Forensic Tales

Forensic Tales

Not all stories have happy endings... A weekly true crime podcast with a forensic twist. Each episode features real stories highlighting how forensic science was used. From fingerprinting to criminal profiling to familial DNA, we have every investigative angle covered.

Episodes

Melissa Lucio

March 2, 2026 • 42 mins
#322 - In 2007, two-year-old Mariah Alvarez was rushed to a hospital in Brownsville, Texas. She wasn’t breathing. Doctors were unable to revive her. Within hours, suspicion turned toward her mother, Melissa Lucio. After a lengthy interrogation, Melissa said four words that prosecutors would later present as a confession. She was charged with capital murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. But over the years, serious questions...
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Johnia Berry

February 23, 2026 • 38 mins
#321 - In December 2004, 21-year-old Johnia Berry was attacked inside her Knoxville, Tennessee apartment. The crime scene raised more questions than answers. There were no clear signs of forced entry. The weapon came from inside the home. And despite the brutality of the attack, there was no obvious motive. Investigators initially focused on someone close to her, but forensic evidence would soon complicate that theory. A partial...
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Fred Engel

February 16, 2026 • 28 mins
#320 - In 2008, a South Carolina man disappeared while checking his mail outside his home. His body was soon found in nearby woods, and an autopsy revealed he had been strangled to death. At first, the police had few suspects. But right before the case turned cold, investigators did something outside the box. They turned to cell phone forensics. Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced...
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SPECIAL UPDATE: Sentencing in the Au Pair Affair Case

February 14, 2026 • 18 mins
BONUS UPDATE Yesterday, Juliana Peres Magalhães, the former au pair and key witness in the so-called “Au Pair Affair” murder trial, was sentenced. In this short follow-up episode of Forensic Tales, we recap the sentencing hearing, including the defense’s motion to exclude victim impact statements from Christine Banfield’s family, the judge’s ruling, and the final sentence handed down in connection with the death of Joseph Ryan. ...
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West Memphis Three

February 9, 2026 • 43 mins
#319 - In May of 1993, three eight-year-old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Within weeks, police arrested three teenagers, despite a complete lack of physical evidence tying them to the crime. What followed was an investigation shaped by fear, rumor, and the cultural panic of the early 1990s. A confession filled with factual errors. Forensic interpretations that would later be widely challenged. And a jury d...
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SPECIAL EPISODE: The Au Pair Affair - Trial & Verdict

February 3, 2026 • 41 mins
Special Episode In February 2023, police were called to a quiet home in northern Virginia. Inside the master bedroom, they found Christine Banfield, a wife and mother, suffering from multiple stab wounds. A second man, Joseph Ryan, was also found dead. He had been shot inside the same room. Christine’s husband, Brendan Banfield, would later be charged with their murders. What followed was a case that quickly drew national attenti...
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Rosemarie Essa

February 2, 2026 • 38 mins
#318 - In February 2005, an Ohio woman suddenly collapsed and died while driving to a local movie theater. At first, her death was thought to be the result of a minor car accident. But as the forensic evidence started to reveal itself, the thought that this woman died in a car accident seemed impossible. And the deeper investigators looked, the more suspicious one of the victim’s loved ones looked. If you’d like to help create c...
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The Knifepoint Rapist

January 26, 2026 • 40 mins
#317 - When a pattern emerges in criminal investigations, it often becomes the strongest lead. In Southern California, that pattern pointed to a serial sexual offender who used a knife to control his victims and left DNA behind at multiple scenes. For years, the DNA sat unmatched. Today’s episode examines the San Diego Knifepoint Rapist case, the forensic evidence that connected the assaults, and how modern genetic genealogy tran...
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From the Archives: Tiffany Valiante

January 19, 2026 • 44 mins
From the Archives: The Mysterious Death of Tiffany Valiante In 2015, 18-year-old Tiffany Valiante was struck and killed by a train in New Jersey. Authorities quickly ruled her death a suicide but from the very beginning, her family has insisted that explanation doesn’t make sense. Tiffany had made plans for the future. She had no known history of depression. And crucial pieces of evidence, including her phone, shoes, and the circ...
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Marvin Grimm Jr

January 12, 2026 • 38 mins
#315 - In 1975, a three-year-old boy disappeared in Richmond, Virginia. Days later, his body was found in the James River, and a young neighbor, Marvin Grimm Jr., became the focus of the investigation. After hours of interrogation, Marvin confessed and later pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison. But decades later, advances in forensic science told a very different story. DNA testing excluded Marvin from every piece...
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Robert Brashers

January 5, 2026 • 31 mins
#314 - For decades, Robert Eugene Brashers lived in near-total obscurity. While investigators across multiple states worked unsolved cases involving sexual assault and murder, his name never surfaced. Not because evidence was missing, but because the science needed to connect it all didn’t yet exist. In this episode of Forensic Tales, we trace the full scope of Brashers’ crimes: from a brutal attempted murder in Florida, to a ser...
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Gareth Williams

December 29, 2025 • 63 mins
#313 - This week, we’re revisiting one of the most downloaded episodes of 2025. The death of UK spy Gareth Williams in 2010 has become one of the most high-profile unsolved mysteries in years after his naked body was discovered padlocked inside a duffel bag. Described as a genius mathematician who the intelligence service had recruited, Gareth’s exact cause of death remains unknown, and people can’t agree whether he could have loc...
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John Kunco

December 22, 2025 • 36 mins
#312 - In 1991, John Kunco was convicted in Pennsylvania of raping and torturing a 55-year-old woman inside her apartment. There was no DNA evidence tying him to the crime. Instead, the case against him relied heavily on an alleged bite mark and a delayed voice identification. Kunco spent nearly 28 years in prison before advances in forensic science began to unravel the evidence used to convict him. DNA testing excluded him from k...
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Arpana Jinaga

December 15, 2025 • 45 mins
#311 - In November 2008, 24-year-old Arpana Jinaga was found murdered in her Redmond, Washington apartment—just hours after attending a Halloween party with neighbors in her building. Arpana was a bright, accomplished software engineer with no known enemies, yet the crime scene was chaotic and filled with conflicting forensic clues. Despite multiple suspects, extensive DNA testing, and even a criminal trial, her killer has never b...
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Juliana Redding

December 8, 2025 • 43 mins
In March 2008, 21-year-old Juliana Redding was found murdered inside her Santa Monica apartment. Juliana had moved to Los Angeles to study communications and pursue modeling, building a life close to the beach and staying closely connected to her family in Arizona. When she stopped responding to calls and messages, police conducted a welfare check and discovered signs of a violent struggle — along with attempts to start a fire ins...
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Robert Stonebreaker

December 1, 2025 • 40 mins
A respected veterinarian is found dead under mysterious circumstances in an upscale Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood. What first looked like a car accident quickly turned into a homicide investigation filled with unanswered questions — a wrecked vehicle, blunt-force trauma, and no clear explanation of how Dr. Robert Stonebreaker ended up in a nearby driveway. Nearly 15 years later, the case remains unsolved. In this episode, we break d...
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Jane Mixer

November 24, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode, we revisit the shocking murder of 23-year-old law student Jane Mixer, long believed to be a victim of Michigan’s “Co-Ed Killer.” When modern DNA testing finally pointed to an unexpected suspect, Gary Leiterman, the case was reopened, re-examined, and fiercely debated. Was the forensic evidence clear-cut? Or did lab contamination muddy the truth? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Peggy Carr

November 17, 2025 • 39 mins
When 41-year-old Peggy Carr suddenly fell gravely ill, doctors were stumped. Her symptoms made no sense—burning limbs, hair loss, and paralysis with no clear cause. But when her teenage son and stepson became sick too, investigators uncovered a chilling truth: the Carr family had been poisoned. The substance was thallium—a deadly, nearly undetectable metal once used in rat poison. The discovery launched a full-scale forensic inves...
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Robert Duboise

November 10, 2025 • 38 mins
In 1983, 19-year-old Barbara Grams was found murdered behind a dental office in Tampa, Florida. Detectives said a small mark on her cheek was a bite — and that 18-year-old Robert DuBoise’s teeth matched it. That single piece of forensic “evidence” sent him to death row. But nearly four decades later, new DNA testing proved what Robert had said all along — he was innocent. The mark wasn’t even a bite. This week on Forensic Tales, ...
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Jodine Serrin

November 3, 2025 • 40 mins
It was Valentine’s Day, 2007, when 39-year-old Jodine Serrin’s parents stopped by her Carlsbad, California condo to check on her. Moments after walking into her bedroom, they realized something was terribly wrong. Jodine had been brutally attacked—and the man they’d seen inside her home had vanished. For over a decade, her murder went unsolved. No witnesses. No leads. Just a single piece of DNA left behind. In this episode, we ex...
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