True Crime in the 50

On September 14, 2000, the Lakeville, Indiana police received a call from a secretary at the Arndt Construction company saying that three of their construction workers had been found dead in a barn on the property of a mansion owned by the Sears family. They had been killed by four men from South Bend, Indiana, who had come to rob the house and had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time....

Drew Peterson was always the life of the party. He was charming, outgoing, gregarious and a practical jokester. Once a decorated detective in the town of Bolingbrook, Illinois, he was a member of the elite Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad (MANS) and had received The Police Officer of the Year Award because of his dedicated service. But beneath the surface, Drew was hiding a very dark and deceitfu...

Bryce Laspisa, formerly of Naperville, Illinois, was just starting his sophomore year of college in California. But, he had been drinking heavily at the start of the school year and experimenting with the drug Vyvanse. The combination of these may have led to a big change in his personality. After his second day of classes, Bryce broke up with his girlfriend, began giving away his few worldly poss...

In the 1970s, in Pocatello, Idaho, a close-knit and pious family, the Brobergs, befriended another church-going family, the Berchtolds, whose patriarch, Robert, was a man who came to be known to everyone as simply "B." The Brobergs and the Berchtolds spent a lot of their time with one another; their kids would play together and there were holidays and vacations. Until many noticed that B was takin...

In the early-80s, two women went missing from the beautiful, serene and peaceful state of Hawaii. Lisa Au was last seen alive driving home in the pouring rain after an argument with her boyfriend. Her naked body was found 10 days later in a shallow ravine. Diane Suzuki was last seen in the Dance Academy where she worked as an instructor. She finished her class at 3 pm and by 3:15 she was gone, nev...

Tara Grinstead, a High School teacher, cheerleading coach, beauty pageant winner, and all-around sweet Georgia girl, was well-loved and respected in the small town of Ocilla. On Saturday, October 22nd, 2005, Tara attended the Miss Sweet Potato Beauty Queen Pageant as a coach and mentor and then went to a barbecue dinner party at the home of her boss. Around 11 pm, she said goodbye to her friends a...

"Call Me Now For Ya Free Readin'!" was the tagline that defined the late '90s. Whether you loved them or hated them, The Psychic Readers Network and it's magical, mystical and manufactured Miss Cleo were the King and Queen of late-night TV advertising. By the time the year 2000 rolled around, the Psychic Readers Network had made $1 billion off of unsuspecting callers. But, the compa...

Thomas Capano was a wealthy Delaware deputy attorney general and very politically connected. He had a rich father, close-knit brothers, a wife and four teenage daughters...and multiple mistresses on the side. But when one of those mistresses, 30-year-old Anne Fahey, went missing one summer evening, all eyes turned to her secret, older boyfriend. What would unravel next would be the unveiling of so...

Annie Le was a brilliant and beautiful doctoral student conducting scientific research at Yale University. She was also a bride-to-be with a gorgeous wedding coming up in five days. So when she completely disappeared from work one morning, everyone was shocked and concerned. It would take six days before her decomposing body would be discovered, and even longer to figure out who would commit such...

Nicole Atkinson was worried. She hadn't heard from her best friend Shanann, for hours and she typically was in constant contact with her. She knew Shanann had been fighting with her husband and had been in a depressed mood during their most recent business trip. Shanann was 15 weeks pregnant with the couple's third child but she didn't believe her husband, Chris Watts, wanted the li...

Chris Smith was a laid-back millionaire surfer dude living the high life in Orange County, California. He had a thriving company, a gorgeous girlfriend and a trustworthy business partner, Ed Shin. Or so he thought. When Chris suddenly and unexpectedly takes off on a sailing trip around the world to the Galapagos Islands, Egypt, Mumbai and Costa Rica, his family isn't concerned. At first. Unti...

On May 5, 1993, in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, three little boys were murdered. Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers were found hog-tied and beaten to death in the Robin Hood Woods on the outskirts of town. The residents and police were outraged and terrified and would do anything to bring the killers to justice. So much so, that they ended up arresting and convicting t...

Travis Alexander was an ambitious, outgoing and extremely successful young man who had the world at his feet. He had a nice home in Mesa, Arizona, tons of friends and love interests and was extremely involved in the Mormon church. Everything in his life was going great...until he met Jodi Arias. After entering into a romantic relationship with Jodi, Travis would become embroiled in a dangerous gam...

You know Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy but you've probably never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the more terrifying serial killers of all time. In the last decade, Keyes admitted to kidnapping, raping and murdering numerous victims across multiple states...and getting away with it. Until he went after one young woman, Samantha Koenig, in Anchorage, Alaska, who would ultimately...

For our first case, we delve into the Jack Wilson murder. Jack Wilson was a well-known ophthalmologist in Huntsville, Alabama. In May of 1992, he and his wife, Betty, a socialite, were getting ready to go on a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico over the Memorial Day weekend to rekindle their romance. But Jack and Betty would never make that vacation. On May 22nd, Jack Wilson was found in the hallway of...