Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén

In the 1980s and ’90s, a serial arsonist known as the “Pillow Pyro” terrorizes California—taunting investigators and igniting fires near their annual conferences—until one detective uncovers an unthinkable truth...The culprit is one of their own.

Sources for this episode include:

Fire Lover: A True Story by Joseph Wambaugh
Forensic Files, “Point of Origin”
Firebug podcast, Episode 1

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Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks… The popular schoolyard rhyme has withstood the test of time, despite it getting a few details wrong. Over 130 years later, we still don’t really know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden. Lizzie was acquitted, and yet most people assume she was guilty. Is it possible Lizzie was truly innocent? And if she didn’t swing the hatchet that day – who did?

Sources for this episode include:

The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden & The Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller
The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence by Bill James

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For nearly twenty years, a charming con man poses as a globe-trotting CIA operative, seducing women and draining their savings in the name of “classified missions”—until one wife uncovers his lies and helps bring down the man she thought she would share her life with.

Sources for this episode include:

The Other Mrs. Jordan (Britbox documentary)
The Bigamist by Mary Thompson (Amazon Publishing)
“My marriage turned out to be a lie - here's why I'm speaking out” (BBC)
“'I Wanted Justice': Con Victim Turns Focus to Changing Rape Law” (NBC News)

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The wife of the “sausage king of Chicago” disappears without a trace…until police search a suspicious vat in the basement of his factory, fueling rumors of exactly how he got rid of her.

Sources for this episode include:Alchemy of Bones: Chicago's Luetgert Murder Case of 1897 by Robert Loerzel
Contemporaneous reporting by the Chicago Tribune
The 'Sausage Vat Murder,' 1897 by Harold Schechter, The Yale Review

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Branded "the female Charles Manson" for a double murder she claims she didn't commit, a young woman executes a daring prison escape to reclaim her life—only to find that while she can outrun the law, she can’t outrun the reputation built to bring her down.

Sources for this episode include:

Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender by Steve Miller
“Sarah Jo Pender asks for mercy 25 years after double murder conviction” (COURT TV, 2025)
“Judge denies Sarah Jo Pender's request to cut sentence in double murder case” (IndyStar, 2026)
“Fixing Their Mistakes” (Progressive Magazine, 2021)
Women Behind Bars with Trevor McDonaldA Stranger in My Home “Master Manipulators” (Investigation Discovery)

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In broad daylight at the world’s most prestigious museum, a disguised team of thieves breached Musée du Louvre in just seven minutes, made off with eight priceless pieces of the French Crown Jewels, and exposed how even the most iconic institution can be undone by audacity and a single overlooked window.

Sources for this episode include:
“How the Louvre Heist Unfolded” (New York Times)
“In Just 7 Brazen Minutes, Thieves Grab ‘Priceless’ Jewels From Louvre” (New York Times)
“Everything we know about the Louvre jewellery heist” (BBC)
“Two more suspects charged over Louvre heist taking total to four” (The Guardian)
“Louvre jewel heist by petty criminals, not organised professionals, says Paris prosecutor” (The Guardian)
“New surveillance video shows Louvre jewel heist in action” (CBS NEWS)

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When the glamorous wife of the Gucci heir faces losing her fortune and status, she trades champagne for vengeance—proving that in the world of high fashion, nothing is more cutthroat than a woman with everything at stake and nothing left to lose.

Sources for this episode include:

House of Gucci: A True Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden
“Murder in the House of Gucci” by Sofia Lotto Persio (Forbes, 2019)
“The Gucci Wife and the Hitman: Fashion’s Darkest Tale” by Abigail Haworth (The Guardian, 2016)
“The Real Story Behind the House of Gucci” (Bloomberg Originals, 2022)
Til Death Do Us Part “Lady Gucci: The Story of Patrizia Reggiani” (Discovery+)

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In 1972, two young hippies hijack a commercial airplane in a wild attempt to free a famous political activist from jail, setting off one of the strangest, most idealistic crimes of a radical era.

Sources for this episode include:

The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner

“Convicted Hijacker Arrested in New Plot” (LA Times)

“Black Panther Extradited to the US” (NYTimes)

“Skyjacked: A Nation With No Airline Security” (CNN)

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In the craggy peaks of Greece, a modern outlaw proves that you can rob a bank, kidnap a billionaire, and still be the most beloved man in the mountains. This is the story of Vassilis Paleokostas: the 'Robin Hood' who treats his hostages like guests and uses a helicopter as his preferred get-out-of-jail-free card.

Sources for this episode include:
“The Uncatchable” (BBC)
A Normal Life: The Autobiography of Vassilis Palaiokostas by Vassilis Palaiokostas

Outlaws: The Good Thief (iHeartRadio)

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Kidnapped on his 38th birthday by criminals who think every federal prosecutor is secretly wealthy, a calm-under-pressure lawyer survives a chaotic 25-hour ordeal—part hostage crisis, part absurd comedy—by befriending his captors.

Sources for this episode include:

The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival by Stanley N. Alpert
48 Hours, “The Birthday Party”

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