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Thirty-three-year-old Jason Schaefer was delivering mail on a quiet afternoon in Longmont, Colorado, when bullets assaulted him. Witnesses saw a figure run from the mailboxes, covered in a hoodie and mask, and at first, the case seemed to point in one direction. But as detectives traced Jason’s final day, they uncovered a tangled web of jealousy, custody fights, family betrayal, and secrets hiding in plain sight, all surrounding a young father who never made it home from work.

A routine custody exchange in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, quickly spiraled into something far more sinister. A Baltimore police officer claimed his 15-year-old stepson had disappeared. The truth was waiting inside the house.

Jennifer Dulos, an upper-class mom of five, vanished from Connecticut on a spring morning in 2019. Two women, both from privilege, both connected to the same man, would find themselves on opposite sides of what came next. One walked away. The other stayed. As the investigation unfolded, a story emerged - one shaped by money, control, and the quiet ways power is used and abused. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

On April 13, 2001, Jerry Heimann was supposed to meet his son at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Instead, Greg Heimann arrived at his father’s home in Everett, Washington, to find the rooms stripped bare and his grandmother abandoned. The search for Jerry would expose a household where care, money, and loyalty had become dangerously entangled. By the time police understood what had happened inside that house, nearly every life connected to it had already been changed.

When 33-year-old Lashaun Keith’s body is discovered in a remote Michigan hay field, detectives have almost nothing to go on. There are no eyewitnesses and no clear suspects. All they find is a single glove. Sixteen months later, that glove points them to three men, each telling a different story about the same deadly night. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

On April 6, 2018, in Wadsworth, Ohio, ninety-eight-year-old Margaret Douglas falls suddenly, inexplicably silent inside the little house she’s kept the same for decades. When police search the house, there are no shattered windows, no overturned chairs; just a glove, a jar of grape jelly on the counter, and Margaret’s missing wallet. As they pick through her final days, those details start to look less mundane and more like the only roadmap to a truth so horrifying it’d be hard to believe.

In April of 2024, 25-year-old Megan Bodiford went missing. The search for answers would uncover a violent crime hidden in plain sight and reveal how the signs of danger were there all along. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In Dayton, Ohio, a frantic 9-1-1 call sent police rushing to a home where a 15-year-old girl had been shot in the chest. As first responders fought to save her life, witnesses tried to explain what had happened. All signs pointed to a nonverbal autistic boy who seemingly had no way to explain himself.

The British Club was a close circle of English expats in Fleming Island, Florida. They were friends who looked out for one another like family. So when 65-year-old Sue Mauldin suddenly vanished, they knew something was wrong. What followed was a desperate race by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office to track down a man hiding in plain sight and uncover what really happened to Sue. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

A quiet evening in Washington City, Utah, ended in gunfire inside the Bailey family home. Gail and Joseph Bailey were executed. Their son and daughter-in-law barely escaped through a window. What followed was a sprawling manhunt through the desert edge of St. George with drones, SWAT teams, and a suspect hiding in the weeds with a gun to her head. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In Delray Beach, Florida, a routine traffic stop led police to a young man covered in blood. By the next morning, a body had been discovered. What followed was a tense interrogation — and a motive that felt disturbingly small compared to the violence it produced. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

As the search for 13-year-old Madeline Soto intensifies, the story her family told about that morning starts to come apart. What first looked like a missing child case turns into something far more disturbing as detectives retrace Madeline’s final hours and uncover a trail of contradictions, hidden evidence, and devastating secrets inside the home she was supposed to be safe in. The deeper investigators dig, the clearer it becomes: Madeline did not simply vanish on her way to school. She was forced to disappear.

13-year-old Madeline Soto vanishes on what should have been an ordinary school morning in Kissimmee, Florida. She’s dropped off just a block away, and nothing about it feels unusual. She walks off, heading toward school… and disappears. By the afternoon, panic sets in. Calls to 911 reveal a family scrambling for answers: rechecking routes, calling friends, waiting for help that isn’t coming fast enough. She never made it to class. No one saw her arrive. Beneath the family’s lies, it’s a race against the clock to find Maddie. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

In 2018, Joshua Niles and Amber Washburn were gunned down in their driveway in Sodus, New York. The investigation would uncover a cross-country murder plot fueled by manipulation and control, and expose how one person’s influence can turn another into a monster.

When 25-year-old biomedical engineer Jonathan Amerault disappeared, it felt like another one of his hiking trips had gone horribly wrong. But the scene in the woods, and the female co-worker found beside his brutalized body, told a much more sinister story of love and blind rage. Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com