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She was one of the fastest runners in the country. And then, she was gone. January 1993, West Philadelphia. 17-year-old Shilie Turner was one of the fastest high school runners in the country, filling out college applications and dreaming of the Olympics. One freezing night she got off a bus six blocks from home and was never seen alive again. Police had no leads and no body, so, on the FBI's advice, they brought in a psychic. What she described, the park, the shallow grave, the missing shoes, was so exact that detectives couldn't explain it, and it pointed them somewhere no one wanted to look. Melissa opens Psychic Connections, our October block of cases where a psychic helped, with the story of who Shilie was and the heartbreaking truth about who took her future. This one has no happy ending.  Ep. 124 | Murder Unscripted | October 2026 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | Copyright: Money Beet Media, LLC Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

52 fires in 75 hours. One man terrorized Los Angeles, and this is the investigator who hunted him down. To close out Burning Desires, we sit down with one of the most decorated arson investigators alive: Ed Nordskog. Decades on the LA County Sheriff's Arson-Explosives team, five books that other investigators keep on their desks, and a wall of honors that is frankly ridiculous. Nordskog was the lead investigator on the worst arson spree in American history, the 2011 rampage that brought Los Angeles to its knees. He walks us through how it began in a federal courtroom, how a one-dollar-a-year reserve deputy on his third shift made the arrest, and what it is like to sit for hours across the table from the most dangerous person you have ever met. He also does the thing we have wanted all month: he weighs in on John Orr and Paul Keller, and explains why almost everything the public believes about arsonists is wrong. 🖤 LISTEN ON AUDIO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT Email: [email protected] | Socials: @murderunscripted #MurderUnscripted #Arson #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For six months, a phantom arsonist burned Seattle to the ground. The man who finally stopped him was his own father. In 1992, more than a hundred fires tore through the Seattle area. Churches, warehouses, strip malls, and, on one horrifying night, a retirement home where three women lost their lives. Whole neighborhoods slept in shifts. Investigators called the man behind it "the Specter," because chasing him was like chasing a ghost. But he was not the drifter everyone pictured. He was a clean-cut advertising salesman in a nice car. And the person who finally recognized him was the one who knew him best: his own father, reading a police profile at the kitchen table. Ed closes out September's "Burning Desires" block with the story most people reduce to a number, and the three women, Bertha, Mary, and Adeline, whose lives deserve more than a statistic. LISTEN ON AUDIO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT Email: [email protected] | Socials: @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, a serial arsonist burned his way across California and vanished before the smoke cleared. In Part 2, we finally put a name and a face to him, and it is the last person anyone suspected: John Orr, a celebrated Glendale fire captain and arson investigator. Orr did not just work near the case, he helped run it. He photographed the scenes, argued the theories, and chased the very fires he had set, including the deadly South Pasadena blaze that killed four people. Then he did something almost unbelievable: he wrote a novel about a fire investigator turned serial arsonist, and the story cut far too close to the truth. Melissa brings the Pillow Pyro story to its conclusion: how a fingerprint, a first-of-its-kind tracking device, and Orr's own manuscript finally brought him down, and how a fire once ruled accidental became four counts of murder. Miss part 1? Start here 👉 https://youtu.be/FD6BHgMF5GA LISTEN ON AUDIO Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership (20% of every membership goes to the Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾) CONNECT Email: [email protected] | Socials: @murderunscripted #MurderUnscripted #JohnOrr #Arson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A cigarette, three matches, and a rubber band. For most of the 1980s, that was all it took for a serial arsonist to burn his way across California and vanish before the smoke was even spotted. Most of the fires destroyed property. One destroyed a family. A fire at a crowded hardware store in South Pasadena killed four people, including a child, and was quietly ruled an accident, letting the man responsible keep going for years. Melissa opens a two-part story on the hunt for one of the most prolific arsonists in American history. And the truth about who he was is something almost nobody saw coming. Ep. 120 | Burning Desires | Murder Unscripted | September 2026 | Part 1 of 2 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shoreline, Washington, 1995. Firefighters knock down a small apartment fire and find a woman's body inside. One month later, 50 feet away, it happens again. Two ordinary, kind women were murdered in nearly identical attacks by a man who brought nothing with him. He used the victims' own belongings, disabled their smoke detectors, and set the fires to erase himself completely. For two years, it worked. Ed opens September’s “Burning Desires” (a month of arson cases) with the story of how one piece of evidence that survived the flames finally brought Renee Powell and Barbara Walsh's killer to justice. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Her degree says nuclear physics but her work changed the way cold cases are solved. ⬇️ To close out our Killer Connections block, Ed and Melissa sit down with the woman whose name has come up all month long: Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick. Before forensic genetic genealogy was a headline, before it was even a field, Colleen saw a different way to use DNA. She founded Identifinders International, helped turn distant relatives into the key that unlocks decades-old cold cases, and became a legend in true crime genre along the way. In this insightful conversation, Colleen discusses the road from physics to the front lines of cold case work, the cases that never left her, and where this science goes next. Ep. 118 | Killer Connections Finale | Murder Unscripted | August 2026 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billings, Montana, November 1973. Cliff and Linda Bernhardt set their dinner table for three and welcomed a guest they trusted. By the next morning, the young couple were dead, and the killer had staged the scene in a way so strange it would puzzle investigators for the next 45 years. Cliff had survived the jungles of Vietnam. He didn't survive dinner at his own table. Melissa covers Week 3 of Killer Connections: a bizarre 1973 cold case, decades of dead ends, and the genetic genealogy breakthrough that finally gave the Bernhardt family a name. Ep. 117 | Killer Connections | Murder Unscripted | August 2026 Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the morning of May 2, 2001, Leslie Preer -- a warm, generous 48-year-old woman who her family said saw the world through rose-colored glasses -- didn't show up to work in Washington DC. Her boss drove to the family home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Her husband Sandy met him there. When police arrived, they found Leslie on the bathroom floor, under the running shower, having suffered a brutal attack. From the beginning, investigators focused on Sandy. He failed a polygraph. His behavior seemed odd. The couple had debt, arguments, a history of tension. But the male DNA found at the scene and under Leslie's fingernails was never his. Sandy was never charged. He was also never cleared. In 2017, sixteen years after Leslie's murder, Sandy Preer died -- still, in the eyes of many in his community and even Leslie's own family, a suspect. In 2022, two female cold case detectives picked up the file with fresh eyes, refused to accept Sandy's guilt, and campaigned to get the case approved for forensic genetic genealogy through Othram, a Texas lab specializing in advanced DNA sequencing. The results pointed to a surname: Gligor. A Romanian family with deep roots in Chevy Chase -- and a connection to Lauren, Leslie's daughter, that nobody had looked at closely enough. Getting the suspect's DNA without alerting him required ingenuity. When he landed at Dulles Airport in June 2024, detectives had bottles of water waiting. He drank. He left. They collected the bottle. The DNA matched the evidence from Leslie's home, definitively and completely. Melissa covers the full story: Leslie's life and family, the decades of wrongful suspicion, the two detectives who cracked it open, and the interrogation scene that has to be heard to be believed. Sandy didn't live to see his name cleared. Lauren did. And she had 23 years worth of things to say at sentencing. Hosted by Ed Hydock & Melissa Spivey | A Darkcast Network Production Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership [email protected] | @murderunscripted Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

35 years cold. 6 cells worth of DNA. One pink-haired genealogist. ⬇️ Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home in Niles, Michigan in February 1987. Her husband Terry was never charged, but he was never cleared either. For 35 years, a small town called him "Slash" to his face. The real killer was a stranger who lived a few miles away and had never been in the case file. The case was cracked by genetic genealogy using a DNA sample so degraded that experts called it unsolvable, and a genealogist named Gabriella Vargas who disagreed. She built a family tree back to the 1820s and came up with a name in four days. An undercover trooper bummed a cigarette off the suspect outside a laundromat to get the confirmation sample. The match was one in billions. Ed covers the full story... Roxanne's victimology, the cold case, the genealogy work, the exoneration, and an ending that will stay with you. The perfect first episode to kick off August's Killer Connections block. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #RoxanneWood #GeneticGenealogy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

She brought dogs into the courtroom! Listen to find out how. Most true crime content is about catching the bad guy. This episode covers what happens afterwards - specifically, the moment a child has to walk into a room full of strangers and say out loud what happened to them. Courthouse facility dogs sit with victims and witnesses (many of them children) during forensic interviews, depositions, and testimony. They reduce cortisol. They increase accuracy. They make the impossible feel possible. And in most courtrooms, the jury never even knows they're there. To close out the Dog Days of Summer block, Ed and Melissa sit down with Dr. Celeste Walsen - co-founder and Executive Director of the Courthouse Dogs Foundation, the organization that coined the term, built the field, and has been MU's charity partner from the beginning. Watch til the end to see Celeste take part in a round of "Paw & Order." It gets good! Learn more and donate: https://www.courthousedogs.org LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes directly to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #CourthouseDogs #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Fritts was murdered in a house fire in Brenham, Texas in 1994. Her husband Charles walked out without a scratch. He had $800,000 in insurance lined up, a girlfriend abroad, and a Mercedes ad running in the local paper. Investigators had plenty of motive. What they needed was proof the fire was set deliberately. That proof came from two dogs named Samantha and Jager - hydrocarbon-sniffing K-9s who alerted to accelerant in the ruins of the Fritts home and helped put Charles away for life. And when the defense challenged their evidence in court, the Texas Court of Appeals made history. Fitts versus State, decided in 1998, became the case that put arson dogs in Texas courtrooms permanently. Melissa covers Frances's case and the remarkable legal legacy it left behind - including a note from the heart about a victim she couldn't find enough about, and the reason she still needed to say her name. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted If you knew Frances Fritts, please reach out to [email protected]. We would love to tell her story properly. If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #FrancesFritts #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He named his murder plan "Operation Slop Shop" and his neighbor was first on the list. Carlos Maldonado was a 55-year-old dad rebuilding his life - starting a window tinting business and rekindling a relationship with his daughter Talisa. On April 14th, 2024, he vanished without a trace. His body wasn't found until October 30th - wrapped in tarp and garbage bags, tied with rope, hidden on a wooded hill less than 200 feet from his own front door. A trail camera in a tenant's garden captured Maldonado's 63-year-old neighbor, Kevin Lychwick, making trips to the hillside at 12:41am. His explanation: he feeds the rabbits at night. But his apartment told a different story. In the living room, police find a stack of handwritten documents. One was labeled 'Operation Slop Shop.' It named his neighbor Carlos Maldonado as a threat. It was stamped November 2023...six months before Maldonado's murder. Lychwick represented himself during a shocking and entertaining trial, and was eventually found guilty of first-degree intentional homicide. Sentencing is scheduled for August 20, 2026. Subscribe so you don't miss the update. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted If this one resonated with you, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #OperationSlopShop #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two fires. One night. Four bodies. His own brother was behind everything. In the early hours of November 20th, 2018, a 911 call came in reporting a house fire in Ocean Township, New Jersey. Within hours, a second 911 call came in from a neighborhood fifteen miles away in Colts Neck. A man had gone outside to check on his generator after a mysterious power failure. He never came back in. His wife and two children were still inside when the house was set on fire. The victims were Keith Caniero, 50. His wife Jennifer, 45. Their son Jesse, 11. And their daughter Sophia, 8. The man who set the first fire at his own home, as a decoy) was Paul Caniero...Keith's older brother. The man who had been secretly embezzling from Keith's life insurance trust for years, spending the money on a lavish lifestyle and a mistress, and who faced financial ruin the moment Keith discovered the truth. If not for a New Jersey State Police K-9 named Creed, he might've gotten away with it. LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation 🐾 CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted #MurderUnscripted #CanieroFamily #TrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kaylee's parents sit down to address the recently released autopsy details, the relentless online conspiracies, and share never-before-heard stories about their daughter Kaylee. The media dubbed them "The Idaho Four." But behind that moniker were four individuals with four families and four futures. One of them was Kaylee Goncalves...a bright, bubbly 21-year-old who had the world by a string. And while everyone knows the story of what happened to her few know the REAL Kaylee. Like how fiercely independent she was from the time she was small...the kind of kid who didn't ask for help and didn't need to be told twice. Like the prankster who liked throwing cell phones in the toilet and once told her dad she saw a cougar, only to show him a photo of an African leopard. That was Kaylee. In this powerful conversation, Steve and Kristi Goncalves also address the relentless media scrutiny, the release of case details not meant for the public, and the hateful online conspiracies that keep them up at night. They also speak to the work of the Murder Has a Name Foundation, which they founded in Kaylee's memory to advocate for victims' families navigating the criminal justice system. This is an interview that personifies Murder Unscripted, and it's one of the most important conversations we've ever had. To learn more about the Kaylee Goncalves Foundation: "Murder Has a Name" visit: www.murderhasaname.com LISTEN ON AUDIO: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-unscripted/id1750146409 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2AUGh12ei1wk8x7CvcX9qH SUPPORT THE SHOW: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/MurderUnscriptedPod/membership 20% of every membership goes to Courthouse Dogs Foundation CONNECT WITH US: Email: [email protected] Socials: @murderunscripted If this one moved you, please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. #MurderUnscripted #KayleeGoncalves #SteveGoncalves Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices