The Misery Machine

The Misery Machine

There’s a problem with True Crime. Creators idolize perpetrators, shame victims, or are completely checked out on cases while they focus on other things. However, we can’t forget there are victims who lost their lives and families who are still grieving to this day. Furthermore, many True Crime outlets spend their time focusing on themselves or rambling, instead of getting right to the facts of the case. We hear you, this is frustrating. The Misery Machine focuses on cases the media fails to give proper attention to. We want to help give those a voice that never got to have one, to begin with. We also cover aspects of cases that other podcasts might look the other way on, and the way that these cases impact their communities for generations. It’s not enough to simply cover a case, our platform must be used to make a difference.

Episodes

January 22, 2026 24 mins

This week, Drewby and Yergy head west to discuss a case that's been widely requested these last few months, and that is the case of Melodee Buzzard. Melodee was a 9-year-old girl from Vandenberg Village, California, whose disappearance in October 2025 led to a massive multi-state search, and the eventual arrest of her mother, Ashlee Buzzard.


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This week, Drewby and Yergy head to Amherst County, Virginia, to discuss the case of Elsie Wiggington, a 45-year-old nurse and mother of two who went missing in June of 2023, after confession to her former foster sister that she feared for her life. Elsie's case went cold until a new sheriff took office, and what was found beneath a six inch concrete slab on her estranged husband's property shocked Amherst to it's core.

...

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January 15, 2026 20 mins

This week, Drewby and Yergy head over to Inkster, Michigan, to discuss a case that they have wanted to discuss for a very long time now, and that is the case of London Thomas. London was a beautiful 17-year-old girl with a promising future that went missing in April of 2025. Not long after, her remains were discovered sealed in a tote inside of an SUV. Her ex-boyfriend Jalen Pendergrass and his mother, Charla, have been arrested in...

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January 12, 2026 36 mins

This week, Drewby and Yergy bring you to Utah to discuss the case of Mackenzie Lueck, a 23-year-old college student who was studying to be a nurse. While in school, Mackenzie discovered the world of sugar dating, which led to her meeting a man named Ayoola Ajayi, who worked in IT. However, what was supposed to be a first date turned into a nightmare.


Everyone deserves relationships free from domestic violence. When you're r...

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January 8, 2026 20 mins

In Capitol Heights, Maryland, a mother of three vanished, and the truth behind her disappearance would shock everyone who loved her. Alexis Schuler was brutally shot in the head by Devonte Gray, the father of one of her children, in an act of unimaginable violence and betrayal. To add insult to injury, her body was encased in concrete and hidden behind a freshly constructed wall inside of his home.


Everyone deserves relationship...

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January 6, 2026 19 mins

After a long career in nursing, John Torneo did what many retirees do... they pack up and head on down to the Sunshine State to live out their golden years in the warm weather. While in Florida, John met a young man that was down on his luck and needed a place to stay. Unfortunately, John's kind nature would put him in grave danger when the arrangement didn't pan out. This week, Drewby and Yergy head back down to Polk Count...

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January 1, 2026 37 mins

On Christmas Eve, a young man went missing after a date arranged through Grindr, and what followed would shock an entire community. Kevin Bacon, a 26-year-old hair stylist from Michigan, never made it home that night. His disappearance would soon be linked to Mark Latunski, a man hiding a dark and disturbing secret behind the walls of his rural farmhouse. This is the story of Kevin Bacon, and the crime that unfolded during a holida...

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December 29, 2025 20 mins

On a quiet afternoon in Polk City, Florida, a teenage breakup spiraled into unimaginable violence. What began as a dispute between 17-year-old Hunter Penton and his ex-girlfriend quickly escalated into a brutal attack inside his own home... an assault carried out by multiple teenagers and captured on video. But the violence didn’t end there. As Hunter’s mother, Suzette Marie Penton, rushed to protect her son, she was struck and kil...

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December 27, 2025 122 mins

Some of the most devastating crimes are not committed by strangers in dark alleys, but by the very people meant to protect and love us. In this compilation, we examine four separate cases that shook communities to their core, each involving a biological father who betrayed the most fundamental bond of parenthood. Phoebe Jonchuck, Maddox Lawrence, Dylan Redwine, and Takoda Collins were children whose lives ended far too soon at the ...

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It was a story that gripped Southern California and eventually broke hearts across the nation. In August of 2025, 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro was reported kidnapped from a Yucaipa parking lot during a broad-daylight attack on his mother.


The parents, Rebecca and Jake Haro, went on television pleading for their son’s safe return. But behind the scenes, investigators were finding holes in their story. Surveillance footage showed no ...

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December 18, 2025 38 mins

On a quiet train ride through North Carolina, surrounded by strangers and moving steadily toward its destination, no one could have imagined that violence was about to unfold in one of the most confined public spaces imaginable. Iryna Zarutska was just another passenger that day... until her life was taken in a brutal and senseless act that would shock travelers, law enforcement, and an entire nation.


What makes this case especi...

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December 15, 2025 31 mins

In the quiet lakeside city of Oshawa, Ontario, police believed they were dealing with two separate mysteries: the disappearance of 18-year-old Kandis Fitzpatrick in 2008, and, nearly a decade later, the horrifying discovery of human remains belonging to 18-year-old Rori Hache. What they didn’t yet realize was that both cases pointed to the same predator... one hiding in plain sight.


Adam Strong was not a name anyone recognized. ...

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Some of the most devastating crimes don’t come from strangers lurking in the dark, but from the people allowed closest to home. This week's compilation tells the heartbreaking stories of four children whose lives were cut short not by chance, but by trust misplaced.


Logan Cline. Tesslyn O’Cull. Sereniti Jazzlynn-Sky Blankenship-Sutley. Jabraylon Bables. Each of these children was brutally murdered by a man brought into their lives a...

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December 11, 2025 27 mins

In October of 2025, what began as a transatlantic journey ended in one of the most disturbing and tragic cases Florida authorities have ever encountered.


Sonia Exelby, a 32-year-old woman from Portsmouth, England, flew into the Sunshine State with an intention that would shock investigators on both sides of the Atlantic, and lead to a grim discovery in the woods of Marion County. Authorities say she had connected online with a m...

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In the nightlife pulse of Orlando, Florida, 29-year-old Dereck Cummings II, better known as Antwan Miles in his community, was building a name for himself. An aspiring rapper, a rising club promoter, and a father of four with another baby on the way, Dereck spent the night of January 29th, 2023 doing what he loved: bringing people together. His final event at Labelle Caribbean Restaurant was supposed to be another step toward the f...

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December 4, 2025 29 mins

In the quiet Swedish town of Skara, where life usually moves with the slow rhythm of rural calm, police were called to a scene so gruesome it would scar the country’s collective memory for years to come. It was 2011 when authorities entered a small apartment and discovered a reality that read more like a nightmare than anything imaginable, one of the most shocking acts of violence in modern Swedish history.


The man responsible w...

In the world of true crime, some cases don’t just shock us... they shake us to our core. They leave us wondering how anyone could cross a line so sacred, so unthinkable, that it defies every instinct we have as human beings.


Today’s video is a deep dive into some of the most disturbing and heartbreaking cases in recent memory... crimes committed not by strangers, not by intruders, but by the very people meant to protect their childr...

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December 1, 2025 34 mins

In the shadowy corners of Southwest Florida, where the sun-soaked streets of Cape Coral give way to quiet neighborhoods, a darkness was quietly taking shape... one that would eventually erupt into a series of crimes so brutal, so senseless, that the entire state would be left stunned. This is the story of Wade Wilson (not Deadpool), a man whose trail of violence unfolded over a matter of hours yet left wounds that continue to haunt...

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November 24, 2025 31 mins

Imagine being 20 years old, carefree, and hitchhiking your way toward a friend’s birthday party... only to have your life stolen in an instant. In 1977, Colleen Stan accepted a ride that would plunge her into one of the most disturbing and prolonged abduction cases in American history. For seven years, she was held captive in ways almost too shocking to comprehend... hidden away in a wooden box for hours or even days at a time, man...

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November 20, 2025 52 mins

In the quiet city of Ogden, Utah, the spring of 1974 should have been ordinary, filled with warm evenings, small-town routines, and a sense of safety people trusted without question. But on one April night, that calm was shattered inside a small, unassuming electronics store: the Hi-Fi Shop.


What began as a simple robbery spiraled into one of the most shocking and brutal crimes in Utah’s history. Hostages were taken, tortured, a...

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