The Hook Man is an urban legend dating back to the 1950s. The terrifying story tells of a killer with a hook for a hand who preys on young couples parked in lovers’ lanes. The legend found new life in the 1997 slasher film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which is being rebooted in 2025. But this story is more than just campfire fuel. The legend was possibly inspired by the Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946 – a string of unsolved attacks by a masked assailant known only as The Phantom Killer.

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After a young boy vanished in 1911, police received mysterious postcards. The horrifying allegations and broad inconsistencies led them to believe the notes were a hoax – until it was too late. With one victim recovered, police faced the question: what other murders could these postcards solve?

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May, 1985. Two days before her high school graduation, Shari Faye Smith was abducted from her parents’ driveway in broad daylight. Her kidnapper taunted Shari’s family by phone for days, calling in the middle of the night and revealing bone-chilling details of his crime.

With little evidence to go on, South Carolina investigators brought in FBI criminal profiler John Douglas and his colleagues, who used the recorded phone calls to create a profile of their UNSUB.

About 2 weeks later, 9-year-old Debra May Helmick was kidnapped in a similar manner. When both girls turned up dead, investigators realized they had a probable serial killer on their hands – and they needed to find him before he could strike again.

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Ervil LeBaron, the prophet of a Fundamentalist LDS sect in Mexico, has grasped power after being released from prison for orchestrating his brother’s murder. Now, Ervil has a list of names of those who have turned their back against his leadership. By reinstating the religious doctrine of blood atonement, Ervil compels his followers to murder his opponents and family members in his name. This episode features guest host Madison McGhee of Ice Cold Case.

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In the 1920s, the LeBaron family settles in Mexico to practice their own sect of Mormonism. They establish a settlement, open a church, and work the farms. But after the family patriarch dies, the settlement becomes a bloody battleground for brothers all claiming to be a prophet. Guest host Madison McGhee of Ice Cold Case joins the podcast to discuss killer prophet Ervil LeBaron.

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Happy solstice, listeners! Join our guest host this week, Sapphire Sandalo, for a summertime tale of betrayal, murder, and the bizarre journey of a criminal corpse.

It's 1827, and the Marten family hasn’t seen 25-year-old Maria in five months, ever since she left home with plans to elope with William Corder. Whenever they ask about her, William always has an explanation for why she hasn’t visited or written a letter. So, they haven’t worried too much.
Until now. Maria’s stepmother, Ann, is haunted by troubling nightmares in which Maria isn’t living out her “happily ever after” at all. In fact, if Ann’s visions are correct, Maria is dead…and she’s buried down the road, in their village’s Red Barn.

Check out Sapphire's shows Stories With Sapphire and Discovery's The Ghost Town Terror.

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In the 1970s, at least seven young women and girls go missing around Santa Rosa, California. Seven are found dead, and one remains unidentified. Several killers, including the Zodiac and Ted Bundy, were known to commit crimes in Northern California. Could one of them be responsible for the unsolved Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders, or is there yet another serial killer waiting to be identified?

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His modus operandi is shocking: years before he strangled his victims, Henry Louis Wallace befriended them. By and large, they were his coworkers at Bojangles and Taco Bell. But under interrogation, he’d admit an even darker motive.

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A missing woman in Florida leads police to a fugitive who’s been on the run for 17 years. But that’s just the beginning. Franklin Delano Floyd not only becomes a suspect in that case, but he’s then tied to several unsolved murders, disappearances, and kidnappings dating back to the 1970s. For police, it will take decades to fully uncover the crimes of Franklin Delano Floyd.

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When a boneless torso possibly belonging to a woman named Cora Turner is found in the cellar of a London home, the culprit seems almost obvious. Her husband, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, seems to have disappeared with his mistress. But the true answer isn’t that easy. Nearly a hundred years later, some people are still wondering whether the police caught the right person.

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