In May 2013, Bessman Okafor and Nolan Bernard broke into a home in a quiet suburb of Ococee, Florida, after misidentifying it as a “drug house.” When it was clear they had the wrong place, the men tied up the house’s four young roommates: included Alex Zaldivar, 19, and Brienna Campos, 20, and their […]

On January 25, 2012, in the wealthy suburb of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, successful marketing executive Jane Bashara, 56, was found strangled to death in a Mercedes-Benz SUV in a Detroit alleyway.  In March 2012, a mentally impaired handyman named Joe Gentz was arrested and charged with first degree murder after telling police that Jane’s husband, Bob Bashara, 57, had paid him $2,000 and an old Cadillac to murder Jane. Investigators also discovered that Mr. Bashara owned an underground sex dungeon in the basement behind a building he owned, where he took women for S&M sex games, and where he was known as “Master Bob.” In September 2015, Bob Bashara was tried for the murder of his wife. His daughter Jessica, 23, testified that she was unaware of any problems between her parents, who had been married for 26 years, although she knew her father thought her mother was too critical of him. She also mentioned catching her father using a pornographic S&M website. “He told me that he was on pornographic websites because he had been experiencing erectile dysfunction and he wanted to know if the problem was with him or my mother,” says Jessica. Bob Bashara was sentenced to life without parole. Listen to the episode here.

In March 2007, the body of Air Force Reserve Major Karl Hoerig was found in his home in Ohio, with two gunshot wounds in his back, and another in his head.  His wife of two years, Claudia Hoerig, had fled to Brazil. For various reasons, she wasn’t extradited until January 2018, at which point she confessed to the murder, but said it was an act of self-defense, and the marriage had been abusive. She said she got a gun to kill herself, and Karl told her to do it in the basement so she wouldn’t make a mess. At that point, said Claudia, she decided to shoot him instead. During a discussion of the Hoerigs’ relationship prior to Karl’s death, Claudia Hoerig’s attorney directed the conversation to the couple’s sexual habits. Ms. Hoerig claims that her husband “was not able to perform without Viagra or without bondage, or without something weird or me pretending to be dead.” She says that it wasn’t until after they were married that Karl revealed his fetishes. Claudia Hoerig was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Listen to the episode here.

When telling lies, people are apparently either overly vague, or too specific. In his responses during this interrogation, Robert Mondrian-Powell, 59, is both extremely indirect and annoyingly particular. This polite and well-spoken gentleman explains that he was homeless when he met Elvira Segura, 67, a retired librarian whose decomposed body was found by police in […]

 Tara Grinstead was a south Georgia beauty queen and high school history teacher who disappeared from her home in Ocilla in Irwin County, Georgia, in 2005. This episode includes testimony from the second day of the trial of Bo Dukes, who stands accused of helping to cover up the crime. The man accused of murdering […]

(1) The Northern Belle was a 75-foot fishing vessel that went down in the Gulf of Alaska on April 20 2010. Three of her four crew were rescued alive; her captain, Robert Royer, who placed the Mayday call, tried to jump overboard but wasn’t able to get clear of the tangle of gear, hit his head on a large metal pump, and didn’t re-surface. Some time later, his body was seen floating face-up. The captain’s cocker spaniel, Baxter, also went down with the vessel. (2) On April 7, 1994, a FedEx employee named Auburn Calloway tried to hi-jack Federal Express Flight 705 from Memphis to San Jose. Calloway, who was about to be fired, boarded the flight with several hammers and a speargun concealed in a guitar case. He planned to crash the aircraft hoping that he would appear to be an employee killed in an accident, so his family could collect his life insurance. But the crew fought back, subdued Calloway, and landed safely. (3) Betty Ong was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, the first airplane to be hijacked during the September 11 attacks. Shortly after the hijacking, Ong notified  ground crew of the hijacking. She reported that none of the crew could contact the cockpit nor open its door, a passenger and two flight attendants had been stabbed, and someone had sprayed mace in the business class cabin. (4) On August 10, 2018, a Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 was stolen from Sea–Tac airport in Washington, by 29-year-old Richard Russell, a Horizon Air ground service agent with no piloting experience. Friends described him as “a quiet guy” who was “well liked by the other workers”. Around one hour and 15 minutes after takeoff, Russell committed suicide by intentionally crashing the aircraft on a lightly-populated island in Puget Sound. No explanation for the incident was found. (5) On September 27, 2018, crew member Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, went berserk on the fishing vessel Billy Haver when about 55 miles off Nantucket, Mass. He assaulted a crew member with a knife in one hand and a hammer in the other, Vazquez then struck a third colleague before he was chased up the mast in an attempt to avoid capture, He was charged with murder and attempted murder. No-one knows what sparked the attacks. (6) Not actually a Mayday call…. on the taxiway, a German Lufthansa pilot is annoyed that maintenance have left the gas tank door open on his plane. Rather than wait for the ground control crew to come and close it, he gets out of the cockpit to do it himself. Listen to the episode here.

  In 2000, the Honorable James “Skip” Scandirito, a Michigan county court judge, had his judge’s license revoked in 2002 after sexual misconduct allegations. Women had accused him of offering leniency for their charges in return for sexual favors. In the case of a 22-year-old female defendant charged with drunk driving, for example, the judge […]

On August 9, 2013, four Vanderbilt University football players–Brandon Vandenburg, Cory Batey, Brandon Banks and Jaborian McKenzie–were caught on video carrying an unconscious girl to Vandenberg’s dorm room. Here, they took it in turns to rape and abuse her, as testified by images captured on cellphone cameras. The prosecution pointed out that the girl, 21, a friend of Brandon Vandenburg, had been drinking heavily; she had consensual sex with Vandenberg the next morning, and she didn’t know she’d been raped. When her roommates pointed out the vomit in her hair and missing shoes, she was initially reluctant to get a medical exam, and when she learned she’d been raped, she didn’t want to believe her date had been involved. Th football players were dismissed from football team on June 29, 2013 and banned from campus during the six-week investigation that followed. In this excerpt from the trial of Corey Batey, 24, who–according to prosecutors–urinated on the girl, made a racial slur at the end of the attack, and referred to her as a “bitch” in e-mails, Batey explains that his initial story was a fabrication devised by the team’s coach in order to be sure the players all had their story straight. Batey, who claims he blacked out and has no memory of the incident, received the minimum 15-year sentence, and has requested a new trial. Listen to the episode here.

  On August 15, 2016, Mina Harrouff of Stuart, Florida, noticed her son Austin drinking cooking oil mixed with Parmesan cheese. Austin had been acting strangely for a while. He told his parents he needed to guard them, as he felt an evil presence in the house. He also said he’d “hypnotized himself” and was unable to sleep. Some time that day, Austin asked Google the unusual question, “What’s the weakest thing about a centaur?”. Then, after an argument with his father during dinner, the muscular college student stormed out of the family home. He then walked four miles across town, wearing only his underwear, and attacked a married couple John Stevens, 59, and Michelle Mishcon, 53, who were sitting out on their porch. He stabbed the pair to death with a knife, and, while growling like a dog, got down on all fours and began eating John Stevens’s face. When police arrived, he told them, “Help me, I ate something bad.” When asked what he had eaten, Harrouff replied, “Humans,” and spat out a piece of flesh.   According an FBI toxicology report, the teenager had no detectable hallucinogenic drugs in his system. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges. The case will go to trial in November 2019. This episode contains the police interview with Austin’s shocked and puzzled parents, Mina and Wade Harrouff, the night of his arrest, Listen to the episode here.

Topics discussed in this podcast include: relationships dynamics, speculation about actions, a spill incident at a site, timeline of events, limited book options in prison, reflection on past behavior, financial difficulties, a confusing dress and mysterious letter, emotional impact of the hearing, informing family, living conditions in prison