True Crime Brewery

Kim Barry loved to dance and she had plans to train as a nurse. Living with her parents in a suburb of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia, she cared for disabled children in preparation for her future career. On Friday night, February 6, 1981, Kim’s parents left town overnight, leaving her in charge of her little brother. Kim was usually very responsible, but she also wanted to enjoy her fre...

Amy St. Laurent went out on a Saturday night and seemed to vanish into thin air. As parents, this is our worst nightmare. Amy was a sensible, smart young woman who knew how to take care of herself, but one bad choice put her into the path of a violent predator. In the search for Amy, detectives had to deal with uncooperative witnesses, inaccurate stories, and a suspect who wove a complex web of li...

Brandon Teena was a female to male transgender person born into a homophobic culture. As we discuss Brandon’s life growing up in rural Nebraska in the 1970s and 80s, it’s difficult to conceive of the difficulties he faced. Looking back, you can see how his life spiraled out of control as he attempted to navigate relationships and endured abuse, judgment and disapproval. Join us at the quiet end to...

Kurt Sonnenfeld has been in the news for nearly 18 years, both for the death of his wife Nancy and for being an outspoken 9/11 “truther.” As a videographer for FEMA, Kurt put together footage of the 9/11 disaster for media outlets around the world. On CNN, he spoke of the heroics of the recovery workers under tragic circumstances. But, back at home, Kurt was a very troubled man. Nancy Sonnenfeld d...

It’s been nearly 40 years since young wife and mother Lynette Dawson disappeared from her New South Wales home. Lynette’s last known conversation was with her mother. On the morning of January 8, 1982, her mother called to plan an outing to a local beach. Lynette agreed, but she was nowhere to be found when her mother arrived. Over the years, as Lynette remained missing, suspicions landed on her h...

Stacey Castor was a recent widow suspected of two murders when her eldest daughter Ashley was hospitalized following an apparent suicide attempt. While some looked at Stacey with sympathy, others thought she was evil, a woman who was alone responsible for the tragedies in her life. The story of Stacey Castor’s life, her relationships, and her losses is a complex and twisted narrative. After it all...

Summer Shipp reinvented herself after her divorce, but she always had a big heart and a lively, idealistic personality. When she disappeared in 2004, she was happy with her life. She had a close relationship with her adult daughter, Brandy, and she had a large group of friends. Money was tight, but she was as far from materialistic as one can be. Summer liked her job doing market research. She had...

Most of our TCB episodes deal with the intricacies of family, friend, or co-worker relationships, where different personalities and vulnerabilities come together in one tragic act of murder. But what about the less common but often more perplexing cases of random killings? American serial killer Israel Keyes was arrested in 2012 in connection with the disappearance of Alaskan woman Samantha Koenig...

In February, 2010, Joseph McStay, his wife, Summer, and their young sons, Gianni and Joseph Jr., disappeared from their Fallbrook, California home. Days later, their SUV was found abandoned in a parking lot near the Mexican border. A dark and fuzzy surveillance video was released which seemed to show a family matching their descriptions walking across the border into Mexico. The media speculated a...

When handsome, wealthy investment banker Ted Ammon missed a Monday morning business meeting and failed to pick up his children from school, friends were concerned. Ted was nothing if not reliable. He had spent the weekend at his East Hampton home, so his business partner took a helicopter ride to his estate to see what Ted was up to. Ted had really stood out as an athletic guy who loved his kids a...

Brandon Michael Reid was in and out of hospitals from infancy. His mother, Tanya, a devoted mother and part-time nurse, seemed to take her son’s illnesses in stride. But when a pattern emerged suggesting Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Brandon Michael was put into foster care. Then, an investigation into Tanya’s past revealed a very disturbing history. Join us at the quiet end today for A Mother’s L...

On the day after Thanksgiving in 2010, Tanya Zuvers reported her three young sons missing from her home in Morenci, Michigan. Her husband was supposed to bring the boys back to her on Friday morning, but he never did. The couple had been living apart and planned to divorce. Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, just 5-years old, had spent Thanksgiving Day with their father, John Skelton. When Tanya...

Mom and skilled pilot Kelsey Berreth was last seen on Thanksgiving Day, 2018. After not hearing from her daughter for over a week, her mother Cheryl Berreth reported Kelsey missing. Authorities contacted Kelsey’s fiancé, Patrick Frazee, but he said he hadn’t seen Kelsey either and that the two had recently broken up. As the search for Kelsey began, police investigated Frazee and learned about anot...

Susan McFarland, a hard-working mother of three, disappeared just before Thanksgiving in 2002. Three days later, her car was found in an abandoned parking lot with the keys still in the ignition. Her friends and family hoped that Sue had just gone off to have some time alone. But investigators became suspicious of foul play based on her husband’s unusual behavior both before and after Sue’s disapp...

Today’s crime has been compared to the 1987 film “Fatal Attraction” starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. Calling the murder of Betty Jeanne Solomon “The Fatal Attraction Murder” was good for headlines, but if you were to ask Carolyn Warmus, she would probably tell you there were no similarities at all. Carolyn was a young, attractive elementary school teacher living in New York City when she...

There is no one more innocent than a 14 month old child, the age Jaidyn Leskie was when he disappeared. Jaidyn was born in and lived his life in poverty and ignorance. Some would say that his mother loved him and tried her best. Others would say she was a careless and neglectful drunk. Either way, the outcome is the same. Most of us love our kids. We do our best to keep them well cared for and saf...

Kelly Ann Tinyes was just two days shy of her 14th birthday when she disappeared in her own neighborhood in 1989. In the days that followed, children stopped playing outside. Terrified neighbors began a harassment campaign of the Golubs, a family whose two sons were suspects. The Golub home appeared like any other well-maintained suburban home on the outside, but what police found inside was shock...

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In a rundown two-story house in Findley, Ohio, 24-year old Vera Jo Reigle was a prisoner and a slave. The story behind how Vera ended up in such a terrible circumstance is complicated and disturbing. At the heart of the story is the Brooks family, a family engaged in generational abuse and criminal activity. Join us at the quiet end for The Girl on the Train Tracks . The tragedy of this story is h...

Long before there was a Susan Smith or a Casey Anthony, there was Alice Crimmins. When the New York housewife called the police to report her two young children missing in the summer of 1965, the focus was on her custody battle with her estranged husband and the children’s father, Edmund Crimmins. When it came out that Alice had been having sex with multiple men and that she was less than ideal as...

The shocking story of arson investigator John Leonard Orr began in 1984. A fire in a Pasadena, California, hardware store killed four people, including a 2-year-old child. Arson investigators examined the ruins and determined that the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction. All except John Orr. He was convinced that the cause was arson. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreake...

22-year old Taylor Samson left his fraternity on the night of August 15, 2015. He had only his cell phone and a large black duffel bag as he walked out the door, telling his girlfriend he would be back soon. She knew that he had been dealing drugs, but Taylor tried to keep his life with her separate from his life as a drug dealer. He was in college, studying physics, and selling drugs was supposed...

Michele Wallace was a freelance photographer who disappeared hiking in Colorado in 1974. She was a free spirit, a pretty and adventurous 25-year old woman with long dark hair she wore in two thick braids. It was late August when Michele told her parents she was going on a backpacking trip with her dog in the Rocky Mountains. Many parents would have been worried, but Michele was an experienced trav...

When two teenaged sisters were arrested for murdering their 43-year old mother in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, the community was shocked. Shock was followed by outrage when it came out that many of their friends had been aware of the murder plot. Some had even offered advice on the best way to kill their mother and get away with it. Canadian law has supported treating minors guilty of seriou...

When Amanda Hamm’s three young children drowned in Clinton lake in 2003, the incident was compared to the Susan Smith case. Amanda and her live-in boyfriend, Maurice LaGrone Jr., were in the front seat of Amanda’s 1997 Cutlass when it went into the lake from the boat ramp. Amanda and Maurice escaped the shallow water, leaving the children behind. Parents who heard this tragic story reacted with sa...