Just The Tip-sters

By all appearances, Peter Chadwick is a pretty rotten human.  A millionaire British ex-pat living in an exclusive Southern California enclave with his wife and three sons, he suddenly disappears, along with his bride, one day in October 2012.  Early the next morning 911 operators some 100 miles away in San Diego get a call from Chadwick, who claims his wife had been killed the previous day, and that he'd been...well...kidnapped...or something...by the killers.  Let's just say the police didn't buy any of it, and just a few days later when his wife's body was found (under astounding circumstances), he was charged with First Degree Murder.  Flash forward two-plus years later when, out on bail and on the eve of trial, Chadwick takes a powder.  And no one has been able to find him.  Anywhere.  But it gets worse - and possibly much worse.  In this episode Melissa shares not just the frustration - but the outrage - of how the police have completely controlled the information on the case while blocking access to the

It's been just over a year since the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged Golden State Killer, who was captured through an ingenious ploy by law enforcement, which registered the then-unknown killer's DNA under a dummy name on GEDMatch, a public DNA-based genealogy website.  That sample led to distant relatives of DeAngelo who had registered their DNA on GEDMatch.  From there, detectives pared down a list of those relatives until DeAngelo's DNA was confirmed to be a match with that of the murderer.  In this past year alone, at least 50 arrests in other cases around the country have resulted from law enforcement's use of this form of DNA comparison.  Recently, in a move obviously aimed at averting litigation, GEDMatch announced that henceforth no GEDMatch client's DNA can be used by law enforcement unless the client "opts-in" to such use.  This policy applies even to the more than one million clients that existed prior to the policy change.  In this episode, Melissa discusses the challenges this decisi

In this special Memorial Day Weekend MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder!), Melissa takes a look at a case not even a month old.  One that is seemingly solved...or is it?  On May 15, 2019 sheriff's deputies in Merced County (in California's San Joaquin Valley) were alerted to a big rig parked on the side of a major Interstate highway.  Unlocked.  With its motor running.  With the driver's wallet and cell phone inside.  Strange?  Yes.  But wait.  The driver's body was found several days later in a canal two miles downstream from where the truck was found.  Okay, that's NOT necessarily strange.  But when Melissa starts piecing together some incredibly...er...COINCIDENTAL facts about the driver's name, she gets us all (especially Producer Mark) into the Freakout Zone.  Take 30 minutes out of your holiday weekend to freak out a little bit yourself and join Melissa on a wild ride up the I-5.

This week, in a tip-of-the-cap to her growing band of Tip-Sters in Australia, Melissa focuses on one of the most agonizingly maddening murder mysteries our brethren Down Under still have no answers for - the 1980-1981 killings of six women in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne.  Known simply as the Tynong North and Frankston Murders (based on the two locations where the bodies of the victims were found and the general areas in which they lived), the six slayings were originally treated as two separate serial killer matters.  Six women - aged as young as 14 and as elderly as 75 - three in each of the two areas - fell to the killer or killers in a less-than-two-year period.  And then they simply stopped.  Was it because police had focused on the identity of someone they pegged to all six murders but just couldn't formally pin them on him - and he was disciplined enough to end his spree?  Join Melissa as she digs in to the tragedy and crazy-making details of these still-unsolved crimes - and the now-85 year-o

Say True-Crimers, here's a couple of brain teasers for the next time you want to stump a fellow Murder Maven: What was the investigation covered in the very first episode of "Forensic Files"?  Or how about this: What was the first "no body" murder trial to result in a conviction in the State of Connecticut?  Well surprise!  The answer to both questions is the same - it's the gruesome-yet-freakishly-weird 1986 case of Helle Crafts, whose husband, Richard, was convicted of killing her in their Newtown Connecticut home, throwing her body in a brand new Westinghouse freezer purchased just for the occasion, chopping her frozen body parts into bits with a brand new Stihl chainsaw (obviously this was someone who insisted on quality brand-name products), then renting a wood chipper to shred those bits and send them flying into nearby Lake  Zoar.  Yep, you guessed it - the Cohen Brothers didn't invent the - let's call it the "Wood Chipper Paradigm" - when they wrote the screenplay for "Fargo" - Richard Crafts thought

The brutal strangulation death of Karina Vetrano in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens New York in August 2016 seemed like a slam-dunk, easy-to-solve crime at first blush.  The 30 year-old beauty had been killed while jogging in the late afternoon, her body dumped just a few yards off the running path in Spring Creek Park.  But then things got not so slam-dunk.  And fast.  Police followed empty lead after empty lead.  The touch-DNA found on the young victim's body could not be matched in any database - and the case went cold for six months.  Then, through what can only be described as a complete fluke of a train-of-thought hunch by a police officer in a completely different jurisdiction, 20 year-old Chanel Lewis was arrested after a DNA swab matched that of the DNA found on Karina's body.  Shortly thereafter, Lewis confessed to the murder in a videotaped police interview.  Seems like cops were back running toward the hoop unchallenged again, right?  Not so fast.  In the following 14 months, right up to A

On June 21, 2014 Jeff Joseph - a Southern California cannabis entrepreneur who had opened a marijuana growing operation some 700 miles to the north, was on his way back to his farm when he disappeared seemingly off the face of the planet and hasn't been seen or heard from since.  Sadly, Jeff's story is just one of literally hundreds of missing persons in Humboldt County, where - as detailed in the recent documentary series "Murder Mountain," to this day a cloak of deadly secrecy encompasses the entire region. On this episode, Melissa discusses Jeff Joseph's disappearance with Jeff's sister Vikki Joseph, a brave and dedicated warrior for her brother who is relentless in demanding answers - even in the face of  terrified, closed-mouthed locals and law enforcement that seems to block the truth at every turn.

How about an update on the prosecution of one of our most fascinating topics - the Golden State Killer?  One year after the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, Melissa has the latest on the (possibly politically-motivated) legal strategies happening in this continually mind-bending saga.  Plus: It's been a crazy week at Tip-Ster Central, with updates on three (3) (count 'em!) additional previously-covered cases hopping over the transom just in time for this week's episode --- such as the latest on the incredible (s)hero and DNA sleuth Barbara Rae-Venter...the search to find what happened to Kentucky high schooler Randy Sellers...and the further adventures of murder-for-hire slimebucket James Fayed  Plus much more (including Melissa's battle with the 23 & Me test kit!).  A fascinating hour of catch-up and insight.

On June 24, 1986 one of the most sensational and brutal attempted jewelry store robberies in US history took place at the storied Van Cleef and Arpels Jewelers on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  It was there that a 22 year-old would-be thief named Steven Livaditis quickly and without much explanation at all turned himself into a cold-blooded murderer when the robbery he thought he could pull off went terribly wrong.  One of the most heart-pounding and horrifying stories ever recounted by Melissa, who shares how this case changed her in ways she never expected.

Imagine living what would be every woman's worst nightmare:  You're driving down the road with your favorite cousin in the passenger seat, not a care in the world, when suddenly a truck pulls up beside you and the guy inside fires a shotgun directly at you.  And shoots.  Blowing your elbow into shattered bone and blood.  When you pull over, that same driver tries to pull your cousin out of your car, and when she won't move, blows her head off with that same shotgun.  Imagine now that the driver hauls you away, rapes and tortures you, and then you end up in his trailer in the middle of the woods where no one can find him.  Jennifer Holliday doesn't have to imagine any of that.  Because it actually happened to her.  And she survived.  Through a combination of sheer guts, keen; raw intelligence and incredible calm under pressure, Holliday has lived to tell of her incredible ordeal - and Melissa shares it with you this episode in chilling, compelling detail.

A rare MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder) in our regular weekly time slot - but as this week's podcast reveals, Melissa and Producer Mark have a lot on their plate - but Melissa wanted to make sure you, dear listener, had a zesty treat until the next full episode.  And this one is straight out of the "it's so strange it MUST be true" department... in 2010 a bank robbery took place in Gallatin Tennessee that featured one David Christopher Cotton in the role of Armed Robber...with...a twist.  Suffice it to say that while this tale does not end well for Mr. Cotton or his getaway driver, Jonathan Skinner, the details of the event will likely leave you choking back a guffaw or two...or three...

In 2009 Mitrice Richardson, a young and beautiful twentysomething taking a year off between her graduate and postgraduate studies, showed up one night far from home at a ritzy Malibu, California restaurant - behaving weirdly.  When she told the wait staff she couldn't pay the bill, the LA County Sheriff's Department was called and Richardson was hauled away to jail  What happened next is the stuff of countless mothers' nightmares.  Released from custody just after midnight, with no car, no money and no direction as to where to go next, Mitrice disappeared into the night - and into foreverville.  Her remains were found months later, but to date clues as to how she died, or whether she was murdered, continue to run dry.  Listen as Melissa is joined by clinical Psychologist Ronda Hampton, Ph.D., a mentor and friend to Mitrice, who has led a dedicated army of the young woman's friends and family in an unrelenting search for clues amid a story of - at best - some of the worst bungling ever committed by law enforce

What kind of a sick monster would be so crass as to commit a burglary that he really didn't need to commit, then set out to murder anyone who not only betrayed him by telling on him, but also taking out anyone he THOUGHT MIGHT betray him...and recruiting others to do it for you?  Our boy Clarence Ray Allen, that's who.  Take a walk to the darkest side of Darkness Avenue with Melissa as she recounts the untold savagery and unexpurgated evil perpetrated by Allen and his dippy cohorts.  And while she's at it, Melissa will also demonstrate how Allen just might be tied to the Ryen family murders for which Kevin Cooper was convicted (as was covered in Episodes 10 and 11 this season).  Not for the feint of heart...

Are you addicted to true crime?  Love a really scary ghost story?  Seen all the "Freddy" movies 15 times each?  Good for you!  You are NOT a freak bunky - in fact, you may be healthier than most people.  As Melissa explains in this intriguing MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder), exposing yourself to scary tales may just make you feel safer and more secure!

In part 2 of Melissa's exploration of the conviction of Kevin Cooper in the bloody slaughter of the Ryen family of Chino Hills California in 1983, your host gets into the nitty (and truly) gritty details of the positively botched investigation conducted by law enforcement at the time of the murders, and Cooper's decades-long path to having new DNA testing conducted on items that were overlooked or ignored.

In June 1983, two separate stories met at a ranch house in Chino Hills, California.  The first story is the brutal stabbing/axing/icepicking mass murder of Doug Ryen, his wife Peggy, their daughter Jessica and Christopher Hughes, the 11 year-old best friend of the Ryans' son, Josh - Josh himself was near death, but eventually survived.  The second story is that of one Kevin Cooper. a full-time convicted burglar and part-time convicted rapist, just escaped from the California Institution for Men - also known as the Chino Hills Men's Prison.  Cooper, who had holed up in a house just a few hundred feet away from the Ryen home before (he claims) he headed for Mexico the night before the Ryen murders took place, was convicted of the slayings and sentenced to death.  Seems like an open and shut case.  Until one takes even a cursory look at how the case was handled.  In this first of two parts on Kevin Cooper and the murder conviction that has him sitting on death row today, Melissa examines Cooper's history of burg

When Kentucky teenager Randy Lee Sellers got into a drunken brawl at the Kenton County Fair in 1980, the police who arrived decided not to arrest the young man, and instead put him in their patrol car to take him home.  And that's the last time his friends or his loved ones ever saw or heard of him again.  The patrol officers stated that Sellers asked to be dropped off prior to getting to his house, and that they obliged.  For the past 38-plus years the mystery of his disappearance has remained headline news in Kenton County, with theories of his disappearance ranging from the simple to the complicated to conspiratorial.  But no one seems to have found the answer.  Enter Kenton County Police Detective Brian Jones - Melissa's special guest on this episode - who is now assigned to the case and is working actively on it.  Join Melissa as she and Jones discuss the disappearance, the path to finding an answer and the uniqueness of such a shocking and vexing case arising in small town America.

Greed is bad - evil greed is worse - and psychopathic evil greed is just downright bloody awful.  And Dana Ewell and his best bud Joel Radovcich were about the greediest, psycho-nut-job evil rat bastards ever to crawl into the world.  Melissa's retelling of this gruesome 1992 multiple murder of Ewell's parents and only sibling on Easter Sunday is as chilling as it is disgusting.  As usual though, the nastiness is tempered by the heroism of two dogged Fresno County California detectives who took FIVE YEARS to finally bring the case to a close and bring Ewell and Radovcich to justice.  Find out why this was known for years as "Fresno's Crime of the Century."

Melissa's first MURDERTIZER (an appetizer of murder!) of 2019 catches us up on some important developments in the Will Cierzan and Thomas Brown cases.  PLUS a preview of an upcoming interview with one of the world's top DNA experts - AND a report on Melissa's personal taste test on that Trader Joe's garlic dip she's heard so much about from Tip-Ster Charlotte.  Oh and so very much more!

Melissa visits with true crime podcast aficionado and budding criminologist Tanya Todd, who visits the Homestead Studios all the way from Toronto, Canada to share some of her insights, theories and general worldview as she embarks on a path toward her criminology degree.  A delightful, funny, informative conversation between two lovers of the macabre, the mysterious and true crime solving.