10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

From Best Friend to Murder: The Missy Avila Story

In October 1985, 17-year-old Michele "Missy" Avila was found murdered in Big Tujunga Creek in the Angeles National Forest near Los Angeles, her body submerged under a 100-pound log. The homicide investigation revealed a brutal case of premeditated murder involving two of Missy's childhood friends, Karen Severson and Laura Doyle, who were later convicted of second-degree murder. What followed was one of the most disturbing cases of criminal deception in true crime history.

This is a story about friendship gone toxic, jealousy that turned deadly, and a betrayal...

Mississippi's Most Controversial Murder Trial: The Jessica Chambers Case

On December 6, 2014, Jessica Chambers, a 19-year-old from Courtland, Mississippi, was found burned over 93% of her body in a murder investigation that would grip the nation. The homicide case against suspect Quinton Tellis resulted in two hung juries, as forensic evidence, cell phone data, and witness testimony collided with the victim's dying words. First responders heard Jessica name her attacker before she died, but the name she spoke wasn't Quinton.

This case has everything that makes true crime both fascinating and frustrating. You've got a victim who fought...

The Babysitter Who Knew Too Much: Kimberly Cargill Capital Murder

Kimberly Cargill murdered Cherry Walker in Whitehouse, Texas on June 18, 2010 to prevent the mentally challenged babysitter from testifying at a child custody hearing. The Smith County investigation revealed Walker died from asphyxiation, her partially burned body discovered on Oscar Burkett Road. Cargill was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection in 2012 after prosecutors presented forensic evidence including DNA found on Burger King coffee creamers at the crime scene.

This case gets wild because here's a woman who's already lost custody of two...

The Fake Pregnancy That Led to Murder: Taylor Parker's Deadly Deception

Taylor Parker murdered Reagan Simmons-Hancock in New Boston, Texas on October 9, 2020, brutally attacking the 21-year-old pregnant woman and cutting her unborn baby from her womb. The homicide investigation revealed Parker had spent ten months faking her own pregnancy through elaborate deception, including staged ultrasounds and a gender reveal party. The capital murder trial centered on whether baby Braxlynn Sage Hancock was born alive, a legal question that would determine if prosecutors could pursue the death penalty. Forensic evidence and medical testimony became crucial as detectives uncovered Parker's...

Bloody Bill Anderson: The Civil War Guerrilla Who Created Jesse James

William T. Anderson, known as "Bloody Bill," was a Confederate guerrilla fighter who terrorized Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War, becoming one of the most brutal figures in American history. The Centralia Massacre of September 1864 saw Anderson and his men execute 22 unarmed Union soldiers and kill 123 more in the subsequent battle, marking one of the highest casualty rates of the entire war. His guerrilla band included a 16-year-old Jesse James, who witnessed Anderson's systematic violence firsthand.

This is the story of how a frontier...

Burned and Flushed: The Dennis Nilsen Serial Killer Case

Dennis Nilsen murdered at least twelve young men between 1978 and 1983 in North London, making him one of Britain's most prolific serial killers. The investigation into the Muswell Hill Murderer only began after plumber Michael Cattran discovered human remains blocking a drain at Cranley Gardens in February 1983. Nilsen's victims were primarily vulnerable gay men, homeless youth, and runaways whose disappearances went largely unnoticed by police.This is the story of a killer who kept bodies as companions, a man so emotionally detached he compared disposing of human remains to washing...

Bible Belt Strangler: The 40-Year Hunt for a Killer Who Targeted Redheads

So there's this case that's been sitting in the shadows for over 40 years. Between 1978 and 1992, women with red hair started turning up dead along interstates across the South. Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi. All strangled or beaten. All dumped like they were nothing. The FBI task force called them the Redhead Murders. The media went with "Bible Belt Strangler." Most of these women stayed nameless for decades. Jane Does. Because they were hitchhikers, sex workers, women nobody was looking for. Then in 2018, forensic genealogy finally gave them...

Thanksgiving Day 2012: How Byron Smith Executed Two Teen Burglars

Byron David Smith, a 64-year-old retired security engineer, shot and killed teenagers Nicholas Brady and Haile Kifer during a home invasion in Little Falls, Minnesota on Thanksgiving Day 2012. The double homicide investigation revealed audio recordings Smith made of the entire incident, leading to his arrest, trial, and conviction for first-degree premeditated murder. Forensic evidence and witness testimony showed Smith had prepared an ambush in his basement after multiple prior burglaries of his property.

Smith had been burglarized before. His father's POW watch was gone. Four thousand dollars...

The Barron Wisconsin Murders and Jayme Closs’s Escape

You know what terrifies me most about this case? Jake Patterson had never met Jayme Closs. Never spoken to her. He saw her getting on a school bus one morning and decided right then that he was going to take her. He killed both her parents, dragged her from her home, and kept her hidden under his bed for 88 days while police chased thousands of dead-end leads. But Jayme Closs refused to stay a victim. This is the story of how a 13-year-old girl saved herself when nobody else co...

Keith and Elaine Dardeen: A Family Trying to Escape Death

The Dardeen family was supposed to be starting over. Keith and Elaine were packing up their lives in rural Illinois, seven months pregnant with their second child, ready to leave behind a string of unsolved murders that had terrified their community for years. They were trying to outrun the danger. Then, on November 18th, 1987, Keith didn't show up for work. What police found inside their mobile home that day became one of the most savage and inexplicable crime scenes in American history. A pregnant mother beaten into labor...

Self-Defense or Murder? The Stillwater Bail Bonds Office Shooting

A bail bondsman in Stillwater, Oklahoma shoots her own client in the back as he tries to escape through a window. She claims self-defense. He's unarmed. A jury decides her fate in less time than it takes to watch a movie. This case raises questions about the power we give to private citizens with badges and guns, and what happens when fear becomes the ultimate legal defense. Let's talk about Chasity Carey, Brandon Williams, and a shooting that divided a community.

#TrueCrime #BailBondsman #SelfDefense #Oklahoma #StillwaterShooting #ChasityCarey...

Richard Ramirez: Inside the Mind of the Night Stalker

In 1985, serial killer Richard Ramirez terrorized Southern California during a brutal murder spree that left at least 13 people dead across Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Night Stalker, as he became known, broke into homes in the San Gabriel Valley and Bay Area, sexually assaulting and killing victims ranging from children to the elderly. Detectives Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno led the homicide investigation that eventually used groundbreaking AFIS fingerprint technology and a rare Avia shoe print to identify Ramirez, leading to his conviction on 67 felonies and 19 death sentences.<...

Is Lucy Letby A Baby Killer: The Medical Evidence Is Under A Microscope

What happens when doctors raise alarms about babies dying on their watch, and hospital executives tell them to apologize to the person they suspect? The Lucy Letby case seemed like a closed chapter when she was sentenced to life in prison for murdering seven infants. In 2025, a panel of 14 international medical experts dropped a bombshell that's turned everything we thought we knew upside down. They reviewed every single case and concluded there's no medical evidence any baby was murdered. Instead, they found something equally disturbing...

The 50-Year Grudge: Carl Ericsson's Fatal Revenge on His High School Rival

When 73-year-old Carl Ericsson walked up to Norman Johnson's door in Madison, South Dakota on a freezing January night in 2012, he was about to settle something that had been eating at him since high school. Fifty years. That's how long he'd been carrying around this grudge. And when Norman opened that door, Carl shot him twice in the face with a .45 caliber pistol. The prosecution said it was about a locker room prank from the 1950s. The victim's family said it was jealousy that never died...

Betrayed By Blood: The Daughter Who Orchestrated Her Family's Slaughter

Terry Caffey woke up to gunfire in his bedroom. His wife was shot beside him. His sons were screaming down the hall. Shot five times himself, Terry crawled through flames and across four football fields to reach help, driven by one desperate need: to identify who did this. When police told him his 16-year-old daughter Erin was safe, he felt relief. Then they told him she was in custody. This is the Caffey family murders, a Texas true crime case where forbidden love turned into a calculated massacre...

The Shoe Fetish Slayer: Inside Jerry Brudos' House of Horrors

When a 19-year-old encyclopedia saleswoman knocked on the wrong door in Portland, Oregon in January 1968, she walked into the nightmare that would define one of America's most disturbing serial killers. Jerry Brudos looked like everyone's quiet neighbor, a hardworking electrician with a wife and kids. But behind the locked door of his garage workshop, he was living out fantasies so twisted they'd shock even seasoned FBI profilers. This is the story of how a childhood obsession with high-heeled shoes escalated into murder, necrophilia, and the kind of trophy...

Mark Branch: The Grocery Clerk Who Thought He Was Jason Voorhees

When 18-year-old Sharon Gregory was found dead in her Greenfield, Massachusetts home in October 1988, her twin sister knew exactly who did it. Mark Branch had been obsessed with horror movies his entire life, particularly Friday the 13th, and he'd told people he wanted to know what it felt like to kill. Sharon had been doing a psychological evaluation of him for her college psychology class, and he wanted that profile back. What happened next became one of the most disturbing cases where someone tried to turn their...

The Halifax Slasher and the Deadly Power of Collective Fear

In November 1938, the town of Halifax, England, became paralyzed by fear. People stopped going to work. Businesses closed. Vigilante mobs formed in the streets. And a man took his own life because his coworkers thought he was a monster. The reason? A phantom attacker with a razor blade who probably never existed at all. This is the story of the Halifax Slasher, a case where the panic was more dangerous than the crime, where mass hysteria turned neighbors into hunters, and where the only real killer turned out...

Inside the Murder Castle: The True Story of H.H. Holmes and His Killing Factory

Herman Mudgett didn't become America's most notorious serial killer by accident. He built a three-story hotel in Chicago specifically designed to kill people, and he did it right before the 1893 World's Fair brought millions of visitors to the city. But here's what most people get wrong about the H.H. Holmes story: the Murder Castle wasn't always meant for murder. It started as a massive fraud scheme, and the killing came later. We're breaking down the real story of the man who turned...

From Unsolved Mysteries to Hollywood: The Jeepers Creepers Murder Case

When a couple's quiet Sunday drive turned into a terrifying chase on a Michigan backroad in 1990, they had no idea they'd just witnessed the aftermath of murder. This is the story of Marilynn DePue, a high school guidance counselor who tried to escape an abusive marriage, and how her death became the unlikely inspiration for a horror movie that millions of people have watched without knowing the real woman behind the story. We're talking domestic violence, a year-long manhunt, the power of 90s true crime TV, and how...

The First Female Serial Killer: Why Aileen Wuornos's Case Still Matters

When Aileen Wuornos was executed in 2002, the state of Florida called her a cold-blooded serial killer. But her story is way more complicated than that. We're talking about a woman who survived childhood sexual abuse, was kicked out at 15 and forced into sex work to survive, and ended up killing seven men along Florida's highways. She said it was self-defense. The prosecution said she was lying. But here's what they didn't tell the jury: her first victim was a convicted rapist. That evidence? Kept from her defense...

The Jeannette DePalma Case: When Satanic Panic Destroyed a Murder Investigation

What really happened to 16-year-old Jeannette DePalma in 1972? For over 50 years, wild stories about devil worship and ritual sacrifice have overshadowed the truth about a teenage girl who never made it to her friend's house. We're talking about a case where a religious community's fear, sloppy police work, and media sensationalism buried the real investigation under layers of absolute nonsense. And here's the thing: in 2024, we finally got proof that everything you thought you knew about this case was wrong. We're digging into missing evidence, a serial...

The Disappearance of Branson Perry: Three Witnesses, Zero Answers

When 20-year-old Branson Perry walked 30 feet from his house to a shed on an April afternoon in 2001, three people were watching. He never made it back. This case has every element that makes your brain scream "how is this still unsolved?" A town with a history of keeping deadly secrets. A drug house that burned to the ground days after Branson vanished. Jumper cables that disappeared and then magically reappeared. And a family that has suffered more tragedy than seems possible for one bloodline. We're talking about Skidmore, Missouri...

The Ellen Greenberg Case: When Forensic Science Says Murder but the City Says Suicide

When a young teacher was found dead with 20 stab wounds, ten of them in the back of her neck, Philadelphia officials called it suicide. Her family has spent 14 years trying to prove that's physically impossible. Now, after a court-ordered review just discovered 20 more bruises and three additional stab wounds that were never documented, the city still insists she killed herself. We're breaking down the biomechanical evidence, the flip-flopping medical examiner, the contradictions in the crime scene, and why this case feels less like an...

The Staircase Murders Part 2: When the Star Witness Turns Out to Be a Fraud

Michael Peterson sat in prison for eight years after being convicted of murdering his wife. The case seemed closed. But then someone started looking into the blood spatter expert who put him there. What they found was a pattern of lies, fabricated evidence, and perjury that spanned dozens of cases. This is Part 2 of the Michael Peterson story, where the conviction unravels, a corrupt forensic analyst gets exposed, and a man has to decide whether to risk another trial or accept a guilty plea...

The Staircase Murders Part 1: Two Dead Women, Two Staircases, One Suspect

Michael Peterson called 911 at 2:40 a.m. saying his wife fell down the stairs. But the words he chose in that call would haunt him for years. Seven deep cuts to her scalp. No skull fracture. No brain injury. Blood everywhere. And then prosecutors dug up another body from 17 years earlier. Another staircase. Another dead woman. Same man. This is Part 1 of the story of how circumstantial evidence, flawed forensic science, and prejudice against a bisexual man sent someone to death row when the physical evidence never actually...

BTK Dennis Rader: When Your Neighbor Is Literally a Serial Killer

What happens when the guy measuring your lawn for code violations is also one of the most prolific serial killers in American history? Dennis Rader spent 31 years hiding in plain sight as a church leader, security alarm installer, and suburban dad while methodically stalking and murdering at least 10 people in Wichita, Kansas. He called himself BTK. He wrote letters to newspapers. He answered to "yes sir" in court while describing strangulation techniques. And in 2005, he asked police one fatal question about a floppy disk that would finally...

The Truth About Ilse Koch and the Human Skin Lampshade Legend

She was called the Bitch of Buchenwald, the Witch, the Beast. Her name became synonymous with Nazi evil, her face plastered across newspapers worldwide. But here's what makes Ilse Koch's story so unsettling: the crime that made her famous might not have been hers at all. We're talking about human skin lampshades, systematic cruelty, and a legal mess that sparked international outrage. This is about how one woman became the perfect villain for a world desperate to make sense of the Holocaust, and how her actual, proven...

Gulf War Ghosts: The Jeffrey Hutchinson Death Row Case

What happens when a decorated Gulf War veteran's mind becomes a casualty of war that no one wants to acknowledge? Jeffrey Hutchinson's story isn't your typical family annihilation case. This is about a system that failed to hear the voice of a broken soldier, a legal nightmare built on procedural technicalities, and the devastating cost of untreated military trauma. We're diving deep into a case where the evidence was overwhelming, the appeals lasted decades, and the most important questions were never answered. This one will stay with you long...

Adeline Watkins and Ed Gein: Separating Fact From Fiction

When Ed Gein was arrested in 1957, the press needed someone to explain how a monster could hide in plain sight. Enter Adeline Watkins, a quiet woman from Plainfield who claimed a decades-long romance with America's most infamous killer. But two weeks later, she took it all back. So what really happened between them? Did Gein ever actually propose? And why would she lie about knowing the man who'd become the inspiration for Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill? This is the story of a woman who got caught in...

The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders: How DNA Finally Solved a 34-Year-Old Cold Case

In December 1991, four teenage girls were murdered inside an Austin yogurt shop. The crime scene was burned. The evidence was destroyed. Two innocent men went to prison for nearly a decade. And the real killer? He was already dead by the time they were arrested. This is the story of how genetic genealogy finally solved one of Texas's most brutal cold cases 34 years later, and why the truth took so long to surface. We're talking about coerced confessions, a serial killer who should have never...

The Pixy Stix Killer: How Ronald O'Bryan Weaponized Halloween

Halloween 1974 was supposed to be another night of trick-or-treating in Pasadena, Texas. Instead, it became the night that changed Halloween forever. When 8-year-old Timothy O'Bryan died from poisoned candy, investigators uncovered a twisted plot orchestrated by the one person who should have protected him most: his own father. Ronald O'Bryan didn't destroy Halloween by accident. He weaponized the holiday, turning a beloved childhood tradition into his personal murder weapon. This is the story of greed disguised as grief, a father's ultimate betrayal, and how one man's desperate scheme created...

The Midnight Baseball Bat Murders: A Grandson's Unthinkable Crime

When a 20-year-old calls 911 covered in blood claiming he has no memory of the night, investigators uncover one of New Jersey's most devastating family tragedies. Louis and Betty Simon thought they were helping their grandson by letting him live with them. Instead, they became victims of an unthinkable crime that left more questions than answers. This is the story of American dreams destroyed, a 911 call that defies explanation, and a legal case that disappeared into the shadows of our justice system.

#TrueCrime #FamilyMurder #NewJerseyMurder #EzraSimonDaniels #MentalHealthAndCrime #UnssolvedMysteries...

Adnan Syed Part 2: Alternative Suspects, DNA Evidence, and Legal Chaos

After Serial turned Adnan Syed into the most famous convicted murderer in podcast history, his legal team kept fighting. What happened next reads like legal fiction: prosecutors found alternative suspects, DNA evidence excluded Syed, and he walked free after 23 years. Then came the plot twist that broke everyone's brain. A paperwork error got his murder conviction reinstated, but a judge sentenced him to time served anyway. Now he's working at Georgetown University with a murder conviction still on his record. Today we're exploring how a case can end...

Adnan Syed Part 1: Cell Phone Evidence and the Conviction That Started It All

When a teenage girl goes missing in Baltimore, police follow the oldest rule in the book: look at the ex-boyfriend. What they found was Jay Wilds, a friend willing to testify that Adnan Syed confessed to murder in exchange for a plea deal, and cell phone data from 1999 that was about as reliable as a Magic 8-Ball. For 15 years, case closed. Then Sarah Koenig happened. Today we're diving into how one podcast host armed with curiosity and a microphone managed to do what years of...

The Death of Candace Newmaker: When Therapy Becomes Torture

Sometimes the people we trust most to help our children are the ones who cause the most harm. In April 2000, ten-year-old Candace Newmaker traveled from North Carolina to Colorado for what her adoptive mother hoped would be life-changing therapy. Instead, it became a 70-minute session that ended in tragedy. This is the story of how pseudoscientific treatment masquerading as legitimate therapy killed a little girl, and how her death changed laws across the country. We'll explore the dangerous world of attachment therapy, the warning signs that were ignored, and...

Hidden in Plain Sight: How Joseph Naso Killed for 50 Years Undetected

When a routine probation check in 2010 uncovered a handwritten "List of 10" on a kitchen table in Reno, Nevada, investigators had no idea they were about to crack open decades of cold cases. Joseph Naso, a 76-year-old former photographer with a history of petty crimes, had been living under everyone's radar for years. That list would become the roadmap to connecting him to four brutal murders spanning from the 1970s to the 1990s. What makes this case even more disturbing? Recent revelations from a fellow death row inmate...

The Grim Sleeper: How a Pizza Crust Ended 25 Years of Terror

The Grim Sleeper terrorized South Central Los Angeles for over two decades, targeting vulnerable women while hiding behind a facade of normalcy. Lonnie Franklin's 25-year killing spree included a mysterious 14-year break that earned him his chilling nickname. From his early conviction for gang rape in Germany to the undercover pizza operation that finally brought him down, this case reveals how systemic neglect allowed a predator to operate unchecked in communities that deserved better protection. We'll explore how family DNA, investigative persistence, and one discarded pizza crust...

The Scottsdale Explosion: How Robert Fisher Murdered His Family and Disappeared

What happens when a man's deepest fear becomes his family's nightmare? Robert Fisher's story shows how childhood trauma, control, and the terror of becoming what you hate most can drive someone to the unthinkable. In April 2001, this Navy veteran and firefighter obliterated his own family, then vanished into the Arizona wilderness, leaving behind one of the most baffling missing person cases in FBI history. New podcast investigations have uncovered altered timelines that could change everything we thought we knew about his escape. After 23 years, the question remains...

From Cat Killer to Cannibal: How Online Sleuths Tracked Down Luka Magnotta

When someone posts animal cruelty videos online, where's the line between justice and vigilantism? This is the story of how a group of internet sleuths tracked down a man they called the "vacuum kitten killer," only to discover their worst fears were coming true. Luka Magnotta's name became synonymous with one of the most disturbing cases of internet-fueled violence, but his path to murder started long before those first horrific videos surfaced. From a troubled childhood marked by mental illness and abuse to a life of...