Crossing the Line with M. William Phelps
Crossing the Line is a true crime podcast revealing cold 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 Apple Podcasts, host/investigative journalist/New York Times bestselling true crime author 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.
Episodes
A teenage girl from Bronx, New York, leaves school one cold winter afternoon, on her way to meet her younger sister. But she never arrives and a search in a city of 10 million people begins. It takes decades, but law enforcement catch a break … this, mind you, after figuring out how the planet Jupiter and their main suspect, are connected.
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On September 5th, 1982, 12-year-old paperboy Johnny Gosch vanished into the early morning darkness of West Des Moines, Iowa. His abandoned red Radio Flyer wagon, filled with undelivered newspapers, was the only trace left behind. The mystery deepened over the decades as bizarre theories, allegations of systemic conspiracies, and a shocking, unannounced midnight visit to his mother, Noreen Gosch, transformed a tragic mi...
A three-year-old is found wandering through a parking lot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one day. She is holding onto her favorite pillow–and her feet are covered in dried blood. Her mother … is missing. As the search gets underway, a suspect emerges.
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It's the 80s. The bogeyman, a scumbag named Frank Walls, is roaming about the day and night, killing random people along the beachside in Okaloosa County, Florida—a serial killer displaying some of the vilest behaviors imaginable.
As the bodies pile up, investigators are stumped—until, that is, one courageous man, who calls himself "The Animal," decides to place a phone call.
A police commander's husband goes missing and law enforcement seems to think he might have taken off on his own. Then he is found murdered—and the case soon turns into a strange whodunit, with his wife at the center of the investigation. This, as another death ocurrs, leaving one man holding all the cards.
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A serial rapist, Mitchell Gaff, is caught and jailed. Thinking he's getting out of prison many years later, the court sentences him to McNeil Island, where the worst sexual predators are kept from society. After decades, he is finally released. 50 years after his first crimes, police are knocking on his door once again—but this time, it's murder they're looking to charge him with.
Five members of the Martin family--Kenneth, Barbara, and their three young children, Barbie, Susan and Virginia--head out one afternoon in 1958 for a Sunday drive in Oregon and never return. The only family member left behind, the oldest son, has some explaining to do. But in the end, a case spanning nearly 70 years, the answers are not what anyone has been expecting, sending shockwaves throughout the community.
...A young mother, Judith Lord, estranged from her husband, is home alone with her 20-month-old baby one night in Concord, New Hampshire. The next morning, the landlord is looking to collect the rent—and soon discovers a brutal homicide that will take 50-plus years to resolve.
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A mother, Heather Dewild Springer, heads out to meet her soon-to-be ex at the home they once shared… and nobody sees her again. True crime tells us to go right to the old adage: the husband did it. But if you think that's the end of the story, tune in, because it is far more complicated.
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For 25 years you go about your life as if you're a normal dude living the dream … you have a good woman supporting you; a solid job; and loyal friends. Yet, you do it all while holding onto a dark secret … buried underneath the floorboards in one of the bedrooms inside your home.
If you find yourself in a domestic violence situation and feel alone, scared, or unsure of what to do, there is he...
You and your girlfriend are parked on Lovers' Lane, the moonlight shining its wondrous glow on you both. A scumbag comes up to the car—with a gun. Such an innocent image shattered by a psychopath one night in Houston, lurking in the shadows, like the Zodiac Killer… and ready to strike. A double murder that goes unsolved for over 30 years.
It's been a life-long dream of mine to write Westerns (as you can clearly see from the photo below of Little M. William Phelps, the cowboy, LOL). The old-school, plot-driven, big character stories pitting good verses evil, good guys against bad guys, which is not so much different from what I normally do for my day job of true crime reporting and investigation for the podcasts I am most known...
For some, killing is an addiction, like food, alcohol, sex or drugs. Each victim makes the next one easier … Is the man behind the murders I have for you this week the most prolific serial killer on record—whose name you have likely never heard of? And what do the experts say regarding the psychology behind the dozens of murders he committed?
A young couple is living together and finishing their graduate studies in March 1980. One of them arrives home to a horrific scene. For nearly 50 years the case flies under the radar of the media and investigators … until, that is, a compassionate journalist decides the victim deserves to be remembered.
Sign the Change.org Julie Revsin petition to help get DNA from he...
A dog heads out one morning for a walk and returns, tail wagging, with a rather interesting discovery. A human skull. Alarmed, the dog's owner calls 911 and, after a broader search of the property, the remains of a man missing for years are soon discovered.
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Find Phelps on X @MWilliamPhelps
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mwilliamphelps
Your two buddies are helping you move one sunny morning. Driving down a lonely Ohio road, looking out on acres of serene farm fields, you spot a jacket off on the side of the road in a ditch—a jacket which will ultimately provide the nickname for one of the more infamous murder cases in the annals of true crime.
Reach me @mwilliamphelps on social media; and email mwilliamphelps@comcast.net
Born with a very rare condition, which he parlayed into a lucrative career with the traveling circus and carnival, they called him Lobster Boy. His story is replete with wild tales, gambling, alcoholism, violence, abuse and, of course … murder.
Find Phelps on X @MWilliamPhelps
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mwilliamphelps
IG and TikTok @mwilliamphelps
...A beloved auto mechanic suddenly goes missing and all eyes turn toward the grieving wife. But a far more diabolical and gruesome plot emerges as the secrets behind a tight knit group of friends in a small Texas town come to light.
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A college student abruptly gets up from a poker game, says nothing, and leaves the dorm. With a five-minute walk ahead of him home, somewhere in between … he vanishes… never to be seen again.
Welcome to a bonus feature here on the Crossing the Line feed. I come across all sorts of stories while researching books, TV series, and my iHeartMedia podcast, Paper Ghosts, in addition to the ideas yo...
Sixty kids show up to a house party one night and dance the night away, get their drink on, and stay until the pre-dawn hours of the following morning… Unbeknownst to everyone is that there are two mutilated bodies hidden inside the same house, with evidence of both murders just about everywhere you look.
Find Phelps on X @MWilliamPhelps
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mwillia...
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