Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

The Kouri Richins murder trial starts February 23rd — and the defense has been quietly dismantling the prosecution's case for months. A recanting drug source who now says it wasn't fentanyl. A lead detective accused of threatening witnesses. Two excluded prosecution experts. And 26 financial crime charges the judge refused to let the jury hear.

Defense attorney and former felony prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down the defense's strongest arguments heading into trial. Robert Crozier, the man prosecutors called their key link in the fentanyl supply chain, has signed a sworn affidavit saying he sold OxyContin — not fentanyl. The pills were never recovered. Never tested. Prosecutors dropped the drug distribution charges after that recantation, and for the defense, that's a gap in the murder weapon theory that may never close.

Faddis explains how Detective Jeff O'Driscoll's alleged witness intimidation could infect the credibility of the entire investigation, why losing both expert witnesses strips the prosecution's narrative of a calculated killer, and how the severed financial charges give the defense room to keep the jury focused on one question: can the state prove poisoning beyond a reasonable doubt? With rapid jury selection in a media-saturated county and the defense holding cards they've been building for years, Faddis reveals what he believes is their single strongest play heading into opening statements.

#KouriRichins #RichinsTrial #EricRichins #FentanylMurder #DefenseStrategy #SummitCountyUtah #RobertCrozier #EricFaddis #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Colin Gray is on trial for second-degree murder — not because he pulled a trigger, but because prosecutors say he put the weapon in his son's hands and ignored every warning that followed. His son, Colt Gray, allegedly walked into Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia on September 4, 2024 and opened fire, killing two students and two teachers and wounding nine others in the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history. Colin Gray faces 29 felony counts and up to 180 years in prison.

The prosecution's case is built on a timeline that is difficult to look away from. An FBI-flagged threat investigation in 2023 where deputies warned Colin to keep his son away from firearms. A Christmas gift months later — a Sig Sauer M400 AR-style rifle, along with ammunition, tactical accessories, and unrestricted bedroom access. A shrine to the Parkland shooter found in the teenager's room. A counseling request where Colin described his son as volatile and angry. A text from Colt to his father weeks before the shooting that allegedly read: "Whenever something happens, just know the blood is on your hands." And when law enforcement arrived at Colin's home after the shooting, prosecutors say he met them in the garage and said two words without being prompted: "I knew it."

This case follows the landmark Crumbley convictions in Michigan — the first time parents were held criminally responsible for a mass school shooting carried out by their child. But Colin Gray's charges go further. Second-degree murder, not manslaughter. A legal theory built on cruelty to children resulting in death. If a Georgia jury convicts, it won't just continue the Crumbley precedent — it will fundamentally escalate it. This episode breaks down the case, the timeline, and what this trial means for parental accountability in America.

#ColinGray #ColtGray #ApalacheeHighSchool #ApalacheeShooting #SchoolShooting #ParentalAccountability #CrumbleyPrecedent #WinderGeorgia #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

The Nancy Guthrie case is a psychological event as much as a criminal investigation. The man on the doorbell footage planned for weeks and still made mistakes that suggest he'd never done anything like this before. His DNA produced no CODIS matches — a person capable of kidnapping an 84-year-old medically fragile woman who has apparently never been in the system. The investigation has been flooded with false ransom demands, contaminated evidence, dead-end leads, and fifty thousand tips that have yet to produce a suspect. And the family has spent seventeen days in a state of ambiguous loss — not knowing if their mother is alive — while strangers online accused them of involvement based on nothing but proximity to a timeline.

On Hidden Killers, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott delivers a comprehensive psychological breakdown of every dimension of this case. Scott — author of The Minds of Mass Killers, with more than thirty years working in forensic mental health — examines the mind behind the crime, analyzing what the contradiction between preparation and sloppiness reveals about the perpetrator's psychological state, what targeting a pacemaker-dependent elderly woman means clinically, and what the suspect is experiencing right now under escalating pressure.

She then dissects the noise engulfing the investigation — the psychology of people who exploit a stranger's kidnapping with fabricated ransom demands, the corrosive effect of evidence contamination on investigator and public confidence, and the point where massive tip volume becomes an active obstacle rather than a resource.

Finally, Scott examines the layered psychological trauma the Guthrie family is enduring: the clinical reality of ambiguous loss, the specific cruelty of public grief judgment, the compounding helplessness of watching institutional failures they can't control, and the hard truth that being cleared as suspects doesn't erase the psychological damage of having been accused. She confronts whether a family can come through this kind of sustained siege without permanent psychological scarring — regardless of how the case ends.

#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #GuthriePsychology #SuspectMindset #FamilyUnderSiege #InvestigationChaos #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #ForensicPsychology

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Michael McKee allegedly told Monique Tepe he could kill her at any time. That she would always be his wife. That he would find her wherever she went. According to witnesses cited in an unsealed Franklin County affidavit, those threats were made during and after a marriage that allegedly included strangulation, sexual violence, and sustained emotional abuse. Monique left. She divorced McKee in 2017, married Spencer Tepe in 2020, and built a life with two young children in Columbus, Ohio.

On December 30, 2025, Spencer and Monique were found shot to death inside their Weinland Park home. McKee has been charged with aggravated murder and aggravated burglary. He has pleaded not guilty.

This episode explores the psychology of sustained threat — how chronic fear physically reshapes the brain, why normalization of danger makes escalation harder to detect from the inside, and why telling survivors to "just leave" ignores the most dangerous phase of domestic violence. Court records allege McKee surveilled the Tepe home in the weeks before the killings using a vehicle with stolen license plates. Surveillance video allegedly captured him on the Tepe property during the Big Ten Championship weekend, three weeks before the murders.

We also examine how McKee allegedly moved through four state licensing systems over a decade — Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Illinois — with expiring credentials, a malpractice lawsuit, and a process server who couldn't locate him, while no institution connected his alleged history of domestic violence threats to the licenses being issued in his name.

Monique Tepe's story challenges everything we think we know about escaping danger.

#MoniqueTepe #MichaelMcKee #SpencerTepe #DomesticViolence #HiddenKillers #NormalizationOfFear #SystemFailure #AggravatedMurder #ColumbusOhio #TrueCrimePodcast

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Sheriff Chris Nanos stood at a podium and called the Guthrie family "victims, plain and simple." He said suggesting otherwise is cruel. He begged the media to report with compassion. That was yesterday — seventeen days after Nancy Guthrie disappeared, and only after weeks of online accusations, body language analysis from strangers, and conspiracy threads targeting Savannah's sister Annie and her husband Tommaso for the simple fact that they were the last people to see Nancy alive.

On Hidden Killers, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott — with three decades of experience working with trauma survivors and victims of violence — examines the psychological reality the Guthrie family has been enduring. This isn't about the investigation. This is about what it does to a human being to experience the worst moment of their life in public, while strangers with no information and no expertise decide you're guilty based on how your grief looks on Instagram.

Scott explains ambiguous loss — the specific psychological devastation of not knowing whether someone you love is alive or dead — and why it's considered one of the most destructive forms of trauma in clinical research. She addresses what happens when someone whose entire professional identity is built on control, like Savannah Guthrie, is suddenly stripped of all control, all information, and all privacy simultaneously. She examines the compounding trauma of watching the investigation make mistakes in real time — contaminated evidence, delayed footage retrieval, misdirected lab work — while having no authority to demand better.

And she confronts a question the internet doesn't want to hear: public exoneration doesn't undo the damage of public accusation. The threads still exist. The screenshots are still circulating. The people who saw the accusations may never see the retraction. From a clinical standpoint, the wound of being falsely suspected may never fully close — even after the sheriff says your name is clear.

#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #GuthrieFamilyCleared #AmbiguousLoss #VictimBlaming #GriefOnCamera #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #PsychologicalTrauma

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

You knew. Somewhere underneath the hoping and the trying — you knew this wasn't going to end well.

And you stayed anyway. Not because you were stupid. Because the truth was unsurvivable.

Rob and Michele Reiner weren't naive. Rob directed films for forty years. He understood how stories telegraph their endings. These were not people who got fooled easily. And yet they built frameworks that kept them close to a son who was destroying them.

First: trust the professionals. Then: the professionals are wrong. Then: redemption through art — a movie made together, press tours about healing. Then: he just needs more support. A guesthouse. Closer supervision.

Each framework had its own logic. Each one kept them in the room.

The lies follow patterns. "This time is different" — resetting after every relapse. "Nobody understands them like I do" — making yourself essential to the rescue. "They didn't mean it" — reframing cruelty as symptom. "If I stop, I'm the bad one" — making your limits the enemy.

Nick destroyed his parents' guesthouse. Stole pills from sick people. Admitted to gaming every rehab. Convinced his father to make a movie portraying himself as the villain. And still the narrative remained: he's not bad, he's sick.

These lies aren't stupidity. They're survival mechanisms. Stories your brain builds to keep functioning when reality becomes unbearable.

Rob said at that party he was petrified of his son. That's not full denial. That's a man who sees the truth and is trying to survive it anyway. Knowing and accepting are different things. You can know something and still not act — because acting means letting go of the last hope that makes your world bearable.

You weren't foolish for believing the lies. You were surviving. They were the only tools you had.

Forgive them. Forgive yourself. And start telling a different story.

#RobReiner #NickReiner #MicheleSingerReiner #ReinerCase #TrueCrime #Denial #AddictionFamily #SurvivalMechanisms #LovingSomeoneDangerous #Codependency

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Fake ransom notes. A federal arrest for a fraudulent text. A live-television detention that led nowhere. Sixteen contaminated gloves. A promising DNA lead that just collapsed. Fifty thousand tips and still no suspect. The Nancy Guthrie case has generated more noise in seventeen days than most investigations produce in a year — and the psychological toll of that chaos is hitting everyone involved.

On Hidden Killers, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott — who has spent three decades in forensic mental health settings — analyzes the psychology behind the distractions plaguing this investigation. What drives a person like Derrick Callella to fabricate a ransom demand in a kidnapping he has no connection to? Why do high-profile cases attract predatory opportunists who exploit a family's worst moment for attention or cryptocurrency? And what happens psychologically when evidence that was supposed to be the break — the glove, the DNA, the CODIS submission — turns into another dead end?

Scott examines how evidence contamination at the scale seen in this case erodes both investigator confidence and public trust. She addresses the psychological impact of contradictory narratives leaking from within the investigation — one source calling it a burglary gone wrong, the sheriff calling it a kidnapping, the FBI staying silent. And she tackles the uncomfortable question of what fifty thousand tips actually represent: how much is real information, and how much is anxiety, suspicion, and the human need to feel like you're doing something?

When a case produces constant dramatic action but zero resolution, the activity itself becomes psychologically corrosive — for the investigators, for the public, and above all for the family trapped at the center of a storm that shows no sign of clearing.

#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #GuthrieNoise #FalseLeads #FakeRansom #ContaminatedScene #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #PimaCounty

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Everyone is talking about the wrong DNA and the wrong theory. The glove found two miles from Nancy Guthrie's home dominated headlines this week when CODIS returned no match. But that glove DNA doesn't match the DNA found inside her property. Two profiles. Two people. The glove may be completely unconnected to this crime.

The DNA that matters came from inside Nancy's home. It doesn't belong to her or anyone close to her. Investigators believe it may belong to the suspect, and it's now going to forensic investigative genetic genealogy — the process that cracked the Golden State Killer case and identified Bryan Kohberger. CeCe Moore of Parabon NanoLabs calls the evidence "extremely hopeful" and notes that the speed of identification could itself reveal whether this suspect is local or foreign.

The cartel theory continues to flood social media based on one fact: Tucson is sixty miles from Mexico. Law enforcement sources across the board have pushed back. Multiple sources told NewsNation the case shows no signs of cartel involvement. Former FBI agents see no reason a cartel would target Nancy Guthrie. The doorbell footage shows a lone amateur in Walmart gear who couldn't disable a camera. No vehicle. No team. No direct contact with the family in nineteen days. That's not how cartels operate.

Tony Brueski separates the signal from the noise and explains why the property DNA — not the glove, not the ransom emails, not the Mexico headlines — is the only thing that moves this case forward.

#NancyGuthrie #GuthrieCase #NancyGuthrieDNA #GeneticGenealogy #CartelTheory #SavannahGuthrie #TucsonKidnapping #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #ForensicGenealogy

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

The man who took Nancy Guthrie from her Tucson home prepared for weeks — and still made mistakes that could define the entire investigation. He surveilled the house. He masked his face. He brought a weapon and a backpack. But he dropped a glove, wore gear traceable to Walmart, and left behind DNA that just came back with zero matches in the national database. This is someone who planned but couldn't execute cleanly. Someone who crossed the line into serious violence for what appears to be the first time.

In this episode of Hidden Killers, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott — author of The Minds of Mass Killers and a thirty-year veteran of forensic mental health work — analyzes the psychology behind the crime itself. Not the evidence. The choices. What does it mean when someone capable of kidnapping an 84-year-old medically fragile woman has no criminal history in CODIS? What does the gap between surveillance-level preparation and Walmart-level execution tell us about his psychological state on the night of February 1st? And what is happening inside his mind right now — two and a half weeks in, with helicopters overhead, his face on wanted posters, and the FBI closing in on every piece of gear he touched?

Scott breaks down the dueling theories — planned kidnapping versus burglary gone wrong — from a clinical standpoint and explains why the answer matters far beyond this case. She examines what the decision to target a vulnerable elderly woman reveals about empathy, risk processing, and the psychological threshold this person crossed when he separated Nancy from her pacemaker, her medication, and everything keeping her alive.

This is criminal psychology grounded in confirmed facts, built to hold up no matter where the investigation goes.

#NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #GuthrieSuspect #CriminalPsychology #TucsonKidnapping #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimePodcast #CODISNoMatch #PimaCounty

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

Two versions of the same family. One told to a judge. One allegedly lived by the girl who's now dead.

On November 7th, 2025, Anna Kepner—an 18-year-old cheerleader from Titusville, Florida—was found dead under a bed on the Carnival Horizon cruise ship. Wrapped in blankets. Covered with life vests. Her death was ruled mechanical asphyxiation. Her 16-year-old stepbrother, who shared that cabin, is now the sole suspect.

Under oath, Anna's stepmother described the three teenagers sharing that room as "best friends" and "the Three Amigos." But Anna's ex-boyfriend told reporters a different story: he claims the stepbrother was obsessed with her. He alleges that nine months before the cruise, the stepbrother climbed on top of Anna during a FaceTime call and ran when confronted.

Custody hearings revealed the stepbrother had been in therapy for over a year. A travel advisor recommended separate rooms for the step-siblings. That recommendation was apparently overruled. On the night before Anna's body was found, her ex-boyfriend alleges the youngest sibling in that cabin was locked out—and heard yelling, chairs thrown, and the stepbrother screaming at Anna.

The adults' cabin was directly across the hall. Shauntel Hudson testified she last saw the teens at 7:30pm. Nearly sixteen hours passed before anyone checked on Anna.

This episode examines the psychological traps of blended families—the pressure to present harmony, the confirmation bias that filters out concerning behavior, and why children often suppress their own distress to avoid breaking the family narrative. People outside the household allegedly saw patterns. The custody-battling father raised alarms. The ex-boyfriend reported obsessive behavior. But the family sailed off on vacation anyway.

The stepbrother appeared in sealed federal juvenile proceedings on February 6th, 2026. Anna's father confirmed he was arrested and released to a guardian. He told reporters he was "pissed off."

Anna was supposed to graduate in May. She planned to join the Navy. She got a night no one checked on her until it was too late.

#AnnaKepner #CarnivalHorizon #CruiseShipDeath #BlendedFamilyDynamics #FBIHomicide #TrueCrime #CustodyHearing #RedFlags #CarnivalCruise #HiddenKillers

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@hiddenkillerspod

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

Listen Ad-Free On Apple Podcasts Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-today-premium-plus-ad-free-advance-episode/id1705422872

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.