So campers, when we left you at the end of part 1, Belle Gunness’ 16 year old daughter Jennie had just gone missing, along with a revolving door of mysterious male “cousins.” She used her beautiful La Porte Indiana farm to lure bachelors to their eventual doom. It seemed like nothing could stop her. Join us for part 2 of this bizarre true story--you won't see the ending coming. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support ....
Apr 23, 2021•56 min
Margaret Atwood wrote, “When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.” I think that rings true. To many, the thought of the past evokes nostalgia. Some might look at a black and white photo of a poodle skirted girl sharing a milkshake with her beau and they might yearn for a simple time, but they’re missing the “whites only” sign just out of frame. Human history is filled with just as much strife and injustice as we see on the news toda...
Apr 16, 2021•58 min
Imagine trying to go about your life with the knowledge that somebody wants you dead. What would it do to you, day in and day out? Could you go for a walk without fearing that your enemy might be around the next corner? Could you drive home from work without startling at every flash of new headlights behind you? Could you sleep without nightmares? This is the controversial, bizarre, confounding story of a good man hounded by fear. Whichever side of the debate you end up on, that’s what you’ll fi...
Apr 09, 2021•58 min
Some murders are born of sudden passion. Rage leaps up like a flame and then subsides, too late to undo the bloody damage done in that moment. But other murders are more of a slow burn--weeks or months of smoldering anger, stoked by careful planning. Every detail meticulously considered, for maximum damage, minimum risk. This is the story of one of those murders, and of a killer so clever, they came within the barest whisper of getting away with it. Sources: Oxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Shannon ...
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 9 min
When we left you at the end of Part 1, Colton “the Goshfather” Pitonyak was awaiting sentencing on a drug possession charge, partying like his plane was going down, and trying to coax Jennifer Cave back into his life. Colton’s new hookup buddy/ego fluffer, Laura Hall, was none too pleased about that. But Colton had never managed to squelch his obsession with Jennifer. And as he descended further and further into a life of speed addiction and violent fantasies, and Jennifer tried harder and harde...
Mar 26, 2021•56 min
One of the famous lines from the movie Fight Club’s tortured protagonist is “I felt like destroying something beautiful.” Most of us would never want to do such a thing. We see something beautiful and we want to draw closer to it, encourage it to grow, remember it forever. But for a certain kind of damaged soul—jealous, angry, resentful—it goes another way. They’re drawn to beauty, sure, but in the way a moth is drawn to a flame. When they get too close, they can’t handle it. It burns them. Make...
Mar 19, 2021•51 min
When I was little, I collected holograms. I was fascinated by how their iridescent images could change depending on the angle of the light. It seemed like magic. It’s less fun when real life starts to imitate this specific kind of art, though. When you start confidently down a path based on information you believe is solid…and then you find the path shifting and changing beneath your feet. Suddenly, you can’t trust anything you believed in an hour ago. You can’t even trust your own eyes. How do ...
Mar 12, 2021•45 min
In the summer of 2018, the whole country was riveted to the story of a young, pregnant mom named Shan’ann Watts. Shan’ann and her two little daughters, Bella and Cece, went missing from their comfortable Colorado home one morning. And as the story unfolded, it became increasingly obvious that Shan’ann’s husband Chris was responsible for their disappearance. As bad as we all thought it might be at the time, we had no idea how bad it really was. Turned out, Chris had murdered his wife and two daug...
Feb 26, 2021•52 min
Eric Maisel once said that ambition is vital, but dangerous—capable of driving people over the edge. That’s especially true when you add greed to the equation, and a relentless desire for status. For some, what other people think of them is the only thing that matters. That tiny little inner voice that never felt good enough starts to drown out all the other voices, even the ones who say “I love you.” Nothing’s more important than looking like you have more stuff than anybody else. Nothing matte...
Feb 19, 2021•55 min
In nature, there’s a phenomenon called disruptive coloration. It’s when an animal or insect is multicolored to match its environment—thereby camouflaging itself. It’s especially useful, as I’m sure you can imagine, for predators. For example, the orange and black on a tiger allows it to blend in with the scenery and lie in wait for prey. Humans haven’t evolved this nifty little trick, but some of us have mastered something pretty similar. If you’re a predatory human, you might decide to adopt a ...
Feb 12, 2021•46 min
Richard Rohr once wrote, “The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to failing or changing or dying.” And he was just talking about your garden variety, Joe Average ego. Not the supercharged, steroid-pumped kind that our villain today was cursed with. What’s at the core of an ego like that is a quivering little wad of insecurity, so fragile that the tiniest disagreement can feel like a humiliating slight. And all the ego can do to make its sad little wad feel better is get angry…or ma...
Feb 05, 2021•52 min
Michel de Montaigne once wrote that obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness. If today’s story isn’t a flawless example of that, then I don’t think there’s ever been one. It’s almost a cliché that genius is often tinged with something dark. Geniuses do tend to be obsessive people, and surely by now we true crime fans have seen what obsession can do to human morality. It can squash it like a bug, more or less. In the story we’re about to tell you, obsessive genius crashes head-on into na...
Jan 29, 2021•51 min
In Part 1 we introduced you to Herb Baumeister: Husband, father of three, prominent Indianapolis businessman…secret necrophile. By the early 1990s, Herb and his wife Julie were practically printing money with their chain of thrift stores, and they’d recently moved into a spectacular mansion on acres of beautiful woodland. It was the perfect place for the kids to run and play…and even more perfect for Herb’s favorite form of recreation. And in the summer, when Julie and the kids left for their va...
Jan 22, 2021•58 min
We talk a lot about masks on our show. Most people wear them sometimes. We have our professional mask, our “make a good first impression” mask, our “fake it til you make it” one, when we don’t want anybody to know how anxious we are…But for most of us, the masks aren’t that different from our real personalities. Just a little more polished, maybe. Most of us don’t absolutely need the masks to survive. To avoid the horror and revulsion of our peers. To avoid prison. We hear it all the time on new...
Jan 15, 2021•39 min
Small towns are interesting places. Everybody acts like they’re the “real” America—simple, safe places where life moves at a slower pace and everybody can trust everybody else. As true crime shows never tire of telling us, small town folks don’t even lock their doors. Crime just doesn’t happen there. Except of course, when it does. And then everybody talks about how the town has lost its innocence, and things will never be the same again. Not that some of that doesn’t have a basis in truth. But ...
Jan 08, 2021•47 min
The movie “The Room” is an interesting study. If you’ve never seen it, you should. Director (and I put that in air quotes) Tommy Wiseau, who may actually be an alien or some kind of undead creature from a parallel universe, managed to create a movie so bad it’s almost good. Or at least, it’s so bad it’s vastly entertaining, and not like any other movie you’ve seen. You could probably say the same about the famously bad Hollywood filmmaker Ed Wood. Some people are just dipshits—but once in a whil...
Jan 01, 2021•55 min
We like to think we can trust ourselves—that our read on a situation, whatever that situation may be, is correct. We need to believe we’ve got this, we’re seeing the world as it really is, nobody’s gonna get the drop on us. But sometimes, we find ourselves through the looking glass. Sometimes, just when we think we’ve got a handle on a situation, everything shifts like the changing images of a hologram, and our whole world rocks on its foundations. Sometimes we have to face the fact that nothing...
Dec 25, 2020•1 hr 20 min
So, campers. Last week we introduced you to Sante Kimes: Liz Taylor lookalike, scammer, arsonist, sadist, and mother of Kenny Kimes, a promising young man she groomed as her partner in crime from the moment he was born. After spending the early part of her childhood in poverty, Sante was determined to be fantastically rich, and she was willing to do anything to accomplish that goal. And we do mean anything, as you’re just about to see. Join us now for part 2 of this bizarre true story. Sources: ...
Dec 18, 2020•47 min
A wise man once said, “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Oh, wait. That was actually Norman Bates, wasn’t it? Sorry. But a mother’s love IS one of the most powerful forces on earth. At its best, it’s unconditional, selfless, kind, protective. Willing to throw itself between its young and whatever danger threatens them. At its worst, well…you’re about to find out. This is the story of what happens when a mother decides that instead of nurturing her young, she’ll make him a tool instead…and when...
Dec 11, 2020•42 min
In every human civilization I can think of, we’ve had—y’know—rules. Granted, some of them have been silly, or downright wrong, and should have been scrapped. But by and large, rules help keep the weave nice and tight on the fabric of society. Without them, well, you’ve basically got The Purge. Nobody wants that, if for no other reason than all those masks would be creepy. Most people have no problem following most of the rules, but once in a while you get a person who thinks he’s above them. Whe...
Dec 04, 2020•44 min
In his seminal work The Prince, philosopher and father of modern political science Nicolo Machiavelli wrote, “In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end. So let the prince win and maintain his state: the means will always be judged honorable, and will be praised by everyone.” Many people have taken this to mean that Machiavelli was giving advice—that if you’re pursuing a goal, you should use whatever means necessary to achieve...
Nov 20, 2020•55 min
Have you ever wished you could undo one moment in your life? One harsh word you can’t take back? One horribly wrong turn? One zig that should have been a zag? I think we probably all have. There’s a theory that there are infinite universes, kind of like the reflections you see in an elevator with mirrors on both sides. But in every universe, ONE little thing is different. One choice went the opposite way—and the effects of that choice bloomed out into time, changing lots of other things in the p...
Nov 13, 2020•49 min
Hate can take many forms. There’s the kind that’s just fear and bigotry—the ugliest human failings—in disguise. There’s the kind that’s really just the dark mirror image of love. I loved you, you hurt me, I hate you. There’s the kind that’s born of envy. And then there’s the kind of hate that’s all about selfishness. “You’re in the way of something I want.” Each of these incarnations is dangerous in its own way. In the story we’re about to tell you, a brutal murder seems at first to be about one...
Nov 06, 2020•45 min
We’re all pretty aware of the big, obvious dangers in our lives. We look both ways before we cross the street. We lock our doors at night (at least I hope we do, after listening to a year’s worth of True Crime Campfire). We take our vitamins. We don’t walk down dark alleys alone if we can avoid it. But the real kick in the kidney is, sometimes the worst dangers are the ones we never see coming. Sometimes they sneak into our lives cloaked in darkness, but sometimes we invite them in with a smile....
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 5 min
What is it we like so much about scary movies? Is it the adrenaline rush, the excitement? That’s part of it, for sure. But it’s also the fact that unlike the screaming victims running for their lives on screen, we know we’re safe. Michael Myers might be relentlessly evil and impossible to kill, but he’s also stuck over there in movie-land where he can’t get us. I think that’s why stories like the one we’re about to tell you are so unsettling. When a killer decides to bring a horror movie plot to...
Oct 23, 2020•48 min
Hey, guess what? BOO! Haha, gotcha. Welcome to our second annual True Crime Campfire Halloween Special! As if 2020 hasn’t been scary enough by itself, right? We’re especially excited about this year’s Halloween episode, campers, because we have a very special guest joining us: The gorgeous and talented Shelby Scott, honey-voiced host of Scare You to Sleep, a podcast that, while beautifully produced and vastly entertaining, miiiight just make you wet yourself a little now and then. So just…y’know...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Most people have at least some degree of appreciation for what they have. They know how to count their blessings, as they say. Most people, if given a beautiful home and beautiful clothes, lavish trips and the love of a sincere, kindly partner, would probably feel like they’d done pretty well for themselves. But then you’ve got people like the bad bitch in today’s story. To a greed goblin like her, the world and everyone in it exist to serve. Everything else life has to offer takes a backseat to...
Oct 09, 2020•1 hr 17 min
Family. Whether it’s the family you choose for yourself or the one you’re born into, family is vital. When we’re with our families, we’re supposed to feel safe, loved, supported. A family should be a soft place to fall, for everybody in it. A shelter from the storm. But when the nucleus of the family is a parent like the one in this week’s story, home becomes a cesspit of paranoia and fear. Your protector is revealed to be a predator instead—and you soon come to realize that any storm that might...
Oct 02, 2020•50 min
Most of us go looking, at one point or another in our lives, for something…more. Something to give us a purpose. Make us feel like we belong here. For some of us, it’s friends or family. For some, it’s art, or music, or helping people. But then, some of us take a wrong turn on that quest for fulfillment. Come up against just the right kind of charismatic personality—one who makes us feel loved, needed, special…chosen…and we can lose our compass. It’s scary, how much sway one person can have over...
Sep 25, 2020•58 min
Join us for our very first special guest episode! The first half of the episode is a lot of talk about cool tricks and cons, and the second half is more traditional TCC--and of course we give you a great villain to hate on in the last story. It wouldn't be TCC without that. As long as there have been humans, there have been scams. We’ve been perfecting the art of the steal for thousands of years. From the cutpurses and pickpockets of ancient times to the faux Nigerian princes of today, we’ve bee...
Sep 18, 2020•1 hr 15 min
