True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

The Richard Allen appeal has moved into its final procedural stretch. The defense filed its reply brief at the end of April. The motion for oral arguments was filed alongside it. The case is now fully briefed. Three judges at the Indiana Court of Appeals are reading the record. A decision is coming.

This is what is actually on the table.

The defense's reply brief identifies a van timeline contradicted by FBI cell data and surveillance footage. It identifies a confession in which Allen told his prison psychiatrist he shot Abby Williams and Libby German — when the medical examiner concluded the girls were killed with a blade. It identifies an alternative suspect whose interview was allegedly recorded over by Indiana investigators, whose weapon was never collected, whose phone was never searched. Indiana's response brief leans on waiver, harmless error, and procedural default rather than rebutting any of it.

The reply brief also walks through the 13 months Allen spent in solitary confinement at Westville — under an Indiana Department of Correction policy that caps such confinement at 30 days for inmates with serious mental illness. He lost 45 pounds. He stopped knowing whether he was alive. He asked his father how much longer he was going to be lucid. Then he confessed. The State's theory now is religious conversion.

Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski for a three-part panel on all of it — the procedural-versus-factual collision, the solitary confinement collision, and the strategic oral-arguments collision now sitting in front of three judges with the power to ask any question.

Three judges. No more paper. Everything new in the Delphi appeal, in one place.

LINKS:

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER:


This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.


HASHTAGS:

#RichardAllen #DelphiMurders #DelphiAppeal #IndianaCourtOfAppeals #AbbyAndLibby #BobMotta #TrueCrimeToday #BridgeGuy #SolitaryConfinement #TrueCrime

Federal agents boarded eight cruise ships in San Diego between April 23rd and 27th. According to CBP, 27 crew members were allegedly involved in exploitation material. Ten came from the Disney Magic — the single largest group from any ship, 37 percent of the entire operation. Disney’s official response called it “a very small number.” A passenger on the Disney Magic watched her family’s head server get walked off in handcuffs less than an hour after breakfast. She filmed the arrests. She could not find out where he was taken. For two weeks, the operation was publicly misidentified as an immigration sweep. Advocacy groups held a press conference defending the detained workers without knowing the actual nature of the allegations. When CBP and HSI confirmed the truth on May 7th, the scope became clear — and Disney’s language became impossible to defend. On the same day those arrests took place, Disney announced a port deal doubling their San Diego sailings and projecting over a million passengers through the same terminal. KPBS confirmed zero charges were filed in two federal districts. All 27 deported within approximately two weeks. No trial. No registry. No public record. Tony Brueski breaks down the math, the silence, and the corporate language designed to make parents look the other way. This is Cruising with Predators from Hidden Killers. A five-part series on the industry-wide pattern starts next week.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#DisneyMagic #CruiseShipSafety #CruisingWithPredators #SanDiego #OperationTidalWave #HiddenKillers #CBP #CruiseIndustry #TrueCrime #ChildSafety

Kouri Richins has been sentenced to Life Without Parole after a Utah jury found her guilty of murdering her husband, Eric Richins, by poisoning him with fentanyl. She faces consecutive sentences for the other four charges.

The sentencing marks a major conclusion in a case that captivated true crime audiences across the country. Prosecutors argued Richins killed Eric for insurance money and financial gain, while the defense claimed his death was the result of accidental drug use. After hearing the evidence, the jury rejected that argument and convicted Richins on all major counts, including aggravated murder and attempted murder.

In this episode, we break down the sentence, what the judge said in court, how the verdict led to this moment, and what may come next for Kouri Richins as the case moves into the post-conviction phase.

True Crime Today covers the cases that matter with courtroom context, legal analysis, and clear breakdowns of the biggest developments in true crime.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. Kouri Richins has been convicted and sentenced in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsSentencing #TrueCrimeToday #EricRichins #UtahCourt #TrueCrimeNews #CourtTV #TrialWatch #BreakingCrime #FentanylMurder

Description: The trial is over. The conviction is on paper. And yet, inside that courtroom at sentencing, Kouri Richins' defense team argued as if the fight was nowhere close to finished.

Defense attorney Wendy Lewis opened by addressing what the court couldn't ignore — the absence of remorse. Her answer was direct: Richins can't express remorse for something she maintains she didn't do. Lewis also told the judge this was the first time in her career that she'd watched a client she genuinely believed to be innocent walk out of a courtroom convicted. Whether that lands as heartfelt conviction or strategic positioning, it was a moment that stopped the room.

The defense's sharpest shots were aimed at the prosecution's sentencing memorandum. Lewis and Nester called it a "character assassination" — an attempt to define Richins through information that was never tested at trial. Lewis pushed back hard: sentence her on the convictions, not on a narrative the state built outside of evidence. "They do not know Kouri Richins," she said. Attorney Nester echoed that, asking the judge to look at who Richins actually is — not the monster portrayed by both the prosecution and the victim's family.

The defense made a pointed statistical argument against life without parole. Of the 72 people serving that sentence in Utah, only five killed a spouse. Lewis argued the maximum penalty is reserved for serial killers and child murderers, not this case, and that the state's trial evidence never reached the threshold required to justify it.

Richins' mother wrote a letter, read aloud in court, calling her daughter incapable of murder and asking — from one mother to anyone listening — for a sentence that includes the possibility of parole.

Attorney Nester confirmed the defense intends to appeal. So no, this isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#KouriRichins #Sentencing #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #UtahCrime #FentanylMurder #CourtTV #TrueCrimeCommunity #CriminalJustice #JusticeForEric

Richard Allen's appeal is fully briefed. The reply brief landed at the end of April. The motion for oral arguments was filed behind it. The State of Indiana has not joined that motion. Three judges at the Indiana Court of Appeals are now reading the full record with no further paper coming.

This is the procedural posture that determines whether the Delphi conviction survives. Not a press conference. Not a public statement. Three judges, the written record, and a decision waiting to be made.

The defense is asking to be in the room. The State would clearly rather the panel decide on paper alone. That is the first signal. The second is the de novo review on the search warrant — the one issue in the appeal where the appellate panel owes no deference to Judge Fran Gull, and where a ruling against the State would erase the .40-caliber pistol from this case and any retrial forever.

Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski for Part Three of a three-part panel on the Delphi appeal. They walk through the strategic geometry of a fully briefed case. They examine what it means that Richard Allen is sitting in an Oklahoma prison for safekeeping while three judges in Indianapolis read the record that put him there. They sit with the forced choice in front of the panel — rule narrowly and let the State retry the case with all of its evidence intact, or rule broadly on the warrant and take the State's strongest piece of physical evidence off the board forever.

Three judges. No more paper. A decision waiting to happen. This is the room where Delphi gets decided.

LINKS:

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER:


This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.


HASHTAGS:

#RichardAllen #DelphiMurders #DelphiAppeal #IndianaCourtOfAppeals #BobMotta #TrueCrimeToday #OralArguments #AbbyAndLibby #SearchWarrant #TrueCrime

The conviction told us what happened. The victim impact statements told us who was lost.

Kouri Richins has been sentenced to [INSERT SENTENCE] after a jury found her guilty of murdering her husband Eric with a fatal dose of fentanyl in March 2022 — a crime prosecutors argued was driven by debt, insurance money, and cold calculation. That part of the case is done.

What happened in that sentencing courtroom is something else entirely. Eric's family stood before the judge and said out loud what no verdict can capture — who Eric was, what his absence looks like every single day, and what it means to watch the person you believe killed him finally face a consequence.

This isn't about Kouri Richins anymore. It's about Eric. It always should have been.

Hidden Killers has complete coverage, including the victim impact statements. No noise, no filler — just the facts and the people behind them.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/
Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/
Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod
X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. Kouri Richins has been convicted and sentenced in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsSentencing #EricRichins #UtahTrial #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FentanylPoisoning #MurderTrial #TrueCrimeCommunity #Justice

The 2001 and 2002 trials in the yogurt shop murders case are a case study in how criminal prosecution can produce convictions without physical evidence. Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott were convicted of capital murder based solely on confessions that both men maintained were coerced. No DNA, fingerprints, or forensic evidence of any kind connected either man to the crime scene. The prosecution’s strategy relied on graphic crime scene imagery to overwhelm jurors alongside the confessions.

Critical constitutional violations compounded the problem. Each man’s confession was used against the other without cross-examination rights, violating the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. The confessions contradicted each other on key details. Seven jurors later stated publicly they would not have convicted with the DNA evidence that emerged afterward. Springsteen, who was 17 at the time of the crime, received a death sentence later commuted under Roper v. Simmons. Scott, who had documented learning disabilities, received life.

Part 3 of this series provides an in-depth examination of false confession psychology, interrogation methodology, and the structural mechanisms by which the criminal justice system produced death penalty convictions in the absence of corroborating evidence. A critical installment for understanding how wrongful convictions are built.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#YogurtShopMurders #TrueCrimeToday #FalseConfession #DeathRow #WrongfulConviction #SixthAmendment #CriminalJustice #InterrogationReform #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime

She was supposed to be neutral. Instead, she told jurors not to be fooled by the defense, coached them to scrutinize the defendant’s body language, and wanted a guilty verdict to sell her book. The South Carolina Supreme Court has unanimously reversed Alex Murdaugh’s convictions for killing his wife Maggie and son Paul, finding that former Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill’s interference denied him a fair trial.

The court’s language is extraordinary. They called Hill’s conduct “breathtaking and disgraceful” and “unprecedented in South Carolina.” They found she was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity” and prioritized personal attention over her duty to the court. Testimony from her own colleague revealed Hill repeatedly discussed her plan to write a book and said a guilty verdict was the best path to selling it. Hill’s December 2025 guilty plea to perjury — for lying under oath about showing sealed exhibits to the press — further undermined her credibility.

The five justices found that former Chief Justice Jean Toal made critical legal errors when she denied Murdaugh’s new trial motion. Toal required the defense to prove prejudice instead of requiring the State to disprove it. She asked jurors whether the comments changed their minds, violating evidence rules that protect deliberation privacy. The Supreme Court formally adopted a federal framework that shifts the burden squarely onto the prosecution once improper outside contact is established.

The opinion also restricts what the State can present at retrial. The first trial featured over twelve hours of financial crimes testimony the court found excessive and unfairly inflammatory. Any second trial must be leaner. AG Alan Wilson says the State will retry. Murdaugh remains imprisoned on financial convictions while the murder case starts fresh.

LINKS

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

HASHTAGS

#AlexMurdaugh #TrueCrimeToday #BeckyHill #MurdaughRetrial #JuryTampering #SCSupremeCourt #TrueCrime #MurdaughTrial #SouthCarolina #Justice

Gene Spriggs built the Twelve Tribes into a movement spanning four continents, approximately forty communities, and at least thirty-three Yellow Deli locations. He reportedly controlled what his followers ate, wore, read, and believed. He assigned marriages and forbade divorce. His teachings on race have been documented by the SPLC as white supremacist.

And then his wife allegedly broke the one rule the community considered unforgivable.

In this episode, Tony Brueski traces Spriggs’ arc from carnival worker to cult founder to the scandal that should have ended the Twelve Tribes — and the death that should have ended it again. Marsha Spriggs’ alleged affairs with young male disciples were reportedly covered up by Gene and privately forgiven in a closed meeting. When the truth surfaced, hundreds of members left. But the system survived.

Spriggs died in January 2021 at eighty-three. He left no successor. The communities did not fracture. The businesses did not close. The Child Training Manual he wrote — 267 pages of instructions for disciplining children, authored by a man who never raised one inside the community — reportedly remained in circulation.

The Twelve Tribes did not survive because of Gene Spriggs. It survived because the system he built allegedly made itself bigger than any one person — including him. And that is the most unsettling legacy a cult leader can leave behind.

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.

#GeneSpriggs #12Tribes #TwelveTribes #YellowDeli #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #CultLeader #HiddenKillers #CultExposed #TonyBrueski

Indiana has a theory for why Richard Allen confessed to the Delphi murders while sitting in solitary confinement at Westville. According to the State's appellate brief, Richard Allen found religion in his cell. He had a spiritual awakening. He decided to come clean.

What the defense has documented is something else entirely. A man who lost 45 pounds in solitary. A man who tore up his legal mail. A man who ate his Bible. A man who drank from the toilet. A man who asked his own father, on a recorded phone call, how much longer he was going to be lucid. A man whose Major Depressive Disorder was documented before he ever entered Westville — and whose decline was so visible that the defense team described him as psychotic and gravely disabled.

The Indiana Department of Correction's own written policy says inmates with serious mental illness cannot be kept in solitary for more than 30 days. Allen was kept there for 13 months.

Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Tony Brueski for Part Two of a three-part panel on the Richard Allen appeal. They put the State's religious-conversion narrative next to the contemporaneous medical and behavioral record. They walk through what an appellate panel actually does when a confession is extracted from a man in that condition. They examine the institutional knowledge the State had before placing Allen in solitary, the policy the State broke by holding him there, and the confession the State is now trying to protect.

Three judges at the Court of Appeals are reading both stories. Only one of them is going to survive review.

LINKS:

Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/

Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/

Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod

X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePod

DISCLAIMER:


This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.


HASHTAGS:

#RichardAllen #DelphiMurders #DelphiAppeal #ReligiousConversion #BobMotta #TrueCrimeToday #AbbyAndLibby #SolitaryConfinement #CoercedConfession #TrueCrime