A man who murdered young women and mutilated their bodies, earning nicknames like "The Boy Next Door Killer" because he lived near his victims. One victim was supposed to go on a date with actor Ashton Kutcher, who testified that he saw what he thought was red wine spilled on her floor—it was her blood.

Michael Gargiulo, born in 1976 in Glenview, Illinois, began his killing spree in 1993 with 18-year-old Tricia Pacaccio, a neighbor he stabbed to death on her front doorstep [citation:4][citation:8]. DNA under her fingernails would later match him, but testing methods at the time were insufficient to secure a conviction [citation:6]. He moved to California in 1998 and continued his pattern, murdering 22-year-old Ashley Ellerin in 2001 with 47 stab wounds as she prepared for a date with Kutcher, and 32-year-old Maria Bruno in 2005, a mother of four who was "quite literally butchered" with her breasts cut off [citation:1][citation:5]. He was finally arrested in 2008 after a survivor, Michelle Murphy, fought off his attack and left a trail of blood evidence [citation:4].

Gargiulo was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to death in 2021 [citation:4][citation:5]. In September 2024, he was extradited to Illinois to finally face justice for the murder of Tricia Pacaccio, the teenage neighbor who was his first victim [citation:8].

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the man who hid in plain sight for fifteen years is finally behind bars.

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A wife sobs at her husband's funeral. Friends hold her as she collapses. She tells reporters he was the love of her life. Hours earlier, she was researching how long arsenic stays in the body.

In this episode, I uncover the true stories of wives who murdered their husbands and then played the role of grieving widow to perfection. From poisoners who watched their spouses die in agony to women who staged accidents and collected life insurance payouts, these killers weaponized the world's sympathy. The mask always slips. A neighbor remembers her smiling at the funeral. A receipt shows she bought the poison days before the death. A text message to her lover was sent while the body was still warm. Forensic science and patient detective work eventually expose the truth, but the devastation these women displayed was never real. It was the best performance of their lives.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the woman crying at the casket may be the one who put him in it.

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A former Marine security guard. A red spray-painted message on the wall: I told you this was going to happen. A wife and two young sons strangled in their beds. The husband claimed a stalker did it. The jury said he was the stalker.

On May 5, 2009, Christopher Coleman called police from a bridge, frantic that his family was not answering their phones inside their Columbia, Illinois home. Officers found 31-year-old Sheri Coleman and her sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, strangled in their beds. Red spray-painted graffiti covered the walls. An open window suggested a intruder had entered. Coleman said he had received threatening letters and emails for months because of his job as security chief for televangelist Joyce Meyer.

But prosecutors painted a different picture. Coleman was having an affair with his wife's high school friend Tara Lintz. He feared divorce would cost him his six-figure job. A handwriting expert matched the graffiti to Coleman. Threatening emails were traced to his own laptop. A glove with red spray-paint residue was found along a highway near the home. Dr. Michael Baden testified the family died hours before Coleman left for the gym, not during the 90 minutes he claimed to be gone. Coleman was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to life in prison.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the man who wrote I told you so was telling on himself.

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A teacher looks into a school toilet and sees a black shoe floating in the bowl. She calls for help. Firefighters cut open the septic pipe and find a young man curled inside, facing upward toward the seat, his shirt folded neatly on his chest. No one can explain how he got there. Thirty-six years later, the mystery remains unsolved.

On February 28, 1989, 23-year-old teacher Yumi Tanaka returned to Dulu Village Elementary in Miyakoji, Fukushima, after a long weekend[citation:4][citation:8]. Before leaving, she used the squat toilet. Inside the opening, she saw a man's black leather shoe. She went outside to check the septic tank and found two bare human feet[citation:1][citation:7].

Firefighters cut through the 36-centimeter pipe to extract the body of Naoyuki Kanno, a 26-year-old nuclear plant maintenance worker and respected youth group member[citation:4][citation:8]. He was naked from the waist up, curled in a fetal position, holding his neatly folded coat against his chest, facing the toilet opening as if looking up at the seat[citation:2][citation:5]. Only one shoe was found near his head. The other was discovered later on a riverbank some distance away[citation:2][citation:5].

The autopsy showed only minor scratches. The official cause of death: hypothermia[citation:1][citation:4]. Police ruled it an accidental death, suggesting Kanno crawled inside to spy on women. But the physics did not add up. The pipe was only 14 inches wide. Kanno was 5 foot 7 with a shoulder span of 16 inches. His own father used the cut pipe to prove entry was impossible without outside help[citation:2][citation:5]. Locals noted Kanno had been helping a village chief candidate in a heated election over Fukushima's nuclear expansion. A colleague who worked with him at the plant had died by suicide one month earlier[citation:4][citation:8]. Over 4,000 villagers signed a petition demanding a new investigation. It was denied[citation:1][citation:4].

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the man in the toilet was looking up, not down. Someone put him there.

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Thirty-eight witnesses watched a woman being stabbed to death. No one called the police. That was the story that shocked America and created the 911 system. Almost none of it was true.

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Catherine Kitty Genovese was attacked outside her Queens apartment building. She was stabbed, raped, and left to die in a hallway. Two weeks later, The New York Times published an article claiming that 38 neighbors witnessed the attack and did nothing to help. The nation was horrified. The story became a parable of urban apathy, inspired the bystander effect in psychology textbooks, and fueled the creation of the 911 emergency phone system across America [citation:1][citation:9].

But decades of research have debunked the myth. There were not 38 witnesses. Some did call police—though without a universal emergency number, reaching help was difficult. Others did not realize a murder was happening. The killer, Winston Moseley, confessed to three murders. The case also produced one of history's most disturbing false confessions, when an 18-year-old named Alvin Mitchell was coerced into confessing to a murder Moseley committed [citation:3].

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the story you learned in psychology class was wrong.

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A dog returns home with a human forearm in its mouth. Six weeks after a sixteen-year-old girl vanished, her skeletal remains are found on a cliff locals call the Devil's Teeth. Around her body: sticks arranged in a coffin shape, small wooden crosses, and whispers of a satanic cult. Fifty years later, the truth is stranger than the rumors.

On August 7, 1972, Jeannette DePalma left her Springfield, New Jersey home to visit a friend. She never arrived. Six weeks later, a neighborhood dog led its owner to her decomposing body atop a cliff inside Houdaille Quarry[citation:2][citation:4]. Witnesses described a coffin-shaped perimeter of branches and makeshift crosses surrounding her remains[citation:2][citation:3]. The location was already infamous—locals called it the Devil's Teeth.

The coroner found no bullet wounds or knife strikes. No drug paraphernalia. But an unusually high amount of lead in her bones and a suspicion of strangulation[citation:2]. Police leaked theories of occult sacrifice to the press. A pastor declared she was killed by Satanists. The Satanic Panic had found its first victim.

But crime scene photos released decades later tell a different story. The branches were just branches. The crosses were just brush. A history professor who reviewed the images said investigators saw patterns that weren't there[citation:4]. The case was never ruled a homicide. It remains unsolved. In 2021, serial killer Richard Cottingham—the Torso Killer—hinted he may have been involved[citation:2]. Investigators have not confirmed.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the Devil's Teeth still have secrets.

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A 14-year-old boy woke to the smell of smoke and found his mother burning on the bedroom floor. Within 48 hours, police had labeled him a cold-blooded killer. The only evidence linking him to the crime was gasoline on his shoes. Twenty years later, the state admitted the gasoline was never there.

On December 5, 1998, Michael Politte and his friend Josh Sansouci woke to a smoke-filled house in Hopewell, Missouri. Michael found his 40-year-old mother Rita Politte beaten to death and set on fire [citation:3][citation:6]. Police immediately targeted the teenager. He was interrogated multiple times over 48 hours without sleep, an attorney, or an impartial adult present [citation:1]. Because he did not display the emotions officers expected from a grieving child, they labeled him a "remorseless, cold-blooded killer" [citation:1][citation:8].

The only physical evidence was a claim that gasoline had been found on Michael's shoes. That evidence has now been scientifically disproven. The chemical was actually an aromatic solvent used in the manufacturing of tennis shoes [citation:1]. The state has conceded the evidence was false [citation:2][citation:6]. Fire investigation techniques used to determine the blaze was arson have also been debunked [citation:1][citation:10].

Despite this, Michael was convicted of second-degree murder in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison [citation:6]. He spent 23 years behind bars before being granted parole in 2022 [citation:4][citation:8]. A juror from his trial now fights for his exoneration, stating, "I cannot live with what we did to this young man" [citation:4]. The real killer of Rita Politte has never been found.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because a father was free while his son rotted in prison for a crime he did not commit.

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A 61-year-old Spanish teacher stood at the front of her classroom, marking a student's work. A 15-year-old boy walked up behind her and plunged a kitchen knife into her neck. She screamed for her students to run. Then she collapsed into the arms of a colleague and died.

On April 28, 2014, Ann Maguire was working on her day off to help students prepare for exams at Corpus Christi Catholic College in Leeds, England [citation:9]. She was due to retire in five months after 40 years at the same school [citation:3]. William Cornick, a 15-year-old student with no criminal record, had planned the murder for months [citation:3]. He had offered a friend £10 to kill her for him. When no one took the deal, he decided to do it himself [citation:3].

Cornick stabbed Maguire seven times in the back and neck, severing her jugular vein [citation:3]. After the attack, he returned to his seat, opened a bottle of whisky to "celebrate," and told a classmate: "Good times" [citation:4][citation:8]. He had also planned to kill two other teachers, including a pregnant woman [citation:3].

Psychiatrists described Cornick as having "a gross lack of empathy" and "a degree of callousness rarely seen in clinical practice" [citation:3]. He showed no remorse. When asked about Maguire's family, he said: "I don't care. In my eyes, everything I've done is fine and dandy" [citation:4].

Cornick was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 20 years [citation:3]. It was the first killing of a British teacher by a student inside a classroom in modern history.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the boy who stabbed his teacher smiled as he walked out of the room.

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A 36-year-old woman fused to a sofa. Maggots embedded in exposed bone. Feces from head to toe. The floor buckling beneath the couch from pooling urine. And the parents who went to church every weekend while their daughter rotted away in their living room.

On January 3, 2022, Clay and Sheila Fletcher called 911 to report their daughter Lacey was dead on their couch in Slaughter, Louisiana. What investigators found was beyond comprehension. Lacey had been sitting in the same spot for an estimated 12 years. Her skin had deteriorated to the bone. She was covered in ulcers, insects, and human waste. Sofa foam and feces were found in her stomach during autopsy [citation:3]. She weighed just 96 pounds [citation:2]. The cause of death was sepsis from prolonged immobility, poor hygiene, and malnutrition as a result of severe chronic neglect [citation:6].

Lacey had been diagnosed with autism as a teenager and was non-verbal in her final years. She had not seen a physician since she was 16 years old in 2002 [citation:2]. In 2010, her parents privately met with her psychologist, who urged them to hospitalize her. They never did [citation:9]. The last time anyone outside the family saw Lacey was approximately five years before her death [citation:3].

The Fletchers were pillars of their community. Sheila was a town alderman. Both were devoted churchgoers. Neighbors described them as the kind of people who would do anything for anybody [citation:1]. Behind closed doors, their daughter was left to melt into a couch.

In 2024, Clay and Sheila Fletcher pleaded no contest to manslaughter. Each was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with 20 years suspended [citation:2]. The prosecutor called it the worst case of neglect he had ever seen. "We don't even treat animals like this," he said [citation:1]. The coroner cried for a week. He said the image would never leave him [citation:1].

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the couch was not a sanctuary. It was a tomb.

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A small-town doctor drugs a patient and rapes her on Halloween night. The DNA comes back negative. He walks free. He does it again. And again. Then investigators discover he surgically implanted a tube of someone else's blood in his arm to cheat the tests.

In 1992, Dr. John Schneeberger sedated 23-year-old Candice Foley in his Kipling, Saskatchewan clinic and sexually assaulted her [citation:6]. The drug Versed left her partially conscious. She remembered everything. She reported the crime. But DNA tests cleared him. He had fooled science itself.

Schneeberger had made a small incision on the inside of his left arm and inserted a 15-centimeter Penrose drain filled with another man's blood mixed with anticoagulants [citation:6]. He directed technicians to draw from that exact spot. The tests matched the donor, not the doctor.

In 1997, his wife Lisa discovered he had also been drugging and raping her 15-year-old daughter from a previous marriage [citation:6]. She went to police. This time, authorities took multiple samples: blood, mouth swab, and hair follicle. All three matched. The tube could not fool a hair test.

Convicted in 1999 and sentenced to six years, Schneeberger lost his medical license, his wife, and his Canadian citizenship [citation:1]. He was deported to South Africa in 2004. He later applied to practice medicine there. His application was withdrawn after public outcry.

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the trusted family doctor was a monster in a white coat.

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