On March 3, 1993,  a sister would discover a horrible scene no family member should come upon.  It would take two and a half years for Lawrence Horn and the hit man he hired to be brought to justice.  During that time, investigators had to unravel a complicated trail of conspiracy and how one book aided the shooter in trying to get away with murder.

When our listeners hear “August 1969,” they probably think of The Manson Family murders. Today we’ll examine another chilling crime spree from that era on the other side of the United States: the Dreamland Park murders. In August 1969, outlaw bikers murdered a young couple at their abandoned amusement park-turned-clubhouse, and those same bikers may be responsible for the unsolved murders of two sisters in August 1968 as well. While two of the men involved died in prison, it’s likely that two more killers were allowed to walk free, and that’s just one symptom of an organized crime problem that has plagued the area for generations and lies at the heart of today’s case.

November 1992, an unsuspecting mother and her two small children return home late at night only to be met by an intruder with a gun.  What did he want?  Why was he there?  Listen to the story of how greed and a thirst for power brought ruin and murder to one young family in Georgia.   

What happens to victims who aren’t killed or visibly injured, but who are left in the wake of a crime to pick up the broken pieces and carry on with life? What happened to Columbine student and school shooting survivor Brandi Jo Malonson, who was last seen around Christmas 2006? Who killed her friends and classmates Nick Kunselman and Stephanie Hart-Grizzell less than a year after Columbine?  In this episode, we will look at these and other lesser-known cases from Littleton, Colorado, the community where the infamous school shooting took place.

Listen to the story featured on the first episode of Snapped.  Celeste Beard Johnson was tried for the murder of her husband in Texas.  Did she do it or was she set up by her twin daughters and lover?  Listen and decide for yourself.  

Google “Dominique Dunne” and you’ll see references to the movie Poltergeist and her tragic death.  Some results include her murder as evidence of a curse associated with the Poltergeist film series.  Beneath this clickbait is an all too familiar story about domestic violence escalating to murder.   As is also far too common in these cases, it doesn’t seem like the victim and her family received the justice they deserved.  Listen to the first episode of season 4 and decide for yourself.  

Michelle Jones contacted her aunt and uncle as Hurricane Ivan was bearing down on Florida in September 2004. Since they lived in the Florida Keys Michelle invited them to stay with her in Orlando until the danger passed. Little did she know that she had just summoned pure evil into her home. Listen to the story of her uncle Charlie Brandt who authorities would come to suspect was involved in a number of unsolved murders in the Florida area.  

In 2021, detectives in Florida announced that DNA connected Brazilian national Roberto Fernandes to the murders of three Miami-area sex workers in 2000 and 2001.  During this investigation, authorities discovered Fernandes had also been charged with his wife’s 1996 murder and was suspected in numerous unsolved assault and homicide cases in both countries. Today, we’ll take a deep dive into Fernandes’s known crimes, the international, decade-long manhunt to bring him to justice, and the unsolved cases for which he may be responsible.

Two separate mysteries all tied to one man who went by many names.  Listen to the story of serial killer Terry Rasmussen who died under the name Curtis Kimball.  This is a twisted tale of false identities, a living Jane Doe and the Bear Brook Four with one victim yet to be identified and one still missing.  

Losing a child to murder is unthinkable – a parent’s worst nightmare. A child being murdered by their friends is even more shocking. Kimberly Dotts’s so-called friends ended her life on Mother’s Day 24 years ago, and while two of the people who were involved are behind bars, their community is still processing the tragedy and an important question: how do we punish kids who kill?