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Murder Unscripted

Murder Unscripted Pod

Veteran true-crime producer, Ed (Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, City Confidential) and his crime encyclopedia gal pal, Melissa, bring you the most immersive podcast in the genre - breaking down the barrier between fan and creator.

Expect deep dives into obscure stories, interviews with with victim's families, investigators, and other insiders, and behind-the-scenes insight on your favorite crime shows from a seasoned industry professional...all with a touch of humor to lighten even the darkest tales.

👉 New episodes every Tuesday.

🌐 For more information about us and the show, visit our website at: www.MurderUnscriptedPod.com

E-mail: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com

FB - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557418124048

Insta - https://www.instagram.com/murderunscripted/

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@murderunscripted

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Yesterday · 1 hr 15 min
Ep:122 | Son Sets 76 Fires Killing Three, Father Turns Him In | Paul Keller | Murder Unscripted
For six months, a phantom arsonist burned Seattle to the ground. The man who finally stopped him was his own father. In 1992, more than a hundred fires tore through the Seattle area. Churches, warehouses, strip malls, and, on one horrifying night, a retirement home where three women lost their lives. Whole neighborhoods slept in shifts. Investigators called the man behind it "the Specter," because chasing him was like chasing a ghost. But he was not the drifter everyone pictured. He was a clean-cut advertising salesman in a nice car. And the person who finally recognized him was the one who knew him best: his own father, reading a police profile at the kitchen table. Ed closes out September's "Burning Desires" block with the story most people reduce to a number, and the three women, Bertha, Mary, and Adeline, whose lives deserve more than a statistic. LISTEN ON AUDIO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | Socials: @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 15 · 1 hr 24 min
Ep:121 | The Pillow Pyro, Part 2 | How A Fire Captain Became A Serial Arsonist | Murder Unscripted
For years, a serial arsonist burned his way across California and vanished before the smoke cleared. In Part 2, we finally put a name and a face to him, and it is the last person anyone suspected: John Orr, a celebrated Glendale fire captain and arson investigator. Orr did not just work near the case, he helped run it. He photographed the scenes, argued the theories, and chased the very fires he had set, including the deadly South Pasadena blaze that killed four people. Then he did something almost unbelievable: he wrote a novel about a fire investigator turned serial arsonist, and the story cut far too close to the truth. Melissa brings the Pillow Pyro story to its conclusion: how a fingerprint, a first-of-its-kind tracking device, and Orr's own manuscript finally brought him down, and how a fire once ruled accidental became four counts of murder. Miss part 1? Start here 👉 https://youtu.be/FD6BHgMF5GA LISTEN ON AUDIO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership (20% of every membership goes to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾) CONNECT Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | Socials: @murderunscripted #MurderUnscripted #JohnOrr #Arson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E120
September 8 · 1 hr 18 min
Ep: 120 | A Cigarette, Three Matches, and a Rubber Band | The Pillow Pyro (Part 1) | Murder Unscripted
A cigarette, three matches, and a rubber band. For most of the 1980s, that was all it took for a serial arsonist to burn his way across California and vanish before the smoke was even spotted. Most of the fires destroyed property. One destroyed a family. A fire at a crowded hardware store in South Pasadena killed four people, including a child, and was quietly ruled an accident, letting the man responsible keep going for years. Melissa opens a two-part story on the hunt for one of the most prolific arsonists in American history. And the truth about who he was is something almost nobody saw coming. Ep. 120 | Burning Desires | Murder Unscripted | September 2026 | Part 1 of 2 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E119
September 1 · 1 hr 5 min
Ep. 119 | Murders of Barbara Walsh & Renee Powell | He Set 7 Fires to Erase Himself. He Missed One Thing | Murder Unscripted
Shoreline, Washington, 1995. Firefighters knock down a small apartment fire and find a woman's body inside. One month later, 50 feet away, it happens again. Two ordinary, kind women were murdered in nearly identical attacks by a man who brought nothing with him. He used the victims' own belongings, disabled their smoke detectors, and set the fires to erase himself completely. For two years, it worked. Ed opens September’s “Burning Desires” (a month of arson cases) with the story of how one piece of evidence that survived the flames finally brought Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh's killer to justice. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E118
August 25 · 1 hr 5 min
Ep: 118 | A Conversation with Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick | Pioneer of Genetic Genealogy | Murder Unscripted
Her degree says nuclear physics but her work changed the way cold cases are solved. ⬇️ To close out our Killer Connections block, Ed and Melissa sit down with the woman whose name has come up all month long: Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick. Before forensic genetic genealogy was a headline, before it was even a field, Colleen saw a different way to use DNA. She founded Identifinders International, helped turn distant relatives into the key that unlocks decades-old cold cases, and became a legend in true crime genre along the way. In this insightful conversation, Colleen discusses the road from physics to the front lines of cold case work, the cases that never left her, and where this science goes next. Ep. 118 | Killer Connections Finale | Murder Unscripted | August 2026 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E117
August 18 · 59 min
Ep. 117 | Murder of Cliff & Linda Bernhardt | Killers Leaves Bowl of Ice Near Victim's Body | Murder Unscripted
Billings, Montana, November 1973. Cliff and Linda Bernhardt set their dinner table for three and welcomed a guest they trusted. By the next morning, the young couple were dead, and the killer had staged the scene in a way so strange it would puzzle investigators for the next 45 years. Cliff had survived the jungles of Vietnam. He didn't survive dinner at his own table. Melissa covers Week 3 of Killer Connections: a bizarre 1973 cold case, decades of dead ends, and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally gave the Bernhardt family a name. Ep. 117 | Killer Connections | Murder Unscripted | August 2026 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E116
August 11 · 1 hr 35 min
Ep:116 | The Murder of Leslie Preer | A Killer Hidden in Her Daughter’s Past | Murder Unscripted
On the morning of May 2, 2001, Leslie Preer -- a warm, generous 48-year-old woman who her family said saw the world through rose-colored glasses -- didn't show up to work in Washington DC. Her boss drove to the family home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her husband Sandy met him there. When police arrived, they found Leslie on the bathroom floor, under the running shower, having suffered a brutal attack. From the beginning, investigators focused on Sandy. He failed a polygraph. His behavior seemed odd. The couple had debt, arguments, a history of tension. But the male DNA found at the scene and under Leslie's fingernails was never his. Sandy was never charged. He was also never cleared. In 2017, sixteen years after Leslie's murder, Sandy Preer died -- still, in the eyes of many in his community and even Leslie's own family, a suspect. In 2022, two female cold case detectives picked up the file with fresh eyes, refused to accept Sandy's guilt, and campaigned to get the case approved for forensic genetic genealogy through Othram, a Texas lab specializing in advanced DNA sequencing. The results pointed to a surname: Gligor. A Romanian family with deep roots in Chevy Chase -- and a connection to Lauren, Leslie's daughter, that nobody had looked at closely enough. Getting the suspect's DNA without alerting him required ingenuity. When he landed at Dulles Airport in June 2024, detectives had bottles of water waiting. He drank. He left. They collected the bottle. The DNA matched the evidence from Leslie's home, definitively and completely. Melissa covers the full story: Leslie's life and family, the decades of wrongful suspicion, the two detectives who cracked it open, and the interrogation scene that has to be heard to be believed. Sandy didn't live to see his name cleared. Lauren did. And she had 23 years worth of things to say at sentencing. Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E31
August 4 · 1 hr 10 min
Ep:115 | The Murder of Roxanne Wood | 35-year-old Cold Case Solved with Genetic Genealogy | Murder Unscripted
35 years cold. 6 cells worth of DNA. One pink-haired genealogist. ⬇️ Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home in Niles, Michigan in February 1987. Her husband Terry was never charged, but he was never cleared either. For 35 years, a small town called him "Slash" to his face. The real killer was a stranger who lived a few miles away and had never been in the case file. The case was cracked by genetic genealogy using a DNA sample so degraded that experts called it unsolvable, and a genealogist named Gabriella Vargas who disagreed. She built a family tree back to the 1820s and came up with a name in four days. An undercover trooper bummed a cigarette off the suspect outside a laundromat to get the confirmation sample. The match was one in billions. Ed covers the full story... Roxanne's victimology, the cold case, the genealogy work, the exoneration, and an ending that will stay with you. The perfect first episode to kick off August's Killer Connections block. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #RoxanneWood #GeneticGenealogy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E30
July 28 · 58 min
Ep:114 | A Conversation with Celeste Walsen, DVM | Courthouse Dogs Foundation | Murder Unscripted
She brought dogs into the courtroom! Listen to find out how. Most true crime content is about catching the bad guy. This episode covers what happens afterwards - specifically, the moment a child has to walk into a room full of strangers and say out loud what happened to them. Courthouse facility dogs sit with victims and witnesses (many of them children) during forensic interviews, depositions, and testimony. They reduce cortisol. They increase accuracy. They make the impossible feel possible. And in most courtrooms, the jury never even knows they're there. To close out the Dog Days of Summer block, Ed and Melissa sit down with Dr. Celeste Walsen - co-founder and Executive Director of the Courthouse Dogs Foundation, the organization that coined the term, built the field, and has been MU's charity partner from the beginning. Watch til the end to see Celeste take part in a round of "Paw & Order." It gets good! Learn more and donate: https://www.courthousedogs.org LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes directly to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #CourthouseDogs #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E29
July 21 · 1 hr 1 min
Ep:113 | The Murder of Frances Fitts | Dog Finds Evidence of Murder and Changes Texas Law | Murder Unscripted
Frances Fritts was murdered in a house fire in Brenham, Texas in 1994. Her husband Charles walked out without a scratch. He had $800,000 in insurance lined up, a girlfriend abroad, and a Mercedes ad running in the local paper. Investigators had plenty of motive. What they needed was proof the fire was set deliberately. That proof came from two dogs named Samantha and Jager - hydrocarbon-sniffing K-9s who alerted to accelerant in the ruins of the Fritts home and helped put Charles away for life. And when the defense challenged their evidence in court, the Texas Court of Appeals made history. Fitts versus State, decided in 1998, became the case that put arson dogs in Texas courtrooms permanently. Melissa covers Frances's case and the remarkable legal legacy it left behind - including a note from the heart about a victim she couldn't find enough about, and the reason she still needed to say her name. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If you knew Frances Fritts, please reach out to murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com. We would love to tell her story properly. If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #FrancesFritts #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E28
July 14 · 1 hr 18 min
Ep:112 | The Murder of Carlos Maldonado | Kevin Lychwick Kills Neighbor As Part of 'Operation Slop Shop' | Murder Unscripted
He named his murder plan "Operation Slop Shop" and his neighbor was first on the list. Carlos Maldonado was a 55-year-old dad rebuilding his life - starting a window tinting business and rekindling a relationship with his daughter Talisa. On April 14th, 2024, he vanished without a trace. His body wasn't found until October 30th - wrapped in tarp and garbage bags, tied with rope, hidden on a wooded hill less than 200 feet from his own front door. A trail camera in a tenant's garden captured Maldonado's 63-year-old neighbor, Kevin Lychwick, making trips to the hillside at 12:41am. His explanation: he feeds the rabbits at night. But his apartment told a different story. In the living room, police find a stack of handwritten documents. One was labeled 'Operation Slop Shop.' It named his neighbor Carlos Maldonado as a threat. It was stamped November 2023...six months before Maldonado's murder. Lychwick represented himself during a shocking and entertaining trial, and was eventually found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide. Sentencing is scheduled for August 20, 2026. Subscribe so you don't miss the update. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one resonated with you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #OperationSlopShop #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E27
July 7 · 1 hr 12 min
Ep:111 | The Murder of the Caneiro Family | Man Kills and Burns His Brother's Entire Family | Murder Unscripted
Two fires. One night. Four bodies. His own brother was behind everything. In the early hours of November 20th, 2018, a 911 call came in reporting a house fire in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Within hours, a second 911 call came in from a neighborhood fifteen miles away in Colts Neck. A man had gone outside to check on his generator after a mysterious power failure. He never came back in. His wife and two children were still inside when the house was set on fire. The victims were Keith Caniero, 50. His wife Jennifer, 45. Their son Jesse, 11. And their daughter Sophia, 8. The man who set the first fire at his own home, as a decoy) was Paul Caniero...Keith's older brother. The man who had been secretly embezzling from Keith's life insurance trust for years, spending the money on a lavish lifestyle and a mistress, and who faced financial ruin the moment Keith discovered the truth. If not for a New Jersey State Police K-9 named Creed, he might've gotten away with it. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted #MurderUnscripted #CanieroFamily #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E26
June 30 · 1 hr 27 min
Ep:110 | A Conversation with Steve & Kristi Goncalves (Parents of Kaylee Goncalves) | Never-before-heard Stories about Kaylee | Murder Unscripted
Kaylee's parents sit down to address the recently released autopsy details, the relentless online conspiracies, and share never-before-heard stories about their daughter Kaylee. The media dubbed them "The Idaho Four." But behind that moniker were four individuals with four families and four futures. One of them was Kaylee Goncalves...a bright, bubbly 21-year-old who had the world by a string. And while everyone knows the story of what happened to her few know the REAL Kaylee. Like how fiercely independent she was from the time she was small...the kind of kid who didn't ask for help and didn't need to be told twice. Like the prankster who liked throwing cell phones in the toilet and once told her dad she saw a cougar, only to show him a photo of an African leopard. That was Kaylee. In this powerful conversation, Steve and Kristi Goncalves also address the relentless media scrutiny, the release of case details not meant for the public, and the hateful online conspiracies that keep them up at night. They also speak to the work of the Murder Has a Name Foundation, which they founded in Kaylee's memory to advocate for victims' families navigating the criminal justice system. This is an interview that personifies Murder Unscripted, and it's one of the most important conversations we've ever had. To learn more about the Kaylee Goncalves Foundation: "Murder Has a Name" visit: www.murderhasaname.com LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #KayleeGoncalves #SteveGoncalves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E25
June 23 · 1 hr 21 min
Ep:109 | The Murder of Katherine Foster | Her Best Friend Wanted Her Man, So She Killed Her | Murder Unscripted
They were the 3 musketeers. One of them was a killer. In February 1980, 18-year-old University of South Alabama freshman Katherine Foster was supposed to meet her two best friends for a trip to the mall. She never showed up. Days later, a search party found her body in the woods just a few hundred yards from campus -- laying flat on her back, fully clothed, makeup intact, looking for all the world like she had simply laid down to take a nap. She had been shot twice in the head. Investigators were baffled. There was no struggle, no drag marks, no sign of sexual assault. Whoever did this, Katherine had trusted enough to walk into the woods with. Police chased every lead they had, but Katherine's case went cold for more than 22 years. Until a single phone call from an AA sponsor changed everything. Ed and Melissa cover the full case: the friend group at the center of it, the disturbing items found in a dead security guard's garage, the forensic science breakthrough at the University of Tennessee's Body Farm that rewrote the entire timeline, and the obsession that drove Jamie Kellam Letson to kill the friend who stood between her and a boyfriend who barely knew she existed. Content warning: murder, stalking, obsessive behavior. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one got you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #KatherineFoster #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E24
June 16 · 1 hr 22 min
Ep:108 | The Murder of Jeanne Clery | Co-Ed's Brutal Death Changes Campus Safety Laws Across the Country | Murder Unscripted
On April 5th, 1986, Howard and Connie Clery returned home from a vacation in Bermuda to find a police car waiting in their driveway. Their 19-year-old daughter Jeanne had been found murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University. What the Clerys discovered in the aftermath was as infuriating as it was devastating. In the three years before Jeanne's murder, there had been 38 violent crimes at Lehigh including rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults. Campus security had received over 2,000 reports of propped-open dorm doors in the year she was killed. 188 of those came from her building. None of this information had been available to them when they chose the school. Nobody was required to share it. The man who killed Jeanne - fellow student, Josoph Henry - had walked through a propped door and found her room unlocked because her roommate didn't have her key. He was convicted of first-degree murder. But Howard and Connie Clery were not finished. In 1990, the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act was signed into law -- later renamed the Jeanne Clery Act. It requires every college and university receiving federal funding to publicly disclose campus crimes, issue timely warnings, and give students and families the safety information they need before choosing a school. Four decades later, it is still one of the most important pieces of campus safety legislation in the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E23
June 9 · 1 hr 6 min
Ep: 107 | The Murder of Sophie Sergie | Genetic Genealogy Solves 28-year-old Alaskan Cold Case | Murder Unscripted
Alaskan Sophie Sergie came from a remote Yupik village of 70 people. She was going to be the first in her family to graduate college. The last thing she told her family was a promise to bring her little brother a brand new kite. She never came home. On April 25th, 1993, Sophie Sergie was found violently murdered in a University of Alaska Fairbanks dorm bathroom. Her case went cold, and it stayed that way for more than a quarter century, until a woman uploaded her DNA to an ancestry site and unknowingly pointed investigators straight at her nephew, Steven Downs, who had been quietly living as a nurse in Maine the entire time. Ed covers Sophie's emotional story, the 28-year cold case, and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally brought justice. Ep. 107 | Collegiate Crimes Block | Murder Unscripted | June 2026 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E22
June 2 · 1 hr 9 min
Ep:106 | The Murder of Yeardley Love | The Obsessive Ex-Boyfriend and the Missed Warning Signs | Murder Unscripted
Yeardley Love was 22 years old and ten weeks from graduating from the University of Virginia. She was a D1 lacrosse player, a political science major with plans for law school in New York, and by every account, the kind of person who made every room warmer just by being in it. She was also in an abusive relationship with a men's lacrosse player, George Huguely V, that had been escalating for years. Obsessive contact. Jealousy. Physical violence. In February 2010, just weeks before her death, he had her pinned to a bed with his hands around her throat. Witnesses pulled him off. Yeardley told her mother. She even wrote a letter ending the relationship. Yeardley locked her door...but he kicked it in. In the early hours of May 3rd, 2010, Yeardley's roommate came home to find her unresponsive on her bed. She was gone. That's when police find an email from George in her inbox that read: 'I should have killed you.' In this episode, Melissa walks through the full story of Yeardley's life and death, including: the escalation pattern that followed every textbook sign of a dangerous relationship, the trial that convicted George Huguely of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 23 years, the 2022 civil verdict of $15 million in damages, and the most important thing to come out of all of it: the One Love Foundation, built by Yeardley's mother Sharon and sister Lexie, dedicated to teaching young people to recognize the warning signs of unhealthy relationships before they become fatal. This one is heavy, but it matters. If this episode makes you think of someone in your life, please take that seriously. One Love Foundation: https://www.joinonelove.org Written by Sue Grice | Hosted by Melissa Spivey Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E21
May 26 · 1 hr 27 min
Ep:105 | A Conversation with Dr. Mildred Muhammad | Ex-wife of the DC Sniper | Murder Unscripted
If you haven't listened to our DC Sniper episode yet (E104), start there first. This is the conversation that follows it. Dr. Mildred Muhammad was married to John Allen Muhammad for 12 years. She knew him as a soldier, a father, a man she loved. What she didn't know was that after their separation, he had begun stalking her, that he had kidnapped their three children and taken them to Antigua for 18 months using forged documents, that she had been living under a restraining order that still permitted visitation, and that during October of 2002...while the DC metropolitan area was being terrorized by a sniper...she was living in that same region with no idea the man behind it was her ex-husband. And then she found out she was allegedly the intended target all along. In this episode, Dr. Muhammad walks us through her entire story. Growing up in Baton Rouge. Meeting John. What the marriage looked like from the inside. The kidnapping of her children and the 18 months she spent fighting to bring them home. The moment she learned his name. The aftermath. Being treated as a potential accessory. The court refusing to allow domestic violence evidence at trial. And what she has built since as an author, advocate, speaker, podcaster, and appointed member of the Maryland State Board of Victim Services. Oh and listen until the end. We play a fun little game at the end testing Mildred's knowledge of all things Louisiana. She's from Baton Rouge. Melissa is not. It went about as well as you'd expect. 😂 🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH 💛 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 📬 murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E20
May 19 · 1 hr 16 min
Ep:104 | The DC Sniper | 10 People Killed at Random in Bizarre Murder Plot | Murder Unscripted
In October 2002, the Washington DC area woke up to something it had never felt before. People were being shot at gas stations, in parking lots, at bus stops, at a school...apparently at random, by someone nobody could see, in a car nobody could find. Police were sprinting between active scenes. Schools canceled outdoor activities. People crouched at gas pumps trying to make themselves smaller targets. Senators got police escorts to the Capitol. Ten people would be killed in three weeks. Three more wounded. And almost none of it was random. In today's spine-chilling episode, Ed walks through the case of the DC Sniper, including: the months of seemingly disconnected shootings across six states before the DC attacks began, the investigation that kept missing the blue Caprice that was hiding in plain sight, the tarot card left at a middle school, and the motive reveal that reframes everything. Ed also shares something personal: in October 2002, he was a first-day intern at Forensic Files... and the DC Sniper case was his very first assignment. He watched it unfold, frame by frame, on two hours of raw news tape. It's what drew him into the true crime industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
S3 · E19
May 12 · 1 hr 4 min
Ep:103 | The Siberian Werewolf | Cop Turned Serial Killer Claims More Than 80 Victims | Murder Unscripted
In post-Soviet Siberia, women were disappearing from the streets of Angarsk. Their bodies turned up in forests and industrial wastelands, mutilated beyond recognition. The weapons changed every time, but the tire tracks at the scenes were always from the same vehicle: a Lada Niva, the standard-issue Soviet police truck. The man driving it was Mikhail Popkov: junior police lieutenant, champion biathlete, beloved neighbor, husband and father. His wife Elena, a fellow officer in the same department, called him a 'perfect husband and father.' His colleagues said he was the soul of every party. When women were attacked on his city's streets, he was often first on scene. Because he was the one who had attacked them. Popkov used his badge, his uniform, and the trust people place in law enforcement to lure women into his patrol vehicle on freezing Siberian nights. He killed them with weapons stolen from his own department's evidence room, varying the method each time to prevent investigators from finding a pattern. He then returned to work, attended briefings on his own murders, and offered his observations to his colleagues. When a 15-year-old survivor picked him out of a photo lineup, his wife gave him an alibi. When biological evidence linked him to a victim, his wife gave him an alibi again. Investigators shelved the case. Popkov kept killing. By the time a 3,500-officer DNA sweep finally caught him in 2012, Popkov had confessed to 87 murders, making him the most prolific serial killer in Russian recorded history. Some investigators believe the true number may be closer to 200. When a judge asked how many total murders he had committed, Popkov shrugged and said: 'I can't say exactly. I didn't write them down.' Ed walks through the full story for the Who the Bleep Did I Marry block: the victims, the system failures, the jaw-dropping confession, and the impossible question Popkov's own daughter asked aloud while pregnant: would her child grow up to be a monster like him? She said she still didn't fully understand what her father was. And that she still loved him. Researched & written by Sue Grice | Hosted by Ed Hydock | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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