True Crime Culinary

When police in New Jersey discovered more than 500 pounds of pasta dumped along a quiet creek, the case went viral — and nowhere. No charges. No answers. From that bizarre crime scene, this episode of True Crime Culinary travels to Egypt, where pasta becomes part of koshary, the nation’s beloved street food and a UNESCO-recognized cultural tradition. One story of waste. One story of survival. Beca...

In January 2017, 20-year-old Birna Brjánsdóttir disappeared after a night out in Reykjavík. The last confirmed footage shows her walking alone down Laugavegur, eating a falafel pita. Within days, Iceland launched the largest search in its modern history. This episode of True Crime Culinary recounts the facts of Birna’s case and follows an unexpected thread: how falafel — a dish that began as fasti...

They drilled through concrete. They lined up multiple trucks. They stole more than 100 tons of something most people would never notice. In early 2022, one of the largest agricultural heists in Israeli history left investigators baffled. The target wasn’t gold, fuel, or electronics — but a food so ordinary it barely registers as valuable… until you understand its history. In this episode of True C...

In 2002, Gwen Araujo , a 17-year-old transgender girl, was murdered in California for living openly as herself. In this episode of True Crime Culinary , host Leah Llach tells Gwen’s story with care, personal reflection, and historical context — examining how everyday cruelty escalates, how violence is excused, and how one case helped change the law. We follow Gwen’s life, the night of the attack,...

In November 1939, a lone German carpenter and clockmaker came within minutes of assassinating Adolf Hitler — inside a Munich beer hall. In this episode of True Crime Culinary , we explore the Beer Hall Bombing , one of the closest and least-known assassination attempts of World War II history, and the everyday objects that filled the room where it nearly happened. Beer halls weren’t just bars in e...

A man dressed as Santa walks into a bank… and no one hits the alarm right away. In this episode of True Crime Culinary , we start with a real holiday robbery and follow the trail all the way to a plate of cookies left out in the dark. Why does Santa work as a disguise? Why do we trust him so completely? And why, of all things, do we leave him cookies? From medieval European Christmas baking and sp...

Candy canes feel harmless — festive, nostalgic, impossible to take seriously. But this episode asks a simple question: why do we trust sweet, familiar objects so easily? We start with a real-world reminder that even a cane can hide danger, then trace the history of sugar itself — from chewed sugarcane in Southeast Asia to hand-pulled sugar sticks in medieval Europe. By the 1600s, refined sugar had...

In this episode of True Crime Culinary , we unwrap the chilling story of Christiana Edmunds — the Victorian poisoner who slipped strychnine into chocolate creams — and trace chocolate’s own extraordinary journey across continents and centuries. We go way back: to the Indigenous origins of cacao in Central and South America, where chocolate was medicine, ritual, ceremony, and even currency. Then we...

In this hilarious and surprisingly fascinating episode of True Crime Culinary , host Leah dives into the real-life story of a liquor-store break-in unlike anything you’ve heard before — featuring a very drunk raccoon , a bathroom floor, and a trail of shattered whiskey bottles that left employees wondering if they’d walked onto the set of The Hangover: Woodland Edition . From that chaotic crime sc...

What really happened at the first Thanksgiving — and why do we center a turkey that wasn’t even on the table? In this episode, we peel back 400 years of myth, marketing, and cultural reinvention to explore the deeper story behind America’s most symbol-heavy holiday. We start with the Indigenous history that actually shaped the 1621 harvest gathering — the Wampanoag people, their agricultural exper...

What do you do when your late-night poutine order shows up… with a handful of Viagra at the bottom of the bag? In this episode, we unpack one of the strangest food-adjacent crimes in Canadian history — a 2015 drug ring run out of an ordinary Québec poutine shop, where delivery drivers quietly offered cannabis, magic mushrooms, and pharmaceuticals alongside fries, gravy, and cheese curds. But the s...

What do backyard mole hunters, fat squirrels, and Thanksgiving sweet potatoes have in common? Marshmallows. In this delightfully bizarre episode of True Crime Culinary , host Leah Llach uncovers a real-life backyard “mole war” sparked by an internet myth — and somehow connects it to the sweet, squishy history of marshmallows. From ancient Egyptian medicine to French confectioners and early 20th-ce...

A murder mystery solved by… a sweet potato? In 2011, a bizarre clue at a Massachusetts crime scene went cold for over a decade — until DNA in 2023 cracked the case. We trace the sweet potato’s journey from Indigenous fields to Southern kitchens, exploring sweet potato pie, its pumpkin cousin, and even forgotten carrot pie along the way. Flavor, history, and true crime collide in the strangest ways...

A knock at the door. A bowl of candy. And one Halloween night in 1957 that turned deadly. In this episode, we unwrap the story of Peter and Betty Fabiano, the so-called “Trick-or-Treat Murder”, and trace how the sugary ritual behind it evolved from ancient offerings to candy corn. Sources include: Los Angeles Times archives (1957–1958) True Crime Edition , “The Trick-or-Treat Murder” Medium / @Cri...

One man hiding from police in a California corn maze accidentally leads us down a different path—into the 9,000-year story of corn itself. Featuring Indigenous perspectives, culinary history, and a side of humor, this episode uncovers how one ancient grain shaped our plates, our past, and one very strange police report. Sources include: An interview from KTVU An interview from ABC 7 Ancient DNA Co...

When Aron Ralston was trapped by a boulder in Utah’s Bluejohn Canyon, two burritos became his last link to life. This episode dives into his 127-hour fight for survival—and the fascinating history of the burrito, from Mesoamerica to modern-day. Sources include: Bluejohn Canyon Outside Online – “Between a Rock and the Hardest Place” The Guardian – “The Story Behind 127 Hours ” All That’s Interestin...

A prune cake. A smile. A string of poisoned husbands. Meet Nannie Doss — the “Giggling Granny” whose deadly dessert shocked America. In this episode of True Crime Culinary , Leah Llach unpacks the sweet, sinister story of love, arsenic, and domestic deception. Sources include an article from all that’s interesting , an analysis from the YouTube show Observe , and our friend Wikipedia .