Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast

Sanal Edamaruku is a prominent Indian author and president of the Indian Rationalist Association who spent decades debunking superstitious claims, famously making headlines in 2012 by exposing a "weeping" crucifix miracle at a Mumbai church as nothing more than capillary action from a leaky sewage pipe. Following this revelation, Catholic organizations filed multiple police complaints against him under India's strict blasphemy laws, forcing him to flee into self-imposed exile in Finland to escape potential imprisonment.

Jennifer Mee, known as the "Hiccup Girl" gained national fame in 2007 for a continuous, multi-week bout of hiccups. Years later in 2010, she orchestrated a robbery by luring an online acquaintance to a vacant home where her accomplices shot and killed him.

Mother-and-daughter duo Marsha Allen and Ashley Jones orchestrated the "Root Beer Float Murder" in Freetown, Indiana, poisoning Marsha’s 52-year-old husband, Harold "Peanut" Allen, with an antifreeze-laced treat to collect his life insurance policy. Although Harold's death was initially misclassified as a natural heart condition, the plot imploded nine months later when Marsha stopped paying Ashley her monthly allowance. In retaliation, Ashley masterminded a burglary of her mother's home using her best friend, Steven White, who was quickly caught on security footage and defected by exposing the murder plot to police.

Jamison Bachman, who became widely known as the "Worst Roommate Ever," was a serial squatter and con artist who terrorized roommates across the United States for over a decade. A charismatic and legally savvy man with a law degree, Bachman would use his deep knowledge of housing laws to systematically take over apartments, refuse to pay rent, and aggressively manipulate or evict the actual leaseholders.

Cheung Tze-keung, nicknamed "Big Spender," was a notorious 1990s Hong Kong gangster who orchestrated massive heists and high-profile abductions, most famously kidnapping Victor Li, the son of billionaire Li Ka-shing, for a record billion dollar ransom.

Aurora Phelps is a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen who orchestrated a deadly, international romance scam by luring, drugging, and robbing older men she met on online dating applications.

Pastor David Love, the married pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Independence, Missouri, engaged in a decade-long affair with a parishioner, Teresa Stone. In 2010, he Love shot and killed Teresa's husband, Randy Stone, inside his insurance office.

Jorge Landeros was a yoga and Spanish instructor who spun a web of romantic and financial manipulation around Sue Ann Marcum, a beloved accounting professor at American University. Over the course of their relationship, Landeros acted as a con man, mismanaging and draining Marcum's investment funds. Following an escalating dispute over the missing money, Landeros brutally beat Marcum with a liquor bottle and strangled her to death inside her Bethesda, Maryland home.

In 2026, in Citrus Heights, California, three girls were arrested and charged with felonies including aggravated arson and burglary after security cameras captured them throwing a lit firework through a window into an expectant couple’s newly prepared baby nursery, destroying the room just two weeks before the baby's due date.

Samantha Jo Petersen was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide and operation for a September 2023 crash in Minnesota where she struck an Amish horse-drawn buggy while driving.

Brad Lee Davis is an Oklahoma man who gained national attention when he was convicted of killing his 58-year-old stepfather, Denver Lee St. Clair, during a drunken physical altercation in December 2013. Davis, a former U.S. Marine, claimed the fight began after St. Clair insulted Davis's mother. After knocking St. Clair unconscious, Davis pulled his stepfather's underwear waistband up over his back, head, and tightly around his neck in a severe variation of the prank known as an atomic wedgie.

Haleigh Morgan Knight is a Henderson, Nevada influencer and mother who defrauded close friends and family out of nearly 20 grand. Between June 2023 and April 2024, Knight posed as a luxury trip adviser for the Four Seasons hotel chain, collecting expensive trip "deposits" for fake vacations. When her victims began asking questions about the repeatedly canceled trips, Knight fabricated a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis to deflect suspicion and evoke sympathy.

Walter Moody was an American man who carried out a deadly mail-bomb campaign in December 1989, killing federal appeals court Judge Robert S. Vance and civil rights attorney Robert E. Robinson. Driven by a decades-long grudge against the legal system after a 1972 bomb conviction he desperately sought to overturn, Moody mailed explosive packages to targets.

Natalie Cochran, a former West Virginia pharmacist, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of first-degree murder. Between 2017 and 2019, Cochran operated a $2.5 million Ponzi schemethrough her family's defense contracting company

Anthony Curcio pulled off one of the most elaborately planned armored car heists in American history in 2008 by using Craigslist to orchestrate his getaway. Months before the robbery, the former college football star placed a fake advertisement on the website offering high-paying landscaping work, instructing applicants to wear a specific uniform consisting of a blue shirt, yellow vest, safety goggles, and a respirator mask. On the day of the heist in Monroe, Washington, Curcio dressed in the exact same outfit, pepper-sprayed a Brink's armored car guard, and fled with over $400,000.

Christopher "Cool C" Roney was a rising Philadelphia rapper in the late 1980s known for his hit song "Glamorous Life". His music career faded, and on January 2, 1996, he joined fellow rapper Steady B in a botched bank robbery. During the heist, Cool C shot and killed Philadelphia Police Officer Lauretha Vaird

Nathan Gale was a 25-year-old former U.S. Marine who suffered from severe mental illness and fatally shot legendary guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott along with three other people.

Ashley McArthur, a former Florida crime scene technician, was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder in 2019 for the 2017 slaying of her close friend, Taylor Wright.

Stephen Jackley is a British former geography student who became known as a "modern-day Robin Hood" after executing a series of armed bank robberies in the UK between 2007 and 2008.

Wisconsin kayaker who faked his death and fled overseas says plan was a 'crazy, emotional dream' Ryan Borgwardt left his family behind in an attempt to meet a Ukrainian woman he had secretly been courting online in the country of Georgia.

Jonathan Toebbe was a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer who conspired with his wife, Diana, to sell highly restricted military secrets regarding Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign government.

Isabelle Valdez is a student from Altamonte Springs, Florida, who was arrested in January 2026 for plotting to murder a classmate at Lake Brantley along with her accomplis Lois Lippert.

In 2004, Britney Spears impulsively married her childhood friend, Jason Alexander, in Las Vegas while heavily intoxicated. Though they were not in love, the pair tied the knot at 3:30 a.m. at A Little White Chapel. The spontaneous union was annulled just 55 hours later. Years later, Alexander re-entered the spotlight by attempting to crash her 2022 wedding to Sam Asghari.

Dana Ewell masterminded the 1992 ambush murders of his parents, Dale and Glee, and his sister, Tiffany, inside their Fresno, California home to inherit an estimated $8 million family fortune. Driven by greed, the 21-year-old college student hired his roommate, Joel Radovcich, to carry out the executions on Easter Sunday.

Dolly Oesterreich orchestrated one of the most bizarre secrets in true-crime history by hiding her secret lover Otto Sanhuber in her attic for over a decade and helping cover up her husband Fred's murder.

1976, three kidnappers hijacked a school bus in Chowchilla, California. They buried the hostages in a ventilated moving van inside a Livermore rock quarry for a 5 million dollar ransom. After 16 hours, the group successfully dug their way out, leading to the captors' swift capture and conviction.

David Carl Kinney fatally shot his best friend and secret romantic partner, Brad McGarry, twice inside McGarry’s West Bellaire, Ohio home. To conceal their long-term homosexual affair.

1996, during a midnight dinner break on the Halifax, Nova Scotia set, an unknown culprit spiked the cast and crew's clam chowder with some substance. Director James Cameron was among the roughly 80 people hospitalized.

19-year-old Texas Tech University student Hollis Daniels III was taken into custody by campus police following a routine student welfare check. While being processed and left temporarily un-handcuffed at the campus police headquarters, Daniels drew a stolen handgun he had hidden in his pants and fatally shot Texas Tech Police Officer Floyd East Jr.

In 2007, prominent Utah doctor and former LDS bishop Dr. Martin MacNeill pressured his wife of nearly 30 years, Michele MacNeill, into getting a facelift. Just days after the procedure, he intentionally overmedicated her with a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs and left her to drown in their bathtub so that he could freely pursue a relationship with his mistress, Gypsy Willis.

Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress with minor roles in television shows like The Walking Dead, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in 2014 for mailing letters laced with poison to Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg.

Swept overboard in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967, U.S. Navy sailor Doug Hegdahl was captured and sent to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison. Feigning illiteracy and ignorance, he earned the nickname "The Incredibly Stupid One", granting him the freedom to sabotage enemy trucks and memorize the names and details of 256 POWs using the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm".

Matthew Hughes repeatedly stalked and broke into the Michigan home of rapper Eminem. In a terrifying 2020 encounter, Hughes smashed a kitchen window and woke a sleeping Eminem.

Skylar Preciosa Deleon is an American convicted murderer and former child actor who was sentenced to death for the 2004 murder-for-profit killings of Thomas and Jackie Hawks.

Barry Keenan is a former businessman best known for masterminding the 1963 kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. facing severe financial ruin and drug dependency, Keenan formulated a bizarre plan to solve his money problems by abducting the 19-year-old singer from a Lake Tahoe hotel room.

Frank Tassone a public school superintendent in Long Island, New York. Over the course of 12 years, Tassone meticulously elevated his school district to one of the top-ranked in the United States while leading a secret double life funded by the community's taxpayers. Alongside assistant superintendent Pamela Gluckin, Tassone stole over $11 million in school funds to finance luxurious vacations, expensive homes, and extensive cosmetic procedures.

Aubrey Lee Price is a former Georgia banker and pastor who orchestrated a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded over 100 investors and led to the 2012 collapse of the Montgomery Bank & Trust. To escape prosecution after losing or embezzling the bank's capital, Price faked his own death.

Jennifer Pan orchestrated a 2010 murder-for-hire plot against her strict parents in Markham, Ontario, staging a home invasion that resulted in her mother's death and her father's severe injury. Motivated by a desire for freedom and her forbidden boyfriend.

Randy Roth was a Washington state mechanic who married and murdered women to collect lucrative life insurance payouts. He famously caused the death of his fourth wife in a staged 1991 Lake Sammamish drowning. An investigation into this incident and the 1981 fatal cliff fall of his second wife ultimately exposed his deadly scam

Keanu Reeves was forced to star in the 2000 thriller The Watcher when a trusted friend and director Joe Charbanic forged his signature on a contract. Unwilling to endure a lengthy, expensive legal battle, Reeves fulfilled the role but negotiated an agreement to minimize his marketing involvement and keep the forgery quiet for a year

Roy Sullivan, a United States park ranger in Virginia, earned a unique spot in history by surviving seven verified lightning strikes between 1942 and 1977. Recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most lightning-struck person to survive, Sullivan endured multiple injuries from these encounters

Kumiko Yasufuku was arrested and indicted in Japan for the 1999 cold-case murder of Namiko Takaba. Driven by a long-held, unrequited obsession with the victim's husband, Satoru, Yasufuku.

Stephen Allwine was a Minnesota IT specialist and church elder convicted of first-degree premeditated murder for the November 2016 slaying of his wife, Amy Allwine. Motivated by a desire to exit his marriage without ruining his religious standing, Allwine initially used the dark web to hire a hitman.

Alexander Pichushkin is a notorious Russian serial killer known as "The Chessboard Killer" and the "Bittsa Park Maniac," who is serving life imprisonment for murdering at least 48 people.

Tommy Thompson is an American marine engineer who made history in 1988 by locating the SS Central America, a California Gold Rush-era steamship that sank in 1857 with tons of federal gold. While initially celebrated for recovering millions in treasure from the "Ship of Gold" using deep-sea robotic technology, his triumph quickly soured when the 161 private investors who funded his expedition sued him for failing to share the profits. Instead of complying with a 2012 court order to reveal the whereabouts of a missing batch of 500 gold coins, Thompson became a fugitive, living under aliases in Florida hotels

Jolly Joseph is an Indian woman from Koodathayi, Kerala, who confessed to murdering six of her family members over a 14-year period between 2002 and 2016

Kenan Thompson lost an estimated $1.5 million in childhood earnings after a trusted family accountant absconded with his money. Thompson, who had granted the accountant power of attorney, discovered the devastating theft while attempting to buy his first home in Atlanta. He later faced unpaid tax issues with the IRS, which forced him into bankruptcy.

Mark Winger is an Illinois nuclear engineer who was initially hailed as a hero in 1995 after claiming he shot and killed a shuttle driver, Roger Harrington, who had broken into his Springfield home and bludgeoned Winger's wife, Donnah, with a hammer. Police originally closed the case believing Harrington acted in retaliation over a previous customer complaint, allowing Winger to collect life insurance and marry his daughter's new nanny.

James "Jimmy the Gent" Burke was a ruthless Irish-American associate of the Lucchese crime family who masterminded the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport, netting over $5 million. Driven by paranoia, he subsequently orchestrated the murders of numerous accomplices to keep the stolen money and avoid prosecution.

Celeste Beard Johnson is a Texas woman convicted of orchestrating the 1999 murder of her wealthy, 74-year-old multimillionaire husband, Steven Beard. After marrying Steven in 1995, Celeste embraced a lavish lifestyle, but the marriage grew strained as he threatened to curtail her extravagant spending. While receiving treatment at a psychiatric facility, Celeste met Tracey Tarlton, whom she allegedly manipulated into murdering Steven.