True Crime Campfire

We don’t write them quite as often as we used to, but a well-crafted letter can be a real treasure. There’s something intimate about opening an envelope addressed to you and unfolding the paper inside to find the letter writer’s unique handwriting, unique voice, little drawings. Plus anything they might have dropped into the envelope as an extra surprise—a pressed flower, a photograph, a folded up...

In part 1, we began the story of Abraham Shakespeare, a fun-loving, good hearted guy who, at age 40, won 17 million dollars in the Florida lottery and immediately began using it to benefit his community. In fact, in just a couple of years, he spent all but $1.5 million of his winnings, and he was starting to realize that if he wasn’t careful, he could be broke again before long. It was weighing on...

In his play King John, William Shakespeare wrote, “There is no sure foundation set on blood; no certain life achieved by others’ death.” It’s a shame the killer in today’s story didn’t get the memo on that. Money is one of the oldest, most common motives for murder, and in our opinion, one of the coldest. It requires the killer to look at a living, laughing, vital human being and break that life—a...

In part one we introduced you to the rather creative and varied criminal career of John Edward Robinson, a man whose mask of respectability hid a scheming mind and a heart as cold as needles. Robinson spent his entire young adulthood going from con to con, scamming everyone from corporations to mayors to young single mothers. For the first half of this episode, you could be forgiven for thinking t...

Serial killers have most likely been around as long as people have, long before we had the term. In fact, some scholars believe that the early stories about vampires, werewolves, and other such creatures were actually created to explain the kinds of violence people didn’t have any other way to explain. The kind of violence perpetrated by what we now call “serial killer.” Ugh. Even that term is chi...

In part 1, we introduced you to John Hawkins, a movie-star handsome young party guy with an endless appetite for sex and scamming—and Gene Hanson, his much older friend/business partner/possible lover. After a few years of unsuccessful scams, the two men had finally launched a successful, legitimate business selling workout gear. But then it all went to hell when, after a year of supposed health p...

Oil and water. Ammonia and bleach. Vinegar and baking soda. Mentos and Diet Coke. There are some substances which, though benign by themselves, can be toxic or explosive when they come together. People can be like that too. Relationship dynamics can be every bit as volatile as chemistry. And when the wrong two people come together, it can start them on a path that leads them—and everyone in their...

In part 1, we introduced you to missing private investigator/FBI informant/cult expert Rick Post. Rick’s family had been trying in vain for months to get the police interested in his disappearance, but they had no luck until a defense attorney called in with an anonymous tip given to her by one of her clients. The client had told her that a man matching Rick’s description had been kidnapped and mu...

We all have paranoid moments sometimes. We catch our significant other looking at us funny and we wonder, “Uh oh, is he mad at me? What did I say?” Or we walk into the break room and a huddle of coworkers suddenly stops talking—and we think “Oh my God, they were talking about ME. I must be about to be fired!” We all do it, and more often than not we’re wrong. Usually, the consequence of that is no...

In Part 1, we introduced you to Della “Dante” Sutorius, a woman determined to land herself a rich husband and spread as much destruction as possible in the process. A few of Dante’s cute little pranks include setting a boyfriend on fire, sending the same boyfriend to prison for drugs and tax crimes, and burning down another dude’s house. When we left you we were right in the middle of giving you t...

Happy Valentine's Day, campers, and welcome to the Season 3 premiere of True Crime Campfire! We went round and round about which case to cover for our new season premiere, because you want those to be special. And after briefly considering a few other bananapants stories, we realized it HAD to be Dante Sutorius. This woman was a Tazmanian devil, leaving a trail of destruction and bafflement wherev...

In part 1 we began the disturbing story of the murder of Julie Kibuishi, who had been shot and left in a pool of blood in her good friend Sam Herr’s bed. Sam, a military vet who had been suffering from PTSD and confiding in Julie about his struggles, was now nowhere to be found, and his car and passport were missing. As police dug into Sam’s bank records to try to locate him, they traced his ATM c...

All the world’s a stage, or so Shakespeare once told us, and all the people in it merely players. That’s a nice idea if we’re just talking allegory, but in real life it’s a dangerous way to view the world. Because when you run across the type of person who thinks this way, they tend to think of themselves as the star of the show, and everybody else as disposable extras. That’s not an outlook that...

In part one we learned about Angelina Rodriguez, a greedy opportunist with a heart of darkness. Angie’s first marriage crumbled after the tragic “accidental” death of their baby daughter Alicia, and after cashing in on the $50,000 life insurance policy she’d taken out on the baby the DAY before she died—not to mention the nearly $800,000 settlement from suing the company that made the pacifier tha...

We believe people are basically good. We realize that sounds far-fetched, because people can also be a-holes on a truly epic scale, but hear us out. We think most people have good intentions most of the time and will do the right thing when called upon. However. There are people in this world who are predators, every bit as much as the black widow spiders that sometimes haunt our nightmares. Peopl...

In part 1, we began the story of Michael and Sherry Dally, high school sweethearts with two kids and one of those “from the outside, everything looked perfect” kind of marriages. But as so often happens in these cases, behind closed doors Sherry Dally was suffering emotional abuse and infidelity at the hands of her attractive husband. Michael had a mistress—former model and current Vons employee D...

The late, great British author Sir Terry Pratchett once wrote that treating people as things is the only sin there is. To a narcissist, people are things. If you’re a narcissist, you’re the only one who matters—the only one who’s really real. So other people exist to fluff up your ego and help you get what you want. Even if what you want is something so dark that it will destroy the lives of every...

In Part 1 we introduced you to chronic spendaholic and solider-boy wannabe Mark Avery, who should have been happy as an ocean full of clams with his INHERITED, 600k a year job as trustee of the Smith family trust, but who instead managed to hemorrhage money so badly that he sunk himself into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt in the first six months of the gig. And his buddy Rob Kane, or sho...

Greed can be an unstoppable force. For some, money can become an addiction, just as insidious as the gnawing need for heroin or crack—and just as liable to send the addict into a headspace where nothing and no one else matters. Today we bring you the story of two greedy men. They were greedy for money, for sure. But for these guys, the money was just the beginning. Just the fuel they needed to kee...

In part 1 we began the terrifying story of a campaign of stalking, harassment and threats against Dave Kroupa and his ex-girlfriend Liz Golyar. Dave had met a smart, confident woman named Cari, and they were getting along great with a casual, mutually-agreed upon “no strings” relationship. But when Cari texted Dave to ask him to move in with her and he refused, the angry harassment began. And it e...

Love is one of the greatest things there is. But sometimes love can get warped into something else—something angry and possessive and tunnel-visioned. That something is obsession. And when true obsession takes root in the mind of a certain type of personality, everything else fades into the background and loses all importance. Anybody and anything in the way of the object of that obsession is gonn...

Join us for part 2 of this epic and disturbing story. Sources:https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/december/rise-and-fall-of-a-north-dallas-cult-conscious-development/https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2014/06/d-magazines-40-greatest-stories-death-in-a-north-dallas-cult/https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/terri-hoffman/#:~:targetText=Murder%20of%20Jill%20Bounds,an...

Cults are fascinating. Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, NXIVM. So often, people end up in these groups because they’re seekers, and they genuinely want to work toward a better world. Contrary to popular belief, people who end up in cults are often smart and well educated. Good people who march to a different drumbeat and have only the best intentions. But unfortunately, when a group dynami...

Join us for part 2 of this macabre grab-bag of three cases. Book: Love Her to Death by M. William PhelpsOxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Rose Vincent and Mark Bowling"Investigation Discovery's "The Perfect Murder," Episode "Silent Killer"http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/08/robert-girts-four-marriages-pair-of.htmlhttps://fox8.com/2015/12/18/former-parma-funeral-director-admits-to-poisoning-w...

Morticians. The gatekeepers to the ever-after. The ones who comfort our families, help plan our funerals, and spruce us up to face the world one last time. The vast majority of them are kind professionals who took up this tough line of work because they want to be there for people in their darkest hours. A small handful probably got into it because they enjoy the spooky atmosphere. Still harmless....