Murders & Minivans

Tali & Stephanie

Murders and Minivans explores the world of true crime through the lens of everyday motherhood. Each episode takes listeners deep into cases ranging from notorious murders to overlooked crimes, offering thorough research, thoughtful discussion, and fresh perspectives. Alongside these stories, the hosts reflect on the realities of parenting, family life, and the unique challenges of raising kids in today’s world.

  1. 43m ago ·  Bonus Video

    Bad News, Good News: A Licked Envelope, a Self-Described Witch, and an $800 Million Settlement

    This week’s bad news starts with three cold cases that finally moved. In 1986, Mary Ann Turner was strangled in a Spokane alley while searching for her runaway daughter. An anonymous tipster named a suspect early on, but the case went cold. Nearly 40 years later, detectives sent him paperwork about his stolen car and got his DNA off the envelope he mailed back. David Tibbett, 74, has been arrested for second-degree murder. In 2008, a man broke into a San Jose assisted living facility and raped a 61-year-old woman. His DNA sat unmatched in CODIS for 16 years, until a misdemeanor conviction in Indiana put his profile in the system. James Whisenand has pleaded guilty and accepted a 25-year sentence. In 2012, UNC sophomore Faith Hedgepeth was killed in her Chapel Hill apartment. The defense called no witnesses. The jury convicted Miguel Salguero-Olivares of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life without parole. In court, Faith’s mother forgave him. Then the rest of the week’s news: Shannon Ryan, a self-described witch, is sentenced to life for the 2020 murder of Leila Cavett. Her body has never been found.Charles Foss is charged in the 2024 death of Allison Lussier, which police had called an overdose. Prosecutors credit her family’s advocacy.Edmonton police make arrests in the deaths of Teresa Katcheech and Justin Hunt.All 1,300 survivors sign on to the Archdiocese of New York’s $800 million abuse settlement.Laura Owens is sentenced to 30 days in jail and seven years of probation for faking a pregnancy with former “Bachelor” star Clayton Echard.A new book alleges Jared Kushner had access to secret Middle East bank accounts during Trump’s first term. Kushner calls the claims fabricated.

  2. 2d ago ·  Video

    A Halloween Special: Two Scary Stories

    No case this week. For Halloween, Tali and Stephanie each wrote an original horror story, and we’re reading them to you. Two stories. Two buildings. Two sets of rules. Sitting Up (written and read by Tali) It’s 1987. A home health nurse takes on a new patient in Pell’s Crossing: Miss Iris Ashby, 96, who lives alone in a 41-room house at the top of the hill. Every house in town faces the river. That means every house has its back to the Ashby place. Iris has rules. Don’t go above the second floor. Keep the lamp lit. Never come up the hill after dark. Then Iris dies, and the town needs someone to sit up with her until morning. It has to be someone from away. No Recording Permitted (written and read by Stephanie) Two struggling podcasters land the scoop they’ve been waiting for. They get first access to the Rubaker Hotel, an Arkansas resort turned fake cancer retreat where human remains were found on the grounds decades ago. The caretakers mail them the rules. Audio only. Stay on the path. Don’t open the bathing chamber. Stay out of the cellar. Only one of them reads the whole letter. Both stories are fiction. Pell’s Crossing and the Rubaker Hotel are not real places. Please don’t go looking for them.

  3. Oct 21 ·  Bonus Video

    The Bend School Shooting, Michelle Parker’s Ex-Fiancé Charged, and Two 1960s Cold Cases Solved

    This week on Bad News Good News, Tali brings the bad news and Stephanie balances it out. On October 15, a 16-year-old shot through the locked doors of Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, and targeted a special education classroom. He killed three children, ages 5, 8, and 11, and 25-year-old teacher Meghan Lambert. A 7-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher were critically wounded. Five-year-old Rhoam Summer is believed to be the youngest person killed in a U.S. school shooting since tracking began in the 1960s. One teacher slowed the shooter by throwing her phone at him and fighting him. A community member, identified by his family as Kaylub Giamanco, followed the shooter inside and shot him. Police say the shotgun was bought by the shooter's mother. The motive is still under investigation. Tali also looks at how school shootings and gun laws in the U.S. compare with Canada. In Pennsylvania, Metallica Rose Harrison, 27, is charged with two counts of criminal homicide. Her husband, Charles "Chaz" Harrison, and their 3-year-old son were found stabbed to death in their room at the Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos. Resort staff say the knives found in the room were not a type the lodge keeps. She is due in court next month. Then Stephanie brings the good news. In November 1960, 8-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz was abducted while walking to church in Chicago. She was murdered, and her case went unsolved for 65 years. Investigators now say DNA and fingerprint evidence identified a suspect: Thomas F. McInerney Jr., a former Chicago homicide detective who died in 2006. He was never charged. In June 1962, brothers-in-law Charles Hale, 71, and Lester McCollum, 67, were murdered on their property near Battle Ground, Washington. On October 13, the Clark County Sheriff's Office announced that preserved DNA and fingerprint evidence had identified two suspects, Barton Stebbins and Walter Stain. Both have since died. It is the oldest cold case the office has ever resolved. And in Orlando, police have arrested Dale Smith Jr., 55, nearly 15 years after his former fiancée, Michelle Parker, disappeared. Michelle, a 33-year-old mother of three, vanished on November 17, 2011, after dropping her twins off at his home. That same day, an episode of The People's Court featuring the two of them aired. Smith is charged with second-degree murder. Police credit new evidence and advances in forensic technology. Michelle's remains have not been found. Content note: Metallica Rose Harrison and Dale Smith Jr. have been charged, not convicted, and are presumed innocent. Thomas F. McInerney Jr., Barton Stebbins, and Walter Stain died before they could be charged, so the evidence against them will never be tested in court.

  4. Oct 19 ·  Video

    Amityville: The DeFeo Murders and the Truth Behind The Amityville Horror

    In November 1974, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. walked through his family’s home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, with a hunting rifle and shot his parents and four siblings as they slept. Thirteen months later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the same house with three kids and a dog. They lasted 28 days. What they said happened next became The Amityville Horror: a bestselling “true story,” a hit movie, and more than 40 films with Amityville in the title. Flies in December. Green slime oozing from the walls. Red eyes in the window. A pig named Jodie. This week, we go into that house twice. First in 1974, to tell the story of the DeFeo family and the night they were killed. Then in 1975, to walk through everything the Lutzes said happened inside. After that, we hold it all up against the paperwork: the court filings, the weather records, the priest’s sworn affidavit, and the defence lawyer who told People magazine the whole story was created over many bottles of wine. In this episode: The DeFeo family, their mob connections, and Butch’s violent home lifeThe suspicious robbery and the fight just days before the murdersNovember 13, 1974, and the question people still ask: why didn’t anyone wake up?Butch’s confession, his insanity defence, and the trialThe Lutz family’s 28 days at 112 Ocean AvenueEd and Lorraine Warren, the séance, and the “ghost boy” photoJay Anson’s book, the 1979 movie, and the lawsuits that followedWilliam Weber’s hoax claim and what the records actually showButch’s ever-changing stories from prisonWhat the Lutz kids say now and what became of the house

  5. Oct 14 ·  Bonus

    Bad News, Good News | Nidal Hasan’s execution date, The Richneck Bodycam + 3 Cold Case Breaks

    newly released bodycam footage shows the moments after a six-year-old shot his teacher at richneck elementary. three men are found guilty in the murders of two australian brothers and their american friend on a surf trip in baja. and the fort hood shooter has an execution date. this is bad news good news from murders and minivans. tali covers the week’s crime news. stephanie brings the good news. in this episode: the richneck elementary bodycam, sealed for more than three years abby zwerner’s $10 million verdict and where she is now guilty verdicts in the baja killings of callum and jake robinson and carter rhoad nidal hasan’s firing squad execution, set for december 3 at fort hood stephanie’s good news: a discarded water bottle leads to an arrest in hillary hellewell’s 1985 murder in newport, rhode island. a grand jury indicts a suspect 20 years after chynna and blake dickus were killed in franklin, indiana. and a 16-year-old found in an oakland hotel in 1969 is identified as joann yvonne burdick. content note: this episode discusses murder, sexual assault, violence against children, a school shooting, a mass shooting, and capital punishment. all allegations are allegations. william morton and michael jerome james have been charged and are presumed innocent. taylor morris teaford has been named a potential suspect only. he has not been charged and his whereabouts are unknown. the three men convicted in ensenada have not yet been sentenced.

  6. Oct 12 ·  Video

    Denise Huskins & Sherri Papini | Two Truths & A Lie

    In March 2015, Denise Huskins was taken from her boyfriend's home in Vallejo, California, held for two days, and assaulted. When she came home, police held a press conference calling it a hoax, and the media named her the real Gone Girl. The only reason anyone believed her was that her kidnapper attacked another family and left his phone behind. A year and a half later, a Redding mom named Sherri Papini vanished on a jog. She turned up on Thanksgiving morning, chained and branded, and said two Hispanic women had taken her. Law enforcement believed her for more than five years. The women never existed. This week, Tali puts the two cases side by side. We cover the interrogation that treated Aaron Quinn as a murderer, the kidnapper's emails begging police to clear Denise's name, and the FBI agent with a conflict of interest. Then there are the cold-case confessions that came out in 2024 and 2025, including a ladder found in a ravine nine years later and a victim who waited 32 years to be believed. And we follow Sherri Papini from the side of I-5 to a federal courtroom, and to the brand new version of events she's telling now.

  7. Oct 7 ·  Bonus Video

    Bad News, Good News | Christa Pike, Mamta Bhatt, Ken Urker, The Plague & More

    this week on bad news good news, tali brings the bad news and stephanie balances it out. caleb flynn has been sentenced. a jury convicted the former american idol contestant on all nine counts in the murder of his wife, ashley flynn. the judge ordered him to serve 16 years for firearm specifications and evidence tampering before his life sentence begins. statements from his two young daughters were read in court. ashley's father said the family forgives him and asked for the harshest sentence possible. flynn still says he's innocent. his attorney plans to appeal. the cornell 7 case has a new prosecutor. governor kathy hochul removed the local district attorney and appointed new york attorney general letitia james as special prosecutor. james says it's now an active criminal investigation. no one has been charged. ken urker, gypsy rose blanchard's partner and the father of her daughter aurora, was found dead in his louisiana home on his 34th birthday. the sheriff's office is investigating it as drug related. gypsy has said it was an overdose. officials say there's no evidence of foul play so far, and no official cause of death has been released. christa pike survived her execution. tennessee tried to put her to death on september 30 for the 1995 murder of her classmate colleen slemmer. after two doses of pentobarbital and more than two hours, she was still alive. she was hospitalized in critical condition. the governor has halted executions and ordered an outside review. a lab technician at a plague research institute in siberia has died of a suspected pneumonic plague infection. nearly 200 people are under observation. russia hasn't confirmed it was plague. naresh bhatt's murder trial has started in virginia. his wife, mamta kafle bhatt, a 28-year-old pediatric nurse and mother, disappeared in 2024. her body has never been found. he has pleaded not guilty. and simon andriesz, a british former banker who gave house oversight lawmakers emails between howard lutnick and jeffrey epstein, has died. his death was reported as a suicide. there is no evidence connecting it to his whistleblowing, lutnick, or epstein. then stephanie brings the good news. the scientists behind optogenetics won the 2026 nobel prize in medicine. they borrowed a light-sensitive protein from algae to switch brain cells on and off with light. lulingu, a gorilla rescued from traffickers as an 18-month-old orphan, was released into virunga national park in 2024. she has now given birth in the wild, to a baby her endangered grauer's gorilla group badly needed. and nicole and gary wordsworth have fostered 59 dogs for battersea over the past 15 years. learn more: grace gorillas sanctuary: https://gracegorillas.org/ gorilla doctors: https://www.gorilladoctors.org/ content note: this episode discusses death, overdose, and suicide. if you're struggling, call or text 988 in the us or canada, or reach out to your local crisis line. all allegations are allegations. naresh bhatt has pleaded not guilty. no one in the cornell case has been criminally charged. no official cause of death has been released for ken urker.

  8. Oct 5 ·  Video

    Thomas Randolph | The Black Widower

    On the evening of May 8th, 2008, Sharon Randolph and her husband went out for dinner and a movie. Mother's Day was that Sunday. She was forty-seven years old and she loved going to the theatre. Just after 9:30 that night, her husband called 911 and told the dispatcher that a masked intruder had shot his wife in the hallway of their home, and that he had shot the intruder five times. When Las Vegas Metro arrived, the scene read cleanly. A dead woman. A dead man in a ski mask with a bag of jewellery beside him. A husband who had reached his gun a moment too late. The dead man was not a stranger. He was the family handyman. This week we go through the case of Thomas Randolph, the man the press would eventually call the Black Widower. He was married six times. Four of those wives are dead. He has been convicted of killing exactly one of them and the story of how the law handled the other three is, in some ways, more interesting than the murder. In this episode: The 1986 death of Becky Gault in Utah, the half-million-dollar insurance payout, and the handyman who went to the policeThe felony Randolph pleaded guilty to while awaiting trial for her murder, and the acquittal he sealed afterwardsGlen Morrison, who was asked to kill one of the wives and stage it as a robbery, and the reason he said noThe forensic details that broke the 2008 story apart: the shell casings in the wrong place, the ski mask with no blood on it, and a neighbour who heard gunshots twenty minutes before anyone calledThe video walkthrough Randolph volunteered to make, and the sixteen years he has spent trying to take it backWhy the Nevada Supreme Court threw out his conviction and death sentence in 2020, and why we think that ruling was correctThe 2023 retrial that convicted him anyway, on much lessThe appeal the court rejected this SeptemberFollow us on Patreon, Instagram & Facebook!

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About

Murders and Minivans explores the world of true crime through the lens of everyday motherhood. Each episode takes listeners deep into cases ranging from notorious murders to overlooked crimes, offering thorough research, thoughtful discussion, and fresh perspectives. Alongside these stories, the hosts reflect on the realities of parenting, family life, and the unique challenges of raising kids in today’s world.

Information

  • Creator
    Tali & Stephanie
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    63
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Show Website
    Murders & Minivans

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