Sex trafficking, a modern form of slavery, is growing faster than most realize. Fueled by digital anonymity and lax enforcement, the trade has become invisible, profitable, and global. In recent years, new cases have exposed the horrifying ways traffickers recruit, control, and exploit victims—often right in front of us. Below are seven chilling facts that … Read more
On a quiet December night in 2000, the Wingate Inn in Cobb County, Georgia, became the site of a senseless and tragic murder. Two masked robbers stormed the hotel lobby. One leaped the front desk and, with a single gunshot, ended the life of Rodney Castlin, a hardworking night manager, husband, and father. For the … Read more
By the summer of 2013, the Staudte family of Springfield, Missouri, appeared cursed by tragedy. First, Mark Staudte, the family’s father, died suddenly in April 2012. Just five months later, his 26-year-old autistic son, Shaun, was also found dead. Then in June 2013, another crisis struck: daughter Sarah was rushed to the hospital, her body … Read more
It should have been a time of joy. Lisa Techel, just 23 and 17 weeks pregnant, was preparing for a bright future with her high school sweetheart. Married less than a year, the couple appeared to have it all—love, stability, and a child on the way. But in the early hours of May 26, 2012, … Read more
On the morning of June 7, 1995, 14-year-old Nacole Smith was just days away from graduating middle school. That day, she walked with her sister and a friend, heading to school in southwest Atlanta. But when she realized she had forgotten a homework assignment, she turned back alone to retrieve it—a routine decision that changed … Read more
On a calm afternoon in January 2021, a deadly moment changed everything in Iron County, Michigan. Just after 2 p.m. on January 13, a pickup truck driven by Jerry Dean Mittelstadt barreled into a Road Commission work zone, killing 56-year-old Lawrence Leonarduzzi, a flagger on duty. The impact crushed Leonarduzzi between a Road Commission vehicle … Read more
“You are the monster that no one sees coming.” These haunting words came from U.S. District Judge Thomas Kleeh in 2021, addressing Reta Mays, a former nursing assistant convicted of murdering seven elderly veterans. Mays didn’t fit the typical profile of a serial killer—and that’s precisely what makes female serial killers so dangerous. They don’t … Read more
Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, Baton Rouge became a city wrapped in fear. Women began disappearing. Their bodies later turned up at brutal crime scenes. Residents canceled evening plans, self-defense classes surged, and pepper spray sold out across Louisiana. Behind these horrors stood a single man—Derrick Todd Lee—a killer who managed to walk … Read more
In the lawless wilds of 1870s frontier Kansas, a gruesome tale unfolded that would earn one family infamy as America’s first serial killing clan. The so-called Bloody Benders—a quartet posing as a kind, welcoming family—used their rural inn in Labette County as a house of death. From 1870 to 1873, travelers entered their cabin seeking … Read more
In 2003, Detective Steven Mack of the Huntington Beach Police Department reopened a murder retrial that would ultimately unmask one of America’s most prolific serial killers. The subject of that trial, Rodney Alcala, had already faced conviction for the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe—twice. Both convictions were overturned due to procedural errors. This time, … Read more