Hold My Sweet Tea

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A knock at the door is normal on Halloween. A grown man in a wolf mask is still “normal” if you assume it’s just another costume. That’s what makes this San Jose true crime story so terrifying: the night looks familiar until it isn’t, and a family’s life changes in about 15 minutes.

We walk through the 1984 murder of Doreen Erbert, a 31-year-old physical therapist who is eight months pregnant and spending Halloween with her four-year-old daughter, Deanna, while her husband runs a quick errand. When someone arrives at the house...

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The scariest Halloween story might not be razor blades in apples, it might be how easily we learned to fear each other. I’m Holly, and tonight on Sweet Tea After Dark I’m digging into the history behind Halloween candy panic: when parents started inspecting every wrapper, why homemade treats became suspicious, and how a holiday built on neighborly trust got rewritten as a stranger-danger warning.

We go back centuries to the roots of trick-or-treating, from medieval souling and soul cakes offered in exchange for prayers for the dead to Iris...

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A night out near Shreveport, Louisiana shouldn’t end in a missing person report, but that’s exactly what happens when 21-year-old Wendi Long disappears after a party in April 2001. We take you step by step through the timeline out of Red River Parish and the uneasy reality that the last person seen with her is not a stranger, but someone presenting himself as a friend. 

What makes this true crime case so disturbing is how the story mutates. Rocky offers law enforcement a rotating cast of explanations, tries to treat Miran...

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Hello Kitty on a true crime podcast sounds like a bit until it isn’t. This Spooktober story takes us to Hong Kong in 1999, where a large Hello Kitty mermaid doll becomes linked to the death of 23-year-old Fan Man Yee and turns into one of the most infamous pieces of evidence in modern true crime history.

We walk through what led up to Fan’s abduction, including the alleged debt tied to Chan Man Lok and the power dynamics around his circle. From there, we lay out the timeline inside a sh...

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A glowing jack o’lantern looks cheerful until you learn what it used to be: a hard-carved turnip carrying a coal from hell. This solo Sweet Tea After Dark story digs into the chilling Halloween folklore of Stingy Jack, a man so slippery and selfish that he talks his way around everyone, including the devil himself. If you’ve ever wondered about the real origin of the jack o’lantern, this legend is where the shadowy trail begins.

We walk through Jack’s two infamous bargains: first, he traps the devil as a sil...

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A planned update turns into something much darker when we’re forced to add breaking news midstream. Krista Pike, the lone woman on Tennessee’s death row, is set for lethal injection and says she isn’t afraid to die, only nervous about the process. Then the process reportedly fails. What follows is a botched execution story that’s messy, confusing, and horrifying, with journalists describing pain, closed curtains, and a sudden scramble that ends with an ambulance ride and a state pause on executions while an investigation begins.

We talk through...

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One minute you think you’re looking at a disturbing collection of staged horror content, and the next you’re staring at evidence investigators believe may capture real violence. We’re back with major updates on the Philadelphia investigation tied to Eugene Horsch and the house on West Chew Avenue, and the story has changed fast since we last talked about that shocking “5% reviewed” number. Authorities now say they’re sorting through more than one million digital files, with roughly 58 different people appearing in the material reviewed so far, and seven missing women connected to...

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The darkest woods are the ones that feel empty until they don’t. We share a listener submission from Rachel about a late October backpacking trip in the Appalachian Mountains near the West Virginia and Virginia border, where a simple choice to camp off trail by an unmarked logging road turns into a night of slow footsteps, silence that presses in, and something dragging along the side of the tent like fingers on fabric.

Rachel and her boyfriend think they’re prepared: maps, emergency supplies, water filtration, first aid, bear spray and...

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A resort town built on “healing springs” sounds like the safest kind of escape, until a smooth-talking promoter shows up with a miracle cure and a talent for making people believe. We head to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and follow the strange, infuriating story of the Crescent Hotel, a limestone landmark that starts as a luxury resort, shifts into a school, and then becomes the stage for one of the most brazen medical scams in American history.

We dig into Norman Baker’s rise, from hustles and inventions to the raw power of ear...

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Windows cracked open on a hot Louisiana night shouldn’t turn into a life sentence of fear, but that’s exactly what happened in Jefferson Parish in 1986. We walk through a tight cluster of home invasion sexual assaults in Metairie and River Ridge where the details kept repeating: a masked intruder, entry through a window, a screwdriver or knife, and women attacked where they should have felt safest. One deputy even came within seconds of catching him, and then the crimes abruptly stopped, leaving survivors without answers and a community on edge.

...

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!!VOTING ENDS SEPTEMBER 13th!!

www.225ama.com/vote 

Please vote for:

Pat-e
Ian Webster
Katt
Jarrett Gustafson
Ian & Pat-e
Ian & Jarrett
Orphan Annie

Thank you so much for all of our nominations and thank you for your continued support!

He’s standing under a dead oak tree at 1:30 in the morning, thumb out in a Louisiana downpour and somehow he isn’t wet. That single detail flips a normal drive into a full-body warning, and o...

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A case update like this doesn’t feel like “news” when it’s a real person’s life and a family’s decade of questions. We revisit the Morgan Bauer case with the biggest development yet: Katelyn Goble’s trial, the evidence that dismantled the original story about a late-night gas station drop-off, and the verdict that followed after days of testimony. If you remember Morgan’s disappearance after moving to Georgia and trying to find stability through roommate ads and club work, this brings the timeline into sharper focus and shows what the courtroom fi...

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Historical Note: This episode discusses historical newspaper accounts that contain racist, sensationalized, and derogatory descriptions of Black people and Black religious practices. These terms are reproduced only when necessary to accurately discuss the historical record. Modern research has challenged many of the claims surrounding the alleged “Church of Sacrifice,” and not all murders attributed to Clementine Barnabet have been proven to be connected.

People in southwestern Louisiana were going to bed and not waking up and the common thread was an axe. From the jump, we’re in that uneasy space where...

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We chase vampire myths back to the real fears that shaped them, from tuberculosis outbreaks to communities that truly believed the dead could come back and drain the living. We tell the Mercy Brown story, explain why decomposition fooled people, and then swing through New Orleans lore and the pop culture glow-up from Anne Rice to True Blood. 

• classic vampire image vs older revenant folklore 
• how tuberculosis fueled “vampire panic” logic in the 1800s 
• New England exhumations and community grave rituals 
• Mercy Brown in Rhode Island and the tragic aftermath...

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A wrecked white Acura in Nashville looks like a tragic crash until the details start shouting back. We follow the trail from the moment two bodies are found to the surveillance footage that shows men creeping toward an apartment door and a woman inside doing everything she can to keep it locked. That fear on camera becomes the emotional center of the story, and it’s only the beginning of what detectives uncover.

As we dig in, the case turns into a multi-state true crime maze: an escort alias, a toxic re...

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This episode discusses an active criminal investigation. Some information presented is based on law-enforcement statements and reporting from multiple news organizations and may change as investigators review additional evidence. Eugene Horsch has not been charged with the deaths of the missing women discussed in this episode, and allegations should not be interpreted as findings of guilt.

A routine-sounding call near Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia turns into something far darker when a U.S. park ranger approaches a parked BMW and hears a woman say, “You’re gonna hurt me.” From t...

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A handsome stranger moves into the New Orleans French Quarter, starts throwing the kind of dinner parties only the elite can access, and somehow becomes the toast of the town almost overnight. Then one woman ends up injured in the street after a desperate leap from his balcony, claiming she was bitten and barely escaped. By morning, the host is gone and the house is quiet, but the rumor he left behind is loud: police allegedly find bottles that are not filled with wine at all, but wine mixed with human blood.
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A quiet stretch of River Road in Ponchatoula, Louisiana doesn’t feel so quiet when a man disappears and the search turns into something far worse. We’re talking about James “Jimmy” Wood, 43, last seen on camera June 19 and reported missing days later after his keys and belongings are found at the house where he was living and remodeling. Months pass with more questions than leads, and the uncertainty becomes its own kind of heartbreak for everyone who loved him. 

This conversation is more unscripted than usual because the case is real-time...

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It's a Summerween Re-Mix!! 

We are dropping one of my favorite past Spooky Season Cases for your listening pleasure! 

A quiet college town. Freshmen hauling boxes into a new apartment. Parents doing that first-day check-in. Then, almost overnight, Gainesville becomes a place where people stop walking alone, roommates pile into the same living room to sleep, and every knock at the door feels loaded. We’re Pearl and the crew from Hold My Sweet Tea, and we’re telling the true story of Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, whose short...

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Summer is at it's PEAK and our job is all consuming.  Please come with us as we revisit a past episode that could use a little more attention.  Fret not we will return soon!  

A crowded New Orleans nightclub, a sudden death, and a story that seems to evaporate almost as soon as it hits the news. We’re going back to 2015 and the suspicious death of Dan Betancourt Jr., a former bartender at the Oz Nightclub on Bourbon Street, found unresponsive in the early morning hours during Southern Decadence weekend. Frien...

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**Correction: In the episode, I made a statement that Paris Bennett is now in his mid twenties. I meant to say mid thirties. 

Paris Bennett's first parole eligibility date is February 2027. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2007, with the possibility of parole after serving 20 years, which makes February 2027 his first opportunity to be considered for release.

If he is never granted parole, his sentence would end in February 2047, when he would be approximately 53 years old. 

Now for the Episode Description:

...

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A cemetery that doesn’t exist on any map should be easy to avoid. The problem is Saint Lazarus Cemetery doesn’t wait for you to find it. It finds you, right when the Mississippi fog rolls in and the church bell dares to ring thirteen times. 

We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re serving a fresh piece of original horror fiction set in New Orleans, the perfect city for a supernatural urban legend with teeth. Simone and her friends think they’re just walking the Garden District before midnight, until an ir...

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You can tell a lot about a true crime show by how it handles laughter. We start by addressing listener feedback about our humor and why we refuse to confuse coping with disrespect. We take victims seriously, we treat families carefully, and we do not extend courtesy to convicted killers just because they exist in a courtroom transcript. That boundary matters before we step into a topic as visceral as cannibalism.

From there, we share a headline out of Budapest, Hungary: a hospital worker accused of stealing human remains and preparing...

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You probably know the images even if you’ve never learned the name. The Rider-Waite tarot deck is the visual backbone of modern tarot, and it didn’t become iconic because people memorized esoteric theory. It became iconic because the art tells the story at a glance. We’re diving into the life and legacy of Pamela Colman Smith, the illustrator who drew all 78 cards by hand and somehow still ended up as the “invisible” woman behind one of the most recognized occult objects in history. 

We talk about how tarot works as sy...

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New Orleans loves a legend, but we’re not interested in the souvenir version. We’re talking about Marie Laveau as a real woman in 1800s Louisiana: a free woman of color navigating slavery, racism, class power, and public fear while building influence that people still whisper about today. If you’ve only heard “voodoo queen” and pictured Hollywood witchcraft, we pull that apart and put the history back where it belongs.

We trace how New Orleans voodoo grows from survival and resistance, including the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution and the way en...

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A house stuffed with leaves sounds like a joke until SWAT opens the door and realizes the piles aren’t just weird, they’re dangerous. We travel to Mount Vernon, Ohio to unpack the Matthew Hoffman “Leaf Killer” case, a true crime story where a missing persons call turns into one of the strangest crime scenes we’ve ever covered. Bags of leaves stacked floor to ceiling, dead squirrels in the freezer, and a basement hiding a kidnapped 13-year-old girl bound on a literal bed of leaves. 

We walk through how Tina Herrma...

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🚨 WARNING: This episode contains discussion of grave desecration, human remains, and disturbing crime scene details. Listener discretion is advised.
When volunteers at Pennsylvania's historic Mount Moriah Cemetery began discovering broken mausoleums and disturbed burial vaults, they had no idea they were uncovering one of the most bizarre criminal investigations in recent memory.
According to investigators, Jonathan Gerlach was caught inside the cemetery in January 2026 carrying human remains. What police allegedly discovered next shocked the nation: over 100 human skulls, bones, and mummified remains recovered from a home and storage unit, leading to mor...

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Something about Honey Island Swamp makes a good story feel dangerously believable. Maybe it’s the miles of protected Louisiana marshland north of Lake Pontchartrain, maybe it’s the Pearl River cutting through cypress and shadow, or maybe it’s the simple fact that the bayou can hide you fast. We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re going full cryptid today with the Honey Island Swamp Monster, also known as Louisiana’s Bigfoot and the Bayou Beast. 

We start with the real place: where Honey Island Swamp sits, what “pristine” marshland looks l...

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A champion athlete with a clear sense of purpose shouldn’t become a headline, but Moriah “Mo” Wilson did and the details are as heartbreaking as they are infuriating. We start where Mo wanted the story to start: with the legacy. Her journal captures a young woman asking rare, grown-up questions about values, meaning, and the mark she wants to leave, and we talk about how her parents turn that mission into a foundation designed to get more young people biking, moving, and feeling supported by their community. 

From there, we trace M...

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A car doesn’t just “sit there” for two days without someone noticing, especially not a white Jaguar in a busy Austin hotel parking lot. When police finally open the trunk, they find 45-year-old Betty Thomas bound with duct tape, blindfolded, gagged, wrapped in bedding from her own home, and killed with an execution-style shot to the back of the head. That single discovery turns a quiet April week in 1988 into one of the most unsettling unsolved murders tied to Lakeway, Texas. 

We trace Betty’s last known timeline, from an ordinary...

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He doesn’t come off charming. He doesn’t look like trouble. He just seems normal, and that’s exactly why this story hits so hard.

We’re Holly and Pearl, and we’re sharing an anonymous listener submission that takes us to Idaho, where Kara works nights at a truck stop diner outside Twin Falls. She’s a caring single mom, and when a quiet guy from a local feed store asks her out, she gives him a chance. Dinner is mostly boring, until the questions start getting too personal: where she li...

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Two young people in Alabama are gone, and the silence around their cases is the part we can’t accept. We’re sharing two separate cold cases that don’t have a lot of public detail, which is exactly why they can slip out of the spotlight. Christian Boyle was 18 when he disappeared along with his car in Blount County. Days pass with no calls, no social media activity, and no sign of where he went, until Christmas night 2017 when his vehicle is spotted on Cold Branch Road and he’s found shot to death...

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Two beloved members of a small Louisiana community are gone, and the path from a quiet neighborhood to a brutal double homicide is almost impossible to wrap your head around. We’re talking about Covington, Louisiana, where Ruth Pratt and Reverend Otis Young were known for service, faith, and the kind of warmth that makes a town feel like home. Their deaths didn’t just make news, they stunned people who drive those streets, worship in those pews, and expect that a knock at the door is just a neighbor in need. 

W...

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A little kid looks past her mom’s shoulder, smiles at the dim hallway, and says, “There’s a light man.” That’s how Eleanor’s listener submission starts, and it’s the kind of paranormal story that can go two ways fast. Pearl and Holly brace for something creepy, but what unfolds is softer, sadder, and weirdly comforting: a shining visitor who seems to know Eleanor’s private childhood memories better than anyone living ever could. 

As Liz keeps chatting with this “light man,” the details get sharper and more personal, from warnin...

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A normal morning jog should not come with a survival plan, but that’s exactly where our minds go when we talk through the murder of Laken Riley. We start with the heartbreaking basics: Laken is a 22-year-old nursing student who texts her mom before a run on the University of Georgia campus. Within minutes, a 911 SOS call is triggered from her phone, the call drops, and she never answers again. A trail camera, phone records, and a Garmin watch timeline turn this case into a chilling sequence of moments you can almost fe...

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A quiet back road at night doesn’t look like danger, but sometimes it’s the most frightening setting of all. We’re Holly and Pearl, and we’re unpacking the Mackenzie Shirilla case out of Strongsville, Ohio, where a late-night drive ends with a car accelerating past 100 miles per hour and slamming head-on into a brick wall. Two teenagers, Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan, die at the scene. Shirilla survives, and what first reads like a horrific accident starts to look, to prosecutors, like something else entirely. 

We break down the crash...

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A small town in Arkansas builds a big legend, and the details are too strange to forget: dark hair head to toe, red eyes catching headlights, and three toed footprints stamped into swamp mud. We’re Holly and Pearl, and we’re taking Sweet Tea After Dark to Fouke, Arkansas to talk about the Fouke Monster, also known as the Boggy Creek Monster, with all the giggles and side comments that come with telling scary stories after dark. 

We dig into what witnesses claim they saw in the early 1970s near Boggy...

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Las Vegas hits different when the headline isn’t a party, it’s a predator hiding behind “healing.” We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re breaking down the Nathan Chasing Horse case: a man prosecutors say used a Lakota medicine man persona, public appearances, and a tight inner circle to exploit Indigenous women and girls for years.

We talk through what the Nevada jury conviction actually included, why some counts carry the possibility of life sentences, and how the case stretches beyond one state with other allegations and warrants in places like...

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A final early morning text about the dogs and an open back door becomes the last breadcrumb before pro wrestling’s most haunting headline. We walk through the Chris Benoit case with care for the victims and clarity about what the public record shows, from the three day timeline inside the home to the unanswered question everyone still wrestles with: how does a celebrated performer reach a point where violence becomes the outcome? 

We zoom out to the larger context that shaped the moment. Professional wrestling may be scripted, but the inj...

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Louisiana is taking a hard-line approach to crimes against children, and the details are more complicated than the headlines. We read through the core language of the state’s surgical castration law for certain sex offenses involving victims under 13, then talk honestly about what it means in practice: medical eligibility, court orders, and what happens when an offender refuses to comply. Along the way, we wrestle with the question people keep asking out loud, what actually stops repeat harm when registration and shame clearly are not enough.

We also break down th...