In this episode, we cover the long awaited capture of the Golden State Killer and the decades long investigation that led to his identification. From the use of genetic genealogy to finally put a name to the crimes, to the ethical questions surrounding that method, we break down how this case was ultimately solved. We also walk through the emotional courtroom moments where victims were given the opportunity to share their statements, despite there being no trial due to a plea deal and COVID.

After years of silence, the victims were finally able to be heard—and their stories will always matter.

In this episode, we break down the horrific timeline of the Golden State Killer’s crimes and the victims whose lives were forever changed. From burglaries to brutal assaults and murders across California in the 1970s and 1980s, we walk through how the crimes unfolded, how investigators began connecting the cases, and the growing fear that spread through entire communities.

Before the killer had a name, there were victims and their stories deserve to be remembered.

For years, Israel Keyes traveled quietly across the United States, hiding a terrifying secret. He buried “kill kits” in remote locations, chose victims at random, and vanished without leaving patterns for investigators to follow. His carefully controlled double life finally collapsed in 2012 after the abduction and murder of Samantha Koenig —revealing a methodical predator whose full list of victims may never be known.

On September 1990. Sixteen-year-old Colleen Walker-Craig disappears after a party in Bowraville, Australia. Police tell her family she probably "ran away."

Three weeks later, her 4-year-old cousin Evelyn vanishes from the same street. Police ask, "What do you want me to do about it?"

Four months later, 16-year-old Clinton Speedy-Duroux is gone.

Three Aboriginal children. Same street. Five months. One suspect tried and acquitted twice.

The families fought for 30 years to change the law. In 2018, the courts said no.

On a snowy January morning in 2022, Boston police officer John O’Keefe was found dead outside a fellow officer’s home and his girlfriend, Karen Read, was charged with hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die. Prosecutors say it was a drunken hit-and-run. The defense claims a cover-up inside the house and a rush to frame her. What happened in those early morning hours has divided a community and turned this case into one of the most explosive courtroom battles in Massachusetts.

Leanne was 14 years old when she vanished from Brooklyn, New York on March 18, 1999. She was last seen waiting on a street corner and never made it to school. She has never been seen again.

Her case was quickly labeled a “runaway,” delaying the investigation for years and leaving her family to search for answers alone. This episode looks at what was missed, what was ignored, and how Leanne’s story reflects the broader crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.

In 2014, a quiet Wisconsin town was rocked by a stabbing so disturbing it seemed unreal—one tied to belief in the fictional online figure known as Slender Man. What began as an internet myth spilled into real life, blurring the line between fantasy and violence. The case unsettled the public not just because of the crime itself, but because of the ages involved and the haunting question it left behind: how could something imaginary inspire something so real?

In this episode of Crime Connections, we examine the unsolved murder of Lisa Pruett, a 16-year-old girl whose death shattered the quiet, affluent community of Shaker Heights, Ohio.

On September 14, 1990, Lisa was found just outside her boyfriend’s family property, less than 100 feet from where he slept. What followed was an investigation plagued by questionable decisions, conflicting timelines, and an early rush to judgment.

The case quickly became a national spectacle when another local teenager, Kevin Young, was charged and put on trial in a highly publicized Court TV case, only to be acquitted due to lack of evidence. His life was irreparably damaged, and the real questions surrounding Lisa’s murder were never fully answered.

We walk through Lisa’s life, the night she was killed, the investigation that followed, and the troubling possibility that critical leads were ignored. More than three decades later, Lisa’s murder remains officially unsolved.

In 2014, around Thanksgiving, 25-year-old Amy Lynn Hanson disappeared from the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and just two days later her body was found in an arroyo in Red Rock. Investigators ruled her death a homicide, but no arrests have ever been made. Despite FBI involvement and a reward for information, Amy’s case remains unsolved. This is another heartbreaking example of an Indigenous woman whose story still demands justice.

In North Carolina, Indigenous women are disappearing and being murdered at alarming rates and their families still have no answers.

In 2017, Rhonda Jones, Christina “Kristin” Bennett, and Megan Oxendine were found dead within blocks of each other in Lumberton. Two more women, Cynthia Jacobs and Abby Patterson, vanished soon after. None of these cases have been solved.

These women mattered. Their stories matter.