Triggered - The True Crime Podcast

Four cryptids and what the evidence actually shows. A sacred lake spirit, an iguana in the trunk of a police cruiser, a Wampanoag story that isn't about a monster, and a movie...or is there more?🎧 Listen to Triggered wherever you get your podcasts: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcast💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In February 2019, a Massachusetts family court judge handed five year old Harmony Montgomery over to a father with a long and violent criminal record. Ten months later she was dead. Nobody noticed for two years.Harmony was blind in one eye and had spent most of her short life moving in and out of foster care. Her mother, Crystal Sorey, had lost custody while struggling with addiction, and when Sorey started pushing for answers in late 2021, she discovered her daughter had never been enrolled in school in New Hampshire. The missing person report was finally filed in December 2021. By then, investigators say, Harmony had been dead since December 7, 2019, killed in the back of a car in Manchester where the family had been living after an eviction.This week we get into how one little girl fell through every crack in two state child welfare systems, what her stepmother Kayla Montgomery told a jury and why Adam Montgomery is back in a New Hampshire courtroom in 2026 after the state Supreme Court overturned his second degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial.Harmony has still never been found.Content warning: this episode discusses the abuse and death of a child.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In July 2017, a woman in Campbell, Ohio went down to her basement for a pound of ground beef. There was a chest freezer down there that belonged to a friend of her husband's, and it had a padlock on it, and whoever installed that padlock had mounted it backwards.Three screws. That's what it took to break open a case that had been running unnoticed for five months.Shannon Graves was 28 years old. She lost her mother young, dropped out of high school, and went back years later to get her GED and put herself through cosmetology school. She was two years into a career she'd built herself, one client at a time. She had a dog she adored and a family she never missed a birthday for.She also had a boyfriend she was preparing to leave, and an apartment, a car, a phone and a benefits card that he was living on.What was discovered in a basement in Ohio will haunt Ash and Chantal forever. Content warning: intimate partner violence, homicide, dismemberment, and the destruction of a body using chemicals. Please take care of yourself.🎧 Listen to Triggered wherever you get your podcasts: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcast💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On October 9, 1986, nine year old best friends Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway told a neighbour they were heading to Wild Park in Moulsecoomb, Brighton. It was the last time anyone saw them alive. The next afternoon, two civilian searchers found the girls hidden in a makeshift den in the park, and a case that would consume Sussex Police for the next three decades was born.A 20 year old local roofer named Russell Bishop inserted himself into the search from the very beginning, bringing along his terrier and claiming the dog was a highly trained tracker. He was arrested within weeks. And in December 1987, after a four week trial and just two hours of jury deliberation, he walked free.Then, in 1990, he abducted and tried to kill a seven year old girl.This week we walk through the forensic failures that let a child killer go home: the body temperatures nobody recorded, the hand marks never measured, the blood evidence never analysed, and a blue Pinto sweatshirt that the prosecution built its case around and the police failed to preserve. We get into the 2005 double jeopardy reform that cracked the door open, the billion to one DNA match found on evidence taped in 1986 and stored for decades, the 2018 retrial at the Old Bailey, and the girlfriend who lied on the stand in 1987 and finally answered for it in 2021.Bishop died in prison in January 2022. In April 2024, Sussex Police formally apologised for their failings, including the wrongful arrest of Nicola's father.Two families waited 32 years. Here is how they finally got there.Sources include BBC News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Argus, and the published sentencing remarks in R v Bishop and R v Johnson.Content note: this episode discusses the murder and sexual assault of children.Join the Chaos Crew on Discord, and become a Witness or an Accomplice at triggeredthepodcast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1995, a Canadian schoolteacher took the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand. Her tour guide was a six foot seven, four hundred pound former city councillor who had spent his entire life on the water.Fifteen years later, one of them drowned in a mountain lake in British Columbia. The other one was the only person on earth who saw it happen.What followed was one of the strangest homicide cases in Canadian history. A rock. A fishing rod. An accidental death policy pulled out of a stack of bank flyers. A jailhouse informant with a list of five names. A four month trial where the accused defended himself and performed a haka in the courtroom. A hung jury. A first degree murder conviction. And then an appeal court that took the whole thing apart and wrote five words that ended it: the Crown's case was not strong.Sixteen years on, there is still no answer.This episode is about the case. But it is also about a woman who taught grade three in a hamlet called Dapp, Alberta, and the town that still remembers her.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the night of September 16, 2009, a 24 year old woman sat down alone at Geoffrey's, an upscale restaurant on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. She ordered dinner. She could not pay the $89 bill. Staff described her behaviour as strange, and deputies were called.Mitrice Richardson was a Cal State Fullerton graduate. She was warm, brilliant, and by her family's account she had been quietly struggling with her mental health in the weeks before that night. Her father would later say she had bipolar disorder. She was arrested for defrauding an innkeeper, a small amount of marijuana was found in her car, and her car was impounded.At roughly 12:28 in the morning on September 17, she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff's Station in Calabasas. No car. No purse. No phone. No money. She was from West Covina and had no reason to know a single road in that canyon. She walked out into the dark and was never seen alive again.🎧 Listen to Triggered wherever you get your podcasts: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcast💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michelle Hadley was in her twenties, in grad school, and by her own description sickeningly wholesome. Then she was arrested, held on a million dollars bail, and told she was facing life in prison.The emails threatening her ex fiancé's pregnant wife were real. Sent several times a day, from an account called Lilithistruth, describing what the woman wore to work and where she went. The Craigslist ads inviting strangers to her door were real. The men who showed up were real. The 911 call was real.And every piece of it pointed at Michelle. Including two emails she really had written, months earlier, in her own name, using the same name the stalker was using.She sat in that cell for 88 days saying she'd been set up. Not one person believed her.This week Chantal walks Ashley through the case behind Netflix's A Toxic Love Story, and she starts a long way before the documentary does. With Michelle before any of it. With cameras in a kitchen and a life narrowed to three points on a map. With a woman in a Huntington Beach bar telling a police officer what she does for a living. And with a family in the Arizona desert who found a stranger walking alone, miles from her own car.Content warning: sexual assault allegations, coercive control, staged assaults, and a psychiatric crisis. No graphic detail.Sources include the Orange County District Attorney's Office, the US Department of Justice, filings from the Central District of California, and Netflix's A Toxic Love Story.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We grew up outside Pembroke, Ontario, hearing a story adults would only tell in whispers. A daughter. Her boyfriend. A little boy. A farmhouse. And a line that followed the case for fifty-five years: "She should have gone to prison too."We never knew the names. This week, Ash went looking for them.In March 1971, in what was then Alice Township, six-year-old David Witt and his uncle Leslie Molson were murdered. David's mother, Eleanor, survived and testified that she had been held and abused for more than two weeks before the killings. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Catherine Delarge, and Catherine's twenty-three-year-old boyfriend, Lorne Edward Lafrance, were both charged. Lafrance got life. What happened to Catherine is where the public record goes quiet and where a small town's memory took over.This is an episode about what actually happened, and about what happens to the truth when a story gets passed down for half a century.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our FIRST "After Hours with Triggered"! This is a monthly instalment where Ashley and Chantal tell YOUR stories. If you would like to submit your tales for future episodes, please hurry over to triggeredthepodcast.com🎧 Listen to Triggered wherever you get your podcasts: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcast💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laci Peterson was almost eight months pregnant when she vanished from her Modesto home on Christmas Eve, 2002. Four months later, she and her unborn son Conner washed ashore in San Francisco Bay, just miles from where her husband Scott said he'd been fishing alone. Scott Peterson was convicted of their murders in 2004. But in 2026, the Los Angeles Innocence Project is fighting to tear that conviction down with what they call new evidence. So did the jury get it right?In this episode we walk through the entire case in the exact order investigators lived it: the dog found alone with its leash, the ninety-mile fishing alibi, the two dead-end theories that nearly sent the investigation sideways, the secret girlfriend whose recorded phone calls changed everything, the bodies that surfaced at Scott's own alibi spot, and the dramatic arrest near the Mexican border. Then we get into what almost nobody covers honestly: the brand new "innocence" evidence, and the April 2026 court ruling that rejected all fourteen of its claims.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comCleveland, the 1930s. Bodies start appearing in Kingsbury Run, decapitated and dismembered, most of them never identified. The papers dub him the Mad Butcher. The man hunting him is Eliot Ness, the same legend who brought down Al Capone. And this time, the legend loses.We break down the known victims, the suspects who got away and why the Cleveland Torso Murders still haunt investigators today. Pour something strong and join us for one of the darkest cold cases in American history.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twenty-two years old, alone on a bike at two in the morning, a man twice her size waiting in a white truck with a knife and a gun. Mickey Shunick did not do what he expected. She fought. And the wounds she left on her attacker's body are part of what brought him down.In this episode, the gals walk through the 2012 disappearance and murder of Michaela "Mickey" Shunick in Lafayette, Louisiana: the surveillance footage of the white truck, the bike found submerged under a bridge 25 miles away, the killer who torched his own truck in Texas and then bought a nearly identical one, and the grand jury indictment that revealed a shocking twist from thirteen years earlier. This is the story of a girl who refused to be a victim, a mother named Lisa Pate who waited over a decade for justice, and the Louisiana community that refused to stop searching.Say their names. Mickey Shunick. Lisa Pate.🎧 Listen to Triggered wherever you get your podcasts: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcast💬 Join the Chaos Crew (free Discord): https://discord.gg/YuEWjMzkJN ⭐ Become an Inner Circle member on Supercast: triggeredthepod.supercast.com🌐 triggeredthepodcast.comSources include reporting from ABC News, CBS News, KATC, KLFY, KPEL, WAFB, The Advocate, and NBC Dateline, plus filings from Louisiana's 15th Judicial District Court. CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses kidnapping, murder, and sexual violence. Please listen with care.If you or someone you love is affected by the topics in this episode, support is available. In the US, you can reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FROM THE VAULT!***Hi friends, Ash and Chantal pulled one of their first episodes from the vault this week. Brand new episode coming Friday!***Colleen Ritzer was a 24-year-old math teacher who believed no student was beyond reaching. On October 22, 2013, that belief left her alone with a 14-year-old freshman named Philip Chism at Danvers High School. This week we cover the murder, the trial, the failed insanity defense, and the teacher who deserved so much better.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eight children. A 35 acre property. "Underground caves" made of mud, and a home prosecutors compared to a city landfill. This week we head to Deming, New Mexico for the case of Valerie and Melvin Cordell, arrested in February 2025 and now facing dozens of combined charges of child abuse and sexual assault. Both have pleaded not guilty. The whole thing came to light because one 16 year old daughter, finally somewhere safe, decided to speak. This is her case as much as theirs.Content warning: child abuse and sexual assault.Join The Inner Circle: VIP chat with Ash and Chantal, Ad-free episodes and a BONUS monthly episode: triggeredthepod.supercast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sixteen year old Karlie Guse smoked a joint at a party, spent the night terrified that her own family was going to kill her, and by morning she had walked out the front door and vanished. She left her phone, her glasses, and her money behind. This week: the case, the recording nobody has heard, and the science that suggests it was never really about the weed at all.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastKARLIE IS STILL MISSING.Karlie Lain Guse was 16 years old. 5'7", 110 pounds, dark blonde hair, blue eyes, left nostril pierced. Last seen walking south along Highway 6 in Chalfant Valley, Mono County, California on the morning of October 13th, 2018, wearing a white t-shirt, grey sweatpants or jeans, and Vans.She would be 24 today.The FBI is offering a reward for information leading to her location.Mono County Sheriff's Office: 760-932-5678 Email: [email protected] FBI Sacramento: 916-746-7000All tips can remain anonymous.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andras Pandy was a Hungarian born Protestant pastor who fled to Belgium after the 1956 revolution, built a life as a respected clergyman and religious teacher, and spent decades quietly destroying the people closest to him. Two wives. Four children, biological and step. All of them vanished across the 1980s, and every single time, Pandy had a tidy explanation and often a forged document to go with it. They moved to Germany. They went to South America. They send postcards. Do not worry about it.There were no bodies. He made sure of that. And when investigators finally dug into the houses he owned in Molenbeek, they found something even bigger and darker than the family annihilation they were expecting.Fair warning: this episode discusses murder, dismemberment, incest, and the long term sexual abuse of children. Please take care of yourself.WANT MORE? Join the Inner Circle for bonus episodes and access to our VIP Discord community: triggeredthepod.supercast.com Follow us so you never miss a Tuesday or Friday drop. Rate and review, it genuinely helps other people find the show: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For thirty years, the people of Wichita, Kansas thought BTK was a phantom. Bind. Torture. Kill. Three words signed at the bottom of taunting letters mailed to police and newsrooms by a man who wanted to be feared more than he wanted to stop. The truly sickening part is who he turned out to be. A married father of two. The president of his church council. A Cub Scout leader. The local compliance officer who might show up to measure your grass for the city.This week we walk through the crimes of Dennis Rader, the ten lives he stole between 1974 and 1991, the decade of silence, and the ordinary vanity that finally undid him. We are keeping this one exactly where it belongs, with Joseph, Julia, Josie, Joey, Kathryn, Shirley, Nancy, Marine, Vicki, and Dolores.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastJoin the Inner Circle and become a member! Monthly bonus episode, VIP Discord chat and ad-free listening: triggeredthepod.supercast.comMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A man walks into a bar. It's caught on camera. You can watch him ride the escalator up, stand outside the doors at 1:55 in the morning, and wave goodbye to two strangers. Then he steps off the edge of the frame, and he is never seen again.This week, Chantal takes Ashley (broadcasting through roughly one working sinus, bless her) into one of the most baffling missing persons cases in modern American history: the 2006 disappearance of Brian Shaffer.Brian was a 27-year-old Ohio State medical student, a devoted Pearl Jam fan, three weeks out from losing his mother, with a girlfriend and a booked vacation and every reason to keep going. Then, on the Friday before spring break, he vanished from inside the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus, Ohio. No body. No sighting. No financial activity. No answer in 20 years.Somebody knows something. This one stays with you.If you have any information on the disappearance of Brian Shaffer, contact the Columbus Division of Police at 614-645-4545 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477. You can remain anonymous.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The cold case of Namiko Takaba, the Nagoya housewife murdered in 1999, and the husband who paid rent on her bloodstained apartment for 26 years to preserve the DNA that finally caught her killer.On November 13, 1999, 32-year-old Namiko opened her door to a woman posing as a beverage saleswoman. Minutes later she was dead, stabbed in her own home while her two-year-old son sat unharmed beside her. Police interviewed 5,000 people and had almost nothing: a blood type, a shoe size, and one drink on the table that didn't belong.But her husband Satoru refused to let the case die. He never cleaned the blood. He kept paying rent on the empty "haunted house" for 26 years, all to preserve the killer's DNA until science could catch up. In 2025, it finally did.One of the most haunting cold cases we've ever covered. Tap in for the full story and the twist nobody saw coming.⚠️ Discusses violent crime. Listener discretion advised.🔮 Inner Circle (ad-free + bonus episodes): triggeredthepod.supercast.com🎧 New episodes Tuesdays & Fridays.In memory of Namiko Takaba.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2011, a con man vanished from Australia one step ahead of fraud investigators. He resurfaced in the Philippines and what he built there would become one of the most disturbing cases in the history of the internet.Peter Gerard Scully didn't just commit crimes. He monetized them.Operating deep inside the Dark Web : the hidden, encrypted layer of the internet that can't be reached by Google, that runs on anonymous payments and untraceable routing, Scully built a pay-per-view network that catered to the worst impulses human beings are capable of. His clients were anonymous. His victims were children. And for years, he believed the dark web made him invisible.He was wrong.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

*****If you are struggling, please text *988* from anywhere in Canada or the US*****This week we are not solving a crime. In all three of these stories, we already know exactly what happened. The person did it, admitted it, and it is all on the record. The fight is over what to call it.Chantal walks you into three rooms. A man who mailed the means to die to people all over the world and got the lesser charge. A Saskatchewan father who ended his severely disabled twelve-year-old daughter's life and called it love, and got the most serious charge there is. And the grieving, addicted survivors of overdoses who shared a supply with someone they loved, nearly died themselves, and got charged with murder.Same act, supplying the means, three completely different verdicts.Content warning: this episode discusses suicide, the death of a disabled child, and drug overdose. Please take care of yourself. If you are struggling, you can call or text 988 anytime in Canada and the US.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TRIGGER WARNING: Pregnancy loss, murder, infant murder.In 2019, Taylor Parker photographed Reagan Simmons-Hancock's wedding. A year later, she murdered her for the baby in her belly.For nearly a year, Parker had been telling her boyfriend she was pregnant. She faked a bump, threw a gender reveal, and even set a due date. The only problem was that there was no baby. So on October 9, 2020, she drove to Reagan's home in New Boston, Texas, where the 21 year old was 36 weeks pregnant with her daughter Braxlynn. What happened inside that house is one of the most horrifying things we have ever covered, and Reagan's three year old was home for all of it.Parker was pulled over by a state trooper later that morning, claiming she had just given birth. She had not. This week we walk through the wedding photographer who became a killer, the trial that put her on Texas death row, and where the case stands now that her appeals have run out. Plus, with the new Netflix documentary putting this case back in the spotlight, we get into what the cameras left out.Rest in power, Reagan and Braxlynn.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In February 1987, Allen and Debbie Tallman bought a bunk bed at a second-hand shop in Horicon, Wisconsin. Within days, their children started describing the same red-eyed woman they had never compared notes about. Within months, Allen was sleeping on the floor of his daughters' room, a pastor was refusing to come back, and a family member who didn't believe in any of it ran screaming out of a bedroom in the middle of the night.On January 11th, 1988, Debbie Tallman loaded her kids into a car and left. She didn't pack. She didn't wait for her husband to get home from his shift. She vowed never to go back, and she never did.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seven-year-old Athena Strand disappeared on November 30, 2022, from her home in Wise County, Texas. The last person to see her alive was the FedEx driver who had just dropped off a package at her front door. He was also the person who killed her.Tanner Horner claimed he accidentally clipped Athena with his truck as he backed out of the driveway. But rather than call for help, he pulled her into his van and strangled her with his bare hands. Then he dumped her body in a creek. Athena had even told him her name.We're covering the digital evidence that led straight to Horner's door, the devastating footage from inside that delivery truck, and the trial that ended on May 5, 2026, with a death sentence.Athena liked to climb her favorite pear tree and hang from the branches with her sister. She deserved so much more.Content warning: Child abduction, murder, and references to sexual violence.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when a bad night between friends spirals into a 250-page murder manifesto? This week on Triggered, we dive into the most meticulously planned crimes we've ever covered: the case of Adrian Loya, a U.S. Coast Guard petty officer who spent over a year plotting the murder of his former colleague Lisa Berlanga.From a friendship forged in the frozen tundra of Kodiak, Alaska to a premeditated attack on Cape Cod complete with fake bombs, a boombox blasting the Star Wars theme, and a GoPro strapped to his chest — this case is as bizarre as it is devastating. We're talking surveillance runs, a 250-page manifesto called "Loya Wars," a near-death ambush of a police officer, and a trial where three forensic experts couldn't agree on a single diagnosis.But at the center of all of it is Lisa Berlanga — a woman who deserved so much more than what she got.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContent warning: this episode contains detailed discussion of premeditated murder, stalking, obsessive behavior, and gun violence.Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kayla Rose Huff was 16 years old. She loved track, basketball, her church youth group, and playing Roblox with her little brother. Her family called her Kayla Bug. On the morning of May 6, 2026, she went missing from Moberly, Missouri, and the community turned itself inside out searching for her. One week later, her body was found in a wooded stretch of the Rudolf Bennitt Conservation Area. She had been beaten, placed in the trunk of a car, driven to a remote location, and shot.What makes this case so disturbing isn't just the violence, it's the deliberate planning. Court documents allege that suspects disabled Kayla's car the night before by pouring motor oil into the gas tank. That it may have involved the person she trusted most. And that multiple people, some of whom called police after the fact, allegedly knew what had happened and said nothing.Five adults and a 17-year-old now face charges in connection with her kidnapping and murder. The motive remains 'officially unknown', but there are rumours swirling online.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContent warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence against a minor. Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Netflix's The Crash has everyone talking about Mackenzie Shirilla. But what did it leave out?We watched the body cam footage. We dug into the evidence that never made it to your screen. GPS data placing Shirilla at the crash site days before. No skid marks. A black box showing full acceleration. And a coded request to her mother that prosecutors say tells you everything.Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan deserved better than a Netflix narrative. We're giving it to them.Chantal and Ashley cover the full story: the relationship, the secret language, the warm milk?This one's not for the faint of heart.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before Jack the Ripper ever stepped foot in London's East End, a killer was already prowling the unpaved streets of Austin, Texas — and no one knew what to call him, because the concept of a serial killer hadn't been invented yet.Between December 1884 and Christmas Eve 1885, eight people were murdered in their beds, dragged outside, and mutilated in what would become America's most chilling unsolved cold case. The victims — Mollie Smith, Eliza Shelley, Irene Cross, Mary Ramey, Orange Washington, Gracie Vance, Susan Hancock, and Eula Phillips — were mostly young Black women employed as domestic servants, their lives violently cut short while a panicked city demanded answers that never came.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Four babies. One mother. Twenty years in prison. And not a single piece of physical evidence linking her to any of it.Kathleen Folbigg was called Australia's worst female serial killer. Her diary was handed to police by her own husband. A jury convicted her in 2003 based on the theory that lightning simply couldn't strike four times in the same family.Except... it can. And it did.In 2020, geneticists discovered rare mutations in her children's DNA that explained every single death. Over 100 scientists signed a petition demanding her release. In 2023, after 20 years behind bars, she walked free. Her convictions were fully quashed months later.The justice system called her a monster. Science called her innocent.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When police arrived at a home in Levering, Michigan on March 6, 2014, they found a scene that told two very different stories. A man was dead. The house was in chaos. And the woman who called 911 had an alibi that seemed almost too neat.On the outside, Trent Mallory and his fiancée appeared to be a family just trying to stay afloat. They'd weathered a child's serious illness, leaned on their community, and kept going. But as investigators started pulling at the threads of their relationship, what unraveled was something nobody saw coming.Debt. Deception. A secret life hiding in plain sight. And a murder weapon that only revealed itself when the snow began to thaw.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VAULT EPISODE! (recorded early 2025)She spent her entire childhood in a wheelchair, fed a cocktail of medications for diseases she never had. Her mother, Dee Dee Blanchard, convinced the world that Gypsy was dying. Doctors believed it. Charities donated. Strangers sent money. And Gypsy played along, because it was the only life she had ever known.But behind the sick little girl with the shaved head was a young woman who had been lied to, isolated, and abused for over two decades. When Gypsy finally found a way out, it ended with her mother dead on the floor and Gypsy on the run with a man she had met online.In this episode, we break down one of the most disturbing cases of Munchausen syndrome by proxy ever documented, how Dee Dee Blanchard fooled an entire medical system, what drove Gypsy to the edge, and why so many people still see her as a survivor rather than a criminal.Was she a victim pushed past her breaking point, or something more complicated? You decide.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On December 18, 2022, Natalie McNally spent the evening watching the World Cup final with her family. She was 32, fifteen weeks pregnant, and had no idea it would be the last night of her life. By the time police were called to her home in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, she was gone, and the man responsible thought he'd gotten away with it. He hadn't. This week, we're talking about Natalie.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She survived a birthday hike that her husband spent weeks planning to make sure she wouldn't.On March 24, 2025, Arielle Konig's husband Gerhardt took her to the Pali Puka trail in Hawaii for her birthday. What she didn't know was that his Google searches leading up to that day included "dangerous hikes Hawaii" and "steep hikes Hawaii." He came prepared with a syringe, a plan, and a cliffside. She came with hiking gear and no idea.What followed was one of the most harrowing survival stories we've ever covered. Arielle fought back with everything she had, and two strangers on the same trail that morning made sure she didn't die alone on that mountain.Before we get into the case, we are getting into something spicy: what actually counts as cheating? Emotional affairs vs. physical ones, what would make you leave, and why this conversation matters a lot for understanding everything that comes next.Trigger warning: attempted murder, domestic violence, graphic violence.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

She was 14 years old. He was a rising pop star. And when she threatened to go public about their relationship, prosecutors say he made sure she never got the chance.In September 2025, a tow yard worker called police about a smell coming from an abandoned Tesla in Hollywood. Inside the trunk: the remains of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She'd been missing for over a year. The man whose car it was, singer D4vd, was on stage at a concert the next day.We're breaking down the case, the charges, and the deeply disturbing timeline prosecutors are about to lay out in court. First degree murder. Special circumstances. And a level of premeditation that is hard to sit with.Her name was Celeste. And she deserved better.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On February 12, 1993, two-year-old James Bulger was taken from his mother's hand in a Liverpool shopping centre. What followed was one of the most disturbing and heartbreaking cases in British criminal history. In Aisle 36 of the Bootle Strand, James was led away by two ten-year-old boys. What they did next shocked the world.In Episode 155, Chantal and Ashley walk through the abduction, the murder, and the trial that forced an entire country to ask questions it still hasn't fully answered. How do children become capable of this? And what do we owe the victims when the killers are children themselves?This one is heavy. You've been warned.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1976, the residents of Circleville, Ohio started receiving anonymous letters and whoever was writing them knew everyone's secrets. Affairs, corruption, personal threats. The campaign escalated for nearly two decades, culminating in a booby-trapped gun on a bus driver's route, a conviction that left more questions than answers, and letters that kept arriving even after the supposed writer was locked up in isolation. The identity of the Circleville Letter Writer has never been confirmed.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dylan Redwine was 13 years old. He didn't want to go. But it was court-ordered, so on November 18, 2012, he flew to Durango, Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with his father.He never came home.This week, Chantal and Ashley cover the full story: the troubled family dynamic, the years-long search, and the trial that finally brought justice. In 2021, after nearly a decade of fighting, Mark Redwine was convicted of murder and sentenced to 48 years in prison.Dylan deserved to go home. This one's for him.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we're diving into three cases where the lines between this world and whatever comes next got very, very blurry. A grieving stepmother whose nightmares led investigators straight to a body hidden in a barn. A murdered woman who came back, through someone else's voice, to name her own killer. And a father standing next to a chilling and ironic tv commercial, caught on camera in a moment so strange it still doesn't have a good explanation.Shanann Watts. Teresita Basa. Maria Marten.Three cases. Three moments where something felt like it reached back from the other side. Whether you believe or you don't, these stories are going to stay with you.Want perks?: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was a Saturday night in November 1973. Five teenagers from Sioux Falls sat around a campfire in the Gitchie Manitou State Preserve — laughing, singing, passing the evening the way teenagers do. Then came the sound of leaves crunching in the dark.What unfolded in that Iowa nature preserve would leave four young people dead, one thirteen-year-old girl fighting for her life, and an entire community shattered. The killers were three brothers who had stumbled into the park looking to poach deer and decided, on a horrifying impulse, to take something else entirely.Do you want ad-free? Subscribe here: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jamie Kirk Hahn was twenty-nine years old, a political strategist who knew everybody and fought for everything. Her husband Nation had been her partner in every sense of the word. And they were both surrounded by people who loved them, including Nation's oldest friend, Jon, who'd been there since they were kids growing up in Lenoir.This is a story about grief. About a woman whose life was taken far too soon. And about the people who tried to hold each other up in the aftermath.It's also a story about something darker. Something that was hiding in plain sight.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For over a decade, Jared Fogle was one of the most recognizable faces in America: the everyman who shed 245 pounds on a diet of sandwiches and turned his story into a cultural phenomenon. But behind the goodwill tours, the foundation for at-risk youth, and the carefully managed public image, something deeply disturbing was hiding in plain sight.In this episode, we examine how a man with access to children, institutional goodwill, and a powerful corporate partner was able to operate unchecked for years and what the people around him knew, or chose not to see. From the college dorm where the story quietly began, to the FBI raid that finally ended it, this is the anatomy of a predator who weaponized fame.The sandwich was never the story.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On January 11, 2013, students walking into the gymnasium at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, Georgia, made a discovery no one should ever have to make. Seventeen-year-old Kendrick Johnson, a three-sport athlete with dreams of going pro, was found upside down inside a standing, rolled-up gym mat. His shoes were behind his knees.Authorities were quick with their answer: a tragic accident. Kendrick had crawled in to retrieve a shoe and couldn't get out. Case closed.His family had a different word for it: murder.What followed was more than a decade of competing autopsies, federal investigations, surveillance footage alleged to have been altered, missing internal organs, lawsuits, and a community split. Every official inquiry closed with the same conclusion. Every closure left new questions behind.The case has never fully made sense and Kendrick Johnson's parents are still fighting to change the death certificate to this day.This week, we go to Valdosta.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A dream vacation to Mexico… turned into a nightmare that still doesn’t make sense.In March 2023, 23-year-old Kiara Agnew was found brutally beaten to death inside a luxury resort in Playa del Carmen. Just hours earlier, she had been celebrating her birthday with her boyfriend, Ryan Friesen. But what investigators found next would shock even seasoned authorities: Friesen discovered asleep beside her body, covered in blood, with visible injuries to his hands and feet. He was charged. Then acquitted. And now, after a dramatic legal reversal, declared guilty of her murder… while still maintaining his innocence. In this episode, we unravel a case that feels more like a psychological puzzle than a clear-cut crime. Conflicting forensic evidence. Questions about what really happened in those final hours. And a justice system thousands of miles from home that may have gotten it wrong. Because the most haunting question remains: if he didn’t do it… then who did?Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

***EARLY RELEASE - HAPPY EASTER***In November 1970, a hiker in the Isdalen valley outside Bergen, Norway, made a grim discovery: the burnt body of an unidentified woman, surrounded by an almost deliberately erased trail. Her labels had been cut from her clothes. Her passport photos showed her in disguise. She had checked into hotels under at least eight different aliases. Norwegian authorities ruled her death a suicide, but almost nothing else about her story is simple.Who was the Isdal Woman? A spy? A smuggler? A victim? More than fifty years later, she remains one of Europe's most haunting unsolved mysteries. In this episode, we trace her final journey through Norway, examine the forensic breakthroughs that have brought us closer to the truth, and ask why a case this strange has gone unsolved for so long.Some people disappear. Others are made to disappear. The Isdal Woman might be both.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The McStay family seemed to vanish into thin air. In February 2010, Joseph, Summer, and their two young sons disappeared from their California home without a trace, no signs of struggle, no goodbye, just an eerie silence. For years, investigators chased a theory that the family had voluntarily fled to Mexico, fueled by grainy border footage that appeared to show them crossing on foot. But behind that narrative was a far more disturbing truth. When the remains of the McStay family were discovered in the desert years later, buried in shallow graves, the case took a chilling turn...one that would expose betrayal, greed, and a killer hiding in plain sight.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka became known as two of the most disturbing and controversial offenders in Canadian history, an outwardly normal couple whose crimes shattered communities across Ontario. Behind closed doors, their relationship was rooted in manipulation, violence, and escalating depravity that led to the assault and murder of multiple young girls, including Karla’s own sister. Their crimes, committed between 1987 and 1992, exposed not only the depths of human cruelty, but also critical failures in the justice system that allowed their violence to continue longer than it should have. What followed their arrest only deepened the outrage. A controversial plea deal saw Karla Homolka serve just 12 years in exchange for her testimony against Bernardo, who would ultimately receive life imprisonment, despite later evidence revealing her far greater involvement in the crimes. The case ignited national debate, raising uncomfortable questions about justice, accountability, and how evil can hide in plain sight. Decades later, the story of the so-called “Ken and Barbie Killers” remains one of Canada’s most haunting and polarizing cases. Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Throughout the 1990s, children across Colombia began disappearing, cases often dismissed or ignored. But when bodies started to surface, investigators uncovered a horrifying pattern that led to Luis Garavito, later known as “La Bestia.”In this episode, we break down how one of the most prolific serial killers in history was able to evade capture for years, the vulnerable victims he targeted, and the chilling investigation that finally brought him down.Listener discretion is advised.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In December 2009, 28-year-old Susan Cox Powell vanished from her home in West Valley City, Utah, leaving behind her two young sons, her belongings, and a marriage that those closest to her knew was unraveling. What initially appeared to be a missing persons case quickly spiraled into something far more disturbing as investigators uncovered a web of control, obsession, and deeply unsettling family dynamics. As suspicion grew and the truth became harder to ignore, the case took a devastating turn that no one saw coming. In this episode, we break down the timeline, the warning signs, and the unanswered question that still lingers: what really happened to Susan Powell?Make sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In June 1983, four-year-old Nyleen Marshall vanished during a family picnic in the Elkhorn Mountains of Montana.Children were playing along Maupin Creek while the adults talked nearby. It was the kind of place where parents felt safe letting kids wander for a few minutes. But when the other children turned around, Nyleen, who had been walking just behind them...was gone.There were no screams. No signs of a struggle. Despite an enormous search involving helicopters, tracking dogs, divers, and hundreds of volunteers, investigators found nothing.Then, two years later, the case took a chilling turn.An anonymous man began sending letters claiming he had abducted Nyleen and was raising her under the name “Kay,” traveling with her across the United States and even overseas. Some of the details he shared were information only someone connected to the case should have known.Was it the confession of her abductor… or a cruel hoax?More than forty years later, the mystery of Nyleen Marshall’s disappearance remains unsolved.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's always terrifying when someone goes missing, but what if EVERYONE vanishes without a trace? Join Chantal and Ashley as they explore a collection of some of the most haunting and mysterious mass disappearances in history.Follow us: linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastMake sure to follow us on social media and check out everywhere you can listen at linktr.ee/triggeredthepodcastContact us at [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.