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Body Found in Colombia During Search for Missing American Airlines Flight Attendant | Crime House 24/7
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Hi listeners, it's Vanessa Richardson. Real quick, before today's episode, I want to tell you about another show from Crime House that I know you'll love. America's Most Infamous Crimes, hosted by Katie Ring. Each week Katie takes on one of the most notorious criminal cases in American history. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that keep detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous crimes Tuesday through Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Good morning everyone. We have multiple breaking true crime cases this morning that you need to know about and we're starting with the biggest one. A body has been found in Colombia during the search for a missing American Airlines flight attendant from Texas. The young man vanished during a layover in Medellin and never made it to his flight home. This is crime house 24. 7, your non stop source for the biggest crime cases developing right now. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Vanessa Richardson and we have quite a lineup for you today. Here's what you need to know
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on this show. We spend a lot of time focused on details because details can change how you understand a case and in travel, details change how you understand a place. For travel that gets the details right, visit go colette.com podcast and use offer code TRAVEL26 to get $200 off select Colette Explorations tours. Colette's small group explorations tours are designed with that same focus on details. Your led by experts and locals who know the destination inside and out. And groups stay small with an average of just 19 travelers so the experience feels more personal. You might take part in a centuries old tea ceremony in Japan guided by the meaning and tradition behind every step. Or explore southern Africa on expert led safaris that spend multiple days on game drives giving you time to truly understand the landscape and wildlife. With Kalette you get immersive travel built on thoughtful planning, local expertise and and more than a century of experience behind it. For travel that gets the details right, visit go colette.com podcast and use offer code TRAVEL26 to get $200 off select
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Colette Explorations Tours in Medellin, Colombia. A body has been found during the search for a missing American Airlines flight attendant from Texas and while formal identification is still pending as of this recording, his family has confirmed to Dallas Fort Worth station WFAA that is his 32 year old Eric Fernando Gutierrez Molina, a North Texas resident based out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, was last seen in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 22. He'd been in Medellin on a layover and he never made it to his return flight. Let's start from the beginning. On Saturday evening, March 21, Eric arrived in Medellin from Miami for a routine overnight layover. He was scheduled to work a return flight from Medellin back to Miami the following following morning. That night, he went out with at least one of his co workers and visited a local club in the El Poblado nightlife district, a popular area in Medellin with international tourists. At some point during the evening, Gutierrez Molina and a female co worker left that first establishment and went to a second location in the nearby city of Itagui. From there, according to Medellin Security Secretary Manuel Villa, there has been no further information on his whereabouts. Gutierrez Molina's longtime partner, Ernesto Corral Ranza, and best friend Sharom Gil, said the last time they spoke to him was Saturday night, when he told them he was going out with co workers. Meanwhile, the female co worker made it back to her hotel, but according to Gil, she arrived disoriented and could not remember portions of the night. That detail is significant because investigators said they determined that Gutierrez Molina and his co worker had encountered individuals with a history of committing theft using scopolamine, a drug sometimes referred to as devil's breath, which can cause memory loss and leave victims incapacitated and compliant, which is partly why the drug has a history of being used in assaults in the country. Investigators suspect Molina may have been drugged. No motive has been publicly confirmed, but that is the investigative thread authorities were pulling on. Back in Texas, Carranza became worried Sunday morning when he couldn't reach him. He told CBS News that Eric's phone appeared to be pinging to two locations in Medellin that were nowhere near his hotel. Carranza described being shattered by the disappearance. Friends and co workers filed missing persons reports in both Dallas and Medellin. Gutierrez Molina's father, who lives in Texas, traveled to Colombia to assist in the search. The association of Professional Flight Attendants publicly committed to supporting all efforts to locate their missing crew member. For several days, authorities searched. Colombian investigators said they had zeroed in on multiple suspects, though no names were publicly released. Then, on Friday, March 27, Medellin Mayor Frederico Gutierrez announced on social media that a body had been found between the municipalities of Jerico and puente Iglesias, roughly 60 miles southwest of the city. The mayor said it was likely that the body was Gutierrez Molinas Mayor. Gutierrez wrote on X that, quote, there is a very high probability that it is this person. The lifeless body is being transported to Legal Medicine in Medellin for identification. We express our solidarity to his family and friends. I have just personally delivered the painful news to his father who is in Medellin, end quote. He said he's also notified both the U.S. ambassador to Colombia and the Consul General about the case. By Saturday, WFAA in Dallas confirmed that the family had identified the body as Eric's. American Airlines issued a statement saying the airline was, quote, heartbroken by the tragic passing colleague, end quote. And that it was cooperating with Colombian authorities while doing everything it could to support the family. The U.S. state Department said it was closely monitoring the case. The mayor also said Colombian police and prosecutors had, quote, very clear leads on those responsible, end quote. And that extradition could be sought for anyone implicated in Gutierrez Molina's death. This case carries a backdrop worth knowing. The U.S. state Department has a standing travel advisory urging Americans to reconsider travel to Colombia, citing the threat of crime, including kidnapping, terrorism and civil unrest. Medellin's El Poblado neighborhood, where the night began, is known as a hub for international visitors, but authorities have flagged it repeatedly in connection with drug facilitated crimes targeting tourists. As of this recording, the investigation into his death remains active. Formal identification is still being processed by Colombian authorities and his family is now focused on bringing him home. Back here in the States. In Phoenix, Arizona, a mother of seven is dead, shot and killed by her neighbor over a dispute that started with a minor Fender Bender and $100 debt on Monday, March 30th. As of this recording, 21 year old Daniel Rombach Jr. Was scheduled to appear court as he faces charges of second degree murder in the shooting death of his neighbor, 35 year old Danielle Little, who was known to everyone who loved her as DJ. He's currently being held on a $1 million cash only bond. But to understand how a 35 year old mother of seven ended up shot and killed outside her Phoenix apartment, we have to go back to the morning of March 23 and to a $100 debt that never should have cost anyone their life. Sometime In February of 2026, little accidentally backed her car into Rombach's vehicle at their apartment complex near 11th Avenue and Mountain View Road in North Phoenix. According to her younger sister, Haley Byer, there were no scratches, but Rombach told Little she owed him $100 for repairs. Little agreed to pay it, but she didn't have the money right away. So she told him she'd pay him back within two weeks. But on the morning of March 23, the situation came to a head, but not entirely how you might expect. According to law and crime, one of Little's sons accidentally broke a lawn ornament near Rombach's unit that morning. Rombach allegedly heard the boy apologizing and stepped outside. And that's when he confronted Little directly about where the $100 was. Little's husband, Kyle, was standing next to her. Their children were inside the apartment, able to hear everything. What happened next escalated fast. According to Kyle, Rombach produced a handgun from his waistband during the argument. Kyle backed up, knowing his children were behind him. According to a probable cause affidavit, Little looked at Rombach and said, quote, do it. You're bringing out a gun and you're not going to shoot me in front of my kids, end quote. Then, without hesitation, he shot her at point blank range. A neighbor captured the entire encounter on video, according to Little's son, Jaden. She had just told her kids to go inside before she was shot, jaden said, quote, in front of all the kids and everybody, her whole body was bloody, end quote. Little was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead. Court documents state that Rombach told police he did not mean to kill her. After she was shot, Kyle attempted to kick Rombach's door in, but was unsuccessful. Moments later, officers arrived on scene and took back into custody without incident at his apartment. What makes this story especially heartbreaking is the picture of who Danielle Little was. She was a mother of seven children. Her youngest was still in the neonatal intensive care unit at the time of her death. Born prematurely, still fighting, her sister described her as someone who had faced real struggles, including past issues with drugs, but who had gotten clean for her kids. Byer said, quote, she loved her kids to death, end quote. And in a moment that will stay with anyone who hears it, Byer said of Rombach, quote, I hope he rots in hell, end quote. Little's husband described the argument as something that should never have reached the point it did. A verbal disagreement over a hundred dollars, a debt she fully intended to pay, that ended with his wife dead in front of their children. Kyle said, quote, you've got to be a coward to shoot somebody because you're scared to get your butt whooped, end quote. A GoFundMe has been set up for the Little family to help cover funeral costs as they now face the unimaginable task of caring for seven children, including a newborn in the NICU without their mother. From Arizona, we head to Connecticut where a two hour standoff with police ended with a mother and her two young daughters dead and the man accused of killing them turning the gun on himself.
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Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go get ready for a new case.
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We're the greatest partners of all time. New friends Gary the Snake and your last name the Snake Dream Team New Habitats Zootopia has a secret reptile population.
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You can watch the record break. Striking phenomenon at home Zootopia 2 now available on Disney Plus. Rated PG and right now you can get Disney plus and Hulu for just 4.99amonth for three months with a special limited time offer ends March 24th. After three months, Plan Auto renews at 12.99amonth. Terms apply.
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On March 27th, police in Plainville, Connecticut received a 911 call that no dispatcher wants to take. A woman was on the line saying her brother had just called her and confessed that he had shot and killed his girlfriend and their four year old daughter and he planned to take his own life. Officers responded immediately to 36 Milford street and surrounded the house. It was 3:53 in the afternoon. The man inside was identified as 27 year old Patrick King. He was still alive. A negotiator made cell phone contact with him and for nearly two hours police worked to get him to come out peacefully. The Central Region Emerg Response Team, a multi agency SWAT unit made up of officers from surrounding communities, deployed drones to assess the situation while negotiations continued. After those efforts failed, they deployed pepper gas to force entry. At that point, King shot himself in the head. Officers rushed in and attempted life saving measures. He was transported to a hospital where he later died. Inside the home police found three people dead, all from gunshot wounds to the head. Per the Chief Medical Examiner's office. King's girlfriend, 31 year old Felicia Matthews, their 4 year old daughter Ava King and 12 year old Melina Matthews, Felicia's daughter from a previous relationship who was a 6th grade student at the middle School of Plainville. All three had been shot. Before the standoff with police ever began, authorities removed several weapons from the home. The gun used was legally registered to King and he had a permit to carry. Felicia Matthews was a former public safety dispatcher at the Northwest Connecticut Public Safety Communication center, which posted a tribute on Facebook saying she had served with dedication, that her former co workers were mourning her loss alongside her family. Molina's school superintendent released a statement saying counseling support would remain available for students and staff as the school community worked to process the tragedy. By March 30, a memorial had begun growing outside the home on Milford Street. Neighbor Tim Sunderland told FOX61 he was stunned by what had happened. Not knowing much about his neighbors until now, he said, quote, I didn't know there were two little girls, end quote. From what he knew, he described the family as seeming like normal people. The family had only moved into the home in mid January, just 10 weeks before this happened. Police confirmed there had been no prior calls for service at that address. King and Felicia had been together for more than seven years. In August 2025, Felicia had posted on social media about their relationship, writing that they had built a life full of love, growth and second chances, that they had stumbled, rebuilt and still chose each other every time. As of March 30, investigators said there is no known motive. Three lives, including two children, are gone and right now there are no answers as to why. From Connecticut, we head to the nation's highest court where Tiger King star Joe Exotic just got some very bad news about his murder for hire conviction. And finally this morning, the Supreme Court has officially closed the door on Joe Exotic's bid to overturn his conviction for his role in a murder for hire plot. On Monday, March 30, the justices declined without comment to hear the case of Joseph Maldonado Passage, better known as Joe exotic, the 63 year old exotic cat breeder and self styled Tiger King made famous by the 2020 Netflix documentary. The decision leaves his 21 year prison sentence intact and effectively exhausts his legal options. Maldonado Passage was convicted in 2019 of hiring two men to kill Carol Baskin, an animal rights activist and the owner Cat Rescue, who'd been a vocal critic of his exotic animal park in Wynwood, Oklahoma. One of those two men he hired was an undercover FBI agent. He was originally sentenced to 22 years. In 2022, a federal judge reduced that by one year after an appeals court found that the two murder for hire counts had been improperly grouped for sentencing purposes. The Convictions themselves, however, were never overturned. In his petition to the Supreme Court, Maldonado Passage argued that three witness had recanted their trial testimony, including Alan Glover, a zoo employee and one of the alleged hitmen, and James Garrettson, a Florida businessman, and that federal prosecutors had failed to disclose that those witnesses had been promised immunity. The 10th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments in July 2025, and now the Supreme Court has declined to weigh in. When the 10th Circuit denied his appeal last summer, Maldonado Passage posted on X quote, the United States government wants me to die in prison even though they know their witnesses were lying under oath, end quote. He's now been in federal prison for more than six years. He's appealed to President Trump for a pardon, and at this point, that may be one of his only remaining options.
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I'm criminal psychologist Dr. Michelle Ward, and on season nine of Mind of a Monster, we're bringing you the case of serial killer Michael Gargiulo.
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He either charms him because he needs him to do something, or he stalks him because he's gonna kill him.
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The repairman with Hollywood good looks who stalked and attacked his female neighbors in their own homes.
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The jury was shown the photos from her apartment and it was just covered with blood.
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Listen to Mind of a Monster, the Hollywood Ripper, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Lastly, let me tell you about what else is happening at Crime House today. Murder True Crime Stories is marking a significant anniversary. 75 years since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were executed two years later in 1953. The case has never stopped generating debate, and the reason for that has a lot to do with what the government knew, when it knew it, and how long it took for any of that to become public. That's a pattern that runs much deeper than one case. Governments classify information for reasons that are sometimes legitimate and sometimes not. Intelligence sources need protecting. National security is real. But classification also has a way of outlasting its original purpose, of keeping things secret long after the reason for secrecy has expired. And when those files are eventually opened, the picture that emerges doesn't always match the one the public was given at the time. Before you head over to Murder True Crime Stories for the full story, here are five times a government kept a secret for decades. And what changed when it finally couldn't? Number one, COINTELPRO. For most of the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI ran a covert program called COINTELPRO, short for Counterintelligence program. Its stated purpose was to identify and neutralize threats to national security security. In practice, it was used to surveil, infiltrate, discredit and disrupt a wide range of American political organizations, including civil rights groups, anti war movements and individual activists. The program wasn't exposed through a government disclosure. It was exposed in 1971 when a group of activists broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and removed thousands of documents, which they then distributed to journalists. The Bureau had never intended for any of it to become public. What followed was a significant reckoning. Congressional investigations confirmed the scope of the program. It emerged that the FBI had monitored and harassed figures including Martin Luther King, Jr. Going so far as to send him anonymous letters encouraging him to take his own life. Agents had planted informants inside organizations, manufactured conflicts between groups, and worked actively to destroy reputations without legal basis. COINTELPRO formally ended in 1971, but the question it left behind, how much domestic surveillance is too much and who decides? Has never been fully answered. Number two, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Beginning in 1932, the US Public Health Service conducted a study on the long term effects of untreated syphilis in black men in Macon County, Alabama. Participants were told they were receiving treatment for, quote, bad blood. They were not. They were deliberately left untreated so researchers could observe the disease's progression. The study continued for 40 years, even after penicillin became the standard cure for syphilis in the 1940s. Participants were not treated. Some were actively prevented from receiving care elsewhere. The program was not ended by an internal review or a crisis of conscience within the Public Health Service. It ended 1972 after a whistleblower named Peter Buxton leaked the details to a journalist. Public outrage was immediate. A class action lawsuit followed, and the government eventually settled for $10 million. The damage, however, extended far beyond the 399 men who were directly denied treatment. Researchers later documented that the exposure of the Tuskegee study produced lasting distrust of the medical establishment in black communities, distrust that has had measurable effects on healthcare outcomes for decades. The secret didn't just harm the people inside it, it kept harming people long after it was revealed. Number three, Operation Paperclip. At the end of World War II, the United States government recruited more than 1600 German scientists, engineers and technicians, many of whom had direct ties to the Nazi regime and brought them to work in the US Under a classified program known as Operation Paperclip. Program was deliberately kept from the public. Background files on recruits were altered. War crime records were suppressed. The official position was that the scientists were being brought over for their technical Expertise in rocketry, aviation, and weapons development. The unofficial position was that getting to them before the soviets did Was more important than asking too many questions about their histories. Some of the most prominent figures in early American aerospace history Came through operation paperclip. Wernher von Braun, who became one of the architects of NASA's Apollo program, was among them. The full extent of the program was only gradually acknowledged over the following decades, with significant details emerging through declassified documents released in the 1990s. The ethical questions it raised about what governments are willing to set aside in the name of strategic advantage have not been resolved by the passage of time. Number four. The Church Committee and the CIA's assassination plots. In 1975, a Senate Committee chaired by Frank church conducted a sweeping investigation into the intelligence community Following a series of press reports suggesting that u. S. Agencies had been involved in activities far outside their sanctioned mandates. What the committee found was extensive. The CIA had developed or authorized assassination plots targeting foreign leaders, Including Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, and others. Domestic surveillance programs had monitored American citizens without legal authority. Mail had been opened, Phone Calls had been intercepted. Intelligence agencies had in some cases operated as though normal legal constraints simply didn't apply to them. None of this had been disclosed to the American public while it was happening. Much of it had not been disclosed to elected officials either. The church committee led directly to significant reforms, including the creation of permanent congressional oversight committees for intelligence agencies. It also produced one of the more candid government acknowledgments in modern American history that the institutions tasked with protecting democratic society had in some cases, been operating in direct contradiction of democratic principles. The files are still not fully declassified. Number five, the Pentagon Papers. In 1971, Defense Department analyst Daniel ellsberg leaked a classified study commissioned by secretary of defense Robert mcnamara, a study that had been internally known as the history of US Decision making in vietnam. The press called them the Pentagon papers. What the documents revealed was a significant gap between what multiple administrations had told the public about the Vietnam war and what those same administrations knew Internally. Casualty projections had been deliberately understated. The likelihood of achieving stated objectives had been privately assessed as low. The scope of operations had been expanded without public disclosure, Decision makers knew things they weren't saying and said things they knew weren't true. The Nixon administration attempted to block publication, the supreme court ruled against the government, and the papers were published. The political and legal fallout was significant, but the deeper consequence was harder to measure. The Pentagon papers didn't just reveal specific deceptions. They revealed a pattern, a habit, a willingness across multiple administrations and across years to manage public understanding of a war rather than accurately describe it. The gap between what governments say and what governments know is not always dramatic. Sometimes it accumulates quietly, document by document, briefing by briefing, until the distance between the two becomes very hard to explain. There's a version of engaging with all this that turns into a kind of permanent suspicion where every official statement becomes a cover story and every conclusion becomes a starting point for a counter theory. That approach feels rigorous, but it isn't. It's just skepticism without a standard of evidence. And it tends to lead people away from the truth just as reliably as taking everything at face value. The more useful thing these cases teach is something more specific. Governments, like all large institutions, have incentives to protect themselves. They classify what embarrasses them. They delay what inconveniences them. They sometimes frame what they release in ways that that minimize damage. None of that is a revelation. It's a structural reality. And it's worth keeping in mind when assessing what the official record says and what it leaves out. The difference between healthy skepticism and corrosive cynicism is usually evidence. Healthy skepticism asks what do we actually know, what is documented and what has been verified. Cynicism skips that and moves straight to the conclusion. One of those approaches occasionally uncovers what governments would prefer to stay hidden. The other mostly just generates noise. The Rosenberg case sits right at that intersection 75 years later. Declassified intelligence has changed what we know, but not necessarily in the direction people expected. The documented record is more complicated than either side of the original debate was willing to admit. That's exactly the kind of complexity worth sitting with. For the full story behind the Rosenberg conviction and what the last 75 years have revealed, head over to our Crime House feed for the latest episode of Murder True Crime Stories. You've been listening to crime house 247 bringing you breaking crime news. I'm Vanessa Richardson. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more developing stories. Stay safe and thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Not sure what to listen to next? Check out America's Most Infamous Crimes, hosted by Katie Ring. From serial killers to unsolved mysteries and game changing investigations, each week Katie takes on a notorious criminal case in American history. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes now. Wherever you listen to podcasts.