Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén

In the early hours of the morning, Lorena Bobbitt takes a kitchen knife to her sleeping husband’s penis. Instead of waiting to hear the real story, the world turned the tragedy into the butt of every joke.

Sources for this episode include:

Lorena (Docuseries; Amazon) dir. Joshua Rofé
Contemporaneous reporting by The New York Times and Vanity Fair

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A teenager who thinks he's a 100-year-old vampire leads a cult of kids to murder a girls' parents in Florida.

Sources for this episode include:

Kentucky Teenage Vampires (Real Stories)
Court Transcript - Rod Ferrell’s Appellate Brief
“Interview with ‘The Vampire’” (Orlando Sentinel)
“Chronology of the Wendorff Slayings” (Orlando Sentinel)
“Man who “Sired” Rod Ferrell Tells All” (Oxygen)
“Teens in Suspected ‘Vampire Cult’ Arrested in Double Murder” (AP News)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 1980s and ’90s, a serial arsonist known as the “Pillow Pyro” terrorizes California—taunting investigators and igniting fires near their annual conferences—until one detective uncovers an unthinkable truth...The culprit is one of their own.

Sources for this episode include:

Fire Lover: A True Story by Joseph Wambaugh
Forensic Files, “Point of Origin”
Firebug podcast, Episode 1

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks… The popular schoolyard rhyme has withstood the test of time, despite it getting a few details wrong. Over 130 years later, we still don’t really know who killed Andrew and Abby Borden. Lizzie was acquitted, and yet most people assume she was guilty. Is it possible Lizzie was truly innocent? And if she didn’t swing the hatchet that day – who did?

Sources for this episode include:

The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden & The Trial of the Century by Sarah Miller
The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence by Bill James

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/KILLERS

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For nearly twenty years, a charming con man poses as a globe-trotting CIA operative, seducing women and draining their savings in the name of “classified missions”—until one wife uncovers his lies and helps bring down the man she thought she would share her life with.

Sources for this episode include:

The Other Mrs. Jordan (Britbox documentary)
The Bigamist by Mary Thompson (Amazon Publishing)
“My marriage turned out to be a lie - here's why I'm speaking out” (BBC)
“'I Wanted Justice': Con Victim Turns Focus to Changing Rape Law” (NBC News)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The wife of the “sausage king of Chicago” disappears without a trace…until police search a suspicious vat in the basement of his factory, fueling rumors of exactly how he got rid of her.

Sources for this episode include:Alchemy of Bones: Chicago's Luetgert Murder Case of 1897 by Robert Loerzel
Contemporaneous reporting by the Chicago Tribune
The 'Sausage Vat Murder,' 1897 by Harold Schechter, The Yale Review

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Branded "the female Charles Manson" for a double murder she claims she didn't commit, a young woman executes a daring prison escape to reclaim her life—only to find that while she can outrun the law, she can’t outrun the reputation built to bring her down.

Sources for this episode include:

Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender by Steve Miller
“Sarah Jo Pender asks for mercy 25 years after double murder conviction” (COURT TV, 2025)
“Judge denies Sarah Jo Pender's request to cut sentence in double murder case” (IndyStar, 2026)
“Fixing Their Mistakes” (Progressive Magazine, 2021)
Women Behind Bars with Trevor McDonaldA Stranger in My Home “Master Manipulators” (Investigation Discovery)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In broad daylight at the world’s most prestigious museum, a disguised team of thieves breached Musée du Louvre in just seven minutes, made off with eight priceless pieces of the French Crown Jewels, and exposed how even the most iconic institution can be undone by audacity and a single overlooked window.

Sources for this episode include:
“How the Louvre Heist Unfolded” (New York Times)
“In Just 7 Brazen Minutes, Thieves Grab ‘Priceless’ Jewels From Louvre” (New York Times)
“Everything we know about the Louvre jewellery heist” (BBC)
“Two more suspects charged over Louvre heist taking total to four” (The Guardian)
“Louvre jewel heist by petty criminals, not organised professionals, says Paris prosecutor” (The Guardian)
“New surveillance video shows Louvre jewel heist in action” (CBS NEWS)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the glamorous wife of the Gucci heir faces losing her fortune and status, she trades champagne for vengeance—proving that in the world of high fashion, nothing is more cutthroat than a woman with everything at stake and nothing left to lose.

Sources for this episode include:

House of Gucci: A True Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden
“Murder in the House of Gucci” by Sofia Lotto Persio (Forbes, 2019)
“The Gucci Wife and the Hitman: Fashion’s Darkest Tale” by Abigail Haworth (The Guardian, 2016)
“The Real Story Behind the House of Gucci” (Bloomberg Originals, 2022)
Til Death Do Us Part “Lady Gucci: The Story of Patrizia Reggiani” (Discovery+)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1972, two young hippies hijack a commercial airplane in a wild attempt to free a famous political activist from jail, setting off one of the strangest, most idealistic crimes of a radical era.

Sources for this episode include:

The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking by Brendan I. Koerner

“Convicted Hijacker Arrested in New Plot” (LA Times)

“Black Panther Extradited to the US” (NYTimes)

“Skyjacked: A Nation With No Airline Security” (CNN)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the craggy peaks of Greece, a modern outlaw proves that you can rob a bank, kidnap a billionaire, and still be the most beloved man in the mountains. This is the story of Vassilis Paleokostas: the 'Robin Hood' who treats his hostages like guests and uses a helicopter as his preferred get-out-of-jail-free card.

Sources for this episode include:
“The Uncatchable” (BBC)
A Normal Life: The Autobiography of Vassilis Palaiokostas by Vassilis Palaiokostas

Outlaws: The Good Thief (iHeartRadio)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kidnapped on his 38th birthday by criminals who think every federal prosecutor is secretly wealthy, a calm-under-pressure lawyer survives a chaotic 25-hour ordeal—part hostage crisis, part absurd comedy—by befriending his captors.

Sources for this episode include:

The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival by Stanley N. Alpert
48 Hours, “The Birthday Party”

Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/KILLERS

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After their mother’s death and years living under a controlling father, two Texas teens are pulled into their dad’s string of bank robberies—turning a broken family into an outlaw crew and forcing a daughter to choose between loyalty, survival, and the truth she was raised to ignore.
Sources for this episode include:

“I Would Only Rob Banks for My Family” by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly20/20, “A Family Affair”
Crime Files: The Homefront “Family Bank Robbers”

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A teenage runaway becomes a folk hero and a nationwide fugitive as he steals planes, boats, and cars—often barefoot—turning a two-year crime spree into one of the most unlikely manhunts in modern American history.

Sources for this episode include:
Reporting by The Daily Herald (Everett, Washington)
"Barefoot Bandit: His Life and Crimes" (CBS News)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A notorious internet troll builds a revenge-porn empire that terrorizes thousands—until a determined mother launches a relentless campaign to bring him down and dismantle the most toxic community on the web.

Sources for this episode include:
The Netflix docuseries The Most Hated Man on the Internet
“Hunter Moore: The Most Hated Man on the Internet” (Rolling Stone)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a brilliant intelligence officer from MI6 is discovered dead inside a padlocked duffel bag in his London flat, investigators face an impossible crime scene—no signs of forced entry, no fingerprints, and theories ranging from suicide to espionage—as the shadow of secrecy around his work at GCHQ breeds one of the most perplexing mysteries in British intelligence history.

Sources for this episode include:
“Spy last seen alive eight days before body was found in bag” (The Guardian)
“MI6 officer Gareth Williams and the ‘missing hours’ before his death” (BBC)
“MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams’ death ‘perfect crime,’ expert says” (CNN)
“Police claim to have solved London ‘spy in the bag’ mystery” (The Independent)
“The Death of The Spy In the Bag is Linked to Russia By Secret Intelligence Files” (BuzzFeed News)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To some, Helen Duncan is a powerful medium who bridges the realms of the living and the dead. To others, she's a dangerous con artist blending deception and stolen top-secret information to prey on the grieving and the gullible.

Try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/KILLERS

Sources for this episode include:

The Strange Case of Hellish Nell: The Story of Helen Duncan and the Witch Trial of World War II by Nina Shandler
Six Feet Over: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship by Harry Price

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A libertarian idealist known only as “The Dread Pirate Roberts” builds the Silk Road—an anonymous online black market that explodes into a billion-dollar empire—until the digital kingpin is unmasked, revealing how one man’s dream of radical freedom spiraled into crime, paranoia, and downfall.

Sources for this episode include:

American Kingpin by Nick Bilton
Joshuah Bearman’s reporting for Wired magazine

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1977, candy heiress Helen Brach – one of the richest women in America – vanishes. Detectives consider the many people who might have wanted to get their hands on her money. Ultimately, the primary suspect that emerges is… the Chicago horse mafia.

Sources for this episode include:

Hot Blood: The True Story of an Heiress, a Gigolo, and a Shocking Murder by Ken Englade
“The Puzzle That’s Missing One Piece” (WashPo)
“Candy Heiress's Murder Probe Exposes Brutality in Horse World” (LA Times)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A 19th-century island experiment founded by two nature-loving Germans goes from Gilligan's Island to Lord of the Flies when an entitled and eccentric heiress moves in.

Sources for this episode include:

Satan Came to Eden: A Survivor's Account of the "Galapagos Affair by Dore Strauch
Floreana by Margaret Wittmer
The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (Documentary)
“An Unsolvable Mystery: Captain Hancock and the Case of the Quarrelsome Castaways” (PBS)

Keep up with Killer Stories!
Instagram: @killerstoriespod
TikTok: @killerstoriespod
X: @killerstorieshq

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices