Serial Killers & Murderous Minds

Despite a year of killings, the Austin police made no credible arrests in the Midnight Assassin investigation, and two innocent husbands were prosecuted while a key suspect died without ever facing trial. The case remains unsolved more than 140 years later, with some theorizing the killer may have gone on to commit similar crimes around the world.

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In 1884, a brutal killer began targeting Black female domestic servants in Austin, Texas, attacking victims in their sleep and vanishing without a trace. With no forensic tools and deep racial prejudice shaping the investigation, police arrested countless innocent men while the murders escalated in frequency and violence. The case, known as the Midnight Assassin, remains unsolved to this day.

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Despite years of investigation, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run remained elusive. One promising suspect, slipped through the police's grasp, and an innocent man may have died in custody for a crime he didn't commit. Decades later, the authorities are using DNA technology in hopes of finally identifying the victims.

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In 1930s Cleveland, a killer known as the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run preyed on the vulnerable as the city struggled through the Great Depression. Victims were found dismembered and decapitated across the city, their identities stripped away as deliberately as their lives. This episode examines the psychology of overkill, dismemberment, and a pioneering criminal profile that was decades ahead of its time.

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On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five young children in the bathtub of her Houston home, convinced she was saving their souls from eternal damnation. A devout mother battling postpartum psychosis and major depression, she had fallen under the influence of extremist preacher Michael Woroniecki, whose teachings persuaded her that only death could protect her children from the demons she believed were hunting them. This epis...

On the surface, Andrea Yates was a former valedictorian, nurse, and a devout mother of five from Clear Lake, Texas. But deep down, Andrea was consumed by religious guilt, postpartum psychosis, and the manipulative teachings of a fringe preacher who convinced her that demons were pursuing her family. This episode traces her deteriorating mental health across nearly a decade of mismanaged care, isolation, and unchecked delusion that ...

In 1970s Houston, serial killer Dean Corll murdered at least 28 teenage boys with the help of two young accomplices he groomed and manipulated. When Corll turned on 17-year-old Wayne Henley and threatened to kill his girlfriend, Wayne made a decision that would unravel one of America's most horrific crime sprees. This episode examines the psychology of coercion, escalating violence, and what it finally takes to break free from an a...

In early 1970s Houston, Texas, businessman Dean Corll used free candy, a party-ready apartment, and a carefully cultivated reputation as a community pillar to lure teenage boys to their deaths. But behind his friendly facade, Corll was systematically grooming victims... and recruiting young accomplices to help him carry out increasingly brutal crimes. This episode traces his childhood, his escalating predatory behavior, and the fir...

Crime House’s Murder: True Crime Stories presents a special series for America’s 250th Birthday: The Crimes That Built America. Listen every Monday until July 6th on Murder: True Crime Stories. Join Crime House+ to get all 4 episodes right now ad-free. To subscribe, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you are listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page.

250 years ago, a brand-n...

After killing at least two women in his orbit, Joe Ball seemingly got away clean. But when the rumors in town caught up to him.. Joe did something nobody expected. After he was gone, his gator pit and a trail of missing women turned him into one of Depression-era Texas's most chilling figures.

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In 1930s Elmendorf, Texas, tavern owner Joe Ball built a reputation for wild alligator feedings and a revolving door of female employees who kept disappearing without explanation. Reportedly a descendant of notorious slaveholders, Ball graduated from bootlegger to killer, and when the women in his life became inconvenient, they simply vanished.

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By the early 1980s, Richard Kuklinski had supposedly killed dozens of men for the New York Mafia. And with his boss Roy DeMeo dead, he was operating entirely on his own terms. But when ATF agent Dominick Polifrone began building an undercover identity inside New Jersey's criminal world, Richard's own greed and loose talk would bring him down.

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Richard Kuklinski grew up in the violent housing projects of Jersey City, New Jersey, where abuse at home and relentless bullying on the streets hardened him into a killer before he turned 15. By his mid-twenties, he had leveraged his capacity for cold-blooded violence into a career as a trusted hitman for the Gambino crime family under Brooklyn mob boss Roy DeMeo. This episode traces how Kuklinski's early trauma, unchecked rage, a...

Once again, Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined by Katie Ring, host of the Crime House Original America's Most Infamous Crimes to discuss the crimes of the "Ypsilanti Ripper." In 1969, John Norman Collins terrorized Ypsilanti, Michigan, murdering at least six young women and girls while hiding behind a charming, all-American persona. Despite being questioned multiple times, Collins evaded investigators until a single careless choice ...

Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined by Katie Ring, host of the Crime House Original America's Most Infamous Crimes to discuss the crimes of the "Ypsilanti Ripper."In the late 1960s, Eastern Michigan University students Mary Fleszar and Joan Schell were brutally murdered by someone hiding in plain sight: their charming, honor-roll neighbor John Norman Collins. Despite a witness placing Collins with one victim and a description matchin...

Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined again by Dr. Harini Bhat from PAVE Studio's newest show "Hidden History" as they conclude their deep dive into the "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory, used her wealth and noble status to lure hundreds of young women to their deaths inside the walls of Castle Csejthe. As her crimes escalated from peasant girls to the daughters of nobility, rumors of blood baths and dark magic spread... ultimately r...

Vanessa and Dr. Engels are joined by Dr. Harini Bhat from PAVE Studio's newest show "Hidden History" as they discuss the "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Bathory, a 16th and 17th-century noblewoman who used her vast wealth, noble status, and unchecked power to torture and murder hundreds of young girls within the walls of her castle. Raised amid war, public executions, and a family that weaponized cruelty, Bathory built an inner circle o...

When the kidnapping of an American college student set off an international manhunt, investigators had no idea it would lead them to a ranch in Mexico hiding 15 bodies, a cauldron filled with human remains, and a cult built on ritual human sacrifice. Vanessa and Dr. Engels follow the investigation that exposed Adolfo Constanzo's horrific operation... and the dramatic final standoff that brought it all to an end.

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Ever since he was a child, Adolfo Constanzo was raised to believe he was special. And by his twenties, he'd built a cult in Mexico City fueled by black magic, psychic manipulation, and blind devotion. Join Vanessa and Dr. Engels as they trace Adolfo's path from childhood rituals and revenge spells to his terrifying alliance with Mexican drug cartels, where protection spells masked cold-blooded murder and human sacrifice.

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