When Killers Get Caught: A True Crime Podcast

"How many lives could have been saved if the warning signs had been connected sooner?" In the mid-1980s, a wave of unprecedented terror gripped Southern California. Windows were nailed shut, lights were on throughout the night, and ordinary communities found themselves at the mercy of a predatory phantom. The media gave him a moniker that froze the blood of millions: "The Night Stal...

When ballroom icon Dorian Corey died in 1993, friends packing her closet made a horrifying discovery: a mummified body hidden inside a vintage trunk. For 25 years, a secret had been sitting just feet from where she slept. Who was the man in the dark? This week on When Killers Get Caught, host Brittany Ransom pulls back the heavy layers of sequins, fabric, and history to dissect one of the stranges...

How does a child genius who enters Harvard at sixteen end up becoming one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in American history? In this episode of When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom examines the life of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. From his childhood as a gifted student in Chicago to his years at Harvard, his isolation in a remote Montana cabin, and the anti-techno...

In 1991, a suburban Texas mother was arrested for allegedly trying to hire a hitman over a middle school cheerleading competition. This week on When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom examines the shocking case of Wanda Holloway, better known as the "Texas Cheerleader Mom." What began as a disappointing cheerleading tryout in Channelview, Texas spiraled into one of the most bizarre mur...

In 1971, a quiet suburban home in Westfield became the center of one of the most chilling family annihilation cases in American history. This is the story of John List, a deeply religious, seemingly respectable accountant, husband, and father who methodically murdered his entire family inside their mansion, then disappeared without a trace. For nearly 18 years, he lived under a new identity while...

In May 2005, eighteen-year-old Natalee Holloway vanished during a graduation trip to Aruba , a disappearance that would become one of the most infamous true crime cases in modern history. What began as a carefree senior trip quickly spiraled into an international media frenzy involving shifting stories, failed investigations, public obsession, and nearly two decades of unanswered questions surroun...

In this episode of When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom revisits one of the most infamous figures in New Orleans history Delphine LaLaurie, also known as The Beast of Royal Street . Long before the fire that exposed her mansion in 1834, Madame LaLaurie was a wealthy Creole socialite living at the center of elite New Orleans society. But behind the elegance, dinner parties, and political conne...

In this landmark 100th episode of When Killers Get Caught, we step beyond the moment of arrest and into something deeper: a reckoning. The case of Gisèle Pelicot shocked the world. For nearly a decade, her husband, Dominique Pelicot, drugged her into unconsciousness and invited dozens of men into their home meticulously documenting the abuse along the way. What began as a seemingly minor incident...

In 1981, a man was shot in broad daylight on Main Street in Skidmore, Missouri in front of dozens of witnesses. Yet, no one was ever arrested. This is the story of Ken Rex McElroy, a man accused of violence, intimidation, and terrorizing a small town for years… and the moment that town stopped waiting for the system to act. This episode of When Killers Get Caught explores what happens when justice...

In 2006, Susan Kuhnhausen came home after a long shift as an emergency room nurse and walked straight into a violent ambush inside her own home. A man was waiting for her with a hammer. He had a job to do and she was the target. What he didn’t know was that Susan wasn’t just a victim. She was a veteran ER nurse trained to assess crisis in seconds, make decisions under pressure, and survive moments...

She was married to one of America’s most feared mob bosses, Vito Genovese, but Anna Genovese lived by her own rules inside the heart of the New York Mafia. Anna built a parallel world in Greenwich Village, creating safe havens for a queer community the city tried to erase, all while navigating a violent marriage inside the Genovese crime family. When she finally broke the Mafia’s code of silence,...

In 2014, the quiet suburb of Waukesha, Wisconsin, was shattered by a crime that defied logic. Two 12-year-old girls lured their best friend into the woods for a birthday game of hide-and-seek only to leave her for dead as a "sacrifice" to a fictional internet character known as Slender Man. In Episode 96, Brittany Ransom dives deep into the haunting psychology behind Morgan Geyser and An...

Dennis Rader looked like the last person you would ever suspect. A church leader. A husband. A father. A man trusted by his community. But behind that ordinary life was something far more calculated. Known as BTK, Bind, Torture, Kill, Rader terrorized Wichita, Kansas in the 1970s before disappearing for decades. He didn’t get caught because he slipped up during a crime. He got caught because he ne...

On March 16, 1984, inside a Baton Rouge airport, a man stepped forward, raised a gun, and shot another man in the head, on live television. That man was Gary Plauché. The victim? The man accused of kidnapping and abusing his 11-year-old son. But this case is more than a shocking moment caught on camera. It’s a story about trust, grooming, trauma, and the devastating reality of what happens when th...

During World War II, desperate refugees flooded Nazi-occupied Paris searching for a way to escape. A respected doctor named Marcel Petiot claimed he could help. Under the alias Dr. Eugène , Petiot created a fake escape network called Fly-Tox , promising to smuggle Jews, resistance fighters, and fugitives out of France to safety in South America. Instead, he murdered them. When police searched his...

Samuel Little is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in United States history , confessing to 93 murders across multiple states between the 1970s and early 2000s . For decades, many of his victims remained unidentified, their disappearances overlooked as Little traveled from city to city targeting vulnerable women. In this episode, we examine the disturbing case of Samuel Little and the...

In the summer of 1976, New York City was gripped by fear. A serial killer known as “Son of Sam” began targeting young couples sitting in parked cars, using a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver in a series of sudden, execution-style shootings. Over the course of a year, David Berkowitz murdered six people and wounded seven others , sending shockwaves through the city. In this episode of When Killers Get...

On December 4, 1969, a pre-dawn police raid at 2337 West Monroe Street in Chicago left 21-year-old Black Panther leader Fred Hampton dead. Authorities called it a shootout. Evidence later suggested something far more deliberate. In this episode of When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom examines the assassination of Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party and a...

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till traveled from Chicago to Mississippi and never came home. In this Black History Month episode of When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom examines the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till, the trial that followed, and the decision that forced America to confront the brutal reality of racial violence under Jim Crow. This case was legally “solved.” Arrests were made...

In January 1923, the Black town of Rosewood, Florida was surrounded, burned, and erased after a white woman accused a Black man of assault—an accusation never proven and never investigated. Over the course of several days, white mobs hunted residents, destroyed homes and churches, and forced families to flee into swamps and forests to survive. When it was over, Rosewood no longer existed—and no on...

In this episode, Brittany Ransom investigates the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 , one of the deadliest and most deliberately obscured acts of racial violence in American history. What happened in Greenwood , often called Black Wall Street , was not a riot, it was a coordinated assault that left as many as 300 Black residents dead , more than 35 city blocks destroyed , and over 10,000 people homeless...

Every time a Black person is killed, the lie arrives faster than the facts. He had a gun. He was high. She was threatening. In this alternative episode of When Killers Get Caught , Brittany Ransom steps away from a traditional case to examine a pattern that stretches from Emmett Till to the present day and why the phrase “they’re killing Americans now” is landing as confirmation, not concern, for...

In 1981, during the height of the War on Drugs, police raided a San Francisco apartment expecting a major drug dealer. Instead, they found a grandmother in an apron baking brownies. Her name was Mary Jane Rathbun , later known as Brownie Mary, a woman whose arrest would help change how America viewed medical marijuana, the AIDS crisis, and compassion under the law . As young men died alone in hosp...

This episode contains in depth discussion of infanticide, postpartum psychosis, suicide, and severe mental illness . Listener discretion is advised. In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in a case that shocked the nation and was quickly labeled as one of the most horrific crimes in American history. But what if the story most people remember is incomplete? In this episode of When Killers...

The True Crime Story of William Chester Minor and the Oxford English Dictionary In 1872, a former U.S. Army surgeon named William Chester Minor shot a stranger to death on a London street. Declared criminally insane, he was confined to Broadmoor Asylum where he would unexpectedly become one of the most significant contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. This true crime story explores murder...