The Vanishing In the fall of 1999, 22-year-old Sherry Leighty—a mother of three with a shy smile and a gentle heart—disappeared without a trace from Altoona, Pennsylvania. Her sudden absence sparked fear, confusion, and heartbreak. For years, her family clung to hope, whispering prayers into the silence, yearning for answers that never came. Police initially … Read more
A Teenager with a Future—Erased in Seconds Laquan McDonald wasn’t a name the world knew—until October 20, 2014. That night, on a cracked stretch of road on Chicago’s southwest side, the 17-year-old was shot 16 times by Officer Jason Van Dyke, turning a routine call into a national reckoning. What followed wasn’t just another tragic … Read more
A Voice That Changed True Crime Forever There are voices that simply tell stories—and then there are voices that define a genre. Bill Kurtis is one of the latter. With a cadence that mixes authority with calm intrigue, he’s guided millions through the tangled, often terrifying narratives of unsolved murders, vanished victims, and long-forgotten leads. … Read more
A Classroom Left Empty—and a City Forever Changed It was supposed to be a normal school day in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. But when 25-year-old Christy Mirack didn’t show up to teach her sixth-grade class on December 21, 1992, her principal felt something was wrong. What he discovered inside her home wasn’t just tragic—it was the beginning … Read more
A Life on the Edge—and a Push Over It On the evening of July 12, 2014, Conrad Roy, an 18-year-old with a bright smile and a stormy soul, climbed into his pickup truck. In the quiet of a Kmart parking lot in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, carbon monoxide hissed from a gas-powered water pump. It was a … Read more
Not Every Monster Hides in the Dark It doesn’t always start with bruises. Often, it begins with compliments, roses, and whispered promises of forever. Then comes the isolation. The control. The fear. By the time it turns violent, the most dangerous truth is already in motion: many victims of intimate partner violence don’t survive to … Read more
A Husband, A Father—A Killer? On Christmas Eve of 2002, Modesto, California, was dressed in twinkling lights and festive anticipation. But the warmth of the season would soon be shattered by a horrifying discovery—or, rather, the absence of one. Laci Peterson, 27 years old and eight months pregnant, simply vanished. And her husband, Scott Peterson—the … Read more
For years, a rancid, rotting stench hovered over Imperial Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. Neighbors complained. City inspectors blamed nearby sausage factories. But inside a crumbling duplex at 12205 Imperial, a serial killer was collecting corpses—and no one was listening. That killer was Anthony Sowell, a convicted sex offender and former Marine. From 2007 to 2009, … Read more
It starts with a snap—not of bone or scalpel, but of rope, as a medical student cuts down a freshly hanged man. His heart is still fluttering. His eyes, not yet dimmed. But this isn’t a rescue. It’s a race to the dissection table. And it’s only the beginning of medicine’s most monstrous chapter. In … Read more
Beneath the towering cliffs and tranquil waterfalls of Yosemite National Park, a darker tale hides in its legacy—a memory stained with blood and horror. In 1999, Cary Stayner turned a beloved national park into a hunting ground. Four innocent women lost their lives. And today, over two decades later, Stayner—once a handyman at the Cedar … Read more