Hidden Killers Live! Daily True Crime News & Breakdowns

In 2023, Ohio's legislature stripped its homeschool oversight down to a notification — no proof of curriculum, no demonstration of qualifications, nothing but a form. In 2026, deputies found sixteen children who had never seen a classroom, some of whom can't read, one of whom can't write her own name at eighteen. And before a single indictment has come down, a senator who voted for the rollback is already telling reporters the law might need "revisiting." Tony and Robin go live on what that speed-run reversal actually signals.

Politicians don't walk back votes because of introspection. They walk them back be...

Four adults are charged. But the blame in the Siders case doesn't stop at four — it spreads through a town that noticed and stayed silent, agencies that documented and never acted, a court that signed the license that started it, and a legislature that dismantled the one safeguard that might have caught it. Tony and Robin go live with the full conversation and put the question straight to the audience: rank the blame.

Everything is on the board. Hamden's unanimous alibi and the details that shred it. The store clerk who remembered everything for reporters and reported no...

Right now, in Ohio and almost everywhere else, you can watch a child deteriorate in front of you for years — notice everything, suspect everything — and owe nothing. No call. No report. No consequence. Good Samaritan laws protect you if you step up; nothing touches you if you don't. Tony and Robin go live on whether that free pass survives the Siders case.

The live conversation runs the argument both directions with the chat weighing in. One side: attaching legal duty to ordinary citizens turns neighborhoods into informant networks, punishes people for judgment calls, and buries hotlines in nois...

This episode of Hidden Killers Live does something a little different: instead of one deep dive, the team moves through three cases back to back, Nancy Guthrie, Nick Reiner, and Rex Heuermann, and takes listener questions on all three. 

Robin Drake, Todd Michaels, and Lisa Hale start with Nancy Guthrie, six months missing from her Arizona home, and answer listener questions about the note her family received and what it might mean. From there, the conversation moves to Nick Reiner, accused of murdering his parents hours after a fight at a party that other guests noticed and d...

Rex Heuermann is behind bars for eight murders, but Hidden Killers Live spent this episode on a question listeners keep sending in: what was really going on with the therapist working closely with his family? 

Robin Drake, Todd Michaels, and Lisa Hale take listener questions directly on this one, starting with reports that the therapist wasn't licensed, and that she appeared on a Peacock special discussing details tied to her clients. The hosts talk through whether that could open the door to an appeal, and share what the attorneys they've consulted on the case had to say a...

Rob and Michele Reiner were killed in their own home nine months ago, and Hidden Killers Live spent this episode answering the questions listeners can't let go of, starting with the one that stings the most: did anyone see this coming from their son, Nick? 
Robin Drake, Todd Michaels, and Lisa Hale take listener questions directly, starting with reports that Nick and his father fought at a holiday party hours before the killings, with other guests noticing his behavior and going home anyway. The hosts talk through what it means when a pattern gets normalized inside a family a...

Nancy Guthrie has been gone for six months, and Hidden Killers Live goes straight at the question the audience keeps asking: what does that ransom note actually say, and why won't the FBI just say it outright? 
She vanished from her own home in the middle of the night. Blood was found on her porch. A masked man showed up on her doorbell camera hours earlier. Her family has received multiple notes claiming responsibility, and investigators have quietly ruled some out while refusing to rule out at least one other — the one that reportedly expresses something no family wan...

D4vd case final chapter — David Burke’s music catalog reads differently after the charges. His breakout hit. His album title. A music video that shows imagery mirroring what prosecutors allege. Whether California’s creative-expression protections keep any of it out of trial is an open question. What’s not open is how it looks from the outside.This episode covers the investigation timeline from September 2025 through the April 2026 arrest. Why did the LAPD take seven months? Why was the coroner’s report blocked for three months? Why did Burke’s friend run to Montana? Why did his family fight...

Two cases we've been following closely — Nolan Wells and Nancy Guthrie — both moved forward this episode, and neither development is going to sit well with you. On the Nolan Wells side, the friend who left him behind on Horn Island turns out to be the son of a sitting Jackson County judge, and both the judge and the friend group have gone completely silent since that connection came out. We dig into the decision to ask for a voluntary phone surrender instead of a subpoena, and why that matters more than it sounds. 
On the Nancy Guthrie side, still missi...

D4vd case: the day prosecutors say David Burke celebrated his debut album was also the day a Postmates driver reportedly delivered a shovel to his Hollywood Hills home. That was just the beginning. In the weeks that followed, according to the prosecution, Burke placed Amazon orders under an alias for items investigators say were used to carry out the mutilation charge — and shipped them all to his own address.Prosecutors say Burke went from an album release party to a Coachella-level tour while allegedly leaving behind a trail of Uber receipts, delivery logs, surveillance footage, geotagged social me...

Six months into Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, one case connected to it just closed — and it's not the one anyone's been waiting on. A California man pleaded guilty to sending the Guthrie family fake bitcoin ransom demands while the search for Nancy was still active. 
What he actually got for it is the part that's sparking outrage. The charge was pled down to harassment, which tops out at two years federally, and the resulting sentence was five years of probation, with both counts running concurrently rather than adding up. Retired FBI special agent Jennifer Coffindaffer didn't hold back, calling it a t...

D4vd and the system that failed Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Deputies from two sheriff’s departments had David Burke’s name, phone number, and home address in connection with a missing thirteen-year-old girl. They went to his door. They spoke to him face to face. What happened after that visit — and the chain of failures that followed — is the foundation of this three-part investigation.Prosecutors say Celeste was reported missing from Lake Elsinore three separate times. They say Burke allegedly paid a classmate to deliver a phone to her after her parents confiscated hers. They say she traveled with him...

Nolan Wells' case just picked up a complication that has nothing to do with what happened on the water. One of the friends who left him behind on Horn Island is the son of a sitting Jackson County judge — and since that detail surfaced, both the judge and the rest of the friend group have gone completely silent online. 
That silence is landing differently now that a sitting congressman and a nationally known civil rights attorney, retained by Nolan's parents, are publicly pushing local law enforcement for transparency. We also dig into a detail retired FBI special agent Jennifer Cof...

An eighteen-year-old named Nolan Wells went out to Horn Island for the Fourth of July and didn't come home. He was seen talking to a girl on the island's north end around three that afternoon. When his friends' boat left an hour and a half later, he was still on shore. 
The official reason his friends gave investigators was that the boat was taking on water. Sit with that for a second — a group decides the safest move is to leave one person behind on an island, alone, rather than make a slower trip back together. That's the piece of...

 A truck description sat in a case file for over a decade. A roommate who saw a first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche the night Amber Costello walked out and never came back. A text from a burner phone that read: "That was not nice, so do I get credit for next time." When the Gilgo Beach task force ran that vehicle through registration databases in 2022, Rex Heuermann's name came back. Everything followed from there. This look back examines how the last known victim became the key that unlocked the entire case.

Amber was twenty-seven, from North Carolina, battling a...

 When Celeste Rivas Hernandez's parents found out and took her phone, prosecutors say David Anthony Burke drove to Lake Elsinore and paid one of her classmates a thousand dollars to deliver a new one. That single allegation — buried in the People's Brief filed this week — tells you everything about the pattern prosecutors are building. This look back, with retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer, examines what that pattern looks like from a federal investigative perspective and how it connects to the murder charges.

The filing describes an alleged timeline that began when Celeste was eleven. By thirt...

Nancy Guthrie's case has drawn a mysterious emailer who keeps contacting TMZ from the same address, claiming to have a phone containing video of the 84-year-old grandmother and her alleged kidnapper from what was likely her last day. It's one of several communications investigators are now weighing against each other in a case with no body and no arrest five months after Nancy disappeared from her Tucson home. The FBI has already arrested multiple people for sending fake ransom notes tied to this case, and Sheriff Nanos has publicly dismissed the emailer's latest claim as probably another fraud. But...

The judge asked for no outward reactions. Kouri Richins couldn't manage four minutes before the faces started. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, reads what those visible reactions revealed about the person behind the performance during her sentencing.

The children — all under fourteen — described locked doors, threats against their pets, and a mother they no longer call "mom." Every one of them asked the judge to put her away for good. And through it, Kouri looked annoyed. Scott breaks down what that contempt and eye-rolling actually signal. As Eric's sister Amy described having urged her brot...

Victoria Heuermann sat across from her father in a jailhouse room, heard him admit to killing eight women in the house where she grew up, and forgave him on the spot. She asked if he ever thought about her while he was doing it. He said no — the two worlds never crossed. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, examines what that exchange reveals about both the daughter and the father.

Scott breaks down what happens psychologically to a child who discovers their parent is a serial killer — how the brain rewrites safe memories when the home...

Barry Morphew kept more than just cash and paperwork in his safe. When investigators searched it, they found an AR-15 and a silencer, sitting alongside the ordinary contents of a man who insists he had nothing to hide. It's one detail among several that prosecutors say points to a defendant who spent years preparing for exactly this moment. Suzanne Morphew's remains were recovered from a shallow grave near Moffat, Colorado, and an autopsy found a wildlife tranquilizer known as BAM in her bone marrow, a substance investigators say only one private citizen in that part of the state had...

Celeste Rivas Hernandez was reported missing in 2024. Her remains were found in September 2025. David Anthony Burke wasn't arrested until April 2026. Three grand juries heard testimony. The autopsy sat sealed for months. This look back takes your listener questions to retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke and asks the question everyone keeps coming back to: why did it take so long?

Dreeke walks through what the timeline reveals about how investigations of this complexity actually move — the condition of the remains that made determining cause of death extraordinarily difficult, the sealed medical examiner's report held under a se...

Alex Murdaugh's defense told a South Carolina judge that the accounts from first responders who reached the Moselle property the night Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed don't agree with each other. Attorney Dick Harpootlian raised the discrepancy directly with Judge Debra McCaslin at a hearing that also set the retrial date for April 5, 2027. Harpootlian told the court the defense has received tips from people claiming to have information about who else may have been at the property, forwarded those tips to SLED, and still doesn't know whether investigators followed up on any of them. The hearing wasn't just...

There's a trap waiting for the Reiner siblings, and it's the same one that catches almost every family of a victim: the belief that healing can't begin until the case is over. This look back examines why that belief is so powerful — and why, for Jake, Romy, and Tracy, it may be the very thing keeping their lives on pause.

First, where things stood at the time of our reporting. The three siblings carry a role almost no family ever holds together: primary mourners, next of kin with legal standing, and family of the accused, all at on...

Asa and Victoria sat in the room while Rex Heuermann confessed to eight murders. The woman running those sessions, Allison Winter, is now the one facing prison time, charged with practicing as a clinical social worker without a license for nearly three years. Legal analyst Eric Faddis returns to dig into whether that detail gives Heuermann's defense a real opening, starting with the theory that his guilty plea itself may have been built on a fraudulent foundation.

Faddis walks through the privilege question everyone's been asking: does confidentiality still protect a conversation with someone who wasn't...

A new Hulu documentary just dropped on the D4VD case, and it's raising as many questions about the investigators as it is about the singer charged in fourteen-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez's death. Legal analyst Eric Faddis joins us to unpack what came out at the latest status conference, why the documentary could complicate jury selection, and whether the defense can use its aggressive framing to their advantage.

We start with the publicity problem. Faddis explains why the defense may argue this case has already been tried in the court of public opinion, and why moving...

 Asa and Victoria sat in the room while Rex Heuermann confessed to eight murders. The woman guiding those family sessions, Allison Winter, is now the one facing prison time for allegedly running the whole arrangement without a valid license. We bring back legal analyst Eric Faddis to dig deeper into what this means, starting with a theory that could actually matter on appeal: did Heuermann plead guilty specifically to protect his family from having to testify about what he confessed, and if that confession came out of a deceptive setup, does the reasoning behind his plea collapse.

Rex Heuermann confessed privately to his own family in a room where an unlicensed therapist was sitting in. Allison Winter counseled Heuermann and his family for nearly three years inside the Suffolk County Jail, present around the time of that confession, and she's now facing eighteen felony charges for allegedly practicing without a license and billing insurance for more than sixty thousand dollars.

We get into the legal weeds on this one with Eric Faddis, a former prosecutor and current defense attorney. First question: does therapist-patient privilege even apply if the therapist was never legitimately licensed...

The crime scene sails into port. Thousands of people walk off it. The ship is cleaned and reloaded with the next group of passengers within hours. Every piece of physical evidence that isn't recovered before the vessel turns around is gone. This look back, with retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer, examines why a death at sea — like the killing of Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon — is one of the most difficult scenes federal investigators face.

Coffindaffer walks through the challenges: the compressed timeline for evidence recovery, the international-waters jurisdiction that puts the case in fede...

Asa Ellerup heard her ex-husband admit to eight murders. She heard that women were strangled in the basement of the home they shared. And according to a documentary, she moved back into that basement — into the room where it happened — and says she sleeps there now to spiritually honor the victims. The reaction was swift and brutal. People called it proof she knew all along. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, argues they're missing what's actually happening — and what's actually happening is far more disturbing than complicity.

Scott examines Asa's documented history: adopted and never feelin...

Prosecutors allege David Anthony Burke killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez on April 23, 2025. Two days later, he released his debut album. He launched a world tour. He stood on stages across the country performing for fans who, according to investigators, had no idea what was allegedly behind the scenes. Then on September 8, a tow-yard worker in Los Angeles called police about a foul odor from an impounded Tesla registered to Burke. Inside were Celeste's remains. According to the timeline, Burke took a stage in Minneapolis the following night.

This look back, with retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer...

The closest thing to being inside that house the night Eric Richins died isn't a witness — it's the data on Kouri Richins' phone. This look back examines the digital forensics and the first seventy-two hours, the evidence that gave the jury its clearest window into what the prosecution called a guilty conscience.

The phones went quiet for hours. Then, prosecutors say, Kouri picked hers up around 3:06 a.m. — and the 911 call didn't come until roughly fifteen minutes later. No calls to anyone else. Just the gap. She told police Eric died of an aneurysm and maintained that for...

Kouri Richins' children asked a judge to lock her away forever. Minutes later, she stood up and effectively told them she's coming back. This look back breaks down both halves of that courtroom — the boys' statements and the mother's response — word by word.

Three sons described what life inside that house had been like: locked bedroom doors, a mother they said was drunk almost daily, threats against their animals, an older brother sneaking food and care to a younger one because no adult was doing it. A childhood defined, they said, by a parent who was either abse...

Under the conditions of his release, Timothy Hudson is not supposed to be alone with anyone underage. And yet two minors reportedly live in the very home where he's been placed. Prosecutors raised exactly that alarm in open court. The judge acknowledged that an adult facing these charges would almost certainly be behind bars — called this case a "different animal" — and still let Hudson walk free on GPS monitoring. This look back examines why.

Hudson faces first-degree murder and an additional serious federal charge in the death of his eighteen-year-old stepsister Anna Kepner aboard the Carnival Horizon. He's...

His attorney said it out loud: pleading guilty to killing eight women was a "sense of relief" for Rex Heuermann. Not sorrow. Not a reckoning. Relief — as if the admission freed him from something he'd been carrying rather than confronting what he'd done. This look back, with retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke, reads that word choice for what it reveals about the person inside the plea.

Dreeke breaks down the behavioral framework — what "relief" signals about how Heuermann relates to what he did, why the documented methodology matters more than the courtroom moment, and what the...

He was allegedly on stage in Minneapolis the same night Celeste Rivas Hernandez's remains were found in the front trunk of a Tesla in Los Angeles. Months of performances. Interviews. Smiling for cameras. And according to prosecutors, he allegedly knew exactly what was behind him the entire time. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, examines the psychology of carrying something this extreme and functioning as though nothing happened.

Scott — who has spent more than thirty years working in trauma, violence psychology, and forensic mental health — breaks down what it means when someone allegedly views a chil...

Statistically, the deadliest moment in a controlling relationship is the moment someone tries to leave. The Richins case appears to track that pattern exactly: according to prosecutors, Eric Richins had started consulting divorce attorneys and adjusting his estate before he died — and the prosecution's theory is that his quiet move toward the exit is when everything escalated. This look back brings expert depth to why that happens.

Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott joins Tony Brueski and retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke to map the end-phase dynamics of these relationships. Scott breaks down how the threatened loss of co...

There's a contradiction sitting at the center of the Reiner case, and it's the kind retired FBI behavioral chief Robin Dreeke was built to take apart. Reports describe Nick Reiner as almost childlike in custody — unable to fully grasp where he is or why. Yet other reports claim he's simultaneously plotting a revenge tell-all aimed at the family who tried for years to save him. Both can't be the whole truth. So which is it?

This look back brings two expert lenses to a case stalled in limbo. First, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis on...

The phone evidence in the Gilgo Beach case traces an exact route — from Massapequa Park to Midtown Manhattan and back — between Rex Heuermann's home and his architecture office. It's the spine of two of the seven murder charges he pleaded guilty to, and this look back walks through how that digital trail connected Maureen Brainard-Barnes and Melissa Barthelemy to the man who admitted to killing them.

Maureen vanished in July 2007 after telling a friend she was leaving to meet a client. Prosecutors alleged Heuermann used burner phones to contact her, that cell-tower data placed those phones in Mass...

A child reported missing three times. A full school year with no enrollment. Eleven law-enforcement calls to her home. An alleged relationship with an adult that was visible on livestreams, in photos, and in matching tattoos. And not a single system stopped it. This look back, with psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, examines how every layer of protection meant to keep a child safe failed Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Scott — who has more than three decades of clinical experience in trauma, violence psychology, and forensic mental health — breaks down the psychological machinery underneath these failures. How a child running from...

Roughly eighteen months before he died, Eric Richins sat down with an estate attorney and quietly rewrote his will — telling the lawyer the reason was to protect his children from his wife. He saw it coming. He wrote it down. And he still ended up dead in that house. This look back, with retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer, examines how that documented fear became one of the pillars of a murder conviction.

The verdict is striking precisely because the case wasn't airtight. No murder weapon. A star witness whose credibility took heavy fire. A defense that ca...