Podcast
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Hosted by Real Story Media · EN
🔎 Daily True Crime Stories | Unsolved Mysteries | Criminal Investigations | Cold Cases
True Crime Today is your go-to daily true crime podcast, bringing you the latest murder cases, ongoing trials, criminal psychology insights, and shocking unsolved mysteries. Whether it’s breaking crime news, high-profile trials, serial killers, missing persons, or cold cases, we cover it all with expert analysis, investigative storytelling, and real-time updates.
🎙️ Hosted by leading crime analysts, we uncover the psychology of killers, forensic breakthroughs, police investigations, and courtroom drama—giving you the full story behind the headlines. From notorious cases to little-known crimes that deserve attention, we break down what really happened and why.
If you're obsessed with true crime podcasts, criminal psychology, and investigative reporting, subscribe to True Crime Today on Apple Podcasts now! 🎧 New episodes daily.
True Crime Today is your go-to daily true crime podcast, bringing you the latest murder cases, ongoing trials, criminal psychology insights, and shocking unsolved mysteries. Whether it’s breaking crime news, high-profile trials, serial killers, missing persons, or cold cases, we cover it all with expert analysis, investigative storytelling, and real-time updates.
🎙️ Hosted by leading crime analysts, we uncover the psychology of killers, forensic breakthroughs, police investigations, and courtroom drama—giving you the full story behind the headlines. From notorious cases to little-known crimes that deserve attention, we break down what really happened and why.
If you're obsessed with true crime podcasts, criminal psychology, and investigative reporting, subscribe to True Crime Today on Apple Podcasts now! 🎧 New episodes daily.
500episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Anna Kepner: The Accused Killer’s Own Grandmother Turns on His Parents
4d ago00:20:24Tap to summarizeShe helped raise the teenager now accused of killing Anna Kepner. And she just went on national television and pointed the finger at his parents.Timothy Hudson’s step-grandmother, Sonya Ziske, broke her silence in a CBS News interview that fractured what was left of this family’s public front. She blamed Anna’s father Christopher Kepner and stepmother Shauntel Kepner directly. She called the cruise a “floating city that is usually like Sin City.” She said they created a “recipe for disaster” by putting three teenagers who weren’t raised together into a single stateroom, by allegedly failing to provide medication, and by what she says was unchecked alcohol access on the ship.The parents have denied the drinking allegations. Shauntel Kepner’s attorney said in late 2025 that surveillance video confirmed no underage drinking occurred. That dispute hasn’t been resolved.But Ziske’s interview isn’t just about what the parents did or didn’t do on the cruise. It’s about the family unraveling in public. A grandmother taking sides against the people who married into her family. A custody battle that’s been active since weeks after Anna’s death. And the question of whether the adults in that hallway can ever be held criminally responsible for what allegedly happened in that stateroom.This episode pulls apart the emotional weight of the grandmother’s accusation — the room arrangement, the timeline that shows no adult checked in for hours, a thirteen-year-old brother who slept feet from Anna’s body without knowing — and measures it against the legal reality. The Crumbley precedent. The jurisdiction wall. The causation gap. And whether the accountability this family is demanding can come from a criminal courtroom or whether it has to come from somewhere else entirely.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=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.#AnnaKepner #TimothyHudson #TrueCrimeToday #CarnivalHorizon #CruiseShipMurd
Transcribe →
Why Is LISK Rex Heuermann Only Reading About Serial Killers?
5d ago00:14:32Tap to summarizeRex Heuermann isn’t reading sports books in his cell. He’s not reading cookbooks or self-help or anything a person does when they’re processing what they’ve done. According to Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon, the Gilgo Beach killer has been pulling crime novels from the jail library — specifically books about serial killers and the investigators who chase them.That detail alone is disturbing. But it’s not the whole picture.According to reporting, Heuermann also struck up a correspondence with Keith Hunter Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer, who reportedly sent over ten letters from his Oregon prison cell. Out of every piece of mail Heuermann received — interview requests, pen pal offers, collectors — Jesperson was reportedly the only person he wrote back to. And he described Jesperson’s letters as “a help and a comfort.”I dug into the forensic psychology behind why killers seek each other out from behind bars. It’s a documented phenomenon. Convicted killers have been writing to other convicted killers for decades — seeking attention, affinity, and in the most disturbing cases, inspiration. The Gilgo Beach LISK case now has its own entry in that pattern.What makes Heuermann’s case different is the behavioral profile. The sheriff who has watched him for more than a thousand days says the man has never once changed his facial expression. Never shown discomfort or despair. The reading list, the killer correspondence, the emotional flatness — taken together, they paint a picture of a man who appears to be settling into an identity rather than reckoning with one.Every true crime case raises questions about psychology. This one answers some of them.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.#GilgoBeach #RexHeuermann #TrueCrimeToday #LISK #GilgoBeachKiller #HappyFaceKiller #SerialKillerBooks #LongIslandSerialKiller #TrueCrime #KillerPenPals
Transcribe →
Is Rex Heuermann Connected to Missing Women in Other States?
5d ago00:17:40Tap to summarizeProperty in South Carolina. A timeshare in Las Vegas. Investigators examining ties to Atlantic City. And women who disappeared near all of them.Rex Heuermann’s Gilgo Beach sentencing closed the New York chapter — three consecutive life terms, a hundred years, no appeal. But the judge who handed down the sentence said five words that reopened everything: eight that we know of.Heuermann purchased four lots in Chester, South Carolina. Twenty miles from that property, a woman vanished. He bought a timeshare in Las Vegas. Two weeks later, an escort disappeared. The connections are timeline-based, not evidentiary. But timelines are how investigations begin, and some of those states have legal tools New York does not.South Carolina and Nevada both carry the death penalty for the crimes Heuermann committed. He pleaded guilty in the one jurisdiction where execution was off the table. His plea deal is limited to Suffolk County. It offers no protection in any other state.His digital footprint is enormous — a hundred and twenty terabytes, seven thousand pages, a recovered planning document. If that data contains evidence of crimes beyond Long Island, the legal framework for sharing it across state lines becomes critical.Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis explains what separates a suspicious timeline from a prosecutable case, whether the FBI interview built into the plea deal produces anything other states can use, and what incentive — if any — a man serving the maximum in New York has to tell the truth about what happened in South Carolina, Nevada, or anywhere else.Eight is the official number. The question is whether anyone is looking for nine.END 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.#GilgoBeach #RexHeuermann #TrueCrimeToday #GilgoBeachMurders #TrueCrime #EricFaddis #DeathPenalty #SouthCarolina #SerialKiller #MissingWomen
Transcribe →
Nick Reiner's Trust Had No Clause to Stop a Payout After Murder Charges — Does Yours?
5d ago00:18:15Tap to summarizeNick Reiner trust payout — his trust reportedly had no clause to stop a distribution after a murder charge. Does your family's trust have one? Most don't.The probate petition filed in the Nick Reiner case exposes something that goes well beyond one family. The trust Rob and Michele Reiner established for their son in 1993 allegedly used the most common settings in estate planning — mandatory distributions at fixed ages, no behavioral conditions, no trustee discretion to withhold. Those default settings are the reason Nick Reiner's legal team can now argue that more than $1.5 million was his before anyone died, and that neither the trustee nor the slayer statute can take it back.According to reporting, the trustee is now preparing to ask a judge to release the funds. A hearing is reportedly on the calendar for August. High-profile defense attorney Alan Jackson has filed a declaration saying he stands ready to return to the case if the money comes through.This is not an episode about the Reiner case alone. It's about the document sitting in your filing cabinet right now. The trust your attorney drafted when your kids were small. The one you haven't opened since you signed it.Three provisions — an indictment freeze, a discretionary trust structure, and a behavioral trigger — are available to any family working with an estate attorney. They don't require predicting violence. They exist for the situations families actually deal with: addiction, instability, irresponsibility. The fact that they also protect against the unimaginable is the entire point.The Reiners reportedly had none of them. Most families don't. This episode walks through all three and explains exactly how each one would have changed the outcome in the Reiner case. Nick Reiner is presumed innocent until proven guilty.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/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:#NickReiner #RobReiner #TrueCrimeToday #MicheleReiner #TrustFund #EstatePlanning #SlayerStatute #FamilyTrust #NickReinerUpdate #TrueCrime
Transcribe →
How Did the Grim Sleeper Kill for 25 Years While the LAPD Kept It Secret?
5d ago00:13:47Tap to summarizeLonnie Franklin Jr. was not a criminal mastermind. He used the same .25 caliber handgun for every killing. He operated within a ten-block radius in South Los Angeles for over two decades. At least six of those he killed were found blocks from his own home. He once worked as a mechanic for the LAPD. And the LAPD knew about him by 1988 and chose to tell nobody.The women Franklin targeted were young, Black, and poor. Some had ties to the street economy. During the crack epidemic, their deaths didn't make the news. Their murders became cold cases almost instantly. Multiple police chiefs — Daryl Gates, Willie Brown, William Bratton — rotated through the department while the serial killer operated unimpeded.Enietra Washington survived Franklin's attack in 1988 and wasn't told she'd survived a serial killer until 2006. She testified in 2016 and told Franklin to his face: "You are truly a piece of evil." Surviving Serial Killers on History's Hidden Killers — the series finale about institutional failure, race, and one woman who waited twenty-eight years for her day in court.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/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.#GrimSleeper #LonnieFranklin #EnietraWashington #SurvivingSerialKillers #HistorysHiddenKillers #TrueCrime #TrueCrimePodcast #LAPD #SouthLA #JusticeServed
Transcribe →
Did Asa Ellerup Profit From Rex Heuermann’s Murders?
5d ago00:17:42Tap to summarizeThe number is reportedly over a million dollars. That is what Asa Ellerup earned from a Peacock documentary about the Gilgo Beach case — her ex-husband’s case. The case where he pleaded guilty to killing eight women.Now the families want the money back. And more.Valerie Mack’s son has filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging civil conspiracy. The suit names Asa Ellerup, her daughter Victoria, and Rex Heuermann. The accusation is not that Asa was oblivious. It is that she knew or deliberately avoided knowing what was happening and helped conceal it.Suffolk County prosecutors already cleared Asa criminally. They said she was not home during the killings. They called the hair found on victims household transference. They moved on. But the civil case does not require the same level of proof, and the evidence prosecutors set aside gets a second examination under a lower standard.Asa’s own words are part of the case now. She told a documentary crew she did what she had to do to protect herself and her children. She renovated the basement where investigators believe seven women were killed. She lives there. Thirteen hundred square feet, twenty-seven years, and she says she never knew.Defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis explains what the civil conspiracy allegation requires, whether the documentary money qualifies as unjust enrichment, and what happens if this lawsuit forces Asa Ellerup to sit for a deposition. Twenty-seven years of questions. Under oath. For the first time.The families got their sentencing. This lawsuit is about something else.END 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.#GilgoBeach #AsaEllerup #TrueCrimeToday #RexHeuermann #GilgoBeachMurders #TrueCrime #EricFaddis #ValerieMack #CivilLawsuit #SerialKiller
Transcribe →
Did Rex Heuermann Really Call Her Sister From the Victim’s Phone?
5d ago00:15:48Tap to summarizeIt is on the record. Melissa Barthelemy’s sister stood up in a Suffolk County courtroom during Rex Heuermann’s sentencing and told the court he called her from Melissa’s phone after he killed her — and described what he had done.The sentencing itself delivered what everyone expected: three consecutive life terms plus a hundred years, a judge who called Heuermann disgusting, families who cheered when officers removed him. But the legal details inside the plea agreement tell a different story than the one most outlets reported.Rex Heuermann confessed in open court to killing Karen Vergata. She was never part of the original charges. Her family was in the room when he said her name. No new charge was filed. His defense team had spent three years trying to throw out the DNA evidence and suppress the search warrants — then he waived his right to appeal as part of the deal.And the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit interview negotiated into the plea? The Suffolk County DA’s office calls it academic. Not investigative. Eric Faddis sees it differently.Defense attorney and former prosecutor Faddis breaks down what happened inside that courtroom and what the plea deal’s fine print reveals. He explains what Heuermann gained by giving up his appeal, why the Vergata confession exists without a charge, and whether the phone call testimony from Melissa’s sister creates legal pathways nobody has discussed.The Gilgo Beach sentencing looked like a closing chapter. The plea agreement reads like an opening one.END 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.#GilgoBeach #RexHeuermann #TrueCrimeToday #GilgoBeachMurders #TrueCrime #EricFaddis #KarenVergata #MelissaBarthelemy #SuffolkCounty #SerialKiller
Transcribe →
Is Mackenzie Shirilla Exactly Who Her Parents Raised Her to Be?
5d ago00:22:47Tap to summarizeThe people watching the Mackenzie Shirilla case have a theory. They call it the Parental Architect theory, and the argument is blunt: Steve and Natalie Shirilla didn’t just fail to stop what their daughter became. They built it. Not intentionally. Not with malice. They built it by spending seventeen years choosing comfort over conflict — and the person who emerged from that household believed, at her core, that consequences were something that happened to other people.The documented record supports the argument in ways that are difficult to dismiss. A thirteen-year-old permitted to date with no intervention. School disciplinary records showing a clear behavioral pattern that the parents denied instead of addressed. A father who went on national television and said he was helpless to stop his minor daughter from using drugs. A mother who stood at sentencing for double murder and dismissed one of the dead as “a new friend” until a judge cut her off. And recorded prison calls where Natalie told her convicted daughter that rehabilitation was meant for “actual criminals.”But the hardest part of the Parental Architect theory isn’t that it condemns the Shirillas. It’s that it describes a household millions of people recognize. The parents who won’t draw the line. The parents who reframe their kid’s failures as everyone else’s fault. The parents whose love is indistinguishable from the thing doing the most damage. This episode traces the origin story of the Mackenzie Shirilla case — inside the house in Strongsville, Ohio where the crash that killed Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan began long before anyone got in the car.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/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 #SteveShirilla #NatalieShirilla #TheCrash #DominicRusso #DavionFlanagan #Netflix #TrueCrimeToday #TrueCrime #StrongsvilleOhio
Transcribe →
Rex Heuermann Killed Eight Women and His Own Family Is Still Picking Up the Pieces
5d ago00:50:19Tap to summarizeRex Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering eight women over seventeen years. His ex-wife sat across from him in a jailhouse visit and asked how many. He said the number without hesitating. His daughter told documentary producers she believes he most likely did it. His ex-wife still lives in the house — in the rebuilt basement where he told her the killings happened.This is the full three-part conversation between psychotherapist Shavaun Scott and Tony Brueski. Scott previously joined the show to discuss why people stay in relationships with dangerous partners. This picks up in new territory — what happens after the truth arrives and denial is no longer an option. How a brain sustains a double life for two decades. What the flat courtroom demeanor and the reported sense of relief mean. And what it looks like when someone's ex-wife renovates a kill room, moves into it, and tells a documentary crew the nightmares will never stop.For anyone who followed the Gilgo Beach case from the beginning, this conversation fills in the piece the courtroom was never designed to address.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/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.#RexHeuermann #AsaEllerup #TrueCrimeToday #GilgoBeach #GilgoBeachKiller #VictoriaHeuermann #ShavaunScott #TrueCrime #PeacockDocumentary #SerialKillerConfession
Transcribe →
What Hasn't Eric Bland Been Asked About Murdaugh and Stephen Smith?
6d ago00:48:52Tap to summarizeEvery legal analyst in the country has an opinion on the Murdaugh retrial. Very few of them built the case the prosecution used. Eric Bland did. He exposed the financial crimes that became the state's motive theory, represented the victims who testified, and watched the Supreme Court tell prosecutors they overdid it. He also represents Sandy Smith in the Stephen Smith investigation — the cold case that SLED reopened because of the Murdaugh murders and that has produced zero arrests in eleven years.On True Crime Today, Bland answers the questions that haven't been asked on the cable panels. What would he tell Creighton Waters to keep and cut in a narrower financial crimes presentation? Is there anything in the financial discovery the defense could reframe? Has he seen the sealed Stephen Smith autopsy results? Is SLED waiting on the retrial to move? And the question underneath all of it — whether the Murdaugh retrial produces anything for the families who've been waiting the longest, or whether it just retraumatizes them again while Alex Murdaugh rolls the dice on a second jury.This is the full Eric Bland interview — the ruling, the retrial, and Stephen Smith. The attorney who connects all three.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.#AlexMurdaugh #EricBland #TrueCrimeToday #StephenSmith #MurdaughRetrial #SandySmith #Satterfield #TrueCrime #SouthCarolina #HiddenKillers
Transcribe →