All that most parents want in life is to give their children a better life than they had. But, misguided efforts easily lead to resentful kids. It leads to kids who lie, and cheat, and steal and feel no remorse because the world "owes" them. It leads to kids like Jennifer Pan. And in her chaotic wake, she left us all wondering if she was a victim, not mentally healthy enough to cope with psychological abuse, or if she's just a sociopath... abusing our sympathy and cold enough to do it again. 

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All week, Gary Mathias told his mom "We got a big game Saturday, Don't you let me oversleep." He laid his jersey out on his bed then headed out the door to attend a game at Cal State, Chico with four of his best friends. Rather quickly, Jack Madruga's Mercury Montego was found abandoned up a desolate mountain road. The car was perfectly functioning and the boys were missing. Months later, the group of boys were finally found, dead and in different places around the mountain. All but one. To this day, Gary Mathias remains missing. This week, we're talking about the bizarre disappearance of the Yuba County Five, also known as the American Dyatlov Pass. 

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In the sleepy town of Niagara, North Dakota, the story of the Midnight Rider has gone stale after over 100 years of mystery. We all thought Eugene Butler was just weird old man with mental health issues, hopping on his horse in the nighttime and screaming down the country roads. We put him up in an insane asylum until he died and thought that was the end of his story. That is until his home went under renovation and a shocking discovery was made. This week, tune in to find out what Farmer Butler was hiding and why it’s still an unsolved mystery over a decade later.

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The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is notorious for long lines at the airport and bumper to bumper traffic down the interstate. We've all done the holiday travel and when you’re packed in on a 17 inch wide seat, touching elbows with a complete stranger 35 thousand feet in the sky, you better hope that TSA did their job right. Luckily, TSA has largely gotten their program together, all from a lesson they learned in 1971, when a man named D. Cooper bought a one way flight for $20 and turned the crew's shift inside out. Once acquiring $20,000 from the airline, Cooper parachuted off of the plane mid-flight to Mexico City. His body, nor the ransom money ever to be seen again. Tune in to see how this could be possible and where law enforcement is today in the hunt for the unidentified man.

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It all started with feed from the wrong baby monitor. That technological mishap by a next door neighbor would uncover one of the most chilling child abuse cases seen yet in the Czech Republic. But it’s actually not just a sad story. It’s actually full of twists and turns as our main characters aren’t who we think they are, and you learn you can’t trust anyone. Our 13 year old, traumatized orphan actually executed an elaborate plan and was going to keep ruining lives until finally caught. This is The Kuřim Case.

Trigger warning: I have excluded every graphic piece of this story and brought it down to the bare bones mania that it encompasses. But, the topic of abuse in general is heavy and I encourage you to try any of my other episodes if this is too sensitive.

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Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was never meant to be a place for rehabilitation, but purely for punishment and containment. During the 29 years it was in use, the jail held some of the most notorious criminals in American history, such as Al Capone, Robert Franklin Stroud, and Alvin Karpis. To this day, they claim that in those 29 years of operation, no prisoner ever escaped successfully. But, the truth is that they don’t know that for sure. Because on June 11th, 1962, Frank Morris, John and Clarence Anglin carried out one of the most intricate escapes ever seen, and to this day they’ve never been found. This week, hear the story of how this trio made the only potentially successful escape off the Rock.

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If you see something, say something. We’ve all heard it, but how many of us actually act on it? It’s a phenomenon taught in every Psychology 101 course known as the bystander effect. In the early hours of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed outside of her own apartment. Over 38 witnesses saw or heard the attack, but not one called the police or came to her aid. The homicide of this young woman is arguably one of the most cited and referenced true crimes in modern history, so if you didn’t recognize her, you should. Tag along this week while we learn about this psychological phenomenon and the case which prompted the installment of the current 911 system.

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Organ trafficking has been called the most lucrative global enterprise, generating between $500 million to $1 billion dollars annually. In Mumbai India, Sundar Singh Jatav was coerced into selling his kidney and in turn, he ended up exposing a major kidney trafficking network based inside of a highly prestigious Indian hospital. We are raised to trust doctors and despite the medical horror stories we’ve heard, like Dr. Death or H. H. Holmes, we do anyways, because we have no other choice. This week, listen in as I share Sundar's story and hear the horrible reality that desperate and voiceless populations have been living for decades.

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Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest, both just 20 years old, spent their last hours alive dancing on May 27. The similarities between these two unsolved murders lead us to believe that they're obviously connected... but what if I told you the identical murders took place exactly 157 years apart? What in the world is going on in the small suburb of Erdington, England?

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In this day and age, the very first thing you bring on a road trip is your phone, passport, ID, and money. Well the Tromp family knew it and chose not to when they abandoned their home and business and embarked on a trip off the grid and headed nearly one thousand miles across Australia. In a turn of events, each member of the family broke apart from the others, leading to 5 separately lost family members across Australia. It took 6 days to reunite the family and while all were found, all were not well. Tune in this week for another possible case of the rare folie a deux.

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