Advertise on podcast: Murder Pie

In December 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons Sr., a 47-year-old former military serviceman living in rural Pope County, Arkansas, went on one of the deadliest killing sprees in U.S. history. Over the course of a week, Simmons murdered 16 people, including 14 members of his own family, in what is considered the worst familicide on record in the country.

This sickly sweet pie accompanies the story of Ronald Gene Simmons.

Meat pie

In this episode of Murder Pie, we travel to Australia to tell the chilling story of Katherine Knight—one of the most violent offenders in the country’s history. Raised in extreme abuse and chaos, Katherine grew into a woman whose relationships were defined by control, obsession, and escalating violence. After a long pattern of terrorizing partners and their children, her final act crossed into unthinkable brutality. This episode explores the warning signs, the failures that allowed her violence to continue, and the murder that shocked a nation—followed, as always, by a pie recipe rooted in the place where the story unfolded

In this episode of Murder Pie, we examine the unsolved 1994 disappearance and murder of 19-year-old Melissa Witt in Fort Smith, Arkansas. After vanishing from a busy parking lot in the early evening, Melissa’s remains were later discovered deep in the Ozark National Forest — leaving behind decades of unanswered questions. We walk through the timeline, investigation, arrests, and lingering theories in a case that continues to haunt her family and community, then close the episode with a classic Arkansas-style apple pie recipe.

In this episode of Murder Pie, we step inside the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a building haunted by decades of tragedy. From its glamorous beginnings to its descent into notoriety, we explore the hotel’s history of suicides, unsolved murders, serial killers, and the case of Elisa Lam that captivated the world. As myths and reality blur, we examine how neglect, mental illness, and circumstance shaped one of America’s darkest landmarks… then close the episode the only way we know how, with a rich dark chocolate cherry pie recipe to bring us back into the light.