460: Murder Has Two Faces: Good Guys Gone Bad

Kidnapping! Murder! Swindling Rich People! Fancy Art Shenanigans! This one has it all. Christian Gerhartsreiter, a man eventually known as "Clark Rockefelle," lived a life of deception; the FBI called it "the longest-running con in FBI history." After ingratiating himself into New York society and marrying a top banker with a Harvard MBA, "Clark" settled into his new luxurious life. The two had a daughter before they divorced after 13 years. When his wife won custody, a distraught Clark abducted his beloved daughter. Ironically, it was the search for the missing child that not only exposed a web of lies and multiple identities, but a double murder committed decades earlier .  Check out our Patreon where you'll find mini bonus episodes (2 there now!), monthly bonus full episodes (first one coming this week!), exclusive videos (we're gonna watch Unsolved Mysteries and talk about it) and more! Join our Patreon Community!

6 Feb 201853min

On August 1, 1966, a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes in what was a previously unimaginable event. Based entirely on first person testimonies from witnesses, heroes, and survivors, TOWER combines archival footage with rotoscopic animation to tell the story of that day. The film highlights the fear, confusion, and visceral realities that changed the lives of those present, and the rest of us, forever - a day when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others. For this one, you guys, the garbage bell is magically transformed into the hero bell. And there's a whole lot of dinging.

30 Jan 201858min

A four-year-old girl, whose paintings are compared to Kandinsky, Pollock, and even Picasso, has sold $300,000 dollars worth of paintings. Is she a genius of abstract expressionism, a tiny charlatan, or an exploited child whose parents have sold her out for the glare of the media and the lure of the almighty dollar? This one's a dozy, but hey, nobody gets murdered! Do you know someone who would love TCO? Tweet them and us (@truecrimeobsess) using  #GetObsessed and let us playfully harass them until the check us out! This week's sponsor is Songfinch and Patrick is OBSESSED! This week's palate cleanser is the song Patrick had Songfinch write for Daisy's 4th birthday. If you love it, tweet them (@Sonfinch) and tell them that you heard it on TCO

23 Jan 201858min

BEWARE THE SLENDERMAN tells the story of the internet's elusive Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier lured their best friend into the woods, stabbed her 19 times, then set out on an odyssey to meet the tall and faceless man known online as Slenderman. Shot over 18 months with heartbreaking access to the families of the would-be murderers, the film plunges deep down the rabbit hole of their crime, a Boogeyman. and our society's most impressionable consumers of media. The entrance to the internet can quickly lead us to its dark basement, within just a matter of clicks. How much do we hold children responsible for what they find there? Find all of our episodes at our website and follow us on twitter!

16 Jan 201853min

Strangeness is afoot. Most people don't notice the hundreds of cryptic tiled messages about resurrecting the dead that have been appearing in city streets over the past three decades. But Justin Duerr does. For years, finding an answer to this long-standing urban mystery has been his obsession. He has been collecting clues that the tiler has embedded in the streets of major cities across the U.S. and South America. But as Justin starts piecing together key events of the past he finds a story that is more surreal than he imagined, and one that hits disturbingly close to home.

9 Jan 20181h

In the 1960s, Gerald Foos bought a motel in Colorado, furnished the rooms with louvered vents that allowed him to spy on his guests, and kept a journal of their sexual encounters and more (including maybe a murder?). Over the course of 30 years, celebrated writer Gay Talese coxes Gerald’s story out of him and finally convinces Gerald to let him publish it. But when the story gets out, questions are raised and nothing is as it seems.

22 Dec 20171h 9min

The world couldn't keep its eyes off two athletes at the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer - Nancy Kerrigan, the elegant brunette and Tonya Harding, the feisty blonde engulfed in scandal. Just weeks before the Olympics on January 6, 1994 at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Kerrigan was stunningly clubbed on the right knee by an unknown assailant and left wailing, "Why, why, why?" As the bizarre "why" mystery unraveled, it was revealed that Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had plotted the attack with his misfit friends to literally eliminate Kerrigan from the competition. Now two decades later, The Price of Gold takes a fresh look at the worldwide spectacle that elevated the popularity of professional figure skating and has Harding still facing questions over what she knew when she knew it.

6 Dec 20171h 8min

Meet Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming with an IQ of 168. 30 years ago, she fell in love with a young Mormon named Kirk. When Kirk disappeared and then turned up a few months later in the UK, Joyce was convinced he’d been kidnapped and was being held against his well. Determined to get him back, Joyce set off on a journey that would lead her across the globe, into jail, and onto the front pages of the most popular tabloids of the time. Her crusade for love took her through a surreal world of kidnapping, manacled Mormons, risqué photography, magic underwear, and celestial sex. Oh AND to the 1977 after party for the film “Saturday Night Fever.” “Tabloid,” directed by the genius Errol Morris, is a portrayal of a phenomenally driven woman whose romantic obsessions and delusions catapult her over the edge into scandal, fame, and an unimaginable life.

28 Nov 20171h 3min