This Feels Criminal: A True Crime Podcast (Formerly Killer Queens)

Erica Kinsman accused Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston of rape. As she fought to have her allegation taken seriously, Winston became one of the biggest stars in college football—and won the Heisman Trophy.

Winston maintained that their encounter was consensual. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges. But the questions surrounding the investigation, the university's response, and the treatment of Kinsman didn't disappear.

In Part 2 of our examination of The Hunting Ground, Tyrella and Nikita revisit Erica's account and explore what happens when a sexual-assault allegation involves a celebrated college athlete.

Then we go...

College is supposed to be a place where young people discover who they are, build friendships, and prepare for their futures. But what happens when the institution they trusted to protect them becomes another obstacle to getting justice?

In Part 1 of our two-part examination of the documentary The Hunting Ground, Tyrella and Nikita explore the experiences of students who reported sexual assault on college campuses—and what happened when they asked their universities for help.

From Annie Clark and Andrea Pino at the University of North Carolina to survivors at some of the country's most pr...

Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike. She survived. Now comes a question with no simple answer: Can the state try again?

In Part 2 of Cruel and Unusual, Tyrella and Nikita examine what the Eighth Amendment actually prohibits, what the Supreme Court has said about botched executions, and what happened to other people who survived an execution attempt.

From Willie Francis, whose electric chair failed in 1946, to Romell Broom, Doyle Hamm, and Kenneth Smith, these cases reveal just how complicated the law becomes when an execution doesn't go according to plan.

But Christa Pike's...

On September 30, 2026, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike. She was given two doses of lethal injection drugs. But she didn't die.

What happened inside that execution chamber—and how did a state-sanctioned execution go so terribly wrong?

Pike was sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Nearly three decades later, Colleen's family arrived expecting to witness the execution of the woman convicted of killing her. Instead, they watched an execution attempt that would raise serious questions about Tennessee's death penalty system.

In Part 1 of Cruel and Unusual, Tyrella and Ni...

Aubrey Trail confessed to killing Sydney Loofe. But almost everything else about his story kept changing.

First, he claimed her death was an accident during a consensual sexual encounter. Then he insisted Bailey Boswell had nothing to do with the killing.

But investigators uncovered evidence that told a very different story.

In Part 2 of our coverage of Hulu's Swipe Right on the Devil, Tyrella and Nikita examine the evidence against Aubrey Trail and Bailey Boswell, the disturbing testimony from women who survived their abuse, and the trials that exposed what happened before Sydney's...

Twenty-four-year-old Sydney Loofe was excited about a second date with a woman she'd met on Tinder. She sent her friends a Snapchat that read, "Ready for my date."

The next morning, she didn't show up for work. Her car was still at home. Her belongings were untouched. And the woman she'd been dating wasn't who she claimed to be.

In Part 1 of our coverage of Hulu's new docuseries Swipe Right on the Devil, Tyrella and Nikita follow the investigation into Sydney's disappearance—and the extraordinary efforts of the friends and family who refused to stop lo...

Eleven felony charges. Up to 78 years in prison. Zero days behind bars.

Oklahoma teenager Jesse Mack Butler faced allegations of sexual violence that included attempted rape and strangulation. But his case ended with a very different outcome than the potential prison sentence he initially faced.

In Part 2, Tyrella and Nikita examine the case against Butler and ask a question that's much harder to answer than it sounds: When a young person commits a serious offense, how do we balance accountability with the possibility of rehabilitation?

The research on young people who commit sexual...

Six months in jail. Three months actually served. That's what former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner received after being convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious Chanel Miller.

In another case, Candon Dahle received 180 days in jail following years of sexual abuse of a child.

Different cases. Different circumstances. But both raise a question we can't stop thinking about: Why does the future of the person who committed sexual violence so often become part of the conversation about what punishment is appropriate?

In Part 1, Tyrella and Nikita revisit the Brock Turner case, Chanel Miller's powerful...

How do you prove who ordered a murder when the people behind it never directly speak to the killers?

The murder of Florida State law professor Dan Markel led investigators from two hired killers to Katherine Magbanua, Charlie Adelson, and eventually Donna Adelson. But connecting the evidence to the people accused of arranging the murder would take years, an elaborate FBI undercover operation, secretly recorded conversations, and multiple trials.

In Part 2, Tyrella and Nikita break down the FBI's infamous "bump" operation, the Dolce Vita restaurant recording, Katie Magbanua's changing testimony, and Charlie Adelson's extraordinary extortion...

Dan Markel was a Florida State University law professor and father of two when he was shot in his own garage in Tallahassee, Florida, in July 2014. What initially looked like a mysterious murder would become one of the most shocking murder-for-hire cases in Florida history.

At the center of the investigation was the wealthy Adelson family: Dan's ex-wife Wendi Adelson, her brother Charlie Adelson, and their mother Donna Adelson. As investigators followed surveillance footage, phone records, financial transactions, and a trail of connections between Miami and Tallahassee, a disturbing question emerged: Who wanted Dan Markel dead badly...

The Caleb Flynn murder trial centered on one question: who killed Ashley Flynn? Caleb Flynn said an intruder broke into their Ohio home and shot his wife while he slept—but investigators said the physical and digital evidence told a different story.

We reconstruct Caleb's account of the Ashley Flynn murder against the damaged garage door, missing 9mm handgun, Apple Watch, AirPods, 911 call and police interviews; examine the real holes in the investigation and the questions surrounding Alleigha Botner; and break down the defense closing argument, the State's rebuttal and the jury's guilty verdict.

...

Hours before Ashley Flynn was shot twice in the head in her Ohio home, her husband, Caleb Flynn, was secretly messaging his mistress, Alleigha Botner: "February 16th. Day I'll never forget." "You're about to be free." "I choose you."

We break down the Caleb Flynn affair, more than 100,000 messages between Caleb and Alleigha, their disturbing conversations about Ashley dying, and the escalating relationship that prosecutors said led to Ashley Flynn's murder.

Part 2 is available now Early and Ad-Free for Patrons!

🧵 New to This Feels Criminal? Start with The TFC Essentials—our curated collection of th...

Plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski was accused of murdering attorney Steven Cozzi, whose body has never been found. Then Kosowski made an extraordinary decision: he would represent himself in his own first-degree murder trial.

There is no body. No autopsy. No eyewitness to Steven's killing. And no definitively identified murder weapon.

So how do you prove a murder happened at all?

In Part 2 of the Tomasz Kosowski case, we follow the forensic trail prosecutors say connects Steven's blood from the law-firm bathroom to Kosowski's truck, garage and car — and the digital evidence they used to...

Florida plastic surgeon Tomasz Kosowski was locked in a bitter legal battle when attorney Steven Cozzi disappeared from his law firm — leaving behind his phone, wallet, keys, and a bathroom covered in blood.

Investigators say the man responsible was Kosowski, who had been locked in a civil lawsuit against Cozzi's clients. But what police uncovered after Steven disappeared went far beyond a courtroom grudge: surveillance footage, a suspicious wagon, a remote dumpster, more than $280,000 in cash — and what investigators described as a "murder bag" inside Kosowski's car.

Steven's body has never been found.

In P...

A fake delivery driver. A fake church member. A fake Guinness World Records rep. A fake raffle. An AI deepfake.

According to Bricks & Minifigs, these weren't just YouTube stunts—they were pieces of an alleged racketeering enterprise.

In Part 2, we dig into BAM's 95-page lawsuit against Reckless Ben, the RICO allegations, the arrests and protective order, disputed claims about police conduct, the viral "Mormon Mafia" theory, and the court order that temporarily forced Ben's videos offline.

Then, after lawsuits, millions of views and an eventual settlement, we come back to the question that st...

In an attempt to help his dad sell his valuable Star Wars LEGO collection, Bryan Mansell places them on consignment with his local Bricks & Minifigs store. The store changes hands. And somewhere along the way, a huge portion of the collection becomes impossible to account for.

Enter YouTuber Reckless Ben.

What starts as an attempt to help a family recover their LEGO quickly turns into fake businesses, undercover stunts, a fake religion, a forged "contract," small claims lawsuits, police showing up—and eventually, arrests.

But there's something millions of viewers didn't know when Be...

TW: Child Murder
Part 2 picks up exactly where we left Jessica. What happened that night — and everything she did afterward — would take her all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and raise a question most people assume they already know the answer to: do police actually have to protect you, even when you have a court order in hand?

Nikita — an attorney herself — takes us through how the Court got there, what the justices actually decided, and the reasoning behind a ruling that still shapes what we expect from police today.

Then we widen...

Jessica Gonzales did everything the system told her to do. She got a restraining order against her estranged husband. Colorado law said police had to enforce it — the word "shall" was written right into the statute.

So when her three daughters went missing on the night of June 22, 1999, Jessica called Castle Rock police. And called them again. And again — nine times over the course of ten hours, showing officers the order and telling them exactly where her husband was. Each time, she was told to wait.

This episode kicks off a new Question Arc: if we c...

By 2024, Mica Miller was leaving her marriage. She was documenting what she said was happening to her, working with an attorney, seeking legal protection—and telling friends she was afraid.

Then, on April 27, Mica called 911 from a state park in North Carolina. Hours later, she was dead.

In Part 2 of our coverage of Death of a Pastor's Wife, we walk through Mica's final weeks, the day of her death, the investigation and extraordinary aftermath.

And the question from Part 1 follows her outside the church: What happens when someone finally recognizes coercive control and as...

Mica Miller was 13 when she first met John-Paul "JP" Miller—the pastor who would eventually become her husband. Long before their relationship became romantic, JP had already become her pastor, mentor, trusted adult, and spiritual authority.

In Part 1 of our coverage of Netflix's Death of a Pastor's Wife, we trace their relationship from its beginning through the disturbing allegations about what Mica experienced behind closed doors.

But Mica's story raises a much bigger question: What happens when coercive control has the language of God behind it?

We're talking spiritual abuse, submission and "helpmate" th...

In Part 2 of our coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, we hear from Lindsay's family, the hospital chaplain who spent hundreds of hours with her after the deaths of her children, and Dr. Phillip Resnick—a nationally recognized forensic psychiatrist and expert on filicide who evaluated Lindsay and concluded she was not criminally responsible.

Then the Commonwealth calls three psychiatric experts of its own in rebuttal.

They ultimately agree with prosecutors on the question that matters most: Lindsay was criminally responsible. But getting there produces some of the most surprising testimony of the entire five-week tr...

For weeks, the Commonwealth built its case against Lindsay Clancy. But as witness after witness took the stand, some of the testimony began to complicate the story prosecutors had laid out for the jury.

In Part 1 of our coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, Tyrella walks Nikita—who hasn't been following the trial day-to-day—through the Commonwealth's case from opening statements through the end of its case-in-chief.

Lindsay does not dispute that she killed her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan. The question at the center of this trial is whether she was legally criminally resp...

For years, Duane "Keffe D" Davis publicly told versions of the story of Tupac Shakur's murder—in interviews, a documentary, and even his own memoir.

Now those statements are at the center of the prosecution's case against him.

But Keffe D's defense has a pretty unusual response: you can't believe him because he's "full of crap."

In Part 2, we break down the opening statements in Keffe D's murder trial and the dramatically different stories being presented to the jury. Prosecutors say Keffe D orchestrated Tupac's killing as retaliation for the beating of his ne...

Nearly 30 years after Tupac Shakur was shot and killed on the Las Vegas Strip, a man is finally on trial for his murder.

On September 7, 1996, Tupac and Death Row Records founder Suge Knight were leaving the Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas when a white Cadillac pulled alongside their BMW and someone opened fire. Tupac was hit four times. Six days later, he died at just 25 years old.

For decades, theories about his murder have implicated rival gangs, the East Coast–West Coast rap feud, Suge Knight, Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, and more. But the ca...

In the weeks before Lauren McCluskey was murdered, the danger wasn't invisible.

The stalking. The lies. The escalating threats. The extortion. The repeated contact after the relationship ended. Lauren reported what was happening, asked for help, and kept trying to protect herself.

So if the signs were already there, why wasn't anyone able to recognize what they meant?

In Part 2, we step back from Lauren's case to ask the bigger question we've been working toward: Can we actually tell which abusive relationships are most likely to turn deadly?

We look at...

When 21-year-old University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey ended a brief relationship, she had good reason to believe she'd caught the warning signs early.

The man she'd been dating had lied about his name, his age, and his criminal history. Lauren ended the relationship immediately.

But he didn't leave her alone.

What followed was a terrifying escalation of stalking, harassment, extortion, and repeated attempts to get help — ending less than three weeks later with Lauren's murder on the campus where she lived and went to school.

Lauren's case leaves behind an ag...

After researching dozens of studies, court decisions, and primary sources, we discovered the answer wasn't nearly as simple as we expected.

Do men receive more justice than women?

Are women taken less seriously?

Or are different myths shaping how we perceive different victims?

In Part 2, we examine what the research actually says about victim credibility, gender stereotypes, reporting, prosecution, and sentencing—and why the evidence challenged some of our own assumptions.

Because the biggest surprise wasn't whether gender matters.

It was how it matters.

A Facebook post comparing the murder of Calum Simpson to violence against women raised a question we couldn't stop thinking about:

Do we treat violence against women differently than violence against men?

At first, the answer seemed obvious.

Then we started reading the court records.

In this episode, we tell Calum Simpson's story—from the night he met two strangers to the evidence presented in court—and explain why one social media post sent us down a much bigger investigation.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series.

In P...

Michelle Hadley spent 88 days in jail waiting to stand trial.

Then the evidence changed everything.

In Part 2, we follow the digital trail that unraveled the prosecution's case and exposed an elaborate web of fake accounts, fabricated messages, and deception hiding in plain sight.

But this isn't just a story about catfishing.

It's about confirmation bias, tunnel vision, and what happens when investigators become so convinced they've found the right suspect that every new piece of evidence seems to prove they're right.

We thought this was a story about obsession.<...

When Angela Diaz tells police she's being stalked, terrorized, and targeted through a series of increasingly disturbing messages, the evidence seems to point in one direction.

Michelle Hadley.

Ian Diaz's ex-girlfriend.

But as investigators build their case, one question keeps getting harder to answer: Who is Lilith?

In Part 1, we trace the bizarre campaign of emails, fake identities, and escalating threats that convinced police they had found the person responsible. Along the way, we ask a bigger question:

How much of an investigation is driven by evidence... and how...

By the time investigators accused Rajesh and Nupur Talwar of killing their daughter Aarushi and Hemraj Banjade, the case had already moved through multiple suspects, disputed forensic evidence, and competing theories of what happened inside the family's Noida home.

In Part 2 of the Aarushi Talwar case, Tyrella and Nikita examine the evidence used against the Talwars, including the golf club and kukri theories, the forensic and investigative failures, their 2013 conviction and life sentences, and the 2017 Allahabad High Court decision that acquitted them.

How did an investigation this troubled produce a conviction? And when does following...

In 2008, 13-year-old Aarushi Talwar was found dead inside her family's home in Noida, India. Within hours, police had named the family's missing housekeeper, Hemraj Banjade, as their prime suspect. There was one enormous problem: they hadn't searched the entire property.

Tyrella and Nikita walk through the first 24 hours of the Aarushi Talwar case — the locked bedroom, the family's nightly routine, the initial crime scene investigation, the search for Hemraj, and the discovery that completely upended the police's first theory.

It's a case that raises a question at the heart of This Feels Criminal: what happens wh...

I'm launching something new: Tyrella Off the Record.

If This Feels Criminal is where we slow down, dig deep, and ask the bigger questions, Tyrella Off the Record is where I'll help you keep up with true crime as it's happening. 

Ya'll know I'm following these cases like a hawk and I figured why not talk about them with you?!?

Hearings. Trials. New filings. Breaking case developments. I'm following the cases you care about and breaking down what happened, why it matters, and what you need to know next—without requiring you to spe...

After nearly six years, Nikita Hand finally walked into a Dublin courtroom and faced Conor McGregor.

In Part 2, we break down the 12-day civil trial: Hand's testimony, McGregor's claim that their encounter was consensual, the CCTV footage the defense said undermined her story, the medical and physical evidence presented to the jury, and the strategies used to challenge Hand's credibility.

Then, after six hours and ten minutes of deliberation, the jury returned its verdict.

We follow what happened next—including the damages awarded, McGregor's appeals, and what the case says about the way se...

In 2018, Nikita Hand accused Conor McGregor of raping her in a Dublin hotel. Prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges—but six years later, Hand took McGregor to civil court.

The medical evidence documented extensive injuries. McGregor's DNA placed him at the scene. But prosecutors ultimately declined to bring criminal charges. Nikita Hand didn't stop there.

In Part 1, we walk through what happened that day according to the evidence and testimony, the aftermath of the alleged assault, the decision not to prosecute, and the years-long road to a civil courtroom—including the terrifying attack at Hand's home...

The same week Karen Read's lawsuit went public, the man at the center of it tried to avoid testifying. A month later, a furious judge accused someone of leaking his sealed medical information to the internet — ordered 32 attorneys to certify under oath they weren't responsible, and stopped just short of a gag order.

Then Read's own team fired back, arguing the entire premise was wrong.

This episode: the deposition wars playing out across three separate lawsuits, a retired lieutenant's failed fight to avoid his own subpoena, a young witness caught between a court order and Ar...

Karen Read walked out of her second trial acquitted. Weeks later, she filed a lawsuit that isn't about whether she killed John O'Keefe — it's about the two police departments that investigated her, and what they knew about the men running that investigation before they ever put them on the case.

This episode: the 87-page complaint Read filed against Massachusetts State Police and the Town of Canton, the decade of texts from lead investigator Michael Proctor and Canton Sergeant Sean Goode that the lawsuit calls a "cesspool of abject hatred," and the separate federal complaint — quietly incorporated into this...

"I did not kill the president. The doctors did. I merely shot him." That was Charles Guiteau's defense.

In 1881, a failed lawyer and preacher convinced himself he'd single-handedly won James Garfield the presidency — and that the president now owed him a job. When the reward never came, he decided Garfield had to die. In Part 2 of Founding Felons Week, Tyrella and Nikita get into who Guiteau really was and how he got there: the Oneida free-love commune that rejected him, his pattern of latching onto powerful men and then turning on them, the ten-week media circus of a...

Founding Felons is back! A bullet put President James Garfield on the floor of a train station in 1881 — but it wasn't the bullet that killed him.

In Part 1 of Founding Felons Week, Tyrella and Nikita trace the unlikely life of James A. Garfield: the dirt-poor Ohio farm boy who couldn't swim but dreamed of being a sailor, and the self-taught general who went on to win the closest popular-vote election in U.S. history. Four months into his presidency, he was shot at a Washington train station — and then handed over to his doctors.

We get...

After the guilty verdict, most people wait quietly. Taylor Parker wrote a confession to the murder — and signed it as someone else.

Part 2 is the half the Netflix documentary Maternal Instinct never showed. After she was convicted of capital murder, Taylor Parker ran a months-long jailhouse operation to frame other people for the killing of Reagan Simmons-Hancock — forged confessions, fabricated co-conspirators, the works. Then came the penalty phase and one question: was Taylor Parker calculating, or was she sick? Tyrella and Nikita break down the dueling experts, the 2022 death sentence that landed her on Texas death row, the...