True Crime Campfire

09/26/2025

The Buddha said, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense." Ignore that advice, and you might find that you're clouding your vision--that instead of seeing what's really in front of you, you're filtering everything so it fits in with your beliefs. An unwavering, unquestioned belief in anything--a philosophy, an institution, or a person--can lend us strength sometimes, but it can also make us vulnerable. And there are plenty of people out there just waiting to exploit that vulnerability. This story is about two of them, each with a very different MO, and the havoc they wreaked in the lives of the people around them.

Swindles and Sacrements: a Story of Deception and Belief is out now.

Art is Pietà by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

09/19/2025

We deal with a lot of real-life horror stories, and because it’s real life, they’re often chaotic and cruel. Justice might ultimately be served, but more often than not, the victims are already cold in the ground. If someone is dead-set on killing you, there’s a very good chance they’ll succeed. In the most satisfying fictional horror stories, of course, there’s a survivor, someone who faces the monster or killer and lives to tell the tale, someone who finds deep wells of courage and resilience inside themself and defeats the horrors the world throws at them. And these stories are not only limited to fiction.

Not Today: Amazing Stories of Survival is out now.

Art is Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

09/12/2025

If there’s one constant in the kind of people we cover, it’s this—they’re liars. Con artists trying to scam their way into money, murderers denying their crimes, spouses with secret affairs, liars, all of them. This week’s case is about a man who checks all three of those boxes, a man who learned that, if he didn’t have a conscience, deceit could make him more money that hard work ever did. Once he’d learned that lesson, nothing was going to stop him from lying his way to more and more wealth. Certainly not the continued health and well-being of his wife.

The Man Who Wasn’t There: the Murder of Shannon Mohr is out now.

Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--tickets are on sale now: CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRE

Art is the Son of Man by René Magritte

09/05/2025

Most of us grew up loving superhero stories. My favorite was always the X-Men. I liked the idea of these people who were born with mutations that initially made them targets of bigotry or fear, then harnessing those differences to do good in the world. I’ve always been a big believer in “give what you’ve got”—if you have a special gift or talent, use it to make the world better. But here’s the thing: Most of us recognize that superheroes are a metaphor for this idea. You’re not supposed to literally dress up in a cape and tights and go around town looking for muggers to fight off, or create a mysterious fake identity to rally people toward a nebulous cause. Evidently, though, some folks never got the memo on that. We’re gonna tell you about a couple of them.

Stooperheroes: A Grab Bag of Unlikely Avengers is out now.

Art is Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein

09/01/2025

I found this picture of a Juggalo cow and I felt he should be memed. What should his name be? Ho0f B3atZ?

08/30/2025

Cell phones are amazing, aren’t they? You have a little magic box in your pocket that you can look at and use to call halfway across the world. New parents can send photos of their babies to their loved ones that live hours away, best friends can start a podcast even though they don’t live in the same state, and soulmates can meet, even from entirely different countries. Of course, we can’t have good things without someone using it for evil. Some people use phones as a means of harassment, of control. In today’s case, a stalker uses their phone as a weapon of mass destruction in order to try to get the attention of one man. “U Be Dead: The Stalking of Dr. Falkowski” is out now.

Listen on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2cfGtmVWyYIZ3lMWvmhk9E?si=3htedrCcT4i3UpSyTnIePg

08/22/2025

Hello babies - No new ep this week. Whitney has family stuff to take care of, so we’re taking a little breaky break. In exchange, we promise to have a banger of an episode for you next week 😊

-kt

08/15/2025

Home is the one place in the world that’s ours and ours alone. It’s the place we’re meant to feel completely safe and comfortable. The warm, beating heart of our lives. So when that sacred space is violated, where does that leave us? Can we ever really feel safe again? This is the story of one of the strangest home invasions ever investigated, and the aftermath that left two innocent people’s lives changed forever.

Invader: A Story of Madness and Revenge is out now.

Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--there are only a handful of rooms left! CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRE

Art is Montana Home Invasion by Philip Slagter

08/09/2025

Revisiting favorite episodes: If you’re currently engrossed in a certain viral TikTok drama, you might want to listen to this—a story of Erotomania and stalking that ended in a prison sentence.

Podcast Episode · True Crime Campfire · 01/28/2022 · 53m

08/08/2025

No is a powerful word. It can stop a naughty dog in its tracks, it can get you out of a night out with friends when you just want to rot in your bed, and most of all, it’s supposed to mean something when you don’t want anything to do with someone romantically. Unfortunately for society, some people can’t handle being told no. It fills them with unfounded rage because how dare anyone deny them something they want. Today, we’re discussing a case where someone handled rejection so pathetically that it resulted in the murder of 4 people and left a mark on three communities that would last a lifetime.

This is When Nerds Attack - Hardcore Horror: the Farmville Murders

Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--tickets on sale now: CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRE

08/02/2025

Thank you so much for all the birthday love! It makes me feel like a princess. 😍

08/01/2025

Mark Twain, always a good man for a quote, said about getting old: “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” There is generally a broad unspoken societal agreement over what the elderly are supposed to be like, the shape their lives are supposed to have. There are always people who don’t fit into this preconception, of course, I’m sure plenty of you have encountered some weird and wild senior citizens—but probably not as wild as the people in this week’s story., who turned their lives into their own personal mash-up of “Grumpy Old Men” and “Oceans 11.”

Golden Years: The Hatton Garden Heist is out now.

Join Katie and Whitney, plus the hosts of Last Podcast on the Left, Sinisterhood, and Scared to Death, on the very first CRIMEWAVE true crime cruise! Get your fan code now--tickets on sale now, and there's a limited number left: CrimeWaveatSea.com/CAMPFIRE