Episodes

"How many lives could have been saved if the warning signs had been connected sooner?" In the mid-1980s, a wave of unprecedented terror gripped Southern California. Windows were nailed shut, lights were on throughout the night, and ordinary communities found themselves at the mercy of a predatory phantom. The media gave him a moniker that froze the blood of millions: "The Night Stalker." But away from the sensational headlines, a devastating reality was unfolding; one marked by fragmented police...

How does a child genius who enters Harvard at sixteen end up becoming one of the most notorious domestic terrorists in American history? In this episode of When Killers Get Caught, Brittany Ransom examines the life of Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. From his childhood as a gifted student in Chicago to his years at Harvard, his isolation in a remote Montana cabin, and the anti-technology ideology that fueled a seventeen-year bombing campaign, we explore the events that shaped one o...

In 1991, a suburban Texas mother was arrested for allegedly trying to hire a hitman over a middle school cheerleading competition. This week on When Killers Get Caught, Brittany Ransom examines the shocking case of Wanda Holloway, better known as the "Texas Cheerleader Mom." What began as a disappointing cheerleading tryout in Channelview, Texas spiraled into one of the most bizarre murder-for-hire plots in American true crime history. Through recorded wiretap conversations, courtroom drama, m...

In this landmark 100th episode of When Killers Get Caught, we step beyond the moment of arrest and into something deeper: a reckoning. The case of Gisèle Pelicot shocked the world. For nearly a decade, her husband, Dominique Pelicot, drugged her into unconsciousness and invited dozens of men into their home meticulously documenting the abuse along the way. What began as a seemingly minor incident in a French supermarket unraveled into one of the most disturbing cases of systemic betrayal in rece...

In 1981, a man was shot in broad daylight on Main Street in Skidmore, Missouri in front of dozens of witnesses. Yet, no one was ever arrested. This is the story of Ken Rex McElroy, a man accused of violence, intimidation, and terrorizing a small town for years… and the moment that town stopped waiting for the system to act. This episode of When Killers Get Caught explores what happens when justice fails, fear takes over, and silence becomes a community decision. When everyone knows what happ...

In 2006, Susan Kuhnhausen came home after a long shift as an emergency room nurse and walked straight into a violent ambush inside her own home. A man was waiting for her with a hammer. He had a job to do and she was the target. What he didn’t know was that Susan wasn’t just a victim. She was a veteran ER nurse trained to assess crisis in seconds, make decisions under pressure, and survive moments most people never prepare for. By the end of the night, the intruder, Ed Haffey, was dead. And ...

She was married to one of America’s most feared mob bosses, Vito Genovese, but Anna Genovese lived by her own rules inside the heart of the New York Mafia. Anna built a parallel world in Greenwich Village, creating safe havens for a queer community the city tried to erase, all while navigating a violent marriage inside the Genovese crime family. When she finally broke the Mafia’s code of silence, she didn’t just risk her life, she reshaped the power structure around her. Anna Genovese broke omer...

Dennis Rader looked like the last person you would ever suspect. A church leader. A husband. A father. A man trusted by his community. But behind that ordinary life was something far more calculated. Known as BTK, Bind, Torture, Kill, Rader terrorized Wichita, Kansas in the 1970s before disappearing for decades. He didn’t get caught because he slipped up during a crime. He got caught because he needed to be seen. In this episode, Brittany Ransom breaks down the psychology behind one of America...

On March 16, 1984, inside a Baton Rouge airport, a man stepped forward, raised a gun, and shot another man in the head, on live television. That man was Gary Plauché. The victim? The man accused of kidnapping and abusing his 11-year-old son. But this case is more than a shocking moment caught on camera. It’s a story about trust, grooming, trauma, and the devastating reality of what happens when the system moves slower than a parent’s pain. In this episode, we break down how a trusted karate ...

Samuel Little is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in United States history, confessing to 93 murders across multiple states between the 1970s and early 2000s. For decades, many of his victims remained unidentified, their disappearances overlooked as Little traveled from city to city targeting vulnerable women. In this episode, we examine the disturbing case of Samuel Little and the women whose lives were taken during his forty-year killing spree. After his arrest in 2012, investig...

In the summer of 1976, New York City was gripped by fear. A serial killer known as “Son of Sam” began targeting young couples sitting in parked cars, using a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver in a series of sudden, execution-style shootings. Over the course of a year, David Berkowitz murdered six people and wounded seven others, sending shockwaves through the city. In this episode of When Killers Get Caught, host Brittany Ransom examines the full story of the Son of Sam case, from the first shooting...

Every time a Black person is killed, the lie arrives faster than the facts. He had a gun. He was high. She was threatening. In this alternative episode of When Killers Get Caught, Brittany Ransom steps away from a traditional case to examine a pattern that stretches from Emmett Till to the present day and why the phrase “they’re killing Americans now” is landing as confirmation, not concern, for Black Americans and other marginalized communities. This episode explores how state violence has h...

In 1981, during the height of the War on Drugs, police raided a San Francisco apartment expecting a major drug dealer. Instead, they found a grandmother in an apron baking brownies. Her name was Mary Jane Rathbun, later known as Brownie Mary, a woman whose arrest would help change how America viewed medical marijuana, the AIDS crisis, and compassion under the law. As young men died alone in hospital wards during the 1980s AIDS epidemic, Mary broke the law to feed, comfort, and care for patient...

The True Crime Story of William Chester Minor and the Oxford English Dictionary In 1872, a former U.S. Army surgeon named William Chester Minor shot a stranger to death on a London street. Declared criminally insane, he was confined to Broadmoor Asylum where he would unexpectedly become one of the most significant contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. This true crime story explores murder, mental illness, and how one fractured mind helped define the English language. Follow & continue...

He stood at the altar as a man of God and lived in secret as a killer. In the early 1900s, Hans Schmidt became the only Catholic priest ever executed in the United States. Sworn to celibacy and spiritual authority, Schmidt instead lived a double life that ended in ritual murder. After illegally marrying a young immigrant woman and impregnating her, he brutally murdered and dismembered her when the truth threatened to surface. But Anna Aumuller’s death was only the beginning. As investigators ...