📚 SHOW NOTES

🎙 Episode 108: Bernadette Protti — “The Fear of Being Weird”

A Murderess Podcast investigation

June 23, 1984. Orinda, California.

A fifteen-year-old kills another fifteen-year-old because she’s terrified people will think she’s weird, then goes back to school and lives among everyone searching for the killer. When a fake invitation, a Ford Pinto and five stab wounds finally lead investigators back to Bernadette, the question becomes bigger than who killed Kirsten.

📍 Location: Orinda and Moraga, Contra Costa County, California

📅 Key Dates: June 21, 1984 fake Bob-o-Links invitation → June 23, 1984 Kirsten Costas murdered → summer–fall 1984 six-month investigation and false suspicion of another student → December 1984 Bernadette’s confession and arrest → March 13, 1985 second-degree murder conviction → April 1, 1985 commitment to California Youth Authority → June 10, 1992 parole at age 23

👥 Central Figures: Bernadette Protti, Kirsten Marina Costas, Arthur “Art” Costas, Berit Costas, Raymond Protti, Elaine Protti, Alexander and Mary Jane Arnold, FBI investigators, prosecutor John Oda, defense attorney Charles James, Judge Edward L. Merrill

🧠 Themes: rage and humiliation, adolescent status, envy, fear of rejection, popularity and self-worth, social conformity, false accusation, premeditation vs impulse, public shame, juvenile justice, victim loss, the difference between belonging and believing you belong

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith

🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network

📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:

https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney:

Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Official Sources Used:

– Los Angeles Times archives, March 1985: trial coverage, Bernadette Protti’s taped confession, second-degree murder verdict, jealousy and humiliation evidence, and Judge Edward Merrill’s rejection of first-degree murder

– San Francisco Chronicle archives, March 1985: detailed trial reporting, prosecution and defense arguments, courtroom atmosphere, Bernadette’s confession, Kirsten Costas’ family statements, and community reaction

– San Francisco Chronicle, June 26, 1992: Bernadette Protti’s parole, California Youth Authority record, parole-board majority and dissenting opinions, and Arthur and Berit Costas’ opposition to her release

– New York Times / Associated Press archives, December 1984: Bernadette’s arrest, juvenile-court proceedings, early descriptions of both girls, Miramonte High School, and the possible rivalry motive

– TIME magazine archives, December 1984: investigation chronology, FBI behavioral-profile involvement, Bernadette’s arrest, and contemporary reporting on the social dynamics surrounding the case

– United Press International archives, March 1985: second-degree murder verdict, portions of Bernadette’s confession, testimony from Elaine and Raymond Protti, and evidence concerning cheerleading, wealth, jealousy, and social rejection

– Contemporary long-form reporting by Carol Pogash: Kirsten Costas’ family life and personality, Orinda and Miramonte social culture, the Bob-o-Links, cheerleading, Bernadette’s friendships and insecurities, the false suspicion of another student, the private investigation, confession, trial, and aftermath

– Publicly reported portions of Bernadette Protti’s recorded confession: statements concerning cheerleading, yearbook, clubs, looks, money, popularity, Kirsten’s ski comment, fear of being called “weird,” the false invitation, pursuit of Kirsten, and Bernadette’s description of the stabbing as an act of anger

– Publicly reported excerpts from Bernadette Protti’s written confession to her parents: acknowledgment that investigators suspected her, admission that they were correct, expressions of shame and fear, and her request that her parents continue to love her

– California Youth Authority / Youthful Offender Parole Board findings as reported contemporaneously by the San Francisco Chronicle: Bernadette’s educational progress while confined, 1992 parole decision, concerns regarding anger and impulse control, and release at age 23.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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Murderess Podcast is back.

I’m Sidney Smith, and the Quiet Jury is officially back in session.

The relaunch begins with four episodes covering Kouri Richins, Bernadette Protti, and a two-part investigation into Taylor Parker, a woman who spent nearly ten months faking a pregnancy before the lie demanded something real.

This next chapter of Murderess Podcast goes deeper into the people, the evidence, the contradictions, the psychology, and the choices behind women who kill.

New episodes every Thursday.

🎧 Follow Murderess Podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
🔗 Find episodes, Cre8tiv+, tour dates and more at sidneysmithcre8tiv.com
📱 @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Stay curious. Stay cautious.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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📚 SHOW NOTES

🎙 Episode 107: Kouri Richins - “Are You With Me?”

A Murderess Podcast investigation

March 4, 2022. Kamas, Utah.

When 39-year-old Eric Richins is found dead in his bedroom, his wife Kouri says they had spent the night celebrating a major real-estate closing. She made him a drink, he went to bed, and hours later she found him cold and unresponsive.

An autopsy reveals fentanyl intoxication, but no fentanyl is found in the home, there is no eyewitness to a poisoning, and the medical examiner cannot determine whether Eric knowingly took the drug or was secretly given it.

Then investigators begin looking at the marriage.

More than a million dollars in debt. Life-insurance policies Eric may not have known about. Allegedly forged documents. Money moved without permission. An affair. And messages imagining a future without him.

Prosecutors say Kouri obtained illicit pain pills and had already tried to poison Eric weeks earlier. The defense argues the state turned financial misconduct, an affair, unreliable witnesses, and ambiguous evidence into a murder narrative the science could not prove.

While investigators build their case, Kouri publicly becomes the grieving widow, even publishing a children’s book about helping her three sons cope with their father’s death.

Weeks later, she is arrested for his murder.

In this episode, the Quiet Jury examines the evidence, the contradictions, and the unanswered question at the center of the case:

Who put the fentanyl inside Eric Richins?

📍 Location: Kamas, Summit County, Utah

📅 Key Dates: 2013 marriage → 2019 real-estate business begins expanding → Sept 2020 Eric discovers disputed financial activity → Feb 14, 2022 alleged first poisoning attempt → Mar 4, 2022 Eric’s death → spring 2023 grief-book promotion → May 8, 2023 arrest → Feb–Mar 2026 trial → Mar 16, 2026 conviction → May 13, 2026 life-without-parole sentence

👥 Central Figures: Kouri Richins, Eric Eugene Richins, their three sons, Carmen Lauber, Robert Crozier, Robert Joshua Grossmann, Todd Gabler, Dr. Pamela Ulmer, Dr. Eric Christensen

🧠 Themes: grief and image management, financial desperation, circumstantial evidence, accident vs homicide, compromised witnesses, confirmation bias, infidelity, public identity vs private conduct, victim impact, the stories people construct when direct evidence is missing

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith

🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network

📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:

https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:

Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney:

Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Official Sources Used:

– State of Utah court filings: detention briefs, charging documents, financial allegations, digital evidence summaries, witness statements, and procedural history

– Utah trial testimony: Dr. Pamela Ulmer, Dr. Eric Christensen, Carmen Lauber, Robert Joshua Grossmann, Todd Gabler, and additional prosecution witnesses

– Prosecution and defense closing arguments: competing interpretations of the toxicology, drug transactions, phone evidence, financial records, affair, and investigation

– Utah Office of the Medical Examiner: autopsy findings, toxicology results, cause of death, and undetermined manner-of-death classification

– Utah Supreme Court records and appellate filings: pretrial litigation and procedural rulings

– Summit County investigative records: search-warrant affidavits, phone analysis, location data, interviews, and evidence recovered during the investigation

– NPR reporting: trial, verdict, sentencing, legal arguments, and case chronology

– CBS News reporting: conviction, victim-impact statements, and life-without-parole sentence

– KPCW reporting: trial updates, witness testimony, drug-supplier evidence, judicial-bias litigation, and sentencing proceedings

– ABC4 Utah reporting: Eric Richins’ life, family, business, and role as a father

– Eric Eugene Richins’ obituary: family history, education, missionary service, masonry business, personality, outdoor interests, and relationship with his sons

– Kouri Richins’ published and handwritten accounts: her description of her childhood, marriage, ambitions, grief, and the creation of Are You With Me?

– Contemporary reporting and public interviews concerning Are You With Me?, its promotion, and Kouri’s presentation as a grieving widow

– Victim-impact statements submitted by Eric and Kouri’s three sons and read during the May 13, 2026 sentencing hearing

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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🎙 Episode 106: Erin Caffey — “The Door Was Unlocked”

This episode revisits a story that meant a great deal to someone who believed deeply in this show

March 1, 2008.
Emory, Texas.

Just after midnight, a fire erupts at a quiet brick home on a rural road.
Firefighters expect an accident.

Instead, they discover something unthinkable.

Inside the house:
A mother and two young boys, shot execution-style.
A father barely alive — burned, bleeding, whispering a truth no one expects.

Down the road, a teenage girl waits.
Uninjured.
Crying.
Telling police the same thing again and again:

“They shot my family.”

But this is not a story about strangers breaking into a home.

It’s a story about control, faith, adolescence — and a door that was unlocked on purpose.

In this episode of Murderess Podcast, Sidney Smith examines the case of Erin Caffey:
a deeply religious upbringing,
a forbidden relationship framed as rescue,
and a plan that turned obedience into annihilation.

This is not a Romeo-and-Juliet story.
It’s not a cautionary tale about rebellion.

It’s a study of agency, influence, and the devastating consequences of choice.

📍 Location: Emory, Texas
📅 Key Dates: 1990 birth → early 2000s escalating conflict → March 1, 2008 murders → 2009 conviction → post-2010 sentencing changes

👥 Central Figures: Erin Caffey, Charlie Wilkinson, Terry Caffey, Penny Caffey and Matthew & Tyler Caffey

🧠 Themes: Control vs. autonomy, Faith and obedience,Manipulation and agency,
Forgiveness without erasure and The difference between influence and responsibility

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, bonus content, and Quiet Jury access:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com → Cre8tiv+

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney Smith:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

– Texas v. Erin Caffey (2009): trial records, sentencing documents, accomplice testimony
– Texas Monthly — “Flesh and Blood”: long-form investigative feature on the Caffey family murders
– Murderpedia: Erin Caffey case file, timeline, accomplice summaries
– Wikipedia: Caffey family murders overview (cross-verified with court and journalism sources)
– ABC News (2012): survivor interviews, Terry Caffey forgiveness statements
– KLTV News (East Texas): local reporting on trial, sentencing, and family advocacy
– Court transcripts & sentencing hearings: confession details, prosecution framing, defense arguments
– Contemporary juvenile justice reporting: post-conviction legal changes impacting sentencing

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

What's up Murderess Accomplices! In this week's episode, Sidney and Jamie cover  a drowning, a grieving mother and a child’s accusation that changed everything. In this special rerun, we revisit the Amanda Lewis case — a story built on memory, doubt, and the thin line between accident and intent.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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🎙 Episode 105: Omaima Nelson — “Thanksgiving in Blood”
A Murderess Podcast holiday special

Thanksgiving weekend, 1991.
Costa Mesa, California.

A 56-year-old man named Bill Nelson is supposed to introduce his new wife to his daughter over dinner. He never makes it.

Instead, neighbors hear a garbage disposal grinding through the night.
Police find body parts wrapped in newspaper and tinfoil.
Hands fried in oil.
A head boiled and stored in a freezer.
And a 23-year-old Egyptian-born woman named Omaima Nelson telling detectives it was all self-defense.

She says she was raped.
She says she was fighting for her life.
She says she dismembered her husband in a “trance.”

But prosecutors say something else:
A pattern of luring older men, tying them up, and robbing them — a pattern that escalated into murder.

Her trial becomes one of Orange County’s most notorious.
The evidence becomes unforgettable.
And the unanswered question — what happened to the missing 80 pounds? — still haunts investigators.

This Thanksgiving, we revisit the case that shocked a generation…
and a woman who went from abused child to model, to newlywed bride, to convicted killer — all in the span of a few extraordinary months.

📍 Location: Costa Mesa, California
📅 Key Dates: 1986 immigration → 1990 assault pattern → Nov 28, 1991 murder → Dec 2 arrest → 1993 conviction → 2006 & 2011 parole denials
👥 Central Figures: Omaima Aree Nelson, William “Bill” Nelson, Margaret Nelson (Bill’s daughter), Robert Hannson, Richard Gray
🧠 Themes: trauma vs manipulation, survival vs predation, gendered violence, courtroom mythmaking, the psychology of escalation

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

– Orange County Superior Court records (1991–1993): trial transcripts, verdict, sentencing documents
– Los Angeles Times archives (1991–2011): reporting by Larry Welborn, Diana Marcum, Lily Dizon, Rene Lynch
– OC Register archival reporting: Larry Welborn’s features on Nelson’s case and parole hearings
– AP News & ABC News reports (1991–2011): crime scene details, parole opposition, psychological testimony
– Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (2020): Nelson v. Hill — habeas petition and legal posture
– Murderpedia: Omaima Nelson case summary, crime scene documentation, timeline
– Investigation Discovery – Deadly Women (Episode: “Murderesses”): psychological profile excerpts
– Contemporary forensic commentary: Dr. David Sheffner psychiatric testimony (PTSD, psychosis, cannibalism allegation)

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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🎙 Episode 104: Sharon Kinne — “La Pistolera’s Disappearing Act”
Part 4 of a multi-part series

December 1969. A blackout sweeps through Iztapalapa Prison in Mexico City.
Within minutes, one of the world’s most elusive inmates — La Pistolera — is gone.
No gunfire. No alarms. No chase.

For years, rumors cross borders: sightings in Guatemala, whispers of new lovers, even claims of another murder.
But while the world chased her legend, Sharon Kinne quietly built a new identity in small-town Canada.
Under the name Diedra Glabus, she became a motel owner, real estate agent, church volunteer, wife, grandmother — a woman no one questioned, and no one truly knew.

It wasn’t luck that kept her free.
It was perception.
The same charm that disarmed jurors and detectives now blended her seamlessly into the rhythms of small-town life.

When she died in 2022, her obituary remembered a kind neighbor.
Three years later, in 2025, a fingerprint scan told the truth:
Diedra Glabus was Sharon Kinne — the longest-active fugitive in Missouri history.

From Missouri to Mexico to Manitoba, this is the final chapter of La Pistolera —
the woman who turned escape into an identity and lived half a century inside the myth she built.

📍 Locations: Independence, Missouri | Mexico City, Mexico | Manitoba, Canada
📅 Key Dates: 1969 prison escape → 1970 reinvention → 2022 death → 2025 fingerprint match
👥 Central Figures: Sharon Kinne / Diedra Glabus, Patricia Jones’s family, Francis Pugliese, Francisco Ordoñez, Missouri prosecutors, RCMP investigators
🧠 Themes: Reinvention, perception as survival, gender bias in justice, the mythology of escape, truth emerging through technology
📖 Series Conclusion Preview:
Every myth ends the same way — with fact.
Next week: a full postmortem episode tracing the case’s cultural footprint and how Sharon’s story reshaped the public’s idea of female killers who “don’t look like criminals.”

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Official Sources Used:
– State v. Sharon Kinne, Supreme Court of Missouri, 372 S.W.2d 62 (1963) — appellate ruling and procedural context
– Missouri State Highway Patrol & FBI case summaries (1960–1970) — fugitive documentation and warrant records
– Murderpedia: Sharon Kinne case file and international arrest timeline
– James Hays, I’m Just an Ordinary Girl: The Sharon Kinne Story — biographical reference
– The Mammoth Book of True Crime (1978) — case overview and myth analysis
– Canadian press archives (1970s–2020s): Manitoba obituaries and municipal records for “Diedra Glabus”
– Associated Press, Kansas City Star, Winnipeg Free Press, The Globe and Mail — cross-border reporting (1969–2025)
– RCMP and FBI digital archival statements confirming 2025 fingerprint match
– Candice DeLong, forensic commentary on deception and gender bias in violent offenders (Deadly Women, Investigation Discovery)
– Susan Hatters Friedman & Michael H. Friedman, Just as Deadly (2020) — gendered criminology perspective

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

What's up Murderess Accomplices! In this week's episode, Sidney and Jamie cover the murderess who took the life of a beloved musical star. It's  Yolanda Saldivar. 

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show

🎙 Episode 103: Sharon Kinne — “Trials, Mistrials, and Mexico”
Part 3 of a multi-part series

January 1962. A packed courtroom in Independence, Missouri. The state charges Sharon with the first-degree murder of her husband, James Kinne. The trial hinges on the testimony of a teenager who says she offered him a thousand dollars to “get rid of” James. The jury believes him. Sharon is convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

But that verdict doesn’t hold.

Over the next two years, Missouri’s legal system fractures under the weight of its own procedures. The conviction is overturned on a jury selection technicality. A second trial collapses into mistrial. A third ends in a hung jury. And while the state prepares for a fourth attempt at justice, Sharon leaves the country.

Mexico City. September 1964. A hotel room. A gunshot. A man named Francisco Ordoñez dead, a hotel clerk wounded, and Sharon once again claiming self-defense — only this time, the court doesn’t buy it. She is convicted and sent to Iztapalapa Prison.

But in December 1969, during a sudden nighttime blackout, Sharon simply disappears.
No alarms.
No chase.
No recapture.

From Missouri defendant to Mexican inmate to international fugitive — this is the chapter where Sharon stops being a case file and becomes a rumor.

📍 Locations: Independence, Missouri & Mexico City, Mexico
📅 Key Dates: 1962 conviction → 1963 reversal → 1964 mistrial + hung jury → 1964 Mexico shooting → 1969 prison escape
👥 Central Figures: Sharon Kinne, John Boldizs, Francis Pugliese, Francisco Ordoñez
🧠 Themes: Legal collapse, charm as gravity, the cracks in procedural justice, identity as performance, disappearance as survival

📖 Next Episode Preview: A new name. A new life. Whispers in border towns. And decades later — a fingerprint that should not have existed anymore.

🎧 Murderess Podcast is written and hosted by Sidney Smith
🎙 Produced in partnership with Sidney Smith Cre8tiv, LLC and the You Hear Good Things podcast network
📅 New episodes every Thursday

🔗 Find BONUS CONTENT, past episodes, merch, and tour dates:
https://www.sidneysmithcre8tiv.com

🎧 Listen on your favorite platform:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | iHeartRadio

📱 Follow Sidney:
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter → @sidneysmithcre8tiv

Official Sources Used:

– State v. Sharon Kinne, Supreme Court of Missouri, 372 S.W.2d 62 (1963) — appellate reversal & procedural grounds
– Missouri District Court trial records (1962–1964): testimony, voir dire disputes, mistrial documentation
– Murderpedia: Sharon Kinne comprehensive case timeline
– James Hays, I’m Just an Ordinary Girl: The Sharon Kinne Story (biographical narrative)
– The Mammoth Book of True Crime (1978) — case summary & cultural context
– Contemporary Reporting: Kansas City Star, Associated Press, Mexico City press (1962–1970)
– Mexico judicial archives: Iztapalapa conviction records & sentencing modification notes
– Candice DeLong & forensic commentary on female-presenting violent offenders (Deadly Women / ID Network)
– Susan Hatters Friedman & Michael H. Friedman, Just as Deadly (2020) — criminological framing

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

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If you’re into this kind of back-and-forth, me and my wife Tamra host a podcast called Running In Slow Motion. It’s where we talk real life, marriage, growth, and everything in between — and it’s honestly one of my favorite things I get to make.

Running In Slow Motion
New episodes every Thursday.

Tell me what stayed with you—I read every message. Your thoughts might even shape what the Quiet Jury hears next.

Support the show