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Eric Richins knew something was wrong. In the fall of 2020, he discovered that his wife had been draining his finances — taking out unauthorized credit lines, accumulating debt in his name, and running a house-flipping business that was hemorrhaging money behind his back. He consulted a divorce attorney. He met with an estate planner. He created a trust to protect his three sons. And he did all of it in silence, because the man she married no longer trusted her with his family’s future. In part one of our definitive series on the Kouri Richins case, we reveal the financial architecture that led to murder — a prenuptial agreement that made death more profitable than divorce, $7.5 million in collapsing debt, and a woman whose ambition outpaced her ability by a factor that a forensic accountant described as “imploding.” Kouri Richins wasn’t just unhappy in her marriage. She was trapped in a financial disaster of her own making with exactly one way out. This is the foundation of a five-part story that will redefine how you understand this case.

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Everything the prosecution plans to present against David Anthony Burke — laid out in a nine-page filing made public over the defense's objection.

The People's Brief describes what prosecutors call a premeditated cover-up: staged texts to a dead girl's phone, purchases under the fake name "Victoria Mendez," three trips to a disposal site, and forensic evidence tying an inflatable pool to Celeste Rivas Hernandez's remains.

It describes years of alleged exploitation — a child met at eleven, a sexual relationship at thirteen, international travel at fourteen, and a thousand dollars paid to a classmate to maintain contact after Celeste's parents took her phone.

And it reveals a defense in retreat. Blair Berk demanded a fast hearing. The discovery started arriving — wiretap results, forty terabytes, fifty-four search warrants. The defense asked for a delay. They tried to seal the brief. Both requests denied.

Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer joins Tony Brueski for a three-part breakdown of the prosecution's blueprint, the grooming timeline, and what the defense reversal tells us heading into the May 26 preliminary hearing.

All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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There’s a reason this story never goes away. Every few years, a new accuser surfaces, a new lawsuit is filed, a new settlement is paid — and the conversation resets to the same two positions: he did it, or they’re lying. Neither position accounts for the full evidence. Both positions protect someone’s bottom line. And the rest of us are left trying to figure out how to feel about a catalog of music that’s woven into the fabric of our lives.

This is True Crime Today, and I’m starting a five-part deep dive into the accusations against Michael Jackson. Every case. Every accuser. Every settlement. Every reversal. Every piece of evidence that’s been verified and every claim that’s been debunked. The biopic just opened to record-breaking numbers. A family that defended Jackson for decades just accused him of assaulting all of their children. A major civil trial is on the calendar. The timing has never been more relevant.

What makes this series different is the editorial approach. I’m not telling you what to believe. I’m presenting what’s been proven, what’s been disproven, and what remains genuinely unresolved — and trusting you to decide for yourself. Because you deserve to hear this case the way a jury would: with all the evidence, not just the version that makes someone money.

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Confidence at the arraignment. Caution less than two weeks later. David Anthony Burke's defense team demanded a fast preliminary hearing — then asked for a delay after the discovery started arriving.

Blair Berk told the court at the arraignment that the prosecution's case couldn't withstand scrutiny and pushed for a hearing within ten days. But when the files started landing — including wiretap results, testimony from three grand juries, and roughly forty terabytes of digital evidence — defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski asked Judge Charlaine Olmedo to push the hearing to May 26.

The defense also tried to get the prosecution's nine-page evidence brief sealed from the public. Berk called it "entirely one-sided" and warned it would taint the jury pool. The judge denied the request.

Beth Silverman told the court she'd warned the defense that this volume of evidence was coming. She'd already told witnesses to cancel planned vacations for the original hearing date.

Jennifer Coffindaffer breaks down what changed behind the scenes, what the wiretap tells us about the investigation's reach, and what to watch for at the May 26 hearing.

Part 3 of 3.

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Bryan Kohberger admitted he killed four University of Idaho students. He's serving four consecutive life sentences. He gave up his right to appeal. And yet somehow, the fight over what happened in this case is more intense now than it was before the plea.

At the center of it: Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist the defense team hired and now wishes would disappear. Turvey was retained to analyze the crime scene. He reportedly found what he describes as serious chain of custody failures with the Ka-Bar knife sheath — the prosecution's most critical piece of physical evidence — and says those failures would have been enough to challenge the admissibility of Kohberger's DNA at trial. He says he brought these concerns to lead attorney Anne Taylor before the plea. He says no one acted on them.

The defense team's response came in the form of their first public statement since sentencing — not about the evidence, but about Turvey. They called his conduct appalling. They accused him of violating his confidentiality agreement. They said he's speaking on topics outside his expertise. Turvey responded by calling the statement deflection and challenging Taylor to name a single specific violation.

This conflict exploded alongside the release of "Broken Plea," a book by former FBI agent Christopher Whitcomb that draws on thousands of pages of undisclosed case files. The book raises additional questions — about untested hair found at the scene that was reportedly excluded as Kohberger's by the FBI lab, about competing expert conclusions on the number of perpetrators, and about a crime scene timeline that doesn't hold together the way the prosecution described it.

For the families of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, this was supposed to be finished. Instead, the very people who were supposed to fight for the defense are now fighting each other — publicly, bitterly, and with no end in sight. The case may be closed. The questions are wide open.

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Carl Stevens was an appliance salesman in rural Maine who said God gave him a vision at a pond. From that single claim, he built Greater Grace World Outreach — a network of churches, schools, and missions that spread across more than seventy countries, operated its own Bible college, and ran a daily radio program.

For decades, it flew under the radar. Then a group of former members started comparing notes. That led to a Baltimore Banner investigation, a public outcry, and eventually a 172-page independent report that called for the church's top leaders to be removed and described an authoritarian culture designed to keep people powerless.

But the investigation findings only make sense once you understand what daily life inside Greater Grace actually looks like — and that's what this episode is about.

Elita Galvin was raised inside the organization from infancy at the original Maine location where Stevens founded it. She now hosts the Looking for Grace podcast and has become one of the leading investigators of this group's history. Oscar — using a pseudonym because even twenty years after leaving, the religious trauma is still present — walked into Greater Grace as a fully functioning adult and watched his own autonomy dissolve.

They describe the tactics. Love bombing on the front end. A redefined vocabulary that makes it harder to name what's wrong. A schedule packed so full of church obligations that you're too exhausted to think. And a system where questioning a leader isn't seen as courage — it's treated as sin. Their stories are different entry points into the same trap, and together they paint a picture of an organization built to capture and hold people.

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The People's Brief filed against David Anthony Burke this week doesn't just describe an alleged murder. It describes what prosecutors call years of calculated exploitation of a child.

According to the filing, Burke met Celeste Rivas Hernandez when she was eleven years old. By thirteen, prosecutors allege they were in a sexual relationship. By fourteen, she was allegedly spending summers at his Hollywood Hills home and traveling with him internationally — while people around Burke reportedly had no idea she was underage.

The brief details how Burke was contacted by law enforcement after Celeste was reported missing, how deputies told him she was thirteen during a welfare check, and how he allegedly responded by paying a classmate a thousand dollars to deliver a phone so he could maintain contact after her parents stepped in.

Prosecutors are building the murder motive directly on this foundation — alleging Burke killed Celeste because she was the witness to his own crimes and threatened to expose the relationship that could end his career.

Jennifer Coffindaffer breaks down what the exploitation pattern reveals and how investigators connect it to the night Celeste allegedly died.

Part 2 of 3.

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The defense tried to seal it. The judge said no. Now the People's Brief against David Anthony Burke is public — and what Deputy DA Beth Silverman laid out in nine pages is the most detailed look we've gotten at the prosecution's case.

Prosecutors allege Burke texted Celeste Rivas Hernandez's phone after she was allegedly already dead — to build a cover story. They describe a specific timeline of purchases — a shovel, chainsaws, a body bag, and an inflatable pool — allegedly made under the fake name "Victoria Mendez." They detail three separate trips to a remote area in Santa Barbara County where Celeste's passport was later found. And they reveal that blue plastic fragments embedded in her remains were reportedly matched to the pool Burke allegedly bought.

This is the first time the prosecution has shown its hand in public. And what it reveals about how they're building premeditation changes the conversation.

Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer joins us to break down what this filing means, what the fake name tells investigators, and what fifty-four search warrants reveal about the reach of this probe.

Part 1 of 3.

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The Indiana Attorney General filed its response to Richard Allen's appeal on March 25, 2026 — a ninety-four-page brief arguing that Allen's conviction for the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German should stand. Allen was convicted in November 2024 and sentenced to 130 years. His appellate attorneys raised three constitutional issues: an unconstitutional search warrant built on alleged omissions and altered witness statements, confessions they contend were extracted under coercive conditions during more than thirteen months of pretrial solitary confinement, and the systematic exclusion of defense evidence at trial.

The AG's brief responds with a consistent framework. On the search warrant, the State argues that the probable cause affidavit establishes sufficient basis for the search even if challenged statements are excluded. On the confessions, the State argues that conditions of confinement did not constitute coercion and that Allen confessed both before and after his documented period of psychosis — offering a religious conversion as an alternative explanation. On excluded evidence, the State characterizes the alternative suspect theories as speculative and argues that the trial court properly exercised discretion in keeping them from the jury.

Defense attorney Bob Motta identifies what the AG's brief does not address. Allen's confession to his prison psychiatrist described killing the victims by shooting. The victims were not shot — they were killed with a blade. The AG's response does not reconcile this discrepancy. Additionally, the defense obtained surveillance footage and FBI cell phone data suggesting the van placed by prosecutors near the Monon High Bridge arrived after Libby German's phone had stopped moving. The AG's response addresses this not on the merits of the data but on procedural grounds — arguing the defense did not properly preserve the issue.

The evidentiary record underlying the conviction contains no DNA linking Allen to the crime scene, no recovered murder weapon, and no direct eyewitness identification placing him with the victims. The confessions constitute the primary evidence. The defense argues those confessions were the product of unconstitutional detention and contain factual errors that undermine their reliability.

Allen's appellate attorneys have filed their reply brief and requested oral arguments before the Court of Appeals. No timeline for a decision has been established. The case is before a three-judge panel.

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The Institute in Basic Life Principles distributed fifty-four Wisdom Booklets as the core curriculum of its Advanced Training Institute homeschool program. Thousands of families enrolled. The Duggar family was among the most prominent. The booklets were taught to children as young as five and covered subjects from science to history to health — all filtered through a doctrinal framework authored by Bill Gothard, who was later accused of sexual harassment by more than thirty women and removed from the organization in 2014.

Wisdom Booklet 36, as documented by the watchdog organization Recovering Grace and confirmed by former students, taught that a woman who does not cry out during an attack shares guilt with her attacker. Booklet 15 included material on "eye traps" in women's clothing, framing female bodies as spiritual hazards responsible for provoking male behavior. Earlier booklets taught that adopted children inherited sin from their biological parents, that mental illness was not a medical condition but a spiritual failure, and that rock music was more addictive than crack cocaine. Official IBLP publications also attributed difficult childbirth to Cabbage Patch dolls.

IBLP's medical arm — the Medical Training Institute of America — issued health guidance to families without a single licensed physician on staff. Its publications, called Basic Care Bulletins, prioritized spiritual instruction over medical science and effectively replaced professional healthcare with obedience doctrine.

The cumulative effect of this curriculum, when examined as a system rather than as individual teachings, reveals an architecture designed to eliminate external authority and internalize blame. If mental illness is spiritual failure, professional treatment is unnecessary. If a girl's body is a spiritual hazard, she bears responsibility for the behavior of others. If a victim's silence implies consent, reporting becomes self-incrimination. Each teaching removed an avenue of recourse. Each teaching pointed inward.

Gothard authored the curriculum, led the organization for decades, and operated within a system that structurally discouraged the women and girls inside it from reporting misconduct or seeking outside help. The Duggar family promoted this system to a national audience. The children raised inside it received this material as their primary education — and the framework it installed shaped how they understood their bodies, their rights, and their responsibility when harm occurred.

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