While the House Sleeps

Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks...

You've probably heard the rhyme. But how much do you actually know about the woman behind it?

On August 4, 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally murdered inside their Fall River, Massachusetts home. Their daughter, Lizzie, would become the center of one of the most sensational murder investigations in American history.

There was no shortage of suspicion. A complicated family dynamic, conflicting statements, a shocking crime scene, and questions that investigators struggled to answer. And then there was Lizzie herself. Was she a calculated killer who managed to escape justice? Or was she a woman condemned in the court of public opinion long before a jury ever heard her case?

In this deep dive, we're going far beyond the nursery rhyme. We're exploring the Borden family, the tensions inside their home, the events leading up to that August morning, the investigation, the evidence, and the trial that captivated a nation.

And more than 130 years later, we're still asking the same question.

Did Lizzie Borden get away with murder?

Grab your coffee, settle in, and let's get into it.

I'm Terri, and this is While the House Sleeps.

🎧 Follow While the House Sleeps for more immersive true crime deep dives, unsolved mysteries, and our Case in 20 series.

🖤 If you enjoyed this episode, leaving a rating or review is one of the best ways to help this little podcast grow.

Let's talk: Do you think Lizzie was guilty, or do you believe someone else was responsible?

Content warning: This episode discusses graphic violence and homicide.

Welcome to spooky season, night shift crew! 🎃

Before The Amityville Horror became one of the most famous haunted-house stories in America, something very real - and far more horrifying - happened inside 112 Ocean Avenue.

On November 13, 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were found murdered in their beds. The only surviving member of the immediate family, 23-year-old Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr., would eventually confess to killing his parents and four siblings.

But that should've been the end of the story.

Instead, a little over a year later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house with their children... and stayed for just 28 days.

What they claimed happened during those 28 days would inspire a bestselling book, a massive horror franchise, and decades of arguments over what actually happened inside the Amityville house.

In this spooky season bonus episode of While the House Sleeps, we're going back to where the Amityville story actually begins: the DeFeo family murders.

We're talking about the night of the murders, Butch DeFeo's changing stories, the strange details that still fuel speculation, the Lutz family's claims, and the controversy surrounding the haunting that made 112 Ocean Avenue infamous.

Because before Amityville became a horror story...

it was a crime scene.

🎙️ While the House Sleeps
Hosted by Terri Nation

Content warning: This episode discusses the murders of adults and children, family violence, and other disturbing subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.

A man walks into a bar. Security cameras capture him on his night out. But when the bar closes, he's nowhere to be found.

Nearly two decades later, nobody knows what happened to him.

On April 1, 2006, 27-year-old Ohio State medical student Brian Shaffer disappeared after a night out in Columbus, Ohio. Despite an extensive investigation, countless theories, and years of speculation... his disappearance remains unsolved.

For the very first episode of Case in 20, we're digging in to one of the most baffling missing-person cases I've ever come across. We'll walk through Brian's final known movements, the surveillance footage that made this case famous, the investigation, and the questions that still don't have answers.

Because the more you look into Brian's disappearance, the more complicated this case becomes.

Welcome to Case in 20, a new series from While the House Sleeps, where we explore cases that deserve your attention in shorter, 20-minute (or less) episodes.

I'm Terri, and I'm so glad you're here.

If you enjoy the episode, follow While the House Sleeps, leave a rating, and share it with a fellow true crime lover. Every listen helps this little podcast grow.

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls walked into an Austin, Texas yogurt shop.

They would never walk back out.

Hours later, firefighters responding to a blaze inside the I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt! shop discovered a crime scene that would haunt Austin for decades. Amy Ayers, Jennifer Harbison, Sarah Harbison, and Eliza Thomas had been murdered.

What followed was a case filled with questionable confessions, convictions that wouldn’t hold, DNA that complicated everything, and one devastating question that still remains more than three decades later:

Who killed the Austin Yogurt Shop Four?

In this deep dive, we’re going back to the beginning—walking through the girls’ final hours, the crime scene, the investigation, the suspects and confessions, the trials, the DNA evidence, and the theories surrounding one of Texas’ most haunting unsolved cases.

Four girls.
One night.
Thirty-five years of unanswered questions.

This is the Yogurt Shop Murders.

While the House Sleeps is a true-crime podcast examining the cases that stay with you long after the house goes quiet.

Content warning: This episode discusses the murders of minors, sexual assault, and graphic violence.

🎧 Headphones on. Lights low. Let’s get into it.

On January 24, 2006, 24-year-old Jennifer Kesse was supposed to show up for work in Orlando, Florida. She never arrived.

Two days later, Jennifer’s car was found abandoned just over a mile from her condo. Surveillance footage captured an unidentified person parking the car and walking away-but in a nearly unbelievable stroke of bad luck, fence posts obscured the person’s face as the camera captured each image.

In this episode of While the House Sleeps, we’re going deep into Jennifer’s disappearance: who she was before she became the center of a missing-person case, her final known hours, the strange circumstances surrounding her condo complex, the surveillance footage, the mysterious worker known as “Chino,” the major theories, and the Kesse family’s decades-long fight for answers.

We’ll separate what we know, what investigators believe, and what remains theory- because twenty years later, there are still details in Jennifer’s case that just don’t sit right.

Jennifer Kesse remains missing, and her case remains an active investigation. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

While the house sleeps… let’s get into it.