Hard Times and True Crimes

In the warm summer of 1955, Judge Curtis Chillingworth, Florida’s youngest ever circuit judge and a man known for his fairness would vanish from his beachside cottage in Manalapan, just south of West Palm Beach. His wife, Marjorie, disappeared with him. 

Footprints led to the sea and never came back.

What followed was one of Florida’s most shocking  true crime cases: a tale of organized corruption, political ambition, and backro...

In 1983, a brutal double homicide in Houston, Texas shocked the public—not just because of the violence, but because of who was eventually held responsible. Karla Faye Tucker, a 23-year-old woman with a troubled past, quickly became one of the most controversial figures in modern true crime history.

But this isn’t just a story about murder. It’s about transformation.
It’s about a young woman who claimed to find God beh...

In this special mini-episode, we revisit 102. Murder on Route 66: The Welch Family Tragedy with a surprising update. You can listen to the original episode here: https://www.hardtimesandtruecrimes.com/102

One of the individuals directly connected to the original case recently reached out to share his personal account - a version of events that includes powerful and deeply personal claims involving details not known to the public. 

Wh...

In 1931, a little girl named Vera Leonard vanished while waiting for the school bus in Guilford County, NC. Hours later, her body was found in the ashes of her burned-down home. The man arrested—“Will Moore”—turned out to be an escaped convict named Asbury Respus, who would go on to confess not only to Vera’s murder but to as many as nine others across North Carolina.
Some of his confessions were confirmed. Others r...

In this gripping true crime episode, we explore the harrowing and heartbreaking story of Graham Staines, an Australian missionary who was burned alive along with his two young sons by a radical mob in Odisha, India, in 1999. 

Even in the face of horrific violence, forgiveness and faith can speak louder than hate. 

Narrator: Curtis Hildreth

Intro and Outro Music: Isaiah Hildreth

Sources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110409123228/http://...

In 1949, deep in the Smoky Mountains of Sevier County, Tennessee, a savage double murder shattered the stillness of a quiet Appalachian community.

Charlie Perry—a former Knoxville bootlegger turned tourist camp owner—and his longtime housekeeper, Josie Law, were brutally killed in their home at Perry’s Camp, a rustic riverside lodge in Flat Branch Hollow. Charlie had been tortured—his body bearing the marks of cruelty before the fin...

In June 1961, JD and Utha Welch packed up their car, their four young sons, and headed west from Oklahoma to visit family in California.

It was supposed to be a simple road trip — a summer memory in the making.

But one quiet night near Seligman, Arizona, while the boys slept in a canvas pup tent, JD and Utha were gunned down in cold blood as they rested in their car.

The boys woke up as orphans.

In this tragic episode, we explore the m...

Show Notes:

In 1986, Tina and Karen Bowen were just teenage girls when their mother passed away from cancer. Not long after, strange things started happening in their home.

Knocking from inside the walls.

Furniture moved.

Objects disappeared.

Messages scrawled in red across the bedroom walls:

💬 “I’m in your room. Come and find me.”

The girls thought maybe—just maybe—it was their mother trying to reach them from beyond. But what they were...

In this chilling episode of Hard Times and True Crimes, we dive deep into the twisted tale of Charles Schmid, the manipulative and charismatic serial killer who terrorized the young women of Tucson, Arizona, during the 1960s. Known as the Pied Piper of Tucson, Schmid lured teenage girls with his Elvis-like charm, eerie makeup, and bizarre swagger - only to reveal a monstrous dark side. 

We unravel the disappearances and murders of A...

📍 Episode Summary:

In 1958, 30-year-old nurse Olga Duncan vanished from her Santa Barbara apartment. She was newly married, seven months pregnant, and full of hope for the future. But what no one could’ve imagined was that the person behind her disappearance wasn’t a stranger… it was someone much closer to home.

This week on Hard Times & True Crimes, we tell the heartbreaking story of Olga Duncan — and the chilling, manipul...

In 1974, the quiet town of Searcy, Arkansas, was shaken by the shocking murder of Fern Rodgers, the wife of local physician Dr. Porter Rodgers. What seemed like a tragic crime soon unraveled as more information came to light that implicated not one, not two, but three suspects. 

If you love Southern true crime, mysteries, and small-town scandals, this episode is for you!

#truecrime #ArkansasMurders #SearcyArkansas #SouthernGothic

Host...

🎙️ Hard Times & True Crimes

Show Notes:

In the fall of 1927, New Orleans was buzzin’ with jazz, bootleg liquor, and secrets behind every shuttered window. But nothing prepared the city for what was found inside a quiet little apartment at 715 Ursulines Street.

Two women—Theresa Moity and her sister, Leonide Dwyer—were brutally murdered, dismembered, and stuffed into a steamer trunk. Their killer? A jealous, unraveling husband wit...

In this gripping episode of Hard Times and True Crimes, we uncover the hauntingly intertwined stories of Aundria Bowman and Kathleen Doyle - two women connected by tragedy and a ruthless predator who evaded justice for decades. 

We begin with Aundria’s heartbreaking journey: a young girl adopted into what seemed like a loving family, only to face unimaginable abuse and betrayal. Her disappearance in 1989 was dismissed as a runaway c...

 Episode Summary:

This week, we’re diving into one of the most notorious crime sprees in American history—the 1958 murder rampage of Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate. 

Was Caril Ann Fugate a hostage or an accomplice?

Did she have chances to escape, or was she trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t control?

We’ll walk you through the murders, the trial, and the fallout that still lingers decades later.

📌 In This Episode:

✔️ Ch...

🔎 Episode Summary:

Truck stops, open highways, and a killer hiding in plain sight—Sean Patrick Goble was a long-haul trucker with a dark secret. 🚚💀 In the early 1990s, Goble crisscrossed the country, using his job as a cover to prey on vulnerable women leading to multiple murders. But what led to his capture? And could there be more victims authorities have yet to uncover? 🤔

In this episode of Hard Times and True Crimes, we dive ...

 🔊 Narrator: Curtis Hildreth
🎼 Music by: Isaiah Hildreth

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Hard Times & True Crimes, we take you back to Gaffney, South Carolina, a small Southern town known for its peaches, its mill-town roots… and one of the most chilling murder sprees in state history. Between 1967 and 1968, the community was terrorized by a man who became known as The Gaffney Strangler—Lee Roy Martin.

Martin preyed on g...

In this episode, we revisit the dark case of Kathleen Bedsole's murder in 1983, and the attempted murder of Charles Leonard, Jr., a crime that shook the communities surrounding Birmingham, Alabama to their core. We delve into the disturbed mind of David Duren, the man accused of the brutal killing, and unravel the events that led to one of the most infamous true crime stories in the region. 

What We Cover: An in-depth look at t...

Episode Summary:

On Valentine’s Day 1971, a young couple Jesse McBane and Patricia Mann vanished after a romantic night  in Durham, North Carolina. Days later, their bound and strangled bodies were discovered deep in the woods. Their deaths were no accident—this was a meticulously staged murder. Over 50 years later, the case remains unsolved. Who was behind this horrific crime, and why have investigators struggled to bring justice t...

In this episode of Hard Times and True Crimes, we dive into a chilling case that highlights the dark side of online interactions. In the early 2000s, an internet chatroom became the setting for a deadly deception - what started as a seemingly harmless online friendship between marine_sniper and talhotblond, turned into a love triangle that ended in murder. We'll explore how a web of lies, manipulation, and hidden identities le...