Earlier this week, you heard the facts about Susan Smith. You heard about the burgundy Mazda rolling into John D. Long Lake. You heard about Michael and Alex. But this episode goes deeper into the details that didn't make the nightly news.We start with Susan's father Harry, who shot himself in the driveway when Susan was six years old, just hours after telling her he loved her. We examine the arrival of stepfather Beverly Russell, a pillar of the community, a Christian Coalition leader, and a predator who began sexually abusing Susan when she was fifteen and continued until just weeks before the murders.

We reveal that Susan's mother Linda knew about the abuse and chose to stay with Beverly anyway.We uncover Susan's suicide attempt at eighteen, when she reported the abuse to hospital staff and was sent back into the same home with almost no follow-up care. We trace her troubled marriage to David Smith, the affairs on both sides, and the pressure cooker of her relationship with Tom Findlay, the wealthy man's son who told her explicitly that her children were the obstacle to their future together.

We break down the night of October twenty fifth, including the desperate phone calls Susan made searching for Tom, and the fact that she had visited that same boat ramp the night before. We examine the six minutes the car floated while Susan stood on the shore. We expose the lie about the traffic light at Monarch Mills, a sensor-activated light that couldn't have been red without another car present to trigger it.

We explore the nine days of deception, Susan's bizarre behavior at parties, her continued calls to Tom Findlay, and the question she asked a reporter that revealed everything: "Did I come across as believable?"

We cover Beverly Russell's extraordinary courtroom testimony admitting to years of abuse, and the jury's controversial decision to spare Susan's life.This is the full story. The uncomfortable truths. The redacted details that help explain, though never excuse, how a mother could do the unthinkable.

On the night of October 25, 1994, Susan Smith stood on a boat ramp at John D. Long Lake in Union, South Carolina, and made a choice that would horrify the nation. She released the emergency brake on her burgundy Mazda Protégé and watched it roll into the dark water with her two sons still strapped in their car seats.

Three-year-old Michael and fourteen-month-old Alex drowned in that lake while their mother ran to a nearby house and told a lie that would captivate America for nine days. Susan claimed a Black man had carjacked her at gunpoint and driven away with her children. She wept on national television, clutched her estranged husband David's hand, and begged for the safe return of her boys. 

The whole country searched for a phantom kidnapper while Michael and Alex lay dead at the bottom of that lake, one hundred and twenty-two feet from shore.In this episode, we trace Susan Smith's troubled life from the beginning. Her father Harry Vaughan killed himself when she was just six years old, leaving wounds that never healed. Her stepfather Beverly Russell, a prominent Republican and Christian Coalition member, began molesting her when she was fifteen and continued a sexual relationship with her into adulthood. Susan attempted suicide at thirteen and again at seventeen.

She married David Smith at nineteen, already pregnant, and their marriage was plagued by mutual infidelity from the start.When Susan set her sights on Tom Findlay, the wealthy son of her boss at Conso Products, she believed he was her ticket to a better life.

But Tom sent her a Dear John letter just eight days before the murders, telling her that while she had many good qualities, he did not want children. In Susan's fractured mind, her boys became obstacles to the happiness she craved.

We examine the investigation that unraveled Susan's lies, from the traffic light that could not have turned red at an empty intersection to the polygraph that showed the highest level of deception when she was asked if she knew where her children were. We cover Sheriff Howard Wells obtaining her confession at a local church, the recovery of the boys' bodies with one small hand pressed against the car window, and the trial that exposed every dark corner of Susan's life. The jury convicted her in just two and a half hours but ultimately spared her from the death penalty. 

She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after thirty years. Her time behind bars has been marked by affairs with prison guards, drug use, and self-mutilation. In November 2024, she faced her first parole hearing, where David Smith appeared wearing his sons' photograph and pleaded with the board to keep her locked up. They unanimously denied her release.

This is the story of Michael and Alex, two innocent boys who deserved so much better than the fate their mother chose for them. And it is a story that still haunts America more than thirty years later.

On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh vanished from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida. Two weeks later, fishermen discovered his severed head in a drainage canal near Vero Beach. His body was never found. This case would transform America's approach to missing children forever, but the question of who actually killed Adam Walsh remains deeply contested to this day. In this episode of The Redacted Report, we go beyond the official narrative to explore the details that rarely make it into documentaries and news specials. 

We examine the seventeen-year-old security guard whose fateful decision to remove rowdy kids from the store left Adam alone and vulnerable in an unfamiliar parking lot. We dig into the explosive allegations that emerged during the Sears lawsuit, including claims made under oath by Adam's godfather Jimmy Campbell about a four-year affair with Revé Walsh and the family's alleged drug use.

 We trace the bizarre confession carousel of convicted serial killer Ottis Toole, who admitted to the murder dozens of times only to recant repeatedly, and whose partner Henry Lee Lucas was proven to be in a Maryland jail cell on the day of the abduction. We also investigate the controversial Jeffrey Dahmer theory championed by journalist Arthur Jay Harris and witnesses Willis Morgan and Bill Bowen, who independently identified Dahmer as the suspicious man they saw at the Hollywood Mall that day.

 Dahmer was living in Miami Beach at the time, working at Sunshine Subs just twenty minutes from where Adam disappeared, and had access to a blue van matching witness descriptions. Former FBI agent Neil Purtell, who interviewed Dahmer in prison, believes the serial killer's cryptic statement that "anyone who killed Adam Walsh could not live in any prison, ever" was essentially a coded admission of guilt. We examine the catastrophic failures of the Hollywood Police Department, including the lost bloodstained carpet from Toole's Cadillac, the missing machete, and the destroyed vehicle that might have provided the DNA evidence needed for a conviction.

We question the controversial Luminol photograph that retired detective Joe Matthews compared to the Shroud of Turin, which critics dismiss as forensic pareidolia. And we explore how Police Chief Chad Wagner's 2008 decision to close the case through "exceptional clearance" satisfied the Walsh family but left many investigators and witnesses unconvinced.

Through it all, we trace Adam's extraordinary legacy, from the Missing Children Act of 1982 to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to America's Most Wanted to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. John Walsh transformed unimaginable grief into systemic change that has protected millions of children and led to the capture of over twelve hundred fugitives.

This is the Adam Walsh case as you've never heard it before. The official story says Ottis Toole was the killer. The evidence says something far more complicated.

On July 27, 1981, six-year-old Adam Walsh vanished from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Florida, and America was never the same. This episode of The Guilty Files Podcast examines one of the most infamous child abduction cases in American history, tracing every devastating detail from that summer afternoon at the Hollywood Mall to the sixteen-year investigation that would ultimately point to drifter and serial killer Ottis Toole.

We explore the catastrophic failures in evidence handling that allowed a prime suspect to escape justice for decades, the heartbreaking discovery along the Florida Turnpike that confirmed every parent's worst nightmare, and the unprecedented transformation of a grieving father into America's most relentless victims' rights advocate.

John Walsh channeled unimaginable loss into a crusade that created America's Most Wanted, helped establish the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and fundamentally changed how law enforcement responds to missing children cases across the United States.

This true crime deep dive covers the investigation, the confessions, the controversies, and the lasting legacy of legislation born from tragedy, including the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act and the nationwide AMBER Alert system. From cold case breakthroughs to the modern fight against child predators, Adam's story remains a defining moment in American criminal justice history. Contains detailed discussion of child abduction, homicide investigation, and serial killer psychology.

In this episode, we go beyond the sanitized headlines and Netflix documentaries to examine the Ted Bundy case you were never supposed to know about, including the suppressed files, the buried reports, and the institutional failures that allowed one of America's most prolific serial killers to operate for years longer than he ever should have.

We begin with Bundy's troubled origins at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers, his violent grandfather Samuel Cowell, his grandmother's severe mental illness and electroconvulsive treatments, the family secret that made him believe his mother was his sister, and the chilling incident where three-year-old Ted placed butcher knives around his sleeping aunt's body while smiling.

We examine the haunting case of eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who vanished from her Tacoma home in 1961 when Bundy was just fourteen years old and lived less than two miles away with a paper route through her neighborhood, and we discuss why the 2011 request to compare Bundy's DNA to evidence from that case was denied because his biological samples had been destroyed.

We explore Bundy's work at the Seattle Crisis Clinic from 1971 to 1974, where he sat beside future true crime author Ann Rule taking calls from suicidal individuals while perfecting the manipulation techniques he would later use to lure women to their deaths, and we reveal his own admission that he learned how to sound caring even when he wasn't.

We dive deep into the mathematics of murder and why the official victim count of thirty to thirty-six is almost certainly a fraction of the real total, with some investigators estimating the true number could exceed one hundred, and we examine the lost years between 1969 and 1973 when Bundy traveled extensively and left virtually no documented trail while young women matching his victim profile disappeared along the East Coast.

We expose the systematic failures that allowed Bundy to keep killing, including Elizabeth Kloepfer's five separate reports to law enforcement that were ignored because detectives dismissed her as a hysterical woman, the nine months it took Utah authorities to arrest him after Carol DaRonch escaped his car with a handcuff still attached to her wrist, and the cross-jurisdictional catastrophe where police departments in four states refused to share information with each other. We reveal the truth behind both escapes, including the suspected accomplice inside the Aspen courthouse whose personnel file conveniently disappeared, the 1976 jail inspection report that identified the exact security weakness Bundy exploited in Glenwood Springs, and the fifteen-hour head start he received because holiday weekend staffing cuts reduced cell checks from hourly to every other hour.

We uncover Bundy's carefully buried political career as a rising star in the Republican Party, his work on the Rockefeller presidential campaign, his security clearance to serve as a driver and bodyguard for Governor Daniel Evans, and how the party quietly scrubbed his employment records from their archives after his arrest.

We examine what the jury never heard about the Chi Omega massacre, including how the bite mark evidence almost didn't exist because the attending physician failed to photograph the marks before they faded, the discrepancy in Nita Neary's eyewitness account that the defense never challenged, and the troubling theory that Kimberly Leach wasn't an aberration but a return to Bundy's true preference for younger victims. We analyze the death row interviews and the information Bundy provided about dump sites and victims that was never followed up by law enforcement, his manipulation of the Green River Killer investigation for his own benefit, and how his final interview with James Dobson blaming pornography contradicted everything he'd told forensic psychiatrists for years.

We discuss the mystery of Carole Ann Boone's pregnancy on death row and the evidence that guards were bribed to allow physical contact during visits, the discredited science of bite mark analysis that formed the foundation of his Chi Omega conviction, and why the destruction of Bundy's DNA samples has prevented closure for families across the country whose daughters disappeared during the years he was active.

We close with the questions that remain unanswered, the dump sites that were never searched due to budget cuts and political pressure, the hitchhiker victims along Interstate Five that were never officially linked to him, and the uncomfortable truth that many of the same institutional failures that allowed Bundy to kill for years still exist in our law enforcement system today.This episode contains discussions of violence, sexual assault, and crimes against children that some listeners may find disturbing.

In this episode, we take an unflinching look at one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. Theodore Robert Bundy murdered at least thirty women across seven states during the 1970s, and his case forever changed how we understand the nature of predatory violence.

This is the complete story of Ted Bundy, from his troubled beginnings to his final moments in Florida's electric chair. We open on a summer afternoon at Lake Sammamish State Park in Washington State, where a handsome young man with his arm in a sling approached woman after woman, asking for help with his sailboat. Two of those women would never be seen alive again, and their disappearances would mark a turning point in one of the largest manhunts in Pacific Northwest history.

The story begins in 1946 at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont, where a young woman named Louise Cowell gave birth to a son she could not publicly claim as her own. We explore the elaborate family deception that followed, with Ted being raised to believe his grandparents were his parents and his mother was merely his older sister. We examine the household dynamics in Philadelphia, including accounts of his grandfather Samuel Cowell's violent temper, and we follow the family's cross-country relocation to Tacoma, Washington, where Louise would eventually marry a hospital cook named Johnnie Bundy.

From there, we trace Ted's development through childhood and adolescence. We look at his struggles to connect with peers, his early fascination with violence and true crime, his nighttime prowling through neighborhoods, and the petty thefts that taught him he could take what he wanted without consequence. We follow him to the University of Washington, where he reinvented himself as a charming political operative and met the wealthy young woman whose rejection would send him spiraling into darkness. The heart of this episode chronicles Ted Bundy's years of murder. Beginning with the attack on Karen Sparks in January 1974 and the disappearance of Lynda Ann Healy just weeks later, we document the wave of terror that swept through the Pacific Northwest as young women vanished from college campuses and public spaces. 

We cover each known victim, the circumstances of their disappearances, and the desperate efforts of investigators who were working without the benefit of modern forensic tools or computerized databases. We examine the critical turning point at Lake Sammamish, where multiple witnesses saw the same man approaching women and where a composite sketch finally gave investigators something to work with. We reveal how Ted Bundy's own girlfriend reported her suspicions to police and how his name was lost in a pile of thousands of tips.The narrative follows Bundy to Utah, where he enrolled in law school and immediately began hunting again. 

We cover the murders of Nancy Wilcox, Melissa Smith, Laura Aime, and Debra Kent. We give particular attention to the attack on Carol DaRonch, the young woman who fought back and escaped, providing investigators with their first surviving witness who could identify her attacker. We then trace the crimes into Colorado and Idaho, documenting the murders of Caryn Campbell, Julie Cunningham, Denise Oliverson, Lynette Culver, and Susan Curtis. We explore how investigators across multiple states were slowly beginning to connect the dots, recognizing patterns that suggested a single killer was responsible for disappearances spanning thousands of miles. 

The capture of Ted Bundy receives detailed attention, beginning with the routine traffic stop by Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Bob Hayward that revealed a car full of disturbing items. 

We cover Bundy's conviction for the kidnapping of Carol DaRonch and his extradition to Colorado to face murder charges.Two full chapters are devoted to Ted Bundy's escapes from custody. The first escape came when he leaped from a second-story window of the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen, leading authorities on a six-day manhunt through the Colorado mountains. The second escape was even more audacious, with Bundy sawing through the ceiling of his cell and walking out the front door of the Garfield County Jail on the night of December 30th, 1977. We follow Bundy to Florida, where he committed his most violent attacks. The Chi Omega sorority house massacre is covered in detail, documenting how Bundy killed two young women and severely injured three others in a span of minutes. 

We also cover his final victim, twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach, who was abducted from her junior high school in Lake City just weeks later.The legal proceedings receive thorough examination. We cover the groundbreaking Miami trial, one of the first to be televised nationally, where Bundy represented himself and was ultimately convicted based on eyewitness testimony and forensic bite mark evidence. We also cover the subsequent trial for the murder of Kimberly Leach and the failed insanity defense.

The episode concludes with Bundy's nine years on death row, his eventual confessions to investigators, and his execution on January 24th, 1989. We examine his final interview with Dr. James Dobson, in which he blamed his crimes on pornography, and we consider the complicated legacy he left behind.

Throughout this episode, we keep the focus where it belongs, on the victims. We name every known victim and honor their memory, reminding listeners that behind the sensational headlines were real women whose lives were cut short by a predator who exploited their trust and kindness.

The Ted Bundy case fundamentally changed American law enforcement. It contributed to the creation of the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and helped establish the modern science of criminal profiling. But perhaps its most important legacy is the warning it provides.

Evil does not always announce itself. Sometimes it comes with a warm smile and a request for help. Trust your instincts. If something feels wrong, it probably is.

On September 20, 1988, nineteen-year-old Terra Leigh Calico set out on her morning bike ride along Highway 47 in Valencia County, New Mexico. She never came home. In the nearly 37 years since her disappearance, this case has become one of America's most haunting unsolved mysteries, defined by a chilling Polaroid photograph discovered in a Florida parking lot and decades of whispered accusations that have never led to justice. But the story most people know is only part of the truth. 

In this episode of The Redacted Report, we pull back the curtain on the facts that never made it into the official narrative. We examine evidence that was lost, destroyed, or never properly collected, including a suitcase containing telephone wire found during a drug investigation at a nearby motel and later destroyed by a detective.

We explore persistent rumors of a pink bicycle and underwear with Terra's initials that were allegedly found but never logged as evidence, and we reveal the shocking truth about the Walkman and cassette tape pieces that were analyzed and determined not to belong to Terra at all. This episode takes a hard look at witnesses who were overlooked or ignored, including a pivotal eyewitness who reported seeing a group of four or five young men and one woman waiting in Terra's path on the morning she vanished. That witness is now dead, their full account lost to time. 

We also examine the story of a man named Ishmael who came forward, was placed under hypnosis, identified a suspect from a photo lineup, and then was abandoned by the detective who was supposed to follow up with him. We explore the chilling connection to David Parker Ray, the Toy Box Killer, who was born in Belen and whose family had a ranch near where Terra disappeared. Ray closely resembled the composite sketch of the man seen following Terra, but FBI investigators ruled him out based on his meticulous record-keeping, which contained no mention of Terra Calico. With Ray eliminated as a suspect, investigators turned their attention to local young men who allegedly knew Terra and had been harassing her for months before she vanished.

The episode delves deep into the mysteries surrounding the Polaroid photographs, including the famous Port Saint Joe image and two additional photographs found in California and on an Amtrak train. We examine the phone number written on the spine of the V.C. Andrews novel in the photograph, which yielded 300 possible combinations and 57 valid phone numbers, none of which produced any leads. We discuss the beach sighting of a young woman matching the photograph being given verbal orders by several men, and we address Marilyn Manson's claim that he used to drop similar staged photographs in Florida as pranks. We reveal the threatening notes that were left on Terra's car for months before her disappearance, notes that were dismissed as high school antics and have since disappeared from the evidence record. 

We examine the case of Debra Lansdell, a 29-year-old woman from nearby Peralta who vanished on September 21, 1985, almost exactly three years before Terra and nearly to the exact day.The episode covers the breakthrough that came in October 2020 when the Rocky Mountain Information Network completed a two-year analysis of the case and recommended pursuing loose ends that had never been fully explored. We discuss the sealed search warrant executed in September 2021 and the June 2023 announcement that law enforcement believes there is sufficient evidence to submit the case to the District Attorney's Office for potential charges. We examine the statute of limitations problems that complicate prosecution and the ongoing search efforts, including the September 2025 mine shaft investigation that employed fly traps designed to attract insects that feed on human remains.

This is a story about more than just one missing woman. It is a story about systemic failures, about evidence that was mishandled or destroyed, about witnesses who were ignored, about a community that may have known the truth for decades and chosen to remain silent. It is a story about families who waited their entire lives for answers and died without ever receiving them.The FBI reward of $20,000 remains in place. Anyone with information about this case is encouraged to contact the Valencia County Sheriff's Office at 505-866-2400 or submit tips online at tips.fbi.gov.

After 37 years, the truth is still out there. Someone knows what happened on Highway 47 that September morning. This episode is a call to finally break the silence.

On 09/20/1988, 19-year-old Tara Leigh Calico left her home in Belen, New Mexico, for her daily bike ride along Highway 47. She never returned. Nearly four decades later, her disappearance remains one of the most haunting and controversial missing persons cases in American history.

This episode of The Guilty Files traces Tara’s life from her childhood and active years at Belen High School to her studies in psychology at the University of New Mexico–Valencia Campus. We examine the morning she vanished, including her final conversation with her mother and witness reports of a light-colored 1953 Ford pickup truck following closely behind her pink Huffy bicycle.

We explore  the infamous Polaroid photograph found 9 months later in Port St. Joe, Florida, showing a bound young woman and a boy in the back of a white cargo van. Conflicting expert analyses—from Scotland Yard, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the FBI—only deepened the mystery. We examine long-standing local theories, allegations of a cover-up involving prominent families, and former Sheriff Rene Rivera’s 2008 claim that Tara was accidentally struck and killed by local teenagers. We also explore a disturbing deathbed confession alleging Tara’s body was hidden by the son of the sheriff in office at the time.

The episode honors the tireless efforts of Tara’s parents, who died without answers, and highlights the work of investigators and advocates who continue to push for the truth. It concludes with the 06/2023 announcement by Valencia County authorities that the case has been submitted for prosecutorial review. As of 2025, no charges have been filed, and the identities of those believed responsible remain sealed.

On April 20th, 1999, two seniors walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and committed what was then the deadliest school shooting in American history. Thirteen innocent people lost their lives that day, and the images of terrified students fleeing with their hands raised became seared into America's collective memory. The mainstream narrative has been told countless times, dissected in documentaries, and dramatized in films.

But that narrative, the one carefully curated and presented to the public for over twenty five years, is incomplete. In some cases, it's outright false.In this episode of The Redacted Report, we pull back the curtain on one of the most scrutinized yet poorly understood tragedies in modern American history.

This isn't speculation or conspiracy theory. This is documented fact drawn from official reports released years after the shooting, from lawsuits that forced the disclosure of buried evidence, from investigative journalists who spent years digging through the wreckage of a botched investigation, and from the families of victims who refused to accept the official story.We begin more than a year before the shooting, when a mother in Littleton discovered a website that chilled her to the bone. 

Eric Harris wasn't just posting the typical angst of a disaffected teenager. He was posting detailed bomb-making instructions, writing about his desire to kill, and making specific death threats against named individuals. When that mother and her husband went to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office with printouts and documentation, a deputy took the complaint seriously enough to draft a search warrant for the Harris residence. Had that warrant been executed, investigators would have found pipe bombs and detailed journals planning a massacre. But the warrant was never executed. It was drafted, reviewed, and then it disappeared into the bureaucratic void.

For years after the shooting, officials denied it ever existed. They were lying. We examine the catastrophic failures of law enforcement on the day of the shooting, focusing on the tragic death of teacher Dave Sanders. Shot at approximately 11:26 in the morning, Sanders was dragged into a science classroom where students put a sign in the window reading "1 bleeding to death" and called 911. They were told help was coming. But SWAT teams didn't reach that classroom until approximately 3:00 in the afternoon.

For three and a half hours, a wounded man lay bleeding while hundreds of law enforcement officers stood outside the building following protocols designed for situations completely unlike what they were facing. Sanders died from wounds that might have been survivable with prompt medical attention. We delve into the infamous basement tapes, the recordings Harris and Klebold made in the weeks before the shooting that were viewed by select officials but hidden from the public for over a decade before being destroyed in 2011. 

Those tapes reportedly contained statements about who knew about the killers' plans, where they obtained their weapons, and admissions that would have raised serious questions about whether others should have faced charges. Whatever was on those recordings is gone forever, destroyed by officials who claimed they were acting on mental health advice but who had already demonstrated a pattern of concealing their own failures. We dismantle the myths that the media created in the aftermath of the tragedy. 

The Trench Coat Mafia narrative that led to a nationwide crackdown on goth fashion and industrial music. The bullying explanation that provided a comforting but largely inaccurate cause for the violence. The story of Cassie Bernall, the alleged Christian martyr who said yes when asked if she believed in God, a powerful story that became a rallying cry for evangelical Christians but that the evidence suggests probably didn't happen the way it was told.

These myths served various agendas, but they were largely wrong, and they prevented a more accurate understanding of what actually occurred.We explore the fact that the shooting was supposed to be the sideshow. Harris and Klebold built ninety nine improvised explosive devices, including two twenty pound propane bombs placed in the cafeteria and timed to detonate during the busiest lunch period. If those bombs had worked, the death toll wouldn't have been thirteen. It would have been in the hundreds.

The massacre we remember was their backup plan, what they did when their primary plan failed. This level of premeditation demolishes the narrative of bullied kids who snapped and raises serious questions about how two teenagers could build a small arsenal without anyone noticing.We document the systematic cover up that followed the shooting. The draft search warrant that officials claimed didn't exist until it was discovered years later. The files that were sealed. The deputies who were instructed not to discuss their prior investigations. The sheriff who called grieving parents liars when they tried to tell the truth. The district attorney who never convened a grand jury. The evidence that was destroyed. The officials who retired with their pensions intact while no one was ever held accountable.

We examine the controversial question of Eric Harris's psychiatric medication and what role, if any, it may have played in his violence. We explore what this case reveals about the limitations of mental health treatment and the ability of skilled manipulators to fool therapists, counselors, and parents alike. And we consider the legacy of Columbine more than twenty five years later. The lessons that were learned and the lessons that weren't. The reforms that were implemented and the reforms that should have been.

The patterns of institutional failure and cover up that we've seen repeated in tragedy after tragedy since that April morning in 1999. Thirteen people died at Columbine High School. 

They were Cassie Bernall, Steven Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthew Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, Kyle Velasquez, and Dave Sanders. They deserved better from the people who were supposed to protect them.

They deserved the truth. And they deserved to be remembered not as symbols or martyrs or victims of a myth, but as real people whose lives were cut short by violence that might have been prevented.This is The Redacted Report. The truth is out there, even when they don't want you to find it.

April 20, 1999 changed everything we thought we understood about safety, about schools, and about the capacity for violence within our own communities. In this episode of The Guilty Files, we take a comprehensive and unflinching look at the Columbine High School massacre, cutting through decades of misinformation to separate fact from myth in one of the most misunderstood crimes in American history. Nearly everything the public believes about Columbine has been shaped by early media errors, cultural panic, and narratives that simply do not hold up under scrutiny. The so-called Trenchcoat Mafia was never a factor. 

The idea that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold targeted jocks or Christians has been largely debunked. The widely circulated story that Cassie Bernall affirmed her faith moments before her death did not occur as it was later told. And perhaps most critically, Columbine was never intended to be a traditional school shooting. It was designed as a mass bombing meant to collapse the cafeteria and kill hundreds, potentially surpassing the Oklahoma City bombing as the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

The shooting was a contingency plan, carried out only after the bombs failed to detonate.This episode traces the full arc of the crime from beginning to end. We examine the backgrounds of both perpetrators not to glorify them or grant the infamy they sought, but to understand the warning signs that were missed and the systems that failed. Eric Harris, a military child who moved frequently before settling in Littleton, Colorado, maintained a website filled with threats and bomb-making instructions that were known to authorities and never acted upon.

Dylan Klebold, a gifted local student, struggled with severe depression and suicidal ideation that was documented in private journals but went unrecognized until after the attack. We follow the eleven months of planning that led up to April 20, including the alarming ease with which two teenagers obtained four firearms and constructed ninety-nine explosive devices. We examine the gun show loophole that allowed an eighteen-year-old honors student to purchase weapons for her underage friends, along with the illegal sale of a TEC-DC9 handgun by a twenty-two-year-old seeking quick money.

At the center of the episode is a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the day itself, built from the official Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office timeline, witness testimony, surveillance footage, and forensic evidence. From Eric Harris purchasing propane tanks at a Texaco station that morning to the forty-nine minutes of violence that left fourteen people dead and twenty-four wounded, we document exactly what happened and when.

But this episode does what too much coverage of mass violence fails to do. It centers the victims. Rachel Scott, whose writings on compassion inspired the global movement Rachel’s Challenge. Daniel Rohrbough, a fifteen-year-old freshman who never had a chance to escape.  

Dave Sanders, the beloved teacher and coach who saved more than a hundred students before being shot and left to bleed to death for over four hours while help failed to reach him. Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Fleming, Daniel Mauser, and Corey DePooter. Each had a future, a family, and a life that mattered. 

We also honor Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was paralyzed during the attack and whose death in February 2025 was ruled a homicide by the Jefferson County Coroner, bringing the final death toll to fourteen. We examine the catastrophic failures in the law enforcement response, including the contain-and-wait protocol that kept officers outside the school for more than an hour after the attack began. 

Dave Sanders was alive for hours, tended to by students as a sign in the window read “One bleeding to death.” Police snipers saw it. Dispatch communicated with people in the room. Help still did not arrive in time. His daughter later won a $1.5 million settlement against Jefferson County, and his death helped fundamentally change how police across the country respond to active shooter situations.The episode also dismantles the myths that emerged in the immediate aftermath. 

The Trenchcoat Mafia narrative. The revenge fantasy. The blame placed on video games and musicians. The Cassie Bernall martyrdom story. We explain what the FBI’s psychological analysis actually concluded about Harris and Klebold and why the truth, while less sensational than the myths, matters far more.Finally, we examine the lasting impact of Columbine more than twenty-six years later. The lawsuits and settlements. The evolution of school security. The gun control debates that surged and faded. Sue Klebold’s memoir and her advocacy for mental health awareness.

And the phenomenon researchers now call “The Columbine Effect,” with more than seventy subsequent attacks directly inspired by or linked to what happened that day. This is not an easy episode. It is long, detailed, and emotionally heavy.

 But it is also an episode that refuses to give the perpetrators the notoriety they sought. Instead, it remembers the dead, honors the survivors who turned trauma into purpose, and acknowledges a community that stood together under the words  “We Are Columbine.”If you take anything from this episode, let it be the names of the fourteen people who should have been allowed to grow old. Say their names. Remember their stories. That is how we push back against the darkness.Content warning: This episode contains detailed discussions of violence, death, and suicide. Listener discretion is advised.