True Crime Campfire

Anger can be useful. If you need to defend yourself or those you love, or if you need to stand up against some outrage in your community, anger can give you the necessary fire to get things done. It can also be poisonous, eating away at a soul until there’s not much left but dense fury that constantly leaks out like oil from a ruptured tanker. This week’s story is about a man who let his anger consume not only himself, but the lives of three innocent people.

Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets.

Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027.

Sources:

The Parable of the Knocker by Bryan Porter

ID's See No Evil, S9E6, “Shaken and Disturbed”

https://web.archive.org/web/20160215131616/http://mentaldisorder.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/mother-of-severances-son-testifies-of-frightening-threatening-letters/2015/10/14/270a887c-729d-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/at-severances-trial-nancy-dunnings-son-describes-finding-her-dead/2015/10/15/5375017c-7364-11e5-8248-98e0f5a2e830_story.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/alleged-alexandria-serial-killer-scheduled-to-appear-in-court/2015/09/16/472604b2-5bc6-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/police-look-for-gunman-clues-in-fatal-shooting-in-alexandria/2014/02/07/da370d26-9004-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/virginia-serial-killer-charles-severance-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/2016/01/20/0ba176c6-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html

https://northernvirginiamag.com/culture/2020/04/22/recently-released-the-parable-of-the-knocker-sheds-new-light-on-charles-severance/

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Love can be a pretty hard thing to define. It’s easier to say what it is not. Love is not secretly following someone and trying your best to keep her within sight every second of the day. Love is not trying to keep someone scared and uncertain so that they’ll rely on you more. And love is not thinking you own a person, and becoming furious when you find out that you do that. This is a story about someone who made all those mistakes, who mistook obsession for devotion, and whose towering sense of entitlement turned into awful violence.

Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets.

Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027.

Sources:

Don Stradley, Boston Tabloid

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/06/03/Missing-Beauty-killer-released/1326739080000/
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/19/us/killer-marries-in-prison.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/28/us/professor-about-to-go-on-trial-admits-killing-his-young-lover.html

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Many of the stories we cover revolve around the disintegration of a marriage. It’s often a deeply traumatic event, upending entire lives and making an imagined future just vanish into nothing. It can drive some people kind of crazy. But other people are just built differently, and can move effortlessly from one marriage to the next as easily as changing a pair of socks. The woman in this week’s case certainly could do that, and she took that same casual attitude into matters of life and death.

Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets.

Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027.

Sources:

Clifford Linedecker, Poisoned Vows

https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/backus-appeal-rejected/

https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=STP19931216-01.2.6&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7CtxCO%7CtxTA--------0------

A&E's "American Justice," interview with Jill Coit

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Life, obviously, is easier with money. Without having to scrabble and hustle just to survive, you can be free to pursue whatever interests and fascinations you like. But wealth doesn’t make you immune to the realities of human life. Families still have drama, hearts still get broken, dreams still get crushed into dust. This week’s story is about someone who started life with every possible advantage, but despite all her privilege, still descended into darkness.

Sources:

Deadly American Beauty by John Glatt

https://www.smh.com.au/world/jury-awards-a147-million-in-american-beauty-murder-20060322-gdn7du.html

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/sep/18/feature-arrest-warrant-issued/

Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit badmagicproductions.com for more info and to buy tickets.

Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas.

Follow us, campers!

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If you’re unlucky, you might have at least one person in your life who just drives you crazy, someone with whom every interaction has an edge of mutual antipathy, that makes you feel like you’re always on the brink of a screaming argument. Sometimes two particular human beings just do not fit together. And because human beings are strange, sometimes a couple like that hook up and stay together for years before finally spinning apart. But that undercurrent of anger can remain, a little toxic flame that doesn’t need much fuel to erupt into an inferno that destroys lives.

Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas.

Join us for Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp 2026 in Equinunk, PA! September 10-13. Visit badmagicproductions.com for more info, and to buy tickets.

Sources:

Fatal Vows S7E4, “Hell on Wheels”

Dateline S28E3, “The Plan”

Snapped: Killer Couples, S13E4, “Charlene Childers and Timothy Dean”

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/10/12/what-dateline-didnt-tell-you-tim-dean-charlene-childers/3917826002/

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/in-depth/news/2019/10/10/tim-dean-sodus-ny-double-murder-sunray-texas-police-chief-dateline-nbc-the-plan/1356990001/

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/10/10/charlene-childers-dateline-nbc-the-plan-sodus-ny-double-murder/3910812002/

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/in-depth/news/2019/10/10/double-murder-sodus-ny-of-josh-niles-amber-washburn-children-dateline-nbc/1730190001/

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