American True Crime

At 5:02 p.m. on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband, Bruce, was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickells' mobile home to find Stella standing frozen at the door…. Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.

Justice may have been served, but the human element of the story didn't seem to add up. What drove a loving family man with everything to lose to become a killer? In March of 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife Maggie and their younger son Paul at their home in South...

Thirty-two case files. Decades of murder. Predators who thought the truth would stay buried. Across American highways, suburban streets, forgotten properties, quiet neighborhoods, and crime scenes left cold for years, killers moved through ordinary life while families waited in agony for answers. American True Crime Files investigates thirty-two disturbing cases involving serial killers, calculated murderers, unidentified predators, missing women, buried evidence, wrongful convictions, forensic breakthroughs, and investigations that refused to die.

In the early morning hours of August 13, 2018, Shanann Watts was dropped off at her Frederick, Colorado, home by a colleague after returning from a business trip. It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family's safe return. But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to police.

Everyone knows the infamous names. Ted Bundy. John Wayne Gacy. Jeffrey Dahmer. The Zodiac Killer. Charles Manson. The Golden State Killer. Their crimes have been covered again and again. But beyond the familiar monsters of true crime history lies a darker world of cases that are just as chilling—and often far less known. American True Crime Files takes listeners into ten real cases involving serial killers, missing persons, unsolved murders, and criminal minds.

★★★★★ 'An absolutely gripping reflection on the true crime phenomenon, and the various victims of both the initial crime and its exploitation for entertainment.’ NetGalley Reviewer The perfect mystery to solve for fans of Holly Jackson and Cara Hunter. *** A missing girl. An angry...

On December 11, 1978, masked gunmen walked into a cargo terminal at JFK Airport and walked out with nearly six million dollars in cash. No alarms. No shootout. No one ever convicted for the robbery itself. The Lufthansa Heist: The Mafia's Greatest Airport Robbery tells the full true crime story behind the largest cash theft in American history and the bloody aftermath that followed.

From the true crime author of Murderabilia, a geographic telling of some of the most notorious but lesser-known murders for each US State. Filled with hundreds of entries organized by location, 50 States of Murder is a lively and chilling work of storytelling and an authoritative survey of the...

The True American tells the story of Raisuddin Bhuiyan, a Bangladesh Air Force officer who dreams of immigrating to America and working in technology. But days after 9/11, an avowed "American terrorist" named Mark Stroman, seeking revenge, walks into the Dallas minimart where Bhuiyan has found temporary work and shoots him, maiming and nearly killing him. Two other victims, at other gas stations, aren't so lucky, dying at once. The True American traces the making of these two men, Stroman and Bhuiyan, and of their fateful encounter.

Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.

A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.

_____________________________ THE NEW YORK TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER on the murder behind the Netflix documentary Killer Inside He had it all. A $40 million NFL contract. Fame. Adoration – until he was convicted of murder, and jailed for life without parole. A true story told by the master of...

On a hot rainy summer night in Nassau, the Bahamas, in 1943, someone murdered Sir Harry Oakes, one of the richest men in the world, as he slept. When police found him the next morning, there were four wounds to his skull. His corpse had been abused, covered ritualistically with feathers and set on fire. The murder was perverse, horrific, and jaded by anyone’s standards. A few evenings later in New York City, the phone rang in the home of Alan Hynd, identified in that era by the NY Times as America’s highest paid true crime reporter.

America has a long and complicated fascination with serial killers. When we think about the most infamous of these killers, we generally think of men like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy. Those names make headlines while there’s the often-repeated myth that suggests there are no female serial killers. After all, most of us couldn’t name a woman on the same scale of infamy at BTK or the elusive Zodiac Killer, can we? As it so often is, the truth is far more complicated. Women kill.

It's the late 1980s and Gena, a young girl from the projects, meets millionaire drug dealer Quadir and falls madly in love. Quadir builds a massive empire while fighting his rivals and enemies. Gena faces the challenges of holding onto her man, her house, her car, and the cash. Both of them find...

American Ripper is the true story of Gerard John Schaefer, a Florida law enforcement officer who was a prolific serial killer in the late 1960s early 1970s. The decade that was thought to be filled with love, peace, and happiness became a new dark age, breeding more serial killers than any other time in US history including Charles Manson, the Zodiac Killer, the Son of Sam, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy, who was held in the same prison as Schaefer and whom he both idolized and resented for the recognition his crimes brought him, a recognition Schaefer never received.

They thought they had got away with murder. They were wrong. Discover the vital clues, the crucial evidence, the lucky breaks, the chases, the painstaking detective work, and the unlikely heroes that led to the capture of some of the world's most notorious murderers and serial killers, such as...

‘A bracing account of abuses of power and corruption in the criminal justice system.’ The Guardian From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix’s The Staircase comes an essential examination of America’s corrupt and abusive criminal justice...

Sulick reveals six fundamental elements of espionage in these stories: the motivations that drove them to spy; their access and the secrets they betrayed; their tradecraft, i.e., the techniques of concealing their espionage; their exposure; their punishment; and, finally, the damage they inflicted on America's national security.

On 9 August 1969, news trickled in that the pregnant movie star Sharon Tate and her friends had been brutally murdered in Los Angeles. Seen as a turning point in the cultural history of America, the Manson murders shocked the world and fanned the flames of a backlash against 1960s youth culture...