The Murder Blog
The Horrors of Cromwell Street: Fred and Rose West
Early Life and Troubled Upbringing
If looks can kill, then what can a cold and very public dismissal do? That was the question a husband facing his wife in the British courts would find out in the mid-1990s.The man himself was Frederick Walter Step…
Murder by Mail: The Deadly Scams of the Lonely Hearts Killers
A Darker Side of the Roaring 20s
When it comes to the Roaring 20’s America, we usually think of big parties, champagne glasses, and new cars. Rarely do we think about healthcare or even that someone could be struggling with something like obesity. …
William Pierce Jr.: The Serial Killer Who Killed for a Dollar
“I told him to stop back when he got out if he needed anything… He stopped back.”
That heart-wrenching line came from a husband who never imagined that a small act of kindness to a stranger would end in devastation. Now, he’…
The Keddie Murders: Secrets, Suspects, and Missing Pieces
A Fresh Start Turns to Horror in Cabin 28
In the early '80s, Sue Sharp was ready to embrace a fresh start, leaving behind a turbulent marriage and relocating to the serene woods of California with her five kids. But little did she know, the quie…
The Dark Secrets of Lovers’ Lane: Colonial Parkway Killings
Lovers' Lane Murders Along the Colonial Parkway
A lovers’ lane is the perfect place for a young couple to enjoy a moment of privacy…but it is also the perfect place for a serial killer to find his next pair of victims.
During the late 1980s, a ser…
The Mystery of JonBenet: Inside the Coldest Case of the ’90s
The Chilling 1996 Christmas Morning in Boulder, Colorado
On Christmas morning, 1996, the police in Boulder, Colorado received an unusual phone call. The caller was Patsy Ramsey, and she told them that her daughter, 6-year-old JonBenet, had been kid…
Philando Castile: The Man, The Legacy, The Injustice
The Tragic Events of July 6, 2016, in Robbinsdale, Minnesota
On July sixth, 2016, something tragic and incredibly heartbreaking happened in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. News of this terrible ordeal traveled like wildfire and eventually brought the whole…
Sex, Fame, and Murder: The Bob Crane Story
The 1960s. Every channel on the TV had some sort of cheesy comedy ripe with ill-timed laugh tracks and poorly executed jokes. But there was one comedy series out there that dared to stand out from the rest. Hogan’s Heroes was a CBS series loosely ba…
The Dark History of 10 Rillington Place: John Christie's Reign of Terror
Derelict, desolate and still ravaged from the constant raids and bombings of the World Wars, 10 Rillington Place was a desperate home for desperate people. Jutting out of the war-torn street of Notting Hill in London, rubble, refuse and even human r…
Classroom to Crime Scene: Pamela Smart’s Deadly Plot
Pamela Smart’s Early Life: The Perfect Cheerleader
Strikingly beautiful and outrageously popular, Pamela Smart just seemed to have it all and that’s just the way that things had always been for her. She was born on August 16th, 1967, in Coral Gable…
How Robert Ressler Changed the Way We Catch Serial Killers
The Emergence of the Serial Killer Concept
Today the concept of a serial killer, and even the very term itself, is so ingrained in our cultures and in our minds that it’s almost impossible to imagine a point in time when we weren’t constantly talki…
The Making of a Monster: How Jim Jones Built Jonestown
Early Struggles and Neglect
In the 1930s, a little boy named James Jones was being raised by a pair of struggling parents. His father, also named James, had been injured in a chemical warfare attack in the first World War, making it difficult for h…
Button Eyes and Bloodshed: The Tale of the Eyeball Killer
Charles Albright was born in Amarillo, Texas, on August 10, 1933. His biological mother dropped him off at an orphanage where he was later adopted by Fred and Delle Albright. It’s said that Delle Albright was a fiercely protective and somewhat overb…
The Horrifying Legacy of John Wayne Gacy: The Killer Clown Who Shocked America
Beneath the guise of a friendly neighbor who delighted children with his clownish antics at local parties, John Wayne Gacy hid a darkness that would forever haunt the American psyche. Dubbed the "Killer Clown," Gacy's name became synonymous with pur…
Snakes, Lies, and Murder: The Ben Renick Story
The Murder of Ben Renick: Snake Breeder, Millionaire, and a Deadly Betrayal
June 17th, 2017, in Montgomery County, Missouri, law enforcement responded to a 911 call that you just don’t see every day. As they pulled into a farm sprawling over sevent…
Rage and Ruin: The Rosewood Massacre
Today when most of us hear about the state of Florida, it is almost always quickly followed by some quirky story about someone acting incredibly and hilariously stupid (Florida Man), but amidst that light and lively sensation, it can sometimes be di…
Into Thin Air: What Happened to Selena Not Afraid?
In America, Indigenous women and girls are ten times more likely to go missing than any other race or nationality living within the borders. But within that cold and startling statistic hides one even more alarming for the communities it impacts.
…
Fatal Fandom: The Story of Christina Grimmie
27-year-old Kevin James Loibl was infatuated with pop star Christina Grimmie. It had started as a casual enjoyment of Christina’s music, but had quickly snowballed into complete obsession. She was the first thing he thought about when he woke up in …
Ken McElroy: The Bully Who Met His Match
It’s 1981. A rural and sleepy American town gathered together, a community united under one banner. The car park rings with the unmistakably deep clink of a shotgun loading before all Hell breaks loose. This was the town of Skidmore; a town deadset …
The Killer Next Door: Unmasking Thomas Whisenhant
Thomas Warren Whisenhant came into the world on January 29th, 1947, in Prichard, Alabama. He was the last and final child born to Willie and Emma Whisenhant, but Thomas’ childhood wasn’t anything like the one his three older siblings had shared.
(l…
A Community's Nightmare: The 2021 Waukesha Parade Attack
Waukesha, Milwaukee, the third most populated county in the state of Wisconsin, and known as “Guitar Town” because they are the home of Les Paul, pioneer of the electric guitar. And they have a fantastic annual tradition. Every year the city hosts a…
Celebration’s Dark Secret: The Todt Family Murders
“I’m wondering if somebody can do a wellness check on my brother and his family.” Came the call from one concerned sister to dispatchers around the end of 2019. “They’ve been really sick for probably like the past week and a half, and I can’t seem t…
The Complex Case of Cyntoia Brown
“He would explain to me that some people were born whores, and that I was one, and I was a slut and nobody’d want me but him,” a girl told the courts. These are words that are so difficult to hear in any testimony, let alone when we know that the gi…
The Night Kaylin Gillis Never Came Home
“You just don’t get it” a Washington County judge spoke to the defendant in a courtroom earlier this year. “It’s obvious to me that you feel justified. You don’t take any responsibility for the outcome of your actions… I think you really could poss…