True Murder: The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History

Dan Zupansky
  • 4.0 (2.5K)
  • TRUE CRIME

TRUE MURDER—The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History. Every week host Dan Zupansky will interview the true crime authors that have written about the most shocking killers of all time. From true crime history, comes the preeminent true crime authorities in America and the world today. From infamous serial killers, mass murderers, cult leaders and mafia hitmen to family murderers, nazis and homicidal maniacs—True Murder is a veritable true crime archive featuring historic murder cases written about by American legendary prosecutors, judges, journalists, detectives, forensic pathologists and bestselling authors. Featuring books about infamous serial killers such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, BTK, Jeffrey Dahmer, Golden State Killer, Aileen Wournos, Charles Manson, Zodiac and Son Of Sam—the episode list includes 100's more with over 850 episodes. Famous true criime authors  interviewed include Marcia Clark, John Douglas, Katherine Ramsland, Joseph Scott Morgan, Harold Schecter, and hundreds more.  Unsolved cold cases, wrongful convictions, death row confessions, serial killer couples, psychopathic killers, DNA breakthroughs and convictions, infamous executions, cult killings—every important true crime case ever written about—is here-in this true crime archive—TRUE MURDER—The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History

  1. 3D AGO

    THE FAMILY MAN—James Lasdun

    An immersive account of a seemingly loving father's transformation into a "family annihilator." In March 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and younger son at Moselle, their home in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. By then, the story had become headline news across the country, with its revelations of corruption in high places, massive fraud, opioid abuse, fake suicides, suspicious accidents, and the generational recklessness of the wealthy legal dynasty at its center. Having covered the case for The New Yorker, where his article became the magazine’s most read story of the year, the acclaimed novelist James Lasdun brings his long-standing interest in the darker drives of the human psyche to an investigation into the serial embezzlements, fatal boat crash, and other events leading up to the slaughter at Moselle. “Justice may have been served,” Lasdun writes in the preface to The Family Man, "but the human element of the story didn’t seem to add up." Having traveled extensively in the Lowcountry, Lasdun draws on original interviews (including with Murdaugh’s notorious "Cousin Eddie"), transcripts of phone calls Murdaugh made from prison, the literature of criminal psychology, and the murder trial itself. Deeply researched, sharply written, and with the page-turning intensity of a Southern gothic novel, The Family Man constructs a masterful portrait of Murdaugh and the mind-boggling crimes that wreaked havoc on his community. THE FAMILY MAN: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh—James Lasdun

    58 min

  2. APR 27

    BROKEN PLEA—Christopher Whitcomb

    Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In one of the most extraordinary true crime stories ever published, Broken Plea questions what really happened in the house on King Road—and the results of that investigation will astound you. In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho—and a nation demanded answers. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served. Broken Plea challenges that assumption.Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements, and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory. As the official narrative hardened, critical leads went unexplored, contradictory evidence was minimized, and alternative explanations faded from view. This book does not claim certainty where none exists. Instead, it asks the questions that were never fully pursued: What happens when pressure to close a case outweighs the search for truth? What evidence may have been sidelined, and why? And what are the consequences when a plea doesn’t end scrutiny but invites it? Clear-eyed, unsparing, and deeply unsettling, Broken Plea reopens the case—and invites people to look again at what justice demands when the truth remains unresolved. BROKEN PLEA: The Explosive Search for Truth Behind the Idaho Murders-Chris Whitcomb

    1h 16m

  3. APR 20

    THE TRIAL OF ARTHUR J. SHAWCROSS—Michael Benson

    In 1990, Monroe County’s daytime television viewing habits were disrupted by a TV first: the live broadcast of The People v. Arthur J. Shawcross. Never before had home viewers anywhere been given access to gavel-to-gavel coverage of a sordid murder trial. The show lasted eleven weeks, September to December. Viewers that normally followed daytime dramas or game shows were instead focused on the trial of a serial-killer who’d confessed to killing ten women in Monroe County, and one more in Wayne County, but whose lawyers claimed he was insane and not responsible for his actions. Fans of courtroom dramas like Perry Mason, now saw the real thing, sometimes lazy in its pacing, but raw and unfiltered in its subjects and language. The show ran on cable station WGRC (Greater Rochester Cable) and was set in teak-paneled Courtroom 206 of the Monroe County Public Safety Building, which had been equipped and wired as a TV studio. A few watched the first day’s broadcast, were repulsed and changed the channel. Most viewers however were fascinated and watched for the rest of the fall. The show’s villain obviously was Shawcross, yet he put no work into his role. . Throughout, he sat at the defense table motionless and silent, staring at his shoes. The hero was Assistant District Attorney Charles Siragusa, who led the prosecution. By the trial’s third week, Siragusa was receiving fan mail and baked cookies from “groupies.” Not every witness fared well under the lights. One defense witness, a forensic psychiatrist on the stand for many days, while trying to convince the jury of Shawcross’s insanity, drew unwanted laughter and was eventually satirized by morning radio shows because of her rambling answers and disorganized demeanor. For several weeks, videotapes were shown in the courtroom (and on Channel 5) of the defendant supposedly under hypnosis, describing horrific acts that went well beyond what we’d ever heard discussed in our own homes: necrophilia, cannibalism, atrocities in Vietnam, cruel incestuous abuse. Shawcross claimed in falsetto that his mother took over his brain when he killed, much like Alfred Hitchcock’s twisted villain Norman Bates in the movie Psycho. The prosecution’s star witness was forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz. He, too, had extensively examined Shawcross, but not under hypnosis. He concluded that Shawcross was faking his mental illness, that he was not psychotic but rather a malingering psychopathic, not crazy just extraordinarily mean. “He is an anti-social. He lacks moral scruples and any sense of empathy,” Dr. Dietz testified. Viewers were horrified to learn that Shawcross as a young man had killed two children near Watertown, N.Y., ten-year-old Jack Owen Blake, murdered on May 7, 1972, and eight-year-old Karen Ann Hill, killed May 7, 1972. For those crimes, Shawcross served only 15 years in prison and was released into Rochester in 1987 to kill again. THE TRIAL OF ARTHUR J. SHAWCROSS: And Other Stories of Rochester Murders—Michael Benson

    1h 1m

  4. APR 13

    TRIAL BY AMBUSH—Marcia Clark

    In this dramatic true account about the power of sensationalized crime, one woman’s case is exposed for its sexism, flagrant disregard for the truth, and, ultimately, the dangers posed by an unbridled prosecution. Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse―offering her too many options of all the wrong kind. Her innate sensitivity left her vulnerable to the harsh realities of the street, where she was left to fend for herself before she reached double digits. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster.But in 1953, a catastrophic twist of fate would catapult her out of obscurity and into the headlines.When a robbery spiraled out of control and escalated into a brutal murder, Barbara became the centerpiece of a media circus. Her beauty enraptured the press, and they were quick to portray her as a villainous femme fatale despite abundant evidence to the contrary―a fiction the prosecution eagerly promoted.The frenzy of public interest and willful distortion paved a treacherous path for Barbara Graham. In Trial by Ambush, author and criminal lawyer Marcia Clark investigates the case exposing the fallacies in the demonizing picture they painted and the critical evidence that was never revealed. TRIAL BY AMBUSH: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham—Marcia Clark

    47 min

  5. APR 6

    DEAD IN THE WATER—David J. Farrell, Jr.

    The gripping inside story of Nathan Carman’s crimes from the maritime lawyer who solved his multimillionaire mother’s disappearance at sea and his even wealthier grandfather’s shooting death in bed. When Nathan and Linda Carman were a week overdue on a fishing trip out of Point Judith, Rhode Island, few thought they would still be alive. Even the Coast Guard had called off its search. So it seemed miraculous when Nathan was spotted—on a life raft, 106 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard—by the Chinese freighter ORIENT LUCKY. But was it more than luck? Nathan survived but his mother did not. Then news broke that Nathan was the primary suspect in his grandfather’s murder three years before, though the case chilled from a missing firearm. The last person to see both victims alive, twenty-two-year-old Nathan was now in line for a $10 million inheritance! Or was Nathan, evidently on the Autism spectrum, plain unlucky to have lost the only two people close to him? As he claimed on national TV, was the focus on him as the “the lowest hanging fruit” just prejudice? With no witnesses, no charges in his grandfather’s shooting, and no body for his mother lost at sea, both cases might have gone cold…except that Nathan made an insurance claim for his lost boat. Enter maritime attorney David J. Farrell, Jr. who ties together Nathan’s evil and greedy scheme. Follow the author’s team dissect Nathan’s final voyage, extract exclusive testimony, and assemble evidence from around the world. In Dead in the Water, you’ll pull up a seat inside the federal court trial to see if Nathan’s dream of drifting away with millions of dollars comes true. DEAD IN THE WATER: The Real Story of Nathan Carman—David J. Ferrell Jr.

    1h 2m

  6. MAR 30

    MURDER IN THE FOURTH ESTATE—Jeremy Duda

    “They finally got me… Emprise…the Mafia…John Adamson. Find him.” Investigative reporter Don Bolles used his final words to name the people he believed had set the car bomb that had left him dying in a hotel parking lot in midtown Phoenix. In his fourteen years as one of Arizona's top reporters, Bolles took on the Mafia, land fraud kingpins, and corrupt politicians. And someone wanted him silenced. Murder in the Fourth Estate is the first definitive account of the case, which is the most infamous assassination of a journalist in American history. MURDER IN THE FOURTH ESTATE: The Assassination of Investigative Journalist Don Bolles—Jeremy Duda

    1h 2m

  7. MAR 23

    MODEL DETECTIVE—Michele Wood

    MODEL DETECTIVE takes readers where true crime has never gone before—inside the heart, mind, and soul of a Chicago homicide detective whose grit and instincts prove that a woman’s place is in the homicide division. Sergeant Michele Wood, a 25-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, has spent nearly two decades in the Detective Division. With hundreds of arrests, and an extraordinary record of solving murders, she has led homicide teams while also appearing as a legal expert on ABC’s 20/20 and other national true crime series. In MODEL DETECTIVE, Wood takes readers through complex murder cases—revealing how she interprets evidence and uses her perspective as a woman to succeed in a male-dominated world. Wood’s skills attest to her high success rate and stellar reputation on the force and explains why she’s Chicago’s (and probably the country’s) only detective who previously worked as a flight attendant, moonlighted as a fitness-magazine model, and continues her on-air fame as a crime TV expert. From the story of her Chicago upbringing to the extraordinary perils of policing in Chicago, MODEL DETECTIVE is the raw inspiring, tale of courage, resilience and determination in America’s most violent city. MODEL DETECTIVE: A True Story of Heels, Handcuffs and Homicides—Michele Wood

    1h 3m

  8. MAR 16

    CONVERGENCE—Gregg Owen

    This story seems impossible. But every word is true. Convergence is the account of a vicious double homicide in 1970s Chicago and a trial that almost didn't happen. This is a different kind of true crime book. It isn't a mystery, because the killer was arrested right away. It's not a police story, although Convergence is there at every step of their investigation. It's not a defense lawyer's story. This is a story from the other side of the courtroom. Convergence is the story of Gio Messina and Delphine Moore's murders and the trial that followed, but this time told from the perspective of the prosecution. You are there to witness how a case is built, how it's brought to court, and how it unfolds when the trial starts. You see what happens when power and money try to keep the trial from starting at all. You follow the prosecution from the courtrooms of Chicago to rural Tennessee looking for new evidence to replace the evidence that vanished. You're introduced to the choreography of the courtroom: listening in on the careful strategizing, understanding the thought behind what a jury hears, and getting a close view of what's involved in how it's presented. Most importantly, you're introduced to Mike Goggin and Gregg Owen, the two prosecutors who fought to have the case heard. Goggin and Owen had set a record for convictions that still stands. They refused to let the Messina and Moore murders break it. Convergence is a historical snapshot of a time when Chicago was changing, and a timeless picture of how justice is sought and found. CONVERGENCE—Gregg Owen

    1h 20m
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TRUE MURDER—The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History. Every week host Dan Zupansky will interview the true crime authors that have written about the most shocking killers of all time. From true crime history, comes the preeminent true crime authorities in America and the world today. From infamous serial killers, mass murderers, cult leaders and mafia hitmen to family murderers, nazis and homicidal maniacs—True Murder is a veritable true crime archive featuring historic murder cases written about by American legendary prosecutors, judges, journalists, detectives, forensic pathologists and bestselling authors. Featuring books about infamous serial killers such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, BTK, Jeffrey Dahmer, Golden State Killer, Aileen Wournos, Charles Manson, Zodiac and Son Of Sam—the episode list includes 100's more with over 850 episodes. Famous true criime authors  interviewed include Marcia Clark, John Douglas, Katherine Ramsland, Joseph Scott Morgan, Harold Schecter, and hundreds more.  Unsolved cold cases, wrongful convictions, death row confessions, serial killer couples, psychopathic killers, DNA breakthroughs and convictions, infamous executions, cult killings—every important true crime case ever written about—is here-in this true crime archive—TRUE MURDER—The Most Shocking Killers in True Crime History

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