Podcast
Obscura: A True Crime Podcast
Hosted by Justin Drown · EN
The darkest true crime cases are the ones you've never heard of. Obscura investigates murders written off as accidents, disappearances dismissed as runaways, and obscure cases buried in forgotten files. Host Justin Drown delivers unflinching investigations through real archival audio, court records, and graphic forensic detail. No comedy. No sanitized narratives. Only the complete truth. New episodes every Tuesday.
38episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Camille Balla - The Ritual
1w ago00:28:31Tap to summarizeThe call went out at roughly one forty in the morning on March sixteenth, 2018, and it pulled the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office toward a scene that the deputies who responded would not be able to put down easily afterward, because some scenes do not let go of the people who walk into them. What waited inside the house is among the worst this show has had occasion to describeOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Timothy Dean - Empty Inside
2w ago00:53:07Tap to summarizeThere is a village in the apple country of western New York called Sodus, up in Wayne County near the south shore of Lake Ontario, about thirty miles east of Rochester. This is fruit-belt land, orchard and muck field running back from the lake, roadside stands selling cider in the fall, the big cold lake holding the frost off the trees in spring. In October the orchards go heavy and the light comes in low and gold across the drumlins, the long humped hills the glaciers left behind. A few thousand people, one central school the whole area feeds into, the worst trouble in a given year usually a bad wreck out on Route 14. The kind of place where a double murder in a driveway on a sunny Monday afternoon does not just grieve people, it cracks the basic understanding they have about where they live.On the twenty-second of October, 2018, a Monday, that understanding broke. It broke on a short residential street called Carlton Street, a block of modest houses near the Sodus Central School, the kind of street where people leave the doors unlocked and the kids ride bikes in the road. At a little after three in the afternoon, in full daylight, with neighbors home and children about, a young couple was shot to death in the driveway of their own home. By the time the first deputy arrived, the shooter was gone and the street had become a crime scene that the people who saw it would carry for the rest of their lives.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Aileen Wuornos: Part 04 - Carnival
3w ago01:03:39Tap to summarizeAileen had been pawning items from her victims: tools missing from David Spears's truck, a camera that had belonged to Richard Mallory, other items linked to other victims. Florida law required pawnshops to take a thumbprint from anyone hocking goods, and the prints were on file.Aileen, while filling out pawnshop intake forms, had been using the alias Cammie Marsh Greene. A signed pawn slip with a thumbprint, in the name of Cammie Marsh Greene, was sitting in a Daytona Beach pawn shop.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Aileen Wuornos: Part 03 - The Bodies
May 2600:41:08Tap to summarizeThe wooded lot itself was mixed scrub of the sort that grows in the disturbed soil along an interstate corridor in central Florida. Pine. Palmetto. A few scrub oaks. Spanish moss hanging where the canopy thickened. The understory of vines and dead palm fronds that turns any walk off the shoulder into a careful one.The lot was bordered on one side by the interstate, on another by a service road, and on the other two by more of the same scrub. It had the anonymity of land nobody owns in any way they bother to enforce. People dumped things in there. Refrigerators. Mattresses. The carpet remnant.The men got closer to the carpet. The carpet was covering something.Underneath was a bodyOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Aileen Wuornos: Part 02 - The Composite Enemy
May 1900:40:02Tap to summarizeThis is part two of a four part series. Last episode, we walked her childhood. The fire at age six. The grandfather and the belt. The kitten in the bucket. The cigarette pig nickname at age eleven. The pregnancy at fourteen. The baby boy taken from her in March of 1971. Her grandmother Britta dying that July. Her grandfather throwing her out a few weeks later. The sleeping bag in the woods on the edge of Troy.That is where we left her. Tonight we follow her from there.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Aileen Wuornos: Part 01 - The Girl in the Woods
May 1200:40:02Tap to summarizeShe had stopped going to school. She had no money. There was no adult on the planet looking for her. What she had was a sleeping bag in the snow.Her name was Aileen Carol Pittman. The world would come to know her by her grandparents’ last name. Wuornos.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Ray Coriell - No Sanctuary
May 500:34:31Tap to summarizeIn 2011, a quiet neighborhood in Bakersfield, California, was shattered by a crime so severe it left veteran investigators shaken. The case began with the frantic search for a missing eight-year-old girl and ended in a tense, seven-hour SWAT standoff. Ray Coriell, the man at the center of the storm, faced a barrage of charges that exposed a harrowing betrayal of trust and a level of violence that seemed unimaginable.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Double Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 02
Apr 2800:27:34Tap to summarizeDouble Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 02Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Double Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 01
Apr 2100:29:21Tap to summarizeDouble Homicide: The House on Benchor Road - Part 01Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Neglect: The Streamer and the Silent Crib
Apr 1400:30:20Tap to summarizeA two-year-old boy was found dead in his crib in Clinton Township, Michigan, starved to death while his mother streamed on Twitch. Featuring real court audio from the sentencing, Obscura examines the 2023 case of Sierra Pearl Zaitona and Jonathon Matthew Cheek, two parents who let their child waste away in silence.The boy had been in foster care before being returned to his biological parents, Sierra Pearl Zaitona and Jonathon Matthew Cheek, both of Clinton Township. According to court records, the child was healthy and thriving under state care. The decision to reunify the family would prove fatal. What happened after his return would become one of Macomb County's most disturbing neglect cases in recent memory.On Thursday, March 16, 2023, Zaitona discovered her son dead in his crib and called 911. Cheek was not home at the time, instead visiting his own mother's residence. When first responders arrived at the Clinton Township home, they found the toddler beyond saving and living conditions that told a story of prolonged neglect. The Macomb County Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and determined the cause of death was fatal starvation. A child who had once been healthy had slowly wasted away, unfed and unnoticed, while ordinary life carried on around him.Zaitona had established a presence on Twitch as a livestreamer. While the Macomb County Prosecutor's Office did not draw a direct line between her streaming activity and the neglect, the case drew national attention on social media. The contrast between a screen glowing with followers and a crib growing silent became the defining image of this tragedy.Both parents were arrested and charged with second-degree murder, a life felony, and second-degree child abuse, a ten-year felony. Bond was set at one million dollars cash for each defendant. The case moved through the Macomb County Circuit Court, with District Court Judge Jacob Femminineo Jr. binding both parents over for trial in March 2024.Rather than face trial, both parents entered no contest pleas. On December 18, 2024, Jonathon Matthew Cheek, then 26, was sentenced to 24 to 50 years for second-degree murder and 86 months to 10 years for second-degree child abuse, served concurrently. On April 9, 2025, Sierra Pearl Zaitona, then 29, received the same sentence of 24 to 50 years for murder and 43 months to 10 years for child abuse. She was placed on Michigan's Central Registry for Child Abuse and Neglect.Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido spoke at sentencing. "When parents betray the sacred trust to nurture and protect," he said, "we must ensure that the scales of justice tip in favor of accountability." Neither parent will be eligible for release before 2047.This episode features court audio from the sentencing hearings and examines the child welfare system decisions that preceded this tragedy. Listener discretion advised.Support Obscura:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/obscuracrimepodcast/Website: https://www.mythsandmalice.com/show/obscura/Apple Premium: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/black-label/id6443660911Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Chime and use my code chime.com/OBSCURA for a great deal: https://www.chime.com* Check out Mood and use my code OBSCURA for a great deal: https://mood.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/obscura for a great deal: https://www.quince.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/obscura-a-true-crime-podcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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