True Crime Brewery

When British nurse Lucy Letby went on trial in 2023, the case against her seemed overwhelming. She was charged with 22 murders and attempted murders in the neonatal unit where she worked at Countess of Chester Hospital. The case centered on an abnormally high number of deaths between June 2015 and June 2016. Although no one ever saw Lucy harming a baby and the coroner did not find foul play in any...

The van Breda family enjoyed wealth, travel, and the love of friends and family. They travelled together, had apparently enviable relationships, and the children were educated at some of the best schools from around the world. All five family members were living what seemed like a dream life in a high-security, luxury estate just outside Stellenbosch, South Africa. But everything changed for them...

When 15-year-old Holly Harvey’s grandparents forbade her from spending time with her 16-year-old lover, Sandy, both Holly and Sandy grew bitter and antagonistic. Carl and Sarah Collier loved their out-of-control granddaughter, who they were raising while her mother was in prison. Carl and Sarah did not give up on Holly, but then they began to fear her. Join us at the quiet end for To-Do List. Holl...

Just three years after Thomas Keir told everyone that his first wife Jean had left him and their young son behind to be with another man, his second wife Rosalina was found dead and severely burned on her bed. Keir’s claims to be unlucky and grief-stricken were questioned by investigators as well as family, friends, and members of the media. Could the suspicious deaths of two wives be just bad luc...

On the afternoon of June 26, 2010, a Pennsylvania State Trooper witnessed a car driving erratically. It sped past him and crashed into a tree. Stopping to help, he found the driver alive and covered in blood. When asked what happened, the man answered: "I just killed everybody." Join us at the quiet end for Evil Out on Parole. Not far from the accident, police found a gruesome massacre. Then they...

Back in the winter of 1985, two friends from Detroit set out on a hunting trip in rural Michigan. Brian Ognjan and David Tyll, both 27-years-old, had been looking forward to this trip and had planned it for weeks. But somewhere along the way, the hunters became the hunted. They vanished somewhere in the bitter cold, leaving behind a legacy of grief and confusion. Join us at the quiet end for Into...

Back in the summer of 1973, the Houston Police were called to a home where a 33-year-old man named Dean Corll had been shot to death. This crime scene led them to search a shed he had been renting and a wooded area nearby. Finally, the community would learn what had happened to their missing boys. And the details would haunt them for the rest of their lives. Join us at the quiet end for The Candy...

Carol Montecalvo was a devoted Christian who married her prison pen pal. Once he was released, they seemed happy. But on the evening of March 31, 1988, Carol and her husband Dan were shot. Dan survived. Carol was killed. After Carol’s death, Dan told police that, on the night of the shooting, he and Carol went for a walk together around the neighborhood. When they returned to the house, Carol was...

Emile Cilliers tried to murder his wife Victoria by sabotaging her parachute, but that was not his first attempt to kill her. Emile had a long history of lying, stealing, and having extramarital affairs. He also had a temper. Victoria knew that her husband was often dishonest and emotionally closed off, but she desperately wanted to keep her family together for the sake of their children. She coul...

Christa Worthington was a Vassar grad from a prominent family, living on her own on Cape Cod. She had left behind her career as a fashion writer for a simpler life, having a daughter on her own and raising her on the Cape. Then, in January 2002, forty-six-year-old Christa was found stabbed to death in the kitchen of her cottage with her toddler daughter clinging to her body but unharmed. Join us a...

Sandra Bridewell lived a life of privilege throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s. In fact, her life could have been described as near perfect if not for the trail of dead bodies left in her wake. Her first husband, a prominent dentist, died in their home in 1975. Her second husband, a real estate developer, died of cancer in 1982. Shortly after his death, his oncologist’s wife was found shot to...

In 2008, single mother Susan Bailey was working two jobs to make sure that her children, 17-year-old Jennifer and 13-year-old David, had everything they needed. But on September 26th, when Susan didn’t show up for work, her employer called Susan’s mother, Kate, in Minnesota. Susan’s mother hadn’t heard from her daughter or her two grandchildren.  She tried all of their phones repeatedly but no one...

In 2015, 35-year-old Kendra Hatcher became a victim of a murder-for-hire plot fueled by jealousy. Kendra was a pediatric dentist living in Dallas who was in a romantic relationship with dermatologist Ricky Paniagua. She was in love with Ricky, but she didn’t know that Ricky had a jealous ex who was stalking her and eventually wanted her dead. Join us at the quiet end for Fatal Jealousy. Ricky’s ex...

California physicians Deepti Gupta and Kevin Paul Anderson were starting their own pediatric practice together when they had an affair. Both were married to other people. Anderson was loved by his patients and had been a mentor to Deepti, who was ten years younger. The day before she was murdered, Deepti had finished all her requirements to become a fully-licensed pediatrician in the State of Cali...

Just after midnight on Christmas Eve 1945, Jennie Sodder woke up to the smell of smoke. The home she shared with her husband, George, and nine of their children, was going up in flames. It would be over seven hours before the fire department arrived. By then, the two-story house had burned to the ground — and five of the Sodder children were missing. In fact, to this day, no one knows what happene...

As fraternal twins, Betty and Peggy were together from the very beginning. As adults, they were very different people but remained best friends.  Then, in 1992, they either conspired together to have Betty’s husband killed or fought together to prove their innocence. Join us at the quiet end for Split Decision. After Betty’s husband, Dr. Jack Wilson, was brutally murdered in his own home, suspicio...

17-year-old Karla Homolka met 23-year-old Paul Bernardo in 1987. Some saw their meeting as love at first sight, but the two had a dangerous attraction which would drive them to commit abductions, sexual assaults, and even murder. This good-looking couple became obsessed with each other. And Paul was very controlling of Karla. But Paul Bernardo’s crimes were not all his own.  Evidence, including vi...

On a weekday afternoon in 1985 in Gary, Indiana, fifteen-year-old Paula Cooper stabbed 78-year-old Ruth Pelke to death. In a city with a history of racism, Ruth was a white, beloved bible teacher who refused to move out of her overwhelmingly black neighborhood. When Paula and her friends showed up at Ruth’s door that day asking about bible studies, Ruth had happily invited them in. Join us at the...

April Kauffman didn’t have an easy life growing up.  When she was just seventeen, she gave birth to her daughter Kim and set out to make a better life for them both. April raised her daughter in a loving home despite an early split from Kim’s father. She earned her cosmetology license and worked as a hairdresser and as a model. April was fun, energetic, and independent. But life as a single mom co...

The Halderson family appeared to be living a happy middle-class life. Parents Krista and Bart had everything they had wished for and worked for, including a comfortable suburban home and two loving sons. Mitchell, 24, was working in the tech industry and Chandler, 23, was a college student living at home. But all was not as it seemed with Chandler. Join us at the quiet end for Parent Trap. Chandle...

Karla Brown was 22-years-old in 1978. After five-years of an off and on relationship, she and her fiancé, Mark, bought their first home together. That June, the couple were focused on moving and decorating their new home. They had friends over to help with the move on June 20th, followed by an evening of food and drinks. Next door, at the home of Paul Main, the pretty and outgoing Karla had not go...

Elana Steinberg’s husband, Steve Steinberg, was a well-liked restaurant manager with a gambling problem. Elana struggled to keep their finances afloat, but it wasn’t easy. Then, on an otherwise normal night in 1981, Elana was stabbed 26 times in their bed. Steve called 911 and told the dispatcher that two bearded men had robbed them and killed his wife. Join us at the quiet end for Victim on Trial...

On March 18, 1990, 15-year-old fraternal twins Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook disappeared while out walking from a convenience store to their home in Augusta, Georgia. Earlier that day, the girls told their mother that a man in a white van had been following them. Nothing more is known about this man and he would not be the only person of interest in the girls’ disappearance. Join us at the quiet...

At 6:00 a.m. on August 28, 1965, Carl and Carmela Coppolino’s physician, Dr. Juliette Karow, was awakened by a phone call. Carl Coppolino tearfully described to her how he had just found his 32-year-old wife dead, seemingly from a heart attack. Dr. Karow was concerned when she arrived at the house—young women in their 30s rarely die from cardiac arrest. Join us at the quiet end for The Love Triang...

On December 22, 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons began a killing spree that would become the worst massacre in Arkansas history as well as the deadliest domestic crime in the history of the United States. His murderous rampage ended six days later, leaving fourteen members of his family and two former coworkers dead. Join us at the quiet end for Christmas Vacation Massacre. Gene Simmons was a nightmare f...