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Circle Of Insight Productions

UNSOLVED MURDERS

A Social Sciences , Science and Government podcast

#47 in Social Sciences · 🇰🇷
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About the show

Can you help solve a murder or spot an undetected serial killer? There are a lot of them. More than 211,000 Americans have died in unsolved homicides since 1980, according to The Economist in 2015. Help solve a murder

Newest episodes

The Yogurt Shop Murders: Four Girls, One Fire, and a Mystery That Haunted Austin

4 min

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were found murdered inside a burned-out frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. What initially appeared to be a robbery became one of the city's most disturbing homicide investigations, involving disputed confessions, questionable forensic evidence, and convictions that were eventually overturned. For more than three decades, investigators struggled to determine who committed the murders and why. This episode examines the original crime scene, the investigative mistakes, and the DNA evidence that eventually changed the direction of the case.

The Lane Bryant Murders: Five Women Executed in a Clothing Store

3 min

On February 2, 2008, five women were murdered inside a Lane Bryant clothing store in Tinley Park, Illinois, during what investigators believe began as an armed robbery. A sixth woman survived and provided police with a description of the gunman, yet the killer disappeared without being identified. Despite surveillance evidence, forensic examinations, and thousands of investigative leads, the case has remained unresolved. This episode examines the crime, the surviving witness, and the disturbing question of how a gunman could murder five people in a suburban shopping center and escape.

The Shotgun Underground: How Edric Hinton's Murder Case Was Finally Broken

3 min

For nearly seventeen years, the murder of nineteen-year-old Edric Hinton remained unresolved, leaving his family searching for justice. The investigation reportedly changed when a confidential source directed detectives toward a shotgun hidden beneath the ground. Forensic specialists examined the recovered weapon, helping investigators connect new physical evidence to the original crime. This episode explores how old leads, modern forensic techniques, and persistent investigative work can bring a seemingly forgotten homicide back into focus.

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All episodes

The Yogurt Shop Murders: Four Girls, One Fire, and a Mystery That Haunted Austin

4 min

On December 6, 1991, four teenage girls were found murdered inside a burned-out frozen yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. What initially appeared to be a robbery became one of the city's most disturbing homicide investigations, involving disputed confessions, questionable forensic evidence, and convictions that were eventually overturned. For more than three decades, investigators struggled to determine who committed the murders and why. This episode examines the original crime scene, the investigative mistakes, and the DNA evidence that eventually changed the direction of the case.

The Lane Bryant Murders: Five Women Executed in a Clothing Store

3 min

On February 2, 2008, five women were murdered inside a Lane Bryant clothing store in Tinley Park, Illinois, during what investigators believe began as an armed robbery. A sixth woman survived and provided police with a description of the gunman, yet the killer disappeared without being identified. Despite surveillance evidence, forensic examinations, and thousands of investigative leads, the case has remained unresolved. This episode examines the crime, the surviving witness, and the disturbing question of how a gunman could murder five people in a suburban shopping center and escape.

The Shotgun Underground: How Edric Hinton's Murder Case Was Finally Broken

3 min

For nearly seventeen years, the murder of nineteen-year-old Edric Hinton remained unresolved, leaving his family searching for justice. The investigation reportedly changed when a confidential source directed detectives toward a shotgun hidden beneath the ground. Forensic specialists examined the recovered weapon, helping investigators connect new physical evidence to the original crime. This episode explores how old leads, modern forensic techniques, and persistent investigative work can bring a seemingly forgotten homicide back into focus.

Murdered at Eight: The 66-Year Mystery of Gloria Kowalewicz

3 min

For 66 years, the murder of eight-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz remained one of Chicago's haunting unsolved crimes. Investigators pursued answers while generations passed and the original evidence became increasingly important. In October 2026, a forensic breakthrough led authorities to identify a deceased former homicide detective as their suspect, bringing a remarkable development to a case once thought impossible to solve. This episode reconstructs the original crime, the decades of uncertainty, and the scientific advances that finally gave investigators a new answer.

Seven Dead in a Chicago Garage: Who Really Committed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre?

3 min

On February 14, 1929, seven men were murdered inside a Chicago garage, yet no one was convicted of the killings. Suspicion centered on Al Capone’s criminal organization, but investigators struggled to establish who planned and carried out the attack. We revisit the suspects, conflicting accounts, forensic evidence, and unanswered questions surrounding one of America's most notorious unsolved multiple murders.

The Murder at Road Hill House: Five Years Without an Answer

3 min

In June 1860, three-year-old Saville Kent vanished from his bed and was later discovered murdered on his family's estate. Investigators suspected someone inside the household, but conflicting accounts and public controversy complicated the search for justice. For five years, the murder remained officially unresolved until a stunning confession changed everything. Yet questions surrounding the motive and possible involvement of others have continued to intrigue historians.

Two Princes Vanished in 1483: Was It a Royal Double Murder?

3 min

Two young brothers entered the Tower of London in 1483 and disappeared from the historical record. Their uncle inherited the crown, while rumors spread that the boys had been secretly murdered. Nearly two centuries later, workers discovered the remains of two children beneath a staircase. More than 500 years after the disappearance, historians continue to debate whether the princes were killed and who might have been responsible.

Why "Organized vs. Disorganized" May Be Failing Cold Cases

3 min

For decades, investigators leaned on a simple framework to read crime scenes — organized killers who plan and control, disorganized killers who act on impulse and leave chaos. This episode traces how that model shaped early FBI behavioral profiling and became baked into how the public understands unsolved cases. But later research found that real offenders rarely sort that cleanly, raising real questions about how much weight this framework should carry in actual investigations. We examine what that means for cold cases built on profiles that may be more oversimplified than the field once believed.

He Finally Has a Name — But Not an Answer: The Boy in the Box

2 min

For more than six decades, he was known only as the "Boy in the Box," his battered body discovered outside Philadelphia in 1957 with no identity and no leads that held. This episode follows the case through 65 years of failed attempts, generations of detectives, and the eventual arrival of forensic genetic genealogy, which in 2022 finally gave the child a name: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. We look at what that breakthrough changed — and what it didn't. The identity has been found, but the person responsible for his death has never been identified, leaving this one of the longest-running unsolved murders in American history.

The Ricky McCormick Cipher: A Murder Written in Code

3 min

When Ricky McCormick’s body was discovered in Missouri in 1999, investigators eventually encountered an extraordinary mystery. Two handwritten notes found in his pockets contained lines of letters, numbers, parentheses and apparent coded messages. Years later, the FBI publicly appealed for help deciphering them. Investigators believed understanding the notes might reveal information relevant to McCormick’s death, but their meaning remains uncertain. This is the strange intersection of homicide investigation, cryptanalysis and one man’s private language.

The Murder Solved by a Plant: How Forensic Botany Can Put a Killer at the Crime Scene

5 min

A killer can wipe away fingerprints, destroy clothing, and clean a crime scene—but escaping nature is considerably harder. Tiny fragments of leaves, seeds, wood, and pollen can connect a suspect to a location long after other evidence has disappeared. This episode explores the fascinating science of forensic botany and how plants can become silent witnesses to murder.

What Happened to Shanquella Robinson? Six Friends, One Villa, and Two Very Different Stories

4 min

Twenty-five-year-old Shanquella Robinson traveled to Mexico with a group of acquaintances and was dead the following day. An initial account involving alcohol poisoning collided with disturbing video showing Robinson being assaulted and sharply differing Mexican and American forensic findings. We examine the timeline, victimology, group behavior, forensic contradictions, and the evidentiary problem that has prevented a criminal conviction. Nearly four years later, Robinson’s family continues pursuing answers through civil litigation.

A City Built to Vanish- the murder at burning man

2 min

A man walked into a desert that promised no history and left one anyway. The knife was still in his neck when they found him. The hospital had sent him back into the dust four hours earlier. A year on, the playa is clean, the tents are gone, and the name on the blade has not arrived.

The House That Kept Its Secrets- Nancy Guthrie

3 min

An 84-year-old woman is dropped at her Catalina Foothills door after a family dinner and vanishes before dawn: blood on the porch, a silenced pacemaker, and doorbell video of a masked, armed figure. Investigators call it a kidnapping, chase mixed DNA across multiple labs, and release ransom notes that later split between possible contact and proven fakes—while a million-dollar reward and national attention still produce no named suspect. Seven and a half months on, human remains found miles away are ruled out, a man is sentenced only for hoax messages, and Savannah Guthrie is left making quiet on-air mentions of a mother who has not come home. This episode sits with what the cameras recorded, what the labs still cannot separate, and why a house full of digital proof can refuse to give up a name.

The Hinterkaifeck Murders (1922): The Unsolved German Farm Massacre Where the Killer May Have Lived Among the Victims

4 min

On March 31, 1922, six members of the Gruber family and their new maid were brutally murdered with a mattock on their isolated Hinterkaifeck farmstead in Bavaria, Germany.
This episode reconstructs the chilling timeline, including evidence that the killer likely hid in the attic for days beforehand and remained on the property for several days afterward, feeding the animals and eating the family’s food.
Essential listening for true crime enthusiasts, historians, criminologists, and anyone fascinated by one of Germany’s most disturbing unsolved cases involving intrusion, deception, and rural isolation.

The Codebreaker’s Last Cipher: State Secret or Fatal Fetish?

6 min

Was Gareth Williams a victim of his own private life, or a targeted hit by a foreign intelligence agency? This episode navigates the two warring theories that define this cold case. On one side, the official police conclusion of a "solitary accident" involving claustrophilia; on the other, the coroner's verdict of "unlawful killing" potentially linked to Williams's work on Russian money laundering. We re-examine the timeline of his final days, the £25,000 of unworn designer women's clothing in his closet, and the suspicious "redirection" of the investigation that some say points to an MI6 cover-up.

The Threshold of Evil: What Pushes an Ordinary Person to Snap?

16 min

We often like to believe that "good" and "bad" people are fundamentally different, but psychology suggests the line between them is thinner than we think. This episode explores the specific environmental and internal triggers that can push a law-abiding citizen toward a sudden, life-altering breaking point. We examine why some individuals crumble under pressure while others emerge with their moral compass intact.

See all 56 episodes

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