UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast

Some of the biggest questions in true crime lead to some unexpected answers. In this Friday edition of UNMARKED, producer Jon Nadeau joins me to dig into your questions. 

How did the FBI finally close in on Ted Kaczynski? What was Sam Little’s chilling process—and could he have gotten away with his crimes in today’s digital world? Plus, Buddy responds to an unexpected accusation: that he’s actually an AI personality.

How does a serial killer murder women across America for more than four decades, repeatedly encounter law enforcement, and keep getting away with it?

Samuel Little confessed to 93 murders, making him the most prolific serial killer in American history according to the FBI. But how many women did he actually kill? And how did he remain virtually undetected for so long?

In this episode of UNMARKED, investigative journalist and author Jillian Lauren, who spent years interviewing Little and helped uncover the staggering scope of his crimes, reveals what she learned from getting inside the mind of one of America's most notorious serial killers.

I'm also joined by journalist and former prosecutor Beth Karas, who has investigated Little's crimes and interviewed survivors, witnesses, and people who knew him.

Together, we trace Samuel Little's life, his childhood, his violent fantasies, and a killing spree that stretches across America from the 1970s until his arrest in 2012.

This is more than the story of a serial killer. It's an investigation into the failures of law enforcement, the victims dismissed as the "less dead," and the circumstances that allowed one man to become potentially the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Research in This Episode: 
MacCulloch MJ, Snowden PR, Wood PJ, Mills HE. Sadistic fantasy, sadistic behaviour and offending. Br J Psychiatry. 1983 Jul;143:20-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.143.1.20. PMID: 6882989.

Kim, A., Beauregard, E., & Chopin, J. (2023). “Strangulation in sexual homicide: Is it opportunity, victim’s vulnerability or sadism?” Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 94, 102488. DOI: 10.1016/j.jflm.2023.102488.
Marono, A. J., Reid, S., Yaksic, E., & Keatley, D. A. (2020). A behaviour sequence analysis of serial killers’ lives: From childhood abuse to methods of murder. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 27(1), 126–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2019.1695517

Show Notes: 

If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself. 

Read it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7

If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/

For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes.

Join here:
https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast

UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom. 
#SamuelLittle #SerialKiller #TrueCrime #documentary #podcast

Who are the victims in the suspected Philadelphia serial killer case? And how many people could be connected to R.C. Horsch?

In this week's investigation, I'm turning my attention to the potential victims of R.C. Horsch, the man at the centre of the Philadelphia investigation following the discovery of human remains at a house in Olney in June 2026.

Last week, I explained why I suspect this story may have begun decades before the discoveries in Olney. Now I'm trying to answer an even more disturbing question: who were the victims, and could there be others whose deaths or disappearances have never been connected to this case?

My reporting is taking me back through the history of Kensington Avenue, Philadelphia's sex-work trade, and the lives of vulnerable women who may have crossed paths with Horsch.

Every Monday, I'm bringing you inside my ongoing investigation of the Philadelphia serial killer case—sharing what I've discovered, what has changed, and what I'm still trying to figure out.

#PhiladelphiaSerialKiller #RCHorsch #Philadelphia #Kensington #TrueCrime 

What did Netflix get wrong about Ted Kaczynski and the Unabomber investigation?

Retired FBI Special Agent James Fitzgerald returns to fact-check Netflix’s new Unabomber movie—and he has serious problems with the way the story is told.

Fitzgerald worked the real UNABOM investigation and helped develop the linguistic analysis that connected Ted Kaczynski’s writing to the Unabomber manifesto. We break down the biggest inaccuracies, omissions and fictionalised moments in Netflix’s Unabomber, including how the film portrays the FBI investigation, Kaczynski’s psychology, the Harvard experiments, the MKUltra theory, and the evidence that actually helped identify him.

What did Netflix change for drama? What important details were left out? And how different is the real Ted Kaczynski story from the version audiences are seeing now?

#TedKaczynski #Unabomber #Netflix #FBI #TrueCrime #documentary

An execution that was supposed to end in death has taken a shocking turn in Tennessee, where Christa Pike survived two rounds of lethal injections. Now awake in hospital, Pike is facing a long recovery as her lawyers demand answers about what went wrong—and a judge has ordered officials to preserve evidence that could shed light on the botched execution.

In this Friday edition of UNMARKED, producer Jon Nadeau joins me to break down the Christa Pike execution this week and what happens next.

Then we get into your questions:  What shaped Ted Kaczynski into the Unabomber?, The role gender plays in psychopathy and Buddy’s experience at the Charles Manson funeral. 

How does a teenage math genius become the Unabomber?

For nearly two decades, Ted Kaczynski carried out a bombing campaign across the United States, killing three people and injuring more than twenty others. Then he demanded that newspapers publish a 35,000-word manifesto explaining why.

In this episode of UNMARKED, I speak with retired FBI Special Agent James Fitzgerald, the criminal profiler and forensic linguist who worked the UNABOM investigation and helped connect Kaczynski’s writing to the man behind the bombs.

We go back through his childhood as an extraordinarily gifted and isolated kid, Harvard, the controversial psychological experiments conducted by Henry Murray, the persistent claims about MKUltra, his brief career as a mathematics professor at Berkeley, his retreat to a remote cabin in Montana, and the rejection and resentment that appear again and again throughout his life.

Was Ted Kaczynski simply a brilliant man driven insane by modern society? Did the Harvard experiments really help create the Unabomber? Or has the mythology surrounding Kaczynski obscured a much more complicated story?

Research in This Episode:

Francis, R., Hawes, D. J., & Abbott, M. (2016). “Intellectual Giftedness and Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Literature Review.” Exceptional Children, 82(3), 279–302. DOI: 10.1177/0014402915598779.

Downey, G., & Feldman, S. I. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(6), 1327–1343. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1327

Show Notes:

If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself. 

Read it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7

If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/

For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes.

Join here:
https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast

UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom. 

Is the suspected Philadelphia serial killer case much older than investigators realise?

This week, I’m digging deeper into the life of R.C. Horsch—and I believe the timeline may be one of the most important parts of this story. While much of the attention has focused on the house in Olney where human remains were discovered in June 2026, my reporting is taking me back decades earlier.

I’ve been speaking with people who knew Horsch and examining a roughly 35-year period in his life. Horsch presented disturbing artwork from the perspective of a serial killer as fiction. But with authorities now investigating his possible connection to multiple deaths, it raises an unsettling question: was it simply art, or could some of it have reflected something real?

The trail leads to Kensington Avenue in North Philadelphia, where Horsch became a fixture in a neighbourhood with a large population of vulnerable women, including sex workers. I’m now examining incidents, arrests and other evidence from this period to understand whether the story that emerged from the Olney house in 2026 may actually have begun decades earlier.

Every Monday, I’ll bring you inside my investigation: what I’ve found, what has changed, what we can establish—and what I’m still trying to figure out.

#PhiladelphiaSerialKiller #RCHorsch #Philadelphia #Kensington #TrueCrime #Unmarked

What does a forensic psychologist actually do—and what can psychology really tell us about serial killers?

This week on Case Notes, I sit down with Dr. Eric Hickey, one of America’s leading experts on serial murder, violent offenders, and forensic psychology. Dr. Hickey has spent decades studying some of the most notorious offenders in modern history. We’ve previously featured his work in our episodes on Jeffrey Dahmer and Clifford Olson, and we’re currently preparing another conversation examining Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer.

Rather than beginning with a killer, I wanted to understand the discipline itself: What does a forensic psychologist actually do? How do they study violent offenders? What can they determine—and where are the limits of psychology when we try to explain extreme violence? Dr. Hickey also discusses the development of modern serial-killer research, what decades of studying offenders have taught him, and some of the misconceptions that still surround forensic psychology today.

Check out Dr. Hickey’s podcast Dark Matters which explores the science behind violent crime and how to prevent it. 

#ForensicPsychology #SerialKillers #TrueCrime #whattowatch #CriminalPsychology

The case that left a Massachusetts community stunned is taking another unexpected turn as Lindsay Clancy returns to court following a mistrial in the deaths of her three children. Her defence is now challenging the evidence against her as prosecutors weigh whether to try the case again. 

In this Friday edition of UNMARKED, producer Jon Nadeau joins me to break down the Lindsey Clancy hearing this week and what happens next could reshape the case all over again.

Then we get into your questions:  How did Leonard Lake and Charles Ng form such a unique bond?, Did Russell William's wife know anything about his crimes? And a question about Buddy’s conversations with Charles Manson. 

What happens when two psychopaths find each other—and realize they share the same violent fantasies?

This episode is part of Psychopath², a series of UNMARKED episodes examining what happens when serial killers work together. 

For this episode of UNMARKED, I went through Charles Ng’s prison letters, court records, investigative files, and contemporary reporting to understand the relationship between Ng and Leonard Lake.

Lake had spent years documenting increasingly sadistic fantasies he called Operation Miranda. Ng brought his own history of violence, grievance, theft, weapons, and grandiose fantasy. When the two men came together, those private obsessions became something operational. This episode traces both men from childhood through the military, survivalist circles, the Wilseyville property, the murders, the M-Ladies tapes, and finally Ng’s capture in Calgary.

Research in This Episode: 

de Ruiter, C., Burghart, M., De Silva, R., Griesbeck Garcia, S., Mian, U., Walshe, E., & Zouharova, V. (2022). A meta-analysis of childhood maltreatment in relation to psychopathic traits. PLOS ONE, 17(8), e0272704. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272704.

Show Notes:

If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself. 

Read it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7

If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/

For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes.

Join here:
https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast

UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom.