True Crime 48 Hours

The judo hold that protected the Ecuadorian police: The femicide of María Belén Bernal A police lieutenant murders his wife inside the police academy where he was trained, leaves the body in the trunk of his truck, and reports himself as a victim. María Belén's cell phone records her final pleas as he strangles her with a judo hold. In this episode, we explore the contradictions that kept the homi...

The nail polish that identified Allison: five months without answers: The murder of Allison Bonilla A mother recognizes her daughter's remains by the nail polish she painted herself days before. In the early morning of March 4, 2020, Allison Bonilla, 19 years old, disappeared after getting off a bus in Cartago, Costa Rica. A man confessed where she was, but then denied everything. In this episode,...

The license plate that implicated the killer in Paraguay: The femicide of Natalia Silveira A red car explodes in flames in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, in the early morning of April 11, 2018. Among the ashes, a single intact piece: the license plate. Twenty-four hours later, the killer confesses live on the radio from Argentina, narrating every detail of the crime with surgical precision. In this episod...

The letter that betrays: the Gabi Petito case - The murder of Gabrielle Petito A young woman disappears during a dream trip across the United States. Her fiancé returns alone with the shared van, without explanations. When the police arrive, her parents provide the lawyer's number. Months later, a handwritten letter from the mother mentions burying a body, and an eight-page confession reveals what...

The call that revealed the buried secret in Medellín: The femicide of Melanie Stac Maya León A mother prays for her daughter to be brought back alive or dead. Hours later, an anonymous call reveals the exact location of the body in El Calvario hill. The impossible: the caller lived meters from the burial site and was a relative of the killer. In this episode, we explore how a report of domestic vi...

Eight years in a basement: the Natasha case: The kidnapping of Natasha Kampusch in Austria On August 23, 2006, an 18-year-old girl arrived at a stranger's door claiming to have been missing for eight years. Doctors confirmed that she weighed exactly the same as she did at ten years old. How does a person survive such absolute captivity and, having moments of escape, take so long to flee? In this e...

113 stab wounds: the crime that changed Argentina: The murder of Carolina Aló May 1996. An investigator counts wounds at the scene without filter: eighty. The real number would later be revealed. How did an attack with four different weapons, documented with a prophetic notebook, end in a sentence of only 24 years and the killer's release before serving his full sentence? In this episode, we explo...

The unlocked door of Briana: serial killer of Reno: The Murder of Briana Denison In the early morning of January 19, 2008, a man entered a house in Reno without forcing the door, took Briana Denison sleeping on the couch, and disappeared without waking anyone. The impossible: he left his DNA on the doorknob, untouched money, and did not activate the sleeping dog upstairs. How did a predator attack...

Pentagram on the chest: the confession of Crista Pike: The murder of Colleen Ann Slemmer On January 13, 1995, at 8 a.m., a Job Corps Campus employee discovers remains in a forest in Knoxville. The body shows over a hundred stab wounds and a pentagram carved into the chest. That same night, the killer walks around the university with a fragment of the victim's skull, showing it to her peers as if i...

Lucía Pérez: Acquitted, Then Convicted - The Femicide of Lucía Pérez in Mar del Plata Three men arrive at a medical facility with a lifeless teenager. The justice system acquits them. Six years later, one receives a life sentence for the same case. How is it possible that the same death generates two contradictory sentences in Argentina? In this episode, we explore the autopsy that dismantled the...

The Skin of Katarzyna: Faceless Crime: The murder of Katarzyna Zając On January 6, 1999, sailors on the Vistula River found a bag of human skin with an ear and an earring caught in the propeller of a tugboat. Katarzyna Zając, 23 years old, had disappeared nearly two months earlier without a trace. The impossible: her body was processed like a garment with surgical precision, a crime never seen in...

Four hundred meters: the girl who named her tormentors: The murder of Susan Kapper in Manchester. A teenager with 80% of her body burned crawls nearly four blocks down an English road and, before dying, whispers six full names, exact addresses, and surnames of those who tortured her for a week. The impossible: they all lived on the same street. The central question that haunts this episode is how...

35 stab wounds: the system that ignored her reports: The feminicide of Dariela Valdés Rocha A law student filed four formal reports, survived a shooting attempt, and was murdered with 35 stab wounds by the same man she identified to the prosecutor's office. The crime occurred while authorities were conducting home surveillance. How did a victim who did everything right end up dead? In this episode...

The Perfect Mine: Crime in Joshua Tree: The Murder of Erin Evelyn An expert in mines descends 140 feet into an abandoned well in the California desert and finds the body of a 19-year-old girl with a makeshift garrote around her neck - made from a Marine Corps t-shirt. The question is impossible: how could someone within such a closed circle of a military base bury his own lover and remain free for...

The tattoo that identified Daniela in Playa del Carmen: The murder of Daniela Patiño Inestrosa A young Colombian receives a job offer for Madrid, lands in Guatemala without warning, and escapes with her father's money. She arrives in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where she disappears weeks later. The impossible contradiction: she was found as an unidentified body, identified only by a tattoo on her fo...

Jack the Stripper: The signature that Scotland Yard never solved: The serial murder of Anna Tailford and five other victims in London. Six bodies found between 1964 and 1965, each with the same disturbing forensic signature: teeth removed, underwear in the trachea, spray paint particles adhered to the skin. Scotland Yard interrogated 8,000 suspects without making a single arrest. How did a serial...

The Killer Who Avoided Earthquakes: Herbert Mullin: The Serial Murder of Herbert William Mullin October 1972. A man begins to kill, convinced that each death prevents a catastrophic earthquake. For months, thirteen people fall under his hands while he hears voices ordering him to carry out a delusional "mission" based on Einstein and April 18. In this episode, we explore how a brilliant student be...

The Zodiac Who Turned Himself In: The Case of Heriberto Seda An unemployed man from Brooklyn signs his police confession with the same handwriting and symbol he used to taunt New York for six years. In November 1989, a threatening letter arrives at the NYPD signed "Zodiac," but it is filed away. Months later, shootings and notes with stones reveal an obsessed imitator of the most famous killer nev...

The witness who buried bodies under his floor: The forensic investigation of John Reginald Christie March 1953. A tenant discovers a hidden door behind wallpaper in the kitchen of 10 Rillington Place. Inside: three bodies wrapped in sheets. The horror is that the killer had already testified in court years earlier, convincing the jury to convict an innocent man, and that innocent man was hanged. I...

43 dead in three months: the killer who challenged Ukraine: The serial massacre of Anatoli Onoprienko Winter of 1995, post-Soviet Ukraine: families wake up in the darkness of massive blackouts and never wake up again. Onoprienko, a man who worked as a carpenter, executed 43 people in just 90 days—a record speed in documented serial crimes. How did an abandoned child in an orphanage become the dead...

The grandfather who evaded justice for twelve years: The serial murder of Albert Fish A frail old man with a gray mustache and a worn suit walked through Brooklyn while the police searched for a criminal who seemed impossible to catch. Between 1924 and 1927, two small children disappeared under identical circumstances, but no one connected the cases. How could someone who couldn't lift weight comm...

The Big-Eared Kid: Monster or Victim of Poverty: The case of Argentina's first serial killer. A nine-year-old boy was taken by his own father to the police station asking to be jailed. No one listened to him. Eight years later, that same boy had killed four children and attacked seven more. Cayetano Santos Godino, known as the Big-Eared Kid, embodies the darkest contradiction of Argentine criminol...

Five names, four bodies, no answers: The mystery of Terrence Rasmussen Two rusty blue barrels appear in a forest park in New Hampshire fifteen years apart. Inside, the remains of a woman and three girls, wrapped in black bags and tied with electrical wire. For nearly four decades, no one searches for them. No one knows who they are. The question no one can answer: how can a man murder an entire fa...

The Shooting Champion Who Hunted in Krakow: The Serial Murder of Karol Kot Three women stabbed in churches in Krakow in September 1964. No motive, no robbery, no sexual assault - just precise wounds to the back. A 17-year-old girl, described by teachers as "calm and polite," voluntarily confessed and eagerly participated in police reenactments. In this episode, we explore how a national shooting c...

Random shootings: how two killers hid in Arizona: The homicide spree of Reggie Hausner and Dale Ditman An airport janitor and an alcoholic drifter presented themselves as witnesses to the police at the scene of one of their own crimes for fourteen months. While Phoenix bled with thirty-seven linked shootings, no one was looking for them together. An impossible question dominated the investigation:...