Terrifyingly Typical True Crime
Curious about true crime and want to understand the patterns that often pop up? Join antisocial and outspoken mother and daughter Theresa and Calista as they connect cases to dig into a specific type of crime or criminal. Dive into a new case every week that explores common crimes and typical themes in true crime!
Episodes
Episode 31 - Amelia Dyer Part One: The Barbaric, Booming Baby-Farming Business
With the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 having essentially lifted any financial obligation from the father, single mothers in Victorian England often turned to baby farmers. These agents would put their babies up for fostering or adoption f…
Episode 30 - Kristen Gilbert: If He Dies, Can I Leave Early?
Nurse Kristen Gilbert was smart. After all, she graduated high school at 16. Kristen also liked control and being the center of attention. She liked the praise she received from co-workers. She really was the best nurse, just ask her. When …
Episode 29 - Jeanine Hannah: Caring Is Conning
We’re back with part two of our theme on female killer nurses with Jeanine Hannah, a.k.a. Jeannie Miata and Julie Kocian. With her many names, Jeanine managed to continue caring for elderly patients in spite of a restriction and a prior con…
Episode 28 - Christopher Gattis: Text Me Lies
* We’re back with improved audio quality! *After a burglar alarm was activated at the Gattis home around 11:30 PM on November 23, 2017, police found the bodies of two women inside the kitchen along with the body of a man in the front yard. …
Episode 27 - Stephen Allwine: Scammer Hitman vs. White Hat Hacker
* Just a note that the audio quality isn’t ideal in certain sections. We’re hoping to get a new piece of equipment for our next episode to fix the issue. Thanks for your understanding! *What do a church elder, Ashley Madison, and the dark w…
Episode 26 - Nick Hacheney: The Pastor and the Prophetess
On the morning of December 26, 1997, Nick Hacheney left his home in Bremerton, Washington, to go on a duck hunting trip. Just after 7:00 that morning, one of the neighbors noticed smoke billowing from the nearby home. After firefighters mad…
Episode 25 - Anthony Hopkins: The Hopkins House of Horrors
In the early evening of July 29, 2008, officers with the Mobile County Police Department entered traveling preacher Anthony Hopkins’ home on Rylands Street through the unlocked back door. The house was quiet and exceptionally tidy. Officers…
Episode 24 - Fred Neulander: A Good Hitman Is Hard to Find
Around 9:30 p.m. on November 1, 1994, Rabbi Fred Neulander walked into the living room of his Cherry Hill, New Jersey home and discovered his wife, 52-year-old Carol Neulander, lying on the floor. She was badly injured, and the ground aroun…
Episode 23 - Tracy Burleson: Ungodly Greed
A distraught Tracy Burleson called 911 a little before 11 p.m. on May 18, 2010, crying and repeating, “Someone shot my wife.” Tracy had just returned from a quick trip to the convenience store and found his wife in the driveway of their hom…
Episode 22 - Matt Baker: My Milkshake Brings All the Cops to the Yard
On April 8, 2006, Pastor Matt Baker called 911 after discovering his wife, Kari, lying unconscious in the couple’sbedroom. EMS providers and firefighters raced to her side, but Kari was already gone. Once police told a McLennan County Justi…
Episode 21 - Michael Tabb: The Pastor’s Secret Life
Around 6 PM on August 5, 2002, Pastor Michael Tabb arrived home with his two-year-old. He noticed the front door was slightly open but entered anyway. He called out for his wife, Marla, but there was no answer. He found the badly bludgeoned…
Episode 20 - Arthur Burton Schirmer: The Method(ist) of Murder
When Rosemarie Cobb went to Reeders, Pennsylvania for her brother’s memorial service in October 2008, she had no idea that his suicide was tied to a man linked to two other deaths, a pastor who happened to be having an affair with her siste…
Episode 19 - Heather Pressdee: Woefully Underqualified, Continually Promoted
When a family member chooses a residential facility or nursing home for their loved one, they expect them to be safe. When they are able to visit their relatives often, they feel confident that they chose the right place. However, without s…
Episode 18 - Jane Toppan: Sexual Sensationalism or Broken-Hearted Bitterness?
In 1887, Amelia Phinney was recovering from surgery at Cambridge Hospital. As she lay awake from the postoperative pain, a nurse named Jane Toppan gave her something that thankfully made her pain ebb away, but then Amelia felt the bed sink …
Episode 17 - Kimberly Saenz: Brazen With Bleach
With her spotty employment history and her nursing license free from infractions, because her Demerol theft hadn’t yetbeen investigated, Kimberly Saenz was unconcerned and optimistic about her new job at the Lufkin, Texas DaVita Dialysis Ce…
Episode 16 - Beverley Allitt: A Sick Need for Attention
In February 1991, 22-year-old Beverley Allitt started her first job as a children’s nurse at Lincolnshire’s Grantham and Kesteven Hospital. After less than a week in her new role, 7-week-old Liam Taylor was being treated on the children’s w…
Episode 15 - Genene Jones: Killing Instead of Caring
Working at Bexar County Medical Hospital in the pediatric ICU with the sickest children was where LVN Genene Jones wanted to be. She found the life-and-death emergencies exciting and wanted to be by the bedside of the sickest children. Coll…
Episode 14 - Elizabeth Wettlaufer: Dialing-Up for Dastardly Deeds
We’re starting our next true crime theme: female killer nurses. Between 2007 and 2016, Ontario nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer killed eight elderly patients and tried to kill or harm six more, administering insulin overdoses to those with dement…
Episode 13 - Selena Quintanilla: For the Record, It Was Murder
On March 31, 1995, Grammy-award winning Selena Quintanilla was about to finally get her hands on the remaining financial records in the possession of her former employee who had been recently fired for embezzling. But that employee, the fou…
Episode 12 - John Lennon: “Above Us, Only Sky”
On December 8, 1980, one of the most famous and prolific musicians of a generation, John Lennon, 40, was gunned down in front of the Dakota building, which housed his Upper West Side apartment in the adopted city that he loved, where he cou…
Episode 11 - Christina Grimmie: My Celebrity “Soul Mate”
It was a typical meet and greet, and the former contestant of The Voice, Christina Grimmie, stretched out her arms to hug a shy fan. But Kevin James Loibl didn’t return her embrace. Instead, he reached for his first 9mm handgun and shot his…
Episode 10 - Darrell Abbott: Driven by the Music, From Diamond to Dimebag
Days before wrapping up their tour to head home for the Christmas holidays, the band Damageplan was playing a show at the Alrosa Villa Nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. However, this would be the last show for “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and three …
Episode 9 - Andrés Escobar: A Steaming Cup of Soccer Steeped in Cocaine
Against the backdrop of Colombian narco-soccer, MedellĂn’s AtlĂ©tico Nacional qualified for the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Having lost only one of the twenty-six games they played in the lead-up to the World Cup, the team was helpi…
Episode 8 - Rebecca Schaeffer: Before Stalking Was a Felony
We’re starting our new true crime theme: when celebrity fandom turns to murder. Rebecca Schaeffer was a 21-year-old actress whose career was just starting to take off. On the morning of her murder, she was anxiously waiting for a messenger …
Episode 7 - Lizzie Borden: The Picture of Fragile Femininity
“Lizzie Borden took an ax …” You may know the rhyme, but do you know the true story behind it? Today, for our final case on daughters who kill, we’re talking about Lizzie Borden. Even though she was acquitted, most people still believe that…
Episode 6 - Jennifer Pan: When Your Lies Become Your Whole Life
Police arrived at the two-story home in quiet Markham, Ontario on November 8, 2010, in response to 24-year-old Jennifer Pan’s 911 call in which she told the dispatcher that three men had broken into her home and shot her parents, Hann and B…
Episode 5 - Jasmine Richardson: One “300-Year-Old Werewolf,” Two Goths, and Three Murders
A blood-soaked scene, three bodies, and one missing girl, the police can hardly be faulted for assuming they were looking at an abduction following a triple murder. But the person who had plotted the murders of Debra and Marc Richardson and…
Episode 4 - Suzane von Richthofen: “How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth It Is To Have a Thankless Child”
São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, experienced plenty of crime in 2002. With many citizens living in poverty and struggling to survive, police were used to being called to crime scenes in the poorer neighborhoods. However, getting called to …
Episode 2 - Verity Beck and Shabnam Ali: For Love or Money
We will be covering two separate cases about daughters who kill this week. First, when Reid and Miriam Beck’s son, Justin, visits their home on January 17, 2023, because he hadn’t talked to his parents in a few days, his sister, Verity, who…
Episode 3 - Kim Edwards: Britain’s Youngest Double Murderers
With the bodies of her mother, Elizabeth, and sister, Katie, upstairs, Kim Edwards watched the Twilight movies with her boyfriend Lucas Markham, reveling in their unobstructed relationship before police came to arrest them. Having long been…
Episode 1 - Virginia McCullough: How to Build a Makeshift Mausoleum
Daughters who kill … That’s our first ever theme, and today, we’re diving into the case of Virginia McCullough. We’ve all dug ourselves into a hole with our lies before. Most of us, though, don’t see murder as our only way out. However, Vir…