On a quiet morning, British police raid the home of Jamie Miller and arrest the 13-year-old for murder. The boy proclaims his innocence as he and his parents are put through the whirlwind of the arrest process and questioned about the crime. As investigators look for the weapon and a motive, a psychologist searches for clues into Jamie’s psyche, and what in the unassuming boy’s background might have driven him to kill. Netflix’s “Adolescence” features newcomer Owen Cooper as Jaime and veteran ac...
Mar 24, 2025•51 min
Ruby Franke earned fame and fortune on her YouTube channel highlighting an ideal family life with her husband and six children. But that world crumbled when it was discovered her parenting style was more draconian than the loving image they portrayed on screen. After she fell into the orbit of life coach Jodi Hildebrandt, Ruby became estranged from her husband and older children. But police took notice when Franke's youngest son knocked on the door of Hildebrandt’s neighbor, severely emaciated a...
Mar 20, 2025•48 min
Former tv personality Caroline D’Amore met a suave, well-connected businessman at her swanky LA apartment complex. David Bloom said he wanted to invest in her organic food startup and brokered a meeting with the CEO of Whole Foods. But after the money changed hands, D’Amore got a bad feeling about her business partner. It was just Bloom’s latest con in a lifetime of swindles. But determined to get satisfaction, D’Amore and her fellow victims tried to turn the tables on the fraudster…all while re...
Mar 17, 2025•44 min
While breaking into the world of fashion, twenty-five year old Hannah Mossman Moore is befriended by a well-connected, middle-aged man from Hong Kong, who mentors her and shows her the high life. At the same time, Hannah begins receiving unending menacing messages online and on her phone from a stranger she can’t escape. Her rich friend denies involvement, claiming he’s also been targeted by hackers. With the police unable to make a case, Hannah turns to a journalist to help identify the anonymo...
Mar 13, 2025•50 min
In the mid-90s, several men vanished from Indianapolis-area gay bars. Police were piqued after a man claimed he was nearly strangled during sex with Herb Baumeister. Investigators found bones throughout the woods of his secluded horse farm, but before they could question him Baumeister died by suicide in Canada. In 2022, a local coroner renewed the effort to identify victims from the 10,000 bone fragments found on the property. But it revived an unanswered question: how did Baumeister get the bo...
Mar 10, 2025•46 min
In December 2020, police in Marion, Illinois responded to a brutal death on Songbird Road. Eleven-year-old Jade Beasley was found in a bathtub, stabbed multiple times. Investigators homed in on her stepmother, Julia Bevely, who claimed she returned home to find a man dressed in black with a knife fleeing the scene. Prosecutors pointed to video of Bevely throwing away something at a gas station and a 30 minute gap between finding the body and calling 911. But there was nearly no physical evidence...
Mar 06, 2025•43 min
Since we reviewed the new ABC doc, we thought we'd drop our original review of the Scamanda podcast. Inspired by her blog posts about her cancer journey, friends and admirers gave Amanda Riley money - but her illness was all an act. Following our review of the ABC adaptation of the hit podcast, we going back to our original June 8, 2023 episode "Scamanda" from host Charlie Webster and Lionsgate Sound. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon . Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriter...
Mar 04, 2025•43 min
Amanda Reilly warmed hearts with her blog describing her battle with terminal cancer. The young mother received donations from her church and various fundraisers in her name. But some around her became suspicious her elaborate website was nothing more than theater. Soon, reporters and law enforcement were picking apart her health claims and following the money. Even after her fraud was made public, Amanda maintained she was a cancer survivor being set up by her enemies. Available on Hulu, ABC Ne...
Mar 03, 2025•41 min
In 1996, fishermen pulled the body of a man out of the English Channel. An inscription on his Rolex watch led police to believe he was Ronald Platt, who according to his friend, David Davis, had left the UK for France to work as a TV repairman. Though the particulars of how Platt wound up in the sea remained unclear, investigators were ready to close the case. They just needed to retrieve some of his belongings from Davis’s home. But when a detective accidentally knocked on the wrong door, the n...
Feb 27, 2025•42 min
In 2021, with plans to create a travel vlog, Gabby Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie set off in a converted van to document their trip across America. But in between social media posts, the couple’s relationship grew dark, even resulting in a traffic stop by cops investigating a domestic violence complaint. In the subsequent days, Gabby’s parents lost touch with her. Then Brian returned home with the van - but with Gabby nowhere to be found. The mystery of the young woman’s disappearance g...
Feb 24, 2025•53 min
In October 1980, a motorcycle packed with explosives went off outside a Paris synagogue, killing four and wounding nearly four dozen others. French investigators gathered evidence the attack was planned by a Palestinian militant group, but the trail for the bomber went cold for years. Twenty-eight years after the attack on Rue Copernic, French authorities accused a Canadian sociology professor of Lebanese descent of planting the bomb. Hassan Diab proclaimed his innocence, saying their evidence w...
Feb 20, 2025•40 min
The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas was more than a white power hate group. They were also a sophisticated crime syndicate into drug trafficking and prostitution. Known for its violent methods against its rivals, it was equally as brutal to those suspected of being snitches. After a series of particularly cold-blooded killings, law enforcement groups teamed up to take down the Aryans’ statewide operation. By flipping defendants and cultivating informants, authorities were able to connect the racket a...
Feb 17, 2025•50 min
In 2003, Northern Irish journalists outed Freddie Scappaticci as one of Britain's most notorious double agents. His code name was “Stakeknife.” For years he was in charge of finding and killing informants within the IRA, and was now accused of working with the Brits all along. The story rocked those on both sides of The Troubles. High-ranking British officials were criticized for allowing their secret asset to kill and torture with impunity. And families of those killed for being alleged informa...
Feb 13, 2025•47 min
In 1995, when a woman’s body was discovered in a Dayton, Ohio park, Kari thought her boyfriend Mick McQuerter and his prison buddy Tim Terrell may be involved. Before the two could skip town, Kari discovered incriminating evidence in the car. After the men went to prison, detectives turned up at Kari’s door, looking for connections to a decade’s old pair of unsolved murders on a secluded farm. Demonic symbolism at the crime scene cast suspicion on Tim, who served time with a self-styled Satanist...
Feb 10, 2025•44 min
Myka and James Stauffer built a popular and profitable YouTube channel featuring hundreds of videos of their children and homelife. Then in 2017, after the Stauffers revealed they were adopting a boy from China, subscriptions to their channel took off. Viewers were drawn in by the family’s breezy efforts to address the toddler’s developmental issues. Then past videos of the boy were abruptly gone from the feed and he no longer appeared in the vlog. The mystery around the move sparked a huge back...
Feb 06, 2025•51 min
In 2015, after being given a date rape drug, Isabel Eriksson awoke in a locked bunker in Sweeden, held captive by a mysterious doctor. Martin Trenneborg wanted to keep her as his girlfriend, subjected her to abuse, and refused to let her go. Though years have passed, Isabel has never dealt with the PTSD of the incident. But now she’s willing to confront it - on camera. The Swedish language documentary series “The Bunker” is available on the Nordic streaming service Viaplay, which is available th...
Feb 03, 2025•49 min
On a cold North Dakota night in February 1999, Robbie Rahrich’s friends and fiancée waited for him to come home from his shift at a Bismarck liquor store. When they went to the House of Bottles, they discovered Robbie’s body in the backroom and money missing from the cash register. Investigators looked into who might want to target the store and have the opportunity to hold it up. They turned their attention to Shawn Helmenstein, who’d been in Bismarck at the time, but fled to Montana. From Dako...
Jan 30, 2025•51 min
In the 1940s and 50s, Dr. John Bodkin Adams grew a large practice in East Sussex caring for the elderly. But few knew that Adams was administering heroin to his wealthy patients before they slipped into comas. Many listed the doctor as executor of their estates or left him a sizable inheritance in their wills. Officials later determined the deaths of over 160 of Adams’s patients were suspicious. His 1957 prosecution for murder was dubbed the “Trial of the Century.” But was Adams killing his elde...
Jan 27, 2025•42 min
In 1979, a teenage girl drowned while vacationing in Hawai’i. Months later, her distraught mother drove her car off a cliff with her nanny in the passenger seat. In each case, the beneficiary in their wills was Terri Lee Hoffman, the leader of a Dallas-based spiritual group. Over the next ten years, a dozen people in her orbit died by suicide or accident, including two who believed they had terminal illnesses but did not. Several left Terri their assets, and for years, family members have suspec...
Jan 23, 2025•40 min
After ratting out John Gotti and leaving witness protection, Sammy “The Bull” Gravano joins his adult children in Phoenix to start over. Despite trying to go legit, his son, Gerald, is making extra money selling ecstasy at underground raves. Gerald finds himself in a turf war with English Shaun, a former British stockbroker who’s now Arizona’s biggest E dealer. As police look to disrupt the party drug trade, they’re stunned to learn the famous New York hitman is in the middle of it all. The Max ...
Jan 20, 2025•41 min
Audiences were charmed by “Free Willy,” the 1993 movie about a captive orca returning to the wild. But when the world learned the real whale was wasting away in a Mexican amusement park, scientists and activists united in a project to re-introduce Keiko to the open ocean, just like his on-screen counterpart. NOTE: We are reviewing the entirety of The Good Whale, although some of it is still behind a payway via The New York Times. (It is being released weekly on public platforms) But learning the...
Jan 16, 2025•44 min
The Garvey sisters gather to celebrate Grace’s wedding to Ian, a man far more loving than her dead first husband, John Paul. But Roger is struggling with his guilt of helping Grace get rid of The Prick and making it look like an accident. After an unexpected turn, Eva and her sisters struggle with a pushy neighbor, an unexplained absence, and a possible blackmail scheme. As the Garveys dig themselves deeper into a hole, the Garda re-examine John Paul’s untimely death and the sisters’ connection ...
Jan 13, 2025•45 min
Jared Akron seemed to be living the perfect life: a newlywed with a new house and twins on the way. But as the due date approached, that life started to unravel. Their home was destroyed in a fire. Then, kept from the delivery room by COVID protocols, his wife Kristy texted that the babies were gravely ill. As he tried to put their lives back together, Jared realized he overlooked some red flags about the pregnancy and his social media-obsessed wife. Were the calamities around them caused by bad...
Jan 09, 2025•49 min
After she quits Scotland Yard, detective Millie Black takes a post in her native Jamaica to confront her troubled past. She tries to reconnect with Hibiscus, the sibling who for years she thought was dead, but is now living on the margins as a trans sex worker. Millie works the case of a missing child who may be connected to a powerful family. The investigation takes a turn when a British detective turns up in Kingston with an interest in a lead suspect. Tamara Lawrence and Joe Dempsie star in t...
Jan 06, 2025•43 min
There was something for everyone on the TV in 2024. We saw documentaries that revealed intimate aspects of the justice system. And there were some that challenged viewers to decide what is fact and what is fiction. But there were also shows that made us laugh…and more than one that made us cry. But which TV shows and documentaries truly stood out? Here are the crime writers; top ten lists for the best TV of 2024. Lara Bricker: JUSTICE, USA The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping Bad Monkey True ...
Jan 02, 2025•1 hr 5 min
2024 was an exceptionally strong year for podcasts. There were multiple investigative series, fascinating retrospectives of the history you thought you knew, and even some light-hearted fare that was quirky and entertaining. But which titles truly stood out? Here are our top ten selections for 2024. Lara Bricker: In the Dark season 3 Stolen: Trouble in Sweetwater Beyond All Repair Hysterical Hush The Runaway Princesses On Our Watch: New Folsom Cover Up: The Anthrax Threat Murder on Music Row Var...
Dec 30, 2024•54 min
Sap farmer Ruth Landry is deeply in debt and faces losing her property to the Quebec Maple Association. Her friend Mike hatches a million dollar scheme with a security guard to rip off the association. They plan on stealing barrels of syrup from the warehouse and selling it themselves. Plans for the heist become more ambitious, but a murder connected to the conspirators threatens to complicate the operation. And if Mike’s mob bosses find out what he’s up to, the trio will have more to worry abou...
Dec 26, 2024•46 min
By day, Kevin Curtis was a janitor at a Mississippi hospital. By night, he was an Elvis impersonator, performing with his brother - who was also an Elvis impersonator. But after seeing something disturbing in the morgue, Kevin became consumed with conspiracies about illegal organ harvesting rings. Fueled by his paranoia, Kevin damaged personal relationships and crossed swords with powerful people in Tupelo. Then in 2013, when ricin-laced letters were sent to Kevin’s enemies - as well as the Pres...
Dec 23, 2024•50 min
In 1974, Karen Silkwood wanted to blow the whistle on the nuclear fuel plant she worked at. Armed with documentation about insufficient safety measures, radiation leaks, and unaccounted plutonium, Silkwood drove to meet an investigative reporter. But on her way, she was killed when her car went off the road - an accident some believed was caused by the powerful company hoping to silence her. Though police said they believed Silkwood fell asleep at the wheel, the mysterious nature of her crash co...
Dec 19, 2024•50 min
Thirty years after his involvement in the shooting of a cop, Todd Scott prepares for his sixth parole hearing and a chance to demonstrate his rehabilitation. Convicted at age 14 for killing another teen and a baby, Chad Campbell faces the parole board for the ninth time to argue for his release. But their lawyers fear the board will only ever consider one factor: the heinous nature of their original offenses. Because they can never go back and change the crime, they believe the inmates have no h...
Dec 16, 2024•50 min
