What Rex Heuermann Didn’t Answer For at Sentencing
He answered for eight murders. He did not answer for Karen Vergata’s — even though he confessed to it in the same courtroom. He did not answer for the civil conspiracy his ex-wife now faces. And he did not answer for the women who disappeared near his properties in states that can execute him. Rex Heuermann’s sentencing gave the Gilgo Beach families a moment they earned. Three consecutive life...
51m Jun 09
51m
Who Should Have Intervened Before Three-Year-Old Elijah Vue Became a Homicide Case?
Elijah Vue was three years old. His father was in prison. His mother sent him to live with a convicted felon who was still on federal supervised release — a man she had once told police had trafficked her. The criminal complaint describes what happened inside that Two Rivers apartment as a coordinated campaign: standing punishments, cold water, text messages between Baur and Vang about making a...
54m Jun 09
54m
Christine Says Cops Wouldn't Touch Samuel Bateman… WHY?
The Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet shows Christine Marie repeatedly bringing footage to the local police on the Utah-Arizona border — and the local police repeatedly sending her home. In this second part of a three-part conversation, Christine tells Tony what was really happening on the other side of that door. Short Creek had spent decades teaching itself to look away from its...
30m Jun 09
30m
Will One of the Two People Charged in Elijah Vue’s Death Turn on the Other Before Trial?
Jesse Vang faces life in prison. Katrina Baur faces sixty years. Both are charged in the death of Baur’s three-year-old son Elijah Vue. Both have pleaded not guilty. And both are heading toward separate trials in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. The question hovering over every pretrial hearing: will one of them cooperate against the other? The evidence already creates pressure. Text messages betw...
20m Jun 09
20m
What Did Joseph Ryan’s Mother Say to Brendan Banfield at His Sentencing?
Brendan Banfield’s defense attorney refused to handle his appeal. Another lawyer called the chances of overturning the verdict a 99-yard field goal. And the motion Banfield’s team filed the day before sentencing — built on three separate arguments — was denied across the board by Judge Penney Azcarate. So while Banfield has signaled he intends to fight his life-without-parole sentence, everythi...
18m Jun 09
18m
Did A Wichita Detective Have BTK's Face Drawn While He Was Still Free?
Kevin Bright was nineteen years old when Dennis Rader shot him twice and left him for dead in his sister Kathryn's house in Wichita on April 4, 1974. Kevin survived. His sister did not. Before Kevin went into surgery, with one of Rader's bullets still inside his head, he gave Wichita detectives a description of the man who had attacked them. A police sketch artist drew the face. On April 23, 1...
19m Jun 09
19m
Why Were Three-Year-Old Elijah Vue’s Remains Found Where Searchers Had Already Looked?
On September 7, 2024, a man preparing his private property for hunting season found skeletal remains in a wooded area with heavy underbrush near a quarry and the entrance to Camp Manitou — a Girl Scout camp roughly three miles from Jesse Vang’s apartment in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The area had been searched before. Multiple times. DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to three-year-old Elij...
18m Jun 09
18m
Why Did Elijah Vue’s Mother Photograph Her Blindfolded Son at 3AM and Then Erase It?
Elijah Vue’s biological father was in prison. The man his mother chose to care for him had a felony for harming a child, trafficking charges, and a federal drug conviction. His mother had once told police that the same man had trafficked her — and then, years later, placed her three-year-old in his apartment for “disciplinary reasons.” There was nowhere safe for this child to land. And no one i...
17m Jun 09
17m
Why Won't Any Cop Admit What Happened to Sandra Birchmore Was a Culture Problem?
When Michael Proctor took the stand during the first Karen Read trial, he called his own messages about the woman he was investigating “juvenile” and “unprofessional” and insisted they had “zero impact” on the investigation. When Robert Devine was confronted by the POST Commission about his alleged conduct with Sandra Birchmore, he allegedly said she “lied about everything.” When the state poli...
16m Jun 09
16m
Three Cases, Three Evidence Failures — What Went Wrong in Spencer, Shirilla, and Kepner?
The Aaron Spencer murder prosecution was dismissed after a court found that law enforcement conduct, including the loss of a critical dashcam SD card, was "so egregious" that it constituted a due process violation. The court's order specifically cited "the appearance of a coverup." Spencer was the Republican nominee for Lonoke County sheriff, running against the incumbent whose department handl...
50m Jun 08
50m
Christine Tells The Truth About Filming Samuel Bateman & Trust Me
The Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet introduced the world to the woman who took Samuel Bateman down from the inside. But the documentary couldn't tell the whole story. There's a conversation behind that footage — about what it actually took to walk into a self-proclaimed prophet's house every day, lie about why you were there, and quietly build a case that would put him in federal...
21m Jun 08
21m
How Strong Is the FBI's Case Against Timothy Hudson Without the Most Critical DNA Evidence?
The federal prosecution of Timothy Hudson in the death of Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon rests on DNA evidence with a statistical match of 120 sextillion to one, surveillance footage establishing a cabin timeline, cellphone location data, and autopsy findings of mechanical asphyxia with bilateral ruptured tympanic membranes consistent with sustained physical force. Hudson, sixteen, is...
22m Jun 08
22m
Why Would Anyone Fight to Keep Aaron Spencer's Murder Charge Alive?
A thirteen-year-old girl was found in the truck of the man charged with crimes against her — after midnight, while he was on bond with a no-contact order. Her father found her. Stopped the man. Called 911 himself. And the system that failed to protect that child turned around and charged her father with second-degree murder. That case is now over. Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. dismissed it after find...
20m Jun 08
20m
Why Did The Whole Country Buy The BTK Killer's Self-Made Story?
For half a century, the BTK Killer story has been told the way Dennis Rader wanted it told. Factor X. The Minotaur. The BTK brand. Every term that has anchored his mythology came from a typewriter in his own kitchen in Park City, Kansas. Every term was his. In this first chapter of a five-part investigation from True Crime Today, host Tony Brueski sets the version of Dennis Rader that document...
20m Jun 08
20m
How Did a Car's Data Recorder Seal Mackenzie Shirilla's Murder Conviction?
Mackenzie Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder, four counts of felonious assault, and two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide in a bench trial that turned almost entirely on physical and digital evidence. She never spoke to investigators. She never testified. The prosecution's case was built on what was recovered from the wreckage, the surveillance footage, and the digital record...
13m Jun 08
13m
Did Lonoke County Cops Lose Aaron Spencer's Evidence to Protect Their Own Sheriff?
Aaron Spencer killed the man who was accused of hurting his daughter. The system charged him with murder. And now a judge has found that the people investigating him may have destroyed the one piece of evidence that could have told the whole story. The dashcam SD card from Michael Fosler's truck was most likely recording when Spencer pulled that trigger. It could have shown exactly what happen...
16m Jun 08
16m
What Does The Full Investigative Timeline Reveal In The Nancy Guthrie Disappearance?
The evidentiary timeline in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance is anchored by three machine-generated timestamps that are not subject to interpretation. The residence's doorbell camera system disconnected at approximately 1:47 a.m. At approximately 2:12 a.m., the system's software detected a person at the front door. At 2:28 a.m., the pacemaker monitoring Nancy Guthrie's cardiac rhythm lost its si...
43m Jun 08
43m
What Does Kouri Richins' Jail Cell Letter Tell Us About Compulsive Narrative Production?
During a medical episode, deputies searched Kouri Richins' jail cell and recovered a six-page letter concealed inside an LSAT preparation book. The letter scripted testimony for her brother. When confronted, the defendant did not deny authorship. She characterized the document as part of a fictional novel set in a Mexican prison. The psychological pattern documented across the pre-trial and tr...
33m Jun 07
33m
Does The Clinical Evidence Support Mackenzie Shirilla's Dissociative Amnesia Claim?
Mackenzie Shirilla has consistently maintained she has no memory of the Strongsville crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. The prosecution rejected the claim. The victims' families dispute it. A fellow inmate provided a characterization of Shirilla's behavior in custody that contradicts her on-camera presentation in Netflix's The Crash. The public discourse has largely treated th...
38m Jun 07
38m
What Clinical Evidence Was Never Presented At The Mackenzie Shirilla Trial?
The prosecution presented Mackenzie Shirilla's text messages and threatening statements as evidence of premeditated intent. The trial court characterized her as "hell on wheels" and convicted her on four counts of murder. No clinical or psychological expert testimony was presented to provide an alternative framework for interpreting the defendant's behavior — specifically, whether a seventeen-y...
37m Jun 07
37m
What Household Evidence Could Replace Financial Testimony At The Murdaugh Retrial?
The South Carolina Supreme Court's ruling sharply limits the financial crimes testimony that consumed twelve and a half hours of the original trial. The prosecution's evidentiary framework for retrial must compensate for that loss. One category of evidence that received limited examination the first time — granular household testimony from the person with the most sustained access to the Murdau...
44m Jun 07
44m
Do The Defense Failures In The Mackenzie Shirilla Case Meet The Ineffective Counsel Standard?
Mackenzie Shirilla's defense counsel identified a medical condition during the proceedings that could have provided an alternative explanation for the Strongsville crash. No expert was called to testify. No medical records were entered into evidence. The prosecution's intent theory — that surveillance footage proved prior calculation and design — went unchallenged on the specific point most lik...
48m Jun 07
48m
Does The Physical Evidence In The Murdaugh Murders Point To A Second Shooter?
The South Carolina Supreme Court's unanimous reversal of Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions reset the legal record — and with it, the evidentiary question that a second jury will have to answer without twelve hours of financial crimes testimony supporting the prosecution's narrative. Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer approaches that question as a clean-slate exercise: strip the na...
35m Jun 06
35m
How Did Kouri Richins Maintain A False Identity For Fourteen Months After Killing Eric?
The psychological profile that emerges from the Kouri Richins case presents a specific form of compartmentalization that forensic professionals have documented but rarely encounter at this operational duration. For approximately fourteen months following Eric Richins' death, the defendant maintained a constructed identity — grieving mother, children's book author, television interview subject —...
37m Jun 06
37m
How Does A Federal Judge Justify Releasing Anna Kepner's Accused Cruise Ship Killer?
At the detention hearing in the Anna Kepner case, the presiding judge acknowledged that if Timothy Hudson were an adult facing the same charges under the same evidentiary circumstances, he would almost certainly be detained pending trial. The judge characterized the case as "a different animal." He then concluded the hearing without issuing a ruling on detention — and the defendant, a sixteen-y...
34m Jun 06
34m
Can Wendi Adelson's Limited Immunity In The Dan Markel Case Be Broken?
Wendi Adelson testified under limited immunity at every trial connected to the murder of Dan Markel. That immunity holds only if she told the truth. If prosecutors can establish that she provided false testimony under oath, the agreement is voidable — and everything she said on the stand becomes potential evidence against her rather than a shield protecting her. Five individuals have been conv...
41m Jun 06
41m
Did Mackenzie Shirilla and Her Mom Use a Secret Code to Fool Police?
Prosecutors hired a team to decode phone calls between Mackenzie Shirilla and her mother Natalie — calls where the two spoke in a private language built to hide what they were saying on monitored lines. What they found became evidence at trial. The coded communication is one piece of a larger pattern now laid bare by recorded prison calls and institutional records released in the wake of the N...
37m Jun 06
37m
What Mackenzie Shirilla's Prison Record Could Cost Her at Parole
Two cases raising different questions about how the system processes evidence — one institutional, one forensic. Mackenzie Shirilla's family is generating a growing record on monitored prison calls that defense attorney Eric Faddis says the parole board will scrutinize. In the Anna Kepner cruise ship case, a federal judge stated the prosecution's evidence is not as strong as it appears, despite...
56m Jun 05
56m
Why Was Elijah Vue’s DNA Found in a Suitcase Jesse Vang Dropped at a Thrift Store?
The night before Jesse Vang called 911 to report three-year-old Elijah Vue missing, surveillance cameras in Two Rivers, Wisconsin captured him driving a borrowed Nissan Altima through town. His phone was sitting at his apartment, playing a Netflix movie — building what prosecutors allege was a false alibi. On camera, Vang pulled up to the donation door at a St. Vincent de Paul store and dropped...
22m Jun 05
22m
What the Unsealed Transcript Revealed in the Anna Kepner Cruise Ship Case
A hundred and forty-five pages of unsealed transcript from a February detention hearing in the Anna Kepner cruise ship case placed the prosecution's complete theory on the public record. The transcript detailed CCTV footage, phone records, DNA evidence with match odds of 120 sextillion to one, and an FBI agent's admission that he cannot directly connect that DNA to cause of death. Defense attor...
18m Jun 05
18m
Why Did the Judge Who Sentenced Ted Bundy to Death Call Him a Bright Young Man?
The investigation of Ted Bundy did not end with his arrest. It continued through three trials, nine years on death row, and a final week of confessions that produced more questions than answers. The Chi Omega trial, Miami, June 1979: the first American criminal trial broadcast nationally, gavel to gavel. Over two hundred and fifty reporters. Forensic dentist Dr. Richard Souviron walked a jury ...
15m Jun 05
15m
What Was Kouri Richins Really Doing During Those 45 Minutes at the Podium?
Kouri Richins rolled her eyes while her children's statements described being locked in basements and denied food. She mouthed "What?" when Eric's sister spoke. Then her own family called her the glue of the family — and the tears appeared. For the first time all day.That split — contempt for suffering, emotion for validation — frames everything she said in the forty-five minutes that followed....
17m Jun 05
17m
How Far Have Mackenzie Shirilla's Parents Gone to Protect Her?
Steve Shirilla's teaching contract at Mary Queen of Peace School in Cleveland was not renewed following his appearance in the Netflix documentary The Crash. The Diocese of Cleveland confirmed he will not be returning. Natalie Shirilla was captured on a recorded prison call referring to the family of Dominic Russo — the man their daughter was convicted of killing — as "evil people." Defense atto...
18m Jun 05
18m
How Could Mackenzie Shirilla's Conduct Record Affect Her Parole?
Mackenzie Shirilla has accumulated thirty-six conduct violations at the Ohio Reformatory for Women since her August 2023 conviction — guilty findings on thirty-two. Her institutional file includes unauthorized medication, contraband, altered clothing, refusal of work assignments, and more than a hundred video visits with an unapproved released former inmate conducted under a false identity. Def...
21m Jun 05
21m
What Makes Josh Duggar Think He Deserves Another Chance After Four Courts Said No?
Four courts. Four refusals. And Josh Duggar filed every single one of them expecting a different answer. His first appeal came in 2022 — denied. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his conviction in August 2023. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear his case in June 2024. And on June 1 of this year, Judge Timothy Brooks denied Josh’s final motion to vacate — a Section 2255 fi...
28m Jun 05
28m
The Crash: Why a Psychotherapist Thinks the Mackenzie Shirilla Trial Asked the Wrong Question
Was it murder? That's the question the trial asked. A judge said yes. Netflix's The Crash put the evidence on screen and the public argued about the answer. But psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, who has spent thirty years studying violence and treating people on both sides of it, says the trial was asking the wrong question — and the answer to the right one is something far more complicated and fa...
59m Jun 04
59m
Did Prosecutors Underestimate The Witness Who Knew The Murdaugh House Best?
Prosecutors spent twelve and a half hours on Alex Murdaugh's financial crimes at the first trial. They gave Blanca Simpson three hours. The Supreme Court said the financial evidence went too far. Nobody said Blanca went far enough.That imbalance is the story of the retrial before it's even started. Because if round two can't rely on a parade of financial devastation to paint Alex as a monster, ...
59m Jun 04
59m
The Crash: What If the Mackenzie Shirilla Case Was Never About Murder At All?
There's a question that hangs over the Mackenzie Shirilla case that almost nobody is willing to ask directly. What if this wasn't premeditated murder? What if it wasn't even reckless homicide in the way most people understand it? What if a seventeen-year-old in psychological free fall, in a volatile relationship she couldn't escape, with substances in her system and a diagnosed medical conditio...
23m Jun 04
23m
How Did a Routine Stolen Plate Check at 1:34 AM in Pensacola End the Hunt for Ted Bundy?
The Tallahassee Police Department responded to the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in the early hours of January 15, 1978. What they found inside — Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy killed, Kathy Kleiner and Karen Chandler severely injured — was unlike anything the department had investigated. Nita Neary, the only eyewitness, described a man in a stocking mask on the stairs ca...
15m Jun 04
15m
What Does a Three-Hour Verdict Say About Kouri Richins?
Zero defense witnesses. A waived right to testify. Three weeks of silence from a woman whose entire psychological operating system runs on narrative production. And a juror who watched the transformation from "trapped" to "like a statue."This episode tracks what sustained silence does to a mind like Kouri Richins'. Not the legal strategy behind the defense's decision — the psychological experie...
18m Jun 04
18m
The Crash: Did the Prosecution Misread Mackenzie Shirilla's Relationship Entirely?
Two weeks before the crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, there was an incident on I-71. The prosecution's version: a friend overheard Mackenzie Shirilla say "I will crash this car right now" during a fight with Dominic. That testimony became evidence of prior calculation — proof she'd rehearsed the act before she carried it out. But text messages tell a different story. Mackenz...
15m Jun 04
15m
The Crash: Why Everything You Think About Mackenzie Shirilla's Personality Is Probably Wrong
Ninety-three thousand text messages were reviewed in the Mackenzie Shirilla case. The prosecution selected the most threatening ones and presented them to a judge as proof of a mind capable of premeditated murder. "My way or the highway." "Watch your back, your house, your car, your life." A TikTok persona that screamed narcissism. An arrest where she asked cops to protect her bracelets. The pe...
21m Jun 04
21m
Why Did Rebecca Haro Have A Baby With A Man Already Convicted Of Child Cruelty?
Rebecca Haro knew exactly who Jake Haro was when she had a baby with him. She knew about the 2023 child cruelty conviction in Riverside County. She knew about the 2024 illegal possession of a loaded firearm and the probation violations. She knew about the ex-wife who had gone into court and asked a judge for a domestic violence restraining order, specifically requesting protection for a child s...
17m Jun 04
17m
The Crash: Why a Defense Attorney Says the Mackenzie Shirilla Case Is a Failure at Every Level
Defense failure. Prosecutorial overreach. Systemic rigidity. And a defendant making post-conviction choices that may be sealing her own fate. Criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the Mackenzie Shirilla case isn't just one thing that went wrong — it's a cascade of failures that compounded at every stage. Shirilla was seventeen when the crash in Strongsville, Ohio killed Dominic Russo and Da...
59m Jun 03
59m
Why Does Murdaugh's Housekeeper Think Alex Had A Plan A And A Plan B?
Alex Murdaugh never worked alone. Not when he was stealing from clients. Not when he was running pills through Curtis Eddie Smith. Not when he staged his own shooting on the side of a Hampton County road. Every major scheme in his life had other hands on it. Other people carrying the weight. Other names on the checks.So why would the murders be different?That's the question Blanca Simpson keeps...
19m Jun 03
19m
The Crash: Is Public Opinion Going to Keep Mackenzie Shirilla in Prison?
Dominic Russo's sister started a podcast. His parents appear in the Netflix documentary. The families are visible, vocal, and firmly opposed to any leniency for Mackenzie Shirilla. On the other side, Mackenzie agreed to speak from prison in The Crash — and a fellow inmate immediately told the public that the remorseful, soft-spoken woman on camera isn't the person she saw behind bars. The court...
16m Jun 03
16m
How Did Ted Bundy Starve Himself Down Twenty Pounds and Crawl Through a Jail Ceiling?
Ted Bundy was convicted of aggravated kidnapping in Utah in 1976. Bench trial. Judge Stewart Hanson. Sentenced to one to fifteen years. In October 1976, Colorado charged him with the murder of Caryn Campbell. He was extradited to Aspen in January 1977. As his own attorney, he received the legal courtesies the Sixth Amendment requires. Library access. No shackles. No handcuffs in the building. ...
15m Jun 03
15m
The 'Walk the Dog' Letter Tells You Everything About How Kouri Richins' Brain Works
"Walk the Dog!!" written across the top of a six-page letter found hidden in Kouri Richins' jail cell. Inside: instructions for coaching her brother's testimony. The defense she should never have scripted.But the letter itself isn't the most revealing piece. The "fictional novel" defense is. Because when Kouri was confronted on a recorded jail call, she didn't pause. She didn't stumble. She pro...
15m Jun 03
15m
The Crash: What a Defense Attorney Sees When He Looks at the Mackenzie Shirilla Prosecution
A prosecutor called it a "mission of death." A judge agreed. But a criminal defense attorney who has spent his career on the other side of cases like this says the Mackenzie Shirilla prosecution has vulnerabilities that should have been exposed at trial — and weren't, because the defense never mounted the challenge the evidence demanded. Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder for the ...
15m Jun 03
15m
The Crash: Every Way Mackenzie Shirilla's Defense Team Let Her Down
The defense raised a medical condition. Never proved it. Had competing evidence that contradicted the prosecution's key witness. Never introduced it. Filed the post-conviction petition with the one expert who might have changed everything. Filed it one day late. At every critical moment in the Mackenzie Shirilla case, the defense failed — and a seventeen-year-old is serving fifteen years to lif...
29m Jun 03
29m