True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

The discovery is open in the Anna Kepner case, and one item stands out. Prosecutors turned over a cellphone data extraction from a device identified only as "C.K." — not the phone belonging to the accused. Anna's father is Christopher Kepner. If the government extracted data from the victim's father's phone and handed it to the defense as part of discovery, that tells you something about where investigators went and what they were looking for. Former prosecutor and defense attorney Eric Faddis examines what that evidence disclosure signals about the investigation's scope and how the defense may use it.
Timothy Hudson, sixteen, faces first-degree murder and aggravated sexual abuse charges in federal court in connection with the death of his eighteen-year-old stepsister aboard the Carnival Horizon. Hudson was indicted by a federal grand jury and has pled not guilty. He did not appear in court for the plea — his attorneys filed a written entry on his behalf, a procedural choice Faddis explains in the context of an ongoing detention dispute.
Hudson is currently on pre-trial release under GPS monitoring, living with a relative. Prosecutors have moved to revoke that release, arguing the conditions were established under juvenile law before the case was transferred to adult prosecution. The defense is seeking to have the same judge who granted the original release rule on the revocation motion. Faddis breaks down the legal implications of that strategy and what it tells us about the defense's broader approach.
The medical examiner ruled Anna's death a homicide by mechanical asphyxiation. Bruising on her neck was reportedly consistent with an arm held across it. Her body was found under a bed in the stateroom she shared with Hudson and another sibling — wrapped in a blanket, concealed beneath life jackets. Ship surveillance reportedly shows no one else entered or exited the cabin. Prosecutors have turned over the autopsy, body cam footage, and the cellphone extraction as part of the evidence file. They estimate the trial would take approximately seven days.
Faddis evaluates whether that timeline reflects a streamlined prosecution or a case built on a narrow evidentiary foundation — and identifies what should concern prosecutors most about a defense team that has been this deliberate with every filing, every appearance, and every procedural choice it has made.
Hudson has pled not guilty and is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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Three grand juries were convened during the investigation into the alleged murder of fourteen-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Not one produced an indictment against David Anthony Burke. Prosecutors confirmed the grand juries were used for investigative purposes — subpoena power, witness compulsion — but when it came time to charge Burke with first-degree murder and three special circumstances, the Los Angeles County DA filed a criminal complaint.
That procedural choice carries consequences, and defense attorney Blair Berk appears to be building her strategy around it. She publicly flagged the grand juries' failure to indict, then pushed for a preliminary hearing within ten court days — forcing prosecutors to present their evidence before a judge at the earliest possible opportunity. Trial attorney and former felony prosecutor Eric Faddis breaks down what changes when a case proceeds on a complaint rather than an indictment, what evidentiary thresholds shift at the preliminary hearing stage, and whether Berk is telling us that the grand jury record itself is central to the defense.
Faddis also examines the special-circumstance allegations — particularly financial gain, which DA Nathan Hochman framed as Burke acting to protect an existing music career Celeste allegedly threatened to expose. The question of whether protecting current income meets the legal standard for murder motivated by financial gain is precisely the kind of allegation a defense team can target surgically. Faddis explains whether removing one special circumstance changes sentencing exposure without affecting the murder charge, and what Burke's dual-denial statement — "did not murder" and "was not the cause of her death" — sets up as a trial posture.
The unsealed autopsy confirmed Celeste died from penetrating wounds to her torso. Prosecutors allege over forty terabytes of digital evidence, exploitation material on Burke's phone, and continuous abuse beginning when Celeste was thirteen.
Retired FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program Chief Robin Dreeke addresses listener questions on the investigative timeline, the year-long gap between Celeste's disappearance and Burke's arrest, and what the three grand jury proceedings reveal about the complexity and challenges prosecutors faced in building this case.
Burke has pled not guilty and is held without bail. All individuals discussed are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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For years, Sandra Birchmore’s family held vigils outside buildings that didn’t want them there. They held signs at the Stoughton Police Department. They demanded answers from a system that had already decided Sandra did this to herself. Then the FBI came.
On August 28, 2024, agents arrested Matthew Farwell and charged him with killing Sandra to prevent her from exposing his crimes. A superseding indictment added a charge under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act for the death of her unborn baby boy. Farwell has pleaded not guilty. His trial begins October 5, 2026 in Boston federal court.
The defense has tried everything. They moved to dismiss the charges. Denied. They moved to relocate the trial. Denied. They sought bail, presenting Farwell as a war hero. Prosecutors responded with new DNA evidence: Farwell’s genetic material on the strap used to strangle Sandra, his sperm cells in her underwear contradicting his statements. Their filing also revealed that months after Sandra’s death, Farwell allegedly bought a drink for a woman at a bar who woke up naked while he searched her room for his keys.
All three officers connected to Sandra’s exploitation have been permanently barred from law enforcement. The DA who oversaw the initial investigation won’t seek reelection. Sandra’s family has endorsed his potential replacement. The political fallout has been seismic.
Sandra Birchmore was born in 1997. She lost her mother, grandmother, and aunt before turning twenty-three. She worked with children. She was studying nursing. She wanted to be a police officer. She wanted to be a mother. Everything taken from her began with trust. The trial begins in October.
This is Part 5 of a five-part series on the Sandra Birchmore case.
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Three cases. Three families. None of them have the answers they were promised. 
Bryan Kohberger pled guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students and is serving life without parole — but his own defense expert is now publicly alleging the key physical evidence had serious chain of custody problems, and a new book by a former FBI agent reveals untested crime scene evidence that wasn't Kohberger's. The plea buried everything. 
Nick Reiner sits in a Los Angeles jail facing two counts of first-degree murder with death penalty eligibility for the stabbing deaths of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner. The autopsy reports still aren't finished. The preliminary hearing just got pushed to September. His public defender hasn't tipped her hand on whether a mental health defense is coming. And the family is enduring every delay in a case where the accused is their own blood. 
Tupac Shakur's family just filed a wrongful death lawsuit naming Keffe D and one hundred unnamed co-conspirators — nearly three decades after the rapper was gunned down in Las Vegas. The lawsuit is designed to force testimony from people who have never faced a subpoena. 
Keffe D's criminal trial is set for August. The witnesses are vanishing. And the family has already lost nearly everyone. Eric Faddis — criminal defense attorney and former felony prosecutor — joins Hidden Killers to break down all three cases in one extended conversation covering the evidence, the legal strategies, the failures, and the families still fighting for something the system keeps deferring.
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The trial begins May 4. Here's what the jury is walking into.
An 11-count indictment: aggravated murder, three counts of murder, felonious assault, evidence tampering, and witness intimidation. Nearly three dozen subpoenas targeting the FBI Lab, tech companies, social media platforms, banks, and insurance companies. An expert report that arrived late enough to push the trial back four days. And a prosecution so confident in its case that its only plea offer was: plead guilty to everything.
The defense has been making calculated moves. They filed a gag order motion to restrict evidence from going public  --  then withdrew it without explanation. They waived a conflict of interest with the judge's newly hired staff attorney. They rejected the plea. And they asked the jury to tour the Flynn home themselves and assess whether the layout supports the prosecution's staging theory or the possibility that someone actually could have entered from outside.
Both sides said they're ready. Neither side offered an inch. The judge's response when the plea was rejected: "OK then, we're going to trial."
Part 4 of four. The final installment before jury selection begins.
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