some of the most infamous horror films of all time, including Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs. From his disturbing childhood in rural Wisconsin to the shocking discoveries made a...

For this weeks special bonus episode we dive into the brutal and bizarre story of Princess Olga of Kiev. From burning cities with birds to burying her enemies alive, Olga’s revenge was legendary. But here’s the twist—this ruthless ruler later became a saint. Was she a holy woman, a savage queen, or something in between? Join us as we unravel Olga’s story.

In 1966, two men were discovered dead on a hillside near Rio de Janeiro. Dressed in formal suits, wearing strange lead masks, and carrying a cryptic notebook with instructions like “be at the place determined” and “ingest capsules, wait for the effect”, their deaths remain one of the strangest unsolved mysteries in modern history. Were they victims of a secret ritual, government experiments, UFO c...

In January 1935, a young man checked into the Hotel President in Kansas City under the name Roland T. Owen. Days later, he was found brutally beaten and stabbed inside his locked hotel room—Room 1046. What followed was a bizarre and haunting investigation filled with false names, mysterious phone calls, cryptic last words, and even a stranger who paid for his funeral. In this episode, we dive into...

Picture it: Las Vegas, 2021… Zak Bagans’ mom hands me a free sticker. Fast forward to our anniversary trip, and we find ourselves inside one of the creepiest places in Vegas, Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum. In this Weird Wednesday episode, we share our experiences wandering through haunted relics and chilling exhibits, from the infamous Dybbuk Box and Devil’s Rocking Chair to Ed Gein’s cauldron, Dr. K...

In July 2001, 20-year-old Megan Barroso vanished in Simi Valley, California. When her body was discovered days later, investigators faced a terrifying crime—but an unusual clue would eventually bring her killer, Vincent Sanchez, to justice. The unlikely hero? Glitter. In this episode of The Treehouse in the Woods, we dive into Megan’s story, the horror of her final night, and how something as smal...

Disappearances, strange lights, eerie sounds, and yes, even Bigfoot. In this Weird Wednesday episode, we’re diving into the mysteries of the Bennington Triangle in Vermont. From missing hikers to Native Abenaki lore, we’ll explore what might be lurking in the woods… while one of us is convinced it’s Bigfoot and the other isn’t buying it. You decide.

In this episode of The Treehouse in the Woods, we trace Duncan McKenzie’s violent path across the Northwest, beginning with the Oct. 26, 1973 murder of 15-year-old Deborah (Debra) Prety in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and leading to the Jan. 21, 1974 murder of Lana Harding in Conrad, Montana. We center Deborah’s story, then follow the investigation, McKenzie’s conviction for Harding’s murder, and his 199...