Crimes and Consequences

In 1924, two wealthy, brilliant University of Chicago students set out to commit what they believed would be the perfect crime.Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb believed themselves intellectually superior and beyond ordinary moral restraint. Inspired (and deeply misreading) the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, they convinced themselves that rules applied to other people.It became the first true Trial of the Century. A national referendum on free will, punishment, privilege, youth, psychology, and whether the state should answer killing with killing.Were Leopold and Loeb supermen?Or were they privileged, deluded young men who mistook intelligence for immunity?🎙️ Join us as we dismantle the myth.

In 1924, two wealthy, brilliant University of Chicago students set out to commit what they believed would be the perfect crime.Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb believed themselves intellectually superior and beyond ordinary moral restraint. Inspired (and deeply misreading) the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, they convinced themselves that rules applied to other people.It became the first true Trial of the Century. A national referendum on free will, punishment, privilege, youth, psychology, and whether the state should answer killing with killing.Were Leopold and Loeb supermen?Or were they privileged, deluded young men who mistook intelligence for immunity?  Join us as we dismantle the myth.Because intelligence without empathy is not superiority. It’s danger.

On a quiet stretch of Midwestern road, just outside the small town where everyone knew everyone else, DiAnne Kiedel disappeared into the kind of mystery that only seems possible in places that feel safe. She was a mother. A neighbor. The woman who waved when she drove past. And then, suddenly, she was the center of whispered conversations, late-night searches, and a question that refused to fade: what really happened that night? In this episode, we peel back the layers of a story that starts with an ordinary evening—and spirals into something far darker than anyone in town was prepared to face.

SOURCES:
1) Old Time Crime: 1966 missing person case solved 27 years later
2) The Eternal Flame
3) The Eternal Flame Part 2
4) Memory of Slaying Kept Secret for 29 Years

On a quiet night that should have ended like any other, one violent act set off a chain of events that would fracture a community and leave more questions than answers. The murder of Trent Digiuro didn’t arrive with warning signs or a clear villain—it unfolded in the blurred space between friendship and fear, impulse and intention. In the days that followed, whispers traveled faster than facts, and investigators began pulling at threads that revealed a far more complicated story than it first appeared. What happened to Trent wasn’t just about a single moment of violence, but about the choices made before it—and the ones that followed—that would ultimately force everyone involved to reckon with the truth.

SOURCES: 
1) Man convicted of killing UK player in ‘90s back in court in another new case 
2) Dateline: The Motive
3) DiGiuros Find Closure in Wrongful Death Suit
4) Notorious 1990s slaying of UK football player featured in new true crime series
5) A Killer Among Friends: A Killer on Campus

On a quiet Oregon highway in 1983, a mother claimed a stranger stepped out of the dark and destroyed her family. It was a lie.In this episode, we examine Diane Downs, a woman who shot her three children, killed one of them, and then calmly rewrote reality in front of police, doctors, jurors, and the nation.We trace the night of the shootings, the unraveling carjacking narrative, chilling courtroom behavior, and the moment investigators realized they weren’t dealing with a grieving mother; but a remorseless architect of violence.