Crime Adjacent

How fast can you run a half mile? If you're really booking it? 5 minutes? 6?

Now imagine you see a loved one being attacked a half mile away. How fast could you get there to help?

This calculation was running through Daniel Baker's head on the morning of Oct. 20, 2015, in Brook Hollow, New Jersey. 

Because as he sat in the comfort of his own kitchen, sipping coffee and watching his wife run down a path along the river, he saw a man suddenly emerge from t...

Matilde Freeman, age 12, practically skipped out of her house in Stockton, California, on Oct. 8, 2022. 

Finally, she must have thought, finally. After years of bullying and a change of cities, she had made new friends.

On this Saturday afternoon, one of those friends invited Matilde over to hang out, listen to music, and plan outfits for an upcoming Karol G concert in Sacramento.

Hours later, a neighbor discovered Matilde. She had been brutally beaten, injected with drugs, and then left to die in an alley b...

On a quiet a Saturday afternoon in October 1980, someone crept into the Voss household in Scottsdale, Arizona, and snatched 2-year-old Emily Voss from her crib while her mother was in the shower.

More than 40 years later, in Martha's Vineyard, a tourist from Scottsdale noticed something strange in the local newspaper. A woman photographed for a feature on the local garden club looked remarkably similar to a police artist rendering of what missing toddler Emily Voss would look like today.

Could it be? A baby kidnapped in 1980 living her best l...

On March 16, 2003, the bodies of the entire Banda family, along with two of their neighbors, were discovered in their farmhouse cellar in Ashton, Iowa.

At first, police thought this was the result of an ongoing neighbor dispute over fences and farmland in this small community near the Minnesota border.

But police discovered something strange. None of the victims had any sign of trauma. There were no weapons, no signs of an argument, no visible reason why six seemingly healthy people entered a food cellar and never made it out...

You asked for it, and we are delivering. Today, we are finally revisiting the case you've urged us to cover: the murder of popular YouTuber Madison Park during her live stream on the night of Oct. 17, 2024.

But trust me, you haven't heard all of the details, including the suspect list police had to wade through to uncover the tiniest clue that would reveal the whole truth.

Can you find what everyone else    overlooked in this case?

This is Crime Adjacent episode 592: The Live Stream Killin...

This is Mike, creator and writer of Crime Adjacent, breaking the fourth wall for a quick announcement I have been … dreading.

Starting now, today, I’m making a change to the show.

New Crime Adjacent mysteries will drop every other Wednesday instead of every week. But, good news, Patreon supporters will receive a bonus episode each month!

You can find more details at patreon.com/crimeadjacent, where I offer behind the scenes commentary on each episode and invite members to live chat sessions.

Se...

In the span of four years in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, from 2018 to 2022, five people died under suspicious or mysterious circumstances.

A mother, a student, a police officer, a judge, and a lawyer.

You may have heard about this case on other true crime podcasts. Netflix did a rather solid and compelling documentary about two years ago called The Murfreesboro Five.

In each of these episodes and movies, there is some question about whether these cases are actually connected or whether it’s just one big co...

On October 11, 2024, 28-year-old Emma Girma checked into the Silver Pines Hotel in downtown Idaho Falls, Idaho, and never checked out.

Her body wouldn't be discovered for 12 days, inside a crawl space between the walls of the hotel.

Where she was found and how she got there confounded investigators -- but not as much as their most pressing concern: Who would have done this to her?

This is Crime Adjacent episode 590: The Idaho Falls Hotel Murder, told live in Madison, Wisconsin, during our tour.

On a Saturday night in 2004, 22-year-oild Xavier Barnes can be seen exiting the Iron Spike Saloon in Opelika, Alabama, with a phone to his ear.

He looks one way. Then another. He nods at someone. 

And then he walks off camera and is never seen again.

For more than 20 years, police, online conspiracy theorists, and armchair detectives have posited that Barnes was killed for a drug debt by a connected drug dealer, that he was kidnapped by a jealous lover, or that he simply w...

When 27-year-old Dorothy Strasberg met a charming stranger in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2020, it felt like a love story. 

The man swept her off her feet, won over her family, and convinced her to leave everything behind for a quiet life in rural North Carolina.

Then the relationship changed.

Friends stopped hearing from her. Her money disappeared. Her world grew smaller as his controlling behaviors grew stronger. 

By the time Dorothy realized she was trapped inside a pattern of coercive control, it was practically too la...

At about 10:45 p.m. on Thursday, October 14, 2021, David Keller answered a knock at his door only to find a naked person standing right in front of him.

The naked person pulled a gun, shot David once in the forehead, and then walked into the foyer to finish the job with two shots to the chest. 

David Keller, age 43, and a well-known local home builder in Mobile, Alabama, had just become the victim of a perfect murder.

Can you figure out what police could not t...

On the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 4, 1987, 9-year-old Jessica Murphy disappeared from her cul-de-sac in the quiet, peaceful Willow Creek neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska.

One minute, she was whizzing around the court on her Space Invaders edition BMX bicycle with red streamers flowing off the handle bars and a sparkly red banana seat. 

And the next, she was simply gone.

Jessica remained missing for decades, as investigators considered suspects ranging from neighborhood boys to traveling serial killers. Who could have taken Jessica? They had no i...

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, Officer Danielle Peterson breaks down the front door of a house on quiet Lundy Street in the fancy North Arts District of Columbus, Ohio.

The co-workers of David Thomas Brown, 56, said the man had not reported to work since the previous week, and they were worried something had happened to him.

So as Officer Peterson performed a welfare check that morning, she did, indeed, find David.

He was inside a basement bedroom -- with two missing women, college students from nearby...

On Saturday May 8, 2021, hikers Libby Mitchell and Stacey Rose Anderson met on the Deer Mountain Trail in the Rocky Mountain national park in Colorado.

They were before strangers before this morning, but they soon realized they had something in common. 

Both of their partners had just abandoned them on the trail.

So as they're hiking back to the trailhead together, they see yet another solo woman hiker, and Libby makes a dark joke.

"Oh look, another Alpine Divorce."

It was late at night on July 5, 2019, when the phone suddenly rang in the empty Ridge Hollow Recorder newspaper in Ridge Hollow, Colorado.

Reporter Penny C. Johnson casually answered the phone, thinking it was a caller perhaps angered over a typo -- that happened with surprising frequency.

This late night phone call was anything but ordinary. It was a watershed moment. 

It was the moment Johnson first heard of a sex trafficking operation that had operated in this tiny southern Colorado town for quite l...

On March 20, 2021, the body of Alexia Russo was discovered inside her Anaheim, California, townhouse just blocks from Disneyland.

The 33-year-old horticulturalist actually worked at the theme park. In fact, it was her dream job, a joyful convergence of her two favorite things in the world: trees and Disney. 

But this dream job also had a dark side, because it was this very place where Alexia would meet the person who murdered her.

This wouldn't be a Crime Adjacent case if there wasn't some wild t...

On the morning of Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010, the body of 21-year-old Monica Bixby was discovered behind bushes and berms along a desolate stretch of Highway 79 in Temecula, California.

The aspiring film student had been bound, stabbed, and then strangled the previous night, following a date with an on again, off again lover that did not end well. 

To police, this initially seemed like an open and shut case. 

It was the boyfriend, case closed.

But the more they investigated, the mor...

On the morning of Saturday, Jan. 3, 1998, the body of 17-year-old Samantha Carpenter was discovered in the kitchen of a popular sandwich shop in Fairfield, California. 

She had been hit on the back of the head, and then stabbed. Her jeans were discovered around her ankles, and her green sandwich shop apron was pulled over her head, concealing her face.

This was, quite obviously, a murder. 

Police even discovered the murder weapon on scene.

But you’re about to hear why...

On November 23, 1987, Bernard "Barnie" Jones arrives home from a business trip and tells his wife he feels "heavy" after a long flight and stress. The next morning, she finds him dead of an apparent heart attack.

By all accounts, this looks like a small, ordinary tragedy, the kind that plays out in homes across America every day. 

But a year later, another man arrives home from a trip, reports that he feels "heavy," and is also found dead of a heart attack within hours. 

And...

At the tail end of September 2024, a man in a clown mask broke into the cabins of vacationing women on Walloon Lake in Northern Michigan to rub their feet in the dead of night. 

And then, the murders began. A Realtor, and then another one. A billionaire human resources officer turned obnoxious podcaster. And then a real estate developer.

One after another, someone was murdering the most powerful people in Petoskey and Walloon. 

Until the night of Sept. 29, 2024, when the so-called Michigan Nighstalker chose the worst possible target. Because it put them on a...

Two things happened on that final night, Sunday September 29, 2024.

Sheriff Press, Bill Laboa, and one of the Crime Adjacent computer pros formed a makeshift team to track all of the clowns roaming Walloon: Tim Meeks, Roger Michaels, and a mysterious third one.

As they worked together to identify this new killer, Deputy Swanson raced to the Bear River Country Club, hellbent on rescuing the woman who had rescued her so many years ago. 

This is part 24 of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold story of the Michigan Nightstalker.

What h...

Early in the morning on May 24, 2010, a fire broke out at a cabin on Walloon Lake. At first, investigators thought it was an ember flying from a backyard fire pit.

But then, fire investigators immediately noticed the smell of gasoline throughout the cabin. And they soon discovered the unlikeliest of suspects outside, watching, wide-eyed and mesmerized, as an entire family burned within the fully engulfed house. 

It turns out, this pivotal event, so many years ago, would play a role in the downfall of the Michigan Nighstalker. Because it turned out that this killer messed w...

Deputy Swanson immediately recognized a victim of sextortion when she saw high school senior Emily Willis trudging fearfully through town.

The FBI reports that more than 7,000 cases of sextortion happen every year, when blackmailers start up fake relationships with minors to get incriminating materials they can then use to blackmail those minors. Swanson, who had worked with the FBI, recognized the signs and she immediately rushed into action.

But she didn't just stop Emily Willis and let her know that help was available. Swanson enlisted the high schooler's help and together, they would take down...

High school senior Emily Willis said her best friend, Dorian Block, was the happiest, most cheerful person she had ever met. They'd known each other since before kindergarten and were about to graduate this year from high school and go on to college together.

But one day, in early September 2024, Dorian began acting very, very strangely. Like she was scared of something, or someone.

Within hours, Dorian would be dead, and Emily, just a few weeks later, would find herself in the exact same situation.

Because it wasn't just something that scared Dorian...

Sheriff Press had a grand theory about the ultimate suspect in this case. She put it all together when she noticed a pattern.

All of the women who were assaulted were out-of-town visitors. But all of the women who were murdered had something in common.

They were Realtors.

And there was only one man in town with a grudge against Realtors. Was he behind all this?

The only problem was ... this guy had been murdered as well.

This is part 20 of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold...

Northern Michigan lake country had seen a murder in years. And then all of a sudden there are four, in just two days?

It didn't make sense to Sheriff Press. All of her prime suspects were either in jail already or dead.

So clearly, someone was still out there, targeting her citizens. And it felt like there was nothing she could do to stop it.

This is part 19 of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold story of the Michigan Nightstalker.

What happens if your favorite character jumps off the...

Tim Meeks said he had an accomplice, someone who gave him information about which cabins were rented by single women and then paid him to go scare all these visitors. Really put the fright into them.

And this someone, Meeks said, was a big name on the lake. A huge name on the lake. 

Sheriff Morgan Press went to this someone's house and what she discovered didn't make any sense. If she had just captured the clown creeper, Meeks, who killed his alleged accomplice?

This is part 18 of the 8th season of Crime A...

How do you get information out of someone who absolutely, positively, doesn’t want to give it? 

And what if you raise the stakes even more? 

What if, say, you want them to tell you something. But that something will land them in prison, for life. 

How do you get them to talk? Can you get them to talk?

That was the dilemma facing Sheriff Morgan Press when she confronted Tim Meeks about all of the break ins. How could she get this guy to confe...

The plan to use Deputy Swanson as a decoy to lure out the Nightstalker failed miserably.

Swanson was stabbed. The Nightstalker got away. And although Sheriff Press finally had confirmation that Tim Meeks was, indeed, the real identity of the Nightstalker, we were no closer to catching him.

Until that night, when we did, in fact, catch Tim Meeks. Red handed. In the cabin of a woman named "Cassandra Royal." 

But what we didn't realize was that catching Tim Meeks would not be the end of this c...

The same thing that happened in California, in the 1980s, happened in Northern Michigan. Residents wondered: What do we call this guy?

In the beginning, he broke into cabins and rubbed women's feet while wearing a creepy Halloween clown mask. So he became known as the Clown Creeper.

But when he started to murder people, a new name emerged: the Nightstalker. Specifically, the Michigan Nightstalker, to distinguish him from two different serial killers operating in California who were both called the Nightstalker.

Whatever people called him, Sheriff Press knew she had to catch...

We had to get ahead of this guy. That was my thinking. 

The clown creeper was breaking into cabins with impunity, and now he was in downtown Petoskey, where he was responsible for the murder of Allison Barnes and apparently tried to do the same thing to Ebony Aster just minutes later.

So my plan was simple. We would plant a decoy to lure him out of hiding.

It was the biggest mistake in this case.

This is part 14 of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold story of the M...

Just a few blocks from the Clinton Street house where Allison Barnes was murdered that Saturday, Realtor Ebony Aster was hosting her own open house on Lake Street.

But while she was getting ready, she heard something. Upstairs. That strange noise soon turned to pounding footsteps, and she knew, immediately, she had to get out of the house. Fast.

It turns out, these type of attacks on Realtors happen all the time. In Florida, from 2024 to 2025, a man would check out open homes hosted by women Realtors, and then, when they were alone, he would...

Can you kill a person in five minutes? And then appear perfectly reasonable when the cops arrive?

These questions were floating through Sheriff Press's mind as she questioned Billy Barnes, who had just discovered his wife had been murdered. 

Why, Press wondered, did it take him five whole minutes from the alleged discovery of her body until the time he called 911?

The more she dug into the story of Billy and Allison Barnes, the more she discovered reason after reason about why he might have killed her. And she wondered, was this the c...

As more and more cabins were broken into and more and more visitors were assaulted, or murdered, the town grappled with a sticky moral dilemma.

Who belongs? Who gets to call this place home, and who should be kept away?

The town boiled with debate and turmoil that Saturday. But as residents gathered inside the town hall to discuss these issues, the clown creeper was elsewhere. No longer content to remain at the lake, he moved to downtown at that very moment, sizing up his next murder victim.

This is the story of...

Best-selling author Aitana Ruiz heads to Walloon Lake every September to put the finishing touches on the latest book in her popular series Daggers and Wind. But 2024 was different.

Because on Saturday morning, September 28, she awoke close to daybreak with a man in a clown mask at the foot of her bed. 

This man snapped a length of rope between his hands, whispering, "And now, the fun begins."

This is part ten of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold story of the Michigan Nightstalker.

What happens if your favorite c...

Can you get away with murder if someone is forcing you to do it?

This episode looks at crimes of duress and just how far some people force others to go on their behalf. 

Because that is exactly what was happening in Petoskey in 2024, in the lead up to the murders that began in September.

This is part nine of the 8th season of Crime Adjacent: the untold story of the Michigan Nightstalker.

What happens if your favorite character jumps off the page and starts a podcast? That’s Crime Adjacent, the...

Someone was following me. At the diner, at the bookstore, the cafe, the town square. Wherever I went that day, the same day the clown struck again, the same man appeared behind me. 

He was watching, waiting.

In the pedestrian tunnel that connects downtown Petoskey to the waterfront, he finally struck.

Get out of town, he said. Now.

Petoskey, Michigan, had been hit by a strange wave of crime since the beginning of 2024, and this man in front of me, threatening me, was just the latest.

Stop the investigation, h...

Do you know about those fancy shoes with the red soles? How about that brand with the plaid design crawling over coats and purses? What does a belt with "G" on it denote, or "H"?

In the field of conspicuous consumption, these are what sociologists call loud signals of wealth. 

But there are quiet signals as well, signals so subtle and obscure as to be noticed only by the truly, impossibly rich -- those who don't even need fancy brands to signal their wealth.

S...

United States Olympic Rugby gold medalist Aubrey Ertz went to Walloon Lake for a short vacation and a team-building retreat. The 2028 Olympics are fast approaching, and Ertz wanted to set the goals for the team.

But on Friday morning, September 27, 2024, she woke to a horrible surprise. Someone was in her room, rubbing her feet. 

And so she did what she normally does in situations like this: Punch first and ask questions later.

It turns out, this punch provided yet another important clue in this case.

This is part six of the 8t...

On Sept. 3, 2024, Realtor Yuki Sugita was hosting an open house in a rural neighborhood on the outskirts of Traverse City.

Sometime between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m., someone showed up at this house and discovered Sugita alone. No neighbors. No buyers. Just her and an empty, quiet home.

Sugita was tied up and stabbed to death, only to be discovered by potential buyers out shopping for homes that afternoon. 

While the case looked, on the surface, so different and far away and unrelated to the clown creeper cases on Walloon Lake -- a full 60 miles a...