True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews

Jennifer Coffindaffer, retired FBI special agent with investigative and forensic experience, breaks down the Guthrie investigation. She discusses the 40+ day evidence record, why cadaver dogs were stood down, the limits of mixed DNA and the glove lead, and how digital forensics and statistics reshape the search. Short, clear takes on investigative choices and what the current trail actually means.

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Kouri Richins conviction gets examined through the two behavioral and evidentiary threads that make it most legible — the pattern of public narrative construction in the aftermath of an alleged murder, and the documented history of victims who identified their killers before they died.After Eric Richins died, Kouri Richins wrote a children's book about a father who becomes a firefly and went on morning shows to perform grief on national television. Prosecutors say she killed him. Tony Brueski examines that conduct through the case that makes the underlying compulsion most explicit. Nancy Crampton-Brophy published an essay in 2011 titled "How to Murder Your Husband" — under her real name, discussing methods, discussing freedom from imprisonment. Seven years later she shot her husband Daniel twice in the chest. The essay was ruled too old for trial. The jury convicted her anyway, on evidence that included traceable gun purchases and her own vehicle placing her at the scene. The prosecutorial and behavioral significance of a defendant who cannot resist public self-expression — even when that expression documents motive — is the thread connecting both cases.The evidentiary parallel on the victim side is equally significant. Eric Richins told friends after Valentine's Day 2022 that he believed Kouri was poisoning him following a serious illness. Prosecutors allege she administered five times the lethal dose of fentanyl approximately one month later. Bobby Curley, hospitalized on September 22, 1991, took a nurse's arm and stated explicitly: "Please help me. My wife is trying to kill me. She is not as she seems." He died the following morning. Joann Curley had been administering thallium to his iced tea for eleven months — confirmed by post-mortem hair analysis at nine hundred times the lethal dose. She collected a $1.7 million settlement two days before his death.Both victims named what was happening to them. In neither case was it enough. The legal and behavioral record this week's coverage examines explains why.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #NancyCramptonBrophy #JoannCurley #BobbyCurley #TrueCrimeToday #PerfectWife #WifePoisoner #NarcissistKiller #TrueCrime

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the legal aftermath of the Kouri Richins conviction gets its most rigorous examination — alongside the prosecutorial framework of premeditated spousal murder that the case sits within.Tony Brueski, defense attorney Bob Motta, and retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke work through the appellate record the defense constructed across three weeks of preserved rulings. The coaching video — investigators on tape directing Carmen Lauber to supply details ensuring a murder conviction — was presented to the jury, who returned guilty on all counts in three hours. Motta assesses what that outcome means for any appeal built around it. The hearsay ruling excluding testimony about Eric allegedly inquiring about obtaining fentanyl is examined — including the fact that the defense ultimately withdrew from pursuing it. The denied spoliation instruction over a missing pill bottle and the informant instruction issued for Lauber, the prosecution's sole direct link between Kouri and the fentanyl, each receive the legal weight they carry in a post-conviction proceeding. Motta is direct about which arguments have genuine appellate traction and which are preserved for the record but unlikely to move a reviewing court.The premeditation dimension of the prosecution's case is examined through Melanie McGuire — a case that provides the most documented parallel to the behavioral pattern prosecutors argued defined Kouri Richins' conduct. McGuire attended a real estate closing with her husband, signed mortgage documents alongside him, and allegedly killed and dismembered him hours later. She filed a restraining order against him two days later while allegedly still managing the disposal of his remains. Her digital search history — "undetectable poisons," "how to commit murder," "fatal insulin doses" — became the evidentiary foundation of her conviction. Prosecutors argued Kouri conducted fentanyl searches while Eric was alive, maintained a secret $250,000 HELOC, and conducted a second life that included texting a boyfriend about marriage.Premeditation in the legal record doesn't require a confession. It requires a pattern. Both cases built one.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #MelanieMcGuire #CriminalAppeal #TrueCrimeToday #BobMotta #RobinDreeke #PremeditatedMurder #EricRichins #UtahMurderTrial

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Kouri Richins conviction demands two distinct legal examinations. The first is the defense strategy — zero witnesses, no affirmative case, everything built on reasonable doubt — and why it failed. The second is the financial record the prosecution used to establish motive, and why the defense narrative built around it never held up to scrutiny.Tony Brueski, defense attorney Bob Motta, and retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke break down the defense's approach with the precision the verdict now requires. The jury watched video of investigators directing star witness Carmen Lauber to provide details that would ensure a murder conviction — before she changed her story. The lead detective confirmed under oath that four years of investigation found no fentanyl connected to Eric Richins' death. Lauber's credibility was damaged on cross-examination and further compromised when drug court violations surfaced mid-trial. Motta identifies the strategic decision he believes cost the defense the verdict. Dreeke examines how juries process cumulative behavioral evidence — what three weeks of silence at the defense table communicates before closing arguments begin.The financial record receives its full accounting in the second piece of this week's coverage. The defense framed Kouri Richins as a woman trapped in a controlling marriage. The documented record — forensic accountant testimony, court filings, civil records, charging documents — shows a secretly obtained HELOC draining marital accounts, falsified business documents used for fraudulent loans, $45,000 taken from a personal friend for a deal that never closed, and a home sold with alleged concealed defects. Roughly $7.5 million in business debt by the time Eric died. His legal response was a private estate restructuring specifically citing recently discovered and ongoing financial abuse. He made no public accusation. He stayed in the marriage. According to prosecutors, he was dead a year and a half later.The prosecution called it motive. The jury agreed.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrimeToday #BobMotta #RobinDreeke #DefenseStrategy #FinancialFraud #EricRichins #MurderVerdict

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Kouri Richins guilty verdict raises the legal question this case was always going to force: how does a prosecution without a murder weapon, a recovered drug, or a death certificate ruling of homicide still secure a conviction on all counts in three hours?Before the jury returned, retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer and behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke provided the most precise pre-verdict legal and behavioral accounting of where this case stood. The defense rested without calling a single witness — Coffindaffer examined whether that reflected strategic confidence in the prosecution's weaknesses or the absence of viable witnesses to call. She addressed the recording that the state could not walk back: prosecutors' own detectives captured on audio telling star witness Carmen Lauber she needed to provide details that would ensure Kouri gets convicted of murder. The assessment of how much damage that audio could absorb is now answered by the verdict itself. Dreeke mapped the behavioral timeline — texts to a new boyfriend one month after Eric's death, memes on Kouri's phone the morning his body was found — and what that record communicates when analyzed against documented post-loss behavior patterns.Defense attorney Bob Motta then provides the post-conviction legal accounting alongside Dreeke. Eric Richins told multiple people he believed his wife was trying to poison him eighteen days before he died. The insurance policy timing. The forged signature. Three weeks of financial motive testimony. Motta examines what moved the jury and what this conviction establishes about the upper limit of circumstantial evidence prosecution when physical evidence is absent from the record entirely.Guilty on all counts. This is the legal map of how it happened.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrimeToday #JenniferCoffindaffer #RobinDreeke #BobMotta #CircumstantialEvidence #EricRichins #MurderVerdict

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Kouri Richins guilty verdict demands a complete legal accounting of the evidence that built it and the defense strategy that failed to dismantle it. No murder weapon. No confession. No eyewitness. Prosecutors argued the case as death by a thousand cuts — and the jury returned guilty on all counts in three hours.Tony Brueski lays out the prosecution's record in full: the alleged $4.5 million debt, the housekeeper's testimony that she made four fentanyl runs at Kouri's request, the Valentine's Day poisoning attempt prosecutors argued came before the fatal dose, hundreds of deleted text messages, pre-arrest phone searches for "fentanyl poisoning" and "deleting iPhone messages," a jailhouse letter prosecutors said was written to coach family testimony, and a conversation Kouri allegedly had with her boyfriend two weeks after Eric died — asking him what it feels like to kill someone. Every piece circumstantial. Together, with no counter-narrative ever entered into the record, sufficient for a jury in three hours.Defense attorney Bob Motta examines the legal architecture of the defense's approach — the credibility attack on immunity witness Carmen Lauber, the argument that no physical drug evidence links Kouri to the fentanyl, and the theory that Eric Richins' death remains legally unexplained. He addresses the decision to rest without testimony through the lens of someone who has made that call: what it communicates about a defense team's assessment of their own position heading into closing arguments.Retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke adds the dimension no legal analysis alone captures: what a jury absorbs from three weeks of watching a defendant sit silently at the defense table — and whether that silence functions as strategy or simply registers as absence. Guilty on all counts.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrimeToday #BobMotta #RobinDreeke #CircumstantialEvidence #DefenseRests #EricRichins #MurderVerdic

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Laken Snelling case receives the legal and evidentiary examination it requires. University of Kentucky cheerleader Laken Snelling has been indicted on first-degree manslaughter following the death of her newborn son, who was found by her roommates on August 27, 2025 — wrapped in a towel inside a black trash bag in her closet. The Kentucky Medical Examiner confirmed the infant was born alive. Cause of death: asphyxia by undetermined means. Snelling is currently held at the Fayette County Detention Center facing up to 31 years.Tony Brueski lays out the evidentiary record in full: the deleted labor photos, the private week-by-week pregnancy tracking, and months of documented concealment that ran parallel to a public life including the April 2025 national cheerleading championship and social media posts about wanting to be a mother. The 4 a.m. timeline. The roommates' account. The word "guessed." The whimper she admitted hearing. The trash bag. All of it on the record before the legal analysis begins.Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer assesses the prosecution's position with precision — whether the physical and digital evidence is sufficient to sustain a first-degree manslaughter charge through trial, what "guessed" is going to require the state to prove, and how the roommates' acceptance of the "I fainted" explanation factors into the evidentiary picture at trial. Behavioral analyst Robin Dreeke examines the phone record as documentation of intent — distinguishing active months-long parallel concealment from reactive denial and explaining why that distinction sits at the center of a conscious disregard argument.The broader legal question this case raises is one Coffindaffer and Dreeke address directly: what does prosecution look like when the defendant is 22, has no prior record, and doesn't match jury expectations — and the only witness who mattered had no voice? Laken Snelling has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#LakenSnelling #LakenSnellingCase #TrueCrimeToday #FirstDegreeManslaughter #NeonaticideKentucky #JenniferCoffindaffer #RobinDreeke #PregnancyConcealment #LexingtonKentucky #KentuckyTrueCrime

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, with the guilty verdict now on record, the legal decisions made during the final stretch of the Kouri Richins murder trial deserve a complete accounting. On Day 13, following the denial of a directed verdict motion and the final cross-examination of lead investigator Detective Jeff O'Driscoll, the defense rested without calling a single witness. Three were reportedly prepared. One hour behind closed doors. Then silence.Tony Brueski examines the legal architecture of that decision — the directed verdict standard, why it failed, and the procedural position the defense was in when that recess ended. Viewed against a guilty verdict on all counts returned in three hours, the choice to rest without testimony takes on added weight.Eric Faddis, defense attorney and former felony prosecutor, provides the most rigorous pre-verdict legal accounting of where this case was vulnerable and where it wasn't. The drug use theory had been challenged on three fronts: a judicial ruling, witness testimony from Eric's personal circle, and forensic toxicology. Both key prosecution witnesses held immunity agreements and altered their accounts. A detective's recorded statements were used against the state mid-trial. Faddis assessed each of these defense arguments with full credibility — and then turned to the deception record the jury ultimately had to weigh. A forged insurance signature. A jailhouse letter written as a destruction instruction. Phone searches. Text messages requesting fentanyl three days after Eric Richins died.The jury deliberated for three hours. This is the legal map of how the verdict got there.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsGuilty #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrimeToday #EricFaddis #DefenseRests #DirectedVerdict #EricRichins #MurderVerdict #LegalStrategy

This week in True Crime Today's Week in Review, the Walk the Dog letter is not treated as a news story. It is treated as an exhibit. Tony Brueski examines the six-page jailhouse letter attributed to Kouri Richins with the specificity the legal record demands — each section analyzed not for shock value but for evidentiary function. The Ronney witness narrative and what it establishes about alleged tampering intent. The airport drug story as a constructed defense mechanism rather than authentic recollection. The GMA media coordination and what it implies about narrative management. The Lotto suppression request. The Katie ask. The Crest whitening strips passage, which read carefully speaks directly to state of mind.That legal analysis extends into psychological territory with direct implications for how juries evaluate defendants. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott and former FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke examine the documented background of Kouri Richins and what behavioral research tells us about the development of deceptive conduct over time. Whether a pattern of behavior predates the alleged crime is not an academic question — it is often precisely what the government uses to build a consciousness of guilt argument.This is the legal and analytical work this case requires. Kouri Richins has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #KouriRichinsTrial #TrueCrimeToday #JailhouseLetter #WitnessTampering #ConsciousnessOfGuilt #EricRichins #MurderTrial #LegalAnalysis #WalkTheDog

Kouri Richins is watching her story collapse in Utah. The friend who testified. The boyfriend. The housekeeper. The financial records.One by one, people are talking.This is Part 5 of The Perfect Wife — examining why the long con always ends.Denise Williams held hers together for seventeen years.Mike Williams disappeared December 2000. Duck hunting. Drowned, eaten by alligators.Denise collected $1.75 million in insurance. Five years later, she married Brian Winchester — Mike's best friend. The man who shot him.They raised Mike's daughter together. Built a life on top of what they'd done.Mike's mother Cheryl spent seventeen years fighting. Being called paranoid. Refusing to stop.She was right.Brian cracked in 2016. Divorce made the math simple: his survival mattered more than their secret. He confessed. Led investigators to Mike's body.Every perfect crime has witnesses. And witnesses talk when their survival is on the line.Kouri's foundation is cracking. The texts. The testimony. The financial records.The long con always ends. Not through brilliant detective work. Through human nature.People talk.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#KouriRichins #DeniseWilliams #MikeWilliams #TrueCrimeToday #LongCon #BrianWinchester #PerfectWife #TrueCrime2026 #TheUnraveling #AccompliceTalks