Serial Napper | True Crime for the Chronically Tired

In 1940, a woman in Key West, Florida, made a horrifying discovery. Her sister, Elena, had been dead for nine years, but her body wasn't where the family believed it had been buried. It was inside the home of Carl Tanzler, a man who claimed he'd been destined to love her.

Carl had met 20-year-old Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos while she was receiving treatment for tuberculosis. When she died in 1931, he refused to let her go. Two years later, he secretly removed her remains from a cemetery, reconstructed her body using wire, wax, and other materials, and...

In November 2010, a mother, her two children and a family friend seemingly vanished from a home in Apple Valley, Ohio.

The investigation would lead police from an abandoned pickup truck to a stranger in a parking lot, a trail of unusual purchases, and eventually a small house in Mount Vernon, unlike anything they expected to find.

Inside, the floors were covered in leaves - and somewhere in the house, police made a discovery that completely changed the case.

For this episode of Serial Nightmare, we're returning to the dark forests of Hansel and...

What if the miracle everyone wanted came with a price no one bothered to tell you about?

At the beginning of the twentieth century, radium seemed almost magical. It was rare, extraordinarily valuable and celebrated as a scientific breakthrough that could transform medicine, consumer products and even something as ordinary as a watch.

During World War I, young women were hired to paint luminous numbers onto watches and military instruments using radium-based paint. The jobs were coveted. The pay was good, the work was considered glamorous, and the women were taught a simple technique to...

In July 2009, fifteen-year-old Brenda Lin left her home in Sydney, Australia, for a school trip to New Caledonia. When she returned, her entire immediate family was gone.

Her parents, Min and Lily Lin, her twelve-year-old brother Henry, her nine-year-old brother Terry, and her aunt Irene had all been murdered inside the family's quiet North Epping home.

There was no obvious forced entry. The electricity had been cut. Nothing significant appeared to have been stolen. And whoever moved through the darkened house seemed to know exactly where they were going.

At first, police looked...

When 20-year-old Sophie Lionnet left France for London, she hoped working as an au pair would give her a little independence, help her improve her English, and allow her to build a future working with children. Instead, she found herself inside a home increasingly consumed by suspicion.

Sophie's employer, Sabrina Kouider, had spent years making extraordinary accusations against a former boyfriend, Mark Walton, a former member of the original Boyzone lineup. She believed he was stalking her, hacking her accounts and somehow interfering with her life, even after he had moved thousands of miles away.

...

Alexandra Pesic knew something was wrong. The former beauty queen and young mother had begun noticing a white car appearing around her. Then a disturbing package arrived in the mail: a true-crime book about a woman who had reported years of stalking and terror before her mysterious death. Certain passages had been deliberately marked.

Days later, something described in those pages seemed to happen outside Alexandra’s own home.

But Alexandra didn’t ignore the warning signs. She wrote down a licence plate. She told people she was afraid. And when she still couldn’t get an...

In May of 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking through California when a young couple stopped to offer her a ride. With a woman and a baby inside the vehicle, Colleen believed she had found a safe way to finish her journey. She was wrong.

For the next seven years, Colleen would live under the control of Cameron Hooker, hidden from the world even as life carried on around her. But perhaps the most difficult part of her story to understand came when the physical barriers began to disappear. Colleen was eventually allowed outside. She worked. She interacted...

This October, Serial Napper is opening the storybook for another season of Serial Nightmare. This year, we're taking familiar fairy tales and looking at the very real cases that echo their darkest themes.

We begin with Goldilocks.

In 1986, the Bowen family began noticing strange things inside their Massachusetts home. Food disappeared. Objects moved. Tina and Karen heard unexplained noises and became convinced that something was inside the house. Their father wasn't so sure.

Then one evening, Frank Bowen opened a closet and found a teenage boy standing inside. His name was Daniel LaPlante...

On March 12, 2004, two women arrived at a converted commercial building in Fresno, California, with one goal: they wanted their children back. Inside was their extended family, led by 57-year-old Marcus Wesson.

What began as a tense family dispute soon turned into something much darker. Because Ruby Ortiz and Sofina Solorio knew things about Marcus that the police standing outside did not. They knew about the strange world he had created around his family. They knew what happened when someone challenged his authority. And they knew about a plan that was never supposed to be put into action.<...

Fourteen-year-old Michael Politte woke to smoke filling his bedroom. His friend Josh was asleep on the floor nearby, and an orange glow was coming from underneath his mother's bedroom door.

When Michael opened that door, he found his mother, 40-year-old Rita Politte, lying on the floor with her upper body on fire. Rita hadn't died in an accidental house fire. She had been brutally attacked.

Within days, investigators turned their attention to Michael.

What followed was a case built around fire, gasoline, a teenage witness whose story seemed to change, and a boy...

Eighteen-year-old Henry Nowak had only recently started his first semester at the University of Southampton. He was studying accounting and finance, playing football, making new friends and building a life away from home for the first time.

On the night of December 3rd, 2025, Henry went out with friends before beginning the walk back to his student accommodation. Along the way, he crossed paths with a stranger.

Less than an hour later, police arrived on Belmont Road following reports of an assault. They had been told who the victim was and who they believed had carried...

On October 17th, 1992, 16-year-old Yoshihiro “Yoshi” Hattori was getting ready for his first real American Halloween party.

Yoshi had recently arrived in Louisiana from Japan as an exchange student. He was outgoing, adventurous and determined to experience everything his year abroad had to offer. That night, dressed in a white tuxedo inspired by John Travolta, Yoshi headed to a party with his 17-year-old host brother and friend, Webb Haymaker. But they got lost.

When the boys approached a house they believed might be hosting the party, they rang the doorbell. Nobody answered, so they started walk...

On Christmas night in 2006, Ryan Waller’s parents became worried when their 18-year-old son didn’t show up for dinner and stopped answering his phone. They drove to the Phoenix home he shared with his girlfriend, 21-year-old Heather Quan, but no one came to the door.

When police entered the house, they found Heather dead from a gunshot wound and Ryan alive, badly injured and deeply confused.

Ryan was taken to the police station, where detectives tried to figure out what had happened. He struggled to answer even the simplest questions. He couldn’t remember basic...

In October of 1996, 35-year-old Sharon Lopatka told her husband she was leaving their Maryland home for a short trip to visit friends in Georgia. But Sharon wasn't going to Georgia.

She left her car near a Baltimore train station, boarded a train heading south, and left behind a disturbing goodbye letter for her husband. In it, Sharon seemed to acknowledge the possibility that she might never come home.

When police began searching for her, the trail led somewhere that was still relatively unfamiliar territory for investigators in 1996: Sharon's computer.

Behind the quiet life...

On June 7th, 2011, a maintenance worker was repairing a broken window inside a 25th-floor apartment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he heard a couple arguing in the next room. Then came another crash.

Within moments, 23-year-old Josh Hilberling was lying on the roof of a parking garage seventeen stories below. His heavily pregnant wife, 19-year-old Amber Hilberling, admitted almost immediately that she had pushed him. But she insisted she never meant for him to go through the window.

What followed was a case involving allegations of domestic violence on both sides, a marriage that appeared to...

On the evening of October 20th, 2015, 42-year-old father and lorry driver Darren Kelly travelled to Pitsea, Essex, believing he was meeting a woman he'd been talking to online. But when Darren arrived, he wasn't met by one person. A group was already waiting nearby, some of them hiding out of sight. They believed Darren was guilty of something terrible, and they had decided to confront him themselves.

Within minutes, Darren was running for his life. He was chased through the streets, beaten and stabbed six times before managing to reach a nearby block of flats and desperately...

When Stacey Castor called the police to her New York home in August 2005, she told them she was worried about her husband, David. He had locked himself inside their bedroom after an argument and hadn't shown up for work. When officers forced their way inside, they found David dead beside a glass containing a bright green liquid and an open container of antifreeze.

At first, everything pointed toward suicide, but one detective wasn't convinced.

As investigators began looking more closely at David's death, they discovered that Stacey had already lost one husband under unusual circumstances...

In January 2003, two teenage sisters returned home from an evening out with friends and made a frantic call to 911. Their 43-year-old mother, Linda Andersen, was lying face-down in the bathtub.

Linda struggled with alcoholism. She had been drinking heavily that night, and toxicology would reveal alcohol and medication in her system. To investigators, everything seemed to point toward a tragic accidental drowning. And for nearly a year, that's exactly what everyone believed.

But Sandra and Beth, just 16 and 15 years old, hadn't discovered their mother dead that night. Linda was already dead when they left for...

When I first covered the case of Laken Snelling, it was a Patreon-exclusive, and one of the biggest questions surrounding the case remained unanswered: what really happened to her newborn baby in the hours after she secretly gave birth? Now, we finally have an answer.

In August 2025, 21-year-old University of Kentucky student and STUNT athlete Laken Snelling gave birth alone inside her off-campus bedroom while her roommates were just feet away. They later told investigators they had heard loud crashing and thudding noises coming from her room in the early morning hours.

By the next...

In January 2006, 18-year-old Joe Pichler seemingly vanished from Bremerton, Washington.

Joe had grown up in front of the camera, appearing in movies and television shows including The Fan, Varsity Blues, Beethoven’s 3rd and Beethoven’s 4th. After stepping away from Hollywood as a teenager, he returned home, graduated high school and began building an ordinary life while planning his eventual return to acting.

Then, during the early morning hours of January 5th, Joe made his final known phone call.

Days later, his silver Toyota Corolla was found abandoned near the Port Washington Narr...

When we left off in Part One, Florida State University law professor Dan Markel had been murdered in what investigators believed was a carefully planned hit.

Nearly two years later, police had traced a rented green Prius from Tallahassee back to South Florida, identified suspected gunmen Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, uncovered connections to Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson, and staged an elaborate FBI operation known as “the bump.”

Now, investigators are finally ready to make their first arrest. But the arrest of a suspected hitman is only the beginning.

In Part Two, some...

Florida State University law professor Dan Markel was 41 years old when he was shot in the garage of his Tallahassee home in July 2014. It quickly became clear that this wasn't a random act of violence. Someone had followed Dan through his morning routine, waited until he returned home, and then disappeared.

But who would want a Canadian-born law professor and devoted father of two dead?

The answer would lead investigators hundreds of miles south to Miami and into the bitter aftermath of Dan's divorce from Wendi Adelson.

In Part One of this two-part...

In this episode, the True Crimecast team, John and Jamie, sit down with Nikki Young, host of the Serial Napper podcast, to take a deep dive into the disturbing and unsolved disappearance of 22-year-old Liam Tomen.

On the weekend of January 31, 2025, Liam and two friends travelled from Whitby, Ontario, to the resort village of Mont Tremblant, Quebec, for a ski trip. After spending the evening at local village spots—ending at Le P'tit Caribou—Liam got separated from his friends. Surveillance footage captures him walking directly toward his hotel, L'Auberge du Voyageur, just minutes away. He never made...

On a warm September night in 2005, 18-year-old Jennifer Teague finished her shift at a Wendy's restaurant in Barrhaven, Ontario. She stopped to chat with friends at the local Mac's Milk before beginning the short walk home, a route she'd taken countless times before. She never made it.

Jennifer's disappearance shattered the sense of safety in one of Ottawa's fastest-growing suburbs. As police, volunteers, helicopters and search dogs scoured the community, her family refused to believe she had run away. Ten days later, the search ended in heartbreak when Jennifer's body was discovered in the Stony Swamp Conservation...

On April 3, 2022, 27-year-old Christian "Toby" Obumseli was fatally stabbed inside the luxury Miami condominium he shared with his girlfriend, influencer and OnlyFans creator Courtney Clenney.

Courtney never denied causing the fatal injury, but she insisted it was self-defence. Prosecutors insisted it was murder.

For years, this case divided the internet. Security footage, police bodycam video, disturbing audio recordings, allegations of domestic abuse from both sides, and forensic evidence all fueled a debate that seemed destined to play out in front of a jury.

But after years of delays, the trial never happened.

In June 2009, four women from the same family were found dead inside a submerged car at the Kingston Mills Locks near Kingston, Ontario. At first, it appeared to be a tragic accident. Their family claimed the women had taken the car for a late-night drive and somehow ended up in the water.

But investigators quickly uncovered a much darker truth.

As evidence mounted, police began to suspect that the deaths of Zainab Shafia, Sahar Shafia, Geeti Shafia and Rona Amir Mohammad were not an accident at all, but a carefully planned act of so-called "honour"...

In February 2007, two-year-old Mariah Alvarez died after suffering a catastrophic head injury just days after her family moved into a new apartment in Harlingen, Texas. Within hours, investigators became convinced they were looking at one of the worst cases of child abuse they had ever seen. Mariah's mother, Melissa Lucio, endured a five-hour interrogation while pregnant with twins, eventually uttering the words, "I guess I did it. That confession helped send her to death row.

But nearly two decades later, the case has become one of the most controversial in America. Medical experts have challenged the original...

On November 24, 2022, 38-year-old Liam Smith stepped outside his home in Shevington, Greater Manchester. He never made it back inside.

For nearly ten hours, Michael Hillier had been waiting in a Mitsubishi Shogun parked outside Liam's home. When Liam approached the vehicle, Hillier shot him in the face at close range before pouring sulphuric acid over him as he lay fatally wounded. The shocking attack stunned the community, but what investigators uncovered next was even more disturbing.

The motive traced back to a single Tinder date three years earlier. Hillier claimed his girlfriend, Rachel Fulstow, had...

Frauke Liebs: The Woman Who Kept Calling Home

On June 20, 2006, 21-year-old nursing student Frauke Liebs left an Irish pub in Paderborn, Germany, after watching an England World Cup match with friends. She was expected home in just fifteen minutes. She never arrived.

Then something unimaginable happened.

Over the next week, Frauke made a series of brief phone calls to her roommate, her family, and the people searching for her. She insisted she would be home soon, but she never revealed where she was or who was with her. Each call gave her loved...

When Angela Diaz reported that someone was terrorizing her with anonymous emails, Craigslist rape fantasies, and violent threats against her unborn twins, the case seemed straightforward. Her husband, Deputy U.S. Marshal Ian Diaz, told investigators he knew exactly who was responsible: his ex-fiancée, Michelle Hadley.

Police believed him. Prosecutors believed him. The media believed him.

Michelle was arrested and faced the possibility of spending the rest of her life in prison.

But as the digital evidence slowly came to light, the story began to unravel in ways no one expected. What l...

Steven Clark vanished on December 28, 1992, after walking into a public toilet on the seafront in Saltburn, England. More than thirty years later, his disappearance remains one of Britain's most baffling unsolved mysteries.

On a cold winter afternoon, 23-year-old Steven Clark spent the day walking along the beach with his mother, Doris. Before heading home, the pair stopped at public toilets along the seafront. Steven entered the men's side. Doris went into the women's. When she came back outside, she assumed her son had already started the walk home. He never arrived.

What followed was a...

On the morning of November 7, 2001, ten-year-old Bianca Lebron walked to Elias Howe Elementary School in Bridgeport, Connecticut, just as she always did. While waiting outside before classes began, she excitedly told classmates that her uncle was taking her shopping for the day. She even invited some of them to come along.

Minutes later, multiple witnesses watched Bianca calmly climb into a brown-and-tan van.

No one tried to stop her. No one thought anything was wrong. Everyone believed she was leaving with family. There was just one devastating problem. Bianca didn't have an uncle waiting outside...

In July 1993, 20-year-old Bobby Kent believed he was meeting his ex-girlfriend for a second chance.

Instead, he was driven to a secluded rock pit in western Broward County, Florida, where seven young people were waiting. Among them was Bobby's best friend of fourteen years, Marty Puccio.

The murder of Bobby Kent would inspire books, documentaries, and the 2001 film Bully, but the real story is far more complicated than Hollywood could ever portray.

Was Bobby truly the violent bully so many described after his death? Were some of the allegations against him impossible to...

How far would someone go to escape accountability?

In 2020, child advocate Nicholas Rossi was declared dead after an alleged battle with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Politicians mourned him. Friends grieved. An obituary celebrated his life and his supposed contributions to foster care reform.

There was just one problem. Nicholas Rossi wasn't dead.

Nearly two years later, a critically ill COVID patient calling himself "Arthur Knight" was admitted to a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland. When hospital staff noticed his distinctive tattoos, an international investigation unravelled one of the most bizarre true crime stories in recent memory.<...

Sixteen-year-old Mekayla Bali spent the morning of April 12, 2016, moving across Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She went to school... for six minutes. She withdrew every dollar from her bank account. She tried to pawn a ring. She spent hours sitting in restaurants, checking her phone, waiting for someone. She told friends she was heading to Regina. Then, at approximately 1:45 p.m., she walked out of a bus depot restaurant and vanished.

What happened next remains one of Canada's most baffling missing person cases.

Was Mekayla planning to run away? Was she meeting someone she met online? Or did...

When 7-year-old Harmony Montgomery was finally reported missing in December 2021, investigators made a horrifying discovery: nobody had seen her in nearly two years. There were no school records, doctor's appointments or welfare checks. No confirmed sightings.

A little girl had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth while the very systems designed to protect her failed to notice she was gone.

In this episode of Serial Napper, we take a deep dive into the heartbreaking case of Harmony Montgomery. From her difficult childhood and the controversial custody decision that placed her with her father...

Rogue Transmissions--the edgy, semi-annual anthology of indie podcasts--is invading your podcast feed with DUNGEONPUNK PART 2 ... a symphony of 80s nostalgia, dystopian cyberpunk, and savage swords drawn against both super sorcery & super science. Featuring an adventuring party of your indie podcast favourites! FIRST UP, Octoberpod presents "Byzantium Slab: The Shell Remember" a wraparound tale of adventure on the savage streets of the dystopian Witch Kingdom (featuring the voice talents of Ari Shey, MJ McAddams, and Family Plot podcast's Arthur Williams). THEN: The Final Trace investigates the satanic panic epidemic of the 1980s & the case of Bink Pulling. LATER: Ghost Bites...

In 2017, 11-year-old Alex Batty left the UK for what was supposed to be a short holiday in Spain with his mother and grandfather. But when the trip ended, Alex never came home.

His grandmother, Susan Caruana, who was his legal guardian, received a chilling video message instead. In it, Alex appeared to read from a script, asking her not to look for him. Then he vanished.

For the next six years, Alex lived under fake names, moved through communes and remote communities across Spain and France, and was raised in a world shaped by conspiracy...

In 1992, Rachel Nickell was murdered on Wimbledon Common while her two-year-old son watched helplessly. As Britain demanded answers, police became convinced they had found their killer. They hadn't. While investigators targeted Colin Stagg, the real murderer, Robert Napper, remained free.

On a summer morning in South West London, 23-year-old Rachel Nickell set out for a walk with her son Alex and their dog Molly. What should have been an ordinary day ended in one of Britain's most shocking and high-profile murders.

As the nation grieved, immense pressure mounted on the police to solve the case...

In October 2020, a frantic woman called 911 from an Oklahoma highway, claiming she had just given birth on the side of the road. Covered in blood and clutching a newborn baby, she begged first responders to help save her child.

But there was one devastating problem. She had never been pregnant.

In this episode of Serial Napper, we examine the shocking case of Taylor Parker, a woman who spent months convincing friends, family, and even her boyfriend that she was expecting a baby girl. She posted ultrasound photos, pregnancy updates, hospital visits, and nursery plans. She...