22 year old Brandi Montgomery’s charred body was found in her parents’ burning home on a January morning in 2006. Her husband called 911 claiming to have seen Brandi being attacked by an unknown perpetrator, and the tiny town was in a frenzy, being that this was the first death ruled a homicide since the 1960’s. In many cases, we don’t ever have the luxury of finding out what truly happened, but we do in this story.
When 34 year old Dale Harrell is brutally attacked in his bed with a claw hammer, the truth about what caused the altercation, and who was at fault gets blurred between a number of versions of the event. Because there were 5 other people in the home at the time, police have no shortage of witnesses to interview, including Dale’s three children. As a mountain of lies told by Dale’s wife and roommate are uncovered, the truth about the couple’s life begins to emerge… and it is shocking.
Brenton Walker would always try to pick up on women in the small towns surrounding his 80-acre parcel in rural Michigan but on July 30th, 2016, he was actually successful. He met Heather Young and she came home with him after the last call. They had such an exciting night that changed both of their lives forever.
When 19 year old Stephen McAfee went missing in his home town of McComb, Michigan on March 10, 2016, no one could have predicted that it would take more than a year to get a solid lead on his whereabouts. When a young woman went to investigators claiming to know what happened to Stephen, her accusations were dumbfounding. The truth that McComb County police would begin to uncover was more shocking than anyone could have imagined.
Dating apps like Tinder have completely transformed the dating scene, particularly among millenials. They allow users to swipe ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on hundreds, maybe even thousands, of profiles in their area. Some people go on these apps looking for friendships, others for romantic connections.
But not everyone on these apps is in the market for friendship or romance...
Throughout the day of October 17th, none of 27-year-old Sasha Samsudean's friends couldn't reach her. Obviously concerned, they phoned 911. When police arrived at Sasha’s apartment, there was no answer to their knocks. Eventually they were able to get inside and found the young woman’s lifeless body, battered and wrapped in a comforter. Bleach had been poured on certain areas of her body and it had been determined through an autopsy that Sasha had been strangled to death.
From a young age we are instinctually scared of the evil that lurks in darkness. The name we've culturally given this idea is "The Boogeyman". On July 10, 2012 Aaron Schaffhausen became the Boogeyman to his own children.
In this special early-release two-part PLUS Episode, we go back to further examine the strange case of the death of Natalie Bollinger (first covered in S&S Episodes 109 & 110). The bizarre events surrounding this case are just as curious and interesting as the social media madness that followed, with amateur WebSleuths taking to the internet in droves to try and solve a case with little to no information. At the center of it all was a disheveled homeless man by the name of Shawn Shwartz, who Natalie Bollinger had sought a protection order against and who posted dozens of angry rambling videos talking about his uncontrollable panic attacks. After a year of silence, Shawn has reemerged, multiple videos a day attacking the victim, the victim's friends and family, anyone who has ever assisted him, along with the host of this show.
Sarah Stern had a secret. A secret that's almost impossible to keep anything secret for long.
Though it wasn’t anything particularly gruesome or embarrassing, it was something you wouldn’t necessarily go around sharing. At the tender young age of 19, Sarah had incidentally become well off for a 19 year old, after the untimely death of her mother, receiving a generous inheritance.