On April 4, 1958, one of Hollywood’s most glamorous movie stars became the center of a scandal that stunned America.

Lana Turner was at the height of her fame when her volatile relationship with Johnny Stompanato, a former Marine with ties to Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen, turned deadly. Their romance had been marked by jealousy, threats, and allegations of physical abuse, but on that Good Friday night inside Turner’s Beverly Hills home, the violence finally reached a breaking point.

According to Turner and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane, Stompanato threatened Lana during a vicious argument. Terrified for her mother, Cheryl grabbed a kitchen knife. When the bedroom door opened and Stompanato moved toward Lana, Cheryl stabbed him once in the abdomen. He died shortly afterward.

Suddenly, the teenage daughter of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars was at the center of a homicide investigation.

The spectacle that followed had everything the newspapers could want: a movie goddess, a teenage girl, an abusive lover, organized-crime connections, and a killing inside a Beverly Hills mansion. Lana Turner gave dramatic testimony at the coroner’s inquest, and Cheryl maintained that she had acted because she believed her mother was in danger.

The coroner’s jury ultimately ruled Johnny Stompanato’s death justifiable homicide, and Cheryl Crane was not prosecuted for killing him.

But almost immediately, rumors began to swirl. Had fourteen-year-old Cheryl really killed Stompanato? Had Lana actually wielded the knife and allowed her daughter to take responsibility? Or was the story told by mother and daughter exactly what happened inside that bedroom?

No evidence ever overturned the official finding, but the speculation helped turn the Stompanato killing into one of the most notorious scandals of Hollywood’s golden age.

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In the early morning hours of June 6, 1996, police rushed to the Routier family home in Rowlett, Texas, after receiving a frantic 911 call from Darlie Routier.

Inside, investigators found a horrifying scene.

Darlie’s two young sons, six-year-old Devon and five-year-old Damon, had been brutally stabbed. Devon was already dead, and Damon died shortly afterward. Darlie herself had suffered knife wounds, including an injury to her neck.

She told police that an unknown intruder had entered the house, attacked her and her children, and fled through the garage.

Investigators didn’t believe her.

Attention quickly turned toward Darlie herself as police examined the blood evidence, a broken window screen, a bloody sock discovered away from the house, and what prosecutors claimed were inconsistencies in her account. Then came a piece of videotape that would become infamous: Darlie smiling, laughing, and spraying Silly String at her sons’ graves during a birthday remembrance for Devon.

Prosecutors portrayed the footage as evidence of a mother behaving strangely after the brutal deaths of her children. Darlie’s supporters argued that the clip was taken out of context and ignored the solemn prayer service that had occurred earlier that day.

In 1997, Darlie Routier was convicted of capital murder in the death of Damon and sentenced to death. She was also charged in Devon’s killing but has never been tried separately for his murder.

Nearly three decades later, the debate has never disappeared.

Was Darlie a mother who murdered her own children and staged an elaborate home invasion? Or did investigators decide she was guilty too quickly while overlooking evidence that might support her story of an unknown attacker?

Darlie continues to proclaim her innocence while remaining on Texas death row.

This is the true crime case of Darlie Routier—two murdered little boys, a mother sentenced to die, disputed forensic evidence, an infamous Silly String video, and one haunting question that remains more than thirty years later:

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Between 2009 and 2010, three women disappeared from the streets of Bradford, England: Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage, and Suzanne Blamires. All three were vulnerable women involved in sex work—and all three crossed paths with a man who had spent years studying crime, violence, and serial killers.

That man was Stephen Griffiths.

Griffiths was a criminology student with a long history of disturbing behavior and violence. By the time police connected him to the disappearances, investigators would discover that his fascination with murder had become something far darker.

The break in the case came from an extraordinary piece of evidence: CCTV footage from Griffiths’ apartment building. The video captured Suzanne Blamires running from his flat before Griffiths followed her into the hallway carrying a crossbow. What happened next was recorded on camera and gave police the evidence they needed to arrest him.

When Griffiths appeared in court and was asked his name, he gave authorities a chilling answer: “The Crossbow Cannibal.”

Griffiths ultimately pleaded guilty to murdering Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage, and Suzanne Blamires. He admitted dismembering his victims, and the remains of Suzanne and Shelley were later recovered from the River Aire; Susan’s body has never been found. In December 2010, Griffiths received a whole-life sentence, meaning he is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.

This is the true crime story of Stephen Griffiths, the Crossbow Cannibal—a criminology student obsessed with serial murder who became the very thing he studied.

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When Stacey Castor’s second husband, David Castor, was found dead inside their New York home in 2005, investigators initially believed he had taken his own life by drinking antifreeze.

But detectives weren’t convinced.

David’s death bore an unsettling resemblance to the sudden death of Stacey’s first husband, Michael Wallace, five years earlier. When Michael’s body was exhumed, investigators discovered ethylene glycol—antifreeze—in his system as well. Prosecutors came to believe Stacey had poisoned both men.

Then the case took an even darker turn.

As police closed in, Stacey’s daughter Ashley Wallace became dangerously ill after consuming a mixture of pills and alcohol. Investigators said Stacey had attempted to kill her own daughter and leave behind a fabricated suicide note designed to make it appear that Ashley had murdered both David and Michael.

In 2009, Stacey Castor was convicted of murdering David Castor, attempting to murder Ashley, and forging David’s will. She was sentenced to more than 51 years in prison. Although prosecutors argued that she had also killed Michael Wallace, she was not separately tried for his death.

The woman dubbed the “Antifreeze Killer” continued to maintain her innocence until her death in prison in 2016.

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On February 24, 1986, 29-year-old Sherri Rasmussen was found brutally murdered inside the Van Nuys, California condominium she shared with her husband, John Ruetten.

She had been beaten, bitten, and shot three times in the chest.

Investigators initially believed Sherri had interrupted a burglary gone wrong. Her home appeared ransacked, and police focused on a theory involving unknown intruders. But Sherri’s family believed detectives were overlooking someone much closer to the victim: Stephanie Lazarus, an LAPD officer who had previously been romantically involved with Sherri’s husband.

The case went cold.

Years passed. Lazarus continued rising through the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department while Sherri’s family continued pushing for answers.

Then forensic science changed everything.

DNA testing performed on saliva recovered from a bite mark on Sherri’s arm revealed that the killer was female—a discovery that challenged the original burglary theory. Cold-case investigators eventually turned their attention to Lazarus and secretly obtained her DNA from an item she discarded.

It matched.

In 2009, more than 23 years after Sherri Rasmussen was murdered, Stephanie Lazarus was arrested. In 2012, a jury convicted the veteran LAPD detective of first-degree murder, and she was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison.

The case also raised disturbing questions about the original investigation. How did detectives miss—or dismiss—the possibility that one of their own officers might have been involved? And could Sherri’s murder have been solved decades earlier if her family’s suspicions had been taken more seriously?

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Toni Jo Henry had lived a hard life long before she met the man known as Claude “Cowboy” Henry. But when the former boxer and outlaw entered her world, Toni Jo fell hard—and when Cowboy was sentenced to fifty years in a Texas prison, she became determined to get him out.

Her plan would end with an innocent man dead.

In 1940, Toni Jo teamed up with ex-convict Finnon “Arkie” Burks in a scheme to obtain money, weapons, and transportation for a prison break. While hitchhiking in Louisiana, the pair accepted a ride from Joseph P. Calloway, a man who had no idea who he had just picked up.

Calloway was robbed at gunpoint, locked in the trunk of his own car, driven to a remote area, and forced to remove his clothing. He was then shot in the head and left dead in a field. Toni Jo and Burks later blamed one another for pulling the trigger.

The sensational case would send Toni Jo through three separate trials, each ending with a conviction. On November 28, 1942, she was executed in the electric chair at the Calcasieu Parish Courthouse, becoming the only woman ever executed in Louisiana’s electric chair. Burks was executed the following year.

And the love story had one final bizarre chapter.

Just days before Toni Jo’s execution, Cowboy Henry escaped from prison, reportedly hoping to see his wife one last time. He was quickly recaptured. Toni Jo went to her death at twenty-six years old, still devoted to the man whose imprisonment had set the entire deadly plan in motion.

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For nearly a decade, women were being murdered in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while another notorious predator, Derrick Todd Lee, was also terrorizing the area. Hidden among those crimes was a second serial killer whose name would become synonymous with some of Louisiana’s most disturbing murders: Sean Vincent Gillis.

Between 1994 and 2004, Gillis murdered eight women, including Ann Bryan, Katherine Ann Hall, Hardee Schmidt, Joyce Williams, Lillian Robinson, Marilyn Nevils, Johnnie Mae Williams, and Donna Bennett Johnston. His victims varied in age and circumstance, making the crimes difficult to connect at first.

Investigators eventually linked Gillis to multiple murders through forensic evidence, including DNA. After his arrest in April 2004, he confessed not only to the killings police were investigating, but also revealed his involvement in additional murders that had remained unsolved.

What emerged was the story of a killer who had operated for years in relative anonymity, even as law enforcement and the public were focused on another serial murderer in the same region. His crimes involved stalking, sexual violence, mutilation, and the disposal of victims’ bodies in isolated locations.

Gillis was ultimately convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He remains incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

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In the summer of 1968, the Robison family left their suburban Detroit home for a peaceful vacation at their secluded cottage near Good Hart, Michigan, overlooking Lake Michigan.

They would never return.

On June 25, Richard and Shirley Robison and their four children—Ritchie, Gary, Randy, and Susan—were murdered inside the family’s vacation home. The killer used both a rifle and a handgun, and some of the victims were also beaten. Then the cottage was closed up and left silent beneath the trees.

For nearly a month, no one knew what had happened.

The Robisons had been expected to travel from Michigan to Florida, so their absence initially raised little alarm. It was not until July 22, 1968, twenty-seven days after the murders, that the family’s bodies were finally discovered inside the cottage.

Investigators soon began looking closely at Joseph Raymond Scolaro, Richard Robison’s employee and business associate. Authorities suspected financial problems and alleged embezzlement could have provided a motive, and Scolaro would remain the central suspect in the case. But he was never prosecuted.

Years later, Scolaro died by suicide, leaving behind denials of responsibility—and leaving prosecutors without the trial that might finally have answered what happened inside that cottage.

More than half a century later, the Robison family murders, better known as the Good Hart murders, remain officially unsolved.

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*This episode of Hitched 2 Homicide contains depictions of rape and violence of a sexuxal nature. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual abuse call: 800-656-HOPE (4673).

They were young, attractive, newly married, and seemingly picture-perfect. But behind the polished image of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka was one of the most horrifying crime partnerships in Canadian history.

Before their marriage, Bernardo had already been committing a series of sexual assaults in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough. Then his violence escalated, and Homolka became an active participant. Together, the couple drugged, sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed young women—including Homolka’s own 15-year-old sister, Tammy.

In 1991, 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy was abducted, held captive, assaulted, and murdered. Less than a year later, 15-year-old Kristen French was kidnapped while walking home from school and suffered the same horrifying fate. Bernardo and Homolka recorded portions of their crimes on videotape, evidence that would later transform the public understanding of just how involved Homolka had been.

But before those tapes surfaced, prosecutors struck a controversial deal with Homolka. In exchange for her testimony against Bernardo, she pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and received a 12-year prison sentence—an agreement that became infamous as the “deal with the devil.” Bernardo was later convicted of first-degree murder and other offenses and received a life sentence.

Homolka completed her sentence and was released in 2005, a fact that remains one of the most controversial aspects of the case.

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In the early morning hours of March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese returned home to Kew Gardens, Queens, after finishing work at a Manhattan bar.

She never made it safely inside.

As Kitty walked toward her apartment building, Winston Moseley followed her, attacked her with a knife, fled when a neighbor shouted from a window, and then returned to continue the assault. Kitty was stabbed repeatedly, sexually assaulted, and robbed before Moseley escaped. A neighbor and friend, Sophia Farrar, eventually found Kitty and stayed with her until help arrived.

Kitty died soon afterward.

But her murder would become famous for something beyond the crime itself.

Two weeks later, The New York Times published a story claiming that 38 witnesses watched the attack and failed to call police. The report shocked the country and helped inspire decades of psychological research into what became known as the bystander effect or Genovese syndrome.

There was just one problem.

The story America came to believe was not entirely true.

Later investigations found that no 38 people witnessed the entire murder, many neighbors could not clearly see what was happening, some believed they were hearing a domestic argument, at least one person shouted at Moseley, and attempts were made to contact police. The final attack occurred largely out of view. Even The New York Times later acknowledged that its original reporting had significantly exaggerated what the witnesses had seen and understood.

Moseley was arrested days later after being caught during a burglary. He confessed to killing Kitty and was convicted of murder. His original death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 2016 after serving more than five decades.

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