Show Notes
What if everything we think we know about Lizzie Borden is wrong? With Netflix once again turning Lizzie Borden into a monster, we're going back to the woman behind the legend. In 1892, Lizzie stood trial for the brutal murders of her father, Andrew, and stepmother, Abby, inside their Fall River home. She was acquitted—but more than 130 years later, we're still trying to explain who she was and what could have driven her to kill, if she did. This week on UNMARKED, I’m joined by Dr. Cara Robertson, author of The Trial of Lizzie Borden and one of the foremost researchers on the case, to separate the historical Lizzie from the character we've created around her. We reconstruct the morning of the murders, examine the evidence against Lizzie, the alleged attempt to purchase poison, the disputed murder weapon, the Borden family's simmering resentments, and the psychology of parricide. And we trace how each generation has reinvented Lizzie—from Victorian spinster to abused daughter to cold-blooded heiress and, now, Netflix monster. Research in This Episode: Heide KM. Patricide and steppatricide victims and offenders: an empirical analysis of U.S. arrest data. Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2014 Nov;58(11):1261-78. Show Notes: If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself. Read it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7 If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/ For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes. Join here: https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom.
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How does a husband-and-wife couple become a team of serial killers—and was one of them more dangerous than the other? Between 1978 and 1980, Gerald and Charlene Gallego terrorized the American West, abducting, sexually assaulting, and murdering young women, teenage girls, and a young man. The pair became known as the Sex Slave Killers, leaving investigators struggling to understand how a husband and wife could become partners in serial murder. In this episode of UNMARKED, I sit down with investigator Gene Burchett, who worked on the Gallego case, to revisit the investigation, the manhunt, and the psychology behind one of America's most disturbing serial killer partnerships. As we trace Gerald's violent childhood, his criminal history, and the development of his sadistic fantasies, we also examine Charlene's role in the murders. Why did she remain with Gerald? How did she become involved in his crimes? And how did a woman who helped facilitate multiple murders ultimately receive a comparatively lenient sentence? Show Notes: If you want to go deeper into the Charles Manson case, my book Charles Manson: The Last Words documents years researching the story and speaking directly with members of the Manson Family — including Charles Manson himself. Read it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ6QRVQ7 If you want to follow the cases as I’m working on them, you can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamesbuddyday/ For those who want to examine the evidence directly, complete phone calls and documents are available inside UNMARKED: Case Files, our research portal, along with ad-free episodes. Join here: https://www.patreon.com/Unmarked_TrueCrimePodcast UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast is hosted by Audioboom.
Have investigators finally uncovered evidence of murder at the Philadelphia home linked to suspected serial killer R.C. Horsch? And could the case have disturbing similarities to Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy? In a major development in the Philadelphia serial killer investigation, bones have been recovered from the Chew Avenue property in Olney, Pennsylvania. The discovery comes as Philadelphia police and the FBI investigate the disappearances of seven women connected to the house. Forensic testing is underway to determine whether the bones are human. But I believe there's an even bigger question surrounding R.C. Horsch. What if the alleged murders didn't begin at the Olney house? What if the evidence investigators are uncovering represents the final chapter of a much longer history of violence? I'll explain why I suspect the investigation may eventually lead back decades, long before the discoveries that brought this case to national attention. Every Monday, I'm bringing you inside my ongoing investigation of the Philadelphia serial killer case—what I've discovered, what has changed, and what I'm still trying to figure out. Subscribe to UNMARKED to follow the investigation as it unfolds.
Can the geography of a serial killer's crimes reveal where they live, how they hunt, and where they might strike next? In this episode of UNMARKED: Case Notes, I sit down with Dr. Kim Rossmo, the pioneering criminologist who developed modern geographic profiling, a technique that has changed the way police investigate serial murder. A former detective inspector with the Vancouver Police Department and now a professor at Texas State University, Dr. Rossmo developed a mathematical approach to analyzing crime locations that helps investigators identify an offender's likely home base, hunting grounds, and patterns of movement. We explore the science behind geographic profiling, what the locations of murders can reveal about a serial killer's behaviour, how offenders select victims and hunting grounds, and how investigators use geographic patterns to narrow the search for an unknown killer. #KimRossmo #GeographicProfiling #SerialKillers #Criminology #CriminalProfiling
Some of the biggest questions in true crime lead to some unexpected answers. In this Friday edition of UNMARKED, producer Jon Nadeau joins me to dig into your questions. How did the FBI finally close in on Ted Kaczynski? What was Sam Little’s chilling process—and could he have gotten away with his crimes in today’s digital world? Plus, Buddy responds to an unexpected accusation: that he’s actually an AI personality.
How does a serial killer murder women across America for more than four decades, repeatedly encounter law enforcement, and keep getting away with it? Samuel Little confessed to 93 murders, making him the most prolific serial killer in American history according to the FBI. But how many women did he actually kill? And how did he remain virtually undetected for so long? In this episode of UNMARKED, investigative journalist and author Jillian Lauren, who spent years interviewing Little and helped uncover the staggering scope of his crimes, reveals what she learned from getting inside the mind of one of America's most notorious serial killers. I'm also joined by journalist and former prosecutor Beth Karas, who has investigated Little's crimes and interviewed survivors, witnesses, and people who knew him. Together, we trace Samuel Little's life, his childhood, his violent fantasies, and a killing spree that stretches across America from the 1970s until his arrest in 2012. This is more than the story of a serial killer. It's an investigation into the failures of law enforcement, the victims dismissed as the "less dead," and the circumstances that allowed one man to become potentially the most prolific serial killer in American history. Research in This Episode: MacCulloch MJ, Snowden PR, Wood PJ, Mills HE. Sadistic fantasy, sadistic behaviour and offending. Br J Psychiatry. 1983 Jul;143:20-9. doi: 10.1192/bjp.143.1.20. PMID: 6882989. Kim, A., Beauregard, E., & Chopin, J. (2023). “Strangulation in sexual homicide: Is it opportunity, victim’s vulnerability or sadism?” Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 94, 102488. DOI: 10.1016/j.jflm.2023.102488. Marono, A. J., Reid, S., Yaksic, E., & Keatley, D. A. (2020). A behaviour sequence analysis of serial killers’ lives: From childhood abuse to methods of murder. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 27(1), 126–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2019.1695517