Forensic Transmissions

Around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2008, according to April Lewis, intruders broke in to her home in Columbus, Ohio twin 17-year-old sons, Dennis and Derris. They held April at gunpoint, ransacked the home, then fatally shot her 17-year-old son Dennis. Prosecutors said that Dennis was killed by his identical twin brother Derris, jealous that his twin had more money than he did, and a car. Both twins were model students and devoted to each other. In March 2009, of the following year, Derris Lewis went on trial for murder, but after a juror needed to be excused during deliberations and no alternate jurors were available, the judge declared a mistrial. Then on Aug. 6, 2009, all charges against Lewis were dismissed after what prosecutors claimed was a bloody palm print on the wall of the Lewis home turned out not to exist at all, and Derris Lewis was released after being in custody for 18 months. He was awarded $950,000 compensation by the city of Columbus, Ohio. This episode contains testimony from Derris's girlfriend, Kristian Holloway, about Derris's personality, and the night in question. She calls him a "goody two-shoes" who dearly loved his brother.

Jeffrey Pyne 22, was a star athlete, high school valedictorian and University of Michigan biology student. He was all set for a career in medicine when his mother, Ruth, developed bipolar disorder and Jeffrey began to get concerned for the safety of his  behaving violently and erratically. She became hyper-religious, and Jeffrey became. concerned about the safety of his sister Julia, 12, who was being home schooled. Ruth spent time in jail for assaulting Jeffrey in 2010, but charges were dropped when she promised to stay on her medication.     On May 27, 2011, Ruth Pyne, 51, was beaten and stabbed to death in the family garage. Jeffrey and his father, Bernie, believed she was attacked by an intruder. Prosecutors argued that Jeffrey killed her in a fit of rage after years of tension and pressure. In her testimony, Jeffrey's girlfriend Holly Freeman said Jeffrey was very emotional about his mother, and shortly after the crime, his hands were bandaged and blistered, which he claimed came from lifting pallets at his job on a local farm.     In January 2013, Jeffrey Pyne was found guilty of second degree murder andsentenced to twenty to sixty years in the Michigan Department of Corrections. His father and sister continue to protest his innocence.

At 2 AM in March 29, 2019, Samantha Josephson, 21,  ordered an Uber to take her home after a night out at a bar in Columbia, South Carolina. Outside the bar, she mistakenly got into a car driven by a man named Nathaniel Rowland, 27, who trapped her in the vehicle by activating its childproof locks,  then kidnapped and murdered her. Her body was found the following day by turkey hunters in the woods 65 miles away. In court, Nathaniel Rowland's ex-girlfriend, Maria Howard, testified she saw blood inside Nathaniel's car hours after the victim vanished — and also saw him cleaning a hunting knife. She saw blood on the back seat and on the dashboard of his car, and a sheet had been draped over the seat. When she asked Nathaniel what had happened, he told her to "mind her own business". Rowland was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

(see episode 120 for Jane Doe #1). This episode contains the testimony of Jane Doe 2 in the rape trial of Kellen Winslow Jr., a former NFL tight end, in San Diego County Superior Court in early November. Jane Doe, who remained nameless and was not shown on camera, was a 59-year-old homeless woman from Encinitas, California who was picked up and raped by large black man with tattoos who drove a black Hummer and identified himself as “Kevin.” She testifies that he drove her to a parking lot close to a shopping center and raped her violently, causing extra pain due to his “gigantic penis.”  Winslow was also charged with raping another homeless woman, as well as a 17-year-old at a 2003 party when he was 19. There were also indecent acts where he allegedly exposed himself to an elderly female neighbor who was in her yard gardening and a 77-year-old in a health club hot tub while Winslow was out on bail and awaiting trial.     With incontrovertible evidence accumulating against him, Winslow finally accepted a plea deal that spared him from the possibility of a life prison sentence. He pleaded guilty to raping the unconscious teen in 2003 and to the sexual battery of Jane Doe 1, while the San Diego County Superior Court agreed to dismiss other felony charges including kidnapping, sodomy, forced oral copulation and two charges of forcible rape.

Brothers Erik and Lyle Menéndez  were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise (“Kitty”) Menéndez (see episode 169 for testimony from Lyle's girlfriends). The trial had many subplots. One of the most juicy involved the brothers' therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel, and his mistress / patient, Judalon Smyth. Erik Menéndez, torn apart by guilt after the murders, apparently confessed to Oziel, who then told his mistress, Judalon Smyth, who went to the cops. The affair was a stormy one (Judalon said she once made Oziel an IOU for 500 sex acts). Judalon said Oziel was obsessed with her; Oziel said it was the other way around. In fact, the affair seems to have been a folie a deux. This episode contains testimony from both parties. Erik and Lyle Menéndez are currently both serving sentences of life without parole in the California Department of Corrections. Jerome Oziel lives in Portland, Oregon where he offers relationship and marriage seminars. Judalon Smyth is an EMT technician in Beverly Hills, California.

This episode contains testimony from the Murdaugh family's longtime housekeeper, Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson, during South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh's trial for the murder of his wife Maggie and youngest son, Paul. Simpson testified that said she never knew Alex and Maggie to argue, other than "some minor disagreements" over things like like over the paint color of their beach house remodel. But Maggie also told Blanca that the couple were worried about a lawsuit against Paul, who had been recently involved in boating accident in which a friend had been killed. Maggie said she was very concerned about money, and felt Alex was "not being truthful" with her about the lawsuit. On March 27, 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of double homicide and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

This episode contains more audio from the trial of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tavish for the murder of Ted Binion. Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino's poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin addiction and associations with known criminals, he'd recently lost his gaming license and his ties to the casino. His wife Doris had moved out, taking the couple's daughter, Bonnie, after learning of Ted's affair with a topless dancer named Sandra Murphy. Just before his death, he discovered that Sandra was cheating on him with a man named Rick Tabish. On September 17, 1998, Ted was found dead from a combination of Xanax, heroin, and Valium. He'd recently bought 12 pieces of tar heroin from a street drug dealer, and had a Xanax prescription from his next-door neighbor, a doctor. Police believed the scene was staged by Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish, who wanted Ted's money (after losing his gaming license, Ted had taken all his gold out of the Horseshoe safe and buried it in a 12 foot deep underground vault in Pahrump, Nevada). In 1999, Sandra and Rick were found guilty of murder, but the verdict was overturned.After a second trial, they were acquitted of the murder, but found guilty of conspiring to commit and committing burglary and/or grand larceny. Rick served 11 years; Sandy was sentenced to time served. This episode contains testimony from the second trial, in May 2005, featuring two of Sandy's gossipy beauticians, hairdresser Georgia Gastone and Michelle Gillian.

This episode returns once again to the 1992 trial in which Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to the murder and dismemberment of 15 boys and men. A number of psychiatrists testified at Dahmer's tril. Judith Becker, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, was the second expert witness for the defense. Dr. Becker diagnosed Dahmer as a necrophiliac, although she added that Dahmer was not a "classic" necrophile in that he preferred comatose sexual partners to deceased ones "75 percent of the time". In this excerpt from the trial, Dr. Becker, reading from her notes, summarizes Dahmer's crimes in a remarkably monotone voice. Dahmer was found guilty and sentenced to life. He was killed in prison on November 28, 1994.

During the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995, screenwriter Laura Hart McKinny testified about the 13 hours of taped interviews she conducted with LAPD officer Mark Fuhrman, who was involved in the investigation of the 1994 murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. McKinny claimed the tapes contain many instances of Fuhrman expressing racist opinions and using offensive language and misogynistic slurs. Fuhrman and McKinny began meeting for taped interviews in February 1985 and continued meeting until July 1994. Only a very small portion of the audio was played in court. This episode contains McKinny's testimony at the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.

Renegade Mormons Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell developed their own doomsday cult, telling their small circle of followers that demons had turned their family members into "zombies" or "vampires" who needed to be killed. On May 14, 2023, an Idaho jury found Daybell guilty on all charges, for her role in the deaths of her two children and her husband's first wife. Chad Daybell will be tried separately next year. On Day 5 of the Vallow Daybell trial, Zulema Pastenes, the widow of Lori's brother Alex Cox, took the stand. She explained Lori 's beliefs about casting out evil spirits, and how she was convinced various people--including her two children--had been 'possessed' and 'attacked' by demons.

Dixie Shanahan, 36, a hard-working nurse's aide from Defiance, Iowa, was abused by her stepfather all through her childhood, then, in 1995, she married an abusive husband. Scott Shanahan, 40, had a violent temper, was twice convicted of beating Dixie, and once tied her up with wire coat hangers, and locked her in the basement for three days. One night, Scott threatened Dixie and her unborn baby with a loaded gun. Dixie, afraid for her daughter's life, waited until Scott was asleep then shot him in the back of the head. Then, instead of calling 911, she pulled the covers of Scott's body, closed and locked the bedroom door, and never went in there again. A year later, when police entered the room, there was nothing left but skeletal remains. In April 2004, Dixie was found guilty of second-degree murder, which normally carries a 50-year sentence, but in 2018, after fifteen years behind bars, she was granted work release.

This episode features a phone call between Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander, whom she was dating intermittently between February 2007 and Alexander's death in June 2008. A member of the LDS church, Alexander presented himself in public as a virgin and politely courted a number of LDS women while keeping his highly sexual relationship with Jodi as a "dirty little secret." Eventually the two broke up, but Jodi continued to drive from her home in Yreka, CA to visit Travis in Mesa, AZ. As Travis increasingly ignored her in favor of "pure" Mormon women, Jodi became increasingly erratic and unhinged. On Wednesday, June 4, 2008, during a visit to Mesa, the pair got into a fight and Jodi shot and stabbed Travis to death. The prosecution claimed that Jodi had driven to Mesa from Yreka with premeditated plans to murder Travis. The defense argued that the relationship had been abusive, and Jodi had killed Travis in self-defense. After a complex series of trials and appeals, Jodi was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

In December 2019, in Celebration, Florida, police performed a wellness check on the home of the Todt family, who hadn't been seen for some time. Anthony Todt, 44, was discovered unkempt and shaking. Wife Megan, 42, was found dead, along with their  three children: Alek, 13; Tyler, 11, and Zoe, 4. They  had been stabbed in the stomachs and smothered to death, and lay decomposing with crucifixes gripped in their hands. Also dead was the family dog, Breezy. Anthony claimed that Megan had recently joined an online cult and the family had decided to kill themselves to avoid the apocalypse so they could be together in heaven. He said the murders were committed by Megan, and after her suicide, he had attempted to join her by attempting to strangle himself and overdosing on Benadryl but unfortunately didn't take enough to die. Todt was a physical therapist who'd recently been served a federal warrant for health care fraud charges. Police concluded his life was falling apart and he faked the "family cult suicide" to draw attention away from his financial and legal problems. In 2022, he was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This episode contains Todt testifying at his trial, claiming that Megan was responsible for the children's deaths.

This episode contains testimony from public hearings of the Mollen Commission, a board established in 1992 to investigate police corruption in New York City. First is testimony from rogue cop Michael Dowd, who agreed to appear before the commission after being turned in by his partner. Dowd describes to commissioners how he and other officers at Brooklyn's  75th and 94th Precincts began colluding with drug dealers to rob their rivals and sell cocaine, finally graduating to extortion, grand larceny, conspiracy, drug trafficking and racketeering. Next is testimony from "Mr. X," a widely used law enforcement informant, who spoke about corruption among officers of the 9th Precinct.

In 1999, Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth, 26, had a problem. A casual girlfriend, stripper Cherica Adams, 24, told him she was pregnant with his child. Rae was already paying a significant amount of child support to a woman in California, and had no desire for another baby. Prosecutors claimed Carruth conspired with three men to gun down Cherica as she was driving home from a movie. Before she died, Cherica was given a C-section and delivered Carruth's son, Chancellor, who was born with permanent brain damage and cerebral palsy. The defense, led by David Rudolf (defense attorney in the Michael Peterson 'Staircase' trial), argues hit man Van Brett Watkins killed Cherica in a fit of anger following a prior argument with Rae. In 2002, Carruth was found guilty of conspiracy to commit first degree murder. He served 18 years of an 18-to-24-year sentence and was released from prison on October 22, 2018. This episode contains testimony from Carruth's cousin, Tiffany Adams, followed by confessed hitman Van Brett Watkins.

Christopher Sutton, the adopted son of John and Susan Sutton of Coral Gables, Florida, was a troubled young man, constantly in trouble with the law. To curb his behavior, his wealthy parents sent him to a reform school in Samoa, and Chris never forgave them. After returning home to Florida, Chris, 25, offered his friend Garrett Kopp $10,000 to kill his parents. Kopp broke into the Suttons' home on August 22, 2004, and shot the couple, killing Susan and blinding John. The initial suspect was John's law partner, with whom Susan was having an affair, but the cops soon turned to Chris. He claimed Kopp acted alone out of anger after a drug deal went bad, but the jury didn't buy it, and Chris Sutton was sentenced to three terms of life without parole. This episode features the cross-examination of Chris's girlfriend, Juliette Driscoll, who under police pressure admitted she was aware of Chris's plan to murder the Suttons, but later retracted her assertion.

Richard, Sheryl and Stacey Kananen survived a horrific upbringing of violence and abuse on the part of their father. Sheryl left home to marry and raise a family, but Stacey and Ricky continued to live at home with their parents in Orlando. When their father Larry disappeared, no-one missed him. But when their mother Marilyn disappeared 15 years later, police became suspicious, especially when, shortly after her mother went missing, Stacey, 37, moved with her partner Susan to live in a nudist resort. Searching the siblings' home, police unearthed the remains of their father under the garage floor. Their mother's mummified body was found buried in the rock garden. After being questioned by police, Ricky and Stacey unsuccessfully attempted suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. When they were separated, Ricky admitted to the murders in return for a 30-year-sentence. But when Stacey agreed to testify against him, Ricky turned on her and claimed she was responsible. After her acquittal, Stacey wrote a book about the case, Fear of Our Father: a true story of abuse, murder and family ties  (Berkley Books, April 2013).

In June 2014, at his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon, a man making his dinner heard gunshots. He looked through the window and saw his neighbor across the street, 41-year-old Adrien Wallace, standing in his driveway pointing a hunting rifle at the dead body of his mother, 71-year-old Saundra Wallace. He then walked to the car where his 16-year-old nephew, Nick Juarez, was sitting on the passenger seat. Wallace squatted, pointed the gun at the car, and fired. He smoked a cigarette then called 911 and confessed to his crime. He gave no reason except that he was abused as a child and hated the human race. Wallace was charged with two charges of aggravated murder. It took jurors 12 minutes to reject his insanity defense. He was sentenced to life without parole.

Tommy Carlton, a registered nurse living in Osceola County, Florida, was very angry with his ex-wife, Elizabeth. The couple were involved in a bitter custody battle, and Tommy owed $85,000 in child support. In 2008, He hired a hit man to kill her, but the hit man turned out to be an undercover cop. With the help of Elizabeth, police staged a sting operation using posed photos where she appeared to be shot in the head. When the police told him his wife had been murdered, Tommy replied, "I can't say I'm sad about it. I hated the bitch. But I had nothing to do with it." In court, Tommy claimed he had a hearing deficit and couldn't understand what the hit man was saying. He was found guilty of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison. This episode contains an excerpt from Tommy defending himself on the stand, followed by a recording of his conversation with the police after being informed of his wife's murder.

In this continuation of episode 180, Marc Benayer interrogates Rabbi Zalman Bukiet, of the Chabad Weltman Synagogue in Boca Raton, where the shooting occurred. He accuses the Rabbi of, among other sins, being anti-Sephardic, cheating, taking money for performing Bar Mitzvahs, and turning a somersault in the synagogue. Benayer also testified on his own behalf, doing himself no favors. He was questioned by defense attorney, Christopher Haddad. The long-suffering judge was Richard I. Wennet, of West Palm Beach Circuit Court. After his conviction, Benayer died in prison.

This episode contains the testimony of Marc Benayer, 81, who represented himself at his 2007 murder trial in Boca Raton, Florida. After Benayer's girlfriend Marta Pinto, 44, had broken up with him, he allegedly began stalking and harassing her, claiming she owed him $10,000. Marta, who spoke very little English, worked at an electronics company, and she turned to her bosses, Mark Levy and Jonathan Samuels, for help in getting a restraining order against her elderly suitor. In 2005, after the Rosh Hashanah service at the Chabad Weltman Synagogue in Boca Raton, Benayer shot Jonathan Samuels, 43, twice in the back. He died nine months later. Mr. Benayer claimed the shooting was an accident, and that Samuels' death was due to a heart attack. At his trial, the eccentric and irascible Benayer fired his attorney and decided to represent himself. Unsurprisingly, the jury found him guilty. Later, while behind bars, Benayer tried to hire a hitman to kill his former defense attorney along with Mark Levy, a prosecution witness. In reality, the hitman was an undercover Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy. While Benayer had been diagnosed with dementia, a personality disorder and the early onset of Alzheimer's, psychiatrists examined him before the trial and declared him competent to represent himself. Others may disagree. Benayer died in prison in August 2015, aged 89. This episode contains Mr. Benayer's excruciating cross-examination of his ex- girlfriend Marta's daughter Henriette, 18, and Marta's new boyfriend, Martin Fried.

When sentencing Ted Bundy to death, Florida Judge Edward Cowart told him that, had things turned out differently, he would have made a fine lawyer. Cowart's statement is followed by Bundy's interview with Dr. James Dobson the night before his execution by electric chair in January 1989, in which he blames his crimes on access to hard-core pornography as a teenager.

December, 2018. Lisa Jeffrey, 48, of Ocala, Florida, hadn't been seen for a few days; relatives became concerned and contacted the police. When cops searched the trailer where Lisa lived with her ex-husband, 57-year-old Bo Pete Jeffrey, they found her body, along with a pair of blood-stained boxing gloves, stuffed into garbage bags under his camper bed. Lisa, who had Crohn's disease, alcoholism and a drug problem, had been beaten to death. During the police interview, Bo Pete is not in good shape. He retches and vomits constantly, and is finally taken to the hospital. The next day, feeling a little better, he admits he beat Lisa after an argument but claims she passed out and died "on the commode." He said he welcomed her death because he hated her so much, but he insisted he didn't intend to kill her, and hid the body because he felt guilty for beating her. In July 2021, Bo Pete Jeffrey was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. (Audio quality is poor due to recording conditions).

On August 8, 1996, playboy bachelor Lance Herndon, 41, was found bludgeoned to death in his bed at his home in Roswell, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Police claim the killer climbed onto his naked body and straddled him, then beat him in the head and face. The murder weapon was never found. The investigation into Herndon's death uncovered a complicated web of relationships. He was still closely involved with his third ex-wife, Jeannine Price, the beneficiary of his insurance policy. His current girlfriend, the glamorous Kathi Collins, was unaware that Lance was also involved on/off romantic relationships with various other pretty, light-skinned black women, including his assistant Tallana Carraway as well as a nursing student named Dionne Baugh. Dionne, who was married to a Jamaican airline pilot, told police that Herndon was obsessively fastidious and liked anal sex; she suggested he might also have had a secret gay life. In addition, Herdon's financial dealings were complicated and ethically doubtful. His company was in serious financial difficulty, and he was almost broke. Investigators concluded that Dionne beat Lance to death in a moment of jealous rage while the couple were having sex. She was sentenced to life in prison in 2001, but her sentence was later reversed on a technicality. In 2004, at her second trial, she pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was released in July 2011. This episode includes testimony from Lance's mother, Jackie Herndon, and his ex-wife, Jeannine Herndon.

In January 1992, Aileen Wuornos, a sex worker, stood trial for the murder of 52-year-old Richard Mallory, who'd picked her up when she was hitch-hiking. When she was intially interviewed by police, Wuornos said she shot Mallory because he threatened to rape her. However, at trial, her testimony about the incident was much more graphic and disturbing. At this time, she'd confessed to murdering six men in addition to Mallory, all in self-defense (in fact, Mallory had a prior conviction for sexual abuse, but this fact was not allowed into evidence). To law enforcement and the state's attorney, Wuornos gave a number of inconsistent versions of events; her attorneys discouraged her from testifying in court, but she insisted on taking the stand. Her account fell apart under close questioning, especially after her longtime girlfriend, Tyria Moore, took a deal and testified against her. On Jan. 27, 1992, she was found guilty of first-degree murder. Four days later, she was sentenced to death. Wuornos was executed in October 2002.

Marvin Heemyer had come to the end of his tether. The welder and muffler repairman had moved to the small town of Granby, Colorado, around 1990. In 1992, he bought 2 acres of land for $42,000 to build a muffler repair shop. He subsequently agreed to sell the land to a man named Cody Docheff, who wanted to build a concrete plant. Around 2001, he became embroiled in an arcane zoning dispute that left him completely unhinged. Heemyer, 53, began to plan a vigilante attack. He bought a heavy-duty bulldozer, armored it with steel and concrete, and cut a portal in the back through which he mounted an arsenal of guns. On June 4, 2004, following what he believed to be God's will, Marvin drove his "killdozer" into the town of Granby, destroying the homes of his enemies: the town hall, the former mayor's house, the library, and the hardware store. When the police began moving in, Marvin shot himself. Heemyer may have been deluded, but his intense conviction is difficult to condemn, and it's hard not to admire the violent insanity of his indignant rampage.

Dan Brophy, 63, was a well-known chef and popular teacher at the Oregon Culinary Institute in Portland, Oregon. In the morning of June 2, 2018, Dan was gunned down while he was prepping for the day's work in the school's kitchen. He had no known enemies. However, Dan and his wife, Nancy, were having serious financial problems and to shore up the couple's finances, Nancy, a self-published romance novelist, had taken a job selling life insurance. Friends of the couple testified that their marriage was strong and stable; others noted that Nancy was tired of Dan's hoarding and messiness. During the trial, it was revealed that Dan was heavily insured, and Nancy had recently purchased a “ghost gun” kit online (for "research purposes," she said). In addition, Nancy's van was seen near the scene of the crime. And although the judge did not allow the issue to be raised at trial, she'd also published an essay on her blog entitled "How to Murder Your Husband". Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. This episode includes testimony from friend and fellow chef Tania Medlin, Nancy's cellmate Anndrea Jacobs, and Nancy herself, whose rambling responses did her no favors.

This episode contains testimony from the trial of Andy McCauley for the murder of his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter, Riley Crossman. The crime took place in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, a small working-class community blighted by Opiods and other drugs. Riley and her boyfriend, Hayden, always stayed in close contact by text and social media, even "sleeping together" at night on Facetime. On the night of May 7, 2019, at 11:01 p.m., Riley was in bed when something disturbing happened. She sent Hayden a text that said, "Andy's in my room and I'm scared," but Hayden had fallen asleep. Riley's dead body was found May 16 by Tuscarora Pike in Berkeley County, West Virginia. There was drywall compound all over her body and on foliage around her. Several contractor-weight trash bags were also found with the body. Contractor Andy McCauley, 43, a man with several prior felonies, was partner of Riley's waitress mother Chantel. He denied involvement in the murder, but his alibi for the night of Riley's death collapsed under scrunity. McCauley was convicted in November 2021 and sentenced to life without parole. This episode contains trial testimony from Andy's ex-girlfriend Denise, his mother Brenda, and his nephew, Christopher.

This episode contains the long, grueling interrogation of Cat Mellender, 21, the girlfriend of 23-year-old Chandler Halderson. As she testified at trial in January 2022, Cat had always believed that Chandler was a recent college graduate who worked for an insurance company, volunteered as a rescue scuba diver, and was had recently been offered a job in Florida with SpaceX. But when Chandler's parents, Bart and Krista Halderson, went missing in July 2021, his web of lies came undone. Chandler had not graduated from college, did not have a job, and was not going to Florida. His father was getting suspicious, and making a lot of phone calls. Chandler knew he was sunk. But instead of confessing, he shot his parents to death, carved up their bodies, tried to burn them in the fireplace, and kept them in the ice chest before dumping them on Cat's mother's property. Evidence of the double murder was described during the trial: an eager flock of vultures hovering over the woods, and the smell of what one neighbor assumed was pork on a barbecue. Chandler Halderson was found guilty of the two murders in March 2022, and was sentenced to life without parole.

    In November 2007, Adam Kaufman, a prominent Florida real estate salesman, woke to find his wife Lina, 33, draped by the neck, dead, over a magazine rack by the toilet in the couple's ritzy waterfront home. There was suspicious bruising on Lina's neck, although the marriage was apparently untroubled.  A year-and-a-half later, the Miami-Dade County medical examiner ruled Lina's death a homicide by mechanical strangulation, and Adam was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The defense argued that a spray tan Lina got the day before may have caused her to pass out and slump over that magazine rack, where she was strangled to death by gravity. Adam Kaufman was acquitted; experts concluded that his wife's death, although unusual, was most likely caused by a preexisting heart condition. This episode contains testimony from Farrah Corenblum, who had a relationship with Adam after Lina's death; Melissa Fedowitz and Rina Azulay, Lina's close friends; Rachel Kaufman, the wife of Adam's twin brother, Seth, and defense attorney Bill Matthewman, who objects that the prosecution is trying to portray Adam as "a rich Jew who didn't grieve enough."

These are four calls to the National UFO Reporting Center, directed by Robert Gribble. The first call is a conversation with an alleged abductee in John Day, Oregon, who claims to have been abducted in June 1976 by four entities with large black eyes and dumped in an empty parking lot. On the face of it, the story is plausible, but the abductee is disoriented, intoxicated, and clearly unreliable. The second call is from a gentleman named Robert Estes, who, in September 1978, encountered a UFO and its occupant who said to him, "Bob, what do you think of this?" The third call is from a witness who describes an incident that occurred in Klamath Falls, Oregon in January 1979, and the fourth relates to a UFO landing in Yukon, Oklahoma in August 1978. The hotline host, Robert Gribble, is always gentlemanly and polite, no matter how bizarre or unusual the caller's account.

On November 13, 2004, the charred body of teacher's aide Lauri Waterman, 48, was found on the back seat of her minivan on a remote area on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. Her body had been beaten, and police concluded the death was a murder. The perpetrators, as police soon discovered, were two young men, Brian Rodel and Jason Arrent, who were both in sexual relationships with Lauri's daughter Rachelle, 16. An honor student and a champion volleyball player in the small town of Craig, Alaska, Rachelle had a blog called "My Crappy Life" in which she wrote about how her mother was ruining her life by complaining about her clothes, her weight, her boyfriends and her recent interest in Wicca. The morning after the murder, Rachelle's teachers found her demeanor not normal for someone whose mother was missing. Brian and Jason both testified that Rachelle had often complained to them about her mother's abuses, telling them she wanted her mother dead. After a mistrial, Rachelle was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in July 2011, and sentenced to three years in prison. She was released in 2014. This episode contains testimony from four of Rachelle's school friends about Rachelle's demeanor on the day of her mother's death: Katrina Nelson, Kelly Carlson, Amanda Vosloh, Stefanie Claus.

On September 20, 2015, after being called to an apartment in Sunrise, Florida, police found the naked body of Maria Nemeth, 31, was found disemboweled; the apartment had been destroyed, and on the floor were tequila, blood, human tissue and guts. The perpetrator was Maria's boyfriend Fidel Lopez, 24, who said that he and Maria had got drunk on tequila and Maria wanted to have "rough sex" in the closet. During their intimacy, according to Fidel, Maria went crazy and asked him to penetrate her with various objects. Afterwards, he said, she became sick, started bleeding and went to the bathroom, where she had trouble breathing. Later, he confessed that during sex, Maria called him by her ex-husband's name. He became enraged, assaulted her with broken bottles, a hair-straightening flat-iron, and finally pulled out her intestines through her vagina. Lopez admitted to charges of murder and sexual battery in order to avoid the death penalty.

It's difficult to keep things straight in this complex and ongoing case, but here's the short story. Lori and Charles Vallow were members of the LDS church who lived in Arizona with their five children from Lori's four previous marriages. In 2015, Lori became obsessed with a series of apocalyptic books by Chad Daybell, an LDS renegade who documented his unconventional spiritual beliefs through pamphlets and podcasts. In 2018, she attended one of Daybell's seminars, and was immediately drawn into the cult. Daybell said he'd lived 31 different lives on various earth-like planets, and believed in zombies and demon possession. According to those present, Chad referred to the photogenic Lori as an "eternal being" of 21 separate lives, only five of which had occurred on this planet. The couple then vanished for 58 days. In July 2019, Lori's husband Charles was shot and killed by her brother Alex, who claimed self-defense. In October 2019, Chad's wife Tammy was found dead in the couple's home. Two weeks later, Chad and Lori eloped to Hawaii and got married. Shortly thereafter, the police were called to Lori's home in Arizona to check on two of her children, Tylee, 16, and J.J., 7, who hadn't been seen for some time. The children's  belongings were located in a storage locker, and documents were found that showed Chad and Lori had become convinced that Tylee and J.J. were "possessed," and had become "zombies." Eventually, their remains were found at Chad's home, buried in a purported pet cemetery. On May 25, 2021, Lori and Chad were charged with the first degree murders of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy. The recording is a police tip from an anonymous caller, who was briefly married to Lori's brother Alex Cox. She describes how Alex and his sister Lori were sexually demonstrative towards each other, how Alex was highly jealous of Lori's boyfriends, and how their parents talked constantly about their sex lives.

Danny Rolling was convicted of murdering five students in Gainsville, Florida, over four days in late August 1990 (he claimed to have killed eight people in addition to committing numerous rapes). The Gainsville murders were particularly horrible; after raping and stabbing them, Rolling mutilated and posed the women's bodies. Rolling was tried in 2004 and pled guilty to all charges.  He was executed in 2006. This episode contains trial testimony from Lillian "Bunnie" Mills, a self-styled country and western music producer, who was Rolling's girlfriend from 1988 until 1989, and helped him with his prospective career as a country music and gospel singer. She also took him for counseling and tried to help with his anxiety and restlessness. Lillian's testimony is followed by that of Paul Schwartz, a longtime friend of Rolling's third victim Christa Hoyt, 18, a student and dispatcher with the county sheriff's office. On August 27, 1990, Christa failed to show up for work, and deputies were dispatched to her residence. Her landlord, Elbert Hoover, takes the stand next and describes how he noticed that someone had broken the fence leading to the back of Christa's apartment. At the end of his testimony, he breaks down in grief.

One of the most compelling subplots of the Menendez case was the stormy affair between Dr. Jerome Oziel (Erik Menendez's psychiatrist), and his patient Judalon Rose Smyth. Dr. Oziel told Judalon that he was in an "open relationship" with his wife, Laurel, and was free to pursue an extra-marital affair. In October 1989, the 18-year-old Erik, overwhelmed by guilt and remorse, confessed to Oziel that, two months earlier, he and his 21-year-old brother Lyle had shot their parents to death in their home in Beverly Hills. According to Dr. Oziel, when Lyle learned about Erik's confession, he grew alarmed and threatened to kill Oziel if he told the police. Judalon told police that Dr. Oziel had told her to listen at the office door during Erik's therapy sessions, and to record them surreptitiously. Judalon became paranoid that her life, too, was in danger. She told police she tried to break off the relationship, which, she claimed, was manipulative and abusive. She said Oziel hypnotized her and left her victimized, frightened and traumatized. She compared herself to a prisoner of war, and said she was so brainwashed by Dr. Oziel that she once made him an IOU for 500 sex acts, and even faked suicide so he would find her. This episode contains an excerpt of Judalon testifying in court. Her taped conversations eventually led to the brothers' arrests and conviction, although it took 7 years and 3 trials to find them guilty. They are currently both serving sentences of life without parole in the California Department of Corrections. Listen to the episode here.

On April 25, 2022, during the Johnny Depp defamation trial, Depp's attorneys called on Depp's butler, a genteel Englishman named Ben King. Until this point in the trial, there hadn't been much evidence to counter the prosecution's portrayal of Depp as a “drunken, cocaine-fueled menace who beat women.” Mr. King, however, told a different story. Depp's butler, who managed the home where the couple stayed in Australia during the 2015 filming of the fifth installment of the “Pirates” franchise, described how Depp's then-wife Amber Heard threw a vodka bottle at him, smashing his finger against the edge of a bar in the house. King testifies that he found Depp's severed fingertip in a tissue on the floor of the bar along with a broken bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. He said a “big chunk” of the marble bartop had been broken off. Mr. King said that he had witnessed frequent arguments between the couple during their stay in Australia, in London, but he had never known Mr. Depp to be violent. King's testimony was the turning point in the trial. After his testimony, the tide of opinion was on Depp's side, and never left. Amber Heard was defeated in her defamation suit; the jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages. Listen to the episode here.

FINAL EPISODE. This will be the last episode of Forensic Transmissions. Enjoy the back catalog and check out the great trial archive at Court TV. (1) In November, 2009, Jiverly Wong, 41, walked into the American Civic Association, where he had recently taken an English class with other immigrants, and shot 13 former classmates and […]

FINAL EPISODE. This will be the last episode of Forensic Transmissions. Enjoy the back catalog and check out the great trial archive at Court TV. (1) In November, 2009, Jiverly Wong, 41, walked into the American Civic Association, where he had recently taken an English class with other immigrants, and shot 13 former classmates and […]

FINAL EPISODE. This will be the last episode of Forensic Transmissions. Enjoy the back catalog and check out the great trial archive at Court TV. (1) In November, 2009, Jiverly Wong, 41, walked into the American Civic Association, where he had recently taken an English class with other immigrants, and shot 13 former classmates and […]

On 22 January 2006, the bodies of 27-year-old Rachel and 9-month-old Lillian Entwistle were found shot to death in the master bedroom of their family home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The immediate suspect was Rachel’s husband Neil, 28, a British citizen, who bought a one-way ticket to London and left the country hours after the murders. […]

On 22 January 2006, the bodies of 27-year-old Rachel and 9-month-old Lillian Entwistle were found shot to death in the master bedroom of their family home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The immediate suspect was Rachel’s husband Neil, 28, a British citizen, who bought a one-way ticket to London and left the country hours after the murders. […]

On 22 January 2006, the bodies of 27-year-old Rachel and 9-month-old Lillian Entwistle were found shot to death in the master bedroom of their family home in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. The immediate suspect was Rachel’s husband Neil, 28, a British citizen, who bought a one-way ticket to London and left the country hours after the murders. […]

Ted Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino’s poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin […]

Ted Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino’s poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin […]

Ted Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino’s poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin […]

Roderick Ferrell and Heather Wendorf were best friends at school in Eustis, Florida before Rod moved with his mother to Murray, Kentucky. In Kentucky, he began dressing in black and talking about vampires. When he visited his friends in Eustis over Thanksgiving of 1996, he said he’d formed a vampire cult and got four of […]

Roderick Ferrell and Heather Wendorf were best friends at school in Eustis, Florida before Rod moved with his mother to Murray, Kentucky. In Kentucky, he began dressing in black and talking about vampires. When he visited his friends in Eustis over Thanksgiving of 1996, he said he’d formed a vampire cult and got four of […]

Roderick Ferrell and Heather Wendorf were best friends at school in Eustis, Florida before Rod moved with his mother to Murray, Kentucky. In Kentucky, he began dressing in black and talking about vampires. When he visited his friends in Eustis over Thanksgiving of 1996, he said he’d formed a vampire cult and got four of […]

During her 17-year marriage, Betty Broderick worked and raised four children while her husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, went through medical school and law school. When Dan finally qualified, he was in high demand as an attorney in medical malpractice cases. The family moved to a lavish house in San Diego, and Betty no longer […]

During her 17-year marriage, Betty Broderick worked and raised four children while her husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, went through medical school and law school. When Dan finally qualified, he was in high demand as an attorney in medical malpractice cases. The family moved to a lavish house in San Diego, and Betty no longer […]