True Crime

The call came into emergency dispatch in the early morning hours of the 16th April, 2012.  A family home in Farmington Hills, Michigan had been broken into. Two intruders with baseball bats were in the house. They wanted money - but first - they needed to ensure that they could take what they wanted and escape apprehension. There could be no witnesses in the house left alive.  From inside the clos...

It was almost midnight on 2nd of September, 2010 when a distraught boyfriend placed a panicked call to 911.  He had just heard gunshots from inside the house.  Breaking down a locked door and forcing his way to his girlfriend’s side where she lie shot on the floor, he pleaded with emergency responders to  - please  - hurry.  He was a Deputy with the local Sheriffs office. He was one of them. Becom...

Only moments after saying goodnight to her friend and starting up the engine of her brand new Mustang, 18-year-old Michelle O’Keefe was shot to death in her driver’s seat. It was dark that February night in the parking lot where she had returned to collect her vehicle. She needed to change her clothes before driving straight to her night class at the college. She chose somewhere secluded to change...

After hearing indistinguishable noises above, a handful of witnesses rushed to the base of an upscale apartment building in Sydney's business district where they found a victim, Lisa Cecilia Harnum, had fallen to her death.  Within moments, a distraught man ran from the building, in a state of shock and grief.  This must have been a horrible accident... Become a supporter of this podcast: https://...

In the world of equestrian sport, Michael Barisone, has been called a legend. At the pinnacle of his career, his training guided multiple horses and dressage riders to Olympic medals, competing himself at the 2008 Games in Beijing.  What could take a man from such success and stature, in only a few short years, to the role of defendant in  New Jersey courtroom, standing trial for two counts of att...

In the Summer of 2016, in the city of Bellaire, Texas, a stone’s throw from Houston, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong were attacked by an unknown shooter, both shot while sleeping, in the dead of the night.  The couple’s son heard the gunfire from elsewhere in the house, and made an emergency call, sending responders rushing out to the house. These officers arrived to find that the home security system...

Jennifer Farber Dulos went missing from her Connecticut home in May 2019. Her vehicle was missing as well, but no one believed that the loving mother of five would disappear willingly. No one, that is, but her estranged husband. Was Jennifer enacting her own version of the novel Gone Girl? Staging her disappearance to frame him? Or do the signs of foul play point clearly towards the guilty parties...

On a Spring day in 2016, in a quiet rural area of southern Ohio, one family awoke to a shocking tragedy and found themselves, potentially, under attack.    Eight members of the Rhoden family, across four different homes, had been found murdered. The killings appeared cold and calculated and the victims weren’t random - the family had been targeted.  Concerned for the safety of the community and wi...

In the early morning hours of July 5th, 2005, while cruising across the Aegean Sea from the Greek Island of Mykonos, 26-year-old newlywed George Smith IV went missing. There were signs that George had been partying heavily the night before - maybe this was a tragic accident? There were also clues that pointed to foul play. All signs indicated that George had gone overboard… There have been many th...

On the evening of January 2, 2020, emergency services responded to a house fire outside of Bismarck, North Dakota. Inside they found 42 year old Chad Entzel, dead from an apparent suicide. But as more details were uncovered, it became increasingly obvious that there was foul play involved. Investigators begin piecing together a timeline of events leading up to murder that kept leading back to one...

Parade goers watched on as a red SUV travelling at an estimated 40 or even 50 miles per hour came barrelling down Main Street in the historic downtown core of the small Milwaukee suburb. The sound of the marching band, chatter and laughter was quickly overtaken by calls for help as the vehicle drove through the parade procession without stopping. In the chaos, the driver escaped - but not for long...

This case has been the recipient of many notable claims over the years. It has been called “the case that changed Minnesota.” It has been credited with changing the way that missing children investigations have operated - and at the time that it happened - back in 1989 - this case involved the largest-scale search for a missing person in the history of the United States. After sunset on the evenin...

In 1984, Tampa, Florida, was gripped by fear as a sadistic predator stalked, raped, and murdered at least ten women, leaving their bodies dumped along highways. The FBI’s only clue? Red trilobal carpet fibers—a rare synthetic material found on every victim. With no suspect, the case stalled—until a 17-year-old victim survived, providing a description that unlocked the nightmare. Her testimony, pai...

In the silent halls of morgues and anthropology labs, forensic sculptors perform a miracle: they give faces—and, with them, names, stories, and justice—to the unidentified dead. Using clay, anatomical precision, and intuition, these artists bridge the gap between skeletal remains and the living person they once were. From cold-case Jane Does to victims of mass disasters, their reconstructions have...

In 1974, the idyllic Palmyra Atoll—a remote Pacific paradise—became the stage for a real-life horror story. Two couples arrived, but only one left: Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns sailed back to Hawaii on the Sea Wind, a yacht belonging to Mac and Muff Graham, who had mysteriously vanished. The Grahams’ disappearance was initially dismissed as a boating accident, but when Muff’s skeletal remains...

Poison is the weapon of the patient, the calculating, and the cowardly—but not all poisoners are alike. Deadly Chemistry dissects the critical divide between targeted killers (who murder with intimate precision) and random terrorists (who sow chaos indiscriminately), revealing how forensic toxicologists trace their crimes back to the source. From disgruntled spouses slipping arsenic into tea to th...

For decades, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante ruled the Genovese crime family not from a throne, but from a psychiatric ward—or so he wanted authorities to believe. While other mob bosses held court in steakhouse booths, Gigante wandered Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers, muttering to himself in a brilliant act of insanity that fooled doctors, judges, and even his own men. But the FBI wasn’t...

In the annals of forensic science, few breakthroughs have been as transformative as DNA analysis. Double Helix delves into how this genetic blueprint—extracted from a speck of blood, a single hair, or even saliva on a discarded gum wrapper—has rewritten the rules of justice. From catching serial killers to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, DNA doesn’t lie—and its testimony is irrefutable. Beco...

In 1992, the body of 17-year-old Dawn Marie Birnbaum—a runaway from Florida—was discovered dumped beside a rural Pennsylvania road, brutally beaten and strangled. Though she was an outsider, the small community mourned her as one of their own, demanding justice. What began as a local homicide investigation soon spiraled into a chilling revelation: Dawn’s killer, James Robert Cruz Jr., a long-haul...

When a body is left to the elements, the first detectives on the scene aren’t always human—they’re insects. In Web of Clues, The New Detectives explores the eerie science of forensic entomology, where maggots, beetles, and flies become the key witnesses in solving murders. From estimating time of death to exposing hidden crime scenes, these tiny creatures reveal secrets that even the most cunning...

On a quiet night in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1995, two law enforcement officers—Prince George’s County Police Officer John Novabilski and FBI Special Agent William H. Christian Jr.—were executed in their patrol cars by a lone gunman who crept up unseen and opened fire. The brazen attacks sent shockwaves through the D.C. area, igniting one of the most intense manhunts in FBI history—a chas...

When a raging house fire tore through a quiet California neighborhood, firefighters initially thought it was a tragic accident—until investigators found no smoke in the victim’s lungs, proving she was dead before the flames began. The victim, a beloved local artist, had recently entrusted her life savings to her best friend and personal manager, who—just days before the fire—had drained her bank a...

On April 11, 1986, a routine surveillance operation in Miami turned into a nightmare of bullets and bloodshed when two heavily armed bank robbers—Michael Lee Platt and William Russell Matix—engaged eight FBI agents in a ferocious, close-range gunfight. In just five minutes, 150 rounds were fired, two agents were killed, five others wounded, and the brutal firefight exposed glaring flaws in FBI fir...

In a justice system where eyewitness misidentification, coerced confessions, and flawed forensics can send innocent people to prison for decades, DNA analysis has become the ultimate truth-teller. Proof of Innocence follows three men—each robbed of years, dignity, and freedom—whose lives were reclaimed when 21st-century science dismantled their wrongful convictions. Become a supporter of this podc...

In the rugged wilderness of 1970s–80s Alaska, Robert Hansen—a respected baker, family man, and avid hunter—was secretly living a double life. By day, he sold cinnamon rolls to local cops; by night, he abducted, assaulted, and hunted women like animals, releasing them in the tundra only to stalk and shoot them for sport. His meticulous hunting maps, marked with burial sites, and his twisted sense o...