In October of 1996, 35-year-old Sharon Lopatka told her husband she was leaving their Maryland home for a short trip to visit friends in Georgia. But Sharon wasn't going to Georgia.

She left her car near a Baltimore train station, boarded a train heading south, and left behind a disturbing goodbye letter for her husband. In it, Sharon seemed to acknowledge the possibility that she might never come home.

When police began searching for her, the trail led somewhere that was still relatively unfamiliar territory for investigators in 1996: Sharon's computer.

Behind the quiet life she shared with her husband was an extensive online world filled with different identities, private fantasies and increasingly disturbing conversations with strangers. One of those strangers called himself “Slowhand.” His real name was Robert Glass.

For weeks, Sharon and Robert had exchanged messages about violence, torture and death. Then Sharon decided to leave the safety of the computer screen behind and meet him in person.

What happened after she arrived in North Carolina would become the subject of a deeply unusual homicide case, one that raised questions about fantasy, consent, intent and whether someone can ever legally give another person permission to kill them.

Sources:

https://alchetron.com/Sharon-Lopatka-homicide 

https://www.dailydot.com/society/internet-assisted-suicide-sharon-lopatka/ 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1996/10/30/slain-womans-e-mail-reveals-violent-intentions/d941faa0-4d6a-4aa5-9add-bfd1813e2f9b/ 

https://www.ranker.com/list/facts-about-sharon-lopatka/cat-mcauliffe 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/03/12/hearing-in-sex-death/623b87a2-8d9c-4280-9fb4-1d301f2a6be2/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/01/28/murder-charge-dropped-in-96-internet-sex-case/0829f8da-802a-42be-a0e0-40c9c9b1b7c5

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/11/03/to-pinpoint-a-suspect-md-police-put-together-pieces-of-an-electronic-puzzle/250e90b7-3610-42de-bb43-f1b2e62903bb/

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On June 7th, 2011, a maintenance worker was repairing a broken window inside a 25th-floor apartment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he heard a couple arguing in the next room. Then came another crash.

Within moments, 23-year-old Josh Hilberling was lying on the roof of a parking garage seventeen stories below. His heavily pregnant wife, 19-year-old Amber Hilberling, admitted almost immediately that she had pushed him. But she insisted she never meant for him to go through the window.

What followed was a case involving allegations of domestic violence on both sides, a marriage that appeared to be coming to an end, Amber's changing account of the moments before Josh fell, and a startling discovery about the glass separating their apartment from a 25-story drop.

Was Josh's death the result of an intentional act of violence? Self-defence with an unimaginable consequence? Or could more than one thing be true at the same time?

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGW6Yw-ylMo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj7VpYZLtlE

https://ninde.com/tribute/details/2111/Amber-Hilberling/obituary.html

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/how-pregnant-killer-who-pushed-22157523

https://www.killerqueenspodcast.com/amber-hilberling/

https://okcfox.com/medical-examiner-releases-autopsy-report-for-amber-hilberling#:~:text=TULSA%2C%20Okla.,according%20to%20her%20autopsy%20report. 

https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2013-03-09/tulsa-woman-rejects-plea-deal-in-husbands-high-rise-death

https://www.claimsjournal.com/news/southcentral/2012/09/21/214026.htm

https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/amber-hilberlings-estate-drops-lawsuit-against-oklahoma-department-of-corrections

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amber-hilberling-okla-woman-who-pushed-husband-out-of-high-rise-window-in-2011-found-guilty-of-second-degree-murder/

https://ninde.com/tribute/details/2111/Amber-Hilberling/obituary.html

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On the evening of October 20th, 2015, 42-year-old father and lorry driver Darren Kelly travelled to Pitsea, Essex, believing he was meeting a woman he'd been talking to online. But when Darren arrived, he wasn't met by one person. A group was already waiting nearby, some of them hiding out of sight. They believed Darren was guilty of something terrible, and they had decided to confront him themselves.

Within minutes, Darren was running for his life. He was chased through the streets, beaten and stabbed six times before managing to reach a nearby block of flats and desperately buzz strangers for help. Darren died later that night.

But when police began investigating the accusation that had made Darren a target, they discovered something deeply disturbing: the evidence didn't support it.

What followed was a murder investigation involving an online vigilante campaign, a teenage girl determined to catch suspected predators, four defendants and a trial that left Darren's family questioning how only one person could ultimately be convicted.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/12/teenage-vigilantes-killed-darren-kelly-mistaken-paedophile-court

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3595928/Family-man-stabbed-death-vigilantes-wrongly-thought-paedophile-blast-cruel-needless-murder.html

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/teenage-vigilantes-murdered-man-they-wrongly-thought-was-a-paedophile-a3223726.html 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-36321082

https://www.halsteadgazette.co.uk/news/south_essex_news/14500196.murderer-chris-carroll-20-is-handed-life-prison-sentence-and-will-serve-a-minimum-of-21-years-for-killing-darren-kelly-in-pitsea/

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/14435379.eye-witness-describes-moment-darren-kelly-was-chased-down-and-stabbed-to-death-in-pitsea-street/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/daughter-innocent-dad-killed-paedophile-8281536 

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When Stacey Castor called the police to her New York home in August 2005, she told them she was worried about her husband, David. He had locked himself inside their bedroom after an argument and hadn't shown up for work. When officers forced their way inside, they found David dead beside a glass containing a bright green liquid and an open container of antifreeze.

At first, everything pointed toward suicide, but one detective wasn't convinced.

As investigators began looking more closely at David's death, they discovered that Stacey had already lost one husband under unusual circumstances. Michael Wallace had died suddenly five years earlier at just 38 years old, after suffering from a mysterious illness that had never been fully explained. So investigators decided to take another look.

What followed was an extraordinary investigation involving an exhumation, toxicology, a discarded turkey baster, a suspicious will, computer forensics and a typed letter that threatened to change everything police thought they knew about this family completely.

And eventually, investigators began to wonder whether Stacey Castor was an extraordinarily unlucky woman who had experienced more tragedy than most...or whether tragedy wasn't following Stacey at all. It was being created around her.

Sources:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/stacey-castor

https://forensicfiles.fandom.com/wiki/Stacey_Castor

https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-black-widow-stacey-castors-shocking-crimes/story?id=60860538

https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2020/01/stacey-castor-on-lifetime-5-chilling-details-from-syracuses-2009-antifreeze-murder-trial.html

https://cnycentral.com/news/local/did-stacey-castor-murder-her-own-father

https://www.syracuse.com/crime/2016/05/stacey_castors_shrine_of_evil_murdered_husbands_son_wants_remains_moved.html

https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/appellate-division-fourth-department/2012/860-ka-09-00469.html

https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2014/2014_03386.htm

SUICIDE NOTE: http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/2020/Suicide_Letter_scan0001_090422.pdf

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In January 2003, two teenage sisters returned home from an evening out with friends and made a frantic call to 911. Their 43-year-old mother, Linda Andersen, was lying face-down in the bathtub.

Linda struggled with alcoholism. She had been drinking heavily that night, and toxicology would reveal alcohol and medication in her system. To investigators, everything seemed to point toward a tragic accidental drowning. And for nearly a year, that's exactly what everyone believed.

But Sandra and Beth, just 16 and 15 years old, hadn't discovered their mother dead that night. Linda was already dead when they left for dinner. Because her daughters had killed her.

In this episode of Serial Napper, we examine the case that became known as the Bathtub Sisters: the deeply dysfunctional home Sandra and Beth described growing up in, Linda's struggle with addiction and domestic violence, the disturbing digital trail that ultimately exposed the murder, the controversial youth sentences that followed, and the complicated question of rehabilitation.

Sources:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2014/04/09/from-murder-to-law-school-story-of-ontario-sisters-who-drowned-mom-now-a-movie/

https://globalnews.ca/news/7458803/bathtub-girl-exclusive-interview/ 

https://www.ranker.com/list/linda-andersen-facts/trilby-beresford

https://web.archive.org/web/20150120034422/http://nicholasguindon.com/f/C_K_Ruling.PDF

https://www.mississauga.com/news-story/3123956-man-who-aided-bathtub-girls-asks-for-more-time/ 

https://www.inquisitr.com/3407112/perfect-sisters-lifetime-to-air-true-story-of-deadly-sisters-who-drowned-drunk-mother-linda-andersen-in-bathtub/ 

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/mandel-bathtub-girl-killer-now-215249646.html

https://www.citynews1130.com/2014/04/09/from-murder-to-law-school-story-of-ontario-sisters-who-drowned-mom-now-a-movie

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/portrait-of-a-drowning-in-real-time-on-msn/article740149/

https://www.scc-csc.ca/pdf/case-documents/34284/FM020_Respondent_Her-Majesty-the-Queen_Redacted.pdf

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When I first covered the case of Laken Snelling, it was a Patreon-exclusive, and one of the biggest questions surrounding the case remained unanswered: what really happened to her newborn baby in the hours after she secretly gave birth? Now, we finally have an answer.

In August 2025, 21-year-old University of Kentucky student and STUNT athlete Laken Snelling gave birth alone inside her off-campus bedroom while her roommates were just feet away. They later told investigators they had heard loud crashing and thudding noises coming from her room in the early morning hours.

By the next morning, Laken had left the house. Her suspicious roommates entered her bedroom and discovered evidence of childbirth. Inside her closet, they found her newborn son wrapped in a towel and concealed inside a trash bag.

Laken initially gave investigators an explanation for what happened after the birth. But an autopsy would later determine that the baby had been born alive and died from asphyxia by undetermined means.

Laken was eventually indicted for first-degree manslaughter, along with abuse of a corpse, tampering with physical evidence and concealing the birth of an infant.

For months, the question remained: was her baby's death the result of a catastrophic accident, or had something else happened inside that bedroom? Then, on August 21, 2026, Laken walked into court and changed her plea.

Sources:

https://www.wkyt.com/2026/03/13/laken-snelling-case-file-reveals-snapchat-warrant-roommate-accounts/

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article312308957.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/laken-snelling-5-things-know-210515476.html 

https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/court-records-reveal-laken-snellings-roommates-were-suspicious-about-her-pregnancy

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article315012906.html 

https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/crime/article315014043.html 

https://www.the-messenger.com/news/article_483939ec-f175-5fc9-8f16-8f7af6862ed3.html 

https://www.wwnytv.com/2026/08/24/former-university-kentucky-student-admits-ending-her-newborns-life-pleads-guilty/\

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In January 2006, 18-year-old Joe Pichler seemingly vanished from Bremerton, Washington.

Joe had grown up in front of the camera, appearing in movies and television shows including The Fan, Varsity Blues, Beethoven’s 3rd and Beethoven’s 4th. After stepping away from Hollywood as a teenager, he returned home, graduated high school and began building an ordinary life while planning his eventual return to acting.

Then, during the early morning hours of January 5th, Joe made his final known phone call.

Days later, his silver Toyota Corolla was found abandoned near the Port Washington Narrows. Inside were two pages of emotional writing that police initially interpreted as pointing toward suicide. But the writings never explicitly said Joe intended to end his life.

His family disputed the suicide theory from the beginning, raising concerns about how Joe’s car and apartment were initially handled and questioning whether potentially important evidence had been missed. Police themselves would soon become less convinced that suicide explained his disappearance and continued investigating other possibilities.

More than twenty years later, there has been no confirmed sighting of Joe, no financial or government activity known to establish that he started a new life, and his remains have never been found.

So what happened after Joe’s final phone call?

Anyone with information regarding Joe’s disappearance is asked to contact the Bremerton Police Department at 360-473-5228 or the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

Sources:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/joe-pichler

https://www.ladbible.com/news/child-actor-from-beethoven-missing-since-2006-20220601

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?s=5bb93ec13cd41535139045de83024223&t=61494

https://archive.kitsapsun.com/news/local/nation-watching-pichler-search-ep-424313295-359562221.html

https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/20060717/missing17m/former-child-actor-missing-for-6-months 

https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/former-child-actor-missing-1192897.php

https://charleyproject.org/case/joseph-david-wolfgang-pichler

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When we left off in Part One, Florida State University law professor Dan Markel had been murdered in what investigators believed was a carefully planned hit.

Nearly two years later, police had traced a rented green Prius from Tallahassee back to South Florida, identified suspected gunmen Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera, uncovered connections to Katherine Magbanua and Charlie Adelson, and staged an elaborate FBI operation known as “the bump.”

Now, investigators are finally ready to make their first arrest. But the arrest of a suspected hitman is only the beginning.

In Part Two, someone on the inside finally starts talking, giving investigators an account of the murder-for-hire plot from someone who was actually there. What follows is a years-long effort to work their way up the alleged chain: from Rivera and Garcia, to Katherine, to Charlie... and eventually to Donna Adelson.

We'll get into multiple murder trials, Katherine's changing story, Charlie's extraordinary claim that he wasn't responsible for Dan's murder but was actually being extorted by the people who killed him, and the recorded jail calls that preceded Donna and Harvey Adelson purchasing one-way tickets to Vietnam.

Donna would make it all the way to the jet bridge at Miami International Airport. She would not make it onto the plane.

We'll also look at Donna's eventual conviction, the questions that continue to surround Wendi Adelson, where every major figure in the case stands as of August 2026, and what happened to the two little boys who were at the centre of the custody battle prosecutors said ultimately led to their father's murder.

Dan Markel was killed in 2014. More than twelve years later, five people have been convicted in connection with his death. But behind the wiretaps, undercover operations, trials and appeals is something much simpler: Two little boys went to preschool one morning expecting their father to pick them up later. He never got the chance.

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Florida State University law professor Dan Markel was 41 years old when he was shot in the garage of his Tallahassee home in July 2014. It quickly became clear that this wasn't a random act of violence. Someone had followed Dan through his morning routine, waited until he returned home, and then disappeared.

But who would want a Canadian-born law professor and devoted father of two dead?

The answer would lead investigators hundreds of miles south to Miami and into the bitter aftermath of Dan's divorce from Wendi Adelson.

In Part One of this two-part deep dive, we look at Dan's life before the headlines, his contentious divorce and custody battle, Wendi's unsuccessful attempt to relocate their two young sons to South Florida, and the increasingly hostile involvement of her family.

Then we follow investigators as they begin piecing together the murder itself: a rented Toyota Prius, surveillance footage, cellphone records, two mysterious trips from South Florida to Tallahassee, and two men who seemingly had absolutely no connection to Dan.

Eventually, investigators uncover a link between suspected gunman Sigfredo Garcia, his former partner Katherine Magbanua, and Wendi's brother, Charlie Adelson.

But having a theory and proving a murder-for-hire conspiracy are two very different things.

Nearly two years after Dan's murder, investigators still hadn't made a single arrest. So the FBI decided to shake things up An undercover agent approached Wendi's mother, Donna Adelson, with a photograph of Dan, a phone number and a demand for money.

The operation became known as the bump. And suddenly...the phones started ringing.

Part Two continues with the first arrest, the insider who finally starts talking, multiple murder trials, Charlie Adelson's extraordinary extortion defence, Donna's attempted flight to Vietnam, and the question that has followed this case for more than a decade: how far did this conspiracy really go?

Sources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dan_markel_murder

​​​​https://www.courttv.com/tag/dan-markel/ 

https://thecjn.ca/news/slain-law-professor-dan-markels-canadian-family-hopes-for-more-time-with-his-kids-after-new-guilty-verdict/ 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/daniel-markel-murder-hit-men-family-donna-adelson-katherine-magbanua-rcna239425

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/florida-matriarch-convicted-daniel-markel-1.7625845

https://www.wctv.tv/2022/04/21/extended-timeline-key-dates-dan-markel-murder-case/

https://abcnews.com/US/police-tracked-caught-suspected-hit-men-murder-fsu/story?id=42064896

https://law.justia.com/cases/florida/first-district-court-of-appeal/2026/1d2024-0004.html

https://people.com/wendi-adelson-today-what-to-know-12021519

https://abcnews.com/US/south-florida-grandmother-center-murder-hire-saga-spanning/story?id=128005003

https://www.wctv.tv/2025/09/03/contentious-or-typical-dan-markels-divorce-under-scrutiny-donna-adelson-trial-continues/

https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnc/date/2025-09-04/segment/02

https://www.wctv.tv/2025/08/29/state-rests-its-case-against-donna-adelson-without-calling-son-charlie-defense-call-witnesses-tuesday/

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In this episode, the True Crimecast team, John and Jamie, sit down with Nikki Young, host of the Serial Napper podcast, to take a deep dive into the disturbing and unsolved disappearance of 22-year-old Liam Tomen.

On the weekend of January 31, 2025, Liam and two friends travelled from Whitby, Ontario, to the resort village of Mont Tremblant, Quebec, for a ski trip. After spending the evening at local village spots—ending at Le P'tit Caribou—Liam got separated from his friends. Surveillance footage captures him walking directly toward his hotel, L'Auberge du Voyageur, just minutes away. He never made it inside.

Despite extensive search efforts using cadaver dogs, snowmobiles, helicopters, and pond drainage, no trace of Liam was found during the winter. Months later, as the snow melted, his wallet was recovered near a parking lot—intact with his ID and bank cards, but stripped of cash. With phone pings raising questions and a white vehicle spotted in the area, Liam’s family continues to fight for answers.

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