Hidden Killers Live! Daily True Crime News & Breakdowns
Hidden Killers Live! is a daily true crime podcast that delivers two hours of nonstop coverage every weekday. Hosted by Tony Brueski and Robin Dreeke, the show dives into murder trials, cold cases, criminal psychology, investigations, and the dark motives behind real-life crimes. Each episode brings breaking crime news, courtroom analysis, and raw conversation that goes beyond the headlines. It offers sharp, unfiltered insight into today's biggest cases.
Episodes
What Does Nick Reiner's New Trustee Want To Ask Him In Jail?
Somewhere in Los Angeles, a meeting is being arranged that could shape the entire Nick Reiner trust fund war: the incoming trustee — Jodi Montgomery, the fiduciary who spent years as Britney Spears' conservator — has reportedly asked to sit down with Nick in custody. What gets asked in that room, and how Nick answers, may matter as much as anything filed in court.Eric Faddis — former felony prose
Will Murdaugh's New Judge Bury The Money Evidence?
The single biggest unknown in the Alex Murdaugh retrial isn't a witness, a weapon, or a verdict — it's a ruling that hasn't happened yet. The first jury sat through hours upon hours of testimony about Murdaugh's financial crimes, the stolen client money, the gathering storm the State built its motive on. The South Carolina Supreme Court said that went too far, and ordered any retrial to sharply l
Why Is Nick Reiner's Bigger Family Fortune Already Frozen?
Buried in the Nick Reiner trust fund fight is a detail that tells you how the people who actually control the Reiner money see this case: the much larger family trusts — where Nick is reportedly a full and equal beneficiary alongside his siblings — have already been frozen until the criminal case is over. Locked. Untouchable. So why is the smaller trust, the one his parents built just for him, th
Could A Judge Hand Nick Reiner $1.5M Without A Hearing?
There's a procedural detail in the Nick Reiner trust fund battle that almost nobody is talking about — and it could end this fight before it starts. According to one legal expert, if no one formally opposes Nick's probate petition, a judge could grant it without ever holding a hearing. No arguments. No testimony. More than $1.5 million, released to a man awaiting trial for his parents' killings.E
Jesse Ridgway Is Never Going to Stop and the Audience Is the Reason Why
Every view validates the behavior. Every click fuels the compulsion. Every headline — including the outraged ones, including the ones calling him a fraud — gives Jesse Ridgway’s brain exactly what it’s looking for. He has spent twenty years fabricating crises for attention and every year the stunts get darker because the brain builds a tolerance. Staged family violence. A failed platform. Now a p
Christine Marie Confesses What Taking Down Samuel Bateman Cost
The complete three-part conversation, all in one extended sit-down. Christine Marie — the cult psychologist who walked into Samuel Bateman's FLDS world with a camera and a hidden agenda — sits down with me to tell the whole story from start to finish.Christine and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek in 2016 with a completely different project in mind. Then Samuel Bateman rose out of the post-W
Are the People Clicking on Jesse Ridgway Part of the Reason He Won’t Stop?
Every click validates the behavior. Every comment fuels the next stunt. Every share tells Jesse Ridgway’s brain that what he’s doing is working. Seventeen million people saw his pregnancy announcement. If Jesse is sick, the audience is the IV drip. Research shows that expressing outrage online fires the same dopamine reward pathways as direct social validation — and like any drug, you build a tol
Jesse Ridgway’s Stunts Keep Getting Darker and Nobody Can Stop Him
Staged family violence. A failed platform. Now a pregnancy crisis involving a Down syndrome baby. Each stunt Jesse Ridgway pulls pushes further into territory the last one didn’t reach. That’s how tolerance works — the brain needs a bigger dose to feel the same thing. And with 4.3 million subscribers validating every escalation, the feedback loop has no off switch.Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott lo
What Does a Psychotherapist Hear When Jesse Ridgway Says “I’m Normal”?
On a livestream, Jesse Ridgway said, “I’m glad my dad didn’t terminate me, but I’m normal.” That sentence — delivered in the middle of a firestorm about his unborn child — tells a psychotherapist something very specific. Jesse Ridgway has staged events for attention his entire career. Four years of fake family violence. A platform that burned through a million users. And now a pregnancy announcem
What’s Really Behind the ‘Coverup’ Ruling That Ended Aaron Spencer’s Murder Case?
“Appearance of a coverup.” “So egregious.” Those are a judge’s words in a signed order. And they didn’t just end a murder case. They cracked open questions about an entire county’s law enforcement apparatus.This three-part conversation with an outside legal analyst covers the ruling, the sheriff’s race, and the institutional pattern that made this case inevitable.Judge Wilson’s 19-page order is m
Christine Marie Says Samuel Bateman Still Runs His Cult From Prison
He's locked up. He's still calling. And his wives are still picking up.In this third and final part of a three-part interview, Christine Marie walks me through the part of the Samuel Bateman story that doesn't fit on a true crime documentary's ending card. The arrest didn't free those women. The fifty-year sentence didn't free them. The conviction didn't free them. A number of the people Christin
Who in Lonoke County Is Trying to Escape Accountability After Aaron Spencer’s Case?
The detective got fired. The sheriff issued a statement. The prosecutor’s office went quiet. And the question hanging over all of it is whether any of these people will face real consequences for what a judge described as “egregious” conduct.Judge Wilson’s ruling focused on one detective and one piece of evidence. But the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office’s problems with evidence didn’t start with A
How Does Aaron Spencer Run the Agency That Lost the Evidence in His Own Murder Case?
Aaron Spencer is about to become the sheriff of Lonoke County. The same county that charged him with murder. The same department whose detective lost the evidence that got the case thrown out. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s the trajectory.Spencer won the Republican primary with 53.5 percent of the vote in a three-way race, beating the thirteen-year incumbent whose office investigated him. The
Why Did a Judge Call Evidence Handling ‘So Egregious’ in the Aaron Spencer Case?
A circuit court judge just called law enforcement’s conduct “so egregious” that he threw out the murder case against an Arkansas father. That language doesn’t show up in rulings often. When it does, it means something went profoundly wrong.Judge Ralph Wilson’s 19-page order found that Detective Robbie McCain — the lead investigator on the Aaron Spencer case — committed eleven separate violations
How Did the Elijah Vue Investigation Go From a Missing Child Report to a Homicide Case?
On February 20, 2024, Jesse Vang called 911 and reported that three-year-old Elijah Vue had walked away from his Two Rivers, Wisconsin apartment. What started as a missing child case became a homicide investigation that uncovered surveillance footage, deleted photographs, coordinated text messages, DNA evidence inside a donated suitcase, and forensic findings of injuries that had been happening f
What Christine Recorded That Locked Up Samuel Bateman
Late 2021. Christine Marie's camera was rolling. Samuel Bateman started talking. And what he said in his own voice on that recording finally became the thing the FBI couldn't ignore.In this second part of our three-part interview, Christine tells the story of building a case against a man the local police would not touch. Short Creek — the FLDS community on the Utah-Arizona border where Bateman b
What Did the Fractures on Three-Year-Old Elijah Vue’s Skull Tell Investigators?
When three-year-old Elijah Vue’s remains were found in a wooded area three miles from Jesse Vang’s Two Rivers, Wisconsin apartment, investigators noted something about the material found near the remains. Sand and gravel recovered at the site reportedly matched sand and gravel found in buckets near Vang’s home. The defense is now challenging that evidence — and a hearing is pending that could det
Why Did Hundreds of Strangers Search for Three-Year-Old Elijah Vue for Seven Months?
For seven months, the city of Two Rivers, Wisconsin searched for a three-year-old boy named Elijah Vue. The FBI came. The Wisconsin Department of Justice came. Hundreds of community volunteers showed up with flashlights and search dogs. They combed through landfills, dove into storm drains and the West Twin River, and searched private property across Manitowoc County. Volunteers even searched the
Why Was Elijah Vue Sent to a ‘Boot Camp’ Run by a Convicted Felon While Still in Diapers?
When investigators interviewed Katrina Baur about the adults in her son’s life, she used a word that stopped them: “structure.” She described Elijah’s biological father, Jimmy Vue, as “the alpha” over Jesse Vang. Jimmy Vue was incarcerated at the time. Vang was the man Baur placed her three-year-old with — a convicted felon still on federal supervised release. And Baur had once told police that V
Is the Culture That Failed Sandra Birchmore Still Running These Departments?
Sean Goode resigned from the Canton Police Department amid an internal affairs investigation. Michael Proctor was fired from the Massachusetts State Police. Four officers connected to the Sandra Birchmore case have been decertified or permanently barred from law enforcement. And a lawsuit alleges that the documented record of misconduct between Proctor and Goode stretches back more than ten years
How Would the FBI Evaluate Three Investigations Where the Evidence Broke Down?
Three active cases. Three different kinds of evidence failures. And the same underlying question: when investigators lose evidence, fail to collect it, or mishandle it, what are the real consequences — for the cases and for the system?In the Aaron Spencer case, a dashcam SD card was handled inconsistently with every other piece of evidence at the scene, in violation of department policy, and lost
Christine Marie Tells Us If Samuel Bateman Knew HE Was A Fraud!
Christine Marie watched Samuel Bateman every single day for years. She sat at his table. She filmed his sermons. She listened to his wives recite their devotion to him. And she has an answer to the question true crime listeners keep asking about him — was he a true believer, or did he know, deep down, that he was a fraud?She's the one outsider who got close enough to actually know.Christine and h
What Does It Mean When the FBI Can't Account for Critical Evidence in Anna Kepner's Case?
From a forensic investigation standpoint, the Anna Kepner case has one of the strongest statistical DNA matches in recent federal prosecution — 120 sextillion to one, pointing to stepbrother Timothy Hudson. The injuries Anna sustained during the alleged attack ruptured both eardrums. The surveillance timeline aboard the Carnival Horizon places Hudson in the stateroom during the window when Anna d
Did Lonoke County Bury Evidence to Protect Someone Beyond Aaron Spencer?
The Aaron Spencer murder case is over. A judge killed it. And the language in his order reads like the opening chapter of a federal investigation that hasn't started yet. Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. found that law enforcement's handling of evidence showed "a pattern of policy and procedure violations" and gave "the appearance of a coverup." Conduct so egregious that dismissal — the most extreme remedy
How Do You Prove a Car Crash Was Murder When Mackenzie Shirilla Never Said a Word?
Building a double murder case without a confession, without testimony, and without a single statement from the defendant requires investigators to let the evidence speak for itself. In Mackenzie Shirilla's case, the evidence was devastating.A car's data recorder showed the accelerator pushed to full capacity with zero braking, approaching a hundred miles per hour aimed at a building. Surveillance
How Would the FBI Evaluate What Happened to the Evidence in Aaron Spencer's Case?
When a sitting judge writes that law enforcement conduct gave "the appearance of a coverup" and was "so egregious" that a murder prosecution must be dismissed — how does that language register at the federal level?Aaron Spencer's second-degree murder charge was thrown out after the court found investigators mishandled the one piece of evidence that mattered most: a dashcam SD card from Michael Fo
How Does A Case With This Much Evidence On Nancy Guthrie Still Freeze Solid?
The doorbell camera captured a masked, armed figure at the front door. The FBI recovered the footage. Blood confirmed as Nancy's was on the porch. A pacemaker signal went silent at 2:28 a.m. Her phone, wallet, and daily medication were left inside the house. Discarded gloves were found two miles away. Drones went up. Dogs went out. More than a hundred investigators eventually worked the case. The
Why Can't Kouri Richins Stop Producing Stories Even When They're Destroying Her?
The behavioral pattern is the case. Every time Kouri Richins faced a new threat, she generated a new story. Not a calculated lie — an automatic response. A narrative reflex that fires before conscious thought arrives, the way your body flinches before your brain decides to flinch.A six-page letter scripting her brother's testimony. Hidden in an LSAT prep book in her jail cell. Found by deputies d
Can Trauma Actually Erase Mackenzie Shirilla's Memory Of The Crash?
Mackenzie Shirilla says she blacked out and has no memory of the crash that killed two people. The families say she's lying. A fellow inmate says the Mackenzie in the Netflix documentary is an act. The public picked a side before the first episode ended. But Shavaun Scott has spent more than thirty years in trauma work, forensic mental health, and domestic violence — and the clinical answer is mo
Is Mackenzie Shirilla A Narcissist Or A Teenager Whose Brain Wasn't Finished?
The prosecution presented Mackenzie Shirilla's texts and threats as proof of a cold, calculating killer. A judge called her "hell on wheels." The public sees a narcissist. But Shavaun Scott has spent three decades in forensic mental health treating people who do terrible things, and the clinical picture she identifies doesn't match any of those labels cleanly.Scott — licensed psychotherapist, aut
Does Blanca Simpson's Theory Explain Why Alex Murdaugh Allegedly Didn't Act Alone?
Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson spent twenty years watching Alex Murdaugh operate. She saw how he moved money through other people's hands. How he used relationships as infrastructure. How Curtis Eddie Smith cashed four hundred thirty-seven checks totaling roughly $2.4 million. How a network of enablers kept the machine running for years. Alex Murdaugh never did anything alone. Blanca's question is sim
Is The Netflix Version Of Mackenzie Shirilla The Real One?
Mackenzie Shirilla appears in Netflix's The Crash speaking from prison for the first time — soft-spoken, remorseful, insisting she has no memory of the crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. An inmate who spent six months with her describes a completely different person — someone doing her makeup, working the prison social hierarchy, nothing like the woman on camera. The families ha
If Alex Murdaugh Didn't Kill Maggie And Paul — Who Did?
Jennifer Coffindaffer built and broke cases like this for a career at the FBI. She's doing something she rarely does with the Murdaugh case: a clean-slate thought experiment. Strip the name off the file. Forget the financial crimes. Forget the public persona. Look at the scene.Two people shot at the dog kennels on a remote hunting property. Two different firearms — a shotgun and a rifle. Neither
Was Kouri Richins Faking Grief Or Actually Living Inside It?
She wrote a children's book about grief. Went on television to promote it. Talked about helping her boys cope with their dad's "unexpected" death. Fourteen months of a constructed identity that fooled every friend who testified at trial. The whole time, she was the reason those children were grieving.The behavioral question isn't whether Kouri Richins was faking. It's whether she was faking at al
What Does A Former FBI Agent Think About Anna Kepner's Accused Killer Walking Free?
Jennifer Coffindaffer spent a career handing cases to prosecutors. She knows what the evidence file looks like when a case is strong. Security footage tracking the defendant's movements. A smashed phone in a trash bin. DNA pointing in one direction. A body concealed beneath a bed on a cruise ship. When the file looks like that and the suspect walks out of the courthouse — she has a reaction.Anna
How Did Donna Adelson Allegedly Convince Herself She Was Protecting Her Family?
The behavioral question at the center of the Dan Markel case isn't how a murder-for-hire gets organized. It's how a grandmother, a former schoolteacher, a woman who spent decades projecting devotion to her family allegedly convinced herself that orchestrating the killing of her grandchildren's father was the right thing to do.The psychological framework is narcissistic at its core. Donna Adelson
Did Mackenzie Shirilla's Family Just Build the Case Against Her?
Natalie Shirilla called the Russo family "evil people" on a monitored prison call. Steve Shirilla lost his teaching job after appearing on a Netflix documentary defending his convicted daughter. Mackenzie has thirty-six conduct violations, refuses rehabilitation, and told her mother she wants to be a life coach. Defense attorney Eric Faddis asks the question the audience is already asking: is thi
How Strong Is the Case in the Anna Kepner Cruise Ship Trial?
A federal judge said he would not call the prosecution's case in the Anna Kepner cruise ship death strong — used the words "a much closer call" with "various defenses." The DNA match odds are 120 sextillion to one. An FBI agent testified he cannot connect that DNA to cause of death. Defense attorney Eric Faddis evaluates what the prosecution actually has heading into a September trial.Anna Kepner
Could Mackenzie Shirilla's Mother Face Her Own Legal Exposure?
Natalie Shirilla used a private coded language on recorded prison calls to communicate with her convicted daughter. Prosecutors decoded those calls and presented them as evidence at trial. In one exchange, Mackenzie allegedly asked if they could tell police she had a seizure. On a separate call, Natalie called the Russo family — the family of the man Mackenzie was convicted of killing — "evil peo
Can Mackenzie Shirilla's Prison Behavior Keep Her Locked Up Longer?
Mackenzie Shirilla's conduct file at the Ohio Reformatory for Women has thirty-six entries in less than three years — guilty on thirty-two. On recorded prison calls, she refuses rehabilitation, calls herself the third victim, and talks about becoming a life coach. Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down what the parole board does with a record like this.Shirilla was convict
The Crash: The Full Psychological Breakdown of the Mackenzie Shirilla Case
The courtroom saw a cold-blooded killer. Netflix saw a documentary. The public saw a debate. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott sees a clinical case that was never properly examined — and a system that convicted a teenager of premeditated murder without ever asking the questions a clinician would have started with.Scott has spent more than thirty years in forensic mental health, domestic violence work
The Crash: Is Mackenzie Shirilla's Memory Loss Real — And What About Everyone Else's Certainty?
A fellow inmate says the Mackenzie Shirilla in the Netflix documentary — soft-spoken, remorseful, insisting she can't remember — isn't the person she spent six months with in prison. She described someone doing her makeup, playing social games, navigating the hierarchy. The prosecution says she's been performing from day one. The families say she knows exactly what happened and chooses not to say
The Crash: Why the Mackenzie Shirilla Relationship Matters More Than the Video
Everyone's focused on the surveillance footage — the car turning, accelerating, hitting the wall. But psychotherapist Shavaun Scott says the real evidence in the Mackenzie Shirilla case isn't on that video. It's in the relationship. And the prosecution used the relationship as a weapon without ever understanding what it was actually showing them.Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder for
The Crash: What the Prosecution Got Wrong About Mackenzie Shirilla's Psychology
A judge called Mackenzie Shirilla's actions "controlled, methodical, deliberate, intentional, and purposeful." Five adjectives that describe a cold, calculating mind. But what if every one of those words is a misread — what if the behavior that looked like calculation was actually the opposite?Shavaun Scott is a psychotherapist who has spent more than thirty years working with people on both side
The Crash: A Defense Attorney's Full Breakdown of the Mackenzie Shirilla Disaster
The Mackenzie Shirilla case is a catalog of failures. A defense that raised a medical condition and never proved it. A prosecution that charged murder without a confession and won in front of a single judge. A post-conviction system that rejected new evidence over a calendar technicality. And a defendant who agreed to a Netflix documentary that gave her critics more ammunition than her supporters
The Crash: What Should Mackenzie Shirilla Be Doing Right Now to Get Out?
Mackenzie Shirilla's legal options are essentially gone. The conviction stands. The appeals are exhausted. The post-conviction petition was denied. She's serving fifteen years to life and won't see a parole board until 2037. So the question shifts from "can she win legally" to "what does she do now" — and criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the answer to that question matters more than most
The Crash: Was Murder the Right Charge for Mackenzie Shirilla?
Murder requires intent. Not recklessness. Not negligence. Not bad judgment. Intent — formed beforehand and carried out deliberately. That's the bar the prosecution set for itself when it charged Mackenzie Shirilla with four counts of murder for the crash in Strongsville, Ohio that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. And criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the evidence doesn't clear it.
The Crash: What Should Mackenzie Shirilla's Defense Have Actually Looked Like?
If Mackenzie Shirilla had walked into Bob Motta's office instead of her actual attorney's, the case might look very different right now. That's not speculation — it's a function of what was missed, what was never pursued, and what was fumbled at every critical turn.The POTS defense should have been the centerpiece of the trial. A medical condition that can cause sudden loss of consciousness in a
Why Did The Sheriff Stop Talking To Nancy Guthrie's Family?
In mid-May, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos confirmed in a People magazine interview that his department is no longer communicating directly with Nancy Guthrie's family. The FBI is now the sole liaison between the investigation and the Guthries. The same sheriff who stood at his podium in February and told the family he wasn't giving up is, three months later, not in direct contact with them at a
The Crash: How Many Things Went Wrong in the Mackenzie Shirilla Case?
A defense attorney who never called the key medical expert. A post-conviction petition filed one day late. A bench trial where one judge made every decision. A neurologist's opinion that was never weighed on its merits. The Mackenzie Shirilla case isn't just about whether she intended to drive her car into that building — it's about how many things in the process broke along the way.Shirilla was
The Crash: Is Mackenzie Shirilla Lying About Her Memory or Is Everyone Else?
A fellow inmate who spent six months with Mackenzie Shirilla says the woman in Netflix's The Crash — the one speaking softly from prison, expressing remorse, insisting she has no memory — isn't the person she lived with behind bars. She described someone doing her makeup, navigating the prison social hierarchy, performing a version of herself. So which Mackenzie is real? The documentary Mackenzie
The Crash: How Strong Is the Case Against Mackenzie Shirilla Really?
One judge. No jury. No deliberation room. No twelve people wrestling with reasonable doubt. The Mackenzie Shirilla murder conviction was decided by a single person in a bench trial — and in a case with evidence this ambiguous, that raises a question the system doesn't want to answer.Judge Nancy Margaret Russo heard the surveillance footage evidence, the black box data, the text messages, and the
The Crash: Was Mackenzie Shirilla Convicted for Her Personality?
At her arrest, Mackenzie Shirilla asked the officers to be careful with her bracelets — gifts from Dominic Russo, the boyfriend who'd been killed in her car three months earlier. The prosecution called it evidence of someone cold enough to plan a murder. But is that really what that moment tells you — or is it telling you something else entirely about a seventeen-year-old in shock?That gap — betw
What Kind Of People Are Behind Guthrie, Kepner And Murdaugh?
What kind of person does each of these cases point to? That's the behavioral question two FBI veterans take on in this long-form segment. Tony Brueski is joined by retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer — with former FBI Counterintelligence chief Robin Dreeke's behavioral lens in the room — to read the people at the center of three very different stories.There's the masked figure who app
Could One Person Really Have Killed Both Murdaughs Alone?
Could one person really have killed both Maggie and Paul Murdaugh by himself? That's the question two FBI veterans take apart in this segment — and one of them carried a weapon on FBI SWAT for two decades, so she knows exactly what firing a shotgun at close range does to the person pulling the trigger. With Alex Murdaugh's convictions overturned and a new trial ordered, the original defense theor
What Was Anna Kepner's Stepbrother Doing At That Door?
Two FBI veterans watched the same cruise-ship footage everyone's now read about, and what they see is a person behaving like someone with something to hide. In the Anna Kepner case, unsealed records describe the 18-year-old's stepbrother on camera the night she died — cracking the cabin door, checking the hallway in both directions before slipping out. Later, when Anna's younger brother tried to
What Did The Masked Man At Nancy Guthrie's Door Want?
Two former FBI agents look at the same forty-one minutes and see something most people miss. In the Nancy Guthrie case, a masked figure approached the front door of an 84-year-old woman's Tucson home in the dead of night and appeared to tamper with her camera. At 1:47 a.m. the doorbell feed died. At 2:12 the software still caught a person there. By 2:28, the pacemaker inside her chest had lost it
What Does A Forensic Psychologist See In D4VD's Path To The Celeste Rivas Hernandez Case?
Shavaun Scott doesn't start where most people start with this case. She starts in a closet in Houston — where a homeschooled teenager with no peer socialization and no music in the house except gospel was recording tracks that would reach millions. She works forward from there because the forensic psychology question isn't what allegedly happened to Celeste Rivas Hernandez. It's what allegedly ma
Why Did Richard Allen Go From "I Didn't Do It" To Sixty Confessions In The Delphi Case?
The behavioral shift is the center of the Delphi appeal. Before solitary confinement, Richard Allen sat across from Detective Holeman during the arrest interrogation and — according to defense filings — was lied to for over an hour. Allen's answer: "I am not going to say something I did not do." That was the man who walked into Westville.Thirteen months later, he was a different person. IDOC's ow
What Does A Former FBI Agent See When She Tests The Wrench Attack Theory On Nancy Guthrie?
Jennifer Coffindaffer has 28 years of FBI experience and has worked the kinds of organized crime operations that wrench attack proponents believe may explain what happened to Nancy Guthrie. She takes the theory seriously enough to examine it honestly — and seriously enough to name where the evidence stops.A wrench attack is a physically violent crypto-extortion operation run by organized networks
Why Did The Kouri Richins Investigation Stall Until A PI Stepped In?
Deputy Jayme Woody acknowledged on the stand that the criminal investigation into Eric Richins' death had stalled by fall 2022. Meanwhile, Todd Gabler — a private investigator with 34 years exclusively on the defense side — was already ahead of the people with badges.Gabler had identified the woman prosecutors say sourced the fentanyl. He'd flagged her criminal history. He was handing evidence to
What Did The FBI See In The Pattern Before Anna Kepner Was Killed On A Cruise Ship?
Prosecutors say Timothy Hudson killed Anna Kepner "without any warning." Jennifer Coffindaffer spent 28 years at the FBI and wants to know why they'd use that language when the public record suggests something very different.Anna's ex-boyfriend reportedly told investigators Hudson tried to climb on top of her during a FaceTime call. He was allegedly fixated on her. He reportedly wanted to date he
Why Did An ISP Trooper Get Shut Down When He Flagged A Delphi Suspect?
According to the defense's appellate filings, an ISP Trooper found "concerning similarity" between the Delphi murders and a suspect who had been flagged repeatedly by tipsters for posting images of dead girls with sticks over their bodies on social media. He pushed for further investigation. His superiors said no.This same suspect, according to the filings, sat across from investigators four days
Why Did The Kouri Richins Investigation Stall Until A PI Stepped In?
Deputy Jayme Woody acknowledged on the stand that the criminal investigation into Eric Richins' death had stalled by fall 2022. Meanwhile, Todd Gabler — a private investigator with 34 years exclusively on the defense side — was already ahead of the people with badges.Gabler had identified the woman prosecutors say sourced the fentanyl. He'd flagged her criminal history. He was handing evidence t
Was The Nancy Guthrie Investigation Ever Set Up To Succeed?
An 84-year-old woman allegedly stolen from her own bed in the middle of the night — and almost immediately, the investigation meant to find her started falling apart from the inside.The crime scene was released too early. A thermal imaging plane sat grounded because its pilot had been reassigned over a personal grudge. The lead sergeant on the initial response reportedly had no homicide experienc
What Does It Mean When The FBI Takes Over Communication With Nancy Guthrie's Family?
In 28 years at the FBI, Jennifer Coffindaffer has seen what happens between local sheriffs and the Bureau when an investigation is running well — and what happens when something has broken down. The communication shift in the Nancy Guthrie case tells her something specific.Sheriff Chris Nanos confirmed he's no longer speaking directly with Nancy Guthrie's family. The FBI is now the sole point of
Why Did A Career Defense Investigator Start Building The Case Against Kouri Richins?
Todd Gabler had spent 34 years working one side of the courtroom — every case for the defense. Then Eric Richins' family called about a civil matter and the phone records pulled in the first few weeks made staying in that lane impossible.Constant contact between Kouri Richins and a housekeeper with a criminal record and active drug court failures — in the months surrounding Eric's death. Law enfo
Kepner, Adelson, Birchmore: Why Does The System Keep Failing?
What does it take for the justice system to actually hold someone — and why does that bar seem to move from case to case? We put three of the most talked-about cases in true crime in front of a defense attorney and former prosecutor and asked him to connect them.In Anna Kepner's case, our guest explains how a judge can concede that an adult would be jailed and still leave a young defendant free,
What Was Todd Gabler Finding While Police Were Doing Nothing on the Kouri Richins Case?
The Sheriff's Office investigation stalled. Todd Gabler's didn't. While law enforcement sat on a case that wasn't moving, Gabler was the one pulling phone records before they knew where to look. He was the one tracking vehicles while the investigation gathered dust. He was the one searching the home for days after police released it. And he did all of it while operating under rules that gave him
Is Farwell's Defense Already Losing The Birchmore Case?
When a defense team loses every major motion before trial even starts, what does that tell you about where the case is headed? In the prosecution of former Stoughton officer Matthew Farwell, we asked an attorney and legal analyst to read the signs.Sandra Birchmore, twenty-three and pregnant, was found dead in 2021 in a death first ruled a suicide. Prosecutors say Farwell killed her and staged it,
Could Wendi Adelson's Own Testimony Get Her Charged?
Wendi Adelson took the stand in the Dan Markel murder case more than once, and every time she did, she had a safety net: limited immunity. So could the very testimony meant to protect her become the thing that finally exposes her? We asked a defense attorney and former prosecutor to break it down.The Markel case is one of the most-watched murder-for-hire sagas in the country. An FSU law professor
What Did The Judge Admit About Anna Kepner's Accused Killer?
What does it actually take to convince a court that a defendant is too dangerous to be free? In Anna Kepner's case, a federal judge said out loud that an adult facing these charges would almost certainly be jailed — and then declined to order it. We brought in a criminal defense attorney to explain what that contradiction really signals.Anna, eighteen, died aboard a Carnival cruise while travelin
What Psychological Thread Runs Through the Guthrie, Kepner, and D4VD Cases?
Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott has spent more than thirty years in forensic mental health studying what creates the conditions for violence — not just the act, but the accumulation of failures that allegedly precede it. On Hidden Killers Live, she applies that expertise to three cases simultaneously. In the Nancy Guthrie disappearance, she examines the perpetrator’s mind — what months of silence,
Why Did Todd Gabler Skip His Pain Meds to Testify in the Kouri Richins Trial?
Six weeks before he took the stand, surgeons fused vertebrae in Todd Gabler's neck with titanium rods. He walked into court on a cane. He told the judge he'd taken a Tylenol that morning and nothing else — no prescribed pain medication — because he wanted absolute clarity for his testimony. Nobody asked him to do that. He chose it.That moment says everything about how this case got under his skin
Did D4VD’s Isolation Create the Conditions for What Happened to Celeste Rivas?
David Anthony Burke went from recording on an iPhone in his sister’s closet to touring internationally for Interscope Records in roughly two years. By twenty, prosecutors allege he’s responsible for the death of fourteen-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez and the alleged concealment of evidence that followed. He has pleaded not guilty. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott brings more than three decades of
Is Anna Kepner’s Stepmother Acting Out of Grief or Self-Preservation?
Shauntel Hudson sits at the center of the Anna Kepner case in a position no one can fully comprehend. She is the biological mother of Timothy Hudson, the sixteen-year-old charged as an adult with first-degree murder in Anna’s death. She is the stepmother of Anna Kepner, the eighteen-year-old who was killed. And she shares a home and a marriage with Anna’s father, Christopher Kepner. Court filings
What Is Genetic Genealogy Doing to Nancy Guthrie’s Kidnapper Right Now?
The DNA recovered from Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson home is at the FBI lab in Quantico. Genetic genealogy is reportedly being run. And the person who allegedly took this eighty-four-year-old woman from her home months ago has no way of knowing when that process will produce a name — only that it eventually can. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott brings more than three decades of forensic mental health exper
Why Did Nobody Around D4VD See Who He Allegedly Was?
D4VD admitted in interview after interview that the emotions in his music weren’t real. He said they were constructed. Performed. Pulled from other people’s lives. We heard that as a charming origin story. According to prosecutors, it may have been something else entirely.This episode takes a hard look at who David Anthony Burke was before the allegations — not as a musician, but as a person shap
Do the Guthrie, Kepner, and Spencer Families Have Any Legal Options Left?
Three cases. Three families. One attorney analyzing what happens when the system around a case starts breaking down.Bob Motta starts with Nancy Guthrie — what legal tools does the family have when the investigation has stalled, the sheriff's credibility is collapsing, and a retired detective believes the suspect's identity is already in the case files? Is there a legal mechanism to force an outsi
Why Was One PI Outpacing an Entire Sheriff's Office on the Kouri Richins Case?
Todd Gabler gave the Summit County Sheriff's Office everything he found. The phone records connecting Kouri Richins to a housekeeper with a drug history. The GPS surveillance data. The interview summaries from nearly 50 conversations. Two hard drives of evidence. He handed it all over. They shared nothing in return. Police agencies, he testified at trial, are "one-way streets."And that one-way st
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