Blue Lights and Bylines

bluelightsandbylinespodcast
  • 5.0 (10)
  • True Crime

"Blue Lights and Bylines" is a true-crime based podcast hosted by veteran journalists Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz, who have some 90 years of experience between them covering crime and other breaking news in Central Florida. Kelly started at the Daytona Beach News-Journal as a 16-year-old "copy kid," working her way up to become a seasoned crime writer and news editor. Meanwhile, Metz began her career in the 1980s at WESH-TV - the NBC affiliate for Orlando/Daytona Beach - working her way up to the anchor desk before retiring in 2023. Coverage of "hard news" in those days was generally delegated to male journalists, but these two women were undaunted covering the grittiest, most sobering stories in a busy news market that spread from Florida's east coast to Walt Disney World and beyond in the west, and from the Space Coast in the south to St. Augustine and beyond in the north. Unlike many podcasters, who often go no further than Google and Wikipedia for their information, Kelly and Metz were boots-on-the-ground journalists who lived these stories from their first moments on the crime scenes to the courtrooms. Along the way they talked to law enforcement officers, witnesses, suspects, attorneys, family and friends of victims and community leaders. This included interviews with some of America's most infamous serial killers. For example, Kelly covered the case of Geraldo Stano, who was the verified killer of 23 women and girls across Florida and who was suspected of killing three or four times that many victims. Stano corresponded with Kelly from death row, where she also interviewed him in person, and he agreed to cooperate with her for her book about his life and crimes, “I Would Find a Girl Walking,” published by Penguin in 2013. For her part, Metz was a go-to reporter in the case of Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who shot and killed at least 7 men and whose story was the basis for the 2003 film "Monster," starring Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning portrayal of Wuornos. The murderer granted Metz, whom she had come to know during her trial, an exclusive interview on death row, and Metz was a witness to the execution of Wuornos in 2002. "Blue Lights and Bylines" will include stories and updates of other murders - from the infamous "XBox murders" in Deltona in 2004 and the "Pulse murders" of 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando in 2016 to cases ranging from the slaying of a beloved photographer in 1996 to the case of a teen tourist abducted from her hotel room in 1980 and murdered by a serial killer. The podcast will feature cold cases, solved murders and other crimes with questions about their resolution, and Kelly and Metz will occasionally have guests with them in the studio, including law enforcement officers and other journalists. What's more, "Blue Lights and Bylines" will explore other types of stories Kelly and Metz covered related to breaking news, including mysterious disappearances, the slayings of police officers and even natural disasters such as hurricanes and attacks on humans by sharks and alligators. Kelly and Metz crossed paths as rivals during their years as journalists working for competing news outlets, but they became friends over time. Now with "Blue Lights and Bylines," they are partners in crime.

Episodes

  1. 10h ago

    How the murder of a teen spring breaker in Florida ultimately led to a serial killer

    Spring break is a rite of passage, a time when groups of college and high school students go off on vacation together, sometimes on their first vacation without their families. These students may be adults, but they often haven't been mature enough to handle the intense partying at popular destinations over the years, especially at key Florida spring break destinations like Panama City, Fort Lauderdale - and of course, Daytona Beach. What's more, the predictable flood of young and attractive people to these destinations has fueled a dark side to humanity: those who aim to exploit these young, and often naive, students. Although most spring breakers suffer little more than a hangover for their travels, a few suffer something worse - theft, an injury, an assault ... and on rare occasions, murder. On this week's "Blue Lights and Bylines," the show's hosts - veteran Florida journalists Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz - talk about extreme dangers faced by spring breakers, from rape to falling off balconies. Also, the women focus on a case covered by Kelly. In March of 1980, 18-year-old Carol Ann Barrett of Ohio was a spring breaker visiting Daytona Beach Shores with her friends when a man invaded their hotel room and forcibly left with Barrett. Barrett's body was found the next day nearly 100 miles away in a ditch along I-95 in Jacksonville. She had been shot in the back of the head. Investigations in Daytona Beach Shores and Jacksonville failed to produce the murderer, and the case went "cold." But encouraged by Barrett's family, Kelly continued writing about the unsolved case for years, hoping the stories might lead to a break in the case. In 2020, 40 years after Barrett's murder, a suspect was formulated in the case and that ultimately led to a confession from a man who has been linked to several other murders and is now serving a life sentence in California. In this episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," Kelly and Metz discuss the day of Barrett's abduction and her selfless action to save her friend, as well as the history of the serial killer who murdered her and how the case finally broke after decades.

  2. Oct 7

    Cold-case 1992 murder in Florida exposes dangers to real estate agents

    South Daytona, Florida, is normally a quiet town within the larger Daytona Beach metro area, just south of the bustling Daytona Beach and just west of the tourist-drawing Atlantic coastline. But on a rainy Saturday in August of 1992, a baffling and brutal murder disrupted peace in South Daytona. That afternoon, real estate agent Deborah Snowden was working at a model home in a new development when she was stabbed. She ran for help, her lung pierced and filling with blood, and eventually collapsed in the street, dying. She was unable to give much detail about what happened to her and passed away at the hospital. South Daytona Police struggled for clues - no apparent witnesses, no apparent suspects, no confirmed weapon and little more than the sighting of a white pickup truck that might have been connected to the crime. There was no sign of robbery and no indication of a significant struggle.  The murder remains an unsolved cold case. In this week's episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," hosts Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz speak with South Daytona Mayor Bill Hall and Vice Mayor Doug Quartier - both of whom were law enforcement officers with the South Daytona Police Department at the time of Snowden's murder. The four talk about the investigation of the murder, which leads to further discussion on topics including other cases in South Daytona, advances in DNA testing and how real estate agents are frequently more vulnerable to crime than most of us.

  3. Sep 30

    This reporter got to know serial killer Aileen Wuornos ... and then witnessed her execution

    Considered by many as the most notorious woman serial killer in American history, Aileen Wuornos was convicted of and/or confessed to killing at least 7 men in Florida from 1989 to 1990, and she was executed by the state in 2002. Wuornos, who was working as a prostitute at the time of the killings, was ultimately arrested in 1991 at a bar in Port Orange, Florida, a few miles south of Daytona Beach. Claire Metz, co-host of the podcast "Blue Lights and Bylines," was a broadcast journalist at the time, working for WESH-TV, an NBC affiliate for the Daytona Beach/Orlando area. Metz was assigned to cover many stories related to the serial killer, including the trial and execution, and came to know Wuornos well, even conducting an exclusive death-row interview with the killer in which Wuornos delivered a message to the public that she never issued before or after. In this episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," Metz talks with her co-host, friend and former professional rival, Kathy Kelly, about her experience with the Wuornos case. What was Wuornos like in person? Who was she trying to protect with her confessions? How did she meet and kill her victims? How did she catch Metz off guard in the courtroom? Who was the good samaritan Wuornos spared from attack when she realized he was simply trying to do her a favor? What spiteful message did Wuornos shout at the jury who convicted her? What message did she convey in her exclusive interview with Metz on death row? What was death row like, and what restrictions did Metz have to accommodate during her visit? And what was it like to watch Wuornos die? Listen to this episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines" for all the answers.

  4. Sep 23

    What this reporter discovered during her exclusive time with serial killer Gerald Stano

    Kathy Kelly is a veteran Florida journalist with some 50 years of experience at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, where her primary duty was reporting crime. Kelly, who co-hosts the crime podcast "Blue Lights and Bylines" with Claire Metz (herself a veteran broadcast journalist with 40 years of experience), covered all manner of disturbing cases over the years. Perhaps the most heinous case was that of Gerald Stano, who in the 1970s went on an extensive killing spree, mostly in Central Florida, that claimed the lives of more than 20 young women (likely several more, as he was linked to other deaths). Kelly reported on many of these murders, though they weren't all tied to each other until after Stano's arrest in 1980 when a sex worker escaped his attack in a motel room. Kelly eventually approached Stano's lawyer about one-on-one interviews with his client, and Stano was receptive to the proposal. (Kelly would ultimately pen a book about Stano, "I Would Find a Girl Walking," which she co-wrote with Diana Montane.) Kelly conducted several exclusive interviews with Stano while he was on death row, and he also wrote some 30 letters to her from prison, providing details about his crimes that never came up during the legal proceedings. In this episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," Kelly talks with Metz about her time with Stano - including the icebreaker during their first meeting that opened the door to revealing conversations, why she thinks Stano was more receptive to her, his sense of humor, the one killing he regretted more than others, the woman who escaped his apparent attempt to kill her, and other details. Kelly also shares the important request Stano made of her before his 1998 execution.

  5. Sep 16

    The case of a fallen officer rattles a community

    Any kind of murder will make a community feel uneasy, but when a law enforcement officer is killed, the shock waves can be debilitating. We ask the questions we always typically ask when someone's life is taken - such as what led to the killing. But when the victim is a law enforcement officer, some might wonder how safe they are when those who are there to protect them weren't safe. On this week's episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," the show's hosts - veteran Central Florida journalists Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz - discuss the challenges of covering the story of fallen officers. Specific cases in this episode include that of Edgewater Police Officer David Jewell, who was shot to death in a convenience store in 2025; Daytona Beach Police Officer Jason Raynor, who was killed in the line of duty in 2021; and Daytona Beach Police Officer Sam Etheredge, who was killed while responding to a call after midnight on Christmas Day, 1980. The journalists/hosts covered such killings over the years and note that a community is often rocked by such deaths, which can happen to officers at any time, whether they're pursuing an active shooter or doing a routine traffic stop. Kelly and Metz also discuss how important it is while covering a polarizing case for a journalist to stick to their mission to report the facts with both sensitive empathy and a commitment to objectivity.

  6. Sep 9

    'Missing person' cases sometimes take an unexpected, yet tragic, turn

    A "missing person" case can be especially difficult for the loved ones of the missing. What if the loved one was abducted? What if they wanted to start a new life and leave their old life behind? What if the loved ones never find out what happened? There's another scenario that proves all too real, all too often: What if the missing person simply drove off the road and plunged into a body of water, disappearing under the surface along with their vehicle? Up to 600,000 Americans go missing every year, and many of those cases are never solved. Meanwhile, Florida alone has 7,500 lakes, 12,000 miles of waterway and up to 760,000 ponds. Many of these bodies of water harbor vehicles - some abandoned, some with victims still strapped inside. In this episode of "Blue Lights and Bylines," hosts Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz - veteran Central Florida journalists who were once professional rivals - talk about the heartbreak and fear of the unknown that families of "missing persons" have to endure and how diving teams that specialize in recovery are finding some of the missing who came to such a tragic end - sometimes years after they vanished.

  7. Sep 2

    Now this is how you do a crime podcast

    The new "Blue Lights and Bylines" isn't your typical crime podcast. While the hosts of other shows may get their information from search engines in the comfort of their homes, "Blue Lights and Bylines" co-hosts Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz are seasoned journalists whose boots-on-the-ground coverage of Central Florida gave them decades of firsthand insight into some of the worst crimes ever committed in the state - and in the U.S. in general. Working the same busy news market in Florida but for different news outlets, Kelly (a print journalist) and Metz (a broadcast journalist) were professional rivals who struck up a friendship over the years. Now they're "partners in crime" with "Blue Lights and Bylines." This introductory episode of the show lets you know who they are and what they're about as Kelly and Metz explain their backgrounds and touch on some of the many subjects they will cover in coming episodes, from serial killers and mass killings to mysterious and unresolved crimes to the murders of law enforcement officers. They will update some old cases, occasionally host guests and sometimes branch out into other "breaking news" tales that always seem to be happening in Florida.

  • 7 Episodes

5
out of 5
10 Ratings

About

"Blue Lights and Bylines" is a true-crime based podcast hosted by veteran journalists Kathy Kelly and Claire Metz, who have some 90 years of experience between them covering crime and other breaking news in Central Florida. Kelly started at the Daytona Beach News-Journal as a 16-year-old "copy kid," working her way up to become a seasoned crime writer and news editor. Meanwhile, Metz began her career in the 1980s at WESH-TV - the NBC affiliate for Orlando/Daytona Beach - working her way up to the anchor desk before retiring in 2023. Coverage of "hard news" in those days was generally delegated to male journalists, but these two women were undaunted covering the grittiest, most sobering stories in a busy news market that spread from Florida's east coast to Walt Disney World and beyond in the west, and from the Space Coast in the south to St. Augustine and beyond in the north. Unlike many podcasters, who often go no further than Google and Wikipedia for their information, Kelly and Metz were boots-on-the-ground journalists who lived these stories from their first moments on the crime scenes to the courtrooms. Along the way they talked to law enforcement officers, witnesses, suspects, attorneys, family and friends of victims and community leaders. This included interviews with some of America's most infamous serial killers. For example, Kelly covered the case of Geraldo Stano, who was the verified killer of 23 women and girls across Florida and who was suspected of killing three or four times that many victims. Stano corresponded with Kelly from death row, where she also interviewed him in person, and he agreed to cooperate with her for her book about his life and crimes, “I Would Find a Girl Walking,” published by Penguin in 2013. For her part, Metz was a go-to reporter in the case of Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who shot and killed at least 7 men and whose story was the basis for the 2003 film "Monster," starring Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning portrayal of Wuornos. The murderer granted Metz, whom she had come to know during her trial, an exclusive interview on death row, and Metz was a witness to the execution of Wuornos in 2002. "Blue Lights and Bylines" will include stories and updates of other murders - from the infamous "XBox murders" in Deltona in 2004 and the "Pulse murders" of 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando in 2016 to cases ranging from the slaying of a beloved photographer in 1996 to the case of a teen tourist abducted from her hotel room in 1980 and murdered by a serial killer. The podcast will feature cold cases, solved murders and other crimes with questions about their resolution, and Kelly and Metz will occasionally have guests with them in the studio, including law enforcement officers and other journalists. What's more, "Blue Lights and Bylines" will explore other types of stories Kelly and Metz covered related to breaking news, including mysterious disappearances, the slayings of police officers and even natural disasters such as hurricanes and attacks on humans by sharks and alligators. Kelly and Metz crossed paths as rivals during their years as journalists working for competing news outlets, but they became friends over time. Now with "Blue Lights and Bylines," they are partners in crime.

Information

  • Creator
    bluelightsandbylinespodcast
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Blue Lights and Bylines

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