Bathsheba Ruggles Spooner’s life had all the makings of a tragedy long before there was blood in the snow.

Born into privilege as the favored daughter of Loyalist Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles, Bathsheba married wealthy farmer Joshua Spooner and settled in Brookfield, Massachusetts. Behind the facade of status and respectability was a deeply unhappy, allegedly abusive marriage—and a woman who would come to say she felt “an utter aversion” toward her husband.

In March 1777, a teenage Continental soldier named Ezra Ross fell ill near the Spooner home. Bathsheba took him in, nursed him back to health, and began an affair that led to pregnancy in the middle of a war where divorce was nearly impossible and public flogging was the penalty for adultery. When two British deserters, William Brooks and James Buchanan, appeared at her door seeking shelter, Bathsheba saw her chance. Within weeks, a murder plot was in motion.

On the night of March 1, 1778, Joshua Spooner was ambushed near his own well, beaten to death, and dumped into the water. The conspirators burned his clothing, split his valuables, and tried to pass off his disappearance as an accident. They underestimated their neighbors, the blood in the snow, and a community already suspicious of the Loyalist general’s daughter.

This episode follows the case from plot to gallows:

Bathsheba’s upbringing in an influential Loyalist family and her isolation in Patriot‑dominated Massachusetts

The breakdown of her marriage to Joshua and the arrival of young Ezra Ross

How the affair, pregnancy, and a failed poisoning attempt escalated into a murder‑for‑hire scheme

The roles of British deserters Brooks and Buchanan, hiding in the Spooner barn

The night of the murder, the disposal of Joshua’s body in the well, and the quick unraveling of the cover story

The investigation, confessions, and the lightning‑fast trial before Chief Justice William Cushing

Defense arguments about Bathsheba’s mental state and the political climate surrounding the daughter of a notorious Loyalist

Bathsheba’s claim that she was pregnant, the examination by midwives and matrons, and the authorities’ decision to proceed with execution anyway

The July 2, 1778 public hanging of Bathsheba, Ross, Brooks, and Buchanan—and the grim autopsy that confirmed she was five months pregnant

We also dig into the bigger questions: Was Bathsheba a cold‑blooded killer, a desperate woman with limited options, or someone whose mental state and politics made her an easy target for a new nation eager to prove its resolve? How did Revolutionary‑era law treat pregnant women, and what does this case reveal about gender, power, and justice in early America?

This is a narrative‑driven, heavily sourced deep dive into one of the most extraordinary crimes of the 18th century—blending courtroom drama, wartime politics, and true crime analysis to tell the full story of Bathsheba Spooner and the murder of Joshua Spooner.

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A young biotech worker is found dead in his La Jolla apartment, his body carefully laid out on a bed sprinkled with rose petals and framed by a wedding photo. His wife—an ambitious county toxicologist with access to some of the most powerful drugs in the world—tells police it was suicide. Investigators aren’t so sure.

In this episode, we unpack the chilling “American Beauty” murder of Gregory de Villers and the calculated actions of his wife, Kristin Rossum. We trace their relationship from whirlwind romance to toxic spiral, exploring Kristin’s hidden meth addiction, her affair with a supervisor at the medical examiner’s office, and the missing fentanyl that would become the centerpiece of a murder trial.

You’ll hear how forensic toxicology transformed a suspicious overdose into a first-degree murder case, why prosecutors called fentanyl “the perfect poison,” and how a crime scene staged to look cinematic instead exposed a killer who thought she was smarter than the system. We also dive into the courtroom drama, the life sentence, the multimillion-dollar civil judgment, and the lasting questions this case raises about trust, power, and access inside forensic labs.

If you’re drawn to evidence-driven true crime, complex relationship dynamics, and the intersection of science and deception, this deep dive into the rose petal murder will stay with you long after the episode ends.

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In December 2020, 21-year-old Texas State University student Jason Landry left San Marcos, Texas, headed home to Missouri City for Christmas break. He never made it.

Just after midnight, Jason’s wrecked Nissan Altima was found on a rural gravel road near Luling, Texas, with the lights on, the keys in the ignition, and Jason nowhere in sight. His phone, wallet, backpack, and clothing were later found in or near the crash scene—but Jason had vanished into the cold Texas night.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we take a deep dive into the mysterious disappearance of Jason Landry, the timeline of his final known drive, the strange evidence found on Salt Flat Road, the search efforts by law enforcement and volunteers, the geofence warrant, the theories surrounding whether Jason was alone, and the painful questions his family still faces more than five years later.

Was Jason disoriented after the crash and lost in the rural Texas landscape? Did someone come across him after the accident? Or is the answer still hidden somewhere along the dark backroads of Caldwell County?

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All cases discussed are researched using publicly available sources, open records, court documents, and archived materials. We make every effort to ensure accuracy; however, we make no warranties — express or implied — regarding the completeness or reliability of the information presented.

PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE:  All individuals referenced in connection with pending or concluded criminal matters are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. All individuals referenced in connection with pending or concluded civil matters are presumed not liable unless and until adjudicated otherwise by a court of competent jurisdiction.

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In the early hours of July 31, 2022, a 2018 Toyota Camry slammed into a brick building in Strongsville, Ohio at nearly 100 mph. Two young men — Dominic Russo (20) and Davion Flanagan (19) — were killed instantly. The driver, 17-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla, survived. What followed was one of Ohio’s most disturbing true crime cases of the decade.

In this deep-dive episode, we examine every angle of the Mackenzie Shirilla case: the toxic on-again, off-again relationship with Dominic Russo, the chilling vehicle black box data showing full acceleration with no braking, the dramatic bench trial, and the judge’s scathing “literal hell on wheels” verdict. Mackenzie has always maintained it was either an accident or a medical emergency — but prosecutors argued it was intentional murder-suicide.

Now, Netflix’s explosive 2026 documentary has brought renewed attention and fresh debate to the case. We break down the evidence, the families’ statements, Shirilla’s prison interview, and the bigger questions about teenage rage, accountability, and justice.

If you’re a fan of true crime stories involving cars as weapons, murder-suicide cases, or intense courtroom drama like the Gabby Petito case or the Delphi Murders, this episode will hit hard.

Content Warning: This episode discusses murder, suicide, and domestic violence.

Resources: National Domestic Violence Hotline – 1-800-799-7233

Sign the petition for Dominic and Davion's Law on Change.org

Give to the Davion Flanigan Scholarship Fund

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Before Kansas had fully shaken the dust of the frontier from its boots, a small homestead in Labette County became a house of horrors. In the early 1870s, travelers moving along the Osage Trail stopped at the Bender family’s roadside inn for a meal, a bed, or a glimpse of Kate Bender—the self-proclaimed healer and spiritualist who promised supernatural insight to the desperate and curious.

But behind the canvas curtain inside that one-room cabin, something far darker waited.

Known to history as the Bloody Benders, the family—John Bender Sr., Elvira “Ma” Bender, John Jr., and Kate—were accused of luring travelers into their home, attacking them from behind, robbing them, and burying their bodies on the property. When Dr. William York disappeared in 1873 while searching for missing settlers, his brother, Colonel Alexander York, helped lead the investigation that finally exposed the Bender homestead. What searchers found beneath the Kansas soil turned a frontier rumor into a national nightmare.

At least eight bodies were reportedly discovered, with some estimates suggesting the Benders may have killed a dozen or more. But before justice could find them, the entire family disappeared. Were they lynched? Did they escape? Did Kate Bender reinvent herself somewhere far from Kansas? More than 150 years later, the Bloody Benders remain part true crime, part prairie ghost story, and part warning: sometimes the most dangerous place on the frontier was the one with a light in the window.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we’re digging into the legend, the facts, the bodies in the orchard, and the mystery of what really happened to America’s most infamous serial killer family.

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In September 2006, the quiet Black Bear Bed & Breakfast in Newry, Maine became the center of one of the state’s most disturbing murder cases. Over Labor Day weekend, Christian Charles Nielsen shot and killed four people: inn owner Julie Bullard, her daughter Selby Bullard, handyman James “Jimmy” Whitehurst, and Selby’s friend Cynthia “Cindy” Beatson.

What began with a supposed fishing trip to Upton, Maine ended in a horrifying chain of murders at a peaceful mountain inn near Sunday River. Nielsen, a cook who had been living at the Black Bear B&B, later confessed to killing all four victims. Prosecutors said he gave no real motive—only chilling explanations that left investigators, families, and the community searching for answers.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we examine the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast murders, the relationships between the victims, Julie Bullard’s dream of starting over in Maine, the timeline of the Labor Day weekend killings, and the aftermath of one of Maine’s most shocking true crime cases.

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Katherine Knight is one of Australia’s most notorious female killers. She murdered, butchered and dismembered her lover before cooking his head. But behind the infamous headlines is the story of John Price, a father who saw the danger coming and tried to protect himself and his children.

In this episode of Hitched 2 Homicide, we examine the disturbing case of Katherine Knight, the former abattoir worker convicted of murdering John Price in Aberdeen, New South Wales. From her violent relationships with David Kellett, David Saunders, and John Chillingworth to the escalating domestic abuse, restraining order, and brutal murder that shocked Australia, this case is a chilling look at coercive control, male victims of domestic violence, and the warning signs that came far too late.

In this episode:

This is not just the story of the so-called “Australian cannibal killer.” This is the story of the victims who tried to survive her.

sources used for this podcast: https://www.hitched2homicide.com/post/katherine-knight-john-price-australia

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They planned it in prison. Then they built the van. Now the toolbox is open… and the girls are disappearing.

In Part 2 of this chilling true crime series, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris take their deadly prison pact on the road. Their custom-built torture van—dubbed “Murder Mac”—becomes a rolling chamber of horrors as the pair begins hunting young women across Southern California in 1979.

What follows is one of the most sadistic and disturbing killing sprees in American history. Hitchhikers are lured in, driven to remote mountain roads, and subjected to unimaginable torture using pliers, vise grips, sledgehammers, and ice picks. One victim’s final screams were captured on audio tape—a recording so horrific it still shocks even veteran detectives today.

In this episode:

If Part 1 left you stunned by their plan, Part 2 will leave you horrified by its execution.

Sources used for this podcast: https://www.hitched2homicide.com/post/toolbox-killers-part-2

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️Content Warning: This episode contains detailed discussion of abduction, violence against women, and murder. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

They called themselves "the Toolbox Killers." But before they had a name, before the tape recorder, before the tools — there were two men who found each other inside a California prison and made a pact that would shock even the most hardened FBI profilers for decades to come.

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we go deep into one of the most disturbing true crime cases in American history—the murders carried out by Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker and Roy Lewis Norris in the summer of 1979 along the Southern California coast.

We start at the beginning. Who were these men? We trace the chilling biography of Lawrence Bittaker — a man with a tested IQ of 138 who spent his life exploiting every system he touched, racking up convictions from car theft to assault, slipping through the cracks of a justice system that failed again and again to see the predator underneath. Then we meet Roy Norris—convicted rapist, follower, and the man who would become Bittaker's willing instrument.

We walk you through their meeting inside the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo, where the two men didn't just become friends—they planned. They discussed, in explicit and meticulous detail, a shared fantasy: to abduct, torture, and kill one teenage girl for every year of a teen's age—one 13-year-old, one 14-year-old, all the way through 19. They called it a "project." They bought a silver GMC cargo van they nicknamed "Murder Mac." They installed a mattress. They mounted hooks in the ceiling.

They were ready.

We cover the first two confirmed murders—16-year-old Cindy Schaefer, abducted while walking to her grandmother's house in Redondo Beach, and 18-year-old Andrea Joy Hall, a hitchhiker who accepted a ride she could never have known would be her last. We discuss what happened to them with the gravity and respect these young women deserve, and what the evidence later revealed about their final hours.

And then—they kept driving. The van kept rolling up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. And Lawrence Bittaker was already watching the sidewalks.

This is not a story for the faint of heart. It is a story about institutional failure, about predatory partnerships, about the terrifying reality that evil can organize and plan and wait. It is a story we owe it to Cindy, Andrea, and the other victims to tell — with honesty, with detail, and without looking away.

Part 2 coming next week.

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Joey Banis was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Jeffrey Mundt was acquitted of murder and released after one year. Same crime. Same house. Same body buried in the same basement. Two men who pointed at each other across three years of legal proceedings — and two juries that reached completely opposite conclusions.

In Part 2 of Buried Under Fourth Street, Kris and Rob go inside the courtrooms for the 2013 trials of Jeffrey Mundt and Joey Banis for the murder of Louisville hairstylist and drag queen Jamie Carroll — the case at the center of HBO's 2026 docuseries Murder in Glitterball City. [Start Part 1 Here]

We cover the February 2013 trial of Joey Banis, in which Mundt testified against him and the jury returned a guilty verdict on murder, robbery, and tampering with evidence. We cover the deal Banis struck to avoid the death penalty — giving up his right to appeal in exchange for life with the possibility of parole after twenty years. And then we cover the moment that changed everything in Jeffrey Mundt's May 2013 trial: a videotaped confession found on Banis's own computer, in which Banis appeared to admit to the killing, that the jury used to acquit Mundt of murder entirely.

We ask the question Louisville has been asking ever since: who really killed Jamie Carroll?

Detective Collin King, who worked the case from the night of the 911 call, put it plainly — both men were complicit. Banis's attorney went on record saying the jury got it completely wrong. And Jeffrey Mundt, after completing his probation in the mid-2010s, has not been publicly seen or heard from since. His whereabouts are unknown.

Joey Banis remains incarcerated at the Southeast State Correctional Complex in Wheelwright, Kentucky. His first opportunity for parole is June 2, 2030.

Jamie Carroll was a hairstylist, a drag queen known as Ronica Reed, and a beloved member of Louisville's LGBTQ+ community. He was 37 years old. He deserved to go home that December night in 2009. At Hitched 2 Homicide, we are committed to remembering how he lived — not just how he died.

Hitched 2 Homicide is hosted by thriller author Kris Calvert and Emmy-nominated composer Rob Pottorf. New episodes every week. Til death do us part.

Sources used for this podcast

The content presented in this podcast and any associated video, blog, or social media is produced for entertainment and informational purposes only. Hitched 2 Homicide is not a legal authority, and nothing contained herein constitutes legal advice, factual findings, or editorial conclusions of any kind. All opinions expressed are solely those of the hosts and do not represent the views of any affiliated network, platform, or sponsor.

All cases discussed are researched using publicly available sources, open records, court documents, and archived materials. We make every effort to ensure accuracy; however, we make no warranties — express or implied — regarding the completeness or reliability of the information presented.

PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE

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OUR COMMITMENT TO VICTIMS

All sources relied upon in the production of each episode are credited to the best of our ability. Any errors brought to our attention will be promptly corrected.

Hitched 2 Homicide. All rights reserved.

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