Scams, Money, & Murder

On the day before Thanksgiving, 1971, a man named D.B. Cooper walked up to an airport counter, paid cash for a one-way ticket, and boarded a commercial flight. By the time the plane landed, he had collected $200,000 in ransom, strapped it to his body, and jumped out the back of a jet. No one has seen him since.

In the first of three episodes on D.B. Cooper, Katie Ring takes you back to November 24th, 1971: who this man was, how he pulled off one of the most audacious crimes in aviation history, and what the evidence...

In early 1970s Houston, Texas, businessman Dean Corll used free candy, a party-ready apartment, and a carefully cultivated reputation as a community pillar to lure teenage boys to their deaths. But behind his friendly facade, Corll was systematically grooming victims... and recruiting young accomplices to help him carry out increasingly brutal crimes. This episode traces his childhood, his escalating predatory behavior, and the first chapter of a murder spree that would claim dozens of lives.

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An actor known for his vulnerability was attacked near his home. The crime shocked Hollywood. His death marked the end of a complex life.

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Crime House’s Murder: True Crime Stories presents a special series for America’s 250th Birthday: The Crimes That Built America. Listen every Monday until July 6th on Murder: True Crime Stories. Join Crime House+ to get all 4 episodes right now ad-free. To subscribe, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.

250 years ago, a brand-new country declared its independence, and in the centuries since, some of the worst crimes this country has ever seen reshaped America. Four murders. Four turning points. The crime...

In April 2014, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two Dutch women in their early twenties, went for a daytime hike on a trail near Boquete, Panama. They never came back. Weeks later, their backpack was found on a jungle riverbank with their phones, camera, and cash still inside. What was on that camera changed everything: photographs taken in total darkness over several days, including what appears to be an SOS signal and one photo that had been deliberately deleted. Partial remains found months later were scattered miles from where their distress calls began and the official verdict of accidental death...

In the mid-1800s, a British naturalist named Philip Sclater proposed the existence of a vast sunken continent — Lemuria — to explain a gap in the fossil record. What began as a genuine scientific hypothesis was seized upon by occultists, racists, and spiritual movements, mutating over 150 years into a living religion practiced at the foot of a California volcano. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson traces how one man's theory about lemur fossils became the foundation for a conspiracy touching Atlantis, Theosophy, Nazism, and the New Age.

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What began as a series of tweets about sleep paralysis turned into one of the internet’s most famous live-haunting stories. A man named Adam begins posting about a dead child with a misshapen head who appears first in dreams, then in photographs, then seemingly inside his apartment. Heidi walks through the Dear David thread as it unfolded in real time, and explores why serialized horror told through social media can make fiction feel more intimate — and more believable — than almost anything else online.

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From the outside, the Watts family had everything: a beautiful home in Colorado, two young daughters, and a social media presence full of smiling family photos. Behind those posts, their marriage was quietly falling apart.

In the first of three episodes on the Watts family murders, Katie Ring traces who Shanann Watts really was, how she and Chris built their life together, and the huge secret Chris was keeping from her. This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, murder, and violence against children. Please listen with care.

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In 1930s Elmendorf, Texas, tavern owner Joe Ball built a reputation for wild alligator feedings and a revolving door of female employees who kept disappearing without explanation. Reportedly a descendant of notorious slaveholders, Ball graduated from bootlegger to killer, and when the women in his life became inconvenient, they simply vanished.

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A student studying abroad was found murdered in her apartment. The case became international news overnight. Her life was frequently eclipsed by spectacle.

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If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Stud...

In the summer of 1969, Los Angeles was living in the long glow of the counterculture — until two nights of murders shattered it beyond repair. Charles Manson never held the knife himself, but he held something more powerful: the total psychological devotion of young men and women who would kill on his word. We examine how Manson built his family, what he promised them, the ideology of race war he called Helter Skelter, and the murders of Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, and five others that made the whole country lock its doors. Fifty years on, we ask what made Manson po...

In August 2010, 30-year-old Ben McDaniel suited up for a dive into Vortex Spring, a celebrated cave diving site in Florida, and descended into a narrow underwater passage. He never returned. One of the employees claimed to have watched Ben enter a restricted section of the cave, a passage that required advanced certification that Ben didn't have. Despite exhaustive underwater searches, his body was never recovered. Some believe Ben orchestrated his own disappearance. Others suspect he's still down there. But the cave may hold secrets that will never surface.

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In southeastern Massachusetts, a stretch of land known as the Bridgewater Triangle has been a magnet for paranormal activity for centuries: cryptid sightings, UFO encounters, ghostly apparitions, and evidence of occult rituals. Many trace the darkness back to King Philip's War of 1675-76, one of the deadliest conflicts per capita in American history, which left the land scarred by massacre, displacement, and loss. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the history, the hauntings, and whether the Triangle's strange reputation is rooted in something real or something we need to believe. With archaeological sites...

In the summer of 2012, a teenager's camping trip on remote Alabama woodland turns into something no one can explain. What begins with strange smells and figures standing motionless in the dark escalates when the group realizes there's an extra person in their group... without anyone noticing. The horror isn't a monster in the woods. It's a creature already inside the room.

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On the night of November 14th, 1959, four members of the Clutter family were bound and shot dead in their farmhouse in Holcomb, Kansas. Nothing of value had been stolen. The doors, as always, had been unlocked.

In the first of three episodes on the Clutter family murders, Katie Ring traces who the Clutters really were, and the morning when friends and neighbors arrived for church and found them gone. This is the case that changed how America thinks about small-town safety, and inspired one of the most famous books ever written.

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Richard Kuklinski grew up in the violent housing projects of Jersey City, New Jersey, where abuse at home and relentless bullying on the streets hardened him into a killer before he turned 15. By his mid-twenties, he had leveraged his capacity for cold-blooded violence into a career as a trusted hitman for the Gambino crime family under Brooklyn mob boss Roy DeMeo. This episode traces how Kuklinski's early trauma, unchecked rage, and hunger for control drove him deeper into organized crime... and closer to his own undoing.

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A rising athlete was shot in a friend’s home. Her achievements were overshadowed by violence. The case exposed how rivalry can escalate fatally.

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Rod Ferrell led a group of teenagers who believed they were vampires, blending goth subculture with authoritarian devotion. In 1996, Ferrell and an accomplice murdered the parents of one member in a violent attempt to cement control. The case demonstrates how identity fantasy combined with cult hierarchy can culminate in real-world homicide.

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On September 12, 1987, 50-year-old night watchman Dale Kerstetter clocked in at Corning Glass Works in Bradford, Pennsylvania and was never seen again. Surveillance footage captured him calmly walking off-camera beside a masked intruder, pausing only to look directly into the lens. When the masked man reappeared hours later, he dragged a large bag from the building and left with $220,000 worth of platinum. Thirty-five years later, investigators still don't know whether Dale was a victim or a willing accomplice.

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In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a covert coup that removed Guatemala's democratically elected president, Jacobo Árbenz, at the behest of Cold War anxieties and the United Fruit Company's political influence. What looked like a communist threat to Washington was, in reality, a land reform program that dared to challenge American corporate power in Central America. In this episode, Vanessa untangles how Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes intersect in Operation PBSUCCESS — a blueprint for covert intervention whose consequences destabilized the region for decades.

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In the summer of 2008, two-year-old Caylee Anthony vanished, and her mother Casey didn't report her missing for thirty-one days. In that time, she got a tattoo, went to nightclubs, and stayed at her boyfriend's apartment. When Casey's car turned up at a tow yard, a former police officer recognized the smell coming from the trunk. He was Caylee's grandfather. He said nothing.

In the first of three episodes on the death of Caylee Anthony, Katie Ring traces the Anthony family, the tensions that had been building for years, and the elaborate web of lies that unraveled...

Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined by Katie Ring, host of the Crime House Original America's Most Infamous Crimes to discuss the crimes of the "Ypsilanti Ripper." In the late 1960s, Eastern Michigan University students Mary Fleszar and Joan Schell were brutally murdered by someone hiding in plain sight: their charming, honor-roll neighbor John Norman Collins. Despite a witness placing Collins with one victim and a description matching his car, he talked his way out of police scrutiny and continued killing. This episode examines Collins's violent childhood, his escalating crimes, and the psychological unraveling behind his all-American facade.

In March 1998, 23-year-old Amy Bradley boarded a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with her family — and vanished without a trace three days into the voyage. When her father checked the balcony at dawn, her shoes and shirt were still in the cabin, but Amy was gone. In Part 1 of Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy traces Amy's life in Virginia, the night she disappeared, and the investigation that quickly stalled in international waters.

For part 2 of this story, follow Murder: True Crime Stories wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1745145932

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In 2005, a married factory worker reinvented himself online, and fell hard for a girl he’d never met. When “Tommy,” “Jessi,” and a coworker named Brian became tangled in a toxic digital love triangle, jealousy exploded into real-world violence. Sabrina and Corinne uncover the TalHotBlond case, where fantasy blurred into obsession… and one lie led to another until a man wound up dead.

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In August 2021, 25-year-old Illinois State University graduate student Jelani Day was last seen leaving a dispensary in Bloomington-Normal, far from his apartment and with no clear reason to be there. His car was found abandoned miles away. Weeks later, his unclothed body was recovered from the Illinois River. The coroner ruled accidental drowning, but his mother refused to accept that answer. She launched a relentless public campaign that put a spotlight on how missing Black men are treated by investigators and the media. How did a focused, driven graduate student end up in a river with no explanation? 

In 1892, as tuberculosis ravaged the small town of Exeter, Rhode Island, a grieving family made a desperate decision: they exhumed the body of 19-year-old Mercy Brown, convinced the dead were feeding on the living. What followed became one of the most well-known cases of vampire hysteria in American history, a moment when fear and superstition filled the gaps that medicine could not. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson explores the Mercy Brown case, the tuberculosis panic that fueled it, and how grief can turn a community toward the unthinkable. How far will people go...

Three of the internet's most notorious lost media creepypastas take aim at SpongeBob SquarePants, The Simpsons, and classic Disney — spinning tales of hidden episodes so disturbing they were allegedly buried and erased forever. What makes these stories so unsettling isn't gore alone, but the way they corrupt the cartoons millions grew up trusting. This episode explores why lost media horror hits differently than any other kind of scary story.

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Before Aileen Wuornos became one of America's most feared serial killers, she was a 13-year-old girl who was assaulted and impregnated by a stranger, gave birth completely alone, and came home to a family that blamed her.

In the first of three episodes on Aileen Wuornos, Katie Ring traces the story of a woman the world expected to be a victim, and how a lifetime of abandonment, abuse, and betrayal set her on a path no one tried to redirect. From a childhood in Michigan to the Florida highways where it all came to an end...

Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined by Dr. Harini Bhat from PAVE Studio's newest show "Hidden History" as they discuss the "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory, a 16th and 17th-century noblewoman who used her vast wealth, noble status, and unchecked power to torture and murder hundreds of young girls within the walls of her castle. Raised amid war, public executions, and a family that weaponized cruelty, Bathory built an inner circle of accomplices who helped her kill with near-total impunity. When whispers of her crimes finally reached the clergy, she devised increasingly bold schemes to hide the evidence... until her...

In October 1974, 19-year-old Arlis Perry stepped inside Stanford University's memorial church late one Saturday night to pray after an argument with her husband — and never came out. When a security guard found her body the next morning, detectives encountered one of the most disturbing crime scenes they had ever seen, with evidence suggesting the killing was deliberate, ritualistic, and deeply personal. In Part 1 of Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy traces Arlis's life in small-town North Dakota, her whirlwind move to California, and the investigation that quickly ran cold.

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In this episode of Crimes Of... Sabrina and Corinne unpack the disturbing and deeply complex case of Susan Polk—a woman who married her own therapist and, decades later, killed him. What begins as a troubling story of blurred boundaries and unethical behavior evolves into a marriage defined by power imbalances, emotional control, and escalating instability. Rather than asking whether Susan killed her husband—because she did—this episode examines how a relationship rooted in grooming and manipulation shaped the path to violence. Through a careful exploration of Susan’s life, her marriage to Dr. Felix Polk, and the dynamics...

In the summer of 2016, 20-year-old Kristal Anne Reisinger vanished from a remote Colorado gathering in the wilderness, leaving behind her young daughter. Those who knew her described a young mother navigating addiction and drawn to alternative spiritual communities. When her remains were eventually recovered years later in a remote canyon, they raised more questions than answers. Her case sits at the intersection of countercultural silence, rural law enforcement limitations, and a daughter still searching for what happened to her mother.

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In November 2022, four University of Idaho students, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. The suspect, Bryan Kohberger, was a PhD criminology student who had been circling their house for months and who pled guilty without ever explaining why. In this episode of Conspiracy Theories, Cults, and Crimes, Vanessa Richardson examines the evidence, the investigation that led to Kohberger's arrest, and the unanswered questions that still surround the case. When a killer offers no motive, what does justice really look like for the families left behind?<...

What if something was following you……and it never stopped?

It doesn’t run.

It doesn’t rush.

It just keeps walking.

This episode explores the real-world fears behind one of the most unsettling horror concepts in modern film, from the AIDS epidemic to economic collapse to the psychological terror of invisible threats.

Because sometimes the scariest thing isn’t what you can see. It’s what you can’t escape.

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On a single night in 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol. They didn't know each other, they weren't targeted, and the killer never had to get close to a single one of them.

In the first of three episodes on the Tylenol murders, Katie Ring takes you back to the night it began: the Janus family, struck down one by one in their own home; the twelve-year-old who took two pills for a sore throat and never came back downstairs; and the flight attendant who stopped at a Walgreens on her way home...

Ever since he was a child, Adolfo Constanzo was raised to believe he was special. And by his twenties, he'd built a cult in Mexico City fueled by black magic, psychic manipulation, and blind devotion. Join Vanessa and Dr. Engels as they trace Adolfo's path from childhood rituals and revenge spells to his terrifying alliance with Mexican drug cartels, where protection spells masked cold-blooded murder and human sacrifice.

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In 1897, 23-year-old Zona Heaster Shue was found dead in her rural West Virginia home, and the doctor quickly ruled it natural causes — but her new husband's suspicious behavior and a history of violence told a different story. In Part 1 of Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy traces Zona's life, her whirlwind marriage to the charming but dangerous Edward Shue, and the events of the cold January afternoon she was found at the foot of her stairs.

For part 2 of this story, follow Murder: True Crime Stories wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1745145932

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In one of the strangest and stickiest white-collar crimes ever committed, a group of Quebec thieves siphoned off nearly 3,000 tons of maple syrup—worth over $18 million—from the Global Strategic Maple Reserve, an actual government-run stockpile meant to stabilize syrup prices.

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In October 1981, 17-year-old Kurt Sova stepped outside a Halloween party in Cleveland to get some fresh air while his friend ran back in for their jackets. By the time that friend returned two minutes later, Kurt was gone. Five days later, his body was found in a nearby ravine, posed with his arms outstretched and both shoes missing, with no clear cause of death. Decades later, the police department that botched the investigation has been exposed for corruption.

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Dr. Harini Bhat is a clinical pharmacist and storyteller obsessed with the moments in history that still can't be fully explained. Every week she investigates real events that defy easy explanation. Mass hysterias. Vanished civilizations. Medical oddities. Strange signals. Unexplained phenomena that keep repeating across centuries, as if history is trying to tell us something.

Hidden History doesn't dismiss ancient events as myth or superstition. It treats them as open case files, shaped by the limits of knowledge, technology, and record-keeping. Because the unknown isn't a failure of explanation. It's a constant in human experience, one that...