Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps
Crossing the Line is a true crime podcast revealing cases of the missing and murdered, told start-to-finish each week. Using the campfire storytelling style that made Paper Ghosts a #1 hit on the charts, host M. William Phelps connects deeply with families touched by violent crime - he understands them, because he is one of them. Having gone through the murder of his own pregnant sister-in-law, Phelps brings not only his personal experience, but also 20-plus years of investigative journalism into the worlds of these stories. Follow and subscribe to Crossing the Line for a weekly dose of murder, mayhem and madness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
A woman cannot reach her family—so she heads over to their house to check things out. What she witnesses inside is a scene straight out of a contemporary horror film. As the case moves into the investigative phase, decades pass before the evil behind it all is finally brought to justice.
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You are sitting at home one night, just doing your normal thing, when someone busts through the door with a weapon and begins firing. Catching a double murderer takes all of about 15 hours to resolve, the result shocking the community and police … but not the victim's family.
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A Colorado man's mother goes missing. He spends years building up resentment and frustration with police not getting anywhere. He feels he has nowhere else to turn. So he takes matters into his own hands … and the results of what he creates could help solve thousands of cold cases all over the world.
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A hardworking Pennsylvania man arrives home from his second shift job one night, gets out of his vehicle, and winds up on the ground in front of his home … fighting for his life. Neighbors report hearing and seeing a dark colored SUV tearing away from the scene. As investigators begin asking questions, two candidates for the stupidest murderers of the year step forward.
On St. Patrick's Day, 1987, the body of 20-year-old active-duty Army Specialist Darlene Krashoc is discovered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, behind a strip mall. With over 100 suspects, the case goes cold for over three decades. But when forensic genetic genealogy enters the picture, the perpetrator cannot hide for much longer.
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Tanya Marie Frazier, a 14-year-old Seattle girl, disappeared on July 18, 1994, after leaving summer school at Meany Middle School. Her body was found days later in a wooded ravine in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The medical examiner determined her death was a result of sharp force injuries to her neck and head, and the attack was sexually motivated. For 30 years, Tanya's family receives no answers or justice. Then … ...
On the morning of October 9, 2020, in their Dallas neighborhood, Jamie Faith is shot seven times while on a routine dog walk with his wife, Jennifer. Jennifer appeared distraught and publicly appealed for the killer to come forward in the media, portraying herself as a grieving widow. The initial appearance of a random robbery gone wrong quickly unravels as investigators uncovered a complex web of deceit.
After neighbors and the postman stop seeing Tom Devlin around town, they ask his wife of 40 years, Laura Belle, about him. Laura is more than happy to describe exactly what happened to Tom–and the outcome is one of the more gruesome crimes the people of Newark, Ohio, will ever hear about in 1947.
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A woman living with a violent man is found in her bedroom, stabbed more than 60 times. Several suspects emerge over the course of a few months, the man she is living with not among them. It takes almost 30 years, but investigators confiscate a napkin in a trash can and believe they have the case solved.
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A storybook romance. A life of giving back to the world in ways that change thousands of lives. You and your wife settle into life in New Hampshire, away from the chaos and evil of the world–or so you think.
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A young woman is murdered. Years go by without answers. Her sister begins searching for the murderer—and the experience sends her into a career in law enforcement and cold case work, as investigators close in on a savage killer.
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HALLLOWEEN SPECIAL - The Harvard Body-Broker Butcher
Body parts for sale! Not quite the advertisement you'd expect to see somewhere. But in the United States, under a strict set of guidelines, selling body parts is legal. Only in this case, a group of people take that business to an extreme beyond the macabre.
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Season 5 of Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Then a third teen is murdered and other questionable deaths o...
You all know him as the Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo, one of the most prolific serial criminal killers we have ever encountered. This week, my very special guest, Thien Ho, the man who prosecuted Deangelo, gives us the inside story of what went on behind the scenes with this monster--sharing never-before-heard details about the East Area Rapist, Vasilia Ransacker, Original Nightstalker, and GSK.
Ge...
A father of four, Jared Bridegan, drops off two of his children at his ex-wife's house. Drives away. An hour later, a passerby finds the man dead in the middle of the road. As the investigation begins amid what seems to be a baffling homicide, an unlikely suspect is developed and the dominoes in a wild murder scheme begin to fall.
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A young teenager is dropped off at a Denver, Colorado, park one summer afternoon and fails to return home. Witnesses step forward and claim social media holds the answer–an online video of what happened. Investigators search for a suspect—who happens to be right under their noses the entire time.
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Blake Chappell is seventeen years old, enjoying life on life's terms. He has a beautiful girlfriend, loving siblings, and his sights are set on becoming a television news anchor or an attorney. But as Blake is walking to a friend's house one early morning, he vanishes. Family and friends don't believe the common law enforcement trope that another teen has run away from home. So the search begins.
*Carina Saunders is a gifted student, passionate about opera, and doing the best she can to carve out a life in Oklahoma City after getting herself into a jam. After she turns up missing one day, her family set out to uncover the truth—while law enforcement takes a call for a gruesome discovery not far from where Carina was last seen.
* I want to thank Michelle G for sending this one in.
13-year-old Abigail "Abby" Williams and 14-year-old Liberty "Libby" German were brutally murdered by Richard Allen. My guests, Anie and Kevin, from the Murder Sheet podcast, discuss the threats they received, the social media vitriol proclaiming the man convicted is innocent and has been framed, and what it all means within the scope of true crime.
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A famous sheriff fights crime and corruption by taking the battle right to the enemy—using a very large oak stick to bust up illegal casinos, brothels, moonshine stills, and heads. He becomes a hero of the people. Books are written. Hollywood films are made about his life. Then … a horrific murder and fiery accident lend a surprise twist, with everyone questioning their worship and idealization.
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