Bloody Angola: A Podcast by Jim Chapman

Standing barely over five feet tall and weighing around 130 pounds, Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins looked nothing like the monster he was. Nicknamed for his small stature, the South Carolina native became one of the state’s most prolific and sadistic serial killers—known in some circles as the “Meanest Man in America” or the “Redneck Charles Manson.”

From the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, Gaskins distinguished between what he called his “coastal kills” (random hitchhikers and strangers he tortured for pleasure) and his “serious murders” (people he knew: friends, associates, and even family). Among the confirmed victims were his own 15...

In this Halloween episode, Jim revisits haunted prisons and jails, discussing their histories and reports of unexplained voices, footsteps, apparitions, and other activity. We then recount several murders and deaths associated with Halloween, including both solved cases and unsolved killings.

Timestamps:
02:37 Yuma Territorial Prison’s Dark Cell
07:45 Charleston’s Infamous Old City Jail
13:09 Missouri’s Haunted Prison Walls
15:45 Butch Cassidy’s Wyoming Prison
18:00 West Virginia Penitentiary Hauntings
20:44 Dillinger’s Escape from Lake County Jail
29:32 Murders Committed on Halloween Night
29:48 A Halloween Night Killing in Napa
37:37 The Hallow...

Gary Mark Gilmore committed two cold-blooded murders by robbing Max Jensen, a young gas-station attendant and BYU student in Orem, ordered him to the floor, and shot him twice in the head—reportedly saying one bullet was “for me” and the other “for Nicole.” The next evening he did it again, killing motel manager Bennie Bushnell in Provo under nearly identical circumstances.

Timestamps:
04:58 A Family Built on Lies and Violence
11:12 Prison Becomes Gary’s Home
18:40 Two Young Fathers, Two Brutal Robberies
24:30 Conviction—and a Death Sentence
29:06 A Mother, the AC...

At Louisiana State Penitentary at Angola, 48 incarcerated fathers spent time with their sons through fishing, games, boat rides and conversation as part of an outreach program focusing on building stronger relationships between incarcerated fathers and sons, how did they do it, and what is the impact of an event like this?  Jim Chapman brings you behind the wire and onto a 400 acre lake in this episode.

Timestamps:
01:41 Angola’s Father-Son Fishing Day
03:25 Lake Killarney’s Storied Past
04:49 Reuniting Fathers and Sons
08:28 First Meetings and Family Stories 1
1:27 Incarceration’s Generational Impact<...

Thomas Randolph called 911 on the night of May 8, 2008, from his Las Vegas home with a chilling story: he and his sixth wife, Sharon Causse, had just returned from a date when a masked intruder shot her in the head. Randolph claimed he then killed the intruder in self-defense. The dead man turned out to be Michael Miller, a handyman Randolph knew. Investigators quickly saw problems with the scene and the story.

Prosecutors later argued Randolph had hired Miller to kill Sharon so he could collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance, then shot Miller...

In this episode Jim Chapman examines the crime, conviction, and eventual failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike in Tennessee after being convicted in the murder of Colleen Slemmer.

Timestamps
01:45 Failed Execution Shock
02:58 Job Corps Background
10:33 Krista Pike Emerges
20:11 Clues on Campus
26:31 Pike Confesses
30:05 Death Sentence Handed Down
32:11 New Execution Date Set
34:15 Medical Issues Raised
36:21 Execution Goes Wrong

Patreon Link
https://www.patron.com/bloodyangolapodcast

In this episode Jim Chapman brings you to Alaska and tells you the story of Israel Keyes. Jim covers the disappearance of Samantha Koenig in Anchorage in 2012 and the investigation that followed, including the ransom scheme and the evidence later linked to him. Jim also dives deep into Keyes  background, military service, and adult life, along with the violent behavior and confessions that shaped the case. 

Timestamps
05:12 Wilderness to Extremism
10:38 Soldiers See the Rage
20:05 Samantha Koenig’s Last Night
26:43 Ransom Scheme Unravels
30:13 Murder and Body Disposal
39:14 Conf...

On the afternoon of November 21, 2021, downtown Waukesha, Wisconsin, was packed for the city’s annual Christmas parade. Kids in baseball uniforms. Bank employees handing out candy. The Milwaukee Dancing Grannies in sequins and pompoms. Then a red Ford Escape came down the route and did not stop.

In the span of a few blocks, Darrell Edward Brooks Jr. struck dozens of people. Six were killed. More than sixty were injured. The dead ranged from 8-year-old Jackson Sparks, marching with his brother and the Waukesha Blazers, to 81-year-old Wilhelm Hospel, walking with the dance group his wife be...

In 2008, a young man from Chillicothe, Ohio, slit his girlfriend’s mother’s throat, sat on the couch, and watched her die—then set the apartment on fire. He called himself “Box Cutter.” Prosecutors wanted death. A psychologist’s finding about his IQ took it off the table. He went to prison for life. That should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t.

In February 2016, Casey Pigge carved a cinder block out of his cell wall at Lebanon Correctional Institution, talked his cellmate into a “card trick,” and beat Luther Wade to death. He later said he wanted a c...

On November 15, 2017, 24-year-old Sydney Loofe left her Lincoln apartment excited for a second Tinder date. She posted a Snapchat: “Ready for my date.” She never came home.The woman she matched with was Bailey Boswell.
Sydney didn’t know Boswell lived with older boyfriend Aubrey Trail — a career criminal prosecutors said was already looking for someone to kill. Boswell lured Sydney to a basement apartment in Wilber. There she was strangled with an extension cord, cut into 14 pieces, stuffed into trash bags, and dumped along rural roads. For three...

In January 1958, a 19-year-old high school dropout from Lincoln, Nebraska named Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate went on a murder spree that left eleven people dead across Nebraska and Wyoming. 

Starkweather, who idolized James Dean and styled himself as a rebellious outsider, and Fugate, who claimed she was a hostage, left a trail of bodies that included a teenage couple, a wealthy industrialist and his wife, a traveling salesman, and a young couple in Wyoming. The killings were brutal, impulsive, and seemingly without clear motive beyond rage, alienation, and a twisted desire f...

Part 2 of a 2 Part Series
For more than three decades, Wichita, Kansas lived under the shadow of a killer who named himself. He called himself BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—and he made sure the police and the public never forgot it. Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader murdered at least ten people, often in their own homes, binding them, torturing them, and strangling or suffocating them while living a completely ordinary suburban life.
This episode traces the full arc of the BTK case: the brutal first murders of the Otero family in 1974, the y...

Part 1 of a 2 Part Series
For more than three decades, Wichita, Kansas lived under the shadow of a killer who named himself. He called himself BTK—Bind, Torture, Kill—and he made sure the police and the public never forgot it. Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader murdered at least ten people, often in their own homes, binding them, torturing them, and strangling or suffocating them while living a completely ordinary suburban life.
This episode traces the full arc of the BTK case: the brutal first murders of the Otero family in 1974, the y...

“The Craigslist Killer”
In October 2007, 24-year-old Katherine Ann Olson, a bright theater and Hispanic studies graduate from St. Olaf College, responded to what seemed like a straightforward babysitting job posting on Craigslist. She arrived at a home in Savage, Minnesota, expecting to care for a child.
Instead, she walked into a nightmare. This episode dives deep into the chilling case of Michael John Anderson, the 19-year-old who posed as "Amy" online to lure his victim. What started as a seemingly random ad quickly unraveled into a premeditated murder driven by a dist...

Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old University of Iowa student was home for the summer, working, running regularly, and spending time with family and her boyfriend when she disappeared on the evening of July 18, 2018, triggering a large search by family, volunteers, and law enforcement. The  evidence  led investigators to Cristhian Bahena Rivera, including surveillance video of his vehicle following Molly and his eventual statements to police. He led investigators to her body in a cornfield, and the autopsy ruled her death a homicide caused by multiple sharp force injuries.

Join Bloody Angola on Patreon for Commercial Fr...

In the quiet rural community of Appomattox, Virginia, a horrifying family dispute erupted into one of the deadliest mass shootings in the state's history. On January 19, 2010, 40-year-old Christopher Bryan Speight went on a brutal rampage, methodically gunning down eight people—including his own sister, her husband, their two young children, and several neighbors—before fleeing into the surrounding woods. What started as a conflict over the family home quickly spiraled into unthinkable violence.

Speight not only slaughtered his relatives but also shot at a Virginia State Police helicopter during a massive manhunt, forcing it to make an e...

In the early morning hours of January 7, 2012, beloved Sidney High School math teacher Sherry Arnold laced up her running shoes for a routine jog through her quiet Montana neighborhood. She never came home. What began as a desperate search for a missing wife, mother, and pillar of the community quickly spiraled into one of the most shocking crimes in northeast Montana’s history.

Two men from Colorado — Lester Waters and a young Michael Spell — had driven to the region chasing oilfield work during the height of the Ba...

Part 4 of a 4 part series
Jim Chapman brings you into the shadows of one of America’s most notorious serial killers: Ted Bundy.
This episode covers Bundy’s Florida trials, including the Chi Omega and Kimberly Leach cases, both ending in death sentences. It also follows his time on death row, marriage, daughter, final interview, and execution.

Behind the handsome face, law-school smile, and easy charm lurked a predator who terrorized the United States from 1974-1978. From his first known murders in Washington state to his cross...

Part 3 of a 4 part series
Jim Chapman brings you into the shadows of one of America’s most notorious serial killers: 
Ted Bundy.

This episode covers Bundy’s 1975 attacks and murders in Colorado and Utah, his 1977 multiple escapes, the Chi Omega attack in Tallahassee, and the abduction and murder of Kimberly Leach just prior to his final capture in Florida.

Behind the handsome face, law-school smile, and easy charm lurked a predator who terrorized the United States from 1974-1978. From his first known murders in Wa...

Part 2 of a 4 part series
Jim Chapman brings you into the shadows of one of America’s most notorious serial killers: Ted Bundy. Behind the handsome face, law-school smile, and easy charm lurked a predator who terrorized the United States from 1974-1978. From his first known murders in Washington state to his cross-country killing spree, daring prison escapes, and final rampage in Florida, Bundy left behind a trail of at least thirty confirmed victims— young women who never stood a chance against his calculated manipulation.

Jim examines how a seemingly ordinary man u...

Part 1 of a 4 part series
Jim Chapman brings you into the shadows of one of America’s most notorious serial killers: Ted Bundy. Behind the handsome face, law-school smile, and easy charm lurked a predator who terrorized the United States from 1974-1978.

From his first known murders in Washington state to his cross-country killing spree, daring prison escapes, and final rampage in Florida, Bundy left behind a trail of at least thirty confirmed victims— young women who never stood a chance against his calculated manipulation. Jim examines how a seemingly ordinary man u...

In the summer of 1969, a ragtag group of runaways and outcasts living in the California desert unleashed one of the most shocking crime sprees in American history. At the center of it all was Charles Manson—a failed musician with a magnetic personality and a deadly vision. In this episode, we dive deep into the twisted world of the Manson Family: how a small-time criminal became the self-proclaimed messiah of a doomsday cult, how he used sex, drugs, and the Beatles’ White Album to brainwash his followers, and how his apocalyptic race-war prophecy known as “Helter Skelter” led to t...

In this episode of "50 Shades of Evil" Jim Chapman brings you to Massachusetts to tell the story of "Freddy" Geas who after being sentenced to life in prison, killed infamous Boston mobster "Whitey" Bulger.

Part 2 of a 2 part series: In July 2017, the peaceful suburbs of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, were rocked by a string of disappearances that quickly turned into one of the most disturbing murder cases in recent American history. Over the course of just three days, four young men—Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Thomas Meo, and Mark Sturgis—vanished after heading out to what they believed were routine marijuana deals. They never came home. What they walked into was a nightmare orchestrated by 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo and his cousin Sean Kratz. Lured to the DiNardo fami...

Part One
In July 2017, the peaceful suburbs of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, were rocked by a string of disappearances that quickly turned into one of the most disturbing murder cases in recent American history. Over the course of just three days, four young men—Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Thomas Meo, and Mark Sturgis—vanished after heading out to what they believed were routine marijuana deals. They never came home. What they walked into was a nightmare orchestrated by 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo and his cousin Sean Kratz.
Lured to the DiNardo family’s sprawling farm in Solebur...

Between 1993 and 1995, a small rural hospital in Clinton, Indiana, experienced a horrifying spike in ICU deaths. The mortality rate tripled almost overnight, with elderly patients suddenly coding and dying at an alarming pace. Every victim had one thing in common: licensed practical nurse Orville Lynn Majors was present. Admired by colleagues and trusted by families, Orville Lynn Majors was the last person anyone would suspect. But a painstaking investigation revealed a terrifying pattern. He had been injecting vulnerable patients with lethal doses of potassium chloride and epinephrine, stopping their hearts within seconds. Ultimately convicted of six murders and...

Rocky Ali Beamon—better known as the “Vigalante Killer.” Already serving a life sentence for the 2005 kidnapping, robbery, and brutal drowning murder of Deborah Lacey (carried out with his girlfriend Karen Wilkins to fuel a crack cocaine binge), Beamon wasn’t done killing.
Behind the walls of Florida state prisons, he became a self-appointed vigilante, hunting down convicted sex offenders with cold, calculated precision. In 2012, at Apalachee Correctional Institution, he stalked fellow inmate Bruce Hunsicker—a registered sex offender—before savagely stabbing and strangling him in the shower.
Five years later, at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution, he murdered...

On March 11, 2005, Brian Gene Nichols was sitting in a Fulton County Courthouse holding cell in Atlanta, Georgia, awaiting trial on SA charges. What happened next became one of the most shocking courthouse attacks in American history.

In a matter of minutes, Nichols overpowered his deputy escort, seized her weapon, and stormed the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes. He murdered the judge and court reporter Julie Brandau in cold blood. As he fled the building, he gunned down Sheriff’s Deputy Hoyt Teasley. Hours later, during a desperate manhunt that shut down the city, Nichols ki...

On July 20, 2012, a packed midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at the Century 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, turned into one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history. Dressed in tactical gear and heavily armed, 24-year-old James Holmes known as the “Colorado Theatre Shooter” opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others in a matter of minutes.

Once a high-achieving neuroscience PhD student at the University of Colorado, Holmes had meticulously planned the attack for months—rigging his apartment with explosives, stockpiling weapons and ammunition, and even alerting authorities to his booby-trapped home before surren...

“Clifton Bloomfield” AKA the “Breaking Bad Killer” was Born in Arizona in 1969 with a violent criminal past that landed him in prison as a teenager, Bloomfield was released in 2002 and reinvented himself in New Mexico as a roofer… and a movie extra. He walked the sets of the prison drama Felon and even auditioned during the early days of Breaking Bad. But behind the camera, this career criminal was quietly hunting.

Between 2005 and 2008, Bloomfield slaughtered five innocent people in their own homes: 37-year-old Carlos Esquibel, strangled after a chance encounter; 81-year-old...

“Alejandro “Alex” Henriquez” also known as the “The Bronx Serial Killer” was a former cab driver in South Bronx, NY convicted in the murder of (3) young hispanic females in the early 1990’s. Convicted mostly on circumstantial evidence, Henriquez to this very day denies any connection to the murders. 

“50 Shades of Evil” is a podcast series brought to you by “Bloody Angola Podcast”.

Chapters
03:58 The Early Years of Deception
07:30 A Dark Turn in the 1980s
09:39 The Disappearance of Shamira Bello
11:05 The Tragic Case of Jessica Guzman
13:17 The S...

“Grant Hardin” also known as the “Devil In The Ozarks” was a former police chief who in 2017 was convicted in the murder of a political rival in a small town in Arkansas. Upon his arrest and submission of Hardin’s DNA to CODIS, he was discovered to have been the assailant in a brutal SA of a teacher in her classroom a decade prior to his murder conviction. The aptly named “Devil in the Ozarks” was finally behind bars but a dramatic escape and subsequent manhunt in 2025 would put the entire state of Arkansas once again in fear and on alert!<...

“Bruce Mendenhall” also known as the “Truck Stop Killer” left a trail of terror throughout the state of Tennessee as well as at least 5 other states in the mid 2000’s while targeting truck stop sex workers in the course of his job as a long haul truck driver.
In 2007 Mendenhall was arrested at a truck stop by legendary Nashville homicide detective Pat Postiglione, likely in the act of targeting another victim. This arrest would lead to a confession of six murders although Mendenhall is suspected in many more throughout the United States.

“50 Shades of Evil” is a podcast s...

“Westley Devone Harris” was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of (6) members of his girlfriend’s family in rural Crenshaw County, Alabama. What started out as a romance with a 14 year old girl turned into a massacre at the Ball Family Farm when Harris was ran off of the farm after is constant abuse of his girlfriend led the fame members to take action. What happened next would solidify him as one of Alabama’s most dangerous and notorious inmates.

“50 Shades of Evil” is a podcast series brought to you by “Bloody Angola Podcast”.

Ch...