The Murder Blog
Building a Murder Business: H.H. Holmes and the Industrialization of Death
There's this assumption that serial killers are driven by compulsion. By sexual sadism or rage or psychotic delusions. That they're fundamentally broken in a way that makes them kill. But what if I told you about someone who started out as a stra…
Blueprint for a Monster: Edmund Kemper's Genius-Level IQ and Ten Murders
A teenager sits alone in the basement of his mother's house in Montana, holding a severed cat's head in his hands. He's already killed his grandparents. He's six foot four and thirteen years old. Decades later, the FBI will call him one of the most …
Julissa Thaler: The Mother Who Bought a Shotgun After Losing Custody Battle
Six-year-old Eli Hart was a kindergartener who loved playing on the monkey bars and going fishing with his dad. He was born with medical challenges that required surgeries and hearing aids, but teachers and family said he was always smiling, alwa…
Larry Gene Bell: The Sadistic Killer Who Tortured Families by Phone
May 31st, 1985. Shari Faye Smith walked to her mailbox and never came back. What happened next was something law enforcement had never really dealt with before. A killer who didn't want ransom. He wanted an audience. And for two weeks, he got one…
Four Dead in Ohio: The Kent State Shootings Investigation
May 4th, 1970. Seventy-seven National Guardsmen marched onto the Kent State University campus to break up a protest. Thirteen seconds later, four students were dead and nine were wounded. For forty years, the official story was that no one ordere…
Herbert Mullin: The Santa Cruz Killer Who Believed Murder Prevented Earthquakes
Santa Cruz, 1973. A city already drowning in serial murder violence gets hit with something nobody saw coming. A clean-cut former Boy Scout starts killing strangers because he thinks their deaths will stop California from falling into the ocean. Thi…
From First-Round Pick to Murder Conspiracy: The Fall of Rae Carruth
November 15th, 1999. Cherica Adams goes to see a serial killer movie with her boyfriend, an NFL wide receiver. Hours later, she's making a 12-minute 911 call, bleeding out in her BMW, naming the man who orchestrated her murder. This is the story of …
Ray Lewis and the Super Bowl Murders: The Buckhead Stabbing Case
Super Bowl Sunday, 2000. While the St. Louis Rams celebrated inside the Georgia Dome, two men from Akron, Ohio were bleeding to death on a Buckhead street. At the center of it all was Ray Lewis, one of the NFL's most feared linebackers, wearing a cr…
Route 40 Killer: Steven Brian Pennell and the Blue Van of Death
November 29th, 1987. Two teenagers looking for privacy pull off Route 40 in Delaware and spot what they think is a mannequin in the road. It's Thanksgiving weekend. The boyfriend drives closer. That's when they realize it's a woman's body, bound and…
The Assassination of Nipsey Hussle in South LA
March 31st, 2019. A Sunday afternoon in South Los Angeles. Nipsey Hussle is standing in the parking lot of his own clothing store, the one he built to revitalize the neighborhood that raised him. He's helping a friend who got out of prison get som…
The Girlfriend in the Cooler: The Wade Allen Case
In May 2019, police in Sturgis, Michigan got an anonymous call about a body in an apartment on North Maple Street. When they knocked on Wade Allen's door that night, he told them his girlfriend was an hour away in Kalamazoo. But when officers spo…
Homeschooled to Death: The Mary and Elwyn Crocker Jr. Torture Case
December 20th, 2018. Effingham County Sheriff's deputies show up at a house in Guyton, Georgia, asking about two kids nobody's seen in years. The father tells them the kids are with their mom in South Carolina. Then he breaks. Takes them to the b…
The Teahouse Killing: Sada Abe's Twisted Love Story
Tokyo, May 1936. A geisha walks into a police station carrying something wrapped carefully in silk inside her kimono sleeve. When detectives ask what she's hiding, she produces the severed penis of her dead lover. For three days, she's been wanderin…
Left to Die: The Chante Mallard Case and the Man in Her Windshield
October 26, 2001. Fort Worth, Texas. A certified nursing assistant leaves a nightclub high on ecstasy, drunk, and stoned. She hits a homeless man on Highway 287. He goes through her windshield. And instead of calling 911, she drives home with him st…
The Soho House Murder: How Sylvie Cachay's Breakup Turned Deadly
December 9th, 2010. The Soho House in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. A 33-year-old fashion designer is found dead in an overflowing bathtub, fully clothed in a black turtleneck sweater. The scene looks like an accidental drowning. But there's a s…
Natural Selection: How Religious Extremism Killed Mary Anne Welch
In August 2018, a father in Michigan called 911 to report his ten-month-old daughter was dead. But before he made that call, he did something else first. He called his lawyer. And he texted someone about selling a goat. When the dispatcher asked if …
The Birthday Cake Killers: Inside the 1973 Victor Massacre
November 6th, 1973. A family returns home from bowling night to find their babysitter held hostage. Within hours, nine people are dead. Two children executed on a bed. Adults bound and shot in a closet. And when it's over, the killers go to the k…
Sarah Jo Pender: The Female Charles Manson Case Explained
October 24, 2000. A 21-year-old secretary walks into a Walmart in Indianapolis and buys a shotgun. Twelve hours later, two people are dead. She gets 110 years. The shooter gets 75. The prosecutor who called her the Female Charles Manson now says …
The Cereal Killer: Frozen Breast Milk Solved a Michigan Murder
Christina Harris struggled to hold her spoon while eating cereal one evening in September 2014. By morning, the 36-year-old mother of two was dead. Her husband Jason collected the life insurance money, moved on with his life, and thought he'd gott…
Bible John: The Ballroom Killer
October 30th, 1969. Two sisters leave a Glasgow dance hall with two men they just met. One sister gets dropped off safely at George Square. The other continues on in that taxi, listening to her companion quote Bible verses and condemn adultery. By m…
Seven Deadly Sins: The Valhermoso Springs Massacre
June 4th, 2020. Seven people are about to sit down for dinner in rural Alabama. The invitation came from two guys they thought were friends. Members of their club. Except Frederic Rogers and John Michael Legg didn't come to eat. They came to make su…
Death Cap Mushroom Poisoning: The Australian Family Lunch Murders
July 29, 2023. A family lunch in rural Australia. Beef Wellington on the menu. By the end of the week, three people are dead and one is fighting for his life with a new liver. The poison? Death cap mushrooms. The person who served the meal? The host…
From Best Friend to Murder: The Missy Avila Story
October 1985. Seventeen-year-old Missy Avila goes for a walk in the Angeles National Forest with two of her closest friends. Three days later, hikers find her body face down in a creek, weighted down by a massive log. What makes this case absolutely…
Mississippi's Most Controversial Murder Trial: The Jessica Chambers Case
December 6th, 2014. A 19-year-old walks toward firefighters on a rural Mississippi back road. She's wearing only her underwear. Ninety-three percent of her body is burned. And before she dies the next day, she tries to tell them who did this to her.…