True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers

On Christmas Night 1996, six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered in her family’s home in Boulder, Colorado. A ransom note was found in the home, but it was hours before her father, John, found her body in the basement. She had been strangled with a garrote and her skull was fractured. The media sensationalized the tragic death of the “child beauty queen” and public speculation and rumors ran rampant. What followed was one of the most notorious unsolved murder investigations in American history. Boulder police fixated on JonBenet’s parents as suspects. Needing investigative help, the Boulder DA brought in legendary homicide detective Lou Smit. However, he was soon disenchanted with law enforcement’s obsession with the Ramsey family as the primary suspects, excluding other possibilities. Smit resigned but continued to work on his own time, and at his own expense, determined to find justice for JonBenet. He determined the Ramsey family was not involved in her death but died in 2010 before he could identify the killer. Thousands of people attended his funeral service, including John Ramsey, and the detective’s lifelong friend and colleague, John Anderson. Along with a handful of retired detectives, Anderson and Smit’s family continue to pursue justice based on Smit’s work. Now, for the first time in LOU AND JONBENET, Anderson tells the story of Smit’s investigation and why the Smit family team now believes that the killer can be identified. LOU AND JONBENET: A Legendary Lawman's Quest To Solve A Beauty Queen's Murder-John Wesley Anderson Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

27 Feb 20231h

On a cold morning in December 1960, 60-year-old Laura Mutch was found strangled behind a house in downtown Erie....At a time when the Gem City was at its peak, including a triumphant run for the coveted 'All-American City' award, the murder created a pandemonium. As the investigation progressed, attacks on women in and around the city of Erie continued, sending citizens - and seasoned investigators - to the brink of total chaos. Infamous attacks such as the brutal stabbing of 72-year-old Clara Carrig, the attempted strangling and knifing of Helen Knost and the strangling murders of Mary Lynn Crotty and Eleanor Free caused women to lock their doors and avoid the streets at night. The arrest of truck driver John Howard Willman in September 1963 was not the end of the story as soon the case attracted nationwide attention - including a lawsuit by the ACLU. Just who was Erie's infamous 'Backyard Strangler?' Would a technicality by police cause the suspected murderer to roam free again to kill more victims? Author Justin Dombrowski charts the harrowing attacks, investigations and mystery surrounding Erie's 1960s reign of terror. ERIE'S BACKYARD STRANGLER: Terror in the 60's-Justin Dombrowski Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

20 Feb 202352min

Actors, musicians, TV personalities, and other public figures in the spotlight aren’t always who they appear to be. You might be surprised by just how many have led nefarious, double lives, and have become infamous criminals!Power, status, and a rich lifestyle aren’t barriers to criminal behavior. Yes, people from all walks of life commit crimes. But the people featured here are not your typical neighbors or subway passengers—they are household names and Hollywood stars. Get the stories behind these public figures, both contemporary and historical, who have traveled down the murky pathway toward criminal activity. After committing their crimes, the world may have kept on turning, but their legacies as infamous criminals remain strong worldwide. This book offers a fascinating assortment of true crime cases from around the world and from various time frames. Like the previous anthologies in The Best New True Crime Stories series, this volume contains all new and original nonfiction accounts penned by international writers from across the literary spectrum, including true crime, crime fiction, and journalism.Inside, you’ll find:The stories of Hollywood stars and famous criminals who went down the wrong pathEncounters that feature the cases of infamous criminals like Robert Blake, Jimmy Savile, Fatty Arbuckle and more. The Best New True Crime Stories: Crimes of Famous & Infamous Criminals-Mitzi Szereto. Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

14 Feb 202350min

What happens when ordinary people, in real-life murder clubs, set out to investigate crimes, both recent and cold cases?The Netflix hit Don’t F**k with Cats was based on the 2012 Montreal murder of thirty-three-year-old Lin Jun by his porn-star boyfriend, Luka Magnotta. Previously Magnotta had anonymously posted videos of himself killing kittens. This spurred horrified Facebook sleuths into working tirelessly to uncover his identity and location.Other investigations include:A self-taught forensic artist, who uses computer software and coroners’ photographs to help identify victims by showing how they looked when alive.The mother who swore at her murdered daughter’s graveside that she would get the gang who had sprayed her car with bullets. It took fourteen years in the case of one gang member, but she finally entrapped him via the fake profile she had created on MySpace.The retail clerk turned citizen sleuth who helped to match a photo of a missing man to a skull found in a bucket, which resulted in the conviction of the victim’s best friend.Websleuths matched the IP address of a suspicious contributor to a lottery-winning victim’s financial advisor, which led to his body being found beneath a newly poured concrete slab in his advisor’s boyfriend’s garden.Sometimes citizen sleuthing goes wrong, though, with innocent people being targeted, or accused of crimes they haven’t committed, with tragic results.The real-life version of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club is grittier, with intrepid amateur investigators delving into truly gruesome unsolved crimes in pursuit of justice. THE REAL-LIFE MURDER CLUBS: Citizens Solving True Crimes-Nicola StowGet $100 off your first month at Talkspace.com/ TRUEMURDER Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

8 Feb 202346min

John Edward Swindler never learned to read or write and instead became a bona fide criminal at the age of fifteen. His crimes quickly advanced from car theft to arson. At three hundred pounds, with long, fuzzy red hair and pimply skin, his appearance was so frightening that he intimidated fellow inmates into performing crimes from their jail cells. He sodomized other convicts, who dared not refuse him. He was moved in and out of solitary confinement in an attempt to break him of his violent ways. It failed. Released from prison because he was uncontrollable, he began a multi-state crime spree that culminated in the rape and murder of three young people and the shocking assault on a Fort Smith, Arkansas, policeman named Randy Basnett. In a matter of days, Swindler’s lust for death grew into an unforgettable KILLING SPREE.On September 24, 1976, two men—John Edward Swindler, a force for evil, and Officer Randy Basnett, laying his life on the line for good—came together. The result altered their lives, and the lives of many others. This is their story. THE KILLING SPREE: A True Story of a String of Brutal Murders, Rapes, and the Cop Who Tried to Stop It-Anita Paddock Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

6 Feb 202349min

A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America. While other infamous homicides from the same eras—the Lizzie Borden slayings, for example, or the “thrill killing” committed by Leopold and Loeb—have entered into our cultural mythology, these four equally sensational crimes have largely faded from public memory. A quartet of gripping historical true-crime narratives, Butcher’s Work restores these once-notorious cases to vivid, dramatic life. BUTCHER'S WORK-True Crime Tales of American Murder and Madness-Harold Schechter Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

30 Jan 202343min

Internationally known legal ethics professor Richard Zitrin's work as a trial lawyer placed him on the front lines of fighting systemic racism, pervasive elitism, and injustice against individuals in the legal system. In Trial Lawyer, he shares details of the most compelling cases he's encountered and exposes the dilemmas he faced throughout his one-of-a-kind career. The profound, the consequential, the shocking, the bizarre, and even the humorous, Trial Lawyer brings to life what it means to represent people against power.From his first case as a young law student on the famous and highly politicized San Quentin Six case and throughout his forty-year career, Zitrin has worked on dozens of cases that underscore the inherent biases of the legal system - towards people of color, the poor, the less educated, and those who just don't appear to fit the mold of whatever society considers "normal." His personal stories about him bring the reader inside the courtroom to experience a unique cast of characters, strange-but-true facts, brilliant trial tricks and tactics-and not-so-brilliant ones that failed miserably. Each had its own lessons: about social justice, fairness, strategy, ethics, morality, and more. TRIAL LAWYER: A Life Representing People Against Power-Richard Zitrin Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

24 Jan 202351min

Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid.When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads. From Wondery, comes a story about life, death, and what comes next.Follow Frozen Head on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App. Listen to Frozen Head: Wondery.fm/FH_TM Follow and comment on Facebook-TRUE MURDER: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064697978510Check out TRUE MURDER PODCAST @ truemurderpodcast.com

23 Jan 20234min