Crimes and Consequences

What happens when a quiet Midwestern woman with a soft voice, a churchgoing image, and a smile that seemed almost comforting becomes the center of one of the most disturbing murder conspiracies in modern true crime?In this Early Release episode of Crimes and Consequences, we unravel the twisted real-life story behind NBC’s hit series The Thing About Pam and the woman at the center of it all: Pam Hupp.This is not just the story behind a TV show.It’s the anatomy of a real-life predator who hid in plain sight.

In the spring of 2014, a champion wrestler from Texas arrived in the isolated mountain town of Gunnison, Colorado, carrying the kind of confidence that made people gravitate toward him. Dammion Heard was charismatic, impulsive, fiercely competitive, and only beginning to build the life he imagined for himself at Western State Colorado University. But after a chaotic night involving parties, rivalries, fractured relationships, and conflicting accounts from the people around him, Dammion suddenly vanished into the cold darkness of the Rockies. What followed would divide investigators, devastate a family, and leave behind a case filled with disputed timelines, unsettling witness statements, and questions that still refuse to disappear more than a decade later.SOURCES: 1) CBS News Pt. 12) CBS News Pt. 23) CBS News Pt. 34) Reddit Discussion

On the surface, it looked like the kind of life people spend decades trying to build—a long marriage, three children, a quiet suburban routine shaped by faith, loyalty, and years of sacrifice. But behind that carefully ordered life, something had begun to unravel in ways no one around them could fully see. What started as a secret relationship slowly transformed into a web of obsession, manipulation, and control that stretched across state lines and pulled multiple people into its orbit. And by the time anyone realized how far things had gone, an ordinary night in a Michigan library parking lot was about to become the center of a murder investigation that detectives would later describe as chillingly deliberate.SOURCES: 1) Oxygen: Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins2) Oxygen: Snapped3) Sybil Ann Padgett v. Clarice Stovall, U.S. District Court Case4) Podcast: American Scandal

On the surface, he looked like a man who had it all—confidence, charisma, and a life built in the sprawling affluence. But behind the polished exterior of John Battaglia was a storm of control, obsession, and escalating violence that would end in one of the most chilling acts of filicide in modern American crime.In this Early Relese episode we pull back the curtain on a case that is as psychologically disturbing as it is heartbreaking. This is not just the story of a crime—it’s the unraveling of a man who weaponized love, custody, and control against the very people who trusted him most.

On the highways that cut through the American Midwest, where headlights stretch into darkness and exits blur past without memory, a predator moved unnoticed for years. Larry Eyler didn’t look like a killer; he blended in, a quiet man drifting between Indiana and Illinois, offering rides to young men who would never be seen again. Their bodies would later be found miles apart, scattered across counties and backroads, each discovery raising questions no one yet knew how to connect. It wasn’t until the pattern emerged—too late for many—that investigators realized they were chasing not separate crimes, but a single, methodical force moving along the highways themselves. And even after his arrest, the full truth of what Eyler had done would remain buried, waiting until the very end to surface in a confession that revealed a scale of violence far greater than anyone had imagined.SOURCES: 1) Crime Library: Larry Eyler, the Highway Murderer2) The Roanoke Times: Killer Confesses to Killing 21 Men3) Crime Online: "Highway Killer" Larry Eyler's Victim Identified after 40 Years4) UPI: Lawyer: Eyler was serial killer5) The Washington Post: Killer Confessed to 21 More Deaths6) The Midwest Crime Files Podcast: The Highway Killer: The Victims of Larry Eyler7) Larry Eyler's Wikipedia Page