True Crime in the 50

Roland and Maram Hanel lived a quiet life in the tiny town of Jay, Vermont, just five miles from the Canadian border. Roland was retired from the plastics business and had done very well in life. Maram was his Egyptian-born second wife and the two were homebodies who loved nature and biking, hiking and skiing. On Thursday, September 20th, 1984, the two were found brutally murdered; each shot 8-11 times in their home.Right away, police hit a dead end. Roland and Maram had no enemies and were not tied up in shady dealings. Who would have wanted this nice couple dead, and why? Show Notes: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39515953/

Eric Richins grew up on a cattle ranch in Kamas, Utah and was close with his family. When he was in his early 20s, he started a masonry business with a friend and became quite successful. Becuase of his business, he had to go to the Home Depot quite frequently, and that is where he met a cashier named Kouri. Kouri was working her way through college and the two soon started dating and eventually married and had three sons together.But their marriage was struggling by the time their oldest son was 9 years old and their youngest was 5. Kouri Richins had started a house flipping business and was being sued by at least two of her homeowners. She also owed lenders more than $1 million and had forged Eric's signature on documents that showed she had taken out a home equity line of credit on their house to the tune of $250,000. Eric soon realized that his wife was not who he thought she was, and left all of his money in a trust to be overseen by his sister and then given to his sons when they became adults, in case something happened to him.And something did happen to him. On March 4th, 2022, Eric was found deceased in the early morning hours while sleeping in bed. Later, his cause of death was found to be an extreme overdose of street-grade fentanyl. Eric Richins did not use drugs. As the investigation would conclude, someone very close to him had taken his life, and in the most tragic of ways.Show Notes:https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/in-the-news/dateline-full-episode-book-of-lies-rcna342477

Nesreen Ursan and her siblings grew up in Conro, Texas, a small rural town just north of Houston and were raised by their father, Ali, and their stepmother, Shmu. Ali was a devout and strict Muslim and did barely allowed his two daughters, Nesreen and Nadia out of the house. Until Ali had a heart attack and Nesreen convinced him to allow her and Nadia to attend college so they could be doctors and take care of him. Ali agreed, and Nesreen and Nadia were off to the north campus of Lone Star College in the fall of 2009.There at Lone Star College, Nesreen met Cody Beavers and fell in love. She started to Westernize herself, wore her hair down and experimented with makeup. Nadia had a crush on Cody's twin brother, Corey, but that crush was unrequited. Soon, Ali found out that Nesreen had a boyfriend and tried to shut Nesreen in her room, chained to her bed. But Nesreen escaped and eloped with Cody. They then rented their own apartment and Nesreen became close friends with a woman named Gelareh Bagherizadeh.Until both Cody and Gelareh were shot dead. Nesreen had to find their killer or killers, because she knew that if they weren't brought to justice, she would be next.Show Notes:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11096284/

Alex Campbell is the kind of High School Sociology teacher that students actually listen to. Alex has been the sociology teacher at Elizabethton High School in Elizabethton, Tennessee for the past 18 years. And, in 2018, Alex Campbell got an idea for a lesson plan. He wanted his class to look into The Redhead Murders, a series of unsolved Jane Doe cases whose victims were young, redheaded sex workers. The killer, or killers had left the women on the side of busy highways in states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.The kids took to the lesson plan like a fish to water, and made great headway with the aid of local and state police departments, and even the FBI. When they were finished, no one could have predicted that a small High School class in Elizabethton, Tennessee, could have solved a series of murders and brought justice to their families.Show Notes:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-101/id1724019923https://www.imdb.com/news/ni65926261/

Darlene VanderGiesen was born in July 1963 in Osborn, Kansas. She and her sister were born completely deaf to hearing parents. Darlene went to the prestigious School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs, Iowa and then on to community college. After graduating, she moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota where there was a huge hearing impaired community.Darlene made friends easily, and found a community in Sioux Falls. She befriended a woman named Sally Collins who was also deaf, and who was in an on-again-off-again relationship with another hearing impaired woman named Daphne Wright. Daphne was extremely jealous of Darlene and Sally's friendship, even though Darlene was straight and dating a man at the time.On February 1st, 2006, Darlene VanderGeiesen disappeared. Her car was found parked at a local resetaurant, but no one had seen her since that evening. When police started to investigate, they found a horrific murder on their hands: one that involved two deaf women in an unprecedented True Crime case.Show Notes:https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/darlene-vandergiesen-asl-and-the-legal-system/id1112004494?i=1000548828173