Showing results by author "M. William Phelps" in All Categories

A true-crime collection culled from the crime files of the New York Times best-selling series, Notorious USA.

Crossing the Line is a true crime podcast revealing cases of the missing and murdered, told start-to-finish each week. Using the campfire storytelling style that made Paper Ghosts a #1 hit on the charts, host M. William Phelps connects deeply with families touched by violent crime - he understands them, because he is one of them. Having gone through the murder of his own pregnant sister-in-law, Phelps brings not only his personal experience, but also 20-plus years of investigative journalism into the worlds of these stories. Follow and subscribe to Crossing the Line for a weekly dose of murder...

Aspiring model Sandee Rozzo's big mistake was being kind to Timothy "Tracey" Humphrey. After Rozzo refused the 'roided-up ex-con's advances, she described how he imprisoned, raped, and brutalized her for two days. When the courageous woman pledged to testify against him, Humphrey knew he had to silence her. That's when he turned to 19-year-old Ashley Laney. She had fallen in love with Humphrey, her personal trainer, and would do anything for him. On their wedding night, he made a strange request - one that would end with eight gunshot wounds and a dead body.

At Jessica McCord's house, law enforcement officials found windows covered in blankets, a cache of weapons and ammunition, carpets torn up, new tile on the floors, and the couch missing. Then they learned about the nasty divorce and bitter custody battle that had landed Jessica in jail. Along with her new police officer husband, Jessica became the prime suspect in this brutal double murder.

Cherry Walker was a devoted, trusting, uncommonly innocent young woman who loved caring for a neighbor's little boy. But when she was asked to testify in court against his abusive mother, Cherry never got the chance. She couldn't lie if her life depended on it - and it did. Cherry's body was found on the side of a Texas road, after being doused with lighter fluid and set aflame. Attractive, manipulative, and violent, mother of four Kim Cargill had a wealth of dirty secrets she'd do anything to keep hidden.

In 2015, Mary Yoder returned home from the chiropractic center that she operated with her husband, Bill, complaining that she felt unwell. Mary, health-conscious and vibrant, was suddenly vomiting, sweating, and weak. Doctors in the ER and ICU were baffled as to the cause of her rapidly progressing illness. Her loved ones - including Bill and their children, Adam, Tamryn, and Liana - gathered in shock to say good-bye. In the weeks that followed Mary's death, the grief-stricken family received startling news from the medical examiner: Mary had been deliberately poisoned with colchicine.

In the summer of 2003, the Houston suburb of Clear Lake, Texas, was devastated when four young residents were viciously slain. The two female victims, Tiffany Rowell and Rachael Koloroutis, were just 18 years old - popular and beloved. But when a killer came knocking, it turned out to be someone they knew all too well. Seventeen-year-old Christine Paolilla was an awkward outsider until the girls befriended her. In this gripping true story, M. William Phelps delves into the heart of a baffling mystery to get to the truth of an act so brutal it could not be understood - until now.

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the "Hiccup Girl" by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventually Jennifer's hiccups went away, and so did her fame.

True tales of murder in New England, from the colonial period to today, chronicled by a true-crime master, New York Times best-selling author, and star of Investigation Discovery’s new television show Dark Minds.

Iowa housewife Tracey Pittman Roberts seemed to have it all: natural beauty, three loving children, and a fairy-tale second marriage to a wealthy, handsome businessman. But beneath the happy façade was a woman who used lies, manipulation, sex, ugly allegations, blackmail - and even murder - to serve her own selfish ends. In 2001, police rushed to Tracey's home after a shooting left her vulnerable young neighbor dead. Tracey claimed it was an act of self-defense. Nine gunshot wounds - and a decades-long trail of extortion and fraud - said otherwise.

In May 2003, an Arizona man who'd bought dozens of sealed boxes at an auction of unclaimed property made a horrifying discovery: the bodies of three plastic-wrapped infants, one of which had become mummified over the years. Police traced them to Dianne Odell, 50, a mother of eight children, who admitted the babies were hers but claimed that they'd died of natural causes.

In September 2001 Carmen Rodriguez, a beautiful 32-year-old Hartford mother of four, went missing. At first police were stymied - until a killer's crucial mistake led investigators down a long, dark road of cold, calculated murder.

Debra Newell is nothing if not a survivor. By the time she met John Michael Meehan online, she lived through a near-fatal childhood illness, an attempted rape in her 20s, the traumatic death of her sister at the hands of her brother-in-law, four failed marriages, and a litany of dating disasters. But despite those tragedies, she seemed to have it all: adoring children, a successful business, a fabulous penthouse apartment.

In October 2014, after Chris Regan failed to arrive at his new job, his ex-girlfriend filed a missing-person report. Something was off. It was not like Chris, a devoted father, avid hiker, and all-around great guy, not to show up. When local Michigan police chief Laura Frizzo learned Chris was having an affair with Kelly Cochran, a married coworker, suspicion fell on her husband, Jason. After a search warrant on their house revealed several suspicious items, the Cochrans abruptly moved to Indiana. As questions swirled around the case, the whereabouts of Chris Regan remained unknown.

In December 1989, in upstate New York, Gary C. Evans, 35, a master of disguise and career criminal who had befriended David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, began weaving a web of deadly lies. Evans told a female friend that Damien Cuomo, the father of her child, had deserted her. Of that he could be certain, since he'd killed Cuomo.

Sheila Davalloo was young, attractive, and successful. When she started a new job at a cutting-edge research lab in Stamford, Connecticut, she met the man of her dreams. Nelson Sessler had no idea how violently Sheila would react when he began seeing a co-worker, Anna Lisa Raymundo. Sheila eliminated her rival in a bloody knife attack - and then turned her rage on another victim she saw as an obstacle to her passions.

When her missing boyfriend is found murdered, his body encased in cement inside a watering trough and dumped in a cattle field, a local sheriff's deputy is arrested and charged with his murder. But as New York Times best-selling author and investigative journalist M. William Phelps digs in, the truth leads to questions about her guilt. In his first full-length, original true-crime audiobook for WildBlue Press, Phelps delivers a hard-hitting, unique experience, immersing listeners in the life of the first female deputy in Oglethorpe County, Georgia.

On December 16th, 2004, a Nodaway County, Missouri, 911 operator received a frantic call from the mother of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, an eight-months-pregnant mother-to-be found bleeding and barely breathing on her family room floor, her unborn baby gone.

A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in 1911. A heat wave unlike any that had come before killed people in the streets, caused others to drown in the waters where they sought relief, and drove still others to suicide. As more than 2,000 people died during the natural disaster, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. Amy Archer-Gilligan operated the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids in Windsor, Connecticut.

Erika Sifrit was once a high school basketball star and an honors student. Then she married Navy SEAL Benjamin Sifrit. Some say Erika was abused by "B.J." Some say she pulled his strings. But by the time they reached Ocean City, MD, Erika was packing a gun in her Coach bag and was caught in the grips of a new American death ride.