Podcast
Murder Unscripted
Hosted by Murder Unscripted Pod · EN
Veteran true-crime producer, Ed (Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, City Confidential) and his crime encyclopedia gal pal, Melissa, bring you the most immersive podcast in the genre - breaking down the barrier between fan and creator.
Expect deep dives into obscure stories, interviews with with victim's families, investigators, and other insiders, and behind-the-scenes insight on your favorite crime shows from a seasoned industry professional...all with a touch of humor to lighten even the darkest tales.
👉 New episodes every Tuesday.
🌐 For more information about us and the show, visit our website at: www.MurderUnscriptedPod.com
E-mail: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com
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⚠️ Graphic details; listener discretion advised.
12episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Ep:110 | A Conversation with Steve & Kristi Goncalves (Parents of Kaylee Goncalves) | Never-before-heard Stories about Kaylee | Murder Unscripted
3d ago01:25:47Tap to summarizeKaylee's parents sit down to address the recently released autopsy details, the relentless online conspiracies, and share never-before-heard stories about their daughter Kaylee. The media dubbed them "The Idaho Four." But behind that moniker were four individuals with four families and four futures. One of them was Kaylee Goncalves...a bright, bubbly 21-year-old who had the world by a string. And while everyone knows the story of what happened to her few know the REAL Kaylee. Like how fiercely independent she was from the time she was small...the kind of kid who didn't ask for help and didn't need to be told twice. Like the prankster who liked throwing cell phones in the toilet and once told her dad she saw a cougar, only to show him a photo of an African leopard. That was Kaylee. In this powerful conversation, Steve and Kristi Goncalves also address the relentless media scrutiny, the release of case details not meant for the public, and the hateful online conspiracies that keep them up at night. They also speak to the work of the Murder Has a Name Foundation, which they founded in Kaylee's memory to advocate for victims' families navigating the criminal justice system. This is an interview that personifies Murder Unscripted, and it's one of the most important conversations we've ever had. To learn more about the Kaylee Goncalves Foundation: "Murder Has a Name" visit: www.murderhasaname.com LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #KayleeGoncalves #SteveGoncalves
Transcribe →Ep:109 | The Murder of Katherine Foster | Her Best Friend Wanted Her Man, So She Killed Her | Murder Unscripted
1w ago01:19:31Tap to summarizeThey were the 3 musketeers. One of them was a killer. In February 1980, 18-year-old University of South Alabama freshman Katherine Foster was supposed to meet her two best friends for a trip to the mall. She never showed up. Days later, a search party found her body in the woods just a few hundred yards from campus -- laying flat on her back, fully clothed, makeup intact, looking for all the world like she had simply laid down to take a nap. She had been shot twice in the head. Investigators were baffled. There was no struggle, no drag marks, no sign of sexual assault. Whoever did this, Katherine had trusted enough to walk into the woods with. Police chased every lead they had, but Katherine's case went cold for more than 22 years. Until a single phone call from an AA sponsor changed everything. Ed and Melissa cover the full case: the friend group at the center of it, the disturbing items found in a dead security guard's garage, the forensic science breakthrough at the University of Tennessee's Body Farm that rewrote the entire timeline, and the obsession that drove Jamie Kellam Letson to kill the friend who stood between her and a boyfriend who barely knew she existed. Content warning: murder, stalking, obsessive behavior. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation CONNECT WITH US: Email: murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com Socials: @murderunscripted If this one got you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #KatherineFoster #TrueCrime
Transcribe →Ep:108 | The Murder of Jeanne Clery | Co-Ed's Brutal Death Changes Campus Safety Laws Across the Country | Murder Unscripted
2w ago01:21:00Tap to summarizeOn April 5th, 1986, Howard and Connie Clery returned home from a vacation in Bermuda to find a police car waiting in their driveway. Their 19-year-old daughter Jeanne had been found murdered in her dorm room at Lehigh University. What the Clerys discovered in the aftermath was as infuriating as it was devastating. In the three years before Jeanne's murder, there had been 38 violent crimes at Lehigh including rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults. Campus security had received over 2,000 reports of propped-open dorm doors in the year she was killed. 188 of those came from her building. None of this information had been available to them when they chose the school. Nobody was required to share it. The man who killed Jeanne - fellow student, Josoph Henry - had walked through a propped door and found her room unlocked because her roommate didn't have her key. He was convicted of first-degree murder. But Howard and Connie Clery were not finished. In 1990, the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act was signed into law -- later renamed the Jeanne Clery Act. It requires every college and university receiving federal funding to publicly disclose campus crimes, issue timely warnings, and give students and families the safety information they need before choosing a school. Four decades later, it is still one of the most important pieces of campus safety legislation in the country.
Transcribe →Ep: 107 | The Murder of Sophie Sergie | Genetic Genealogy Solves 28-year-old Alaskan Cold Case | Murder Unscripted
3w ago01:05:21Tap to summarizeAlaskan Sophie Sergie came from a remote Yupik village of 70 people. She was going to be the first in her family to graduate college. The last thing she told her family was a promise to bring her little brother a brand new kite. She never came home.On April 25th, 1993, Sophie Sergie was found violently murdered in a University of Alaska Fairbanks dorm bathroom. Her case went cold, and it stayed that way for more than a quarter century, until a woman uploaded her DNA to an ancestry site and unknowingly pointed investigators straight at her nephew, Steven Downs, who had been quietly living as a nurse in Maine the entire time.Ed covers Sophie's emotional story, the 28-year cold case, and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally brought justice. Ep. 107 | Collegiate Crimes Block | Murder Unscripted | June 2026https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH
Transcribe →Ep:106 | The Murder of Yeardley Love | The Obsessive Ex-Boyfriend and the Missed Warning Signs | Murder Unscripted
Jun 201:08:07Tap to summarizeYeardley Love was 22 years old and ten weeks from graduating from the University of Virginia. She was a D1 lacrosse player, a political science major with plans for law school in New York, and by every account, the kind of person who made every room warmer just by being in it.She was also in an abusive relationship with a men's lacrosse player, George Huguely V, that had been escalating for years. Obsessive contact. Jealousy. Physical violence. In February 2010, just weeks before her death, he had her pinned to a bed with his hands around her throat. Witnesses pulled him off. Yeardley told her mother. She even wrote a letter ending the relationship. Yeardley locked her door...but he kicked it in.In the early hours of May 3rd, 2010, Yeardley's roommate came home to find her unresponsive on her bed. She was gone. That's when police find an email from George in her inbox that read: 'I should have killed you.' In this episode, Melissa walks through the full story of Yeardley's life and death, including: the escalation pattern that followed every textbook sign of a dangerous relationship, the trial that convicted George Huguely of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 23 years, the 2022 civil verdict of $15 million in damages, and the most important thing to come out of all of it: the One Love Foundation, built by Yeardley's mother Sharon and sister Lexie, dedicated to teaching young people to recognize the warning signs of unhealthy relationships before they become fatal.This one is heavy, but it matters. If this episode makes you think of someone in your life, please take that seriously.One Love Foundation: https://www.joinonelove.orgWritten by Sue Grice | Hosted by Melissa Spivey Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qHPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membershipmurderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted
Transcribe →Ep:105 | A Conversation with Dr. Mildred Muhammad | Ex-wife of the DC Sniper | Murder Unscripted
May 2601:26:03Tap to summarizeIf you haven't listened to our DC Sniper episode yet (E104), start there first. This is the conversation that follows it.Dr. Mildred Muhammad was married to John Allen Muhammad for 12 years. She knew him as a soldier, a father, a man she loved. What she didn't know was that after their separation, he had begun stalking her, that he had kidnapped their three children and taken them to Antigua for 18 months using forged documents, that she had been living under a restraining order that still permitted visitation, and that during October of 2002...while the DC metropolitan area was being terrorized by a sniper...she was living in that same region with no idea the man behind it was her ex-husband.And then she found out she was allegedly the intended target all along.In this episode, Dr. Muhammad walks us through her entire story. Growing up in Baton Rouge. Meeting John. What the marriage looked like from the inside. The kidnapping of her children and the 18 months she spent fighting to bring them home. The moment she learned his name. The aftermath. Being treated as a potential accessory. The court refusing to allow domestic violence evidence at trial. And what she has built since as an author, advocate, speaker, podcaster, and appointed member of the Maryland State Board of Victim Services.Oh and listen until the end. We play a fun little game at the end testing Mildred's knowledge of all things Louisiana. She's from Baton Rouge. Melissa is not. It went about as well as you'd expect. 😂🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH 💛 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 📬 murderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted
Transcribe →Ep:104 | The DC Sniper | 10 People Killed at Random in Bizarre Murder Plot | Murder Unscripted
May 1901:15:24Tap to summarizeIn October 2002, the Washington DC area woke up to something it had never felt before. People were being shot at gas stations, in parking lots, at bus stops, at a school...apparently at random, by someone nobody could see, in a car nobody could find. Police were sprinting between active scenes. Schools canceled outdoor activities. People crouched at gas pumps trying to make themselves smaller targets. Senators got police escorts to the Capitol. Ten people would be killed in three weeks. Three more wounded. And almost none of it was random.In today's spine-chilling episode, Ed walks through the case of the DC Sniper, including: the months of seemingly disconnected shootings across six states before the DC attacks began, the investigation that kept missing the blue Caprice that was hiding in plain sight, the tarot card left at a middle school, and the motive reveal that reframes everything.Ed also shares something personal: in October 2002, he was a first-day intern at Forensic Files... and the DC Sniper case was his very first assignment. He watched it unfold, frame by frame, on two hours of raw news tape. It's what drew him into the true crime industry.
Transcribe →Ep:103 | The Siberian Werewolf | Cop Turned Serial Killer Claims More Than 80 Victims | Murder Unscripted
May 1201:03:06Tap to summarizeIn post-Soviet Siberia, women were disappearing from the streets of Angarsk. Their bodies turned up in forests and industrial wastelands, mutilated beyond recognition. The weapons changed every time, but the tire tracks at the scenes were always from the same vehicle: a Lada Niva, the standard-issue Soviet police truck. The man driving it was Mikhail Popkov: junior police lieutenant, champion biathlete, beloved neighbor, husband and father. His wife Elena, a fellow officer in the same department, called him a 'perfect husband and father.' His colleagues said he was the soul of every party. When women were attacked on his city's streets, he was often first on scene. Because he was the one who had attacked them. Popkov used his badge, his uniform, and the trust people place in law enforcement to lure women into his patrol vehicle on freezing Siberian nights. He killed them with weapons stolen from his own department's evidence room, varying the method each time to prevent investigators from finding a pattern. He then returned to work, attended briefings on his own murders, and offered his observations to his colleagues. When a 15-year-old survivor picked him out of a photo lineup, his wife gave him an alibi. When biological evidence linked him to a victim, his wife gave him an alibi again. Investigators shelved the case. Popkov kept killing. By the time a 3,500-officer DNA sweep finally caught him in 2012, Popkov had confessed to 87 murders, making him the most prolific serial killer in Russian recorded history. Some investigators believe the true number may be closer to 200. When a judge asked how many total murders he had committed, Popkov shrugged and said: 'I can't say exactly. I didn't write them down.' Ed walks through the full story for the Who the Bleep Did I Marry block: the victims, the system failures, the jaw-dropping confession, and the impossible question Popkov's own daughter asked aloud while pregnant: would her child grow up to be a monster like him? She said she still didn't fully understand what her father was. And that she still loved him. Researched & written by Sue Grice | Hosted by Ed Hydock | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qHPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membershipmurderunscriptedpod@gmail.com | @murderunscripted
Transcribe →Ep:102 | Herb Baumeister | The Serial Killer You've Never Heard About | 10,000 Bones in Backyard | Murder Unscripted
May 501:06:46Tap to summarizeHis 13-year-old son found a skull in the backyard. Herb Baumeister said it was from his father's medical collection. His wife believed him.Over ten thousand human bone fragments were eventually recovered from Fox Hollow Farm — the 18-acre Indiana estate where Herb hosted family pool parties, ran a thrift store empire, and murdered at least eleven men, possibly twenty-five, while his wife and kids had no idea.Melissa walks through one of the most disturbing cases in our "Who the Bleep Did I Marry?" block cases MU has ever covered — including the I-70 Strangler theory, the missing tapes, and the DNA work that is still identifying victims in 2026.
Transcribe →Ep:101 | The Murder of Justyn Rosen | Seductress Guns Down Elderly Boy Toy | Murder Unscripted
Apr 2801:31:57Tap to summarize⚠️ Content warning: domestic violence, child abandonment, shooting. She was abandoned by both parents before she was 17. She spent her life searching for a man who would finally take care of her. She found a 73-year-old millionaire who led her on for seven years — and then tried to walk away with a restraining order. He didn't make it out of the parking lot. Episode 101 is the finale of MU's "Rules of Murder" block — and one of the most psychologically complex cases Melissa has ever covered. Based on Ann Rule's "Old Man's Darling" from Crime Files Vol. 10: "Worth More Dead." Ep. 101 | Rules of Murder Block Finale | Murder Unscripted | April 2026https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH
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