Why They Prosecuted the Wrong Men — Inside the Yogurt Shop Confession Fiasco
Why They Prosecuted the Wrong Men — Inside the Yogurt Shop Confession Fiasco In this segment, we tear open the wounds of the original investigation. Two men—Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott—were convicted decades ago based almost entirely on confessions that they later recanted. DNA would later exclude them entirely. What pushed investigators to pursue confessions so hard? Tunnel vision, coercive interview tactics, and information “leaks” that allowed suspects to parrot back nonpublic details. Over 50 people confessed at one point or another to this crime—many obviously false.We dig into how interview design (false‑evidence ploys, minimization, sleep deprivation) creates a dangerous illusion of certainty. Legally, these strategies drive miscarriages of justice. Psychologically, they turn confessions into weapons rather than tools of truth. In this part you’ll learn: Why confessions, especially in homicide, are dangerously persuasive How contamination and leading questions distort memory What happens when investigators stop listening for disconfirmation After you hear the mistakes, you’ll see how fragile the case was from the start—and why we can’t treat confession = guilt as an assumption ever again. #FalseConfession #WrongfulConviction #YogurtShopCase #InterrogationTactics #TunnelVision #CriminalJusticeReform #AustinMurders #InvestigativeFailures #CriminalPsychology #InnocenceProject #YogurtShopMurders Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872
30 Sep 25min
D4VD Discord, Streams, and Screenshots: What the Internet Missed in the Celeste Rivas Case
D4VD Discord, Streams, and Screenshots: What the Internet Missed in the Celeste Rivas Case There are screenshots. Twitch clips. Discord chats. Eyewitness reports. Celeste Rivas was visible. She was online. She was interacting with people. She was seen. And still—somehow—no one stopped this. In this segment, FBI profiler Robin Dreeke joins me to examine the digital behavior, online grooming signs, and community silence surrounding this case. From reported messages about pregnancy, to shared social content, to alleged sightings by classmates—there were signs. Multiple. Public. Documented. And ignored. We get into: – Why offenders sometimes flaunt inappropriate behavior online – The psychology behind public performance and private control – What it says when friends, fans, or even platforms fail to intervene – And how law enforcement uses this digital trail to apply pressure behind the scenes Celeste’s body was found in a towed, impounded Tesla. Electronic devices were reportedly seized from a Hollywood Hills home. Still: no one has been charged. No cause of death released. But the data is out there. The patterns are there. And the silence around them should disturb everyone watching this unfold. If this case feels frustrating, it’s because it should. 🏷️ Hashtags #D4vd #CelesteRivas #DigitalEvidence #DiscordScreenshots #RobinDreeke #FBIProfiler #OnlineGrooming #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #NoArrestYet Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872
30 Sep 52min
How DNA Finally Cracked the Yogurt Shop Murders After 34 Years
How DNA Finally Cracked the Yogurt Shop Murders After 34 Years This is the turning point. After 34 years of dead ends, the infamous Yogurt Shop murders in Austin have finally been cracked—not by a tip, not by a confession, but by modern genetic genealogy and DNA testing. In this first segment, I walk you through how investigators resurrected crime scene evidence, plugged it into public DNA databases, built family trees, and landed on Robert Eugene Brashers as the killer. It wasn’t easy. The crime scene was ravaged by fire. Early DNA testing had limits. The wrong suspects had been tried. But in 2025, cold‑case teams used new techniques to extract male DNA profiles, cross‑referenced distant relatives, and zeroed in on Brashers. A former detective has even claimed a bullet casing found in a drain matched the firearm Brashers used in his suicide. (That’s not official yet — but it’s a powerful piece of the puzzle.) Why this matters: naming the suspect doesn’t end the story. It shifts the burden to accountability, record integrity, and transparency. This first part shows how science finally caught up to a case that law enforcement once believed might never be solved. If you thought cold cases were frozen in time—this rewrites that myth. Tune in to see exactly how the match was made—how one small genetic lead led to the unthinkable: identifying a killer who died 26 years ago. After you see the method, you’ll understand the stakes of what comes next. #YogurtShopMurders #AustinColdCase #GeneticGenealogy #DNAForensics #RobertBrashers #TrueCrimeBreakthrough #ColdCaseSolved #InvestigativeScience #CrimeDocumentary #SerialKiller Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872
30 Sep 34min
Laken Snelling & The Narcissism Epidemic: When Image Outranks Empathy
Laken Snelling & The Narcissism Epidemic: When Image Outranks Empathy Quick legal note up top: Laken Snelling has pleaded not guilty. A preliminary autopsy was inconclusive with further testing pending. There is no homicide charge at this time. She waived her preliminary hearing, and the case is now with a grand jury. Those facts stand while we talk about culture. Tonight’s episode isn’t a debate over statutes—it’s a post-mortem on the air a lot of young women are breathing. The filings outline a sequence after birth—wrap, place, clean—and investigators say they found deleted photos reportedly taken during labor along with searches about a concealed pregnancy. There’s also a statement to medical staff about seeing movement and hearing a “whimper”—not a medical finding, but a detail in the documents that changed the temperature of the room the moment people read it. What ties those beats together isn’t politics; it’s image management. We dig into how a narcissism epidemic—not clinical labels, but learned habits—trains an image-first reflex: protect the brand, keep the feed clean, make the optics unbreakable, even when reality is doing the opposite. We’re not shaming grooming; we’re interrogating curation as morality. Why does “looking composed” in court hit like a symbol in a case where concealment is central to the filings? What does it mean when the best-practiced skill in a crisis is deletion, not disclosure? We walk through the verified spine (birth → concealment → court) and explain, in plain English, how algorithmic reward systems push visibility without vulnerability—and how that can harden into callousness when the stakes are human. No speculation, no graphic detail, and no shortcuts around the legal guardrails. If new lab results or grand jury actions change the record, we’ll update. But the cultural takeaway is already here: if you train kids to value the avatar over the actual, don’t be surprised when the avatar wins. The fix isn’t a slogan; it’s formation. Train empathy like a skill. Choose the human, not the brand. Hashtags : #LakenSnelling #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Narcissism #VanityCulture #SocialMedia #GrandJury #CourtDocs #ImageVsEmpathy #Podcast Keywords Laken Snelling, Laken Snelling case, Lexington Kentucky case, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, concealing birth of an infant, preliminary autopsy inconclusive, grand jury Kentucky, deleted photos per filings, “whimper” per filings, narcissism epidemic, vanity culture, makeup as mask, image over empathy, algorithm culture, crisis management vs compassion, Tony Brueski Hidden Killers Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/tonybpod Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872
30 Sep 15min
