PODCAST · true crime
Deadly Truths
by onlydeadlytruths
Deadly Truths exposes the crimes, cover-ups, and institutional failures buried in American history. From forgotten murders and cold cases to Hollywood myths, mob violence, and frontier bloodshed—this is true crime without glamor. Archival facts. Hard questions. No fiction. Because the past isn’t dead—it’s just been rewritten.
Episodes
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Disappeared in Northern Nevada: Gone Without a Trace
Across the lonely highways, neon lights, and desert valleys of Northern Nevada, women have disappeared without a trace. From downtown Reno to Washoe Valley, from the casinos to the ghostly expanse of the desert, their stories paint a chilling portrait of mystery and loss. In this episode, we...
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Cable Guy Serial Killer: David Stephen Middleton | Dead City Reno | Deadly truths
In the debut episode of Reno Murders: Death in the Biggest Little City, we investigate the case of David Stephen Middleton — a former police officer turned notorious “Cable Guy Serial Killer.” Once abusing his badge in Miami and later hiding in plain sight in Colorado and Nevada, Middleton used...
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The Darren Mack Case: Reno’s Courthouse Sniper and Murder of Charla Mack
In June 2006, Reno, Nevada was shaken by one of its most shocking crimes. Darren Mack, embroiled in a bitter divorce, brutally murdered his wife, Charla Mack, before targeting Family Court Judge Chuck Weller in a sniper-style shooting outside the Washoe County courthouse. This true crime episode…
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The Murder of Brianna Denison | Serial Rapist and Murderer
In January 2008, Reno was shaken by the disappearance of 19-year-old college student Brianna Denison. Abducted from a friend’s home near the University of Nevada campus, her case became one of the most high-profile investigations in the city’s history. This episode uncovers the chilling details…
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Colonial Parkway Murders Explained: The Killer, the Couples, and What DNA Solved
Between 1986 and 1989, a series of attacks on young couples and victims in secluded areas across southeastern Virginia became known as the Colonial Parkway murders. In this episode of Deadly Truths with Becca, we break down the four core cases, the victims behind the headlines, the decades of…
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Texarkana Moonlight Murders: The Phantom Killer and the Last Kiss on Lovers’ Lane
In the spring of 1946, fear spread across Texarkana as an unknown attacker targeted young couples parked on secluded back roads and lovers’ lanes. The press would come to call them the Texarkana Moonlight Murders, and the killer became a legend of Southern true crime: the Phantom Killer. The...
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Ted Bundy: Interstate Predator | How the Highway System Helped a Serial Killer Keep Moving
Ted Bundy is one of the most heavily covered killers in American history, but this episode takes a different route. Instead of retelling the same old story, we examine Bundy through the lens of mobility, interstate travel, and the expanding highway system that gave him room to move, cross...
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Billy Cook: The Hitchhiker Who Turned Route 66 Into a Hunting Ground
Long before America feared interstate killers, there was Billy Cook. In this episode of Interstate: Highly Deadly, we go back to Route 66 and the brutal murder spree that helped destroy the old American idea that a stranded stranger was probably harmless. Billy Cook was young, violent, and…
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Wayne Adam Ford, the California Trucker Killer
On November 3, 1998, long-haul trucker Wayne Adam Ford walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office carrying part of a woman’s body. What followed exposed a case stretching across California: four murdered women, remains found in different waterways, and a pattern built on mobility,...
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Paul John Knowles: The Casanova Killer’s Interstate Murder Spree
He was handsome, mobile, and easy to underestimate. But behind the charm was one of the most chaotic and far-ranging killing sprees in America. In this episode of Interstate: Highly Deadly, Becca traces how Paul John Knowles used highways, stolen cars, false identities, and jurisdiction gaps to...
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The Happy Face Killer: Keith Hunter Jesperson and America’s Deadly Highways
Keith Hunter Jesperson looked ordinary enough to keep moving. But behind that ordinary surface was a man who used America’s highways, roadside corridors, and transient spaces as cover for murder. In this episode of Interstate: Highly Deadly, we examine the known victims of the man later labeled…
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Joe Naso: The Alphabet Killer | Interstate: Highly Deadly Bonus Episode
In this sound-improved re-release bonus episode of Interstate: Highly Deadly, we examine the disturbing case of Joe Naso, often called the Alphabet Killer — a man who lived a double life as a traveling salesman and photographer while investigators later tied him to a series of murders. This…
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The Redhead Murders, the I-70 Killer, and America’s Deadly Highways
America built millions of miles of highway to move people, connect towns, and promise freedom. But for some killers, the road became something else entirely: cover. In this episode of Deadly Truths with Becca, we examine two of the most haunting patterns in American true crime: the so-called...
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The Great Basin Jane Does: Unidentified Victims Found Along Interstate 80
Across the empty desert highways of Nevada, a disturbing pattern has emerged over the decades — unidentified women found along Interstate 80 in the Great Basin, their names lost but their stories still waiting to be told. These victims are known only as Jane Does. In this episode of Interstate:...
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Interstate: Highly Deadly | America’s Highways, Serial Killers, and the Roads That Hid Them
We built the interstate system to connect America. But for some killers, those same roads became the perfect hunting ground. In this new season of Deadly Truths with Becca, Interstate: Highly Deadly investigates the murders, disappearances, predator patterns, and forgotten victims tied to…
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The Truck Stop Killer: Robert Ben Rhoades and America’s Deadly Highways
In 1990, an Arizona state trooper made what appeared to be a routine traffic stop along Interstate 10. Inside the sleeper compartment of a long-haul semi-truck, he found a woman alive — bound and chained to the cab. The driver was Robert Ben Rhoades. Over the next several years, investigators...
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Natalie Wood’s Mysterious Death: Accident, Argument, or Something More?
In November 1981, Hollywood icon Natalie Wood drowned off Catalina Island during a Thanksgiving weekend aboard her yacht, the Splendour. Present that night were her husband, Robert Wagner, co-star Christopher Walken, and the yacht’s captain. The original ruling: accidental drowning. Decades…
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George Remus and the Eden Park Murder: The Bootlegger Who Shot His Wife
During the height of Prohibition, George Remus wasn’t just a bootlegger — he was one of the richest and most powerful liquor traffickers in America. Operating out of Cincinnati along the Ohio–Kentucky corridor, he built a whiskey empire worth millions while bribing officials and manipulating the...
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The Demon of the Belfry | San Francisco’s Church Murder That Shocked America
In 1895, San Francisco was a city of fog, faith, and reputation. Inside the walls of a respected church, that illusion shattered. He was educated. Religious. Trusted. A young medical student who volunteered in the congregation. And yet, beneath the sanctuary’s quiet order, two women would be…
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The Bloody Benders of Kansas: America’s First Serial Killer Family | The Frontier Is Dead
Before fingerprinting. Before national manhunts. Before modern policing. A family built a roadside inn along the Osage Trail in southeastern Kansas — about three hours south of Kansas City — and turned it into a killing chamber. They sat travelers at the head of the table. Struck from behind a...
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The Servant Girl Annihilator | Dead City: Austin
In the winter of 1884, something began moving through the dark streets of Austin, Texas. Women were attacked in their beds. Doors splintered. Skulls crushed. Bodies dragged into the yard before dawn. The first victims were Black domestic workers sleeping in servant quarters behind wealthy homes....
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The Whyos: New York’s First Murder-For-Hire Gang | Dead City
Before the Mafia. Before organized crime wore tailored suits. There were the Whyos. In the late 1800s, New York’s Five Points neighborhood was ruled by a violent Irish street gang known for selling brutality by the job. Beatings. Retaliation. Murder. Their reputation was so notorious that...
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Monk Eastman: The Gang King New York Erased | Dead City
Before organized crime wore tailored suits and answered to syndicates, New York’s streets were ruled by brute force. Monk Eastman controlled large swaths of the Lower East Side at the turn of the twentieth century. His gang enforced protection rackets, operated gambling dens, and served as muscle...
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Lizzie Borden: The House That Never Gave an Answer | Dead State: Massachusetts
On a suffocating August morning in 1892, two people were killed inside a locked house in Fall River, Massachusetts. No forced entry. No robbery. No confession. The only suspect was their daughter, Lizzie Borden — a churchgoing, unmarried woman who stood to inherit her father’s fortune. She was...
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Helen Jewett and America’s First Media Murder | Dead City: New York
In 1836, the brutal murder of Helen Jewett shocked New York City—and changed how crime was covered in America forever. Jewett was found killed inside a boarding house, struck with a hatchet and left in a deliberately set fire. Suspicion quickly centered on Richard Robinson, a young, educated man...
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William “Bill the Butcher” Poole: Political Violence Before the Mafia | Dead City
Before the Mafia learned how to hide violence inside systems, American cities practiced it in public. This episode examines the life and death of William “Bill the Butcher” Poole, a figure often mythologized by film but rarely understood for what he truly was: a political enforcer whose brutality...
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Five Points Murders: The Killing of the Dead Rabbits | Dead City: New York
In the mid-1800s, New York called it a riot. The newspapers called it disorder. But what happened in Five Points was something far more deliberate. This episode of Deadly Truths with Becca reexamines the Dead Rabbits—not as the violent gang popular culture remembers, but as a group of young Irish...
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Hollywood’s Failed Experiment: The Race to Duplicate Marilyn Monroe - Hollywood is Dead
After Marilyn Monroe became too powerful to control, Hollywood didn’t adapt — it duplicated. This episode examines the studio system’s quiet panic and the women it put on the assembly line in Marilyn’s shadow: Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Sheree North, and Diana Dors. This isn’t a nostalgia...
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Gene Tierney: Hollywood’s Beautiful Star and Mental Illness - Hollywood is Dead
She was called one of the most beautiful women in film history — elegant, controlled, untouchable. But behind the image, Gene Tierney was quietly unraveling. This episode of Hollywood Is Dead examines Gene Tierney’s rise at the height of Old Hollywood, the catastrophic rubella exposure during...
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Jean Spangler, Jeanne French, and the Shadow of the Black Dahlia | Dead City
In postwar Los Angeles, three women became entangled in one of the darkest chapters of American crime. Jean Spangler vanished without a body. Jeanne French was murdered and publicly shamed by the press. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, became a legend that swallowed every unsolved case around...
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The Men Who Almost Stopped Capone: O’Banion, Weiss, and Moran | The Mob Is Dead
Al Capone didn’t take Chicago alone. He survived it. Before the myth hardened, before the headlines and machine guns turned him into a symbol, three men stood in his way—each dangerous in a different way. Dean O’Banion destabilized the entire system by breaking every agreement and weaponizing...
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Al Capone: Violence, Power, and the System That Let Him Rise | The Mob Is Dead
Al Capone didn’t rise because he was brilliant. He rose because violence worked—and the system let it. This episode dismantles the mythology surrounding Al Capone and traces how unchecked brutality, political corruption, and institutional silence allowed one man to dominate Chicago during...
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Albert Anastasia: How Fear Became His Weapon—and His Liability | The Mob Is Dead
Albert Anastasia ruled through fear. Known as “The Mad Hatter,” he built power in 1930s New York through extreme, unpredictable violence—both personally and through organized enforcement killings. But fear has a shelf life. In this episode of The Mob Is Dead, we strip away mob mythology and…
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Who Was Andrew Jackson Really? The Trail of Tears, History vs the Legend | The Frontier Is Dead
Who Was Andrew Jackson really—hero of the people or architect of state-sanctioned violence? This episode strips away the mythology and examines the documented record behind one of the most defended and dangerous figures in American history. We look at Andrew Jackson not as folklore, but as a man...
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Billy the Kid: How America Turned a Teenager Into a Frontier Myth | The Frontier Is Dead
Billy the Kid wasn’t a folk hero — and he wasn’t a psychopath. He was a poor, orphaned teenager caught inside a rigged frontier economy that rewarded violence, protected power, and erased the people it used up. In this episode of The Frontier Is Dead, we dismantle the mythology around Billy the…
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Jesse James Wasn’t a Hero — He Was a Prototype | The Frontier Is Dead
Jesse James is one of the most mythologized figures in American history — but the legend hides more than it reveals. In this episode of Frontier Is Dead, we dismantle the mythology surrounding Jesse James and examine who he really was, how his image was manufactured, and why America needed him to...
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Marilyn Monroe Was Not the Myth Hollywood Sold — Negligence, Power, and the Truth About Her Death | Hollywood Is Dead
Marilyn Monroe didn’t die because she was weak, unstable, or doomed by fame — and she wasn’t killed by a political conspiracy either. In this episode of Hollywood Is Dead, we dismantle the myths surrounding Marilyn Monroe and examine what the evidence actually supports: a woman who was…
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Rita Hayworth: Hollywood Erased Margarita Cansino | Hollywood Is Dead
Before she was a red-haired sex symbol, she was Margarita Cansino — a multilingual dancer, singer, and serious actress reshaped by Hollywood because her identity didn’t fit the brand. This episode of Hollywood Is Dead breaks down how studios erased Rita Hayworth’s ethnicity, how controlling men...
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The Battle of Alcatraz | When Containment Failed | Dead Bolts
The Battle of Alcatraz was not a riot, not a legend, and not an escape story. It was a system failure. In this episode of Deadly Truths with Becca, we break down the 1946 Battle of Alcatraz step by step — how a prison designed for silence and control lost containment, took hostages, and required...
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Al Capone on Alcatraz: How the Mob Boss Was Broken | The Mob Is Dead | Deadly Truths
Al Capone didn’t lose his power in a shootout or a courtroom — he lost it on Alcatraz Island. In this Mob Is Dead edition of Deadly Truths, Becca breaks down how the federal government used isolation, absolute control, and silence to dismantle America’s most famous mob boss. This episode…
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The Black Dahlia, George Hodel, Hollywood Suspect | Dead City Los Angeles
In January 1947, the body of Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant Los Angeles lot—bisected, posed, and drained of blood. The press called her The Black Dahlia. The case became legend. The truth became buried. This episode examines the Black Dahlia murder through the lens of George Hodel—a...
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Thelma Todd: Hollywood’s “Accidental” Death, Power Struggles, and the Café That Made Her Dangerous
In 1935, actress Thelma Todd was found dead in her car inside a private garage. Authorities ruled it an accident. Hollywood moved on. This episode examines what the headlines ignored: Todd’s fight for independence, her café’s quiet power, rising tensions with director Roland West, and the...
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Jean Harlow: Hollywood’s First Star Worked to Death | Deadly Truths with Becca
Jean Harlow was one of the first true movie stars in American history — and one of the first casualties of Hollywood’s studio system. At just twenty-six years old, Harlow died from acute kidney failure after weeks of visible decline that studios minimized, delayed treating, and quietly worked...
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The Cleveland Torso Murders: The Killer Eliot Ness Couldn’t Catch | Dead City | Deadly truths
In the 1930s, Cleveland was gripped by a series of murders so brutal and precise they exposed the limits of American law enforcement. Bodies were found dismembered, decapitated, and deliberately staged along rail lines and riverbanks — while the killer was never officially named. In this episode…
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Elizabeth Short: Black Dahlia Without Myths, Suspects, or Hollywood Lies - Hollywood is Dead
In Elizabeth Short: The Black Dahlia Case Without Myths, Suspects, or Hollywood Lies, Deadly Truths strips this case down to verified facts, documented timelines, and behavioral evidence — not tabloid fantasies. This episode dismantles decades of misinformation, explains why popular suspects…
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Lana Turner: Beauty, Abuse, and a Night Hollywood Couldn’t Control - Hollywood is Dead
Lana Turner: Beauty, Abuse, and the Night Hollywood Couldn’t Control Everyone thinks they know Lana Turner — the blonde bombshell, the MGM fantasy, the face of classic Hollywood glamour. This episode tells the story most people never learned. From Lana’s childhood trauma and early fame to a…
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Bugsy Siegel: The Gangster Behind Las Vegas and His Violent End
Bugsy Siegel helped change Las Vegas — but not in the way history usually tells it. In this episode of Deadly Truths, we strip away the Hollywood mythology and examine Bugsy Siegel through a psychological lens: his volatility, ego-driven violence, treatment of women, and why the very traits that...
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Meyer Lansky: The Mob’s Invisible Architect and Financial Mastermind
Meyer Lansky is often called the mob’s accountant—but that undersells what he really was. Lansky didn’t build his power with street violence or flashy brutality. He built it with math, patience, and ruthless calculation. While others pulled triggers, Lansky moved money, engineered gambling…
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Dutch Schultz: Paranoia, Power, and the Gangster Who Lost Control
Dutch Schultz is usually remembered as a brutal Prohibition-era gangster. This episode tells a different story. In Dutch Schultz: Paranoia, Power, and the Gangster Who Lost Control, Becca examines how violence, fear, and psychological dysregulation turned one of the most feared men in New York…
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Lucky Luciano: The Mob Boss Who Invented Modern Organized Crime
Lucky Luciano: The Mob Boss Who Invented Modern Organized Crime Lucky Luciano didn’t just survive the Mafia — he rebuilt it. From the night he was beaten, stabbed, and left for dead on a Coney Island beach… to the murders of Joe Masseria (mah-SAIR-ee-uh) and Salvatore Maranzano (mah-rahn-ZAH-no)…...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Deadly Truths exposes the crimes, cover-ups, and institutional failures buried in American history. From forgotten murders and cold cases to Hollywood myths, mob violence, and frontier bloodshed—this is true crime without glamor. Archival facts. Hard questions. No fiction. Because the past isn’t dead—it’s just been rewritten.
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onlydeadlytruths
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Deadly Truths have?
Deadly Truths currently has 98 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Deadly Truths about?
Deadly Truths exposes the crimes, cover-ups, and institutional failures buried in American history. From forgotten murders and cold cases to Hollywood myths, mob violence, and frontier bloodshed—this is true crime without glamor. Archival facts. Hard questions. No fiction. Because the past isn’t...
How often does Deadly Truths release new episodes?
Deadly Truths has 98 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Deadly Truths?
You can listen to Deadly Truths on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Deadly Truths?
Deadly Truths is created and hosted by onlydeadlytruths.
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