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Hidden Killers Live! Daily True Crime News & Breakdowns
Hosted by Hidden Killers Podcast · EN
Hidden Killers Live! is your daily true crime podcast delivering two hours of nonstop coverage every weekday. Hosted by Tony Brueski & Robin Dreeke this show dives into the most compelling stories in the true crime world — from murder trials and cold cases to criminal psychology, investigations, and the dark motives behind real-life crimes.
Each episode brings a mix of breaking crime news, courtroom analysis, and raw conversation that takes you beyond the headlines. Whether it’s exploring how investigators crack cases, uncovering the psychology of killers, or following the twists of ongoing trials, you’ll get sharp, unfiltered insight every time.
Unlike recap shows, Hidden Killers Live! is true crime talk in real time — asking the tough questions, cutting through the noise, and giving listeners the context they need to understand today’s biggest cases.
If you crave smart, binge-worthy true crime content with expert commentary, emotional depth, and daily updates that keep you ahead of the story, this is the podcast for you.
Follow now on Apple Podcasts and join Tony Brueski & Robin Dreeke inside Hidden Killers Live! — where the truth is always in the details.
296episodes
Episodes
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The Crash: What Should Mackenzie Shirilla Be Doing Right Now to Get Out?
4d ago00:15:48Tap to summarizeMackenzie Shirilla's legal options are essentially gone. The conviction stands. The appeals are exhausted. The post-conviction petition was denied. She's serving fifteen years to life and won't see a parole board until 2037. So the question shifts from "can she win legally" to "what does she do now" — and criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the answer to that question matters more than most people realize.The Netflix documentary put her back in the public eye, and the result was mixed at best. She came across as remorseful on camera, but a fellow inmate immediately undercut that image. Her pre-crash social media — the TikTok persona, the image obsession — is still circulating and being used to characterize her. The families remain publicly active and opposed to any leniency. And her consistent claim of memory loss, whether true or not, gives a parole board nothing to work with.Parole boards don't just look at the crime. They look at what you've done since. Accountability. Growth. Rehabilitation. Evidence that you understand the impact of what happened. "I don't remember" doesn't check any of those boxes — even if it's the truth.Bob Motta has advised clients on post-conviction strategy throughout his career. He examines what Mackenzie should be doing inside prison right now — the programs, the accountability posture, the decisions about public exposure — and whether there's a realistic path to parole for someone whose public image has become as much of a prison as the facility she's in.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #BobMotta #DefenseDiaries #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Justice
Transcribe →The Crash: Was Murder the Right Charge for Mackenzie Shirilla?
4d ago00:15:23Tap to summarizeMurder requires intent. Not recklessness. Not negligence. Not bad judgment. Intent — formed beforehand and carried out deliberately. That's the bar the prosecution set for itself when it charged Mackenzie Shirilla with four counts of murder for the crash in Strongsville, Ohio that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. And criminal defense attorney Bob Motta says the evidence doesn't clear it.The surveillance footage is compelling but limited — it shows the car, not the person driving it. The black box data proves acceleration and no braking, but that pattern is consistent with multiple scenarios, not just premeditation. The prosecution reviewed ninety-three thousand text messages and presented the most inflammatory ones, while the final messages before the crash were mundane. And the prior incident the prosecution treated as a rehearsal — Mackenzie reportedly saying "I will crash this car" on I-71 — has a competing account in text messages where she told Dominic's mother it was Dom who grabbed the steering wheel.Prosecutor Tim Troup called this a "mission of death." That's powerful language. But powerful language isn't proof, and when a prosecutor reaches that hard for narrative, it sometimes signals that the evidence needs help.Bob Motta examines the charging decision, the bench trial strategy, the evidence vulnerabilities, and whether reckless homicide or vehicular manslaughter would have been the more honest charge — and a more certain conviction. Sometimes the biggest prosecutorial mistake isn't losing a case. It's winning one you overcharged.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #BobMotta #DefenseDiaries #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Justice
Transcribe →The Crash: What Should Mackenzie Shirilla's Defense Have Actually Looked Like?
4d ago00:28:38Tap to summarizeIf Mackenzie Shirilla had walked into Bob Motta's office instead of her actual attorney's, the case might look very different right now. That's not speculation — it's a function of what was missed, what was never pursued, and what was fumbled at every critical turn.The POTS defense should have been the centerpiece of the trial. A medical condition that can cause sudden loss of consciousness in a seventeen-year-old driver at five-thirty in the morning is not a throwaway detail. It's the case. But Shirilla's attorney mentioned it and moved on. No medical expert. No records connecting the condition to the crash. No explanation for the jury — except there was no jury either, because this was a bench trial in front of a single judge.After the conviction, a neurologist found evidence supporting the medical episode theory. The defense team filed a post-conviction petition containing that opinion — one day past the deadline. One day that foreclosed the court from considering expert evidence that might have changed everything. And the prosecution's key prior incident — the I-71 threat — had a competing version in text messages that the defense never introduced.Bob Motta is a criminal defense trial attorney and host of the Defense Diaries podcast. He rebuilds the Mackenzie Shirilla defense from scratch — what he would have done differently, which experts he would have called, how he would have handled the memory claim, and whether the cumulative failures in this case cross the line into ineffective assistance of counsel.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #BobMotta #DefenseDiaries #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Justice
Transcribe →Why Did The Sheriff Stop Talking To Nancy Guthrie's Family?
5d ago00:20:30Tap to summarizeIn mid-May, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos confirmed in a People magazine interview that his department is no longer communicating directly with Nancy Guthrie's family. The FBI is now the sole liaison between the investigation and the Guthries. The same sheriff who stood at his podium in February and told the family he wasn't giving up is, three months later, not in direct contact with them at all.This Hidden Killers Live episode walks through every chapter of the Nancy Guthrie case, from the night the 84-year-old mother of Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie disappeared from her Catalina Foothills home in Tucson all the way to where the investigation stands now.The 41-minute window. The pacemaker app disconnecting at 2:28 in the morning. The blood on her own front porch. The doorbell footage of the masked man and the clump of weeds covering the camera lens. The discarded gloves found two miles away. The Arizona Republic report on the sheriff's resume. The recall campaign that followed. The unanimous Board of Supervisors vote compelling testimony under oath. FBI Director Kash Patel's comments on Sean Hannity's podcast — and Nanos's public dispute of how the relationship between the agencies was characterized. The Hostage Rescue Team deployment. The federal command post moving to Phoenix. The $1 million reward. The 30,000-plus tips. The 100-day mark passing in near-silence.The full timeline, beginning to now, in one piece. Every event. Every disputed fact. Every question still open. So you can decide for yourself where this case actually stands four months in.SOCIAL 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/TrueCrimePodLEGAL 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: #NancyGuthrie #SavannahGuthrie #HiddenKillersLive #TrueCrime #ChrisNanos #PimaCountySheriff #TrueCrimeLive #MissingPerson #Tucson #FindNancyGuthrie
Transcribe →The Crash: How Many Things Went Wrong in the Mackenzie Shirilla Case?
5d ago01:01:40Tap to summarizeA defense attorney who never called the key medical expert. A post-conviction petition filed one day late. A bench trial where one judge made every decision. A neurologist's opinion that was never weighed on its merits. The Mackenzie Shirilla case isn't just about whether she intended to drive her car into that building — it's about how many things in the process broke along the way.Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder for the crash in Strongsville, Ohio that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. Netflix's The Crash put the case on screen and the country divided. Robin Dreeke, who spent twenty-one years at the FBI and led the Behavioral Analysis Program, sits down for a full three-part conversation covering every angle of this case.The first part examines Mackenzie's behavior — the texts, the threats, the arrest details, the prison persona — through the lens of a trained behavioral analyst. Was her personality evidence of murder, or evidence of a difficult teenager? The second part takes apart the investigation itself — the footage, the data, the charging decision, the absence of traditional premeditation markers, and the medical evidence that never made it to court. The third part addresses the hardest questions — Mackenzie's memory claim, the families' certainty, the competing public narratives, and whether everyone involved is too invested in their own version of truth to see the evidence clearly.This conversation doesn't declare Mackenzie Shirilla innocent or guilty. It examines whether the system that convicted her functioned the way it's supposed to — and whether the evidence actually clears the bar for the charge it was asked to prove.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Netflix #Justice
Transcribe →The Crash: Is Mackenzie Shirilla Lying About Her Memory or Is Everyone Else?
5d ago00:19:08Tap to summarizeA fellow inmate who spent six months with Mackenzie Shirilla says the woman in Netflix's The Crash — the one speaking softly from prison, expressing remorse, insisting she has no memory — isn't the person she lived with behind bars. She described someone doing her makeup, navigating the prison social hierarchy, performing a version of herself. So which Mackenzie is real? The documentary Mackenzie or the prison Mackenzie?But that question applies to everyone in this case, not just the defendant. Dominic Russo's sister started a podcast to give her brother a voice. The families appear in the documentary telling their version. The prosecutor's office built a narrative around surveillance footage and presented it as proof of intent. Even the judge — who both convicted Shirilla and later denied her post-conviction petition — had a version she was committed to.Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder in the Strongsville, Ohio crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan. She maintains she has no memory of what happened. Her defense team raised a medical condition — POTS — that could explain loss of consciousness, but never presented expert testimony. The neurologist who later supported the claim was shut out of court by a one-day filing error.Robin Dreeke spent his career at the FBI reading people — evaluating claims, detecting deception, separating genuine responses from constructed ones. He walks through every competing narrative in this case: Mackenzie's memory claim, the families' certainty, the inmate's contradiction, and the judge's dual role. The question isn't just whether Mackenzie is lying. It's whether anyone in this case is seeing the evidence clearly — or whether everyone is performing the truth they need.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Netflix #Justice
Transcribe →The Crash: How Strong Is the Case Against Mackenzie Shirilla Really?
5d ago00:21:03Tap to summarizeOne judge. No jury. No deliberation room. No twelve people wrestling with reasonable doubt. The Mackenzie Shirilla murder conviction was decided by a single person in a bench trial — and in a case with evidence this ambiguous, that raises a question the system doesn't want to answer.Judge Nancy Margaret Russo heard the surveillance footage evidence, the black box data, the text messages, and the prior threat. She rendered the verdict. She imposed the sentence. She later denied Shirilla's post-conviction petition on procedural grounds. One mind, every major decision. In a case where the central question — was this intentional or was it reckless — could go either way depending on how you interpret the same data.Netflix's The Crash brought this case back into public conversation, and the split in opinion is real. The footage looks damning. But footage of a car isn't footage of intent. The data shows acceleration and no braking — which is consistent with a deliberate act, but also with loss of consciousness. The prosecution had no confession, no note, no search history suggesting a plan. And the one expert who might have offered an alternative explanation — a neurologist who found evidence consistent with a medical episode — was never heard because a legal filing arrived one day late.Robin Dreeke spent his FBI career building and evaluating cases built on behavioral evidence. He walks through the investigative methodology behind the Shirilla conviction and asks the hard question: does this case hold up to the standard of proof that murder requires, or did a compelling narrative fill in gaps that the evidence left open?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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Netflix #Justice
Transcribe →The Crash: Was Mackenzie Shirilla Convicted for Her Personality?
5d ago00:22:08Tap to summarizeAt her arrest, Mackenzie Shirilla asked the officers to be careful with her bracelets — gifts from Dominic Russo, the boyfriend who'd been killed in her car three months earlier. The prosecution called it evidence of someone cold enough to plan a murder. But is that really what that moment tells you — or is it telling you something else entirely about a seventeen-year-old in shock?That gap — between how behavior looks and what it actually means — is at the center of this conversation. Shirilla was convicted of four counts of murder in the Strongsville, Ohio crash that killed Dominic and their friend Davion Flanagan. Netflix's The Crash put the case back in the spotlight, and the public is split. The prosecution leaned heavily on Shirilla's personality: the threatening texts, the volatile relationship, the TikTok presence, the way she carried herself. A judge called it premeditated. But was the conviction based on what she did that morning — or on who she appeared to be?Robin Dreeke spent twenty-one years at the FBI and ran the Bureau's Behavioral Analysis Program. His career was built on reading people — separating what behavior reveals from what it doesn't. He walks through Mackenzie Shirilla's documented patterns: the language in her texts, the prior threat she made and didn't follow through on, the prison persona that contradicts the documentary's version, and whether any of it adds up to proof that a teenager planned and executed a double murder. The answers cut both ways — and that's exactly what makes this case impossible to dismiss.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/TrueCrimePodThis 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.#MackenzieShirilla #TheCrash #TheCrashNetflix #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Netflix #Justice
Transcribe →What Kind Of People Are Behind Guthrie, Kepner And Murdaugh?
6d ago00:56:04Tap to summarizeWhat kind of person does each of these cases point to? That's the behavioral question two FBI veterans take on in this long-form segment. Tony Brueski is joined by retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer — with former FBI Counterintelligence chief Robin Dreeke's behavioral lens in the room — to read the people at the center of three very different stories.There's the masked figure who approached Nancy Guthrie's door in the dead of night and appeared to tamper with her camera before an 84-year-old woman vanished. What does that behavior say about planning, about whether the person knew her, about whether they acted alone? Investigators still haven't ruled out a second set of hands.There's the teenager on camera in the Anna Kepner case, allegedly checking a hallway both ways before stepping out, then blocking a younger child from the cabin. The way someone moves in the minutes around a death often tells you more than any statement.And there's Alex Murdaugh, whose murder convictions were overturned — where the behavioral question flips. Coffindaffer, who carried a weapon on FBI SWAT for two decades, takes apart whether one person could have done what the state described, and why the defense has never named the someone-else they keep implying.This isn't about headlines or verdicts. It's about reading behavior the way the Bureau trains you to — patterns, tells, the things people do when they think no one's watching. Coffindaffer and Dreeke have spent careers doing exactly that. If you want the profiler's-eye view of three cases at once, press play.Footer 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/TrueCrimePodDisclaimer: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: #NancyGuthrie #AnnaKepner #AlexMurdaugh #TrueCrime #FBI #BehavioralAnalysis #ColdCase #TrueCrimeCommunity #CrimeAnalysis #Profiling
Transcribe →Could One Person Really Have Killed Both Murdaughs Alone?
6d ago00:15:57Tap to summarizeCould one person really have killed both Maggie and Paul Murdaugh by himself? That's the question two FBI veterans take apart in this segment — and one of them carried a weapon on FBI SWAT for two decades, so she knows exactly what firing a shotgun at close range does to the person pulling the trigger. With Alex Murdaugh's convictions overturned and a new trial ordered, the original defense theory is suddenly relevant again: two different guns, used feet apart, and an argument that no single shooter could have done both.Tony Brueski is joined by retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer — with former FBI Counterintelligence chief Robin Dreeke's behavioral lens in the room — to run the scenario the way the Bureau would. Forget the name for a minute. Two bodies at a set of rural dog kennels. With fresh eyes and no suspect locked in, where does that scene actually point? Coffindaffer reads the physical staging, the two-weapon problem, and the kind of person who'd have a reason to drive onto that land.This is not a verdict on whether Alex Murdaugh is a decent human being — he admitted to stealing millions, and that conviction still stands. It's a clear-eyed look at whether the murder case holds up under a profiler's scrutiny, and at the question the defense has somehow never answered: if it was someone else, why have they never named a name?If you want the investigator's read instead of the headline, press play. Two FBI veterans, one of the most analyzed crime scenes in the country, and a case that's wide open again.Footer 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/TrueCrimePodDisclaimer: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 #MurdaughMurders #TrueCrime #FBI #BehavioralAnalysis #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh #TrueCrimeCommunity #Lowcountry #CrimeAnalysis
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