*Warning. This H2H Episode deals with the subjects of rape and sodomy. Listener discretion is advised.

In the late 1970s, the bodies of teenage boys and young men began appearing along the freeways of Southern California. Many had been sexually assaulted, tortured, strangled, or stabbed before their bodies were dumped beside highways—and police soon realized they were hunting a serial killer.

His name was William “Bill” Bonin.

A truck driver with a violent criminal history, Bonin prowled Southern California in a van, targeting vulnerable boys and young men. He often offered them rides before overpowering them, and he sometimes committed his crimes with the help of accomplices.

Between 1979 and 1980, Bonin murdered at least 14 victims for which he was later convicted. He confessed to killing 21 and was suspected in even more cases, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in California history.

Bonin’s killing spree finally ended in June 1980, when police caught him attacking a teenage boy inside his van. Investigators were then able to connect him to the string of freeway murders that had terrified Southern California.

He was convicted of 14 murders in Los Angeles and Orange counties and sentenced to death. On February 23, 1996, William Bonin was executed at San Quentin State Prison, becoming the first California prisoner executed by lethal injection.

This is the true crime story of William Bonin, the Freeway Killer—a predator who turned California’s highways into hunting grounds and left behind a trail of victims whose murders horrified an entire state. Part 2 of 2.

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*Warning. This H2H Episode deals with the subjects of rape and sodomy. Listener discretion is advised.

In the late 1970s, the bodies of teenage boys and young men began appearing along the freeways of Southern California. Many had been sexually assaulted, tortured, strangled, or stabbed before their bodies were dumped beside highways—and police soon realized they were hunting a serial killer.

His name was William “Bill” Bonin.

A truck driver with a violent criminal history, Bonin prowled Southern California in a van, targeting vulnerable boys and young men. He often offered them rides before overpowering them, and he sometimes committed his crimes with the help of accomplices.

Between 1979 and 1980, Bonin murdered at least 14 victims for which he was later convicted. He confessed to killing 21 and was suspected in even more cases, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in California history.

Bonin’s killing spree finally ended in June 1980, when police caught him attacking a teenage boy inside his van. Investigators were then able to connect him to the string of freeway murders that had terrified Southern California.

He was convicted of 14 murders in Los Angeles and Orange counties and sentenced to death. On February 23, 1996, William Bonin was executed at San Quentin State Prison, becoming the first California prisoner executed by lethal injection.

This is the true crime story of William Bonin, the Freeway Killer—a predator who turned California’s highways into hunting grounds and left behind a trail of victims whose murders horrified an entire state. Part 1 of 2.

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On August 28, 2017, police in Corning, New York, found 46-year-old Michele Neurauter hanging inside her home. At first glance, it looked like suicide.

But investigators quickly became suspicious.

Michele was in the middle of a bitter custody and financial battle with her ex-husband, Lloyd Neurauter, and the evidence began pointing toward something far more calculated. Prosecutors said Lloyd had planned Michele’s murder, strangled her, and staged the scene to make it appear she had taken her own life.

Then came the most disturbing revelation of all: Lloyd had involved their own daughter, Karrie Neurauter, in the plot.

Karrie later admitted that she helped her father plan the murder, drove him to and from Michele’s home, distracted her younger sister while the killing took place, and helped cover their tracks. She said Lloyd had given her a horrifying ultimatum: help him kill her mother or he would kill himself.

In 2018, Lloyd pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and admitted he had manipulated and coerced Karrie into helping him. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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On July 8, 1999, police entered a home in Sidney, Ohio, and discovered a horrifying scene.

Three teenage girls—16-year-old cousins Sherry Kimbler and Tosha Barrett, and 14-year-old Amy Mikesell—had been murdered. Sherry and Tosha had been shot multiple times at close range, while Amy was found stabbed in the basement. A 22-year-old woman who had also been attacked managed to escape through a basement window and alert others to what had happened.

The man police wanted was 30-year-old Lawrence Michael “Mike” Hensley.

Hensley had a disturbing history that included arrests for indecent exposure. According to accounts of the case, he had been paying young girls to watch him engage in sexual acts—and investigators believed the murders were connected to his fear that his behavior would be exposed. He also claimed to believe that a satanic cult was pursuing him, adding another bizarre layer to an already shocking case.

But the violence did not end inside Hensley’s home.

Roughly half an hour after the girls were killed, 37-year-old Brett Wildermuth, a Bible-study teacher from Hensley’s church, was shot and killed at his own home. Hensley fled, heavily armed, setting off a manhunt that ended after a standoff with police.

In 2000, Hensley admitted killing the three girls and Wildermuth and received a life sentence. But even prison did not end his violence.

In 2012, while incarcerated at the Toledo Correctional Institution, Hensley strangled 24-year-old fellow inmate Brad Hamlin. He pleaded guilty and received another life sentence.

On June 21, 2015, Lawrence Michael Hensley was found hanging in his cell at the Ohio State Penitentiary. Authorities reported finding a suicide note nearby. He was 46 years old.

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During the darkest years of the Great Depression, John Dillinger became one of the most notorious outlaws in America.

He robbed banks, escaped from jail, crossed state lines, and repeatedly humiliated law enforcement while newspapers transformed him into something larger than life. To some Americans, Dillinger became a Depression-era folk hero striking back at the banks. To the federal government, he was one of the most dangerous fugitives in the country.

Dillinger’s gang carried out a string of violent bank robberies across the Midwest, and his name became linked with other infamous criminals of the era, including Baby Face Nelson. His spectacular escape from the Crown Point jail in Indiana only added to his legend and intensified the manhunt.

By the summer of 1934, federal agents were determined to bring him down.

Their break came from Anna Sage, the woman who became famous as the “Lady in Red,” although the dress she wore that night may actually have been orange. Sage tipped authorities that Dillinger would be attending a movie in Chicago.

On July 22, 1934, Dillinger walked into the Biograph Theater with two women to watch the gangster film Manhattan Melodrama. Federal agents were waiting outside.

When Dillinger emerged from the theater that night, agents moved in. According to the FBI, Dillinger attempted to flee and reached toward a weapon. Five shots were fired by three federal agents, and three struck him. John Dillinger was pronounced dead later that night.

He was only 31 years old.

But Dillinger’s death did little to diminish his legend. Nearly a century later, the bank robber who became one of America’s most famous public enemies remains an enduring symbol of the outlaw era of the 1930s.

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In December 2018, lifelong friends Casey MacPherson-Pomeroy and Caleb Guillory traveled to the Caribbean island of Anguilla to celebrate the holidays with their wives and another couple.

Before New Year’s Eve arrived, both men were dead.

According to accounts of the night of December 30, Casey and Caleb became violently ill after returning from a beach bar. Caleb collapsed inside the apartment and died before paramedics could save him. Casey, a medical student who reportedly attempted to help his friend, soon began suffering seizures himself and died at a hospital.

But the medical findings raised disturbing questions.

Authorities reported that both men had toxic levels of MDA and cocaine in their systems. Caleb’s death certificate also listed injuries including asphyxia, strangulation, and chest compression, while Casey’s listed seizure and serious cardiac and pulmonary complications.

Their families struggled to reconcile those findings with the men they knew.

Questions also emerged about what happened during the final hours of their lives, conflicting accounts surrounding the night, the cremation of both bodies shortly after their autopsies, and why the four surviving members of the group did not return to Anguilla to participate in a later coroner’s inquest. The surviving friends have disputed accusations against them and have said they wanted authorities to determine what caused the deaths.

Years later, no one has been charged, and the mystery surrounding the deaths of Casey MacPherson-Pomeroy and Caleb Guillory remains unresolved.

Were two lifelong friends accidentally poisoned on a Caribbean vacation? Did someone deliberately put drugs into something they consumed? And how do investigators explain the injuries documented in Caleb’s death?

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Christmas morning, 1929, should have been a day of celebration for the Lawson family of Stokes County, North Carolina. Instead, it became the scene of one of the most horrifying family massacres in American history.

Charlie Lawson, a tobacco farmer living near Germanton, murdered his wife, Fannie, and six of their seven children before turning the gun on himself. Only one child, his 16-year-old son Arthur, survived because Charlie had sent him away from the family home earlier that day.

What made the crime even more haunting was what Charlie had done shortly before Christmas. He took the entire family into town, bought them new clothes, and had a formal family portrait taken—an expense and event unusual enough that it would later seem almost like a deliberate final photograph.

Then, on December 25, the killing began.

Charlie murdered members of his family at different locations around the property, apparently arranging or covering some of their bodies afterward. When the violence was over, he walked into the nearby woods and killed himself.

But the greatest mystery was never what happened.

It was why.

Charlie Lawson left behind no definitive explanation, and his motive has remained the subject of speculation for nearly a century. Theories have included mental illness, a head injury, financial pressures, and allegations of incest involving his oldest daughter—but no single explanation has ever been conclusively proven.

The murders became part of Appalachian folklore, inspiring songs, books, documentaries, and generations of speculation about what could have driven a father to annihilate nearly his entire family on Christmas Day.

This is the historical true crime story of the Lawson Family Murders—seven members of one family dead, one son mysteriously spared, a haunting final photograph, and a question that has lingered since Christmas Day 1929:

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From the outside, Herb Baumeister looked like a successful Indianapolis businessman, husband, and father living with his family on an 18-acre estate called Fox Hollow Farm in Westfield, Indiana.

But in the woods behind that sprawling home, investigators would eventually uncover nearly 10,000 human bones and bone fragments.

During the 1990s, young men were disappearing from Indianapolis-area gay bars. Investigators came to suspect that Baumeister had been meeting men in those clubs, luring them back to Fox Hollow Farm, killing them, and hiding their remains on the property.

One of the first major clues came from inside Baumeister’s own family. His son discovered a human skull and bones on the property. Baumeister reportedly explained them away as an old medical skeleton—but in 1996, after his wife Julie allowed investigators to search the estate, the horrifying truth began emerging from the woods.

Authorities ultimately recovered thousands of burned and shattered human remains believed to represent numerous victims. Modern forensic genealogy has continued identifying those men decades later, including Allen Livingston, Manuel Resendez, and Daniel Halloran, as investigators work to give names back to those whose remains were found at Fox Hollow Farm.

Baumeister was never brought to trial.

As investigators closed in, he fled Indiana and traveled to Canada. On July 3, 1996, Herb Baumeister died by suicide in Ontario, leaving behind a note that mentioned his failing marriage and financial problems—but reportedly said nothing about the human remains discovered behind his home.

And the mystery may stretch even further.

Investigators have also considered Baumeister a prime suspect in the I-70 Strangler murders, a series of killings of boys and men in Indiana and Ohio during the 1980s and early 1990s. Those crimes remain officially unresolved, and the full number of Baumeister’s victims may never be known.

If you believe you are a relative of a missing person possibly connected to this case (missing young men from mid 1980's to mid 1990's, please call 317-770-4415.

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Before Daniel J. LaPlante became a convicted triple murderer, he had already terrified another Massachusetts family in a way that sounds almost impossible.

As a teenager, LaPlante secretly entered the home of a family in Pepperell, Massachusetts, hiding within concealed spaces inside the house while strange noises, missing objects, and disturbing incidents convinced the family that something was terribly wrong. When they finally discovered him, LaPlante’s bizarre behavior earned him lasting notoriety as “the boy in the walls.”

But what came next was far worse.

On December 1, 1987, seventeen-year-old LaPlante broke into the Townsend, Massachusetts, home of 33-year-old Priscilla Gustafson, who was pregnant, and her two young children, five-year-old William and seven-year-old Abigail. According to court records, LaPlante tied Priscilla to her bed, sexually assaulted her, and then shot her twice in the head through a pillow. He drowned William in an upstairs bathtub and Abigail in a downstairs bathtub.

Afterward, LaPlante went home, ate, and attended his niece’s birthday party as though nothing had happened.

Investigators connected him to the murders through stolen property, ballistics, fibers, physical evidence, and a gun LaPlante had obtained during an earlier burglary. When police began closing in, he fled, broke into additional homes, stole another firearm, and forced a woman at gunpoint to drive him before he was finally captured hiding inside a dumpster.

In 1988, Daniel LaPlante was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder. Because he was seventeen when he committed the crimes, later changes in juvenile sentencing law made him eligible for parole after serving 45 years, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld that sentence in 2019.

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Thanksgiving Day 2009 began like any other family holiday in Jupiter, Florida—with dinner, conversation, and relatives gathered together under one roof.

But sitting among them was Paul Michael Merhige, a 35-year-old man with a history of violent behavior and deep resentment toward members of his own family.

For hours, Merhige ate dinner with everyone and even joined in as the family gathered around the piano to sing. Then he walked outside, returned with a gun, and opened fire. According to witnesses, he declared that he had been waiting 20 years to do it.

His victims included his twin sisters, Carla Merhige and Lisa Knight, his aunt Raymonde Joseph, and six-year-old Makayla Sitton, who was asleep upstairs when Merhige found and killed her. Lisa was pregnant. Her husband, Patrick Knight, was also shot and critically wounded.

Then Merhige disappeared.

A massive manhunt followed, and for more than a month authorities searched for the man responsible for turning a family Thanksgiving into a massacre. On January 2, 2010, police finally captured him after a tip generated through America’s Most Wanted.

In 2011, Paul Merhige pleaded guilty to the killings and other charges and received seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

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