Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps

A woman known as the Chameleon is crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean, stealing identities and leading police on a wild goose chase, taunting them with letters and promises of “you’ll never catch me.” Then a dismembered body is discovered in the Florida Everglades one day and police believe they have a serial killer at large.

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A blended family, James and Kristen Brock, James’ five-year-old daughter and Kristen’s 17-year-old, Sarah Grace Patrick, seem to be living life on life’s terms, with a few bumps in the road, as the New Year, 2025, comes to pass. Then, on the morning of February 20, 2025, the five-year-old wakes up and discovers a horrific scene inside the house, setting off one of the most unnerving double murder investigations within ...

Not much needs to be said about this iconic true crime case to introduce it. Phelps gives the Black Dahlia murder of Elizabeth “Beth” Short the Crossing the Line treatment—with one shocking twist! A man who says he’s solved the case and has connected Short’s murder to a second homicide some 1600 miles away, in Kansas City.

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Tara Breckenridge is working as a waitress at a popular men’s club in downtown Houston when she goes missing one night after work. With a host of serial killers active in the region, and a litany of missing and murdered females, is Tara’s case part of the bigger picture, or, a one-off committed by someone she knows?

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A man is shot dead inside his vehicle in the middle of the street. He is an up-and-coming professional wrestler with big dreams and big love for friends and family. The case is perplexing to law enforcement, who catch their man almost immediately, and yet his justification for the murder is most baffling. 

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A well-loved doctor, Margo Prade, is found murdered inside her van in the parking lot of her office one morning. Her ex-husband, an Akron, Ohio, Police Department Captain, is questioned and provides an alibi, pleading with his colleagues to find her killer. So who killed this mother of two just as she was close to getting her life back on track after a contentious divorce?

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A young, pregnant Amish woman in upstate Pennsylvania, Rebekah Byler, is home one morning alone with her two toddlers. When her husband returns to the house near noon, he walks into a brutal scene—yet his two young boys are left unharmed. Is he telling the truth? Or is it a ruse to throw off investigators?  

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Everything in your life seems to be on a perfect pace. Successful career. Long term marriage. Two beautiful daughters. So why would Susan Winters, without any warning or indication, kill herself with a poison not generally associated with suicide? Law enforcement wondered the same thing—and reopened a closed death investigation, revealing the dark secrets behind a seemingly idyllic life.

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A family is on vacation, snapping photos at the Colorado National Monument when they stumble across the remains of a middle-age woman. Meanwhile, a woman 15 miles away is reported missing by her live-in boyfriend. Are the two cases connected? And how does Walmart and a package of hot dogs play into this case? 

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Susan Marable fell into hard times during the late 1980's. After a series of life-changing, tragic events, she moves from Aberdeen to Yakima, Washington, where her life spirals—and soon, Susan's family stops hearing from her. Robyn Peery, Susan’s sister, has spent her entire adult life searching for answers in her sister's disappearance--with no help from Yakima law enforcement. 

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A young expecting mother, Ashley Bush, meets a new friend, Lucy Barrows, on Facebook. Lucy promises Ashley a job interview. After dropping her off, Ashley's fiancé, Joshua Willis, claims he never hears from her again. 

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Sherri Miller and Pam Jackson, both 17 years old, are on their way to a keg party in the woods one night, driving down a lonely South Dakota road, following behind a car full of boys. Suddenly, the boys claim, they look behind and realize the girls and their vehicle have vanished. What happens over the next 40 years before the case is solved is stuff you hear about only in the movies.

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An elderly couple has not been heard from in several days. Their live-in great-grandson says he hasn’t seen them. Meanwhile, someone at a local high school is showing off digital photos of a dead couple in bed. What happened to Chuck and Laura Clagett inside their Hugo, Colorado, home—and who is responsible?

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A social media group spreads fear about a possible serial killer lurking around New England after several sets of remains are discovered over a short period of time. Police tell everyone to chill—there is no evidence connecting any of the cases. Then the dismembered body of a local Groton, CT., woman is found near a cemetery, and fear-mongering turns into full-on mania. What is the truth? And why is M. William Phelps s...

Gavin MacFarlane, a 19-year-old man, plans to run off with Ellen 'Ellie' Friar, a 15-year-old minor. Ellie’s father has an issue with an adult man dating his minor child. When Ellie and her father turn up missing one morning, Medford, Oregon, police send 70 officers out onto the streets to search … and yet the answer is hiding right there ... in plain sight. 

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Julie Sulpizio, her husband and two children are certain God has given them a sign that the end of the world is near … and so they hatch a racist, murderous plan to take out as many ‘lost souls’ as they can before the Rapture begins. 

Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories while researching books, TV series, and my iHeartMedia podcast, Paper Ghosts...

*A Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps listener hears an episode of the show describing how submitting your DNA to the online forensic genealogy databases can help solve cold cases. So, she decides to do it. And lo and behold, a near 40-year-old cold case murder victim, known all this time as "Julie Doe," now has her real name back. 

*Suggested by Laura

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A fire inside a Waterbury, Connecticut, home leads to one of the most shocking, alleged domestic abuse and confinement cases of the past 20 years. The victim’s own firsthand account is so horrible and unbelievable, defying the limits of humanity, questions arise over the possible complicity of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF). 

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*Emily Pike is 14 years old, and living in a Mesa, Arizona group home. In early 2025, it is believed Emily kicked out the screen inside her bedroom and took off. But did she have help? Was she going to meet someone? Was she heading back to the San Carlos Reservation where her family lives? Weeks go by … before police make a startling, gruesome discovery.

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