Crime Incident

OBOMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT

Crime Incident is a true crime podcast about murder investigations and the evidence they actually rest on. Each Crime Incident episode rebuilds one case from the record: the police investigation as it really unfolded, the forensic evidence and the DNA that held up, the witness testimony that quietly fell apart, and what a jury finally decided. Some cases end in a verdict. Others end in an appeal, an exoneration, or a case file that has stayed open for forty years. The catalog runs from famous murder trials to disappearances almost nobody covered. A missing person hunted as a suspect while his own body lay one floor above the crime scene. A killer caught by an embossed emblem on an envelope. A confession that arrived decades too late. A DNA profile matched to a phantom who never existed. Murders closed by forensic genetic genealogy, and murders where detectives are still asking for tips today. Three rules hold in every Crime Incident episode. Confirmed evidence and disputed claims are never blurred together, and you are always told which is which. Victims are treated as people, not as plot devices. And when a case is still unsolved, you get its exact legal status, the reward if there is one, and the number to call. Crime Incident is true crime for people who want the case file, not the rumor. Crime Incident. The record, told straight.

  1. 14 hr ago

    She Was Walking Her Dog. Eleven Women Lay Beneath: The West Mesa Bone Collector

    She Was Walking Her Dog. Eleven Women Lay Beneath: The West Mesa Bone Collector On February 2, 2009, a woman walking her dog on Albuquerque's West Mesa found a human femur in the sand. The excavation that followed uncovered the remains of eleven women and girls and one unborn baby, buried across 92 acres of desert. All of them had vanished from the same city in a tight window between 2003 and 2004. So why did almost no one look for them while it could still have mattered? And why, seventeen years later, is there still not a single arrest? In this episode, we give the eleven their names back one by one: Monica Candelaria, Victoria Chavez, Syllannia Edwards, Doreen Marquez, Veronica Romero, Jamie Barela, Evelyn Salazar, Virginia Cloven, Julie Nieto, Cinnamon Elks, and Michelle Valdez, who was four months pregnant. We follow Detective Ida Lopez, who compiled a list of the missing years before the graves were found and could not get the city to act, and we examine the persons of interest police have named but never charged, from Lorenzo Montoya, who died in 2006, to Joseph Blea, who denies any involvement. We also cover the strange truth that the 2008 housing crash is the reason the bodies were ever found. Person: Eleven women and girls, ages 15 to 32, plus one unborn child Date: Disappearances 2003 to 2004; discovery February 2, 2009 Location: West Mesa, Albuquerque, New Mexico Case: Unsolved serial homicides, the largest crime scene in New Mexico history Legal status: No arrests or charges ever filed; active investigation with a new search warrant served in early 2026 and proposed legislation to test deceased suspects' DNA through CODIS - The femur, the dog walk, and the 92 acre excavation - The War Zone and the disappearances no one connected - Ida Lopez's list of "her girls," surfaced in 2007 and ignored - Montoya, Blea, and the theories that were never closed - The eight women still missing and the $100,000 reward The West Mesa Bone Collector case remains unsolved, and tips still go to the Albuquerque Police 118th Street Task Force. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    She Was Walking Her Dog. Eleven Women Lay Beneath: The West Mesa Bone Collector
  2. 2 days ago

    He Kept Them for Days: The Oakland County Child Killer

    He Kept Them for Days: The Oakland County Child Killer Between February 1976 and March 1977, four children were abducted from the suburbs north of Detroit, held captive for days, and then left along roadsides with their bodies washed and their clothes cleaned. Why did the press call him The Babysitter? Who wrote the anonymous letter naming the killer as "Frank" and then vanished before the meeting? And how does the largest manhunt in American history at the time end with zero arrests in fifty years? In this episode, we follow the Oakland County Child Killer case through the thirteen months that changed Michigan: the abductions of Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich, and Timothy King, the nineteen days a ten-year-old was held while a state searched for her, and the last meal that proved the killer was watching a mother's televised plea. Then the long second life of the file: the task force that processed 11,000 tips and disbanded without a suspect, the Christopher Busch lead and his disputed 1978 death, the North Fox Island network theory, the mitochondrial DNA from an unidentified stranger's hair found on two victims, and the families who spent decades suing for their own children's case records. Person: Mark Stebbins, 12; Jill Robinson, 12; Kristine Mihelich, 10; Timothy King, 11 Date: February 15, 1976 to March 23, 1977 Location: Oakland County, Michigan (Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley, Birmingham) Case: Four child abduction murders attributed to the Oakland County Child Killer Legal status: Unsolved and open; no one has ever been arrested or charged in the murders; every named person is a suspect or person of interest only; Michigan State Police reinvestigating with DNA and AI-assisted file review - The winter of fear: how one county rebuilt childhood around a killer - The "Allen" letter, Dr. Danto, and the meeting that never happened - Busch, Greene, Sloan, and Gunnels: what the file alleges and what DNA excluded - The hair in the Bonneville: an unnamed man linked to two crime scenes - The families' FOIA wars and the fifty-year fight for the records The Oakland County Child Killer case remains unsolved, and the Oakland County Child Killer file is still open. Tips: 1-855-MICHTIP. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    He Kept Them for Days: The Oakland County Child Killer
  3. 3 days ago

    Fifteen Feet From Safety: The Keddie Cabin Murders

    Fifteen Feet From Safety: The Keddie Cabin Murders On a Sunday morning in April 1981, a fourteen year old girl walked fifteen feet from the neighbors' cabin to her own front door to get her church clothes. What she found inside Cabin 28 became one of California's most infamous unsolved cases. How did killers spend that much time in a crowded resort cabin without waking the children sleeping in the next room? Why did they take one twelve year old girl and step past the others? And how did a recorded tip naming the case sit at the bottom of an evidence box for three decades? In this episode, we follow the Keddie case the way investigators still read it today: through the frozen scene itself. We walk the living room detail by detail, the bindings of medical tape and electrical cord, the broken air rifle sight, the unlocked door, and then follow the file across forty five years of institutional failure, from a sheriff who had lived in the murder cabin and quit the case in ninety days, to a hammer pulled from a pond in 2016, to a DNA match that points at a living suspect no one has ever charged. Person: Glenna "Sue" Sharp, 36, her children John, 15, and Tina, 12, and family friend Dana Wingate, 17 Date: Night of April 11 to 12, 1981 Location: Cabin 28, Keddie Resort, Plumas County, California Case: Unsolved quadruple homicide with child abduction Legal status: Open cold case, no arrests or charges ever filed - The scene that investigators still call managed, not frenzied: bindings, staged control, and no forced entry - Three boys found asleep and unharmed in the room next to the killings - Tina Sharp, missing three years, found in 1984 beside an empty surgical tape dispenser - The undocumented anonymous call and the confession that collapsed - The 2016 hammer, the 2018 DNA match, and the suspects who died without answering The Keddie Cabin murders remain open, and Plumas County still takes tips. Until someone speaks, the Keddie Cabin murders belong to the room where they began. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    Fifteen Feet From Safety: The Keddie Cabin Murders
  4. 4 days ago

    He Never Walked Out: The Brian Shaffer Case

    The Cameras Never Saw Him Leave: The Brian Shaffer Case At 1:15 a.m. on April 1, 2006, security cameras recorded Brian Shaffer, a 27-year-old Ohio State medical student, riding the escalator into the Ugly Tuna Saloona bar in Columbus. At 1:55 a.m. a camera caught him chatting with two women outside the entrance. No camera ever recorded him leaving the building, and no trace of him has been found in twenty years. How does a man vanish from a building wired with security cameras? Why did the friend who spent the whole night with him refuse a polygraph? And why did his phone suddenly ring five months after he disappeared? In this episode, we treat the Brian Shaffer case the way detectives had to: as a building. We map the Gateway complex exit by exit, from the escalator a detective ruled out with one hundred percent certainty to the unmarked service door leading to a construction area with broken camera coverage, the one route out with no reliable eyes on it. We weigh every theory on the record, accident, voluntary disappearance, and foul play, each with its evidence and its contradictions, and follow the family tragedy that compounded around the search: a mother lost to cancer weeks before, a father killed by a falling branch while still searching, and a brother left to declare Brian legally dead on his birthday. Person: Brian Randall Shaffer, 27, second-year medical student at Ohio State University Date: Night of March 31 to April 1, 2006 Location: Ugly Tuna Saloona, South Campus Gateway, Columbus, Ohio Case: Unsolved disappearance; no arrest, no charges, no named suspect Legal status: Declared legally dead in 2013 at his brother's request; the Columbus police investigation remains open and assigned at the 20-year mark in 2026, with more than 5,000 tips processed - The 1:55 a.m. footage and the exit-by-exit elimination - The service door, the construction zone, and the camera blind spot - The polygraph divide and Clint Florence's side of it - The phone that rang three times and pinged near Hilliard - The hoax condolence message and the debunked sightings The Brian Shaffer disappearance is now twenty years old, and Columbus police still believe someone holds the missing piece. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    He Never Walked Out: The Brian Shaffer Case
  5. 6 days ago

    The Cameras Followed Her All Night: The Lauren Spierer Case

    The Cameras Followed Her All Night: The Lauren Spierer Case In the early hours of June 3, 2011, surveillance cameras in Bloomington, Indiana, recorded 20-year-old Indiana University sophomore Lauren Spierer at least four times: entering Kilroy's Sports Bar at 1:46 a.m., leaving at 2:27 without her shoes or phone, stumbling from an elevator at her own building at 2:30, and walking out of an alley at 2:51 a.m. Then the footage stops. No camera ever captured her again. Why did she leave her own building instead of going upstairs? Who punched her companion in the face at Smallwood Plaza? And what happened after the last reported sighting, a friend's statement that she walked away barefoot at 4:30 a.m. toward a corner no lens covered? In this episode, we reconstruct the Lauren Spierer disappearance camera by camera, then follow the investigation through the twelve-hour reporting gap, the ten persons of interest, the polygraph standoff, the nine-day search of 4,100 tons of landfill trash, the 2016 Martinsville dig, and the civil lawsuit a federal judge dismissed because, without knowing what happened to Lauren, no jury could hold anyone responsible. Nobody has ever been charged, and the men who saw her last deny any wrongdoing through their attorneys. Person: Lauren Elizabeth Spierer, 20, Indiana University sophomore from Scarsdale, New York Date: June 3, 2011 Location: Bloomington, Indiana Case: Disappearance; presumed dead, never found Legal status: No arrests, no charges, no named suspects; investigation active as of 2026 with 980 supplemental reports and 23 new tips in the past year - The surveillance timeline and the exact minute the digital trail cuts out - Long QT syndrome and why intoxication was uniquely dangerous for Lauren - The family's attributed suspicion and the men's denials and private polygraphs - Theories with owners: overdose and concealment, a stranger, the Messel question - Kilroy's fake ID citation and the campus culture that let her walk alone - Shawn Cohen's 2025 bestseller College Girl, Missing and the new tips it brought The Lauren Spierer case is still open. Tips go to the Bloomington Police Department, fifteen years later. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    The Cameras Followed Her All Night: The Lauren Spierer Case
  6. 13 Sept

    The FBI Chased the Wrong Story for 13 Years: The Brittanee Drexel Case

    The FBI Chased the Wrong Story for 13 Years: The Brittanee Drexel Case On April 25, 2009, 17-year-old Brittanee Drexel vanished from Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach, on a spring break trip her mother had forbidden. A hotel camera caught her at 9 p.m. By midnight her phone died on a rural road nearly 50 miles south. Why did it take 13 years to charge a man who was publicly named a person of interest in 2012? And how did a traffic ticket written the morning after she disappeared sit unused for over a decade while the FBI announced a trafficking theory that turned out to be false? In this episode, we follow the Brittanee Drexel case from the crowded spring break strip to the swamps of Georgetown County: the friends who never reported her missing, the years of pressure on the wrong people, the 2016 stash house theory built on jailhouse informants, and the 2019 forensic re-analysis that caught the moment her phone went from walking speed to 55 miles per hour. Then the 2022 endgame: Raymond Moody's confession, the recovery of her remains 2.5 miles from his old home, his life sentence, and the reckoning that followed for his girlfriend Angel Vause. Person: Brittanee Marie Drexel, 17, of Rochester, New York Date: April 25, 2009 Location: Myrtle Beach and Georgetown County, South Carolina Case: Kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder; remains recovered May 2022 Legal status: Raymond Moody pleaded guilty in October 2022, sentenced to life plus 60 years; Angel Vause sentenced in 2025 to 18 years for lying to the FBI, appeal pending; a $700 million civil verdict stands against Moody - The last surveillance footage and the final cell phone ping - The day-one traffic ticket that destroyed Moody's alibi years later - The discredited stash house theory and its cost to the wrongly accused - Cell data forensics: walking speed, then 55 mph - The confession, the burial site, and a mother's 13-year fight The Brittanee Drexel case shows how a false theory can protect a killer, and why her mother never let the Brittanee Drexel investigation die. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    The FBI Chased the Wrong Story for 13 Years: The Brittanee Drexel Case
  7. 11 Sept

    Two Versions of One Night: The Cyntoia Brown Case

    Two Versions of One Night: The Cyntoia Brown Case In August 2004, sixteen-year-old Cyntoia Brown shot 43-year-old Nashville real estate agent Johnny Allen in his own bed, took his money, guns, and truck, and was tried as an adult. In 2006 a jury convicted her of first-degree murder and she received a life sentence. But what does a life sentence in Tennessee actually mean? In 2018 the state supreme court gave the answer that ignited a movement: 51 years, minimum, before she could even be considered for release. In this episode, we tell the night of August 6, 2004 twice. First as the prosecution told it in 2006: a sleeping man shot in the back of the head, no weapon found to support self-defense, a completed robbery, jailhouse confessions, and a recorded call in which Brown said she executed him. Then as the clemency campaign asked Tennessee to see it: a state ward lost by its own child services system, trafficked at sixteen by a violent 24-year-old pimp, sold to an adult buyer, and judged as if she had acted freely. Same file, same facts, two verdicts on one girl. Person: Cyntoia Brown, 16, and Johnny Michael Allen, 43 Date: August 6, 2004 Location: Nashville, Tennessee Case: Homicide and robbery; conviction 2006; clemency 2019 Legal status: Sentence commuted by Governor Bill Haslam on January 7, 2019; released August 7, 2019 after 15 years; conviction never overturned; parole supervision runs until 2029 - The Sonic Drive-In pickup and the prosecutor's own stipulation - The forensic detail that anchored the state's case for 15 years - The excluded witness and the evidence the jury never saw - #FreeCyntoiaBrown, the 51-year ruling, and a divided parole board - Her life now: author, consultant, and anti-trafficking advocate The Cyntoia Brown case changed how America talks about trafficked minors in court, and the Cyntoia Brown case is still cited every time a state asks how to judge a child the system failed. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    Two Versions of One Night: The Cyntoia Brown Case
  8. 10 Sept

    She Was the Victim. They Put Her on Trial: The Preppy Murder Case

    She Was the Victim. They Put Her on Trial: The Preppy Murder Case How does a case with a confessed killer end with the dead girl on trial? Why did New York's biggest tabloid run the headline "How Jennifer Courted Death" three days after an eighteen year old was strangled in Central Park? And what happens when the most damning piece of evidence surfaces seven weeks too late? In this episode, we follow the Preppy Murder of Jennifer Levin from the last night at Dorrian's Red Hand to the morning a cyclist found her body behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and through the inverted trial that followed: a killer whose cover stories collapsed one by one, a defense built entirely on his own words, a fabricated "sex diary" that never existed, and a jury that deliberated nine days without a verdict before a mid deliberation plea ended everything. Then we trace the record to today: the full fifteen years served, the second prison term, the 2023 parole, and the mother who turned injustice into thirteen laws. Person: Jennifer Dawn Levin, 18, killed by Robert Chambers, 19 Date: August 26, 1986 Location: Central Park, Manhattan, New York Case: Strangulation homicide resolved by guilty plea to first degree manslaughter Legal status: Chambers served the full 15 years; imprisoned again 2008 for drug sale and assault; paroled July 2023, under supervision until July 2028 - The scratches on both sides of his face, the declawed cat, and the cigarette run that unraveled in one afternoon - The "rough sex" defense that prosecutors say described an encounter that never happened at all - The datebook a judge refused to hand over, and the tabloid myth that outran the truth anyway - The "Oops, I think I killed it" party video the jury never saw - Ellen Levin's Justice for All campaign and the New York law that now shields homicide victims The Preppy Murder became the textbook case of a system judging the victim instead of the accused. Listen now and hear how the Preppy Murder rewrote the rules it broke. To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com. © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved. This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.

    She Was the Victim. They Put Her on Trial: The Preppy Murder Case

About

Crime Incident is a true crime podcast about murder investigations and the evidence they actually rest on. Each Crime Incident episode rebuilds one case from the record: the police investigation as it really unfolded, the forensic evidence and the DNA that held up, the witness testimony that quietly fell apart, and what a jury finally decided. Some cases end in a verdict. Others end in an appeal, an exoneration, or a case file that has stayed open for forty years. The catalog runs from famous murder trials to disappearances almost nobody covered. A missing person hunted as a suspect while his own body lay one floor above the crime scene. A killer caught by an embossed emblem on an envelope. A confession that arrived decades too late. A DNA profile matched to a phantom who never existed. Murders closed by forensic genetic genealogy, and murders where detectives are still asking for tips today. Three rules hold in every Crime Incident episode. Confirmed evidence and disputed claims are never blurred together, and you are always told which is which. Victims are treated as people, not as plot devices. And when a case is still unsolved, you get its exact legal status, the reward if there is one, and the number to call. Crime Incident is true crime for people who want the case file, not the rumor. Crime Incident. The record, told straight.